“I love this session. Four great songs full of hooks. All of them under the three-minute mark. La-la-la singalongs. Shiny guitars. What more do you want?” Gideon Coe

From Perth in Scotland, This Poison! released two classic late 80s singles on the Wedding Present’s Reception Records and that was it. Apart from this stunning Peel session, featuring four songs that never saw the light of day on vinyl during the band’s lifetime. “Rip-roaring stuff!” said John Peel, and he wasn’t wrong. Package also includes download codes, sleeve notes from Derek Moir and a set of postcards – among them one from the great man himself sent to the band, a must for any Peel devotees.

TRACK LISTING

1. Question Mark (Peel Session) 02:13
2. St Johnstoun (Peel Session) 02:45
3. Driving Skills (Peel Session) 02:15
4. It'll All Work Out (Peel Session) 02:07

Here's the explosive second Peel session from the masters of discord (or should that be dischord?). You'll want this for 'Deanshanger' alone but the rest's pretty good too – including two previously tracks – made up on the spot according to the group. Features a set of postcards, download codes and sleeve notes from Linda telling us how relieved she was to miss out on TOTP.

TRACK LISTING

1. Slash/Oblique (Peel Session) 04:19
2. Deanshanger (Peel Session) 04:59
3. Outside Of It (Peel Session) 06:34
4. Place Called Clock (Peel Session) 03:56

On vinyl for the fist time, this is Prolapse's spectacular debut session for John Peel, featuring divergent versions of a couple of classics and the previously unreleased 'Broken Cormorant', the subject of much debate among devotees down the years. As usual, comes with a set of postcards – among them a Joe Dilworth contact sheet – plus download codes for the BBC WAVs. And sleeve notes from Scottish Mick.

TRACK LISTING

1. Serpico (Peel Session) 05:40
2. Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc (Peel Session) 04:49
3. When Space Invaders Were Big (Peel Session) 04:25
4. Broken Cormorant (Peel Session) 05:21

John Peel liked Foyer des Arts so much that he not only played all the songs from their album several times on his show, he also invited the duo to record a session and were one of only a few German-speaking bands to do so. The Berlin duo made their way to London in October 1986, where they were joined by members of The Higsons and The Farmers Boys to record at BBC Maida Vale In the year 2000 Goldt asked the BBC what had happened to the session tapes, only to learn that they had probably been wiped. Twenty years later, the Cologne-based sound engineer Tom Morgenstern, with the help of a colleague from the BBC, managed to unearth the lost tapes. And here they are, 35 years on, as fresh as the day they were made.

Spoken word album. Features John Foxx reading from his book, The Quiet Man, which was originally published in 2020. The stunning artwork by Barnbrook, includes a vinyl insert with images by Foxx. 

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl
1. The Marvellous Notebook
2. Remember
3. The Quiet Man
*bonus Track On Download Coupon, Under London

CD
1. The Marvellous Notebook
2. Remember
3. Under London
4. The Quiet Man 

Johnny Moped's “lost album” from 1990, finally gets a reissue! I like this album, Johnny hates it. But why? I think it’s more “Johnny Moped” than any other album out there. What other album has entirely penned JM songs/ditties like ‘Soldiers’ and ‘Moped Crash’ plus ad-libs and all the other little interludes in between the tracks that are pure “Moped”. Johnny thinks it sounds like a “disco” album, which it does in places, but, hey-ho, it was 1989 and it was the age of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. At the time there had been no Moped band since 1985-ish and certainly Slimy hadn’t been in the band since the early ‘80s.

Also, there was only one album out there, Cycledelic so there was a lot of songs destined for a follow up album that never happened and it looked like we were going to be a one album band. So, with so much unreleased material and a chronic lack of “mopedisum” I decided to embark on a little project…This album came out in 1990 on Deltic records but the deal was that I had to produce a finished master tape that could go straight to the cutting room and be pressed, so I borrowed a 4-track Teac and a Roland sampler and Roland drum machine and got to work. Some of the tracks sound like they were recorded in someone’s bedroom, that’s because they were, but Captain recorded some great stuff on his 8-track where I had recorded Johnny “live” and handed over a tape for him to work with (‘I’m a Spasm’, ‘Soldiers’, ‘Cut across Shorty’).

Also, he provided some decent backing vocals on other tracks (‘Corpse Boogie’, ‘Hiawatha’). The album came out in 1990 and to promote it we put the band back together... in a different format. The Johnny Moped Big Band did a series of gigs where we started with two guitarists, bass drums and Johnny for three songs and then swapped to different musicians during ‘Wild Breed’ for another three songs. Then we’d bring the whole lot together for the rest of the set. The photos on the back cover are taken from the “live at the Cartoon” video. Notice Johnny’s original Moped jacket had long gone missing, and he was wearing a grey tasselly “thing” I made for him.

He didn’t like it at all, so I donated my own studded leather jacket and he’s worn it ever since. The front cover is studio shots taken of Johnny for the album that were never used at the time (how did we end of with such a bad drawing of him instead on the original album?!) So… this has been lovingly re-mastered by Jez Larder after Captain managed to retrieve most of the material from the very old DAT tapes. Some of the “interludes” were missing, and I’ve had to get them off the vinyl (see if you can spot ‘em!). Enjoy!

Dave Berk - May 2022

French vocalist, beatboxer, songwriter and producer Sly Johnson unveils 55.4, his much- anticipated fourth studio album, released on BBE Music. Hailing from Paris, Sylvère Johnson (Sly Johnson) is a major force on the French Hip-Hop, Soul and Jazz scenes, both as a solo artist and as a member of super-group SAIAN SUPA CREW for over a decade, where he was known by the moniker Sly The Mic Buddah. When the crew broke up in 2007, Johnson began to carve out an impressive career, releasing on Blue Note and Universal Jazz, as well as collaborating with Larry Gold, Roddy Rod, T3 & Elzhi from Slum Village, Georgia Ann Muldrow, Dudley Perkins, FINALE, Erik Truffaz, and legendary French rapper Oxmo Puccino among many others. Written and recorded during the first COVID lockdowns between March and May 2020, Sly Johnson’s fourth album blends Soul and Hip-Hop, twinning vocal arrangements reminiscent of Prince and D’Angelo with loose, supple, beats and jazzy chords. Most of the musical heavy lifting is done by Johnson himself, but the album features bass by Laurent Salzard, guitar by Ralph Lavital and Anthony Jambon, keys by Nicholas Vella & Laurent Coulondre and a spellbinding guest vocal by Jona Oak. Why 55.4? “It took 55 days of creation to make the songs of this 4th solo album” says Sly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Alive
2. Be My Lady (It’s Been Too Long)
3. Bullshit (I Can’t Stand It No More)
4. Trust Me
5. Okay
6. E.N.E. (Equality - Naturally - Eternally)
7. Today
8. Feel
9. E.V.R.B.D.D. 2
10. What's Going On
11. The H.B.D. Song (Souffle Tes Bougies)
12. Got To Be Funky (The Mic Buddah’s Re-Vision Remix)

Beggars Arkive are excited to release ‘Once Upon A Time In N.Y.C.’, a collection of pioneering protoelectro and house music made by in NYC (and London) by Freeez founder John Rocca between 1982 - 1987.The LP is pressed on splattered orange vinyl and contains six tracks. Another two tracks, one of which is the international hit ‘I.O.U.’, are included on a bonus marbled grey 7”.

TRACK LISTING

1.  ‘Once Upon A Time In
2.  N.Y.C.’
3.  I Dub U (Freeez Feat. John Rocca)
4.  Once Upon A Dub (John Rocca)
5.  I Want It To Be Real (Instrumental) (John Rocca)
6.  Englishman In New York(Extended) (John Rocca)
7.  Move (Extended Mix) (John Rocca)
8.  The Dream (Radio Edit) (John Rocca)

Bonus 7”

1.  I.O.U. (7” Version Remastered) (Freeez)
2.  I Want It To Be Real (John Rocca)

Lead singer Al Johnson and Tom Fauntleroy, two US soul & R&B greats who founded their first band at University in Washington D.C. originally wrote and released the song on Johnson’s first solo independent album “Peaceful” in 1978. They’d later go on to rerecord the track for Johnson’s follow up album on major label CBS “Back For More” which introduced the song to a wider audience and is the version featured here on this 12”

Tata Vega, American singer from New York would go on to cover the track that same year. Starting her career in the 60s featuring in musicals and performing with various groups, she got signed to Motown by Berry Gordy on the spot who was in the audience at a concert one of Vega’s groups was performing at. Tata Vega’s version of “I’ve Got My Second Wind”, in duet with soul singer George Curtis Cameron was originally released on her fourth solo album on Motown, “Givin’ All My Love”. Reissued and now available on loud 12” for the first time!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Tata Vega – I’ve Got My Second Sind
B1. Al Johnson – I’ve Got My Second Wind

Remastered for vinyl and re-released by Daniel's own label Eternal Yip Eye Music. This is a limited pressing.

‘Hi, How Are You’ is best known for its artwork - from a mural in Austin and on to a T-shirt worn by Kurt Cobain.

‘Yip/Jump Music’ was amongst Kurt Cobain’s most beloved albums of all time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Poor You
2. Big Business Monkey
3. Walking The Cow
4. I Picture Myself With A Guitar
5. Despair Came Knocking
6. I Am A Baby (In My Universe)
7. Nervous Love
8. I'll Never Marry
9. Get Yourself Together
10. Running Water
11. Desperate Man Blues
12. Hey Joe
13. She Called Pest Control
14. Keep Punching Joe
15. No More Pushing Joe Around

Father John Misty returns with 'Chloë and The Next 20th Century', his fifth album and first new material since the release of God’s Favorite Customer in 2018.

'Chloë and the Next 20th Century' was written and recorded August through December 2020 and features arrangements by Drew Erickson. The album sees Tillman and producer/multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Wilson resume their longtime collaboration, as well as Dave Cerminara, returning as engineer and mixer. Basic tracks were recorded at Wilson’s Five Star Studios with strings, brass and woodwinds recorded at United Recordings in a session featuring Dan Higgins and Wayne Bergeron, among others.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Father John Misty has always been one of the most distinctive voices working in the middle ground between modern indie and country music, and his latest is the perfect illustration as to why he's so revered in the field. Beautifully produced and gorgeously evocative throughout, this is classic Misty.

TRACK LISTING

1 Chloë
2 Goodbye, Mr. Blue
3 Kiss Me (I Loved You)
4 (Everything But) Her Love
5 Buddy's Rendevous
6 Q4
7 Olvidado (Otro Momento)
8 Funny Girl
9 Only A Fool
10 We Could Be Strangers
11 The Next 20th Century

BBE Music presents a brand new album celebrating one of Philadelphia soul music’s most iconic figures, Teddy Pendergrass, remixed by pioneering producer and engineer, John Morales. This exploration of 1970s Philly soul at its apex focuses on one of the era’s defining voices, Theodore DeReese Pendergrass. Born in Philadelphia in 1950, Pendergrass sang church music at age two, and was ordained a minister at ten years old. Having learned drums and played in local bands during his teens, at 20 he was hired as a drummer for the Blue Notes by group leader Harold Melvin. After being spotted singing along onstage, he was soon appointed lead singer, and the rest is history… The masterful, revealing remix work of John Morales affords these classic songs improved clarity, allowing each individual player more space to be heard and modernising the recordings without ever losing sight of the original spirit. The virtuoso quality of the songwriting, production, arrangements and performances shine forth anew, and so do some of the music’s subtler qualities and nuanced, sometimes conflicted, subtexts that might have been overlooked in the most conventional view of Pendergrass in his prime. Curated authoritatively, remixed with love and passion, John Morales’ collection revisits our relationship with Teddy’s and Gamble & Huff’s music as compellingly and immersively as when it was new. Teddy’s timeless force resides equally in his talent for portraying truthfully the joys and hurts, beliefs and doubts, blessings and challenges of our lives, and in the bravery of confronting them all with an honesty that is still utterly extraordinary.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. The More I Get, The More I Want (John Morales M + M Mix)
2. Only You (John Morales M + M Mix)
3. If You Know Like I Know (John Morales M + M Mix
4. Now Is The Time To Do It (John Morales M + M Mix)
5. The Love I Lost (John Morales M + M Mix)
6. I Don't Love You Anymore (John Morales M + M Mix)
7. Come Go With Me (John Morales M + M Mix)
8. Bad Luck (John Morales M + M Mix)
9. If You Don't Know Me By Now (John Morales M + M Mix)

Disc: 2
1. You Can't Hide From Yourself (John Morales M + M Mix)
2. Where Are All My Friends (John Morales M + M Mix)
3. Life Is A Song Worth Singing (John Morales M + M Mix)
4. Satisfaction Guaranteed (Or Take Your Love Back) (John Morales M + M Mix)
5. Do Me (John Morales M + M Mix)
6. Somebody Told Me (John Morales M + M Mix)
7. Is There A Place For Me (John Morales M + M Mix)
8. Turn Off The Lights (John Morales M + M Mix)
9. Don't Leave Me This Way (John Morales M + M Mix)

Johnny Marr started his career with The Smiths, beginning an amazing history as one of the most influential songwriters and guitarists in British independent music. His subsequent creative journey has seen him at the heart of The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse and The Cribs, as well as working with such names as The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The Avalanches, and the musician and composer Hans Zimmer - with whom he recently recorded the score and soundtrack for the forthcoming James Bond film, No Time To Die, including the title track created with Billie Eilish.

In the wake of his time leading The Healers, Marr’s solo career has given rise to three UK Top Ten albums - The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and 2018’s Call The Comet, and he will be returning in February with his most expansive work to date, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. It was created during the long, uncertain period that followed the arrival of the UK’s first lockdown, when his focus was pushed into both his interior life, and evoking the emotional states of others. “It’s an inspired record, and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day,” he says. “But I had to go inwards.”

The upcoming album reflects his multi-faceted past, but takes his music somewhere startlingly new. “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing - really since getting out of The Smiths,” he says. “And I hear it in this record. There are so many strands of music in it. I think it’s the most ambitious solo record I’ve done.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Johnny Marr returns, bringing with him his newest LP, Fever Dreams 1-4, collecting the four EP's together into one impressive double LP package. It's a widescreen collection of Marr at his very best, that trademark guitar and his increased focus on sweeping synths and throbbing pop percussion coming together to a brilliantly coherent selection of future classics.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Spirit Power And Soul
2. Receiver
3. All These Days
4. Ariel
Side 2
1. Lightning People
2. Hideaway Girl
3. Sensory Street
4. Tenement Time
Side 3
1. The Speed Of Love
2. Night And Day
3. Counter Clock World
4. Rubicon
Side 4
1. God's Gift
2. Ghoster
3. The Whirl
4. Human

For more than twenty years, Duquette Johnston has been amongst the vanguard of Alabama music. From the founding of the seminal indie-rock band Verbena, his work in Cutgrass and the Gum Creek Killers, to his acclaimed solo releases "Etowah" and "Rabbit Runs a Destiny", Johnston has consistently pushed the boundaries of what Southern American music can sound and feel like. On his latest, "The Social Animals", Johnston partnered with producer John Agnello and an all-star cast of players including Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley to create his boldest and most powerful music to date.

In a career that's taken him from stages with Pavement, Foo Fighters and The Strokes, to the Etowah County Correctional Facility, and then into the world of fashion with his Birmingham based company Club Duquette, Johnston has gone to the edge and survived.

On "The Social Animals", he opens the door into that experience with eleven songs that present a lush, loud, and eloquent meditation on the human experience. Producd by John Agnello (Dinosaur, Jr, Waxahatchee). Features Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) on drums. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Year To Run
2. Whiskey And The Wine
3. Baby Loves A Mystery
4. Holy Child
5. Motorcycles
6. To My Daughters
7. Forgive Me
8. Mystics
9. Run With The Bulls
10. Fortunate Ride
11. Tonight 

Robert Johnson stands at the crossroads of American music. He became the first modern bluesman, evolving the country blues of the Mississippi Delta. Johnson was a songwriter of searing depth and a guitar player with a commanding ability that inspired every blues artist that followed in his wake.

This essential LP contains the most celebrated numbers of Robert Johnson. It compiles twenty master recordings waxed in San Antonio and Dallas, between 1936 and 1937. Highlights include "Sweet Home Chicago," "Come On In My Kitchen," "Love In Vain," "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," and Johnson's biggest hit "Terraplane Blues," a popular song on jukeboxes throughout the South.

"The music of Robert Johnson has inspired a million riffs. The myth of Robert Johnson has inspired a million dreams." - Jimmy Page.

TRACK LISTING

Sweet Home Chicago
Come On In My Kitchen
Me And The Devil Blues
Love In Vain Blues
Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
Kind Hearted Woman Blues
I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Drunken Hearted Man
Hell Hound On My Trail
Walkin' Blues
Cross Road Blues
Ramblin' On My Mind
They're Red Hot
Raveling Riverside Blues
32-20 Blues
Malted Milk
Stones In My Passway
When You Got A Good Friend
Terraplane Blues
From Four Until Late

Crescent is widely regarded as one of John Coltrane's finest albums, featuring the talents of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. During 1964, John Coltrane spent the least amount of time in the recording studio of his entire career as a leader. It wasn't until April 27th that he, along with Tyner, Garrison and Jones went to the familiar surroundings of Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio to record all the tracks that appear on Crescent. In a hint of things to come for the Classic Quartet, both Garrison and Jones are featured on extended solos on the album’s second side. Verve’s Acoustic Sounds Series features transfers from the original analog tapes mastered by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at QPR. The series is supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, and releases are presented in deluxe gatefold tip-on packaging.

TRACK LISTING

Crescent [8:40] (Side A)
Wise One [9:01] (Side A)
Bessie’s Blues [3:30] (Side A)
Lonnie’s Lament [11:42] (Side B)
The Drum Thing [7:20] (Side B)

John Carroll Kirby brings his talents as a composer and producer to film scoring. His vivid imagination, dreamy compositions, and knack for storytelling with instrumental music make for a perfect match with comic book writer, artist and filmmaker Dash Shaw’s vibrant, fantastical animated feature.

Kirby’s score is at once deeply evocative and mysterious, evoking nostalgia, wide-eyed innocence, and ethereal otherworldliness. As with all of Kirby’s music, the score resists easy genre classification, melding together sounds from New Age, exotica, library music, and the sweeter side of electronic music.

Cryptozoo: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is Kirby’s latest album following the release of his electronic-jazz album Septet in June 2021. He will be touring the UK & Europe in March 2022.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Luz Mala
2. Savage Cryptids
3. Gustav The Faun
4. Phoebe’s Theme
5. Tenderfoot Pegasus
Side B
1. Joan
2. Mystic Brine
3. The Tower
4. End Credits Theme

The script for A Pure Place had a dizzying effect on John Gürtler & Jan Miserre; their minds reeling with the possibilities.

From Persian sheep bells, Chinese sheng, prepared trombone, quarter-tone piano, a beaten-up cembalo, hand percussion, and a room full of synthesizers, embryonic compositions and experiments came to life early on in the project.

An electro-acoustic extravaganza, the soundtrack for A Pure Place takes a deep bow towards the many magnificent composers and scores from the late 60s and 70s where orchestral arrangements met with tape loops, psychedelia, and instruments from across the globe. Listening to that era of film music, anything seems possible. The minimalist tones of ‘Ritual Bells’ set the dial to weird in the opening sequence of the movie, whilst ‘The Island’ makes use of ambient vocals recorded through an oil drum, gently introducing one of the score’s main themes with a distant quarter-tone cembalo.

Acclaimed British artist Shackleton’s eerie original version of ‘Fust’s Song’ (also included) was a tonal keystone for the entire soundtrack. Gürtler and Miserre translated his psychedelic electronic blueprint, layering acoustic instruments and bottom-heavy percussion in their ‘Paradox Paradise’ production style. The vocals, written by Chryssos, and sung by the cast on set, capture the sonics of the actual crypt-like space where cult leader Fust addresses with his following.

‘A Glimpse of the Other Side’ speaks of love and death in a 70s-indebted composition reflecting John and Jan’s shared love for melancholic and suspenseful chord progressions. Meanwhile, the sparkling synths of ‘Athens’ - the children discovering neon-lit civilisation after years confined on the island - transplant us to an entirely different era. Greek artist Maroulita del Kol features heavily throughout - her choir of vocals on ‘Erotica’ were recorded late at night in the studio foyer, capturing its unique tiled reflections and concrete reverb.

On ‘Purification’ Maroulita’s voice guides us alongside a Moog bass drone, building to an ecstatic climax, whilst she also features in the film’s disco-centric ending credits on ‘Gatoula Mou Mikri’.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ritual Bells
A2 .The Island
A3. Fust’s Song
A4 Erotica
A5. Purification
A6. A Glimpse Of The Other Side
B1. Fust’s Song (Shackleton’s Orignal Version)
B2. Athens
B3. Small Doses
B4. Holy Soap
B5. Irinia Takes Over
B6. Gatoula Mou Mikri (feat. Maroulita Del Kol)

• Latest in quickly selling-out series of John Dwyer (OSEES frontman) with friends lock down experimentations and improvisations.

• Featuring fantastic collage art by Dan Lean.

• Recorded at Stu-Stu-Studio by John Dwyer in the peak of dope smoke lock down.

What’s this? Today’s holiday gift? One final transmission from the core of the planet! Cresting slabs of concrete and powdered bone, rich soil—improvisation freak flag flitters atop a gutted highrise: Gong Splat. Featuring Ryan Sawyer on drums, Greg Coates on upright bass, Wilder Zoby on synth and mellotron, Andres Renteria on conga, bongos and hand percussion, and John Dwyer on guitar, synths, pan flute, cuíca, hand percussion, space drum and effects.

This one is spitting fat and neon night-light city drives, white in the corner of the pilot’s mouth. Furry, fuzzy and frenetic, motorik and full of blood-rich ticks…maggots unite! There’s a show tonight! Welcome back humans.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: You always know you're in safe hands with Dwyer & co, and this one is a brilliantly heavy swerve into eastern-influenced psychedelia via garage percussion and brain-melting avant-synth swells. Elsewhere loungy keys meet jazzy tentative drum fills. Predictably brilliant, entirely mad.

TRACK LISTING

1. Gong Splat
2. Cultivated Graves
3. Toagut
4. Anther Dust
5. Yuggoth Travel Agency
6. Hypogeum
7. Oneironaut
8. Minor Protocides
9. Giedi Prime

AVAILABLE ONLINE ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 8AM.

LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Joe Strummer’s groundbreaking Global A Go-Go album Dark Horse Records will release a 12” Color reissue of the original Joe Strummers & The Mescaleros 7” single ‘Johnny Appleseed’. Both included tracks are remastered by Paul Hicks and will be cut at 45rpm on 12" vinyl for maximum audio quality.

A melody-rich ode, Jenna skits along, bobs and weaves, moving through the gears at will. It’s ridiculously infectious - an indie guitar song destined for the terraces. Play it once and you’ll have the melody looped, play it twice and you’ll already be singing along to the refrain.

Dealing almost solely in earworms, young Dylan hails from the east end of Glasgow and is already ticking all the right boxes. He sold out the legendary King Tuts quicker than any other debuting Scot, and clocked over a million streams of his earliest introductory material. Mentored by Gerry Cinnamon, who took Dylan touring to sold-out arenas across this fair isle and into Europe, and hand-picked by Liam Gallagher to support him at the aircraft-hanger sized Hydro Arena. These are all telling rites of passage, and as Summer finally arrives, Dylan will inevitably be filling out the tent stages, the crowd belting these songs back to him.

Inevitably aside, there would surely be few to deny him success. Enduring a tumultuous upbringing in foster care, Dylan was not given much encouragement to pick up a guitar in the first place. It’s a talent nurtured through despondency and resilience, a lad made of sterner stuff. Over the course of the forthcoming EP Dylan John Thomas makes a habit of telling his story in the most propulsive and colourful of ways, and whilst his journey might appear already a few chapters in, really this is just the start. Join him.

TRACK LISTING

Jenna
When I Get Home
Feel The Fire
Wake Up Ma

Impulse! dig up a never-before-heard live recording from a private collection featuring Coltrane’s Classic Quartet augmented by Pharoah Sanders amongst others. This is one of only three known concert performances of the most iconic suite in jazz.
Recorded in late 1965 on the culminating evening of a historic week-long run at The Penthouse in Seattle, A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is a musical revelation of historic importance, capturing Coltrane as he began to expand his classic quartet—adding Pharoah Sanders on second saxophone and Donald Garrett on second bass—and catapulting him into the intense, spiritually focused final phase of his career.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Love Supreme Pt. I – Acknowledgement
2. Interlude 1
3. A Love Supreme Pt. II – Resolution
4. Interlude 2
5. A Love Supreme Pt. III – Pursuance
6. Interlude 3
7. Interlude 4
8. A Love Supreme Pt. IV – Psalm

In spring 2020, having been forced to postpone any live action due to lockdown, John set to work on the follow up to their Out Here On The Fringes album. It seems that the enforced confinement allowed them time to fine tune both their songwriting and sound and produce their best LP to date. The album opens with “Return To Capital” a brooding, slow-build instrumental that’s escalating nicely until it suddenly plummets head first into “Sibensko Powerhouse”, a ferocious collision of distorted guitars, pounding drums and snarled vocals, which kind of sets the tone for the rest of the album. Being a two piece, they operate with limited tools: drums, guitar and vocals, but that doesn’t in any way limit their sound. Seeing them live reminded me of seeing No Age play live for the first time and being blown away by how much noise two people could generate. And they’re creative with that limited palate too, this isn’t all a 100mph dash for the line, it’s a very nuanced sound, there’s plenty of texture. Idles have been an obvious reference point in recent reviews, but to me their sound is rooted in the US hardcore scene of the 80s: The kind of stuff that was being released by the likes of Touch And Go and Dischord Records. (There are definitely echoes of Mackaye / Picciotto in the dual vocals at times.) That’s not to say their sound is dated, far from it, they’re one of the most vital bands around at the moment.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Ooof! This is just awesome! Intense, dynamic guitar noise that has more in common with the likes of Jesus Lizard or any number of bands from the 80s DC scene than any more contemporary noisemakers. (The dual vocal on Šibensko Powerhouse in particular brings to mind Mackay / Picciotto.) That's not so say their sound is dated, far from it, this is the most vital noise around right now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Return To Capital
2. Šibensko Powerhouse
3. A Song For Those Who Speed In Built-Up Areas
4. Haneke'd
5. Austere Isle
6. Jargoncutter
7. Stadium Of No
8. Power Out For The Kingdom
9. Northwood Turret
10. Nonessential Hymn

In 2018, David Gordon Green’s Halloween, starring icon Jamie Lee Curtis, slaughtered the box office, earning more than $250 million worldwide, becoming the highestgrossing chapter in the four-decade franchise and setting a new record for the biggest opening weekend in history for a horror film starring a woman. The film had the distinction of being the first film in the series with creator John Carpenter’s direct involvement since 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Carpenter served as an executive producer, a creative consultant, and, thrillingly, as a soundtrack composer, alongside his collaborators from his recent solo albums, Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: John Carpenter is obviously one of the most legendary figures in the soundtracking biz, and in the newest iteration with Cody &co, we get possibly his strongest late-career work to date. 'Halloween Kills' is a wonderfully evocative, perfectly pitched soundtrack from one of the true masters. Everything you'd expect.

TRACK LISTING

01.Logos Kill
02. Halloween Kills (Main Title
03. The Myer’s House
04. First Attack
05. Stand Off
06. Let It Burn
07. He Appears
08. From The Fire
09. Strodes At The Hospital
10. Cruel Intentions
11. Gather The Mob
12. Rampage
13. Frank And Laurie
14. Hallway Madness
15. It Needs To Die
16. Reflection
17. Unkillable
18. Payback
19. Michael’s Legend
20. Halloween Kills (End Titles) 

‘Lost In The Cedar Wood’, Johnny Flynn’s much-anticipated fifth album, is co-written with his friend Robert Macfarlane.

Johnny and Robert began work on the album in the first weeks of the pandemic, wanting to make music that sang of those dangerous, disorienting spring days; when birdsong was brighter –– and the sense of bewilderment more powerful –– than any of us had known before.

They drew inspiration in part from The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving work of world literature; an epic poem from Ancient Mesopotamia that contains the earliest version of the Flood Myth. To Johnny and Robert, Gilgamesh resonated eerily with the present moment –– and it catalysed their song-writing.

For Gilgamesh is a story of friendship, love, loss, grief, bad governance and good dreaming; of natural disaster and environmental crisis. It also contains the first recorded act of human destruction of the natural world: when Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the Sacred Cedar Wood, slay the guardian spirit of the forest, and cut down the trees with their axes, thereby bringing catastrophe upon themselves.

Johnny and Robert wrote the album between March 2020 and February 2021, during a year in which we all wandered unsure of our path, lost in the cedar wood. The songs were composed in large part as a correspondence, through a back-and-forth of notebook pages, voice-recordings and WhatsApp-messages, at a time when lockdowns made meeting in person impossible. The first eight songs were recorded in an off-grid cottage deep in a Hampshire forest, with the sounds of chainsaws felling trees drifting in through the windows along with the birdsong.

The result is an album at once urgent and ancient, which fuses poetry, landscape, myth and music into something unique. These are songs that ring with hope, love and sadness –– and one need not know anything about The Epic of Gilgamesh to be touched by them.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautifully evocative and wonderfully weighted collaboration between two of the most talented voices in folk music today. Both Flynn and Macfarlane are right at home here, crafting warm melodies and richly woven harmonies around a solid instrumental core.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Ten Degrees Of Strange - Johnny Flynn
2. The World To Come - Johnny Flynn
3. Gods And Monsters - Robert Macfarlane
4. Bonedigger - Robert Macfarlane
5. I Can’t Swim There - Robert Macfarlane

Side B
6. Nether - Robert Macfarlane
7. Flood In The Desert - Johnny Flynn
8. Tree Rings - Johnny Flynn
9. Enkidu Walked - Robert Macfarlane
10. Home And Dry - Robert Macfarlane
11. Ferryman - Robert Macfarlane

This is a memoir as wry, funny, moving and vivid as its inimitable subject himself. This book will be a joy for both lifelong fans and for a whole new generation. John Cooper Clarke is a phenomenon: Poet Laureate of Punk, rock star, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator.

At 5 feet 11 inches (32in chest, 27in waist), in trademark dark suit, dark glasses, with dark messed-up hair and a mouth full of gold teeth, he is instantly recognizable. As a writer his voice is equally unmistakable and his own brand of slightly sick humour is never far from the surface. I Wanna Be Yours covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, from Bernard Manning to Linton Kwesi Johnson, Elvis Costello to Gregory Corso, Gil Scott Heron, Mark E. Smith and Joe Strummer, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner, Plan B and Guy Garvey.

Interspersed with stories of his rock and roll and performing career, John also reveals his boggling encyclopaedic take on popular culture over the centuries: from Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe to Pop Art, pop music, the movies, fashion, football and showbusiness - and much, much more, plus a few laughs along the way.

The second pressing of JOHN's second album 'Out Here On the Fringes' . Record includes lyric sheet insert with artwork by John Newton of the band.

This duo make superb adrenalin fuelled, intelligent guitar noise.

If you're a fan of Metz, Protomartyr, Idles, Fucked Up, then you should check this out. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Future Thinker 03:04
2. Standard Hauntings 02:26
3. Out Here On The Fringes 03:51
4. Western Wilds 02:21
5. High Digger 02:48
6. Dog Walker 01:59
7. Laszlo 04:16
8. Midnight Supermarket 02:24
9. Solid State 02:48

Reissue on vinyl of the second collaboration album between PJ Harvey and John Parish – A Woman A Man Walked By.

Produced by Parish and Harvey, and originally released in March 2009, A Woman A Man Walked By features the single ‘Black Hearted Love’. Reissue is faithful to the original recording with vinyl cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering, overseen by John Parish.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Black Hearted Love
Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen
Leaving California
The Chair
April

Side B
A Woman A Man Walked By / The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go
The Soldier
Pig Will Not
Passionless, Pointless
Cracks In The Canvas

Produced by longtime friend Cate Le Bon, ‘Boy from Michigan’ is Grant’s most autobiographical and melodic work to date. Grant stopped being a boy in Michigan aged twelve, when his family moved to Denver, Colorado, shifting rust to bible belt, a further vantage point to watch collective dreams unravel. Across 12 tracks, Grant lays out his past for careful cross-examination. In a decade of making records by himself, he has playfully experimented with mood, texture and sound, all the better for actualizing the seriousness of his thoughts. At one end of his musical rainbow, he is the battle-scarred piano-man, at the other, a robust electronic auteur. ‘Boy from Michigan’ seamlessly marries both.

With Le Bon at the helm, Grant pared back his zingers, maximizing the emotional impact of the melodies. A clarinet forms the bedrock of a song. One pre-chorus feels lifted from vintage Human League. There is a saxophone solo. ‘Boy from Michigan’ ultimately swings between ambient and progressive, calm and livid. The album’s narrative journey opens with Grant at his artistic prettiest, three songs drawn from his pre-Denver life (the Michigan Trilogy, as Grant calls them): the title track, “The Rusty Bull,” and “County Fair.” Each draws the listener in to a specific sense of place, before untangling its significance with a rich cast-list of local characters, often symbolizing the uncultivated faith of childhood.

Elsewhere, tracks like “Mike and Julie” and “The Cruise Room” offer an affecting plunge deep into Grant’s late teenage years in Denver, while the midpoint of the album is highlighted by “Best in Me” and “Rhetorical Figure,” a pair of skittish, scholarly dance tunes that build on the lineage of Grant’s electropop heroes, Devo. Childhood as a horror narrative is the theme of “Dandy Star,” which observes a tiny Grant watching the Mia Farrow horror movie ‘See No Evil’ on an old family TV set, and finally on “The Only Baby” (released this January) Grant removes his razor blade from a pocket to cleanly slit the throat of Trump’s America, authoring a scathing epitaph to an era of acute national exposition.

Though he has lived in Iceland since 2011 – the same year he was also diagnosed HIV-positive – Grant spent his childhood and formative years in the US and maintains US citizenship. Growing up, Grant was subjected to a deeply ingrained hatred of anyone perceived as homosexual at school. Following the demise of his first band The Czars, Grant left music entirely for over five years, only to achieve greater success as a solo artist (his acclaimed 2015 solo LP ‘Grey Tickles, Black Pressure’ went Top Five in the UK). Grant has sold out Royal Albert Hall, performed at Glastonbury, Latitude + more, and his song “Snug Snacks” was featured on Pitchfork's 'Songs That Define LGBTQ Pride'. BBC Radio 6 host Mary Anne Hobbs described Grant’s music: "Most songwriting, even if it's based on a true story ... is embellished in some way. But John's lyrics — they're so true they might as well be written in blood."

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*** NPN - email mail@piccadillyrecords.com before 25 June 21 to be entered in the draw 

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STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Absolutely classic modern day John Grant this, filled with the wry self-deprecation and endlessly witty lyricism of Queen Of Denmark / Pale Green Ghosts era but swimming with the shimmering disco synths and snapping electronic groove of the more recent LP's. It's a PERFECT mix and is quite possibly his strongest outing to date. Another outstanding LP from this Piccadilly favourite.

TRACK LISTING

1. Boy From Michigan
2. County Fair
3. The Rusty Bull
4. The Cruise Room
5. Mike And Julie
6. Best In Me
7. Rhetorical Figure
8. Just So You Know
9. Dandy Star
10. Your Portfolio
11. The Only Baby
12. Billy

John Carroll Kirby returns with ‘Septet’, a live instrumental album.

‘Septet’ sees the widely acclaimed keyboardist and composer lead a band to perform a new suite of works.

Second album for Stones Throw following ‘My Garden’, released in April 2020.

From the acclaimed musician John Carroll Kirby, a new electronic jazz album à la Herbie Hancock’s ‘Head Hunters’.

All tracks written and arranged by Kirby and performed by him and six additional musicians.

Three bonus dubs.

John Carroll Kirby has collaborated with artists including Solange, Frank Ocean, Harry Styles, Eddie Chacon and Sebastien Tellier.

For fans of Herbie Hancock, Floating Points, Four Tet, Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, Shabaka Hutchings.

TRACK LISTING

Rainmaker
P64 By My Side
Sensing Not Seeing
Swallow Tail
Weep
Jubilee Horns
The Quest Of Chico
Hamilton
Nucleo (Boy From The Prebiotic Birth)
Sensing Dub
Jubilee Dub
Nucleo Dub

Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal, by Howard Bilerman. Featuring Thor Harris (Swans, Thor & Friends, Shearwater) on drums and Thierry Amar (GYBE!, ASMZ) on bass, with guest appearances from Tom Relleen (RIP) (Tomaga, Melos Kalpa), Catrin Vincent (Another Sky) and Coral Rose (The Silver Field, Red River Dialect).

David has written five critically acclaimed collections of songs under the Red River Dialect name. The last two albums (released by Paradise of Bachelors) achieved a glowing Pitchfork review and a Folk Album of the Month award from the Guardian. Selected press below.

“Folk Album of the Month. Alert, anti-colonialist folk. Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape... a wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world.” – 4/5 The Guardian.

“Animated with a new intensity, the Cornwall band’s fifth album may be its most ingenious and immersive mix of folk and rock yet. It’s also Morris’ most compelling set of songs. He invests small sensations with outsize power, finding joy in sensory pleasures as well as in the mystical inquests that music allows. Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.” – Pitchfork.

“The most underrated folk-rock band in Britain. The idea of them as a Cornish-born, Buddhist-inclined Waterboys is more potent than ever. Their fifth album of elementally-battered, rueful and rousing folk-rock ... is as stirringly anthemic as they've managed thus far.” – MOJO.

“A beguilingly atmospheric record… imagine Steve Gunn transplanted to Kernow.” – Clash.

“Gorgeous and moving, anchored by the heft of the physical but reaching for more. The epic spareness, the way it manages to be both still and an enveloping swirl, reminds me most of Talk Talk. There’s a prayerful intensity to the quiet bits, a listening, wondering awe, that makes the rock payoffs more powerful. The album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.” – Dusted
“It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. RRD has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.” Folk Radio

Monastic Love Songs continues the tradition that David has established over the course of five albums with Red River Dialect: using a song cycle to articulate a relationship with inner and outer landscapes, inspired by the Taoist approach of observing the movement of the heavens in order to understand the cosmos within, and vice versa. The joyful closing track Inner Smile was initially written as a poem of thanks to his Tai Chi teacher Hollis and takes its name from a Taoist practice.

The songs were written during the final weeks of a nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia where David took ordination as Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek. The songs mostly explore human relationships within the community, with outliers: Gone Beyond shimmers with cosmic devotion, in Rhododendron a reverie grows from the shadow of a flower. Steadfast concerns the love to be found beyond the urge to like and be liked, when you can’t avoid that difficult person. Leonard Cohen, on his six years living in a monastery:
“You know, there’s a Zen saying: ‘Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another.’

David considers this album to be a follow up to 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. The cover of that lp featured an image of him on top of Skellig Michael, in the years before the island was made famous as the home of the Jedi. He considers the visit to that abandoned Celtic monastic site to be one of the influences that stirred up his motivation. Skeleton Key speaks of what was given up to go, and what he was giving up to leave, referencing the Tibetan concept of the ‘bardo of becoming’.

The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango. A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there. Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light.

In May David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade. The first, Purple Gold, concerns a reacquaintance with first love. David wrote to the Hotel2Tango asking if they had any days available in mid-July?

Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman replied that they did, and a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it. On the day he went deep into the cover of traditional song Rosemary Lane, his double bass singing on this and on Circus Wagon.

David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations.

He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing.

Mixed by Jimmy Robertson at SNAFU, London, mastered by DenisBlackham.

TRACK LISTING

1 New Safe
2 Purple Gold
3 Rhododendron
4 Circus Wagon
5 Earth And Air
6 Rosemary Lane (trad.)
7 Skeleton Key
8 Steadfast
9 Gone Beyond
10 Inner Smile

“Walk the dog. Exercise. Make art.’The mind is happy when the body is.’ Things I can potentially fill my days with if I am stuck at home for months on end…Then, one day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer playing in his garage a few blocks from me. And I think ‘interesting’. I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute, then decide to leave a note on the car parked there. This is how I ended up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes. He wasn’t creeped out, and he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings from the carport to work with. I decided to have every musician come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the drums. None of these people had ever met or played together. I was the connecting thread. I scratched the surface initially with electric bass, saxophone, guitars, cuica, synthesizers, flute and effects, but soon realized I would need heavy hitters to make this place habitable. “Greg Coates, upright bass expressionist extraordinaire, hacked through the dense weeds, vines and frayed cabling. He lays the map out and makes breathing room. Space to swing a cat. Tom Dolas (keys), my often foil, came in and began tip-toeing through the rubble and refuse. Dotting the layout with flecks of light, flights of fancy and potential tangential trajectories. Then the finisher, Brad Caulkins on horns. As always, Brad came in like grace itself, scanned the floor for food, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down. He takes a bruiser situation and lends it some warmth and hospitality, old school. “After I spent a bit of time mixing and editing this down to a palatable offering I couldn’t help but think about human consumption. ...Endless Garbage seemed a fitting title. A cacophonous and glorious sketch of ourselves. For fans of Albert Ayler, ECM records, Gong, improvisation, sustainability and consumption” - John Dwyer.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vertical Infinity
2. No Flutter
3. Goose
4. Four
5. Lucky You
6. Pro-Death
7. A Grotesque Display
8. No Goodbyes

Father John Misty is the nom-de-plume of Josh Tillman, who has been recording and releasing solo albums under his own name since 2003 and who recently left Seattle’s Fleet Foxes after playing drums with them from 2008-2011.

When discussing Father John Misty, Tillman paraphrases Philip Roth: “‘It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that, you won’t get it.’”

‘Fear Fun’, Father John Misty’s album from 2012 and now available again through Sub Pop, began gestating during what Tillman describes as an “immobilizing period of depression” in his former Seattle home, when he had lost interest in songwriting and wound up finding his voice by writing a novel. After breaking from Seattle and settling in a spider-infested Laurel Canyon treehouse, Tillman spent months demoing songs, eventually liberating himself from his creative impasse. With the help of LA producer/songwriter/pal Jonathan Wilson, a wealth of talented musicians kicking around LA and producer Phil Ek (who everyone knows has worked with Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes), ‘Fear Fun’ blossomed into a fully-formed expression of Tillman’s unrestrained vision.

‘Fear Fun’ consists of such disparate elements as Waylon Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Arthur Russell, All Things Must Pass and Physical Graffiti, often within the same song. Tillman’s voice has never been better and often sounds like Roy Orbison at his most joyous, while the music maintains a dark, mysterious yet playful, almost Dionysian quality.

Lyrically, his absurdist fever dreams of pain and pleasure elicit, in equal measures, the blunt descriptive power of Bukowski or Brautigan, the hedonist-philosophy of Oscar Wilde and the dried-out wit of Loudon Wainwright III.

TRACK LISTING

Funtimes In Babylon
Nancy From Now On
Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings
I’m Writing A Novel
O I Long To Feel Your Arms Around Me
Misty’s Nightmares 1 & 2
Only Son Of The Ladiesman
This Is Sally Hatchet
Well, You Can Do It Without Me
Now I’m Learning To Love The War
Tee Pees 1-12
Everyman Needs A Companion

‘Conflict’ is an album on inviting peace in from pianist, producer and composer John Carroll Kirby.

Intended as a balm for this time of crisis, ‘Conflict’ aims to provide a welcome opportunity to step away from the breakneck pace and profound anxiety of the news cycle and take a moment instead to listen and reflect.

John Carroll Kirby follows up his Stones Throw debut ‘My Garden’ with this soothing collection of ambient pieces for piano.

For fans of Nils Frahm, Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, Brambles, Jóhann Jóhannsson, William Basinski, Peter Broderick, Rafael Anton Irisarri.

TRACK LISTING

A Pilgrims Trail
Anthony Joshua In My House (Anthony Joshua At Home)
Walking Through A House Where A Family Has Lived
Iconic Portraits Mutilated During The Spanish Civil War
Who Will Replace Brandon Lee
Canyon (Waiting Alive In A Canyon)
Inside A Ruin
Wabi

Against the backdrop of a universally difficult 2020, songwriter and guitarist John Smith found himself facing personal and unrelenting change. “With newfound pain coming from so many directions, dealing with the uncertainty it brings, I closed the curtains and picked up the pen, turning to songwriting as a lifeline.” On his new album The Fray, Smith gives us an uplifting perspective on the path forward, but pays beautiful homage to the difficulties along the way.

TRACK LISTING

1. Friends
2. Hold On
3. Sanctuary
4. Deserving
5. The Best Of Me
6. Star-Crossed Lovers
7. To The Shore
8. Eye To Eye
9. Just As You Are
10. The Fray
11. She's Doing Fine
12. One Day At A Time

“The Jasmine Minks were the first real Creation band – their single ‘Think!’ was the fourth single we put out. An amazing unknown gem of a band. Working-class heroes – to me, anyway.” Alan McGee

Formed in Aberdeen in 1983, the Jasmine Minks were one of the original artists on Alan McGee’s fledgling Creation label and regulars at the storied Living Room. They recorded several classic singles for the label – among them ‘Think!’, ‘What’s Happening?!’ and ‘Cold Heart’ – plus a number of LPs. These recordings are their only two sessions for the BBC.

This session for the legendary John Peel show, features the band’s original line-up with powerhouse songwriting duo Jim Shepherd and Adam Sanderson; among tracks included are ‘The Ballad of Johnny Eye’ and ‘Cry For A Man’, both favourites with their fans. 

TRACK LISTING

The Ballad Of Johnny Eye
Cry For A Man
You Take My Freedom
I Don't Know

James Johnston (Gallon Drunk / Nick Cave / PJ Harvey) and Steve Gullick (renowned music photographer) are pleased to announce their new album. It's a dark but beautiful trip. After working together on an art show in late 2019, the idea of making music again immediately resurfaced. Without any firm strategy, Johnston and Gullick began recording, unprompted, drawing 3 upon a shared love of noise, folk, and classical. After the first tracks began to evolve, however, they knew they’d unearthed something compelling and fresh, not to mention unexpectedly mysterious. This became WE TRAVEL TIME.The result is a deceptively crafted album that slowly reveals – and, more importantly, embraces – beauty in its cracks. Piano, voice, violin and guitar create a drifting haze, with the focus on these acoustic elements forging an imagined soundtrack which offers echoes of Big Star, Nico, Lee Hazlewood and Palace Brothers, as well as the gentle, haunting influence of contemporary minimal classical. Ambient sounds – birds, rain, cars, clocks, distant voices – also drift in and out, melting into the music’s fabric via windows left open during the early 2020 heatwave. WE TRAVEL TIME, nonetheless, resists definition, remaining enigmatically timeless.

John Wesley Harding (2010 mono version) is the eighth studio album by American singersongwriter Bob Dylan, released on December 27, 1967, by Columbia Records. Produced by Bob Johnston, the x12 song album marked Dylan's return to semi-acoustic instrumentation and folk-influenced songwriting after three albums of lyrically abstract, blues-indebted rock music. 

John Prine’s self-titled debut album continues to sound as fresh as it did back in 1971, with Rolling Stone ranking it amongst its 500 greatest albums of all time. It includes some of Prine’s finest works such as “Sam Stone,” “Paradise,” and the famous “Angel From Montgomery.” After initially being spotted by famed singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, John Prine’s debut album earned him a number of admirers, including the likes of Bob Dylan. Tracks such as “Paradise” resonated with many, quickly becoming a bluegrass standard. Originally written by John for his father, the track has since been covered by a number of artists such as Johnny Cash and The Everly Brothers.

When lockdown commenced John MOuse seized the opportunity to create a new album. The concept behind The Goat, was to write, record and release a song on a weekly basis. Each song was then uploaded to bandcamp. The album was remixed and mastered for both vinyl and digital and the initial recordings were then ordered in a cohesive and exciting running order. Social distancing meant that the music for the album was created Lincolnshire by long term collaborator Phil Pearce and then sent to John in Cardiff who worked on the lyrics and vocal melody for each track. The result is a typically idiosyncratic, electronic pop album, heavy on spoken word content and catchy chorus hooks, these songs possess musical hints of everyone from Adian Moffat, Momus to early Pulp.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Le Pigeon
A Well-Planned Part
Kerplunk Sticks
Felix And Sebastien
The People Vrs Charles Mitchlemore
Buy To Let Industry Expert

Side B
Professor Max Beta
Use Neutral Tones To Accent Eyes
The Raven Argonette
O’Sullivan, Reardon, Doherty, Bond

Reissue on vinyl of the first collaboration album between PJ Harvey and John Parish – Dance Hall At Louse Point. Produced by Parish and Harvey, and originally released in September 1996, Dance Hall At Louse Point features the single ‘That Was My Veil’. Reissue is faithful to the original recording with vinyl cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering, overseen by John Parish.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
GIRL
ROPE BRIDGE CROSSING
CITY OF NO SUN
THAT WAS MY VEIL
URN WITH DEAD FLOWERS IN A DRAINED POOL
CIVIL WAR CORRESPONDENT

Side B
TAUT
UN CERCLE AUTOUR DU SOLEIL
HEELA
IS THAT ALL THERE IS?*
DANCE HALL AT LOUSE POINT
LOST FUN ZONE

John Frusciante releases the first instrumental electronic album under his own name on Aaron Funk's Timesig label. The record is dedicated to his cat Maya who recently passed away, a fellow traveller in his otherwise solitary music making sessions. 'Maya' is inspired by John's favourite music: '91 to'96 UK breakbeat hardcore and jungle. It’s a varied and personal take with sophisticated, authentic production balanced against John’s acute sense of melody, an inspired blending of machines and samples infused with a joyful energy. "I don't have that interest in singing or writing lyrics like I used to. The natural thing when I'm by myself now, is to just make music like the stuff being released this year. I really love the back and forth with machines and the computer." The fun he’s having on 'Maya' is infectious

TRACK LISTING

A: Brand E Usbrup Pensul
B: Flying Pleasure Explanation Blind Aim
C: Reach Out Amethblowl
D: Zillion Anja Motherless

Packaging will be a gatefold card wallet & will include 16 page lyric booklet. Pandemic Songs is songwriter Robb Johnson’s chronicle in song of the unprecedented events of the first half of 2020. His critically-acclaimed family histories of the 20th Century Gentle Men & Ordinary Giants use song to dramatise past lives & narrate significant historical events & processes. Pandemic Songs uses songs to provide a media-free perspective of contemporary history, with thirteen tracks written between March & June of this year, that record & comment on the global pandemic, from Robb’s local UK perspective. The songs are angry, sad, affectionate, elegiac, satirical, anxious, & compassionate. They celebrate our lives in lockdown & the endurance of our keyworkers, & catalogue the vanities, incompetence, hypocrisy & failures of those in power. Pandemic Songs was recorded with a socially-distanced pared-down version of The Irregulars; John Forrester on bass & vocals, Arvin Johnson on drums, percussion & Spanish guitar, & Fae Simon on vocals. The result is a powerful, visceral album, a significant creative response to these very significant times. Robb Johnson is now widely recognised as one of the UK’s finest songwriters: 

TRACK LISTING

1. Saint Mary (a Fable About The Origin Of A Virus),
2. Monday Afternoon In The Paris House (March 16th, & A Last Gig Before Lockdown),
3. 422 (lockdown Has Begun),
4. One More Lockdown Day (lockdown Continues),
5. 5373 (the Number Of Deaths From COVID 19 Continues To Rise),
6. 89p (the Government Responds By Promoting A Care Badge),
7. Disinfectant (President Trump Promotes A Cure),
8. The Highlight Of My Week (the Weekly Lockdown Shopping),
9. All The Bells Were Ringing (the Nightly Lockdown Dreaming),
10. Lockdown Jokes & Stories (three Sad Stories- Belly Mujinga, Railworker, Mervyn Kennedy, Bus Driver, Louisa Rajakumari, Teacher, & One Bad Joke – Dominic Cummings Drives To Durham) 
11. Victory In Europe (May, & The UK Achieves The Highest Rate Of COVID 19 Deaths In Europe),
12. The Days We Don’t Forget (a Proper Remembrance)
13. In Palmeira Square (June 17th, & Lockdown Is Ending)

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.

Not previously released on vinyl Originally recorded in Seattle, in 2000 and released on CD only later the same year 'The Sundowner Sessions' is a recording featuring John Massoni (electronics) and Sonic Boom (custom human voice synthesizer). "[Sonic} can make something out of almost anything.He'd just pick out a tape of mine (I have a bunch of tapes with sound and drone experiments), and work something into a piece.His focus and ability not to be undermined by the limits surrounding him is really amazing to watch.We worked well into the night - thus 'The Sundowner Sessions' were born." - John Massoni. Never before released on vinyl but now re-mastered by John Rivers at Woodbine Street Studio especially for vinyl release for RSD 2020.

Beggars Arkive is excited to reissue the classic FREEEZ debut album SOUTHERN FREEEZ. The second LP contains seven brand new tracks from the band’s leader John Rocca.

Freeez were a legendary group from London, known as one of the UK’s main jazz-funk bands of the early 1980s…aka Brit funk. Led by John Rocca, Freeez consisted of various musicians, originally with Rocca and others including Andy Stennet (keyboards), Peter Maas (bass guitar) and Paul Morgan.

Their debut album Southern Freeez was released in 1981 and contains the hit song “Southern Freeez” which included guest vocals by Ingrid Mansfield Allman. John Rocca initially released the album it on his own Pink Rythm label before being signed to Beggars Banquet.

A few years later, they had even more hits. Their biggest, “IOU”, was a #1 club single and was written and produced by renowned producer Arthur Baker with lyric contributions and lead vocals by John Rocca and remixed by Jellybean Benitez and Baker. It was a hit in the US in addition to the UK and was used in the legendary breakdancing movie Beat Street. “Pop Goes My Love” was another hit. Rocca also had a hit as a solo artist in 1984 with “I Want It To Be Real”.

While they may not be a household name, if you know, you know. They have been sampled many times, by artists including Jamie xx, Coolio, Brandy, Madlib and more.

Nearly 40 years after the original release of Southern Freeez, after being contacted by Beggars Arkive about a reissue, John was inspired to go back to his roots. He pulled together some of the work that he had been experimenting with over the years and enlisted some musicians (including his nephews) to play on the tracks, saying that doing so “was a nice reflection of the past meeting the present”.

“"The melancholic suburban soul of ‘Southern Freeez’ never gets tired for me....an album that has remained at the top of my Brit Funk pile!" - GILLES PETERSON

TRACK LISTING

LP1/FREEEZ – SOUTHERN FREEEZ
A1 Mariposa
A2 Caribbean Winter
A3 Easy On The Onions
A4 Sunset
B1 Flying High
B2 Southern Freeez
B3 Roller Chase
B4 First Love
B5 Finale

LP2/John Rocca
A1 Southern Freeez 20+20
A2 Feeel The Music
A3 Simple Breeez
B1 My Name Is Love Part 1 + 2
B2 Slow Down (ordinary Dawn)
B3 Rain

John Foxx And The Maths return with a new line-up on their 5th studio album, Howl. Former Ultravox guitarist Robin Simon joins Foxx, Benge (Ben Edwards) and Hannah Peel after previously guesting with The Maths at their debut Roundhouse show in 2010. ‘For years, I'd wanted to work with Robin Simon again,’ says Foxx. ‘There’s something central about what he does - and I always miss it, no matter who I work with. It’s what Rob can do with a song, and with the sheer power of sound.’

Work on the album began back in April 2019 at Benge’s Memetune studios in Cornwall with Rob Simon involved right from the start, his contributions instantly mutating the original ideas into something new. ‘Give him a song and he’ll give you three takes - all utterly different incarnations,’ enthuses Foxx who first worked with Simon on Ultravox’s Systems Of Romance album in 1978. ‘And it will all be much better. Demolition intercision is what he does and when you get used to the violence he can wreak, it’s a true delight.’

Foxx and Benge originally got together back in 2010, playing a headline show at the Roundhouse in London as the first ever John Foxx And The Maths show before they’d even finished their debut album, Interplay, which came out a few months later in 2011. Forward-looking, intuitive and risk taking from the start (Critic Mark Fisher summed them up as ‘a glimpse into another world in which rock ’n’ roll was invented on Moogs’) their passion for the strange sounds and atmospheres they seduce and rip from the machines in Benge’s studio has inspired a series of fiercely personal electronic records - the Shape Of Things (2012), Evidence (2013) and The Machine (2017), an eerie instrumental score for the theatre production of E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops. Along the way they’ve collaborated with The Soft Moon, Gazelle Twin, ADULT., Xeno & Oaklander, Gary Numan, Matthew Dear and many more, but at the core of everything is Foxx and the Cornish-based artist/producer. ‘Benge is this generation’s Conny Plank’, grins Foxx. ‘Original thinker, open mind, eager conspirator in insanity and the desire to push everything beyond its limits and record it all perfectly - but holding no daft prejudices. In other words, the kind of captain you always want at the helm of the Enterprise.’

Hannah Peel joined the line-up on the Interplay tour in 2011 and has played every show since, while also adding violin to Evidence and of course, Howl. ‘Hannah did a few star turns on the album,’ says Foxx, referring to the vicious noises that she conjured up as textures on a few songs. However on the electro-psychedelic ‘Everything Is Happening At The Same Time’, the complex interplay of the ‘The Dance’ and the romantic longing of ‘Strange Beauty’, Foxx describes her string-led contributions as ‘luscious, expansive and eloquent.’

The Maths have created an album of dark, writhing glamour. Opener ‘My Ghost’ sounds like haunted static in a cold wind, the title track is a twisted glam-punk celebration of ‘the outsider’ who leaves the fringes to make himself visible, while Foxx switches to a sinister Ferry-esque croon on ‘Tarzan And Jane Regained’.‘New York Times’ is a report back from the city of the 1970s, with Foxx’s vocals gently coaxing out the vulnerability of its street characters and Factory stars, while ‘Last Time I Saw You’ revels in an ice-cool narrative illuminated by neon-lit transformations and flickering revelations - this song is built for streets and strobes. The album ends with ‘Strange Beauty’, where Foxx sounds like an echo from the 1950s - a voice that is still searching across all these years for something just out of reach.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's a whole world of influence here being semlessly integrated into one cohesive whole. Elements of post-punk and synthpop mix with the headier aspects of industrial (distorted basses, jagged melodies a-la NIN), and more percussive, beat-led DFA style rhythms. A collection that is, amazingly, more than the sum of its parts.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Ghost
2. Howl
3. Everything Is Happening At The Same Time
4. Tarzan And Jane Regained
5. The Dance
6. New York Times
7. Last Time I Saw You
8. Strange Beauty

My Garden is the Stones Throw debut of pianist, producer and composer John Carroll Kirby. An album written, recorded and produced entirely by Kirby, My Garden is a pure distillation of his sound — soulful, spiritual, and evocative. Demonstrating perfectly why Kirby is the go-to collaborator for artists ranging from experimental auteurs Bat for Lashes and Connan Mockasin to pop megastars Harry Styles and Kali Uchis, and R&B innovators Solange and Frank Ocean, My Garden is also a testament to the clarity and singularity of Kirby's vision.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blueberry Beads
2. By The Sea
3. Night Croc
4. Arroyo Seco
5. Son Of Pucabufeo
6. San Nicolas Island
7. Humid Mood
8. Lay You Down
9. Wind

Johnny Moped “Official Bootleg”In 1983 Johnny Moped were asked to play a rally in Trafalgar Square, Central London The rally was for the Campaign Against Seal Hunting and was held on Saturday afternoon, the 12th March 1983. This recording, taken from the Dave Berk archives has been lovingly restored from the original cassette and will be available as a limited LP & Download on Damaged Goods Records. It’s got a screen printed cover and a A4 sheet of photos and info from the day. Features Captain Sensible, Beki Bondage and also the original speeches from the speakers on the day. Speeches include Gabrielle Drake and Fiona Richmond. Johnny Moped “Official Bootleg”In 1983 Johnny Moped were asked to play a rally in Trafalgar Square, Central London The rally was for the Campaign Against Seal Hunting and was held on Saturday afternoon, the 12th March 1983. This recording, taken from the Dave Berk archives has been lovingly restored from the original cassette and will be available as a limited LP & Download on Damaged Goods Records. It’s got a screen printed cover and a A4 sheet of photos and info from the day. Features Captain Sensible, Beki Bondage and also the original speeches from the speakers on the day. Speeches include Gabrielle Drake and Fiona Richmond. 

TRACK LISTING

1 – VD Boiler
2 – Hell Razor
3 – No One
4 – Make Trouble
5 – Speech 1 (David Ennals MP/Fiona Richmond)
6 – Save The Baby Seals
7 – Foxhunters
8 – Speech
2 (Gabrielle Drake/Johnny/Captain)
9 – Hard Lovin' Man

Originally released in 1977, ‘Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.)’ features Fela lampooning Nigeria’s ‘beentos’, people who had been to Europe or America to work or study and then returned (dropped) home with European social pretensions and an inferiority complex about African culture. The reissue features original album artwork designed by Lemi Ghariokwu, who created the cover art for around half of Fela’s albums.

TRACK LISTING

Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.) (Part 1)
Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.) (Part 2)

Get On Down is all too eager to reissue this unique record for Record Store Day Black Friday, which has not been repressed on vinyl in over 40 years. In keeping with the album's hallucinogenic sound, it is presented on trippy splatter colored vinyl, and housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket

'In 1964, the National Film Board of Canada asked John Coltrane to record the soundtrack for a French-language film titled “Le chat dans le sac” (“The Cat in the Bag”).  Amazingly, no announcement was made that the iconic Coltrane was adding new performances to this film.In June of that year, Coltrane’s ‘Classic Quartet’ entered Rudy Van Gelder’s studio and recorded five previously- recorded Coltrane originals. For many years, viewers of the film who recognized the music thought that they were listening to the original recordings, though in fact they were new and had never been heard. Now, with the release of Blue World, we can hear these newly-discovered recordings for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Naima (Take 1)
A2. Village Blues (Take 2)
A3. Blue World
A4. Village Blues (Take 1)
B1. Village Blues (Take 3)
B2. Like Sonny
B3. Traneing In
B4. Naima (Take 2)

An extremely rare album left by Detroit-based jazz keyboard player Johnny Griffith known for the album "Together, Togetherness" on RCA. An album covering "From The Music Connection" with Freddie Redd Quartet and Jackie McLean. The Music From "The Connection" was composed by jazz pianist Freddie Redd for Jack Gelber's 1959 play The Connection. This first recording of the music was released on the Blue Note label in 1960. It features performances by Redd and Jackie McLean Jack Gelber originally planned for the play to feature improvised music performed by jazz musicians who would also play small roles in the production. Freddie Redd, however, persuaded Gelber to include his original score. Redd re-recorded the score later in 1960 as Music from the Connection.

In 1974 The pianist Johnny Griffith, who was a member of the prestigious Motown rhythm section "Funk Brothers", covered the album "The Connection" by Freddie Red as a whole album, playing electric piano here, which really changes the vibe of the music - and the players are supposedly a host of Motown studio musicians - playing jazz here, but with a nice funky soul undercurrent. Originally released on Detroit Geneva Label.

Pianist Johnny Griffith can be heard on classic Motown sides, as well as on recordings from other Detroit-area labels. Like Motown's other pianists, Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke, Griffith's had an extensive musical background.

Signed to Motown's Jazz Workshop label, he recorded the albums "Detroit Jazz" and "The Right Side" of Lefty Edwards. When the march of the Motown hits began, Griffith started playing on sessions for their R&B/Pop acts. But rather than signing a work-for-hire contract with Motown like other musicians, Griffith remained a freelancer, doing other dates and sessions in New York and nearby Chicago.The Motown hits that Griffith played on include: Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", his celeste trills are heard on "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", adding Wurlitzer electric piano on both Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", organ on the Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love and organ and shotgun effects on Junior Walker and the All Stars' "Shotgun.

Griffith's non-Motown hits are with Edwin Starr, Jackie Wilson, The Chi-Lites, and Young-Holt Unlimited's "Soulful Strut" In the '90s, Griffith was still active on the Detroit club scene.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sister Salvation (5:01)
A2. Music Forever (3:46)
A3. Who Killed Cock Robin? (5:04)
B1. Wiggling (4:26)
B2. OD (Over Dose) (3:23)
B3. Time To Smile (3:43)
B4. Jim Dunn's Delama (4:03)

Technological force-of-nature Leafcutter John teams up with fellow stalwarts of idiosyncratic electronica Border Community for the release of his masterful seventh artist album: the small-yet- perfectly formed joyously utopian artefact ‘Yes! Come Parade With Us’.

Interweaving layers of lyrical modular synth and occasional guest drums (from Tom Skinner and Sebastian Rochford) with a set of field recordings collected during his sixty mile walk along the Norfolk coastal path during the summer of 2017, these seven bright-eyed folk anthems sing with positivity and a sense of place and see Leafcutter John on career-defining form.

TRACK LISTING

Doing The Beeston Bump
Yes! Come Parade With
Us
Pillar
Elephant Bones
Stepper Motor
This Way Out
Dunes

Originally released in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Wedding Album’ was the couple’s third experimental album length record and one of the most remarkable of the duo’s testaments to an intense romantic and artistic partnership that would last fourteen years, until Lennon’s tragic passing in 1980.

On March 20, 1969, John and Yoko were married in a civil service in Gibraltar. To celebrate the event, in lieu of a conventional honeymoon, the newlyweds spent a week in bed at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam, inviting members of the press into their room for interviews and photo sessions and using their fame and the publicity generated by their ‘Bed-in’ to call attention to their campaign for world peace.

With ‘Wedding Album’, John and Yoko created an enduring snapshot of a vibrant pop-cultural moment, with the hostilities of the Vietnam War as its bracing backdrop. It captures the humour, earnestness, and spontaneity that marked the early years of the ‘Ballad of John and Yoko’ era.

‘Wedding Album’’s innovative, original packaging, created by graphic designer John Kosh, included a box filled with souvenirs of John and Yoko’s nuptials: photographs, a copy of the couple’s marriage certificate, both Lennon’s and Ono’s drawings, a picture of a slice of wedding cake and more. Now, with a faithful recreation of ‘Wedding Album’ on special edition white vinyl LP, as well as compact disc, Secretly Canadian are making one of the most unusual and emblematic recordings of the Sixties available again - fifty years after John and Yoko were married - to mark the Golden Wedding anniversary of two of the 20th Century’s most emblematic cultural figures.

TRACK LISTING

John & Yoko
Amsterdam

'In the brief, bright arc that is the career of John Coltrane, 1963 marks a point of transition between past jazz masterpieces and future work which would transcend the boundaries of the music itself.  That year's recorded output shows movement in many directions: a look back at the past, continued examination of a familiar repertoire, exploration of more traditional formats and a look forward at compositions and approaches that would further extend the reach of jazz. John Coltrane 1963: New Directions collects all of John Coltrane’s 1963 Impulse recordings in the order in which they were recorded

5-LP, 3-CD sets include artwork featuring original collages.

The box is meant to show the growth in Coltrane’s musical journey in 1963 that ultimately resulted in 1964’s “Crescent” and, especially, “A Love Supreme” // Music comes from the original albums “Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album”, “John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman”, “Dear Old Stockholm” (released after Coltrane’s death), “Newport ‘63” and “Live at Birdland”.

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss

Old fat furry cat-puss

Wake up and look at this thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright

Be golden and light

Bagpuss, Oh hear what I sing

12th of February, 1974, and for an audience of small children at 1:45pm, a life irrevocably coloured by the wayward wonderings of one saggy cloth cat. Some 44 years later and Earth Recordings opens the door to Bagpuss & Co. once again, revealing for the first time the original music in all its newly-mastered splendour.

The 32 tracks that make up the main body of the compositions are – like all good folk music – a patchwork of traditional pieces, half-remembered tunes and pure improvisation. It's testament to Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner's musicianship that the recordings work so well, not only within the context of the television episodes, but as an album in its own right. Of the recording, Oliver Postgate (in his exquisite autobiography 'Seeing Things') says: "Between them Sandra and John could play every sort of instrument from a mountain dulcimer to an Irish fiddle. They knew and could sing every tune in the world and didn't bother with written music, except as a last resort. They were exactly suited to Gabriel the Toad and Madeleine the Rag Doll and in those roles were happy to play whatever music and sing whatever songs would be needed."

Those songs manifested themselves as reworkings of familiar tunes ('I Saw A Ship'; 'Row Your Boat'; 'Bucket's Burning'), takes on traditional ballads ('Brian O'Lynn'; 'The Frog Princess'; 'Weaving Song'; 'The Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket') and delicious flights of fancy ('The Bony King of Nowhere'; 'Turtle Calypso'; 'Uncle Feedle'). The counterpart to Madeleine and Gabriel's more polished ditties are the interludes from the mice; a raggle-taggle chorus that accompanies the creatures' efforts of help (with the mice once famously going on strike when they were not permitted sang as they worked). Again, Postgate muses: "Once I had worked out a few episodes I would make a very rough list of the bits where I though music would be appropriate. I would send it to [Sandra and John] to think about. Then we would borrow a fairly silent room in a remote house and, taking the various articles that we intended to celebrate with us, would spend a happy day with a tape recorder, thinking up and recording whatever songs and tunes came to mind."

The outtakes provide an intimate – and often very humourous – insight into the trio's work ethic, if it can be called such a thing. (By all accounts they sound as though they're having a very jolly time indeed.) Highlights include alternative opening words and end music, as well as Postgate sound-checking in character as Bagpuss. This never-before heard audio provides a real treat for fans (and indeed those new to the Smallfilms stable) – affirmation again to the enduring quality of these special recordings, and the beloved programme that inspired them.

"An accidental classic of the folk-roots underground that we never dared hope we’d hear with such clarity." -Stewart Lee.

And so their work was done.

TRACK LISTING

1 Opening
2 We Will Wash It
3 I Saw A Ship
4 We Will Rub It
5 The Bony King Of Nowhere
6 Cat And Bird Tone Phone
7 Princess Suite
8 The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe
9 Row The Boat
10 We Will Lace It
11 Ballerina Music Box
12 Porcupine Song
13 Here's A Pin
14 We Will Fix It
15 Turtle Calypso
16 The Elephant's Fable
17 The Miller's Song
18 We Will Find It
19 The Town Band
20 Song Of The Flea
21 We Will Do It (Undo It)
22 The Weaving Song
23 Charliemouse Weaving
24 Bucket's Burning
25 Brian O'Lynn
26 Lullaby For Cabbages
27 We Will Do It (Go Through It)
28 The Old Woman Tossed Up In A Basket
29 Mouse Ragtime
30 We Will Fold It
31Uncle Feedle
32 Closing
33 Opening Words (Outtake)
34 Introducing The Characters (Outtake)
35 Characters Waking Up (Outtake)
36 Bagpuss Soundcheck
37 I Saw A Ship A-Sailing (Alternate Version)
38 Mermaid Song
39 Captain Bagpuss Poem
40 Owls Of Athens Story
41 Birdsong
42 Princess Suite (Outtake)
43 The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe (Outtake)
44 Porcupine Song (Outtake)
45 Bagpipes
46 Brian O'Lynn (Outtake )
47 Agricultural Jig
48 Percy Pratt Poem
49 End Music (Outtake) 

When the new Halloween movie hits theaters in October 2018, it will have the distinction of being the first film in the series with creator John Carpenter’s direct involvement since 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Carpenter serves on the new David Gordon Green-directed installment as an executive producer, a creative consultant, and, thrillingly, as a soundtrack composer, alongside his collaborators from his three recent solo albums, Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.

The new soundtrack pays homage to the classic Halloween score that Carpenter composed and recorded in 1978, when he forever changed the course of horror cinema and synthesizer music with his low-budget masterpiece. Several new versions of the iconic main theme serve as the pulse of Green’s film, its familiar 5/4 refrain stabbing through the soundtrack like the Shape’s knife. The rest of the soundtrack is just as enthralling, incorporating everything from atmospheric synth whooshes to eerie piano-driven pieces to skittering electronic percussion. While the new score was made with a few more resources than Carpenter’s famously shoestring original, its musical spirit was preserved.

“We wanted to honor the original Halloweensoundtrack in terms of the sounds we used,” Davies explained. “We used a lot of the Dave Smith OB-6, bowed guitar, Roland Juno, Korg, Roli, Moog, Roland System 1, Roland System 8, different guitar pedals, mellotron, and piano.”

Unlike the Lost Themes albums, where the composers wrote the soundtracks for imaginary movies, Halloween saw the Carpenters and Davies collaborating on music set to images for the first time. Though it marked a significant change from their previous creative process, the trio thrived under the constraints and tight deadlines that film scoring work demands.

“Being limited by the length of time in scoring the sequence, we focused on the director’s tempo, timing, and vision,” Davies said. “He would tell us what he had in mind, how long the cue should be, what emotion he wanted, and we would take it from there. It’s only the three of us, there is no elaborate system. We wrote, performed, and orchestrated everything.”

For John Carpenter, who reunited on the new film with original Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis, composing the score felt like a homecoming. Not only had he not worked on a Halloween movie in 35 years, he hadn’t composed a soundtrack since his 2001 sci-fi thriller Ghosts of Mars.

“It was great,” Carpenter said of the experience. “It was transforming. It was not a movie I directed, so I had a lot of freedom in creating the score and getting into the director's head. I was proud to serve David Gordon Green’s vision.”

For Cody Carpenter, John’s son, and Davies, his godson, it was surreal to work on something that means so much to generations of fans, and that they grew up around.

“It was an honor for us to be involved, and we are really happy to be a part of something that so many people are anticipating and excited about,” Davies said. “Working together with both the director of the new Halloween and the creator of the original Halloween was really a fantastic experience.”

TRACK LISTING

1. "Halloween Theme" 2:21
2. "Halloween 1963" 3:11
3. "The Evil Is Gone!" 4:08
4. "Halloween 1978" 2:50
5. "The Boogeyman Is Coming" 0:40
6. "The Shape" 1:43
7. "The Hedge" 1:35
8. "He Came Home" 2:40
9. "Trick Or Treat" 0:39
10. "The Haunted House" 1:43
11. "The Devil's Eyes" 1:39
12. "The Boogeyman Is Outside" 1:27
13. "Damn You For Letting Him Go!" 1:34
14. "Empty Street" 0:33
15. "See Anything You Like?" 2:22
16. "Lock The Door" 2:53
17. "He's Here?" 0:55
18. "Light's Out" 2:49
19. "Cut It Out" 1:19
20. "Tombstone" 1:19
21. "The Shape Stalks Laurie" 1:35
22. "Turn Around" 0:33
23. "Unlock The Door" 2:53
24. "The Hanger" 3:04
25. "Call The Police" 0:28
26. "Last Assault" 1:34
27. "Was That The Boogeyman?" 0:32
28. "End Credits/Halloween Theme (Reprise)" 3:36

At both our Nashville and Detroit locations as well as a record store near you, we present the first-ever official release of The White Stripes Peel Sessions on 2 stuffed-to-the-brim discs.

Capturing Jack and Meg at the precipice of international renown in the hubbub of “White Blood Cells," their two live sessions with famed BBC DJ John Peel are arguably the best document of the White Stripes at that time. Having been widely bootlegged since their initial broadcast in 2001, these recordings are enjoying their first authorized release in celebration of their 15 year anniversary.

TRACK LISTING

VOL 1:
A1 Let's Shake Hands
A2 When I Hear My Name
A3 Jolene
A4 Death Letter
A5 Cannon
A6 Astro / Jack The Ripper
A7 Hotel Yorba

B1 I'm Finding It Hard To Be A Gentleman
B2 Screwdriver
B3 We're Going To Be Friends
B4 You're Pretty Good Looking
B5 Boll Weevil
B6 Hello Operator
B7 Baby Blue

VOL 2:
C1 Lord Send Me An Angel
C2 Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground
C3 I Think I Smell A Rat
C4 Lets Build A Home / Goin’ Back To Memphis
C5 Little Room
C6 The Union Forever
C7 The Same Boy You've Always Known
D1 Look Me Over Closely
D2 Looking At You
D3 St James Infirmary Blues
D4 Apple Blossom
D5 Rated X
D6 Little Girl That Says
D7 Jumble, Jumble
D8 Little People

The new Calvin Johnson album “A Wonderful Beast” is an experiment in sound. Using the theory "rock'n'roll will never die" as a starting point, Calvin entered the audio eagle studio in Nashville, tn. Working closely with producer Patrick Carney and chief engineer marc Whitmore, the team tested the resiliency of such time honored materials as the electric guitar, modular synthesizer and trap drum kit, combining them in various ratios with elements like musical chords a, c and dm. The results are a Frankenstein's monster of an album, a wonderful beast. Michelle branch, who score many hits in the early double-0 decade as a solo artist and as a member of the wreckers and lives next door to audio eagle, provides back-up harmony vocals on three songs. Following in the tradition of such brill building songwriting teams as Leiber-Stoller, Greenwich-Barry and Goffin-King, all the songs on a wonderful beast are a collaboration between Calvin Johnson and Patrick Carney. Carney, best known for his work as a member of the Akron, oh powerhouse the black keys, established audio eagle to further exactly this type of rock'n'roll workshoping, allowing the music and songwriting of now to rocket launched into the future. Calvin first met Patrick in 2005 while touring the united states following the release of his second solo album before the dream faded… [klp170].

The two kept in touch over the years. Patrick suggesting some sort of collaboration; they got together with only the belief that music can ooze from the savage breast, and a wonderful beast emerged from the primal dross. An important element of the sound success of a wonderful beast is the contribution of chanteuse michelle branch, who provides back-up harmony vocals on three songs. Ms. Branch, who score many hits in the early double-0 decade as a solo artist and as a member of the wreckers, lives next door to audio eagle. Intrigued by the sounds ratcheting forth from the lonesome shack that houses the studio, she walked over to see for herself what all the hubbub was about. Before long she was singing like a bird, in three part harmony (thanks, Michelle!). A rock’n’roll combo is being formed around Calvin Johnson to tour the world behind a wonderful beast. Like that monster of dr. Frankenstein’s, this rock’n’roll will never die. Also available from Calvin Johnson: before the dream faded

TRACK LISTING

1. Kiss Me Sweetly (3:20)
2. A Wonderful Beast (4:11)
3. Like You Do (3:06)
4. Wherefore Art Thou (3:49)
5. Are We Ready (2:49)
6. Bubbles, Clouds And Rainbows (3:51)
7. Blues Come Runnin' (3:00)
8. Why You Crying (2:52)
9. Another Teardrop Falls (3:38)
10. When The Weekend Comes Around (3:56)
11. (I've Still Got) Sand In My Shoes (4:13)

John Smith is an acclaimed singer, songwriter and guitarist from Devon, England. He has played to audiences all over the world in living rooms, festival tents and sold-out concert halls. He is a genuine folksinger, an inquisitive truth-seeker, devoted song interpreter, and enchanting writer. A contributor and collaborator, John quickly and effortlessly earns the esteem of his comrades and heroes. He has opened for folk greats including John Martyn, Davy Graham and John Renbourn, who called John Smith “the future of folk music.” On the contemporary side, he has also opened for Iron and Wine, Tinariwen, and Ben Howard. He has guested with artists such as Jackson Browne, Jerry Douglas, Glen Hansard and Rodney Crowell. He has played guitar for artists such as David Gray, Lisa Hannigan, Joe Henry and Joan Baez. John described his reason for making Hummingbird "

Ever since my teenage epiphany at the altar of Folk Music, hearing Nick Drake, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn for the first time, I have been a devotee. The six strings of my guitar have granted me access to a sacred space between things, the unconscious interweaving sensations that allow us that gentle buzz on hearing a good folk song. It was with this in mind that I returned to Sam Lakeman’s Somerset studio in March of 2018, two years since recording my previous album ‘Headlong’ in that same place, to commit six of my favourite folk songs to tape, alongside one cover version and three original songs. The tracks quickly took on their own shape in Sam’s able hands. I invited several good friends to join me in this process: Cara Dillon, John McCusker and Ben Nicholls. "

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Superbly toeing the line between traditional folk and more pop song structures, John Smith presents a brilliantly cohesive and heart-warmingly beautiful collection of perfectly measured odes to love, life and loss. Nice one John.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hummingbird
2. Lowlands Of Holland
3. Boudicca
4. Hares On The Mountain
5. Lord Franklin
6. Master Kilby
7. The Time Has Come
8. Willy Moore
9. Axe Mountain
10. Unquiet Grave

John Maus lives in his birthplace of Austin, Minnesota. Whilst working towards his PhD in Political Science he also composes music that taps into melancholic fantasy and affirms that we are all truly alive. Questing synthesisers, tensely strung bass lines and chasing drum machines providing the perfect backdrop for John's deeply resonant reverb-drenched vocal. Born in the decade of synth pop and sharing his birthday with George Frideric Handel, John started making music when Nirvana posters went up on every teenager’s wall. It’s this curious conflux of influences that partially helps to describe John’s music. It’s a world where the Germs jam with Jerry Goldsmith, Cabaret Voltaire relocate to Eternia and Josquin des Prez writes a new score for RoboCop. The confrontation of punk, the fleeting poignancy of 80’s movie soundtracks, the insistent pulse of Moroder and the spirituality of Medieval and Baroque music all find salvation in John Maus.

After a spell working alongside Ariel Pink (whom Maus met whilst studying at Cal Arts in Los Angeles) and Gary War in Haunted Graffiti, 2006 saw the release of John’s debut album proper through Upset The Rhythm. It was a record permeated with aching memories; a perfect testimony to lost romance and longing. It’s awe-inspired follow-up ‘Love Is Real’ (released on UTR, 2007) proved a more cohesive listen in terms of focus and emotional depth. Like an apocalyptic journey through the nostalgic streets of a common hometown, deep into the recesses of the human heart, ‘Love Is Real’ still stands out as an impressive whole. Both albums made an impact which grew and grew during some quieter academic years for Maus in the Hawaiian heat, before he returned last year to the heavy snows of the Midwest to finish album number three, ‘We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves’.

‘We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves’ breaks new ground for Maus. The shirt pulling and air punching of his impassioned live performance is finally captured in all its frenzied appeal alongside a tender inner space. After stretching muscles with opener ‘Streetlight’, arpeggiators bubble up to new levels with ‘Quantum Leap’, a song full of dead zones, glancing slaps and oscillating solos. “Heart to heart, mind to mind, we are the ones who seem to travel through time,” intones Maus resolutely through the mist. John’s lyrics are as likely to touch upon themes of Cronenberg gore just as much as the musings of Jacques Rancière. It’s this no-brow approach that makes things interesting, casting Maus as a savant and allowing his music to startle us in ways whereby we open up to the unimaginable.

John’s preoccupation with truth, love and eternity are perfectly suited to this treatment as seen with “And The Rain’ and the softly cascading ‘Keep Pushing On’ .The songs are devastatingly catchy, saturated with keyboards and overflowing with Maus’ allegorical summons. The hypnotic fugue ‘We Can Break Through’ treads new territories into minimalism for Maus, seeing the phrase “Break through this” repeated almost like a mind control procedure scored by Bach and Suicide.

‘Pitiless Censors’ as an album displays a more delicate touch than its predecessors. ‘Hey Moon’ is John’s first duet, performed with Molly Nilsson, who originally wrote the song. It’s a serene and elegiac song, which subtly weaves an impression of nocturnal loneliness and romantic dreams. Closing track ‘Believer’ is equally evocative with its bells, choral soaring and echoing sentiment. Of course, a John Maus album wouldn’t be a John Maus album without the same anthemic genius and dark humour that we’ve seen previously with songs like ‘Maniac’ and ‘Rights For Gays’ and this new album finds its succour in ‘Cop Killer’. The eerie waltz-time offspring of Body Count’s controversial 90’s protest track, ‘Cop Killer’ is dystopian, bleak and ridiculous and in short, classic Maus.

Unlike the last two albums, Pitiless Censors looks towards the future in all its absurdity. It’s a record where promise takes the lead for the first time, providing a counterpoint to John’s default existential calling. The cover of Pitiless Censors depicts an airbrushed lighthouse, thrashed by wave after wave, bringing to mind Beckett’s quote "Unfathomable mind: now beacon, now sea." The everyday realm where our lives seem both familiar and equally strange is where John Maus resides. His surreal touch is disarming, opening our eyes to the reality outside the four walls. Perhaps we’re all like “the human being who finds himself in the locker” in ‘Head For The Country’ in that if we surprise ourselves and open the door we can let the light in despite the storm.

Better known as a core member of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and keyboard player with Animal Collective's Panda Bear, John Maus is a musician with a distinctive sound of his own. This is his debut release, his life work, which was written and recorded at home over the last five years.

'Songs' is a twisted baroque pop record that brings to mind early 80's hits and coming-of-age movie soundtracks. Almost entirely electronic, Maus' sound is created from synthesisers, drum machine, bass and his remarkable vocals, which are pitched somewhere between Ian Curtis, Calvin Johnson and David Bowie.

The record is a manic lo-fi masterpiece, which blurs addictive melodies, emotive lyrics and dreamy soundscapes to memorable effect. Permeated by feelings of intense nostalgia, with this album Maus has created a testimony to lost romance and to longing.

Recorded with his band in Manchester at Marr’s Crazy Face studios, ‘Call The Comet’ is the third solo record from the Smiths guitarist and follows 2013’s critically acclaimed The Messenger and 2014’s Playland; both of which made the UK top 10. “Call The Comet is set in the not-too-distant future” says Marr, “and is mostly concerned with the idea of an alternative society. It’s my own magic realism.” Songs include Actor Attractor, Walk Into The Sea, Bug, and recent live favourite Spiral Cities. “The characters in the songs are searching for a new idealism, although there are some personal songs in there too. It’s something that people like me can relate to.” Says Marr.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Easily his best solo album.

Barry says: Johnny Marr brings his most accomplished and forward-thinking album to date, brimming with cleverly penned lyricism, addictive hooks and his uncompromisingly immersive songwriting style. A stunning continuation of form, and a future classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rise
2. The Tracers
3. Hey Angel
4. Hi Hello
5. New Dominions
6. Day In Day Out
7. Walk Into The Sea
8. Bug
9. Actor Attractor
10. Spiral Cities
11. My Eternal
12. A Different Gun

John Humphreys presents his 15-track suite of throbbing syntheisisers, percussive breakdowns and atmospheric, simmering pads. 

Cinematic epic, 'Wathching Memories' takes the central refrain, abstracts and adds to it to twist it into a slow ballad from a highly charged synth-pop number into ambient territory before breaking down into a driven house number. 

Likewise, 'Armands Clouds' relies on a throbbing central motif, with layered bass-heavy reverbed synth pulses and a kicking bass drum, this time opting for the instrumental appeal rather than the more song-based lyrical approach. 

In all, we have a confident and varied outing, beautifully constructed and warmingly diverse, all brought together with Humphries' deft hand. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Watching Memories
3. Would I Lie To You (Progress Mix) 
4. State Of Taylor
5. Wishing On A Star
6. Armands Clouds
7. John Prayzz
8. Belinda
9. Finally
10. EDD
11. Joker
12. Nothing's Changed
13. SpreadoutandSkattah
14. Whole Again
15. Gwen

I Am Kloot’s songwriter and frontman, John Bramwell, has announced the release of his first studio solo album “Leave Alone The Empty Spaces” The record is a stunning showcase of John’s skillful, widely acclaimed songwriting and his unique voice.

It’s the first completely new collection of songs by John as a solo artist since he started his adventures away from I Am Kloot. “Leave Alone The Empty Spaces” has been inspired by John’s travels around the UK and Europe performing more than 300, intimate solo gigs.

Travelling in his VW Campervan with his dog Henry, the experience allowed John to explore parts of the country hitherto unknown, develop his solo sound and ideas, and meet an awful lot of interesting people...

The album is inspired by the spirit of liberty, independence, adventure and solitude that John has enjoyed on the road, as well as the diverse emotions that escape and travel can bring about - from sadness to exhilaration.

It’s about rediscovering the romance, intimacy and magic of the live music experience, one to one with the audience.

TRACK LISTING

A Field Full Of Secrets
Who Is Anybody
Times Arrow
From The Shore
Sat Beneath The Lightning Tree
The Whipperwill
Tallulah
Leave Alone The Empty Spaces
Meet At The Station

John Zorn. Rituel * Une Crise de Nerfs * Prière Empoisonné * L’heure des Sorcières John Zorn returns to his original instrument with a new volume of organ improvisations recorded at his infamous Weekend in Paris in April 2017. The organ at the Grand Salle Pierre Boulez is one of the most powerful and versatile in France, and Zorn approaches it with great sensitivity and wild abandon. Includes both the full 40 minute concert recording, and over 30 additional minutes of Zorn alone at the manuals in rehearsal the same day.

It has been six years since We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves appeared like a thunderbolt of maniacal energy and turned everyone’s heads around. After touring in support of the album, releasing a collection of rarities and unreleased tracks, Maus receded from the public spotlight, returning to his academic pursuits. Years later, after completing his doctorate in Political Philosophy, he began building his own modular synthesizers, etching the printed circuit boards, soldering components, and assembling panels, until he had an instrument that matched his vision.

His music is a highly mutable affair. Whilst often described as retro-futurist on behalf of the 80’s drum machines and synth sounds employed, John’s music is more personal than the nostalgic re-tread implied. He’s more interested in seeking cadence, through his love of Renaissance polyphony and the experimentation behind post punk. It’s an amalgamation of musical ideas as radical as its intent.

Screen Memories was written, recorded, and engineered by Maus over the last few years in his home in Minnesota, known genially as the Funny Farm. It’s a solitary place situated in the corn plains of the rural American Midwest. The landscape is as majestic as it is austere and inevitably some of the sub-zero winter temperatures creep into the songs, as do the buzzing wasps of summer.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As soon as you get a load of synths, some electronic drums and a boatload of reverb in the mix, i'm pretty much game. What makes this even more appealing is that it sounds like it was recorded when I was 5-10. This is ace, retrotastic synth swells, twee percussives and echoes for days. What's not to love?

TRACK LISTING

1. The Combine
2. Teenage Witch
3. Touchdown
4. Walls Of Silence
5. Find Out
6. Decide Decide
7. Edge Of Forever
8. The People Are Missing
9. Pets
10. Sensitive Recollections
11. Over Phantom
12. Bombs Away

John Wall and Mark Durgan return after a lengthy absence [ there first release together was in 2011] Theirs is a fractured sound world woven together from improvisations that took place in the Utterpsalm Studio in London between 2012-15. The resultant seven tracks are an attempt at imposing order,structure and "expression" without meaning or intentionality onto a huge amount of heavily edited sonic material

TRACK LISTING

1/Contrapt
2/Ontrapt
3/Ntrapt
4/Trapt
5/Rapt
6/Apt
7/Pt

John Murry was adopted at birth into the family of William Faulkner. Some have speculated that the Faulkner blood might also run in his veins, but that should be left for a Southern Gothic novel yet to be written (or perhaps re-written)..Raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, in the shadow of Elvis, his undiagnosed autism led to troubles at an early age which led to prescribed medication, which led to unprescribed medication which led to being institutionalised for addiction and mental health issues at a too young age. Eventually, discarded onto the streets of Memphis, he found music, which became the one constant positive force in his life. Memphis led to San Francisco and San Francisco led to heroin and heroin led to a near fatal overdose on the corner of 16th and Mission, so harrowingly memorialised in his song Little Coloured Balloons.

Music again came to his rescue and led him to Tim Mooney (American Music Club) and the group of musicians that helped create his 2012 masterpiece "The Graceless Age". The album was hailed by MOJO magazine and received a 5 out of 5 rating, UNCUT called it a "masterpiece", both magazines included it in their Top 10 albums of the year; American Songwriter put it in their Top 5 of the year and The Guardian included it in their best of the year as well. The accolades rolled in and John toured the world. He entranced and devastated audiences with his raw, unfiltered live performances, and it looked like his trajectory was set, that music had won and would have the final word. And then Tim Mooney, John’s mentor, his beacon, his bedrock, died suddenly and unexpectedly… and John’s world fell back in to chaos.

Over the next few years, John would lose the footing that he had struggled so hard to establish. He would lose his wife, his daughter, temporarily his freedom and ultimately his country. Somewhere along this volatile journey, John crossed paths with Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies . John had opened for the band at a show in Glasgow and Michael watched side-stage transfixed by John’s performance. Over the next few years the two of them kept in touch, they talked about the music business, politics, books, but most of all they talked about music. And they talked about making an album together.

Eventually John completed his descent and landed in Kilkenny, Ireland where he found some solid ground as part of a welcoming arts community. Michael then convinced him to travel to his Toronto studio where Michael put a band together consisting of brother Peter Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) on drums and Josh Finlayson (Skydiggers, Gord Downie, Lee Harvey Osmond) on bass. John brought along Cait O’Riordan (The Pogues, Elvis Costello) whom he had met in Ireland and who wanted to be a part of John’s journey. The five of them put aside five days to record all bedtracks and overdubs, with the brief that they would let the songs dictate where the journey took them, spontaneity was the order of the week. Michael Timmins describes the sessions, "I felt that it was important that John got out of his own way and that we set up a situation where he would just play and sing and the rest of us would just react, no second guessing, just react and capture the moment. It was a very inspired and inspiring week of playing and recording. Very intense. And I think we captured the raw essence of John’s writing and playing".

A Short History Of Decay is an intensely personal document of an artist’s fall from grace. It contains all the tragic elements of that unwritten Southern Gothic novel: the revelations of a man coming to terms with the personal shortcomings, the flaws and the perverse twists of fate that led him to the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Murry has always been known for his true life confessionals, and this outing is no different. Hard hitting rocking Americana anthems like 'Defacing Sunday Bulletins' and 'Under A Darker Moon' sit confortably alongside minimal acoustic odes like 'Wrong Man', or driven guitars and melancholic harmonies of 'Come Five & Twenty'. Lovely stuff all-round.

TRACK LISTING

1. Silver Or Lead
2. Under A Darker Moon
3. Wrong Man
4. Defacing Sunday Bulletins
5. When God Walks In
6. Come Five & Twenty
7. One Day (You’ll Die)
8. Countess Lola’s Blues (All In This Together)
9. Miss Magdalene
10. What Jail Is Like

An introduction to a new mystical world, Waiting Around fuses the great Brit folk-jazz traditions of Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, with further-flung sounds of Gene Rains, Eden Ahbez, Moondog and Sun Ra.

Whilst their influence would not sit so brazenly on John’s rolled-up sleeves, each one possesses inspiring techniques; “I deliberately listen to how music is recorded and put that into my process,” John explains. “A lot of percussion in exotica stuff or Indian, South American folk gives me ideas. Things like a distorted reggae hi hat or a backing vocal that’s way too loud and bleeds all over the other musicians – I like natural accidents which you only get with tape.”

Fittingly titled, Waiting Around is the fruits of melodic craftsman, John Stammers’ labour. Arriving no sooner than six years since the release of his 2011 debut; a physically demanding day job and fascination for all things analogue has made way for a record of stark beauty and enduring quality - delayed only by an unyielding sense of intrepid experimentalism.

Sounding like its own reel of ticker tape, Waiting Around is punched with even more magical moments; given its name, it’s a wake-up call (“It means you’re wasting your life and not being as productive as you or I should be!” John says), whilst beautifully warm songs recall friends as well as past and present loves. ‘Stepping Round Her Clothes’ captures the feeling of being young and in love whilst fiancée Yasmin plays a starring role in ‘Woman.’ “’Risky Flowers’ is about a troubled young man I knew who smoked heroin; he didn’t do it regularly but then I once met him and he looked bad. People said they didn’t recognize him. Then I didn’t see him for ages – that was three years ago,” John says.

Waiting Around also features the varied skillset of John’s many musical friends. Paddy Steer (Home Life, 808 State) lends his expertise by way of homemade percussion, Nancy Elizabeth plays Celtic harp and adds warmth with her vocals, piano melodies are provided by Aidan Smith and Alfie’s Ben Dumville plumps up proceedings with rousing trumpet sounds.

Produced by Jim Spencer (The Charlatans, Bert Jansch), Miles Copeland (Superimposers), and Dan Munslow (The Monks Kitchen, Luca Nieri), the album was recorded in Eve studio, nestled in Manchester’s city suburbs. “The idea was to book the studio for two weeks and rehearse in my cellar,” tells John. “We got to choose which tape machine to use, synths, compressors – the perfect place to record if you’re geared to analogue and like 18th century chapels.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Waiting Around
2. Stepping Round Her Clothes
3. Woman
4. Risky Flowers
5. Miss Valentine
6. I See The Signs
7. Oblivion
8. Your Time 

John Coltrane’s landmark Atlantic album in glorious mono.

Saying farewell to bebop, "Giant Steps" was Coltrane's second album to be recorded for the Atlantic label, and marked the first time that all of the pieces on a recording had been composed by him. The recording exemplifies Coltrane's melodic phrasing that came to be known as 'sheets of sound', and features the use of a new harmonic concept later to be known as 'Coltrane changes'. The set features early versionss of "Naima", "Cousin Mary", "Mr PC", "Spiral", and "Syeeda's Song Flute".

To coincide with the release of the John Coltrane documentary Chasing Trane, this 1 LP & 1 CD compilation with unique artwork, remastered for the release, is designed as an introduction to John Coltrane’s revered Atlantic recordings. Trane: The Atlantic Collection includes the hit single ‘My Favorite Things,’ the iconic ‘Giant Steps, ‘Naima’ and more, from one of the legends of the jazz world. The album features a new liner notes essay by Ben Ratliff, former NY Times jazz critic, & author of the 2007 biography ‘Coltrane: The Story of a Sound.’

‘Race To Zero’ is the new album by musician and composer John Matthias and producer, musician and composer Jay Auborn, via the Village Green label.

The album’s starting point was a series of acoustic improvisations recorded in a variety of locations, from a 700-year-old chapel in the Devon countryside to a basement studio in Reykjavík, Iceland. In an attempt to create a fractured sense of space reflective of the digital condition, the duo found themselves working within a place that could only exist in the digital landscape. By crushing the recordings through a hundred different virtual rooms of reverb and other chaotic digital processes they collided, soared and splintered into sweeping new rhythms, melodies and drones. Pushing the computer’s processor beyond its limits threw up sonic ‘errors’ that wouldn’t be easily possible to create through standard methods. In response, these outcomes created new and unplanned inspiration for further composition. Elements of the album were then produced binaurally adding a three dimensional listening experience. The outcome is a unique landscape that blurs the line between the virtual and physical worlds.

“Cerebral yet accessible” - Uncut (8/10)

“A fascinating album that continually surprises with its neo-classical meets electronic template” - Clash

The new album from John Moreland is an honest, bruising experience. A beautiful record about love, faith and the human condition, Big Bad Luv is John’s fourth album to date and also his debut for 4AD.

Hailing from Tulsa, OK, John composes both pointedly and prodigiously, and has released largely self-produced albums every other year since 2011. Playing an equally pivotal role in his rise have been his mesmeric solo performances (including his TV debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last year), which coupled with his incredible records, has helped to create a real word-of-mouth about him. Big Bad Luv, was recorded in Little Rock, AK, and mostly with a crew of Tulsa friends: John Calvin Abney (piano and guitar), Aaron Boehler (bass), Paddy Ryan (drums), Jared

Tyler (dobro) and Lucero's Rick Steff (piano). Coming together in three sessions over ten months, which were sandwiched between touring dates and life, the final album was then mixed by GRAMMY winning Tchad Blake, who has worked with iconic acts from Al Green to Tom Waits.

Five Past Lives is a collection of letters to 5 significant male figures in the history of Johnny Powell, all of which have caused an important spiritual shift and re-direction of mental focus. ‘Five Past Lives’ explores the themes of co-incidence, synchronicity, beauty in death, the origin of suffering, the nature of mind itself, and the importance of extracting meaning from destructive incidents, or relationships.

Five Past Lives is a DIY release, recorded in isolation in a semi-derelict mill (a.k.a. the ‘Mitchell Brothers’ Studio) high on the Old Town moorland above Hebden Bridge. The found sounds and instrumentation all intertwine in a deliberate and focussed manner to conjur the atmosphere of each of the 5 letters.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Johnny Powell and co. smash out another pastoral suite of off-kilter folk melodies, psychedelic twisting instrumentals and organic electro-acoustic breakdowns, all topped by warped and emotive vocal flourishes. Brilliantly eccentric, but eminently listenable outsider indie for the soul.

TRACK LISTING

1. Song For Gabriel 04:55
2. Song For Chris 03:21
3. Song For Ivor 04:57
4. Song For Matthew 02:59
5. Song For David 04:30

Domino Records reissue John Cale’s classic live album ‘Fragments Of A Rainy Season’, featuring his revered interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ amongst many solo versions from his enduring catalogue and previously unreleased outtakes.

‘Fragments Of A Rainy Season’ was the first live John Cale album to feature him performing solo and ‘unplugged’ - before that term became a mid 1990s buzzword.

In contrast to the jaundiced punk truculence of ‘Sabotage/Live’ (1979) or ‘Even Cowgirls Get The Blues’ (1986), ‘Fragments Of A Rainy Season’ gives us Cale at his most melodic and moving, a mellowed and certainly a soberer man in a Yamamoto jacket and a lopsided haircut running through a selection of his prettiest songs. It’s a Cale many love deeply, a man alone at a concert-hall Steinway revisiting the pop-rock of ‘Paris 1919’ and ‘A Child’s Christmas In Wales’, as wistful and whimsical as any 70s singer songwriter holding court at LA’s Troubadour club. It’s the Cale who disavowed the spiky nihilism and decadence of the Velvets, inspired instead by melodicism of Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson (to whom he’d paid haunting homage on ‘Slow Dazzle’s brilliant Beach Boys pastiche ‘Mr. Wilson’). It’s the Cale who improbably took a staff job at Warner-Reprise in LA and - for an all-too-brief moment - became part of the Burbank producers’ mafia alongside Lenny Waronker and his laidback chums. (Lest we forget, 1973’s ‘Paris 1919’ featured members of Little Feat and The Crusaders among the backing musicians.)

Cale being Cale, ‘Fragments Of A Rainy Season’ isn’t all rueful tenderness. The deceptively jaunty ‘Darling I Need You’ is flippantly introduced as a song about “religious awakening in the southern part of the United States,” while Elvis’ ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is no less gothic in the solo version here than it is in the Grand Guignol horror show of the original on ‘Slow Dazzle’. ‘Guts’ is as close as Cale ever came to Lou Reed at his most withering.

It’s easy to forget that - years before Jeff Buckley and The X-Factor - he was the first artist to recognize the hymnal majesty of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, or that it was his original 1991 reading of the song that popped up on the soundtrack of ‘Shrek’.

TRACK LISTING

On A Wedding Anniversary
Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Cordoba
Buffalo Ballet
A Child’s Christmas In Wales
Darling I Need You
Guts
Ship Of Fools
Leaving It Up To You
The Ballad Of Cable Hogue
Chinese Envoy
Dying On The Vine
Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend)
Heartbreak Hotel
Style It Takes
Paris 1919
(I Keep A) Close Watch
Thoughtless Kind
Hallelujah
Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend) (Outtake)*
Amsterdam (Outtake) *
Broken Hearts (Outtake) *
I’m Waiting For The Man (Outtake) *
Heartbreak Hotel (Outtake - Strings) *
Fear (Is A Man’s Best Friend) (Outtake - Strings) *
Paris 1919 (Outtake - Strings) *
Antarctica Starts Here (Outtake - Strings) *

* = Bonus Track (REWIGCD107X & REWIGLP107X [& REWIGLP107 As
Digital Download] Only)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

The sound of Ono and Lennon validating their love as something impenetrable and timeless. It’s when we, the listener, begin to fully understand that the scope of their recording efforts was much more than a recording collaboration and something closer to a performative documentary, a declaration of “Our life and our love is our art - every nitty, gritty part of it.”

TRACK LISTING

Cambridge 1969
No Bed For Beatle John
Baby’s Heartbeat
Two Minutes Silence
Radio Play

Turns out the very sound of falling in love is just as abstract, subjective and loopy as the concept itself. Yoko Ono and John Lennon are two of history’s greatest lovers and ‘Two Virgins’ is the document of the pair falling in love in real time. The album is a curious and amazing suite recorded over one weekend in Spring 1968 at Lennon’s Kenwood home: Distant conversations; comedic role playing and footsteps; laughter, birdcalls and plunking piano lines; silly songs and space; tape delay stretching shrieks, bass rumbles and moans to the moon and back again.

The now-iconic cover (featuring Ono and Lennon standing nude together) notwithstanding, nothing about ‘Two Virgins’ is safe. It would be a risky move today for artists in the larger, pop culture conversation just as it was a risky move in 1969. However, this is an uncomfortably private, two-person dialogue about - and celebration of - experimentation, inspiration and play. These two souls bravely let us look through the keyhole.

TRACK LISTING

Side One
Side Two

Sacred Visions presents two Zorn masterpieces touching upon the mediaeval world. The Holy Visions is a Mystery Play in eleven strophes concerning the life, work and philosophy of 12th century composer, healer and visionary mystic Hildegard von Bingen, and is one of Zorn’s most beloved and acclaimed works for voice. Here is it coupled with Zorn’s latest string quartet The Remedy of Fortune, six tableaux depicting the changing fortunes of romantic love, which was inspired by the work of 12th century troubadour Guillaume de Machaut and receives a precise and passionate reading by the brilliant JACK quartet. Two brilliant modern compositions drawing on mediaeval spirituality, both sacred and secular! 

John Paul White was formerly one-half of Grammy Award winning duo The Civil Wars. His first solo album in nearly a decade, 'Beulah' is a remarkably & assuredly diverse collection spanning plaintive folk balladry, swampy southern rock, lonesome campfire songs, & dark acoustic pop. Gothic & ambitious, with a rustic, lived-in sound, it’s a meditation on love curdling into its opposite, on recrimination defining relationships, on hope finally filtering through doubt.

White threw himself into the project, no longer the reluctant songwriter but a craftsman determined to make the best album possible. He cut several songs at the renowned FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. One product of those sessions is “What’s So,” which introduces itself by way of a fire-&-brimstone riff, as heavy as a guilty conscience with gritty & soulful vocals. At the other end of the spectrum is “The Martyr,” the spryness of the melody imagines Elliott Smith wandering the banks of the Tennessee River, yet the song is shot through with a pervasive melancholy as White wrestles with his own demons

Some of the quieter songs were created in the Single Lock offices/studio, including the ominously erotic opener “Black Leaf” & the Southern gothic love song “Make You Cry.” As he worked, a distinctive & intriguing aesthetic began to grow clearer & clearer, one based in austere arrangements & plaintive moods. These are songs with empty spaces in them, dark corners that could hold ghosts or worse.

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Leaf
2. What's So
3. The Once And Future Queen
4. I Want To Make You Cry
5. Fight For You
6. Hope I Die
7. I've Been Over This Before – Featuring The Secret Sisters
8. The Martyr
9. Hate The Way You Love Me
10. I'll Get Even

Double LP pressing featuring essential cuts from Johnny Cash''s back catalogue, including: Ring Of Fire, Hey Porter, Folsom Prison Blues, A Boy Named Sue and many more!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Hey Porter
2. Cry, Cry, Cry
3. I Walk The Line
4. Get Rhythm
5. There You Go
6. Ballad Of A Teenage Queen
7. Big River
8. Guess Things Happen That Way

Side B
1. All Over Again
2. Don't Take Your Guns To Town
3. Five Feet High And Rising
4. The Rebel-Johnny Yuma
5. Tennessee Flat-Top Box
6. I Still Miss Someone
7. Ring Of Fire

Side C
1. The Ballad Of Ira Hayes
2. Orange Blossom Special
3. It Ain't Me, Babe - Johnny Cash With June Carter Cash
4. The One On The Right Is On The Left
5. Jackson - Johnny Cash With June Carter Cash
6. Folsom Prison Blues

Side D
1. Daddy Sang Bass
2. Girl From The North Country - Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash
3. A Boy Named Sue
4. If I Were A Carpenter (Live In Denmark) - June Carter Cash / Johnny Cash
5. Sunday Morning Coming Down
6. Man In Black
7. One Piece At A Time

‘Breakin’ Point’ is about the band's newfound search for another career high. “We started with some other album title ideas – like 'Thriller 2'. Then we realised we were pushing the envelope so got into the idea of a breaking point. If we broke it once, we can break it twice,” says Bjorn. That's why the album artwork features a hammer with three heads on it, not just to strike your nightmares, but to send a message out to everyone.

The trio's previous record 'Gimme Some' was Peter Bjorn and John's “power pop, guitar statement”, focused on recreating in the studio what they were confidently doing live. This time they wanted to do the total opposite. “This was about doing big pop songs,” says Bjorn, who recalls sitting around listening to ABBA with his bandmates, marvelling at how they made it sound and look so easy.

On ‘Breakin’ Point’ the band have worked with producers Patrick Berger (Icona Pop, Robyn), Paul Epworth (Florence And The Machine, U2, Paul McCartney), Greg Kurstin (Sia, Adele), Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, FKA Twigs, Kanye West) and Pontus Winnberg (Miike Snow).

TRACK LISTING

Dominos
Love Is What You Want
Do-Si-Do
What You Talking About?
Breakin' Point
A Long Goodbye
Nostalgic Intellect
In This Town
Hard Sleep
It's Your Call
Between The Lines
Pretty Dumb, Pretty Lame

Zorn’s compositions for a cappella voice are some of his most sensual and sublime creations. This CD presents his two books of Madrigals scored for six female voices. Beautifully performed by his long time ensemble the “Sapphites” the music is even more varied and challenging than his previous masterpieces The Holy Visions and Shir Hashirim, touching upon minimalism, tonal and atonal counterpoint, textural experiments and more. Inspired by the visionary poetry of 19th century British Romantic Percy Blysse Shelley, a charming lyricism and subtle spirituality rides through the music from first note to last. 

Ethan Johns is renowned for the vividness and purity of his productions with the likes of Ryan Adams, Ray LaMontagne, Laura Marling and Paul McCartney. But Johns has always worn more than one hat; for starters, he’s an accomplished musician on a variety of instruments. He first came into view as the drummer/guitar player with Crosby, Stills and Nash and then as a guitarist in Emmylou Harris’ band, and subsequently, as a producer, Johns frequently contributed on both sides of the control room glass. Everything Johns has done during the course of his distinguished and varied career has led him to this deep, enthralling album. “The fact that I’ve been playing and performing as much as I have the last few years is showing in the performances that we got on this record, and I’m happy to be progressing". Ethan Johns’ musical explorations to continue to warrant—and reward—our rapt attention.

TRACK LISTING

1. Silver Liner
2. The Sun Hardly Rises
3. I Don't Mind
4. Juanita
5. It Won't Always Be This Way
6. Open Your Window
7. Six And Nine
8. Dark Fire
9. I'm Coming Home

Perhaps even more so than its predecessor, "Johnny Cash At San Quentin" captures Cash at his most raw and uninhibited. The artist's raucous rapport with his captive audience is obvious on an inspired mix of Cash classics ("I Walk the Line," "Folsom Prison Blues"), jailhouse ballads ("Starkville City Jail," "San Quentin"), traditional tunes ("Wreck of the Old 97," "There'll Be Peace in the Valley") and well-chosen covers (Bob Dylan's "Wanted Man," the Lovin' Spoonful's "Darling Companion"). The album's most popular track, though, remains the Shel Silverstein-penned novelty number "A Boy Named Sue," which became the biggest hit single of Cash's career.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Wanted Man
2. Wreck Of The Old 97
3. I Walk The Line
4. Darlin' Companion
5. Starkville City Jail

Side B
1. San Quentin
2. San Quentin
3. A Boy Named Sue
4. (There'll Be) Peace In The Valley
5. Folsom Prison Blues

Remastered from the original analogue masters in 2010, by Yoko Ono and a team of engineers led by Allan Rouse at Abbey Road Studios in London and by George Marino at Avatar Studios in New York. This LP has been newly cut to vinyl from those 96k digital files. Comes as an authentic reproduction of its UK original, in its sound and visual presentation.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Superb second solo album, produced by Phil Spector.

TRACK LISTING

1. Imagine
2. Crippled Inside
3. Jealous Guy - John Lennon, The Plastic Ono Band, The Flux Fiddlers
4. It's So Hard
5. I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama
6. Gimme Some Truth
7. Oh My Love
8. How Do You Sleep?
9. How?
10. Oh Yoko!

Last year saw Johnny Marr enjoy a rapturous start to his solo career following the critical acclaim (included the honour of being named as NME’s Godlike Genius) greeted to his Top 10 debut solo album ‘The Messenger’. Meanwhile his shows were celebrated for his ability to combine the best of his new material with select highlights from The Smiths plus others from his extensive back catalogue.

Johnny Marr’s upwards trajectory continues unabated with the release of his second solo album ‘Playland’. Work on ‘Playland’ commenced in London in the Spring as soon as the year of touring in support of ‘The Messenger’ came to a close. It finds Marr continuing the creative connection that was forged on ‘The Messenger’ with collaborator and co-producer Doviak as well as the other musicians who performed on the album and accompanying tour.

As Johnny states: "When The Messenger came out I kept on writing. I liked that the band had a momentum going on tour and a connection with the audience, and I thought that energy would be good to capture on the new record."

Written around a common theme of “songs that move at the speed of life,” ‘Playland’ captures much of the spirit that made ‘The Messenger’ so memorable with energetic, post-punk songwriting complemented by Johnny Marr’s characteristic guitar style, thought-provoking lyrical ideas and poised vocal phrasing. "It's important to sound like your environment and on this record that's London and Manchester,” he adds. “The feeling of the cities and the people make it into the music."

The title ‘Playland’ is inspired by ‘Homo ludens’, a 1938 book by the highly influential Dutch cultural theorist Johan Huizinga which explores the concept of play as a precursor and principal element of cultural development.

TRACK LISTING

Back In The Box
Easy Money
Dynamo
Candidate
25 Hours
The Trap
Playland
Speak Out Reach Out
Boys Get Straight
This Tension
Little King

If the measure of a true artist is their inability to stand still then Ethan Johns easily fits the bill. Having achieved the upper reaches of success as a producer (Ray Lamontagne, Kings of Leon, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Laura Marling) the artist’s voice inside Johns’ head could not be quieted. His first solo record, If Not Now Then When? Released in Summer 2013 was received with acclaim by fans and critics alike.

For his subsequent record, Johns trades places behind the glass with long-time friend and collaborator Ryan Adams. The Adams-produced album, The Reckoning, was born on tour in the UK, Europe and the US, inspired by the landscapes of the countryside and snippets of life in each stop along the way.

TRACK LISTING

1. Go Slow
2. Dry Morning
3. The Fool
4. Among The Sugar Pines
5. The Roses And The Dead
6. Talking Talking Blues
7. The Lo Down Ballad Of James Younger
8. Black Heart
9. You Changed
10. This Modern London

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

First time Greensleeves 12" issue of Johnny Osbourne thunderous 'Give A Little Love' complete with two previously unreleased dubs showcasing Roots Radics in full effect with Scientist at the controls. Recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's.

Limited Record Store Day coloured vinyl pressing with dual Greensleeves / Greensleeves Dub Master labels. Available on Red, Green or 'Gold' coloured vinyl – collect the set! Pot luck which colour you get.

Limited to 400 units for the UK.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

"A World Of Peace Must Come is his masterpiece. That was fantastic." - Brian Wilson
"'Be Still' is the only song I've ever heard that made me want to be a better person." - Brian Barr, The Seattle Weekly

"The only other artist as pure as him is Captain Beefheart." - Bill Bentley

Stephen John Kalinich was born in Endicott, New York and grew up in Binghamton. In his early teens, he stared writing poems and articles about World Peace. He first came to California around 1964, fell in love with it, and promptly transferred from Harper College in upstate New York to UCLA.

Kalinich found himself immersed in the vibrant anti-War culture of late 60’s California, often writing songs and poems against the War. He found a musical partner and kindred spirit in Mark Lindsey Buckingham. They cut a demo for a track called "Leaves of Grass," inspired by the famous Walt Whitman poem "Leaves Of Grass", and Kalinich started taking demos around.

In the mid 60s, it was either at Brother Records or while pumping gas that Kalinich first met the Beach Boys. He hit it off with Brian, Carl and Dennis right away. As the first artist signed to the Beach Boys new label Brother Records, Carl Wilson produced a record for him. His first songs that saw release were "Little Bird" and "Be Still," which he wrote with Dennis and were released on the Friends album. His relationship with Dennis would lead to a number of further collaborations and Kalinich / Dennis Wilson co-writes, including: 20/20 - "All I Want To Do," Hawthorne, CA - "A Time to Live in Dreams", Pacific Ocean Blue - "Rainbows," and Bambu - "Love Remember Me.”
A World of Peace Must Come was recorded at various LA studios and Brian's house in Bel-Air in 1969. The tapes were promptly lost, not to be heard again until our discovery of them in 2008. Following the CD-only reissue in that year, this is the first time this timeless snapshot of an era and an ethos will be available on vinyl for Record Store Day 2014.

'I believe the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard.' - John Cage 1937. Although John Cage occasionally worked in large, sophisticated studios - for example, when he composed Fontana Mix in 1958 - his approach to electronic and tape music was often uncomplicated, makeshift, and pragmatic, employing simple tabletop devices: tape machines, phonograph cartridges, contact microphones, record players, portable radios, etc. He developed a soundworld that was utterly new, radical and demanding. It heralded the age of the loudspeaker, mass communication and Marshall McLuhan's 'global village.' The hiss, crackle and hum of electronic circuits, and the disembodied sounds, snatched by radio from the ether, spoke of the 20th century.

Langham Research Centre works within the tradition firmly established by Cage, using resources that would have been available to him. For the realisation of Cartridge Music, moving iron phonograph pickups were sourced and restored. These have a knurled screw designed to hold a steel phonograph needle and, in the piece, other objects are inserted and amplified: pieces of wire, toothpicks, paperclips, etc. The realisation of Fontana Mix includes the individual mono tracks from Cage's original tapes created in 1958. These are played using open-reel tape machines. These practices ensure we work within the limitations that Cage experienced and enable us to get close to the soundworld he inhabited. (Robert Worby, LRC).

TRACK LISTING

CD:
01 Fontana Mix With Aria 1958 / 13'36
02 Imaginary Landscape N°.5 1952 / 3'00
03 WBAI 1960 / 7'00
04 Cartridge Music 1960 / 10'00
05 0'00'' 1962 / 2'36
06 Variations I 1960 / 10'00 Tracklisting LP

VINYL:
SIDE A
01 Fontana Mix With Aria 1958 / 13'36
02 Imaginary Landscape N°.5 1952 / 3'00
03 WBAI 1960 / 7'00

SIDE B
01 Cartridge Music 1960 / 10'00
02 0'00'' 1962 / 2'36
03 Variations I 1960 / 10'00

"Blue Train" is John Coltrane's only collection of sides as a principal artist for Blue Note. The album is packed with sonic evidence of Coltrane's innate leadership abilities. He not only addresses the tunes at hand, but also simultaneously reinvents himself as a multifaceted interpreter of both hard bop as well as sensitive balladry - touching upon all forms in between. The personnel on "Blue Train" is arguably as impressive as what they're playing. Joining Coltrane (tenor sax) are Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Kenny Drew (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). The triple horn arrangements incorporate an additional sonic density that remains a trademark unique to both this band and album. Of particular note is Fuller's even-toned trombone, which bops throughout the title track as well as the frenetic "Moments Notice". Other solos include Paul Chambers' subtly understated riffs on "Blue Train" as well as the high energy and impact from contributions by Lee Morgan and Kenny Drew during "Locomotion". The track likewise features some brief but vital contributions from Philly Joe Jones - whose efforts throughout the record stand among his personal best. Of the five pieces that comprise the original "Blue Train", the Jerome Kern / Johnny Mercer ballad "I'm Old Fashioned" is the only standard; in terms of unadulterated sentiment, this version is arguably untouchable. Fuller's rich tones and Drew's tastefully executed solos cleanly wrap around Jones' steadily languid rhythms. Without reservation, "Blue Train" can easily be considered in and among the most important and influential entries not only of John Coltrane's career, but of the entire genre of jazz music as well.

Blue Note President Don Was says, “Two years ago, we began remastering the jewels of the Blue Note catalogue in hi-def resolutions of 96k and 192k. In order to develop a guiding artistic philosophy for this delicate endeavor, we donned our lab coats, ran dozens of sonic experiments and carefully referenced every generation of our reissues. Ultimately, we decided that our goal would be to protect the original intentions of the artists, producers and engineers who made these records and that, in the case of pre-digital-era albums, these intentions were best represented by the sound and feel of their first-edition vinyl releases. Working with a team of dedicated and groovy engineers, we found a sound that both captured the feel of the original records while maintaining the depth and transparency of the master tapes... the new remasters are really cool!

While these new versions will become available in digital hi-def, CD and Mastered for iTunes formats, the allure of vinyl records is WAY too potent to ignore. This year, Blue Note - along with our friends at Universal Music Enterprises - is launching a major 75th Anniversary vinyl Initiative that is dedicated to the proposition that our catalogue should be readily available, featuring high quality pressings and authentic reproductions of Blue Note's iconic packaging. Although this program begins in celebration of Blue Note's 75th Anniversary, our catalog runs so deep that we will faithfully be reissuing five albums a month for many years to come!”

TRACK LISTING

Blue Train 10:40
Moment's Notice 9:08
Locomotion 7:12
I'm Old Fashioned 7:55
Lazy Bird 7:04

Arguably the best of the American Recordings series.
Once again Cash worked with Tom Petty on a couple of tracks including the Neil Diamond-penned "Solitary Man".
The album also includes stunning covers of Bonnie Prince Billy, Nick Cave and U2.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: The Rick Rubin produced American Recordings totally rejuvenated Cash's career, and they're all great. This one just edges it for me with amazing covers of Bonnie Prince Billy, Nick Cave and (suprisingly) U2.

TRACK LISTING

I Won't Back Down
Solitary Man
That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)
One
Nobody
I See A Darkness
The Mercy Seat
Would You Lay With Me (In A Field Of Stone)
Field Of Diamonds
My Time
Country Trash
Mary Of The Wild Moor
I'm Leavin' Now
Wayfaring Stranger

Originally released at the end of 1973, the double album ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ was the crowning moment of an upward trajectory that had marked the unstoppable rise of Elton John - from the first hit ‘Your Song’ through a sequence of increasingly confident artistic and commercial successes. Following the chart-topping album ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player’ from earlier in 1973, the stage was well and truly set for a new album and it would be one that simply exploded globally and would go on to sell in excess of 31 million copies worldwide.

- 2014 remaster by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering from the original analogue tapes.
- Mastered for vinyl by Doug Sax & Robert Hadley at the Mastering Lab, Inc, Ouja, CA
- 180g audiophile quality double vinyl pressing
- Triptych fold-out sleeve

Zorn’s string quartets are some of the most important modern contributions to the canon and a new Zorn quartet is truly a cause for celebration. His sixth quartet is inspired by the hermetic Angelic actions of John Dee and his mystical medium Edward Kelley and contains some of the most intense contrapuntal writing he has yet achieved. Replete with the procedures of distillation, calcination, crystallization, sublimation, purification, rotation as well numerology, prayers, canons, contrapuntal complexity and the ghost of a familiar fugue, this music is part séance, part science, and all Zorn—in short, a trip through an alchemist’s laboratory! Performed here by Zorn’s own Quartet, this is the definitive recording of this important and powerful string quartet, already considered a modern classic. Also included is Zorn’s mystical response to the ancient Newgrange sacred site in Ireland, a beautiful and evocative setting of Amergin, one of the oldest Celtic sacred texts, written for three female voices.

Drawing upon traditions as varied as Messiaen, Xenakis, Ligeti, Bach, Tournemire,Ives, Korla Pandit and The Phantom of the Opera, Zorn’s organ improvisations are transcendent, inspiring, ecstatic experiences, offering a direct line to the workings of his rich compositional imagination. Performed at St. Paul’s Chapel at a time when the organ was undergoing extensive reconstruction, the limited number of stops available to him focused his imagination to new heights, resulting in Zorn’s most revelatory recital to date. The second volume documenting these legendary organ recitals is a transcendent experience filled with moments of passion, tenderness,
fragility and extraordinary power.

Two legends from different worlds collide in what promises to be a seminal album of songs about London.

Composer/saxophonist John Harle and singer Marc Almond collaborate on ‘The Tyburn Tree - Dark London’ - an album of contemporary songs about the darkest sides of London’s history - from the Tyburn gallows to Jack the Ripper, and from settings of the words of William Blake to a unique take on the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’.

Following Marc’s much lauded guest appearance on Harle’s ‘Art Music’, this is an album full of driving rhythms, emotional impact and theatrical story telling of the highest order. Along for the ride are noted soprano Sarah Leonard and great London poet and author Iain Sinclair who reads from his own texts. But it is the voice of Marc Almond that is the spiritual medium from which appears the ghosts of ‘Dark London’.

“Marc is a true artist and true performer - showing total openness and vulnerability alongside an experimental, non-judgmental view of Art, and in ‘The Tyburn Tree’, London has found its Anti-Hero”. - John Harle

“We all know that Marc Almond can sing but it still comes as a shock to hear his thrillingly drawn-out climax to Harle’s “The Arrival of Spring”, emoting words adapted from William Blake with operatic oomph.” - The Independent.

‘The Tyburn Tree’ has been in gestation for two years - Almond is the primary lyricist, having researched the subject matter and gradually formed his own take on ‘Dark London’, creating lyrics that have both historical relevance and an ear-catching quirkiness. Alongside this John Harle has been writing music that proves him to be at the height of his powers - after a canon of work that includes his “O Mistress Mine” for Elvis Costello, and as composer of the theme to BBC1’s Silent Witness, he has matched Almond’s lyrics with some punchy, compact and bitter-sweet songs full of emotion, percussive shock and humour. ‘The Tyburn Tree’ promises to be a concept album of cult-status.

In celebration of its 35th anniversay, MONDO is pleased to present the original soundtrack to John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN. This release features the most comprehensive version of the soundtrack, never before released on vinyl, cut at 45RPM for the best possible sound quality.

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

TRACK LISTING

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