Bhajan Bhoy releases two separate albums on the same day, his third and fourth albums, and a joint release on highly respected independent labels Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube Records (USA). Drawing from the deep triple bad acid well of psychedelia, Bhajan Bhoy further shifts the parameters surrounding the perceptions aligned to this genre with a beautiful and meditative set of tracks. A kaleidoscopic sonic universe within which you will find raga-esque musical excursions, meditative Dream House drone, beautiful folk inflected jams on a Laurel Canyon tip, electronic dreamscapes and heavy guitar riffola where sometimes two chords are enough. Listening to the two albums and you could imagine Pandit Pran Nath, Spacemen 3, Pauline Oliveros, and Don Cherry drinking the same Psilocybin tea beforehand, and then embarking to the studio to lay down the jams. This is the sound of freedom! Byron Coley / The Wire (January 2023) said of the previous release “Shanti Shanti Shanti” : “another fine release by Dutch musician Ajay Saggar. His basic thrust is modern psychedelia, minted from radio snippets, dub reverb flapping, elegant guitar washing, electronic drones interwoven with splashes of mock jaw harp or splashy drums, and a generally stoned atmosphere. And the concept is spectrally good!” The songs for “To Love Is To Love (Vols. 1+2)” were recorded and mixed between January 2021 and June 2022 at Soundation Studio….Ajay’s sonic laboratory. As he states : “it was a highly focused and intensive period of work for me. The pandemic allowed me to go and work in the studio all day and into the night pretty much everyday. I’d never felt more focused in my pursuit of making a set of songs. It yielded a body of work that I am incredibly proud of, and think is some of the best stuff I’ve done. I was fortunate enough to have some incredibly talented players join me on some songs (Ab Baars, Gayle Brogan, Sheila Bosco, Holly Habstritt Gaal, Mees Siderius, Arvind Ganga, Aaron Lumley, Elsa v/d Linden, Ditmer Weertman). The songs evolved in a very organic manner. The influences are there for sure…but I don’t know any musician who is not directly or indirectly influenced by their peers / record collections. Ultimately though they are BHAJAN BHOY songs…..and if you listen to them, they are definitely from within ME!. The songs are part of a journey, and that is the reason that there are two separate albums. It made total sense for these songs to appear on two separate albums (“Shanti Shanti Shanti” was the album before these ones and was the first part of this triptych).”

Ajay Saggar is BHAJAN BHOY. Since his debut album was released in June 2020 (“Bless Bless”) he has been receiving critical acclaim for his recorded output and his live shows. On Friday 10 March 2023, BHAJAN BHOY will release TWO separate albums on the same day. These will be Bhajan Bhoy’s third and fourth albums , and a joint release on highly respected independent labels Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube Records (USA). Drawing from the deep triple bad acid well of psychedelia, Bhajan Bhoy further shifts the parameters surrounding the perceptions aligned to this genre with a beautiful and meditative set of tracks. A kaleidoscopic sonic universe within which you will find raga-esque musical excursions, meditative Dream House drone, beautiful folk inflected jams on a Laurel Canyon tip, electronic dreamscapes and heavy guitar riffola where sometimes two chords are enough. Listening to the two albums and you could imagine Pandit Pran Nath, Spacemen 3, Pauline Oliveros, and Don Cherry drinking the same Psilocybin tea beforehand, and then embarking to the studio to lay down the jams. This is the sound of freedom! Byron Coley / The Wire (January 2023) said of the previous release “Shanti Shanti Shanti” : “another fine release by Dutch musician Ajay Saggar. His basic thrust is modern psychedelia, minted from radio snippets, dub reverb flapping, elegant guitar washing, electronic drones interwoven with splashes of mock jaw harp or splashy drums, and a generally stoned atmosphere. And the concept is spectrally good!” The songs for “To Love Is To Love (Vols. 1+2)” were recorded and mixed between January 2021 and June 2022 at Soundation Studio….Ajay’s sonic laboratory. As he states : “it was a highly focused and intensive period of work for me. The pandemic allowed me to go and work in the studio all day and into the night pretty much everyday. I’d never felt more focused in my pursuit of making a set of songs. It yielded a body of work that I am incredibly proud of, and think is some of the best stuff I’ve done. I was fortunate enough to have some incredibly talented players join me on some songs (Ab Baars, Gayle Brogan, Sheila Bosco, Holly Habstritt Gaal, Mees Siderius, Arvind Ganga, Aaron Lumley, Elsa v/d Linden, Ditmer Weertman). The songs evolved in a very organic manner. The influences are there for sure…but I don’t know any musician who is not directly or indirectly influenced by their peers / record collections. Ultimately though they are BHAJAN BHOY songs…..and if you listen to them, they are definitely from within ME!. The songs are part of a journey, and that is the reason that there are two separate albums. It made total sense for these songs to appear on two separate albums (“Shanti Shanti Shanti” was the album before these ones and was the first part of this triptych).”

It’s been seven strange years since The Veils’ last studio album Total Depravity, and Finn Andrews has a new double album to show for it. …And Out Of The Void Came Love is the result of this tumultuous period of injury, isolation and new life. Following the release of Total Depravity, Andrews released a solo album and began a worldwide tour. One night, while lashing out at a particularly intense moment on piano, he broke his wrist on stage. He played on and finished the rest of the tour, but it wasn’t until he got it examined much later that he realized what a bad move that was. The convalescence that followed meant a lengthy hiatus from touring, so he did what he does best and stayed at home and wrote songs. Just when his hand had healed sufficiently for him to play again, The Veils found themselves in need of a new record label, but Finn set about starting to make a new record regardless. Producer Tom Healy invited Finn to his small studio underneath the old Crystal Palace ballroom in Mount Eden, and they listened through the legions of songs he had amassed throughout the previous year. Following another two years of intermittent recording between lockdowns, Finn’s wife became pregnant, and yet more songs started coming. By the time the songs had been recorded, it was clear that arranging the album into two halves best suited such varied material—but the meaning of the songs as a whole still eluded Andrews. The result of all these years of questioning, confinement and precarious uncertainty is this magnificent new double album. It is an album intended to be listened to in two sittings with a short break in the middle. Composer Victoria Kelly’s soaring string arrangements play an integral role in bringing the songs to life, as do musicians Cass Basil (bass), Dan Raishbrook (lap steel, guitar), Liam Gerrard (piano), Joseph McCallum (drums), the NZTrio and special guests the Smoke Fairies on backing vocals. The Veils have toured consistently throughout their twenty year history and garnered a formidable reputation as one of the world’s greatest live bands. They have also been praised by film directors Paolo Sorrentino, Tim Burton and David Lynch who have all used their music on their soundtracks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Time
2. No Limit Of Stars
3. Undertow
4. Bullfighter (Hand Of God)
5. The World Of Invisible Things
6. Epoch
7. Diamonds And Coal
8. Rings Of Saturn
9. Made From Love With Far To Go
10. The Pearl (Part II)
11. Someday My Love Will Come
12. The Day I Meet My Murderer
13. Between The Ocean And The Storm
14. I've Been Waiting

THE TIMES & UNCUT MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEARCritically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley's long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson. A BOOK OF THE YEARSUNDAY TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, MOJO, LOUDER THAN WAR'Compelling . .

. befitting its extraordinary subject.'BRIAN ENO'Bracing and often surprisingly tender . .

. the perfect monument.'SUNDAY TIMES'Via Morley's magical prose Tony Wilson comes back to life . .

. inspiring.'RICHARD RUSSELLTony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Hacienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North.

To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. From Manchester with Love is the biography of a man who changed the world around him through sheerforce of personality.

In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre stage. 'An immersive experience . .

. very moving indeed.'MIRANDA SAWYER, OBSERVER'Not just a "biog" but the story of a city's history and culture and a unique and disappearing figure.'STUART MACONIE, NEW STATESMAN'Morley's biography is as illuminating on Wilson's strange ability to hold others in his orbit, even after his death, as it is on the story of his life.'THE SPECTATOR'The man/myth Wilson died aged 57 in 2006, but here he burns on fantastically bright.'UNCUT

Free Love (FKA Happy Meals) and their music are a conscious study in duality: thumping live tracks and meditational mantras, pop songs and esoteric experiments, acoustic and electronic instrumentation, lyrics in French and English, the Masculine and the Feminine, all side-by-side. Paragons of the cross-pollinating Glasgow DIY scene, their rapturous psychedelic odysseys have been emanating from the city since 2013 via esteemed labels including Night School and Optimo Music. Free Love’s debut EP Luxury Hits was released in 2018 to much critical acclaim (“a groovy fever dream” – Line of Best Fit) and saw them shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year Award (Suzi and Lewis’s third SAY Award nomination in all, following two under the Happy Meals moniker). It was followed in 2019 by the mini-album Extreme Dance Anthems (“music to move both body and mind” – Clash). In 2018 Free Love released a limited-edition vinyl EP, written and recorded on the isle of Eigg as part of Lost Map’s V I S I T ▲ T I O N S residency programme – strengthening a long-standing kinship between the band and the label which has seen them perform live many times at Lost Map events on Eigg and elsewhere.

It leads to the release on Lost Map in 2023 of Free Love’s latest opus INSIDE. Written and recorded at the band’s Glasgow home studio during and after the lockdowns of 2020-2021, and completed just before the birth of Lewis and Suzi’s son Echo in the summer of 2022, its 10 tracks of house-quaking acid pop, celestial drones and yogic devotionals are a by-turns banging and blissed-out meditation on life and death, community and seclusion, worlds both outwith and within. A song about “coming back to the centre after spiralling too far and recognising you’re not the only person wondering what’s going on”, ‘Open The Door’ reaches for the fresh silicon sound of Yellow Magic Orchestra. ‘Stop’ and ‘Golden Goose’ channel the space age pop dreams of Broadcast, while ‘Le Mirage’ and ‘Dans Le Noir’ take influence from 1970s electronic dance music pioneer Patrick Cowley – the former his gay porn movie soundtracks, the latter Cowley’s game-changing hi-NRG productions such as ‘Menergy’ and ‘Megatron Man’. Transportational seven-minute album closer ‘I Become’ sees Free Love borrow lyrics from the first track Lewis and Suzi ever recorded together, ‘Crystal Salutation’. “In doing, we become.”

“The sounds and themes on INSIDE came from the experiments we started working on throughout lockdown in our home studio, FULL ASHRAM CELESTIAL GARDEN,” says Lewis. “Sometimes we’d leave a sound running on loop until little melodies would come in and then that would start to take the form of the track. It has been a weird time for anyone to be making anything creative – to make sense of any reason to it all, we had to position creating music as an essential ritualistic part of our daily existence. We used the studio as a portal and made INSIDE.”

Free Love’s euphoric live show has seen them tour Europe, USA, India and Russia with the likes of The Flaming Lips, Liars and James Holden and The Animal Spirits, with Suzi often tearing through the audience centring the energy in the middle of the room over the live hardware electronics operated by Lewis from the stage turning into a ritualistic communal catharsis. As well as performing their debut Boiler Room live set from their home studio during lockdown, the band remixed music for Django Django and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Woozy electronic stabs and rich scattered bass weave around lysergic floating vocals. Free Love present a perfect mix between euphoric synth-pop and darkened basement dancefloor grooves.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Le Mirage
2. Open The Door
3. Fight Or Flight
4. All The Same To Me
5. Golden Goose
Side B
1. Dans Le Noir
2. Don’t Stop
3. Stop
4. It’s A Feeling
5. I Become

Beggars Arkive will release a long-awaited vinyl reissue of The Cult's second album 'Love'. The Cult are fronted by Ian Astbury on vocals and Billy Duffy on guitar. Their music and albums at this point need no introduction as they have cemented themselves over the years since they began in 1983, as one of the greatest rock bands around.

'Love' was the Cult’s second album, originally released in 1985. It was their breakthrough and produced many singles including “Rain”, “Revolution” and the epic anthem “She Sells Sanctuary” - songs that still resonate today - in fact “She Sells Sanctuary” was recently featured in Season Two of the hit TV show Euphoria. The album eventually defined their career, but at the time, it flew in the face of everything that was going on in music.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Nirvana
A2. Big Neon Glitter
A3. Love
A4. Brother Wolf;Sister Moon
A5. Rain
B1. Phoenix
B2. Hollow Man
B3. Revolution
B4. She Sells Sanctuary
B5. Black Angel

Unbeknownst to its members, Index For Working Musik was born on an evening in late 2019 amidst the discovery of a collection of faded b&w photocopies that had been marinating on the floor of a urine-alley in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. An assortment of sacred and profane imagery were crumpled amongst an essay on early Christian hermits, entitled Men Possessed by God, the meaning of which was enticingly vague. Received together, they planted the seeds for a new endeavour. Though Max Oscarnold and Nathalia Bruno were already engaged in a creative ping-pong of sorts, the results to this point had only totaled a 30 min long ½ inch tape containing one track and four interludes. They needed a page and they needed ink, and they needed a place and it needed energy. Suddenly by chance or divine intervention, their experimental venture had been given form and direction.

Back home in London’s cursed smog, they moved themselves and their 8-track studio into a basement in E8, where the project’s gravitational pull gained strength, quickly developing into an unexpected collective with the incorporation of drummer Bobby Voltaire, double bass player E. Smith and guitarist J. Loftus. As the world shifted around them and the Plague Years followed, it became increasingly clear that they were not going to leave that small basement room. The scarcity of light or outer world presence was less a limitation, instead the main tool at hand, allowing the recording to stretch for boundaryless days in architectural isolation, and forcing them to make straight forward free guitar music, adopting a ‘first thought, best thought’ approach.

The result of this period became a collection of music they were to name Dragging the Needlework for the Kids at Uphole, to be released via Tough Love on 17th February. 35 minutes of repeat phrased guitars, slow-clipped drums and dulcet vocals where the recurring landscape is the desert. Reel-to reel-loops of Afghan music compete with the found sound overlays of voices recorded at the queue of the pharmacy and drum machines borrowed from Spanish heroes, channelling both far-off climes and snippets from a closer reality. It’s a strange psychic brew, built of imagined mysticism and domestic realities, of fever dreams and days that stretched into weeks of months.

What was sparked by that discovery in the Gothic Quarter was actually a realisation that what they were looking for was with them all the while, buried as it was in piles of voice memos and recorded guitar feedback. Men Possessed By God they may be not: it was self-possession that was to guide their way in the end.

“Life, despite all its destructive changes, remains indestructibly powerful and joyful.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Wagner (04:54)
2. Railroad Bulls (02:54)
3. Athletes Of Exile (02:!4
4. Narco Myths (0:22)
5. Ambiguous Fauna (02:44)
6. Isis Beatles (03:52)
7. Palangana (03:09)
8. 1871 (02:41)
9. Chains (03:18)
10. Petit Committee (02:27)
11. Habanita (04:15)

Marrying psychedelic pop with folk and a touch of country, 'Earthling On The Road To Self Love' is the sublime debut album by Brisbane, Australia-based artist Baby Cool – the latest side project by Nice Biscuit co-front woman Grace Cuell.

Cuell says of the record, which follows her debut single 'Magic' and tours with Babe Rainbow and The Lazy Eyes: “The songs on this album are deeply sentimental. I have a lot I need to sing about to help me make sense of this earthly pod I have been gifted. If in singing these words out loud, I can help others find solace in knowing that we’re all out here flailing about in the cosmos, then it feels good to me.”

Recorded with Sam Joseph (Family Jordan), the songs on 'Earthling' were brought to life with the help of Jess Ferronato (Nice Biscuit), Nick Cavendish (Nice Biscuit) and Drew Heyden (The Flamingo Jones): "I had such a beautiful community of friends that helped bring this whole thing to life. There was magic and love in every part of the process of creating this album.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Grace Cuell's new album perfectly mixes the hazy saturated sounds of 60's psych-folk and jangling indie-rock seamlessly and without missing a beat. There are moments of stripped-back beauty here but also a keen ear for the just-in-time layered soundbath of Barrett era Floyd or Jefferson Airplane.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1) The Sea
2) Mother Luna
3) Altar
4) For Us
Side B
5) Poison
6) Country Song
7) Interlude
8) Magic
9) Daydream

Dinked Edition Flexi-Disc
1) Daydream (Stripped-Back)

The story of the new album begins when Las Robertas met producer Owen Morris (Oasis, The Verve, Ash, New Order) at a small, art gallery party in downtown San Jose. The result of this chance meeting is Love is the Answer, an album where the Welsh producer successfully highlights Las Robertas love of 90’s alt-rock greats like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Dandy Warhols, The Charlatans, LUSH, RIDE and The Breeders, while still sounding uniquely like Las Robertas.

Love is the Answer is a compilation of songs about love towards the universe, individual freedom and of hope in a time where the world seems ever closer to being consumed in chaos. It contains a pop edge while still combing shoegaze and psych rock influences.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
01 Love Is The Answer
02 Sonora
03 Our Imperium
04 Season Of No Reason
Side B
05 Awakening
06 F.
07 Windows
08 Third Door

2023 Starts with a doubler sided disco action from East Coast Love Affair - Taking the vocal from obscure Minneapolis lo-fi band 'Quiet Storm' master tape (Big up Numero Group) and building a whole new deep disco 45. 'Get Down' is deep dance floor chugger using the O.G studio gear that would have been used at the time, strictly analog business. On the flip, 'Can You Deal' is a more uptempo boogie joint. Both killers as always. Lots more from ECLA this year!!

TRACK LISTING

1. Get Down (feat. Quiet Storm)
2. Can You Deal (feat. Quiet Storm)

Legendary Slovenian group Laibach return with their new EP LOVE IS STILL ALIVE, via Mute.

The EP is a 40 minute country, dance and electronic masterpiece, featuring different versions of the song Love Is Still Alive. The original song is taken from Laibach’s soundtrack for the sci-fi action film Iron Sky: The Coming Race, and centres around Milan Fras’ unmistakable gravely vocal over an old time country western accompaniment, a musical curveball from a career that defies genres. The Coming Race is the sequel to Iron Sky, which Laibach were commissioned to compose the score for in 2012. The Finnish dark comedy achieved cult-status and raised more than $1 million via crowdfunding. This release follows a series of important theatrical performances and releases from Laibach, and supports their Coming Race tour dates (2022/2023).

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Is Still Alive I (Moon, Euphoria)
2. Love Is Still Alive II (Venus, Libidine)
3. Love Is Still Alive III (Mercury, Dopamine)
4. Love Is Still Alive IV (Neptune, Oxytocin)
5. Love Is Still Alive V (Uranus, Prolactin)
6. Love Is Still Alive VI (Saturn, Insomnia)
7. Love Is Still Alive VII (Jupiter, Tristitia)
8. Love Is Still Alive Viii (Mars, Dysphoria)

After her debut album "Serendipity" in 2021 with Japanese Jazz trio Nautilus from Tokyo and a superb single remix of "Everytime" by Pat Van Dyke featuring rapper John Robinson this will be another step forward in her career and conceptually a bit different.

It gets the "Oonops Drops" FLIP SERIES treatment which means: Side A of Lisas songs are arranged by Nautilus and Side B by producer SaturnVybz (Jazzanova/Slick Walk/The Ruffcats).

To get a first impression please have a listen to this upfront single-release and get one of these limited 45s.

Lisa is careful about the artwork and after working together with renowned artist Lindsey Kustusch from San Francisco on her first album she collaborates with local artist Sebastian Maria Otto now who is known for his signature art style and exhibitions from Germany to Japan.

TRACK LISTING

1. Love And Hope (feat. SaturnVybz & Nautilus)
2. Summer Child (feat. SaturnVybz & Nautilus)

Originally released on 29th April 2013, Mick Harvey’s sixth studio solo album Four (Acts of Love) is being reissued on clear vinyl, alongside 2011’s Sketches From The Book Of The Dead, with Delirium Tremens and Intoxicated Women set to follow in mid 2023.

Four (Acts of Love) is a contemplation on romantic love - its loss, re-awakening, its tumultuous struggle and its place in our universe. The album is a song cycle, divided into 3 Acts, featuring original compositions by Mick Harvey alongside a song by long time collaborator PJ Harvey (Glorious) and interpretations of The Saints’ The Story of Love, Van Morrison’s The Way Young Lovers Do, Exuma’s Summertime in New York and Roy Orbison’s Wild Hearts (Run Out of Time). Recorded at Grace Lane, North Melbourne and Atlantis Sound, Melbourne, Four (Acts of Love) features regular collaborators Rosie Westbrook on double bass and JP Shilo on guitar and violin.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Praise The Earth (Wheels Of Amber And Gold)
A2. Glorious
A3. Midnight On The Ramparts
A4. Summertime In New York
A5. Where There's Smoke (Before)
A6. God Made The Hammer
A7. I Wish That I Were Stone
B1. The Way Young Lovers Do
B2. A Drop, An Ocean
B3. The Story Of Love
B4. Where There's Smoke (After)
B5. Wild Hearts
B6. Fairy Dust
B7. Praise The Earth (An Ephemeral Play)

Love And Rockets is the seminal, groundbreaking trio of Daniel Ash (vocals and guitar), David J (vocals and bass) and Kevin Haskins (drums). They formed in 1985 after the first split of their band Bauhaus. Love and Rockets provided a clean slate and an opportunity to plumb the depths of imagination and influences.

The band’s 1985 debut album Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven was an unashamedly psychedelic adventure, far removed from the dark, angular soundscapes of Bauhaus. Yet they had to fight hard to avoid being branded ‘goth’, citing Syd Barrett, Marc Bolan and the later period Beatles as primary influences. This is a single black LP with a gatefold sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. If There's A Heaven Above
2. A Private Future
3. The Dog-end Of A Day Gone By
4. The Game
5. Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven
6. Haunted When The Minutes Drag
7. Saudade

Love And Rockets is the seminal, groundbreaking trio of Daniel Ash (vocals and guitar), David J (vocals and bass) and Kevin Haskins (drums). They formed in 1985 after the first split of their band Bauhaus. Love and Rockets provided a clean slate and an opportunity to plumb the depths of imagination and influences.

Express is a unique, mystical and transcendental travelogue of sorts. The original press release for the album said that "the balance of light and dark, positive and negative, yin and yang, is a recurring theme". In 2020, NPR, referring to the album, stated that their "psychedelic train ride laid the foundation for alt-rock". This is a single black LP with a standard sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. It Could Be Sunshine
2. Kundalini Express
3. All In My Mind
4. Life In Laralay
5. Yin And Yang (The Flowerpot Man)
6. Love Me
7. All In My Mind
8. An American Dream

EPs, 7"s, Compilation Tracks and some other Songs 1998-2022. Long time no hear: after an extended hiatus and just the occasional gig, Robocop Kraus have rewired and reunited. They’re back in the game. Almost a quarter of a century has passed since the band was formed, a period which saw them release on labels like L’Age D’Or, Epitaph, and Anti. Now they have put together a compilation featuring all of the tracks which, for one reason or another, were not available on their regular albums, with an intriguing number of rarities and previously unreleased material.

‘Love Is Overtaking Me’, originally released in 2008 comprises 21 demos and home recordings of unreleased pop, folk and country songs from Arthur’s vast catalogue. While much critical and popular affection for Russell’s music has come about well after his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, many fellow artists believed in his genius and were drawn to collaborate with him during his lifetime. The legendary producer John Hammond (Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen) recorded Russell on several occasions; a number of these recordings can be heard on ‘Love Is Overtaking Me’. Alongside songs recorded with various incarnations of The Flying Hearts, a group formed by Russell with Ernie Brooks whose shifting line up included, by turns, Jerry Harrison, Rhys Chatham, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon and Peter Zummo as well as Larry Saltzman and David Van Tieghem. Several other Russell projects are represented on Love Is Overtaking Me, including The Sailboats, Turbo Sporty and Bright & Early.

Compiled from over eight hours of material, ‘Love Is Overtaking Me’ reaches back further to Russell’s first compositions from the early `70s and spans forward to his very last recordings, made at home in 1991. Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear contributed mixing, restoration and editing to the album, whose tracks were selected by Audika’s Steve Knutson, Ernie Brooks and Russell’s companion, Tom Lee. Several songs feature prominently in Matt Wolf’s film ‘Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell’.

Extensive ‘Love Is Overtaking Me’ liner notes by Tom Lee provide an intimate perspective on Russell’s diverse catalogue, which spanned an extraordinary diversity of styles and won the love of artistic communities that would seem utterly disparate, from Philip Glass, John Cage and Allen Ginsberg to rock bands like The Talking Heads and The Modern Lovers; the pre-Studio 54 disco-party scene of Nicky Siano’s Gallery and David Mancuso’s Loft; and DJ-producers like Francois Kevorkian and Larry Levan, among others.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Close My Eyes
Goodbye Old Paint
Maybe She
Oh Fernanda Why
Time Away
Nobody Wants A Lonely Heart

Side B
I Couldn't Say It To Your Face
This Time Dad You're Wrong
What It's Like
Eli
Hey! How Does Everybody Know

Side C
I Forget And I Can't Tell (Ballad Of The Lights Pt. 1)
Habit Of You
Janine
Big Moon
Your Motion Says
The Letter

Side D
Don't Forget About Me
Love Is Overtaking Me
Planted A Thought
Love Comes Back

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 25TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 26TH).

New 140g, green vinyl 12" single, using original cover art, with printed metallic text. 40th anniversary of The Undertones 1982 release, taken from their 'Sin Of Pride' album. Features original B-side Like That along with the rare Love Parade and Soul Seven demos, previously unreleased on vinyl.

Widely regarded as one of the foremost songwriters of her generation, Suzanne Vega emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s when, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, she sang what has been called contemporary folk or neo-folk songs of her own creation in Greenwich Village clubs. Since the release of her self-titled, critically acclaimed 1985 debut album, she has given sold-out concerts in many of the world’s best-known venues. Bearing the stamp of a masterful storyteller who “observes the world with a clinically poetic eye” (The New York Times), Vega’s songs have tended to focus on city life, ordinary people and real-world subjects. Notably succinct and understated, her work is immediately recognisable—as utterly distinct and thoughtful as it was when her voice was first heard on the radio over 30 years ago. Back in 2010, Suzanne began re-recording and releasing songs from her extensive back catalogue as the “Close-Up” Series. She thought that her fans might like to hear the songs of her past stripped of their original productions, to hear them in an intimate setting, something more personal, that felt like she was singing to them alone. During the recording process for these four albums, Suzanne also decided to rearrange the songs by theme, so people could rediscover them out of their original contexts The Close Up Series, originally released over a decade ago, is now available in a beautifully packaged and designed Bookpack and is limited to just 2,000 copies worldwide. It includes the Close-Up albums Volumes 1-4, each as a different colour 180g heavyweight vinyl LP. It also contains a 28-page booklet featuring a foreword by Suzanne Vega, a brand new essay by Lenny Kaye and the full lyrics for each song.

TRACK LISTING

1. Small Blue Thing
2. Caramel
3. (If You Were) In My Movie
4. Gypsy
5. Marlene On The Wall
6. (I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May
7. Harbor Song
8. Headshots
9. Songs In Red And Gray
10. Stockings
11. Some Journey
12. Bound

White label edition, featuring Sampha, Syd Tha Kid and Obongjayar!

Këkht Aräkh is the Ukrainian project founded in 2018 by Dmitry Marchenko. The debut album Night & Love was initially released on the Finnish label Livor Mortis in 2019 and it’s now seeing a worldwide reissue via Brooklyn label Sacred Bones. Dmitry’s intent to experiment with standard black metal canons previously seen at play in Through the Branches to Eternity EP (2018) solidify further on Night & Love, he mentions “back then I had an idea of combining Darkthrone’s Transilvanian Hunger type of black metal with early Internazionale or Croatian Amor vibe.”

Described as ambient or atmospheric black metal, this debut presents Këkht Aräkh’s signature dichotomy of harsh traditional early Norwegian black metal and the more ethereal and delicate melodies. On the other hand the lyrics are romantic and melancholic, clearly influenced by a stark Gothic imagery, and serve as an extra layer of mystery to the already suggestive body of work. The album beings with a soft acoustic intro in “As the Night Falls…” before descending into the raw and raucous “Elegy for the Memory of Me” and “Den Venstre Hånd På Den Høyre”, both songs that are drenched in the more traditional black metal style of raspy, high-pitched vocals, dense, tremolo- picked riffs and fast paced drums. It is however songs like “Night” and “Love” that really set this album apart. “Night” is a softly spoken word ambient track that with a beautiful piano synth work that permeates throughout it aids in the romantic delivery and conjuring of imagery of the night. “Love” is a spellbinding and melancholic song, equal in its romanticism but one that displays a deeper sorrow and tenderness supported by calming field recordings of trickling water. The intertwining of black metal, dark folk and ambient repeats itself, culminating in a quietly hummed outro “...And Never Ends (Eternal Love)” that alludes to and completes the album’s first track.

TRACK LISTING

1. As The Night Falls...
2. Elegy For The Memory Of Me
3. Den Venstre Hånd På Den Høyre
4. Night
5. Her Body Strewn With Petals Black
6. Primal Beauty Of Silence
7. As The Wounds Gently Bleed
8. Love
9. Down To The Depths Of Inner Cold
10. Mysteriet Med Svartfiolett
11. Through Night Which Knows No Dawn
12. Forever Night Castle Of Love
13. ...And Never Ends (Eternal Love)

For the first time ever, Love’s original run of singles from 1966 to 1969 are collected and reissued, together along with two exclusive 7”s. The first vinyl box set from one of the all-time great psych-pop bands should thrill and enlighten fans in equal measure.

New Land were granted access to the original analogue master tapes courtesy of Rhino / Warner and all tracks were remastered especially for these singles by Grammy-nominated mastering engineer Bill Inglot.

Presented inside a deluxe box with spot-on gloss finish, the eight 7” singles, each featuring unique and original picture sleeves with Elektra-style New Land labels.

The two bonus singles include the previously promotional only ‘Que Vida’ / ‘Hey Joe’ and the newly created ‘Always See Your Face’ / ‘August’ single.

At the centre of this set is a 62-page booklet featuring track-by-track annotation by original guitarist Johnny Echols and in-depth liner notes from Grammy Award-nominated writer Andrew Sandoval. For this package the label have unearthed never-before-seen photographs of the band and included rare posters, singles, original master tapes and more. Every set also comes with a set of two promotional postcards.

Licensed with the blessing of Elektra Records founder and the man who signed Love, Jac Holzman, this is the first time a release has been put together which focuses on the band’s incredible run of singles through the 1960s.

“The musicians known collectively as Love were a group of five uniquely talented individuals... and though the full story of this fascinating cast of characters has yet to be told, this boxset represents a small sample of the body of work produced by this group and has proven to be timeless.” - Johnny Echols.

A must have for any fan, this is the ultimate collector’s item. The music inside shines brighter than ever.

The Brattleboro, Vermont trio THUS LOVE stand together, a bond cemented by their experience as outsiders looking in. For THUS LOVE, DIY is an ethos that reflects not only their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists. From the band’s inception, Echo Mars (she/her), Lu Racine (he/him) and Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and created their own recording studio from scratch. “I realize that most artists don’t live this way,” says Mars. “But for us, it was never really a choice. The art we make is so tied to who we are and the community we’re a part of, that this is the only way we can possibly do it.”

The band was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when everything came to a screeching halt. Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with nothing but YouTube videos and her innate curiosity, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their apartment, recording during odd hours when their next-door neighbors were out and about.

Looking back now, Mars is glad the band decided to forge ahead. “I obviously would never want to go through a pandemic again, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this album would not be coming out in 2022 if we hadn’t had the forced downtime.” Their resulting debut, Memorial, is a stunningly accomplished album. The hallmarks will be unmistakable to anyone who has ever obsessed over classic LPs from indie and post-punk’s progenitors—everything from the chiming, Marr-esque guitars on opener “Repitioner” to the pugnacious rhythmic punch on lead single “In Tandem”. But even more impressive and exciting is how THUS LOVE manage to tap into this celebrated lineage to find their own unique voice and tell their own story.

Ultimately, despite the many difficulties and setbacks, the story of THUS LOVE and Memorial is one of triumph. Of seeking meaning in struggle. Of embracing community and love. Of finding joy in rebirth. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Repetitioner
2. In Tandem
3. Anathema
4. Family Man
5. Morality
6. Friend
7. Pith And Point
8. Crowd
9. Inamorato
10. Memorial 

"Kevin und Sandra" is a strong, technoid, rocking yet poetic introduction to the album. Hypnotic driving synths howling over a stoner rock alike drum beat and a fluid rollin' synth-bass. On top of that Kalaspatz tells the story of a raver couple on their way to a festival. Not much more than a little bag of excstasy pills in their pockets, the guys hoping to earn a little extra, failing grandiosely but ultimately experiencing great things while getting lost in the vortex of that festival night. "Springbrunne" is a great "Rap without Rap" hymn featuring the elegant and relaxed voice of Kayyak. Over a heavy beat he's toastin' about reinventing himself through the splatter of a fountain before Deacon Blues, better known as Seth Troxler, suddenly joining in, droppin' philosophic wisdom while the track slowly but surely rolling down the disco lane - driven by the brass and a walking bass. The titlesong of the new album, "Let Love Rumpel" is an ode to the joy of raving together but and the perfect soundtrack for sunrise. Spending a long night toghether, taking care about each other and then turn the night into day. Kalabrese always regards his music as second- or hidden floor music, going straight to the heart - softly embracing the tipsy and raptured. "Eight Bars" is massive Rumpelfunk, showing that it doesn't need more than a simple bassline and groove to lean back in the spirit of Funk. "Get Up And Try" is the nimble answer towards the exhausting polemic about measures within the pandemic and know-all caprices. A children's choir over a mid tempo house-beat, a beautiful chello by band buddy Dominik Löhrer and the swingin' trumpet, performed by Rumpeljazzer Benjamin Danech, who's immortalizing his big potential on this piece one more time. "Explore Yourself" is a collaboration with the talented newcomer Palma Ada who caused a stir with her vocal contributions on "Let Love Rumpel Pt. 1" already and settled so well in the Rumpelkosmos joining the Rumpelorchester for the recent live shows. Power-Rumpel-Techno, made to shake head and dance the pain away. On point and not a minute too long. "Die Kette feat Zoé Miku" is a powerful and hypnotic mid-tempo balearic house jam. A sunset, somewhere in the Pyrenees, listening to the contemplative vocals of Zoé Miku, who's in fact teaching people on the yoga mat in her daily live but equally enjoys the hazyness of a rave and unfolding on Kalabrese's playground. Free, without blinders or fixed confessions. "Healthy Again feat. Palma Ada" is the defiant statement why she - even as a ex upand- coming fence talent - is currently not able to do her fitness programme efficiently. She rather sings about letting herself go in the moody melancholy of a hangover - backed up by a wonderful brass section. "Middle Of The Night" is a stripped back, lyrical segment - made for lonely taxi rides around midnight and for all people struggling with insomnia. Carefully sculpted sounds, smooth and low bass tones and a captivating simple rhythm. Kala is drifting away in his Rumpelkammer - a truly intimate moment! The next track, "Halftime Blues" is quite the opposite; heavy and slow, a dub without echoes with a slightly dystopic texture to it. Written in dark wintertime, at the climax of the pandemic when a couple of Uber's were the only thing one could spot in the haze of the streets. With "Don't Loose The Center feat. Kayyak" Kalabrese is celebrating the Rumpelfunk again - this time pimped up with a lot of piano and boogie while Kayyak is lifting his voice, really singing for the very first time and prooves why he's matching so well in the Rumpelzirkus without loosing his uniqueness as an artist. Rumpelorchester's bass player Marci Dobozi accidentally delivered the magnificent piano, cluelessly producing a the hook by foolin' around in the studio while Kala's is celebrating the bassline on his beloved Juno 60. It's such a gift that those wonderful creative minds and musicians were able to let loose and just start jamming together during the pandemic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kevin Und Sandra
2. Springbrunne (feat. KAYAK & Deacon Blues)
3. Let Love Rumpel
4. Eight Bars
5. Get Up And Try
6. Explore Yourself
7. Die Kette (feat. Zoé Miku)
8. Healthy Again (feat. Palma Ada)
9. Middle Of The Night
10. Halftime Blues
11. Don't Loose The Center (feat. KAYAK)

For Fans Of Temples, Allah-Las, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Khruangbin, David Axelrod. Each song on Ghost Funk Orchestra's 3rd album, A New Kind of Love, due to be released on Colemine Records … 2022, resonates like the soundtrack to a scene from an imaginary movie. The music could score a romantic drama, an action thriller, or a modern twist on a classic film noir. The spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental orchestrations composed, performed, arranged and produced by multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum, whose latest brainchild was conceived and conceptualized during The Great Pause of 2020, a time of tension, bewilderment and isolation.

Evoking the grooviness of an era which preceded his arrival on earth, Applebaum draws upon sonic devices of mid-century exotica and the succinct but dense arranging style of the leaders of the pop orchestras which dominated the hit parades of the 60s and early 70s. He blends impressions of this bygone era with an expression of his actual experiences as a young filmmaker coming of age in the 21st century, citing influences such as Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas. A New Kind of Love encompasses a reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it. In the tradition of the "production forward" discographies of such record makers as David Axelrod and the Mizell Brothers, it's easy to visualize Applebaum as a "mad doctor" figure, hunkered down in a studio channeling this musical representation of his inner world into the 12 compositions which make up A New Kind of Love.

His writing stretches his psyche to explore a terrain in which to capture emotional notes of love going well, love gone sour, manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. While the studio is obviously a wondrous happy place of experimentation and creativity for Applebaum, he's a band guy too (having actually fronted punk outfit The Mad Doctors). Applebaum has the wherewithal to bring his dreamy material to the 10 piece all star Ghost Funk Orchestra, leading them to breathe life into this sophisticated body of work which heralds the celebration of a new era for the group. Ghost Funk Orchestra will be touring in concert this summer and fall to celebrate the release of A New Kind of Love, an album which is sure to stand the test of time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Introduction
2. Your Man's No Good
3. Scatter
4. Prism
5. Quiet Places
6. A New Kind Of Love (pt. 1)
7. Why?
8. Blockhead
9. A Song For Pearl
10. Bluebell
11. Rooted
12. A New Kind Of Love (pt. 2)

A stone-cold classic conscious Lovers Rock tune from the seminal British reggae group Brown Sugar. ‘I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks’ was originally released in 1977, and is now pressed loud for the first ever time on this new one-off press edition 12” on Soul Jazz Records.

Brown Sugar formed in London in 1976, made up of teenagers Pauline Catlin, Caron Wheeler and Carol Simms. After Brown Sugar, Caron Wheeler became known worldwide as the vocalist in Soul II Soul. Carol Simms launched a successful solo career under the name Kofi.

I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks’ was originally released on the Lovers Rock label, a fledgling reggae label formed by Dennis Bovell, John Kpiaye and producer Dennis Harris.

Brown Sugar were unique - not only were they one of the most important of the first wave of lovers rock groups, they were the only group who managed to successfully blend together a reggae roots consciousness with a lovers rock sensibility.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: One of two loud-cut Soul Jazz reggae twelves this week. The lover's rock classic by Brown Sugar has become of the most enduring tracks of this homegrown sub-genre. Complete with dub version there's simply no better pressing of this currently available!

TRACK LISTING

1. I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks
2. I’m In Love With A Dreadlocks (Version)

The Black Lips return with their 10th studio effort ‘Apocalypse Love’, scorched with their trademark menace, it cryogenically mutates all recognised musical bases; it spins yarns about vintage Soviet synths, Benzedrine stupors, coup de’ tats, stolen valor and certified destruction, all set against a black setting sun. Since the turn of the decade the band have transformed from austere country pioneers, into a set of Lynchian surrealists, hellbent on recalibrating the history of rock ‘n’ roll. Singer and saxophonist Zumi Rosow muses, “It’s a weird dance record, one that reflects the moment that the world’s in right now…”

‘Apocalypse Love’ is an album that emanates from a dive bar jukebox in the back of your mind; with a playlist that bends between tub thumping doom-glam, Plastic Ono singalongs, cocktail-shaken space age pop, Morricone reverberations and lo-fi outsider acoustic-punk, with mariachi horns, theremins, drum machines and harmonies filtering through the infectious melodies. Stand-out number ‘Among The Dunes’ is an amorphous platform-heeled anthem, a signature sax-fuelled stomper filled with trippy swagger. While opener ‘No Rave’ proffers a hypnotic locked groove, with Cole Alexander’s trademark snarl delivered over a sulphurous wall of distorted hedonism, a dystopian anthem for an apocalyptic manifesto. Meanwhile, the twisted exotica of ‘Whips Of Holly’ with its silver screen façade is like the soundtrack to a classic Theda Bara vamp-fest. As the band venture into their third decade, ‘Apocalypse Love’ is proof that The Black Lips show no sign of slowing down…

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: 10th album from Atlanta outfit Black Lips, 'Apocalypse Love' is a self-proclaimed "weird dance record" - and I'm inclined to agree. It's scuzzy, twisted and has a strange but also sincere innocence to it - like a school disco in the Red Room from Twin Peaks.

TRACK LISTING

A1. No Rave
A2. Love Has Won
A3. Stolen Valor
A4. Lost Angel
A5. Whips Of Holly
A6. Apocalypse Love
A7. Operation Angela.
B1. Crying On A Plane
B2. Sharing My Cream
B3. Among The Dunes
B4. Tongue Tied
B5. Antiaris Toxicaria
B6. The Concubine 

With his third album as Peel Dream Magazine, Joseph Stevens beckons you toward a fabulist, zig-zag world entirely of his own design. On ‘Pad’, he eschews the fuzzy glories of his indie pop past – vibraphone trembles while chamber strings take center stage. The curtains lift to reveal banjo. Chimes. Farfisa. And as he lets out a moan atop the album’s title track, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary performance. A conceptual work about losing oneself when all they have is themself, ‘Pad’ gestures towards an exciting new future for Stevens’ pop moniker by reimagining its own very existence.

The follow-up to 2020’s breakthrough album ‘Agitprop Alterna’, ‘Pad’ presents a major sonic evolution for the 34 year old songwriter, who moved to Los Angeles amid the cataclysm that same year. Seventies era drum machines and synthesizers remain here, but he’s traded his buzzing offset guitar for a nylon-string, opting for a gentle baroque pop sound steeped in Bossa, folk, and its own eerie mysticism. Alongside mid century touchstones like Burt Bacharach, Stevens draws on the cultishly-beloved tinkerings of late-1960s Beach Boys, offering a surreal melange of vintage organs and found percussion, as well as Harry Nilsson’s 1970 song tapestry ‘The Point!’.

And similar to ‘The Point!’, ‘Pad’ is a conceptual work reflecting on isolation and identity. The album tells a bedtime story in which Stevens’ bandmates kick him out of Peel Dream Magazine – banished and now without purpose, he sets out on a journey to rejoin the band. Misadventures ensue, such as when he joins a cult on “Self Actualization Center”, featuring friend and oft collaborator Winter. But this is also music that’s purely pleasurable in its own context, as our protagonist explores the boundaries of easy-listening with discordant textures, and bleeps and bloops that tickle. Songs like “Pictionary” chime delicately with sinister intent, evoking a palette that is outright Mod. ‘Pad’ also recalls the space age bachelor stylings of Stereolab and The High Llamas, with an occult twist that borrows from Tropicalia legends Os Mutantes.

There’s an unmoored frivolity to ‘Pad’, standing in stark contrast to the severe, droning motorik of Steven’s previous albums. Overwhelmed by the political upheaval of the day, he reimagines what Van Dyke Parks once referred to as musical counter-counterculturalism, blurring the line between blithe escapism and pointed subversion. “I felt like there was no other way for me to authentically react to what was happening than to make this record”. The album also draws on library music from the same era to similar effect, conjuring the likes of Basil Kirchin and Pierro Piccioni, as well as Stevens’ newfound arranging skills, honed composing advertisement scores as a day job.

While ‘Pad’ sounds beautiful, there’s a certain darkness to it as well. Stevens is addressing our general ambivalence toward the future of everything we know, informed partly by his time in New York at the onset of the pandemic. On “Hiding Out”, he laments: Wander past the Vernon Mall, and up to Queensboro Bridge. Made to feel I’m two feet small, but that’s no way to live. Ultimately, Stevens is embracing a first-thought-best-thought approach, leaning into the fantastical elements of his own life story. ‘Pad’ is as archetypal as it is strange, blurring the very lines that it asks to be defined by. Art imitates life, but life imitates art too – and the results can sometimes be unpredictable.

TRACK LISTING

Not In The Band
Pad
Pictionary
Wanting And Waiting
Self-Actualisation Centre
Walk Around The Block
Hamlet
Penelope’s Suitors
Hiding Out
Jennifer Hindsight
Reiki
La Sol
Message The Manager
Roll In The Hay
Back In The Band

A new compilation series kicks off with an absolutely belting double LP that features a selection of hard-to-find records (some impossible to find) and some that have been hiding in plain sight all along.

They all share common qualities, being that they are beautiful, soul quenched songs that sing of love, peace and unity."With Love: Volume 1" has been compiled by Miche and presents a curated selection of rare Brazilian, gospel, modern soul and jazz-fusion fire. We have Brazilian rarities by Alcione and Quientaessencia, UFO gospel by Keith Chism & Light, the jazz-funk / AOR sounds of City Lites taken from a Radio Station album, and the anthemic feel-good emotional soul of Belita Woods to name but a few.

Tracking down artists and musicians from the past is an art form. Like a seagull swooping for treats, sometimes the prizes are easily found, and at other times, it's the result of very late nights trolling through Facebook profiles, message boards, hitting dead ends and following red herrings, and yet still the search goes on. This compilation is a true labour of love with all the artists tracked down and licensed by Miche. It has long been an ambition of the London based musical connoisseur to compile an album, and like anything that requires craft, care, and knowledge - it takes time. There are many twists and turns in the hunt for those records that make your jaw drop.

A sublime selection of glorious modern soul, Brazilian rare gems and groovefuelled gospel. Featuring hard-to-find records, some impossible to find, and some that have been hiding in plain sight all along.

TRACK LISTING

South Funk Blvd. - Skying High (Getting Off On Your Lovin')
Ad Libs - Don't Need No Fortune Teller
Atlantis - Hung Up About You
Smoke Inc. - Waitin' For Love
Mandisa - Summer Love
City Lites - Now You've Gone Away
Papaya - Favela
Alcione - Este Mundo Tem
Quintaessencia - Serrado
Superior Elevation - It Was September
Keith Chism & Light - My Life And Song
Belita Woods - Magic Corner
Spare Hare - Ain't No Doubt About It
Sammy Acuna - Never Found A Girl
Sweet Mixture - House Of Fun And Love

• Long awaited new album from The House Of Love .

• The sequel to 2013’s ‘She Paints Words In Red’, ‘A State Of Grace’ was written and recorded by the band’s lynchpin Guy Chadwick between COVID lockdowns.

• Following hot on the heels of the 8CD Box Set of The House Of Love’s Fontana recordings from the early 90s, ‘Burn Down The World'.

Guy says: “It is the best set of songs I have written for years and the pandemic ironically gave me the time and space to develop and arrange the songs.” The album was recorded with a new line - up, originally put together for an American 30th Anniversary to ur, now rescheduled for October. In the current line - up, Guy (lead vocals/guitar) is joined by Keith Osborne (lead guitar), Hugo Degenhardt (drums) and Harry Osborne (bass).

‘A State Of Grace’ is an eclectic collection of tracks, from the driving, grungy ‘Clouds’ to the eerie, atmospheric groove of ‘Sweet Loser’, the riffy powerful ballad ‘In My Mind’ and the folksy finale, ‘Just One More Song’. This is the first time the band’s recordings have featured instruments such as harp, pedal and lap steel guitar, banjo and violin, all adding to the unique guitar sounds we’ve come to know and love from The House of Love.

The album was recorded at Pett Sounds and mixed by Babe Rainbow ’s Warne Livesey . Keeping it in the family, a promo 16mm video has been filmed by Guy’s nephew and Godson, George Moore - Chadwick. 

TRACK LISTING

Sweet Loser
Light Of The Morning
Melody Rose
Clouds
Into The Laughter
Hey Babe
Sweet Water
Queen Of Song
In My Mind
A State Of Grace
Dice Are Rolling
Just One More Song

Sounding simultaneously from the past, the present, and the future, the debut album 'MLDE' by Marxist Love Disco Ensemble seeks to eradicate both the trite from disco and the sobriety from political music.

Half poetic, half tongue-in-cheek, this stunning compact eight-track album is infuenced by Eastern European and Mediterranean 70s disco records.

In the words of band member Paolo, ''it was written in response to hearing 'I love America' by Patrick Juvet. The song prompted the question: why does disco, a genre originally created by oppressed minorities, eventually become synonymous with American capitalist excess?" MLDE seeks to break this connection.

Merging disco, post-disco 80s pop, and boogie into the fold, 'MLDE' was recorded using only analogue instruments, giving it warmth and space. Recorded on cassette, ¼ and ½ inch tape, this gives moments of lo-fi abstraction between the beats of an aggressive, tight drum kit. Instruments used for this recording range from saxophone, trumpet, harpsichord, guitar, and rare analogue synthesisers. The bass sound is shaped by early 80s boogie records, whilst the influence of artists such as Hamlet Minassian can be heard in some of MLDE's more driving disco outings, such as 'Hues of Red'. In the tradition of Soviet vocal group records, which the band has studied, some songs are sung by a vocal quartet in homage to this tradition.

The format and message of pop and disco are commonly viewed just to entertain and move bodies around a dancefloor; however, lyrically, the subjects range from dialectical and historical materialism, class struggle, Marxist theory and praxis, as well as the concept of Marxist disco music.

Adding the icing to the cake, mastering don Joker aka Liam McLean dusted the album with his magic, giving the songs space where the room is needed, as well as the kick and punch demanded by the modern dancefloor.

Recorded using only analogue instruments and mastered by Joker

TRACK LISTING

1. Dust
2. Brumaire
3. Material
4. Manifesto
5. 1905
6. Hues Of Red
7. Hide And Seek
8. Engineers

London-based duo Jockstrap (Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye) will release their hotly-anticipated debut full-length record I Love You Jennifer B via Rough Trade Records.

Commenting on the album release, Jockstrap’s Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye said: “I Love You Jennifer B is a collection of Jockstrap tracks that have been 3 years in the making. Everything on it is pretty singular sounding so we hope there is a track on there for everyone and something that speaks to you and says ‘I’m a banger.’” Skye added of ‘Glasgow’ (their new single): “‘Glasgow’ is our coming of age, moving forward, long-distance, travelling, beautiful bosk, wonderful thicket song.” And Ellery said of the song’s subject: “Glasgow is a great city, perhaps my favourite in the UK! Only downside is that it’s so damn cold all the time.”

When Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye make music as Jockstrap, the process and result has one definition: pure modern pop alchemy. With their debut album I Love You Jennifer B, Jockstrap will cement themselves as one of the most vital young groups to emerge from London’s melting pot of musical cultures in years.

TRACK LISTING

Neon
Jennifer B
Greatest Hits
What’s It All About?
Concrete Over Water
Angst
Debra
Glasgow
Lancaster Court
50/50 (Extended)

It’s nearing a decade since William Doyle released his Mercury Music Prize nominated debut album, Total Strife Forever, as East India Youth in 2014. A year later, he had toured the world and was releasing his second album, Culture of Volume, but it would be another four years before Doyle returned with his third full album, and the first official release under his own name. The dizzyingly ambitious Your Wilderness Revisited arrived in 2019 and was followed last year by the artpop masterpiece, Great Spans of Muddy Time.

In the years between leaving the old project behind and re-emerging under his own name, Doyle self-released a string of ambient-leaning albums, The Dream Derealised, Lightnesses Vol I & II and Near Future Residence, which are now to receive a first vinyl pressing via Tough Love as both a highly limited four LP box set, titled ‘Slowly Arranged: 2016-19’, and as separate albums.

The Dream Derealised is a collection of nine abstract, lo-fi pieces that were recorded during the summer of 2016, when focusing on creating them helped guide Doyle through a “difficult period of anxiety, panic and a regular dissociative feeling called derealisation.” At the time, doing something creative in a quick and immediate fashion felt vital to Doyle, carrying him to a new place: “I’m releasing them now as a cathartic measure, and as a message for others who may be going through difficult times themselves. What I told myself at the time, what I can tell you now: You are not in danger. You are not going insane. You are not alone.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Seeing Spectral
2. Everything Tilted
3. Flexford Looping
4. A Silence Of Vision
5. Derealisation LKX
6. I No Longer Knew What To Do
7. Field Open Wide
8. Don’t Get Carried Away
9. All To Be Footnotes 

It’s nearing a decade since William Doyle released his Mercury Music Prize nominated debut album, Total Strife Forever, as East India Youth in 2014. A year later, he had toured the world and was releasing his second album, Culture of Volume, but it would be another four years before Doyle returned with his third full album, and the first official release under his own name. The dizzyingly ambitious Your Wilderness Revisited arrived in 2019 and was followed last year by the artpop masterpiece, Great Spans of Muddy Time.

In the years between leaving the old project behind and re-emerging under his own name, Doyle self-released a string of ambient-leaning albums, The Dream Derealised, Lightnesses Vol I & II and Near Future Residence, which are now to receive a first vinyl pressing via Tough Love as both a highly limited four LP box set, titled ‘Slowly Arranged: 2016-19’, and as separate albums.

Lightnesses Vol. I & II sees Doyle create what we might understand as true ambient music – that is, music intended for the background that wasn’t composed as such, but allowed to blossom out of the setting of some rules and parameters, played by sounds he created and then resampled. The deceptively simple, droning pieces are unlike anything Doyle has made before or since. “During their creation I’d often take photographs of the light coming in through the windows of the two houses I lived in during their creation. I’d post these on social media and they became quite popular parts of my output. This music was intended to accompany those visuals. The first volume’s photo is a double exposure of the sun shining in on my notebook and my hand, whereas the photo for the second volume was taken in Joshua Tree Park, California as I saw our tail lights illuminate one of the trees.”

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1)
1. Aisles Of White
2. Number Of Harmony,
Disc 2)
3. History Of Change
4. Winter Of Fullness

It’s nearing a decade since William Doyle released his Mercury Music Prize nominated debut album, Total Strife Forever, as East India Youth in 2014. A year later, he had toured the world and was releasing his second album, Culture of Volume, but it would be another four years before Doyle returned with his third full album, and the first official release under his own name. The dizzyingly ambitious Your Wilderness Revisited arrived in 2019 and was followed last year by the artpop masterpiece, Great Spans of Muddy Time.

In the years between leaving the old project behind and re-emerging under his own name, Doyle self-released a string of ambient-leaning albums, The Dream Derealised, Lightnesses Vol I & II and Near Future Residence, which are now to receive a first vinyl pressing via Tough Love as both a highly limited four LP box set, titled ‘Slowly Arranged: 2016-19’, and as separate albums.

Near Future Residence is music for an imagined place based on real ideas; the soundtrack for an ecologically sustainable housing development somewhere in a not-too-distant future Britain. The eleven instrumental pieces here come from a place of optimism, imagining a future that is based on cooperation, community and ecological urbanism. It's music intended to sit in this imagined environment rather than impose upon it, similar in principle to the function of Kankyō Ongaku (Japanese environmental music). The ideas contained on Near Future Residence laid the groundwork for - and can be seen as a companion piece to - the album Your Wilderness Revisited, released to critical acclaim in 2019. Doyle explains how the pieces “were composed in entirely generative ways using samples of instruments, synthesisers and field recordings I've collected and developed throughout 2018. In generative composition, rules are set and parameters are chosen and then put into motion, the results constantly changing and surprising.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Flexford Forest Community Choir
2. Cadence Gardens, 2026
3. Sightings At Tangmere Close
4. Music For The 3rd Floor Atrium
5. Rose Building Improv Group
6. Next Door’s Granular Band Practice
7. Hocombe Astral Projection Society (Abridged)
8. New European Optimism
9. Derwenthorpe Rainwater Harvest
10. Municipal Harmonics
11. Near Future Residence

This collection highlights You Can Dance, Madonna’s first ever remix collection. Celebrating 35 years this year, You Can Dance has sold more than five million copies worldwide and is still the second best-selling remix album of all time. The collection also pays homage to “Everybody,” Madonna’s first single. Each remix was newly remastered for the collection by Mike Dean, who produced Madonna’s two most-recent studio albums, Rebel Heart (2015) and Madame X (2019). Along with those rarities, this album also introduces the “Offer Nissim Promo Mix” of “Living For Love” as its first official release.

TRACK LISTING

1. “Everybody” (You Can Dance Remix Edit) +#
2. “Into The Groove” (You Can Dance Remix Edit) +#
3. “Like A Prayer” (Remix/Edit)
4. “Express Yourself” (Remix/Edit)
5. “Vogue” (Single Version) +
6. “Deeper And Deeper” (David’s Radio Edit) +#
7. “Secret” (Junior’s Luscious Single Mix)
8. “Frozen” (Extended Club Mix Edit)
9. “Music” (Deep Dish Dot Com Radio Edit)
10. “Hollywood” (Calderone & Quayle Edit) +#
11. “Hung Up” (SDP Extended Vocal Edit)
12. “Give It 2 Me” (Eddie Amador Club 5 Edit) °+
13. “Girl Gone Wild” (Avicii’s UMF Mix)
14. “Living For Love” (Offer Nissim Promo Mix) *+
15. “Medellín” (Offer Nissim Madame X In The Sphinx Mix) – Madonna And Maluma
16. “I Don’t Search I Find” (Honey Dijon Radio Mix)

* Previously Unreleased
+available Digitally For The First Time
# Available Commercially For The First Time

Easily one of the most important records ever made, this was Coltrane's pinnacle studio outing that spoke of his search for spiritual and musical freedom, as expressed through polyrhythms, modalities, and purely vertical forms. Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, it became an instant best-seller and received a Grammy nomination. It remains one of the greatest albums ever recorded, and in 2021 was certified platinum by the RIAA for sales of 1 million albums in the U.S. The achievement garners Coltrane his first-ever platinum record and is the first jazz album of the 1960s to receive platinum status, underscoring its enduring legacy and importance.

Arrested Development deliver 'For the FKN Love', a true hip-hop tour de force, once again executively produced by charismatic veteran frontman Speech and British production maestro Configa. Significantly, it marks the first time that Arrested Development have worked with equally legendary collaborators, making this their biggest ever release. Big Daddy Kane, The Sugarhill Gang, Masta Ace, Freddie Foxxx, Monie Love, Kxng Crooked, G. Love, Tony Momrelle (Incognito), Dee-1 and Fatman Scoop all feature. Legends of this calibre rarely do features and yet have graced this album. Arrested Development have always been dedicated to supporting up-and-coming talent, and this trend continues with the likes of Twan Mack, Dell-P, Lish, Ke'Andra, 4ize, Twisted Royalty, Cleveland P. Jones, MRK SX and Jahah all adding weight to proceedings. When it comes to boom bap and classic rap, few artists come close to Arrested Development.

TRACK LISTING

Yes Always
Building From The Bottom
Never Had Your Back
Swing Um
Thank You
Bout It
UNI(TY)
I Don't Care
Do It Up
Where Lions Roam
We Are Not In Kansas
Be Refreshed
Grandma's Southern Ways
We Feeling It All
Vibe
I Want U 2 Make It
Have Your Moment

Friendship’s Merge debut, Love the Stranger, moves like a country record skipping in just the right spot, leaving its fellow travelers longing for a place they’ve only visited in their dreams. Guitarist Peter Gill, drummer Michael Cormier-O’Leary, bassist Jon Samuels, and hawkeyed balladeer Dan Wriggins map out the group’s particular, breathtaking landscape and invite the listener to share in its glory.

Love the Stranger’s invitation is all the more wondrous because its characters have clearly been hurt before. “I need solitude and I also need you,” Wriggins reckons in “Ugly Little Victory.”

Wide awake, vulnerable, and gimmickless, Friendship won’t hesitate to confide in us, or even ask for help when the moment calls, like on the lyrical centerpiece of “Alive Twice”: Under your eyeball spell, I was losing myself/ Not in the good way you used to talk about / I remember a day, Cedar Park Cafe/ I was in a bad place and you set me straight/ With your on-the-nose advice.

Between instrumental pit stops at “Kum & Go” and “Quickchek,” local references in Love the Stranger create a catalog of human perception, presented as roadside attractions. From grape jelly residue (“Ramekin”) to the site of a demolished cathedral (“St. Bonaventure”) to King of the Hill quotations (“Smooth Pursuit”), the record’s images craft a symbolic language of high and low Americana, both evocative and consistently accessible. Spending time with Love the Stranger creates a community one in which the window between the listener and the music[1]maker shatters in full, until all that remains are the fragments you decide to pick up together.

Like its sprawling lyrical references, Love the Stranger’s production is both familiar and capacious enough for pedal steel, synth strings, airy folk guitar field recordings, and MIDI pad exploration to work in vital harmony. Influenced by Friendship’s punk and indie peers as much as road-star forebears like Lucinda Williams and Lambchop, Wriggins says of the recording sessions: “We all got to stretch out, chase our personal musical fixations, and build on each others’ work.

Bradford Krieger, our engineer at Big Nice Studio, has a mind-blowing creative energy and hundreds (thousands?) of instruments.” He recalls further: “I wanted the album to sound like Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band in the ’70s. Pete wanted it to sound like a semi full of spent fuel rods, barreling towards a runaway truck ramp. Jon kept reminding us that the studio is an instrument, and Michael wanted it to sound like the breakdown two-and-a-half minutes into Shuggie Otis’ ‘Strawberry Letter 23.’”

Some breakdowns, however, are irreparable. Wriggins, a manual laborer and poet, calls “Hank” “a song about when you go to fix something that’s broken and realize the tools you’re supposed to fix it with are also broken.” Form follows function on the mesmerizing outro of the single, which buzzes with the sound of a shoddy Craigslist guitar from Woonsocket, RI (incidentally, the home of the Museum of Work & Culture) getting chainsawed in two. Friendship is probably already your favorite band’s favorite band, a long-revered IYKYK of DIY with a devoted cult following from Wawa to In-N-Out. With Love the Stranger, the Friendship universe only continues to expand and grow more open-hearted, more inviting, with every passing note. It’s a record that locates the listener exactly where the listener is, and wherever that may be, makes a friend out of them, too. All said and done, the age-old maxim of “Mr. Chill” holds true: “You be real with me and I’ll be real with you”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1 St. Bonaventure
2 What’s The Move
3 Blue Canoe
4 Hank
5 Chomp Chomp
6 Love’s
7 No Way
8 Alive Twice
SIDE B
9 Quickchek
10 Ramekin
11 Mr. Chill
12 UDF
13 Ryde
14 Season
15 Kum & Go
16 Ugly Little Victory
17 Smooth Pursuit

Jackie Leven is celebrated as one of the world’s most prolific and accomplished singer songwriters. His recordings encompassed everything from folk to Celtic soul, driving rock to lyrical ballads. He passed away 10 years ago this November but the legend of this uniquely talented artist grows every year as more and more people discover and celebrate his remarkable catalogue of recordings.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. The Crazy Song
2. Clay Jug
3. Shadow In My Eyes
4. Farm Boy
5. The Garden
6. Call Mother A Lonely Field

Disc: 2
1. Snow In Central Park
2. Gylen Gylen
3. Looking For Love
4. I Say A Little Prayer
5. Heartsick Land
6. Bars Of Dundee

Blue Note Re:imagined returns this year with a new 16-track compilation featuring fresh takes on music from the illustrious Blue Note vaults recorded by a heavyweight line-up of the UK jazz, soul and R&B scene’s most hotly-tipped rising stars. This 7” single features two covers from the upcoming album, from Ego Ella May and Theon Cross. Arriving off the back of the widespread international success of the first volume, which topped jazz charts around the globe, Blue Note Re:imagined II once again infuses the spirit of the new UK jazz generation into the legendary label’s iconic catalogue, balancing the genre’s tradition with its future and reflecting the melting pot of talent and diversity within the current scene.

Includes his duet with Charlotte Gainsbourg…

TRACK LISTING

A1 Who Loves Ya (Coup D'état)
B1 Twice Shy
B2 Ain't There No One?

The follow up to his 2017 album, Produced With Love II is a collection of brand new songs from one of the UK’s most longstanding, respected and fiercely independent artists. In a flash-in-the-pan industry like music, Dave Lee’s career is notable for both its longevity and consistency. As a record producer and remixer, DJ and curator, he’s now clocked up well over 30 years and, if such things existed, would be nailed on for a carriage clock for long service to add to the numerous hits and landmarks he’s enjoyed over a storied career.

His latest album, Produced With Love II, continues the work he started with 2017’s superb collection. Incorporating aspects of house, soul and disco and crafted with the attention to detail you’d expect from someone of Lee’s heritage and calibre, Produced With Love II comprises 12 brand new songs and will arrive in June 2022.

The writing process has always remained the same and Dave has always preferred to work face-to-face with artists whenever possible – albeit with a few enforced remote sessions due to the pandemic. Released as the lead single from the album in April, Starlight sees Lee team up with Omar: a former principal percussionist of the Kent Youth Orchestra and later a graduate of the Guildhall School Of Music who was awarded an MBE in 2012 for services to music. Starlight is a gorgeous, mid-tempo dance record, with Omar’s silky vocals backed up with rich production: soaring live strings, groove-laden clav and synth over a chugging bassline creating a heady, inviting atmosphere.

It’s an almost viscerally life-affirming record: a theme that continues throughout the entire album. Take a track like ‘If You Ever Need Somebody feat. Tiffany T’zelle', or ‘Taste My Love' with vocals from the aforementioned Billy Valentine. These songs would stand toe-to-toe with any soul standard from the 70s or 80s: to have production this rich and bold in 2022 isn’t far short of miraculous. And that’s what you get throughout Produced With Love II – an attention to detail and level of creative collaboration rarely seen. It’s why a Dave Lee album is a rare thing. These things take time, but when they do come along, it’s something worth treasuring

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Modern supremo Dave Lee refuses to retire from his console; rolling out another jam packed and unmissable selection of disco, boogie, soul and house - all new productions and featuring a wealth of talent old and new. Don't need to tell you how collectable this series is do I?!

TRACK LISTING

CD 

Disc 1:
1. Raw Essence Feat Lifford “Do It Again”
2 .Mistura Feat Tiffany T’zelle “If You Ever Need Somebody”
3. Dave & Omar “Starlight”
4. Dave & Maurissa “Look At The Stars”
5. Dave Lee Feat Billy Valentine “Taste My Love”
6. Mistura Feat Jemini “Want Me Back”
7. The Sunburst Band “Magnificent Mango”
8. Foreal People Feat Xan Blacq “Raise A Blaze”
9. The Sunburst Band Feat Angela Johnson “Face The Love”
10. Dave Lee Feat Billy Valentine “Power Of The Mind” (Power Trip Mix)
11. Jayenne Feat. Gina Carey – “Love Walked In The Room”
12. The Sunburst Band “Let’s Do It In Style”

Disc 2:
1. Leroy Burgess – “One Plus One” (Dave Lee Extended Mix)
2. Kokomo – “Use Your Imagination” (Dave Lee Re Imagined Mix)
3. Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (Dave Lee Philly World Mix)
4. Str4ta “After The Rain” (Dave Lee Alternative II Mix)
5. Destiny II “Play 2 Win” (Dave Lee Destination Boogie Mix)
6. Sunburst Band Feat Wayne Hernandez “Listen Love” (Dave Lee Jazz Funk Renaissance Mix)
7. Prospect Park “Shake It Up Tonight” (Dave Lee Disco Re Shake)
8. The Vison Feat Andreya Triana “Mountains” (Dave Lee Live And Direct Extended Mix)
9. Roland Wrightangle Feat Darcus “In Your Blood” (Dave Lee Funk In Your Blood Mix)
10. Ja’Shay “Shout Hallelujah” (Dave Lee Redemption Mix)

LP

Disc 1:
A1. Dave & Omar – Starlight
A2. Jayenne Feat. Gina Carey - Love Walked In The Room
B1. Foreal People Feat. Xan Blacq - Raise A Blaze.
B2. Mistura Feat. Jemini - Want Me Back

Disc 2:
C1 Dave Lee Feat. Billy Valentine - Taste My Love
C2 Mistura Feat. Tiffany T'Zelle - If You Ever Need Somebody
C3 The Sunburst Band Feat. Angela Johnson - Face The Love.
D1 Raw Essence Feat. Lifford - Do It Again
D2 Dave Lee Feat. Billy Valentine - Power Of The Mind (Power Trip Mix)
D3 The Sunburst Band - Let's Do It In Style

Bonus 12”:
E1 Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes - Don't Leave Me This Way (Dave Lee Philly World Mix)
F1 Kokomo - Use Your Imagination (Dave Lee Re-Imagined Mix)

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

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

Mixing old school blues and folk with new school hip-hop and funk, G. Love’s electrifying new album, Philadelphia Mississippi, brings together both sides of the genre-bending pioneer’s eclectic career in a wildly innovative and deeply reverent sonic pilgrimage to the heart of the South. Produced by North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther Dickinson, the collection is loose and spontaneous, full of joyful, improvised performances and freewheeling collaborations with a slew of special guests including blues torchbearers like Alvin Youngblood Hart and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and rap icons like Schoolly D and Speech. It would have been easy for G. Love to play it safe coming off his GRAMMY-nominated 2020 release, The Juice, but Philadelphia Mississippi is perhaps his most adventurous collection to date, ditching all the rules as it experiments with form and function in an ecstatic celebration of music’s power to connect across genres and generations. Born Garrett Dutton in Philadelphia, PA, G. Love first broke out in the early ’90s with his band, Special Sauce, on their strength of their Gold-selling self-titled debut. Over the next three decades, he would go on to release seven more critically acclaimed albums with Special Sauce (plus five on his own), become a fixture on festival lineups from Bonnaroo to Lollapalooza, and collaborate on the road and in the studio with artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Dave Matthews, The Avett Brothers, Jack Johnson, Keb’ Mo’, and DJ Logic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Love From Philly (feat. Schoolly D & Chuck Treece)
2. Mississippi (feat. Alvin Youngblood Hart, R.L. Boyce & Speech)
3. My Ball (feat. Freddie Foxxx & Jontavious Willis)
4. Guitar Man (feat. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram)
5. Kickin' (feat. Chuck Treece & Lady Alma)
6. HipHopHarpin' (feat. Alvin Youngblood Hart)
7. Laughing In The Sunshine
8. I Ain't Living (feat. Tikyra Jackson)
9. Lemonades (feat. Cam Kimbrough, Luther Dickinson & Chuck Treece)
10. If My Mind Don't Change (feat. Sharde Thomas)
11. Sauce Up! (feat. Trenton Ayers)
12. The Philly Sound
13. Shouts Out (feat. Trenton Ayers & R.L. Boyce)

The ever shape-shifting, critically hailed Hercules and Love Affair return with ‘In Amber’, their first album in five years, out 17th June and featuring first single ‘Grace’ as well as collaborations with Anohni.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hercules & Love Affair's latest somewhat eschews the dancefloor in favour of an altogether more dramatic selection of pieces ranging from orchestral pop to shimmering downbeat and avant synth, all bolstered by Anohni's superb vocal prowess. It's a bold departure from the previous outings but clearly still sits within Hercules' sound world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Grace
2. One
3. You’ve Won This War
4. Christian Prayers
5. Dissociation
6. Contempt For You
7. Gates Of Separation
8. Killing His Family
9. Who Will Save Us?
10. The Eyes Of The Father
11. Poisonous Storytelling
12. Repent

‘Love Is Yours’, the new album from Flasher, out on Domino, steps up the ambition and reaches for the horizon.

The new record is ablaze with mood, melody, and carefully threaded hooks, finding the band foregrounding the pop sensibilities that had always been present in their previous releases. It retains the attitude that was fundamental to the band’s DIY roots, but cuts loose a touch of the angst.

Though the songs process disillusionment and loss, the music evokes warmth and optimism. It is their best record and also their most generous.

Now a duo, guitarist Mulitz and drummer Emma Baker had to reimagine Flasher’s voice. ‘Love Is Yours’ was recorded in Washington, D.C. with long-time friend Owen Wuerker. Rather than binding the duo to its past - to geography, old habits, or trusted sounds - the familiar environment proved liberating. Working out of Wuerker’s well-appointed homestudio allowed inspiration to arrive off deadline. With no shows in sight, Flasher could relax on presenting as a ‘rock’ band.

TRACK LISTING

I Saw You
Love Is Yours
Little Things
Nothing
Spell It Out
Still Life
All Day Long
I'm Better
Sideways
Pink
Damage
Dial Up
Tangerine

First time (commercially available) 12" pressing of this seminal UK house production. Originally released in 1989. For fans of Dream 2 Science / Sha-Lor, Virgo etc... TIP!

'The United Kingdom has long been an ardent supporter and consumer of African-American music. Dating back to the electrifying earliest performances of blues artists like Big Bill Broonzy during the early 1950s – an influence on Eric Clapton and John Lennon – right through to the dawn of Chicago house and onwards. In fan clubs, like the Tamla Motown Appreciation Society, started by soul writer Dave Godin, to the numerous fan magazines that have documented dance music culture from Blues & Soul to Mixmag, there has been an extended obsession with black music culture.

This lineage continued into the house era, our generation’s defining dance genre, and one with which British producers were swift to adopt. This record is a prime example of this. Although Mother Tongue was a one-off project, its history is rooted in this long-standing culture stretching back decades. The main man behind Mother Tongue was a drummer and record producer named Richie Stevens. Stevens was steeped in music and the industry, thanks to his father, John Stevens, also a professional drummer. Stevens senior played in numerous jazz ensembles during the 1960s and onwards, including performing with Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and was a session player with John Martyn (among numerous others) during Martyn’s finest period (it’s John’s drumming you can hear on ‘Big Muff’).

His son, Richie, was playing professionally while still a teenager for the Dennis Bovell Dub Band and has subsequently backed everyone from Tina Turner and Simply Red to Hugh Masekela and George Clinton. He is also a long-term collaborator with Boy George. But the story of Mother Tongue begins with a band called Well Red. This group, effectively a studio creation by Richie and his then manager Martin Poole, recruited vocalist Lorenzo Hall, a fixture on the London reggae scene and sold the concept to Virgin Records. Well Red yielded two albums – Motion and Respect Due – but never really got the crossover success their songs perhaps deserved. “Virgin were very supportive of us,” recalls Poole, today. “They gave us a lot of money. They pumped money into it, and it never quite paid off, but we did okay. We recouped and got to make a second album with George Clinton. It was a good move, recording with him. It did us a lot of good here and in America. We did pretty well in the US. We were very well-supported over there.”

This same team, working in a tiny studio near Richie’s house in Wood Green, north London, called The Watershed, produced ‘Message Is Love’. It features the vocals of Syn-Dee (Sindy Finn) and Lovebase (Louise Porter), who co-wrote the track with Richie and Alan Lane, another Stevens collaborator, and Ian ‘Spy’ Austin, who’d previously played in the same reggae band, The Instigators, as Lorenzo Hall from Well Red. “Remember it well,” says Martin Poole. “We were just writing it there and then in the studio. It was me, Richie, Spy, and I think Syn-Dee was there as well. When I got home later, Richie played it to me over the phone and I said, ‘That just sounds brilliant,’ from how we'd started it off, you know?” Thanks to their experience in the studio with Well Red, they managed to produce a song that has the timeless feel of all good music.

Mother Tongue was the opening track on a compilation called On The Loose Volume 1 on their own Furious Fish Records. Every track on the album, despite having different artist credits, was done by Stevens and Poole, often using a rotating cast of characters that had also appeared on ‘Message Of Love’. Although it did not sell especially well at the time, it’s become a collector’s item over the years. This is the first time Mother Tongue has appeared as a 12-inch single, a long overdue (but very welcome) happening.'

(Notes by Bill Brewster)

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Well mined deep house greatness; Rush Hour excavating "Message Is Love" from the gold seams of UK dance music. Obviously indebted to Chicago, it's an early and brilliant example cross-pollination and adoption from our fertile soils.

TRACK LISTING

Message Is Love
Message Is Love (Edit)

Love Record Stores Edition, limited to one per person.


Heavenly Recordings reissue of this hidden gem from Liverpool duo The Sand Band. Originally released in 2011 on Deltasonic, it's a collection of beautifully textured home studio recordings. Wonderful, warm, melodic songs for fans of Michael Head, Shack, The Coral.

As a DJ, producer and person, Mas O Menos founder Levi Love is larger than life. As anyone who’s been swept up in the raw energy of one of his many Manchester-wide bar or club residencies knows, the South African-born, northwest-based crate digger picks and makes music that celebrates the fulness of our existence.

What happens when that beaming light is confronted by death, though? It’s a question Levi found himself forced to answer on his new cassette "A Tribute To Magriza", made in response to the passing of the primary figure in his life: his mother.

Setting about creating a deeply personal LP of afro-tinged, spiritual-leaning deep house; Levi Love utilizes all the heavy emotion and successfully forges something positive and affirming out of the darkness. Beginning with a recording of his mother's vocal choir, we're then taken in by the reflective "A Thought For My Mother...." which somehow manages to be both simultaneously uplifting and melancholy. "Commonality of being human" sees Levi exploring tension through rhythm, intricate drum programming and suspense occupying much of the track's strung out duration. "Karma & Address" is a skillfully executed blend of bruk, deep house and broken beat; fluttering on a celestial plane. "Seething" utilizes shy, plaintive synth work and more detailed drum play for a moment of soulful introspection before "Benmore Avenue" concludes the piece with a lo-fi, clickity sample jam that sounds like it's been taken straight outta Theo Parrish's MPC library! 

TRACK LISTING

Ndiyakholwa 
A Thought For My Mother At Christmas (in Her Absence Mix) 
Commonality Of Being Human (Z-Arts Mix) 
Karma & Address
Seething 
Benmore Avenue 

The follow up to Bad Reputation was Joan Jett's first record with The Blackhearts and the band gave her a tougher, more coherent sound. Their dynamic, glam rock sound gave her a worldwide hit with the classic title track "I Love Rock'n'Roll.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 I Love Rock 'N Roll
2 (I'm Gonna) Run Away
3 Love Is Pain
4 Nag
5 Crimson And Clover
6 Victim Of Circumstance

Side B
1 Bits And Pieces
2 Be Straight
3 You're Too Possessive
4 Little Drummer Boy
5 Oh Woe Is Me
6 You Don't Know What You've Got

Vacant Gardens is Glenn Donaldson (of The Reds, Pinks and Purples and a hundred others) and Jem Fanvu, collaborating on music and with the latter responsible for vocals and lyrics. The project began with the idea of combining heavy fuzz and slow-mo drum machine beats with Fanvu's gentle almost trad-folk style vocals. Almost all of Donaldson's otherworldly sounds are achieved through layers of guitar fuzz and copious delay, while Fanvu offers an ideal counterpoint, taking the listener on a celestial melancholy trip with her opaque poetry and melodies.

So inspired were the duo by this blend of styles, they immediately recorded at least two albums of material, Under the Bloom and Obscene, released in quick succession in 2020 and 2021 in swiftly-disappearing micro editions on the secretive Tall Texan label. With those records close-to-impossible to find at an affordable price, Tough Love are now reissuing both LPs on May 20th, alongside a 7" containing two previously unheard songs recorded at the same time as the albums. The albums are pressed in editions of 500, and the 7" 300, and all on transparent vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. World Inside The Ocean
2. Obscene
3. Whorl
4. Crimson Crush
5. Three Herons
6. Loose
7. As Horses
8. Untombed

Vacant Gardens is Glenn Donaldson (of The Reds, Pinks and Purples and a hundred others) and Jem Fanvu, collaborating on music and with the latter responsible for vocals and lyrics. The project began with the idea of combining heavy fuzz and slow-mo drum machine beats with Fanvu's gentle almost trad-folk style vocals. Almost all of Donaldson's otherworldly sounds are achieved through layers of guitar fuzz and copious delay, while Fanvu offers an ideal counterpoint, taking the listener on a celestial melancholy trip with her opaque poetry and melodies.

So inspired were the duo by this blend of styles, they immediately recorded at least two albums of material, Under the Bloom and Obscene, released in quick succession in 2020 and 2021 in swiftly-disappearing micro editions on the secretive Tall Texan label. With those records close-to-impossible to find at an affordable price, Tough Love are now reissuing both LPs on May 20th, alongside a 7" containing two previously unheard songs recorded at the same time as the albums. The albums are pressed in editions of 500, and the 7" 300, and all on transparent vinyl.

Mary Lattimore’s version of 'Love Is The Tune' alongside Bill Fay's original.

TRACK LISTING

Mary Lattimore - Love Is The Tune
Bill Fay - Love Is The Tune

RIYL: Beach House, Cocteau Twins, Cigarettes After Sex, Slowdive

Isolated from any kind of music scene and enveloped by the cold Brutalism of Preston, White Flowers are a young, enigmatic band developing their own eccentricities away from the influence of big cities. New EP ‘Are You’ is a sonic and aesthetic collage drawing deeply from their environmental and social surroundings. The songs on the EP may at first seem delicate and beautiful, but closer listening reveals dark undertones and dry humour fuelled by the frustration of feeling trapped with no way out. Driven by this sense of claustrophobia, the duo have sought to create a form of escapism outside of their physical and geographical limitations.

Recorded late 2021 between Preston and Bristol, ‘Are You’ weaves together a mixture of intuitive home recordings and refined studio production aided by producer Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Portishead, Perfume Genius). The four songs on the EP are an intentional collection of contrasts and paradoxes - beauty and repulsion, calmness and mania, anxiety and stasis - all combined to form a balanced whole.

Whilst influenced in part by the writings of the late Mark Fisher and his idea that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen, that what might have been may yet be the dream that saves us, White Flowers have also found inspiration in the Brutalist architecture that adorns their hometown - futuristic yet dated buildings that serve as an appropriate visual metaphor for Fisher’s theories. Bleakly imposing yet comfortingly familiar, the monochromatic starkness of these structures has fed into the imagery for the record, as well as the sounds found within. Not intending to wallow in cynicism, however, White Flowers’ art ultimately aims to provide a way out of these dystopian fever dreams and spiralling thoughts into a forward facing place.

TRACK LISTING

1. Are You
2. Foreground
3. This Is Not
4. Singular

RIYL: Guided by Voices, Pavement, The Clean, XTC, Flying Nun

The title of The Stroppies' newest LP, Levity, serves as a creative statement of intent and an acknowledgment of the dichotomy between the music they have made and the conditions in which they were produced. For a group that started over an initial idea to "create open ended music, quickly and haphazardly”, the logistical challenges of creating their second album in the midst of a pandemic, in a city that endured the longest lockdown in the world, created a need to redefine process.

Levity, The Stroppies strongest creative statement to date, is the result of this new approach to creative process. Playful yet focused, but broader in scope and experimentation than previous efforts, the ten songs that comprise Levity continue the band's exploration of the pop song as both foil for experimentation and conduit for personal reflection.

Whereas the group's debut LP Whoosh! demonstrated their ability to craft clean, concise jangle pop, Levity takes a different route by utilizing a darker pallet of sounds to create its impressionistic whole. Fuzz and distortion are employed to add weight to songs built on tape loops and Motorik drum patterns. Warbling synthesisers and modulated keys add new moods and dimensions to The Stroppies unique brand of pop classicism. Thematically, the band continues their exploration of the personal refracted through the lens of the absurd, though this time around the music feels a few shades darker, a somewhat inevitable consequence of the collective trauma of the past 24 months. The songs still hit with the immediacy that made their debut so engaging, but there’s a creeping cynicism and wistfulness that now permeates The Stroppies sound.

While the narrative around the 'lockdown record' is increasingly commonplace, there are unavoidable realities involved in making creative decisions under such circumstances that can't be overlooked, especially for a band that thrives on collaboration. "The restrictions around COVID really informed the way we made the record', says Angus Lord, the band's co-founder and guitarist. "It meant that there was a lot less opportunity to meet and build ideas collaboratively, which is how we’ve worked in the past. Instead, ideas were developed in isolation, then shared digitally, developing slowly over correspondence and only bearing fruit when we were able to be in a room together. I think this had a big effect on the songwriting and execution.” This process even extended to the studio, where The Stroppies found a kindred spirit in John Lee of Phaedra Studios, who mixed the record in isolation, somehow managing to synthesise the band's pop sensibilities with their penchant for studio experimentation. Furthermore, the addition of new member Zoe Monk, known for playing in a diverse array of Melbourne acts (Eggy, Thibault, The Opals) contributed both synthesiser experimentation and rock solid rhythm guitar, a huge addition to the band's developing sound, an infectious combination of the off-kilter 90s US underground, British artpunk ala Wire and a more than generous love of classic Pop songwriting.

Reflecting on the making of the record, bassist and co-vocalist Claudia Serfaty understands their shift in approach, noting that, “the world feels strange and in turn making pop music feels even stranger. A healthy dose of levity had to be employed in order to find meaning in the process.” In spite of this light hearted attitude, The Stroppies have managed to craft a record of weight and substance.Through Levity the Stroppies have, at least temporarily, found their feet amongst the chaos..

TRACK LISTING

1. The Perfect Crime (04:40)
2. Smilers Strange Politely (02:49)
3. Material Condition (05:24)
4. Butchering The Punchline (02:07)
5. Up To My Elbows (03:28)
6. I’m In The Water (03:51)
7. Tricks On Everything (02:33)
8. Caveats (03:06)
9. Figure Eights (02:57)
10. The Bell (02:08)

Following on from his 2018 album "Sincerely, S. Love x", Tapete Records are proud to present Simon Love's new record "LOVE, SEX and DEATH etc"

Swinging from love songs to hate songs through all points in-between, the centrepiece of the album is the nigh on 7-minute long pop epic "L-O-T-H-A-R-I-O" "

Originally released in 2002 in partnership with NME to celebrate their 50th anniversary and 50 years since NME printed the first ever singles chart in the UK. 1 Love saw the cream of British artists come together to pick their favourite number one to cover. Having appeared on the 1995 HELP album, Oasis continued their support of War Child with an acoustic rendition of Slade’s Christmas classic ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’. Stereophonics chose ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ with Kelly Jones’s gravelly vocal complementing this stripped back version of the track written by Prince, performed by The Family and taken to number one by Sinead O’Connor in 1990.

Faithless and Dido stamped their mark on Beats International’s ‘Dub Be Good To Me’ whilst Jimmy Eat World transformed Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ stripping it back but keeping the dark and ominous mood of the original. The Prodigy themselves paid homage to Liam Howlett’s heroes The Specials with their own brooding version of ‘Ghost Town’.

The Manic Street Preachers joined Oasis in appearing on their second album for War Child with a cover of ‘Out Of Time’ and Muse began their journey with the charity by adding their unique spin to 1964 number one ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals.

Elsewhere Elbow take on Thunderclap Newman with a low-fi cover of ‘Something In The Air’, there are contributions from Starsailor, Badly Drawn Boy teams up with Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and Feeder give a haunting, pre-John Lewis cover of ‘The Power of Love’.

1 Love is part of a series of four releases by War Child Records making the amazing music artists have donated to the charity available on DSPs and vinyl for the first time. All proceeds from these releases will directly fund War Child’s life saving work with children affected by conflict.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Starsailor – All Or Nothing
Feeder – The Power Of Love
Sugababes – Killer
Muse – House Of The Rising Sun
Side B
Stereophonics – Nothing Compares 2 U
Faithless And Dido – Dub Be Good To Me
Oasis – Merry Christmas Everybody
Elbow – Something In The Air
Side C
The Reelists Ft. Ms Dynamite – Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)
Manic Street Preachers – Out Of Time
Badly Drawn Boy And Jools Holland & His Rhythm And Blues Orchestra – Come On Eileen
The Prodigy – Ghost Town
Side D
Jimmy Eat World – Firestarter
Darius – Pretty Flamingos
More Fire Crew Ft Gabrielle – Dreams
McAlmont And Butler – Back For Good

King Garbage, with their contemporary take on American Soul, return with a new album, ‘Heavy Metal Greasy Love’, released via Ipecac Recordings.

Long-time friends and GRAMMY Award-nominated producers Zach Cooper and Vic Dimotsis have quietly impacted pop, R&B and hiphop with production credits for everyone from The Weeknd and SZA to Ellie Goulding, Gallant and Billy Porter.

In 2021, Vic and Zach co-wrote ‘Sing’ for Jon Batiste’s ‘We Are’. It gathered eight GRAMMY Award nominations, including Album Of The Year. They also penned ‘Sweeter’ (featuring Terrace Martin) on Leon Bridges’ ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’, which notched a GRAMMY nod in the category of Best R&B Album.

It’s a taste of retro without being a reproduction. The music is crispy, searing, spacious, sandy and welded with perfect dimes at the seams.

Breaking from the ‘rough and ruddy’ vibe of their first record, ‘Make It Sweat’, King Garbage incorporated a rock ‘n’ roll spirit within this soul sphere. They teased the album with ‘Piper’ and ‘Peanut Butter Kisses’ before revealing the single ‘Busy On A Saturday Night’. On the track, vocals hum barely above a whisper as clean guitar wraps around horns before the high register hook takes hold. It ends on a crescendo straight out of a Sixties cop show.

Bass-y piano revs up ‘Monster Truck’, which Zach calls “somewhere between musical theater and classic rock.”

Meanwhile, ‘Checkmate’ moves ice cold vocals and boisterous horns across the board. Saxophone, flute, and clarinet soundtrack a ‘Fargolike tale’ on ‘Snow’, unfolding “like what a big band should play in a strip club.” In the end, ‘Heavy Metal Greasy Love’ is as smooth as King Garbage are.

For fans of The Black Pumas, Alabama Shakes, Daptone Records.

TRACK LISTING

Checkmate
Let Em Talk
I Miss Mistakes
Snow
Busy On A Saturday Night
Monster Truck
Never Die
Piper
Peanut Butter Kisses

The US-born, Norwegian-Mexican musician and producer Carmen Villain, real name Carmen Hillestad, has spent the last nine years and four albums gently unraveling song into the sound of emotional impulse. From the tilt and croon of her first two albums to the expansive warmth that flows and pulses beyond ambient in her more recent output, Hillestad’s journey is artful musical deconstruction but also somehow spiritual growth.

Hence new album Only Love From Now On, her fourth full-length and the culmination of a build-up that really began with the turn in sound evident from third album Both Lines Will Be Blue (2019, Smalltown Supersound) and the subsequent releases Affection In A Time Of Crisis (2020, Longform Editions) and Sketch For Winter IX: Perlita (2021, Geographic North). While the seed of her aesthetic was planted earlier, it has blossomed into something unexpected, benevolent in its composure and altogether luxuriant in its sensuality. Perhaps that’s why she collaborated with the likes of Jenny Hval and Parris – appearing on the latter’s new debut album. And why he – along with Biosphere, DJ Python and others – have contributed remixes for her.

Listening to Only Love From Now On is simultaneously comforting and alluringly strange. Partly it’s the contributions of guests Arve Henriksen (trumpet, electronics) and Johanna Scheie Orellana (flutes). Partly it’s the fluidity between instruments – such as clarinets – field recordings, the studio, jam, and careful composition. She calls the process a conversation with sound that occurs in her deliberate attempts to experiment with new methods, like granular synthesis, for her music-making. But mostly that strange comfort is in the peace and grateful contentment she has found via the stark recognition of her own privilege – laid bare by the pandemic. Only Love From Now On is fueled by the sense of scale in feeling small in the face of things so large, the contemplation of how the biggest impact we can have is in the people close to us, the attempt to make sure that impact is a positive one, and the choice to try to focus on love instead of fear.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A

1. Gestures W/ Arve Henriksen
2. Future Memory
3. Liminal Space
4. Only Love From Now On W/
Johanna Scheie Orellana

Side B
1. Subtle Bodies
2. Silueta
3. Portals

Red Hot Chili Peppers unveil their new album and twelfth full-length offering, Unlimited Love. It notably marks their first recording with guitarist John Frusciante since 2006 and first with producer and longtime collaborator Rick Rubin since 2011.

“Our only goal is to get lost in the music. We (John, Anthony, Chad and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.

We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album UNLIMITED LOVE, is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it.
ROCK OUT MOTHERFUCKERS!” - Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith, John Frusciante

On lead track “Black Summer,” ethereal guitar underlines introspective lyrics as the rhythm unlocks a hypnotic drum groove highlighted by evocative bass. It quietly inhales only to exhale with a massive refrain, “It’s been a long time since I made a new friend, waiting on another black summer to end,” before a guitar solo echoes to the heavens and back.

Unlimited Love resumes a three-decade partnership with Rick Rubin [Johnny Cash, Adele]. Their creative collaboration spans legendary albums, including the diamond-selling Blood Sugar Sex Magik [1991], Californication [1999], By The Way [2002], and Stadium Arcadium [2006].

The interplay between the band borders on intergalactic once again—yet elevated to another stratosphere altogether. Unlimited Love represents the united spirit of four individual souls still fearlessly exploring the future of their eternal friendship and musical congregation. 

Daptone Records presents The James Hunter Six's latest offering, With Love: a heart-shaped collection of candle-lit ballads and love songs.

Plucked like so many "he loves you" petals from the vast and sumptuous garden of his Daptone Recordings, these twelve lilting melodies have been selected and sequenced with great care, tenderness, and intention by Daptone staff for the solitary purpose of compiling some of the criminally overlooked treasures in the James Hunter Six's critically acclaimed catalog.

TRACK LISTING

1. Something’s Calling
2. I Don’t Wanna Be Without You
3. Who’s Fooling Who
4. If I Only Knew
5. Carina
6. Take It As You Find It
7. This Is Where We Came In
8. Heartbreak
9. It Was Gonna Be You
10. Never

One of America's finest guitarists, Gordon Banks is most well known as Marvin Gaye's tour bass player in the 70s and co-writer in the 80s (as well as becoming his brother-in-law). He has also played with New Birth, Edwin Hawkins & Gladys Knight & The Pips. Norfolk and Midnight love were Gordon's post Marvin (Passed in 84) local bands, these two tracks were recorded between 86-88. You can hear Gordon's writing skills coming through with a far more late 80s pop vibe, like late Marvin joints, which I love.

Personally it's an honour to work with such a huge talent, Gordon's bass playing on 'Life is For Learning' still give me goosebumps every time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Disco heaven with Norfolk & Midnight Love seven, loved up soulful happiness pressed on wax right here for your listening pleasure. A welcomed reissue of these two tracks, more where that came from please

TRACK LISTING

1. You Are My Doll Baby
2. Mamas Baby Boy

With ‘Love on My Mind’ - the six-song mini-album, mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (Tennis, Parquet Courts, Johnny Marr) - Bambara condense all the energy and darkness that have made them so compelling and rearrange it into something defiantly new.

Opening track, ‘Slither in the Rain’, all hissing high-hat and spectral synthlines, is a true statement of intent. It’s minimal and atmospheric, foregrounding Bateh’s raw vocals as he introduces one of ‘Love on My Mind’s main characters years after the events of the album are over, a lonely man who throws bottles at airplanes and dances a two-step in the pattern of a figure-8. While Bateh has always been adept at character sketches, tracks like ‘Slither’ introduce a newfound vulnerability that runs true through the entire album and cause the songs to hit on a more human level.

Similarly, ‘Point And Shoot’ - in which each stanza describes the louche, lawless scenes of “rooftop girls / standing shoulder-to-shoulder, naked figures with their hips / cocked,” busted up jaws, and couches full of burnholes captured by the snapshots of ‘Love on My Mind’s female lead - displays an autobiographical intimacy that is not as apparent in Bambara’s previous releases. This tenderness is echoed on ‘Birds’, a rare love song (from which the EP’s title is derived), and album closer ‘Little Wars’, a gripping finale of loneliness and isolation.

But while these songs may display a softer side of Bambara, it’s important to note that they haven’t lost the thrill of what attracted so many people to them in the first place. ‘Mythic Love’ (featuring vocals from Bria Salmena), with its driving bassline and ricocheting guitar lines, brings to mind past rave-ups like ‘Serafina’ and ‘Sunbleached Skulls’ but obliterates them in the process, while ‘Feelin’ Like A Funeral’ - a dangerously oscillating tale of a city knifing - is probably the most thrillingly anthemic song the band have ever recorded.

Taken together, ‘Love on My Mind’ amounts to another massive step forward for Bambara - the boldest thing they’ve ever done - and the sound of yet another breakthrough.

“Engrossing, dark and irresistible… an adventurous group, who just keep getting better all the time.” - CLASH

“Never anything less than captivating.” - Upset

“What Athens, Georgia bunch Bambara do, they do very well… the trio’s commitment to the dark side is never in question.” - DIY

“Bambara are ice cold and sharp as a knife’s edge.” - Loud & Quiet

“Brooklyn based doom-mongers delight… the trio go further than most in their quest to rattle.” - Q (4/5)

For fans of Daughters, Protomartyr, IDLES, King Krule, Ice Age.

TRACK LISTING

Slither In The Rain
Mythic Love
Birds
Point And Shoot
Feelin’ Like A Funeral
Little Wars

The salvo of 7"s from the Star Creature bunker continues to rain down on us - with another two arriving this week! E. Live is back, adding his patented boogie shimmer to newcomer Gillies' lead track "What About Luv".

Rich with Italo nuances, "What About Luv" is drenched in sensuality, a laser-guided, pheromone-fueled, late night mission into decadence and excess. The Bay Area boogie boss injects a playful, stripped back sensibility into the equation, mellowing it out into an early evening groover.

Both tracks are winners for me, with two very different moods explored. Star Creature remain the most crucial force in modern funk! TIP. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Are Brooklyn's Star Creature secretly challenging MCR's Red Laser to a battle of the boogie? Firing over an Italo-tinged missile at our Manctalo brothers, inviting a return fire bedroom boogie blast from Il Bosco and co.? The plot thickens in the boogie wars saga... stay tuned for more info.

TRACK LISTING

A. What About Luv (E Live Remix)
B. What About Luv

RIYL: Jesus and Mary Chain, Shop Assistants, Black Tambourine, Sarah Records, My Bloody Valentine. Star Party began in March 2020 as a Seattle living room project between Carolyn Brennan and Ian Corrigan (Gen Pop, Vexx) - both sharing a love of high energy rock n roll music. The idea to start a band percolated during trips to the high deserts of eastern Washington to pick sage and see the sun as a brief reprieve from the misty and grey Pacific Northwestern Spring. A few months later, Star Party released Demo 2020 on Feel It Records, featuring two originals and covers of The Shop Assistants' "Something to Do" and the classic "All I Really Wanna Do" (in the vein of Cher's version).

Over the course of 2021, Star Party wrote and recorded their debut LP, Meadow Flower, wherever and whenever they could. Employing like-minded Feel It label mate Caufield Schnug of Sweeping Promises (who also moonlights as one part of Melody Men Mastering) to mix and master the album, Meadow Flower follows a direct line from where Demo 2020 left off. Brennan's soft and clearly American vocals float over waves of feedback and drum machine racket like a delicate mist sitting just above a mountain lake. Melodies bob and weave inside an omnipresent static that fills in every nook and cranny of the recording. Drawing from a quiver of influences such as Black Tambourine, Confuse (JP), The Count Five, and of course The Shop Assistants (RIP Alex Taylor), Star Party's debut album seamlessly meshes together noise, melody, and harmony. 

TRACK LISTING

1. You And Me
2. Living A Lie
3. Push You Aside
4. Meadow Flowers
5. Shot Down
6. Veil Of Gauze
7. No Excuse
8. A Trip Home

On the 'We Are Vinyl' label' - This is the 50th anniversary edition of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen's third studio album. Produced by Bob Johnston, the album was originally released in March 1971 through Columbia Records. An x8 song album, pressed on 180gm heavyweight, Black LP Vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Avalanche
Last Year's Man
Dress Rehearsal Rag
Diamonds In The Mine
Love Calls You By Your Name
Famous Blue Raincoat
Sing Another Song, Boys
Joan Of Arc

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)

RIYL: Felt, The Wake, The Servants, Sarah Records, Rat Columns, The Reds, Pinks and Purples. Jolly In The Bush is David West's fourth eponymous record, following Drop Out Of Collage (2014), Peace Or Love(2016) and Cherry On Willow (2017).

David is an underground pop musician from Perth, Western Australia and has been in numerous interesting and more-or-less obscure acts over the decades - some include Rat Columns, Rank/Xerox, Total Control, Lace Curtain, Liberation, Burning Sensation and Scythe. His solo works allow him free reign to follow various classic and sideways pop rainbows to their illogical conclusions. On Jolly In The Bush, he is graced by the angelic presence of stellar musicians, such as Louis Hooper from Rat Columns, Bob Jones from Eaters/P.E, Mikey Young from Total Control/Green Child/Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and Richard Ingham from Taco Leg/Mink Mussel Creek.

Jolly In The Bush is a homage to shaggy indie dorks, sub-tropical singer-songwriters, robotic melancholia and the pre-Cold War 'grown and sexy' aisle at the Marina Safeway. The first side of the record sees DW straddle the indie rock horse, indulging in lyrical detours into historical fiction (‘1816’), naughty words (‘The Poet Of My Dreams’) and mumbling (‘Sleeping Head’). 'Sleeping Head' features a startlingly egotistical self-sampling of David and compatriot Bob Jones' atmospheric electronics project, Scythe, and their tune of the same name. Idea glut, or deficit? DW and his team challenge the seemingly pervasive professional competence rife in today's indie rock world. 'Keep indie rock shambolic' seems to be a theme close to his heart. However, a disturbingly serious side emerges in the middle of the record with two minimal, acoustically-minded numbers, 'Not That Lonely Yet' and 'Letters From Home'; light in feel, depressing in subject matter.

A pleasing but perhaps formulaic shift in atmosphere guides us into Side B. Keyboards are deployed, synthesizers twinkle, beats hit us at a steady, head-nodding pace. 'Prove Your Love' sentimentally shimmies in the light bouncing off the marina's placid waters, 'You Must Be My Friend' is a downtempo electronic paean to illusions lost. 'You Saved My Life' sees our weary traveler finding fleeting succor in jazzy changes and a stranger's touch. Lest it all get too much, 'So We Ran Away' dusts off the glam boots worn on the Cherry On Willow LP but takes them down to a sub-basement chintz floor for a prancing romp through romantic insanity. Please, join us and become Jolly In The Bush! 

TRACK LISTING

Poet Of My Dreams
6am Style
1816
Sleeping Head
Not That Lonely Yet
Letters From Home
Prove Your Love
You Must Be My Friend
You Saved My Life
So We Ran Away

Trailblazing UK jazz renegade, saxophonist Sean Khan delivers his scintillating new album ‘Supreme Love: a Journey Through Coltrane’ on BBE Music.

“Who is John Coltrane for me?” asks Khan. “He is man, legend, myth, storyteller, sage and atmosphere. My road and journey has been a rocky one, and like most on this journey, I have carved a path full of mistakes and triumphs. However, throughout my life Coltrane’s music has been a constant.”

Weaving together disparate strands of the UK music scene (jazz, dance, broken beat and electronic) together onto one record, Supreme Love is presented in three parts: autobiography, homage and encyclopaedia. A pioneer of the Broken Beat movement early in the new millennium, working with Omar, Bugz in the Attic and 4hero among others, Khan enlisted the input of two old friends, Kaidi Tatham and Daz I Kue, who each contribute a future-minded yet reverential sense of originality to the album. Also featured on Supreme Love are two legends of UK jazz, Peter King and Jim Mullen, both of whom bring a rich and palpable sense of history to the project. Guitarist Jim Mullen has played with Brian Auger, toured with the Average White Band and recorded with Terry Callier over his long career. Mullen was also a regular fixture at Ronnie Scott’s, as was saxophonist Peter King, who actually performed at the club’s opening night, as well as working with two of Coltrane’s favourite drummers, Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones. Sadly Peter King’s contribution to ‘Supreme Love’ would be his last recording session, and he passed away in August 2020. Also featured among a talented and diverse group of performers on the album is Cinematic Orchestra front-woman Heidi Vogel, who adds her distinctive, soulful voice to Khan’s, and Coltrane’s, heartfelt lyrics.

“I have always been a strange prisoner to my ambition” says Sean “and most of my recordings bear testimony to this, with this record being the next part of that evolution. I made a conscious effort to represent all of Coltrane's main artistic periods from hard bop (with Miles Davis), to sheets of sound (Giant Steps, Moments Notice), spiritual jazz (Love Supreme) and finally his last, most experimental and cosmic period (Interstellar Space). I have never heard a record that attempts to reflect all of the great man’s epochs in this way and use the recording artist’s autobiography (my own) as a conduit to these ends, and so here I am, for better or for worse.”

TRACK LISTING

1. A Love Supreme
2. Starchild
3. Afro Blue
4. Azawala
5. Emilia's Pick
6. Naima
7. As We Came Out Of
8. Giant Steps
9. Moment's Notice
10. The Savage Detectives
11. Starchild (Kaidi Tatham Remix)
12. Azawala (Kaidi Tatham Remix)
13. Equinox
14. Impressions
15. Cousin Mary
16. Equinox (Alt Take)
17. Giant Steps Outro

24 Songs. A new project from The Wedding Present. A new 7” single every month throughout 2022. 24 Songs sees David Gedge writing with legendary Sleeper guitarist Jon Stewart for the first time, and a more perfect union could not have been predicted. The notion of a monthly 7” single is not new to The Wedding Present, but 24 Songs shows us that even classic concepts can be reinvented. The series also continues the band’s association with photographer Jessica McMillan, who has created stunning images and films as a visual accompaniment to the recordings.

Home Grown Funk was also known as "Homegrown Syndrome," a controversial name bestowed to them. Before heading to LA they gigged all over Memphis. Some of the members were from an earlier 70s group called "Brothers Unlimited" and had earlier ties during the 60s with the "Memphis Invaders" (a peaceful civil rights activist group).

With aspirations of pushing Homegrown further, a few members including Jerry Jones made the move out west. It was LA 1977 when they were introduced to Ike Tuner through a mutual friend "Ricky G". It was a casual meetup. Then one night Ike had his son Ike Jr. go check them out while performing at the Soul Train hangout spot "Maverick Flats". Ike Jr. praised their performance to Ike and he had them come out to his Inglewood studio. The group walked into the studio with a funky track already playing and that's when Jerry Jones improvised this opportunity and started singing. Ike then turned and said… "Who is that singing?" Jerry said, "Thats me." Then Ike replied " YOU BIG MUTHAF***A! You could be my new Tina." From that point the group cut bunch of tracks with Ike over the years up until they're feature on his 1980 album "The Edge."

In 1981 Perry Kibble (Keyboardist for Taste Of Honey) was at "Concerts In The Park" and heard Home Grown Funk performing. He linked up with the group and got them a deal with Arista. During this time they recorded their hit track " Confrontation." Perry suggested that the group change their name because he didn't want another group with the work "Funk" in it and hence "Homegrown Syndrome." They also use the Arista studio to cut an unreleased acetate with tracks "Got the love" and "Party Vibes" which we have here

TRACK LISTING

1. Got The Love
2. Party Vibes

Reissue of Ella Fitzgerald's 1969 album of funky big-band cover versions, conducted by and featuring Tommy Flanagan on piano.

Ella Fitzgerald singing Eric Clapton's "Sunshine of Your Love", or the Beatles' "Hey Jude"? Something of a revelation for those who know Fitzgerald as purely a jazz singer. Ella's pristine clarity of earlier years, now tinged with a throaty worldliness, is a perfect foil to her choices from the world of rock and pop. It also adds new depth to such standards as "Give Me the Simple Life", "Old Devil Moon", and Burt Bachrach's "A House is Not a Home".

Recorded "live", the album is divided into a big band set and Ella with her longtime accompaniment, the Tommy Flanagan trio. Pianist Flanagan is simply one of the all-time greats. After listening to this, how can you not be a fan of Ella's?

Includes the original liner notes from Norman Granz, who produced this record.

TRACK LISTING

Hey Jude
Sunshine Of Your Love
This Girl's In Love With You
Watch What Happens
Alright, Okay, You Win
Useless Landscape
Old Devil Moon
Don'cha Go 'Way Mad
A House Is Not A Home
Trouble Is A Man
Love You Madly
Give Me The Simple Life

Summer at Land’s End is not an interlude or tangent for The Reds, Pinks & Purples but rather a perfect fourth movement following the albums Anxiety Art, You Might Be Happy Someday, and Uncommon Weather. As with these self-recorded records (the primary work of songwriter Glenn Donaldson), the songs on Summer at Land’s End were crafted slowly and then drawn together to make a unified statement. But here, and more than before, Summer at Land’s End combines Donaldson’s rueful pop sensibility with a parallel musical universe, one composed of pictures, dreams, and feelings without words. Even if the underlying theme of this collection is one of conflict or unhappiness, the vision of the music presents an escape to a new world, always fading in and out of sight.

For listeners who may not be familiar with Donaldson’s corner of San Francisco––the Richmond district––or the current wave of hazy, melodic DIY pop groups performing in the city, Summer at Land’s End pulls in images and scenes that feel like a collision of the mundane and the sublime of this present landscape. But settings such as these are the backdrop for personal narratives, expressed as a struggle with love, with companionship and the conflicts of home. With this record, The Reds, Pinks & Purples give less focus to the vanities of a subculture and more to the challenge of connecting with someone, to the ordinary goals of being human and finding harmony with others.

This deliberate saturation in drama and ambiance, along with some of Donaldson’s best songwriting to date, is what gives Summer at Land’s End its special class in the project’s discography. Of the album’s cinematic mood, Donaldson refers to films like Summer of ‘42 and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. It’s a pleasure to experience Summer at Land’s End, as this record finds a thrilling balance between songs and sounds, instruments and voices, and the ironic twin poles of art and life.

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t Come Home Too Soon (03:12)
2. Let’s Pretend We’re Not In Love (03:06)
3. New Light (02:53)
4. My Soul Unburdened (02:21)
5. Summer At Land’s End (07:02)
6. Pour The Light In (04:10)
7. All Night We Move (02:42)
8. Tell Me What’s Real (03:05)
9. Upside Down In An Empty Room (03:15)
10. Dahlias And Rain (02:37)
11. I’d Rather Not Go Your Way (01:56)

DINKED EDITION:
Side A
Don’t Come Home Too Soon (03:12)
Let’s Pretend We’re Not In Love (03:06)
New Light (02:53)
My Soul Unburdened (02:21)
Summer At Land’s End (07:02)
Side B
Pour The Light In (04:10)
All Night We Move (02:42)
Tell Me What’s Real (03:05)
Upside Down In An Empty Room (03:15)
Dahlias And Rain (02:37)
I’d Rather Not Go Your Way (01:56)
Side C (DINKED EXCLUSIVE)
Never Said I Was Sorry Then (02:34)
Hummingbirds (03:19)
Holiday Cheer (02:56)
Randy, If You Were Here (02:34)
Public Fountains (02:37)
Side D (DINKED EXCLUSIVE)
Outer Avenues (02:37)
Sea Wall (02:43)
Mountain Lake Park (05:10)
Conservatory Of Flowers (03:19)
Like A Ghost Warmed Over (02:48)
Midday Sun (04:05)

Tough Love have partnered with West Coast imprint Mt St Mtn for the release of Free Advice, the instant slowcore/dreampop classic by San Fran four piece, Cindy. The full album is available to stream/download now, while a highly limited transparent vinyl pressing will be released on 20th November. Limited to just 250 copies, this pressing follows the long sold-out edition of 100 released earlier in the year and which was previously only available in the US.

Free Advice offers a somber-yet-uplifting take on sobered dream pop. Imagine if Galaxie 500’s On Fire didn’t have a guitar solo or if The Trinity Session was stripped of its folk & blues roots; it’s just pure mood. Like sitting in a half-empty movie theater that’s playing Alphaville or Wild Strawberries and watching patron’s heads briefly illuminated from the screen; Free Advice (and all of the Cindy output) transfers you to these momentary worlds.

Cindy is Karina Gill on guitar/vocals, Aaron Diko on synth/keys, Simon Phillips on Drums/Percussion, and Jesse Jackson on Bass/Keys + Simon and Jesse on backing vocals. The songs on Free Advice are these moments in mood: Phillips & Jackson’s rhythms create the foundation, while Diko’s keys rise and fall. Gill’s guitar rattles, vocals brood, and lyrics create these narratives that depict observers, not necessarily wronged rather, cautious and investigative of the world around them. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Discount Lawyer
2. Falcon Heavy
3. Seeing Double
4. Wrong Answer
5. Song 23
6. Fixed Idea
7. A Song In French
8. CSI: Creeptown
9. April Magazine
10. Free Advice
11. Lost On Me

Childish Gambino is (and isn't) Donald Glover, a recording artist, writer, actor, director, producer and comic who was gifted his alias by an online Wu Tang-Clan name-generator. Originally hailing from Stone Mountain, Georgia - his Mum was a daycare provider and his Dad a postal worker, where TV was banned in the house - Glover first entered the spotlight as a member of sketch-troupe Derrick Comedy, via a stint working on The Daily Show and the invitation to join the '30 Rock' writing staff by Tina Fey before he'd even graduated from NYU. A succession of mini-albums and mixtapes surrounded all of this, parallel to acting roles ranging from The Muppets to NBC's cult hit comedy 'Community'.  It was 2011's debut album 'Camp' - his first since signing to Glassnote Records - which marked a breakthrough for Childish Gambino, whose music explores everything from identity, race, and technology to hip-hop culture, class, and family. Follow-up 'because the internet' went top 10 on the Billboard chart, was nominated for 2 Grammy Awards and further assimilated Gambino's multiple disciplines (it was accompanied, for instance, by two films and a standalone 72-page screenplay). Around this time - and between roles in HBO's 'Girls' and movies like 'The Martian' - Glover also announced that he was working on his own TV show: a comedy-drama which he would star in, write and direct, 'Atlanta' premiered on FX this autumn to significant critical acclaim (it's already been described as "Twin Peaks with rappers"). The show w
as launched alongside the third Childish Gambino, 'Awaken, My Love!', this summer at 'Pharos', a series of secretive, audio-visual live performances which took place in a custom-designed dome in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree. A second series of 'Atlanta' has already been commissioned, whilst Glover has recently been cast in the forthcoming Spider Man movie and has also been confirmed to play the iconic role of Lando Calrissian in the next Star Wars film (a Han Solo spin-off). 

TRACK LISTING

1. Me And Your Mama
2. Have Some Love
3. Boogieman
4. Zombies
5. Riot
6. Redbone
7. California
8. Terrified
9. Baby Boy
10. The Night Me And Your Mama Met
11. Stand Tall

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2021.

“To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth'' seems an overwhelmingly prescient phrase to begin an album with, almost as if Benjamin John Powers knew Mogwai would use it for what is certainly their most celestially euphoric and soaringly majestic album to date. It's taken 25 long years since their first single, but it's entirely unsurprising that the people have recognised As The Love Continues as a masterpiece worthy of a UK No.1 album spot, and I would absolutely hasten to agree. Turns out the rest of the staff did too, so here we are.

From the first moments of “To The Bin My Friend..”, it's clear that Mogwai's melodic blend of instrumental rock has undertaken a significant shift towards brighter climes in this instance, with gigantic walls of distortion piercing through the flickering percussion and synth swells below, bringing to mind the tectonic heft of Young Team but with the pop sensibilities brought about on Happy Songs.. or the unbelievably brilliant Mr. Beast.

We've described this album as a 'Best Of' a few times, but that's clearly not in the traditional sense, it's not a compilation by any means and flows like a well sequenced album, but the themes explored are in every way the pinnacle of their sound and encompass everything that Mogwai fans love to hear. The difference here is that EVERYONE is welcome, with the more pop elements like “Ritchie Sacramento” (my song of the decade without a doubt) taking the heavy hitting instrumentals and injecting them with a moody, spine-tingling vocal melody. Later, pieces like “Fuck Off Money” bring things down a little before hitting us with the punky octave athleticism and rolling bass of “Ceiling Granny” or the cinematic orchestration of “Midnight Flit”. It's an absolute triumph, and in my opinion, the most worthy end of year winner yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earth
2. Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever
3. Dry Fantasy
4. Ritchie Sacramento
5. Drive The Nail
6. Fuck Off Money
7. Ceiling Granny
8. Midnight Flit
9. Pat Stains
10. Supposedly, We Were Nightmares
11. It's What I Want To Do, Mum

Love Record Stores Edition available instore from 10am on Saturday September 4th, any remaining copies will be available on online from 9pm on the same day.
Limited to one per person.

Though she’d been writing songs in her head since she was six, and on the guitar since she was 12, it took a long time for Nilüfer Yanya to work up the courage to show anyone her music. 'I knew I wanted to sing, but the idea of actually having to do it wasreally horrifying,' says the 23-year-old. When she was finally persuaded to do so, by a music teacher in West London where she grew up, she says 'it was horrible. I loved it'.

At 18, Nilüfer, who is of Turkish-Irish-Bajan heritage, uploaded a few demos to SoundCloud. Though she’s preternaturally shy, her music, which uniquely blends elements of soul and jazz into intimate pop songs with electronic flourishes and a newly expressed grungy guitar soun, isn’t. And it didn’t take long for it to catch people’s attention. She signed with independent New York label ATO, following three EPs on esteemed London indie label Blue Flowers, and earned a place on the BBC Sound of 2018 longlist. She also supported the likes of The XX, Interpol, Broken Social Scene and Mitski on tour.

Now, Nilüfer is ready to release her debut album, "Miss Universe". Though she recorded much of it in the same remote Cornwall studio she used to jam in as a much younger person, it is bigger and more ambitious than anything she has done before. "Angels", with its muted, harmonic riffs, channels ideas 'of paranoid thoughts and anxiety' - a theme that runs through the album, not least in its conceptual spoken word interludes which emanate from a fictional health management company WWAY HEALTH TM. 'You sign up, and you pay a fee,' explains Nilüfer of the automated messages, which are littered through the album and are narrated by the titular Miss Universe. 'They sort out all of your dietary requirements, and then they move onto medication, and then maybe you can get a better organ or something... and then suddenly it starts to get a bit weird. You're giving them more of you and to what end?'

AVAILABLE ONLINE ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 8AM.

LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

This special RSD 50th anniversary edition of Leonard Cohen's third studio album, Songs of Love and Hate is pressed on 180g opaque white vinyl, with updated / re-typeset embossed packaging which includes a brand new 8- page 12x12 lyric booklet. The audio has been sourced from the original analogue tapes via a new direct digital transfer and the album jacket replicates the original package.

Robin Guthrie returns with Mockingbird Love, a four track EP, the first in a short series of newly recorded instrumental releases for late 2021. Guthrie, whose production and signature guitar sounds are said to have shaped multiple genres was the co-founder and producer of Cocteau Twins. Over forty years he has produced and remixed countless artists, recorded instrumental albums, movie soundtracks and collaborated with many outstanding artists. Mockingbird Love is a most welcome introduction to a series of releases which will be available for a limited amount of time exclusively on Soleil Après Minuit

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

An escape into the cosmos, out of this world of the grey and the shallow into deep space, light and legend. ‘Absence of Light’ is the new EP from Polly Scattergood, a writing and production collaboration with Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Grinderman) and producer Glenn Kerrigan.

Written during last year’s lockdowns in ‘virtual’ writing sessions with Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds / Sonic Youth / Grinderman) and long-time collaborator Glenn Kerrigan, the EP evokes sounds from outer edges of the universe, celebrating the scientific wonder and mythological splendour of worlds and realms beyond our own. The EP characterised by a delight in science’s answers to the infinite questions of space, and the ancient Roman and Greek attempts to know the unknowable and explain the inexplicable.

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

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

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

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

STAFF COMMENTS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

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

Affectionately dubbed ‘Queen of Lovers Rock’, Carroll Thompson first took the UK’s music scene by storm in 1980 when her classic single, ‘Simply In Love’ propelled her into country’s reggae chart, where it remained in the Top 10 for over four months.

The achievement was repeated the following year with the breathtakingly beautiful follow-up, ‘Hopelessly In Love’, the immense popularity of which spawned the multi-talented performer’s best-selling debut long-player of the same name.

Reportedly selling in excess of a million albums worldwide, the 10-track album included the aforementioned hits alongside additional new original works that have since become widely regarded as classics of the genre.

Recently voted by readers of Mojo magazine as the greatest lovers rock album of all time, the “Hopelessly In Love” LP also demonstrated the breadth of Carroll’s talent, with the singer not only performing and penning all of the material, but also coproducing the entire set.

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Trojan Records proudly make this seminal long-player available once more. Remastered and re-presented in its original sleeve, the vinyl version has been pressed on high quality 180g colour vinyl, while the CD and digital collections include 5 bonus tracks, all of which have been unavailable on any format since the early Eighties.

With both physical versions further augmented by newly written sleeve notes and rare imagery from Carroll herself, “Hopelessly In Love” finally receives the deluxe treatment its status and profound influence has long since deserved.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl:
LP
Side A
1. Yesterday
2. I’m So Sorry
3. No, You Don’t Know
4. Sing Me A Love Song
5. Mr. Cool
Side B
1. Merry-Go- Round
2. Simply In Love
3. When We Are As One
4. What Colour?
5. Hopelessly In Love

CD
1. Yesterday
2. I’m So Sorry
3. No, You Don’t Know
4. Sing Me A Love Song
5. Mr Cool
6. Merry-Go-Round
7. Simply In Love
8. When We Are As One
9. What Colour
10. Hopelessly In Love (LP Mix)
11. You Are The One I Love (12” Mix)
12. Your Love (12” Mix)
13. Make It With You – Carroll Thompson & Sugar Minott (12” Mix)
14. Make It With You Version – The Black Roots Players (12” Mix)
15. Hopelessly In Love (12” Mix)

Frank Wilson's Northern Soul gem - "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" immortalised in this lovely little music box.

Comes with a certificate of authenticity.

When There’s Love Around is GRAMMY Award-winning artist Kiefer’s second album for Stones Throw - For the first time, Kiefer is joined by a full band, including Sam Wilkes, Carlos Niño, DJ Harrison (Butcher Brown), and many more 

For fans of Kamaal Williams, Kamasi Washington, Blue Lab Beats, Sam Wilkes, Moses Boyd, Yussef Dayes

TRACK LISTING

Side A
01. Introduction
02. I Remember This Picture
03. Lift Somebody Up
04. Earthly Things
Side B
01. Crybaby
02. Curly
03. A Wish For You
04. Loving Hands
Side C
01. Areti's Love
02. With You Where You Are
03. When There's Love Around
Side D
01. I Love My Friends
02. Thinking Of You (vinyl Bonus) 

This truly limited edition We Fell in Love in October vinyl is the first physical existence of the song. It marks the 2 year anniversary and contains the original demo as the b-side.

"The 22-year-old pop songwriter captures the onslaught of young-adult emotion, longing for a state of being where noise and confusion are replaced by certainty and clarity" - PITCHFORK

TRACK LISTING

1. We Fell In Love In October
2. We Fell In Love In October (Original Demo)

Cindy is a band built around the singing and guitar playing of Karina Gill. She became a musician only recently, having sat on the sidelines while ex-partners and friends made their stabs at it. Gill describes a chance encounter with an abandoned Squire Strat left in the basement by a previous tenant, “mummified in electrical tape with the remnants of a burrito on the head stock”, that led her to begin carefully strumming her way through simple chords and making her own songs. After one interesting self-released LP, still finding their footing, the band made the masterful and buzzed-about Free Advice, which went from a limited cassette on local SF label Paisley Shirt to vinyl pressings on Tough Love (UK) and Mt St Mtn (USA).

Cindy’s third LP arrives in quick succession, the quietly devastating 1:2. Jesse Jackson on bass, Simon Phillips on drums and Aaron Diko on keyboards weave the perfectly thin web behind Gill’s slow Velvety strums and murmured melodies. The rhythm section brings the crude flow, while the keys add subtle and surreal counterpoint to the withering world Gill depicts in her lyrics.

“Just as a mood is made by everything taking part in a pattern of association, so the songs tie together seemingly disparate things by the logic of mood,” Gill tries to explain. This isn’t dream-pop sunshine bliss; half-closed black drapes hang on the window where the narrator stares into the middle distance. “Sometimes you say you’re feeling small/You plan all day for your own funeral”, she intones in Party Store.

Gill has a way of halting her phrasing that makes it feel like her thoughts are gently tumbling into the abyss. It’s this unsettling quality mixed with the hazy atmosphere that makes Cindy’s new LP 100% addicting and the perfect antidote to comfort listening.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The tenderly hushed vocals and lo-fi bedroom pop on offer here has echoes of a more melodic Moldy Peaches, but swims with a clever off-kilter writing style, lending less of a punky lo-fi haze and more of a whimsical, airy breeze to the pieces. It's really quite simple, and swimming in beauty.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Common Era (2:04)
2. My Friend (3:09)
3. Party Store (2:15)
4. Song 36 (2:51)
5. Lost Dog (3:55)
6. To Be True (3:55)
7. They Say What I Mean (3:43)
8. 1:2 (3:01)
9. Sincere Sound (3:12)
10. Deer In Japan (4:37)

A quintessentially Piccadilly Records kinda label, Trunk records' unique eccentricity, uncompromising artistic outlook and fierce risk taking nature have made it a best selling staple here at the shop for nearly 30 years! Here the hugely influential label compile 33 tracks, some of which are being issued for the first time - and to boot, it's all housed within a unique David Shringley sleeve - all rejoice!

With a decidedly library / soundtrack / cinematic approach which takes on jazz, funk, psychedelia, primitive electronics and exotica / easy listening; you'll find a whose-who of antique pioneers, unheard innovators and well known names from across the musical spectrum but all somehow fitting in the intangibly quirky Trunk-mindset.

It's playful, full of wanderlust and makes you want to immediately book a holiday to the Italian countryside to look for records (whilst telling the wife you're taking her on a wine tasting odyssey). Whilst dug deep, there’s a carefree innocence that embraces all lovers of music, rather than alienating through obscurity or unlistenability.

Incudes unreleased work from Delia Derbyshire, unheard Nogmusic (from Noggin The Nog), newly discovered sounds from the Kirchin tape archive and a sex tape from a boot fayre. And of course loads of other influential, magical and beautiful music that Jonny Trunk has unearthed since 1996.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE
1 Bartleby Opening Cue - Roger Webb
2 A Tune For Lucy - The Inigo Kilborn Group
3 Make Me Rainbows - Mark Murphy
4 Zeus - Jonny Trunk
5 Sunbeam - Kenny Graham And His Satellites
6 About Bridges VCS3 Melodies - Delia Derbyshire (from The Hooykaas / Stansfield Film)
7 The Tomorrow People Theme - Dudley Simpson
8 Fight - The Musketeers (from The TV Series “The Flashing Blade)

SIDE TWO
9 Lux Eterna / Aurora Borealis (from The Remarkable Earth Making Machine) - The Park Lane Primary School
10 Car Boot Sex Tape
11 Drama Workshop Tape 3 / 1 - Derek Bowskill With The Michael Garrick Quartet
12 Fiend Discovery And Titles (from Blood On Satan’s Claw) - Marc Wilkinson
13 Circles - The Cults Percussion Ensemble
14 Camel Riding (Noggin The Nog “Nog Music”) - The Vernon Elliott Quintet
15 Sound Images - Coggins And Cook
16 Sara’s Tune - David Lord With The Prime Ensemble
17 Speech Exercises - Trees And Flowers - Children Of The Italia Conte School

SIDE THREE
18 Front Titles (from Kes) - John Cameron
19 Liyaduma - The African Swingsters
20 JB Dubs - John Baker
21 The Millionaire - The Dudley Moore Trio (from The Soundtrack Of Bedazzled)
22 Time Stood Still - Paz
23 A Quiet Place - Karin Krog (arranged And Conducted By Don Ellis)
24 International Harvester - Mike Sammes And The Mike Sammes Singers
25 The Ladies Bras - Jonny Trunk And Wisbey

SIDE FOUR
26 You Are About To Use The Telephone
27 Silicon Chip - Basil Kirchin
28 Robot Man - Barry Gray
29 The Electron’s Tale - Tristram Cary
30 Track 2 From The Night Train Tapes - Kenny Graham And His Afro Cuban Chums
31 O Willow Waly (from The Others) - Isla Cameron With The Ivor Raymonde Singers
32 Child Vocal Tape - Basil Kirchin
33 I LIke It! - Mike And Bernie Winters

Austin indie folk duo make their Grand Jury debut with True Love. Recorded over winter 2020 in LA with Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver, etc.). This album is about growth and nostalgia. Both band members got married. One had a kid. They’ve found themselves individually away from the band, but settling into their most creatively fertile moment as a duo.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sometimes
2. True Love
3. Lake June
4. GSM
5. Around Again
6. Hope
7. Joy
8. One Bottle
9. Blindsided
10. Hue
11. Junior Day League
12. I Never Wanna Make You Sad

Love Record Stores Edition available instore from 10am on Saturday September 4th, any remaining copies will be available on online from 9pm on the same day.
Limited to one per person.

Foot are: Don Fleming, Jim Dunbar and Thurston Moore – vintage analogue synthesizers. This album has been Remodelled by Tim Newman and his associates from the Track ‘Early Foot’, which originally appeared on the God Bless Records CD ‘foot’ in 1998, recorded as part of the Canal Street Series at Jimbo’s Pad, NYC in the early days of Nemocore, winter 1996. Liberated from the traditional constraints of time signature and key signature and fixed changes. Where sound responds to music.