In June 2017, New Order returned to the stage at Manchester’s Old Granada Studios where Joy Division made their television debut on Tony Wilson’s So It Goes programme in 1978. For the celebrated show ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .., New Order deconstructed, rethought and rebuilt a wealth of material from throughout their career: familiar and obscure, old and new.

Featuring tracks such as Disorder, from Joy Divisions Unknown Pleasures and not played live for 30 years, up to 2015’s Plastic from New Order’s critically acclaimed Top 5 album Music Complete - this is the perfect document of those magical 5 nights. The album was recorded live on 13th July 2017 and includes the full show and encore plus 3 additional tracks recorded over the residency to give listeners a full representation of the breadth of material performed. 

This special series of intimate shows took over Stage 1 of Manchester’s iconic Old Granada Studios for five nights in June 2017. Created in collaboration with visual artist Liam Gillick, who has previously presented solo exhibitions at venues such as Tate Britain and MoMA in New York; and orchestrated by composer-arranger Joe Duddell, a fellow son of Manchester and a frequent collaborator with the band, the live show was performed by the band with a 12-strong synthesiser ensemble from the Royal Northern College of Music. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mute present this essential landmark in New Order's lineage with this 2CD / 3LP set from MIF almost exactly 2 years ago. The catalogue is given a renewed and invigorated twist, showing another side to an already venerable set of classic songs. An essential piece for any fans, and another reason New Order retain the status they've held for so long.

TRACK LISTING

1 Times Change (Live At MIF)
2 Who's Joe (Live At MIF)
3 Dream Attack (Live At MIF)
4 Disorder (Live At MIF)
5 Ultraviolence (Live At MIF)
6 In A Lonely Place (Live At MIF)
7 All Day Long (Live At MIF)
8 Shellshock (Live At MIF)
9 Guilt Is A Useless Emotion (Live At MIF)
10 Subculture (Live At MIF)
11 Bizarre Love Triangle (Live At MIF)
12 Vanishing Point (Live At MIF)
13 Plastic (Live At MIF)
14 Your Silent Face (Live At MIF)
15 Decades (Live At MIF)
16 Elegia (Live At MIF)
17 Heart & Soul (Live At MIF)
18 Behind Closed Doors (Live At MIF)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Double LP of Ramones - Live At The Palladium, New York, NY (12/31/79) which first appeared on CD only as part of the 40th Anniversary Deluxe set of “Road To Ruin”. This then previously unreleased recording of the band’s entire 1979 New Year’s Eve concert, was mixed live by Stasium, and broadcast on WNEW-FM. Recorded in New York City at The Palladium, with audio sourced from Tommy Ramone’s original cassette of the console recording, it features blistering performances of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Rockaway Beach,” and “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker,” along with several songs from Road To Ruin: “I Don’t Want You,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” and “I Wanted Everything”. This will be its first release on vinyl.

Craig Finn is best known as the frontman of The Hold Steady but he is also a skilled songwriter in his own right. ‘I Need A New War’ is the third album in a trilogy (following 2015’s ‘Faith In The Future’ and 2017’s ‘We All Want The Same Things’). The album focuses on regular people trying to respond to extraordinary times, attempting to find connection while wondering how to keep pace with a world moving faster than they are. It solidifies Craig as one of today’s most important storytellers, among the ranks of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.

TRACK LISTING

Blankets
Magic Marker
A Bathtub In The Kitchen
Indications
Grant At Galena
Something To Hope For
Carmen Isn’t Coming In
Today
Holyoke
Her With The Blues
Anne Marie & Shane

Former Engineers songwriter Mark Peters pays a final visit to his debut solo album ‘Innerland’, with the release of ‘New Routes out of Innerland’, a collection of reworkings.‘Innerland’ was one of last year’s most surprising sleeper successes. An intentionally low-key album of windswept instrumentals inspired by Mark’s move back to his native northwest, it gave musical nods to Eno, Talk Talk, Vini Reilly and Richard Thompson, and first appeared as a limited-edition cassette before being expanded to a full vinyl, CD and digital release last April.

Something about its beautiful simplicity struck a chord and slowly but surely – thanks to word of mouth, as well as the support of the likes of Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 6 Music and positive reviews everywhere from Uncut to The Times – it worked its way into people’s hearts. By the end of the year it had also worked its way into Rough Trade’s top 10 albums of 2018 and, to celebrate, another limited edition vinyl only version called ‘Ambient Innerland’ was released, an even more introspective iteration that stripped away all of the percussion.This new version, however, is completely different. It finds Mark looking outwards, away from the bleak, post-industrial landscapes of Wigan, and inviting eight different artists from around the world to interpret and translate the instrumentals of ‘Innerland’ into their own musical and geographical languages.

German sound artist Andi Otto takes ‘Twenty Bridges’ and turns it into a weird world music groove, the cello recalling Arthur Russell, the rhythm Holger Czukay circa ‘Movies’; Polish composer Olga Wojciechowska sprinkles stardust all over ‘Mann Island’, morphing it into a slice of febrile, filmic techno; former Disappears and now FACS frontman Brian Case wrangles ‘Windy Arbour’ into a dark, dystopian drone; as previously heard last year on a limited edition lathe-cut 7” single, Ulrich Schnauss subtly re-frames ‘May Mill’ as elegiac electronica, the kind of oddity that could have graced a Tears For Fears B-side circa ‘Songs From The Big Chair’; Moon Gangs, aka Will Young from BEAK>, climbs ‘Gabriel’s Ladder’ and finds some delicate drone’n’bass; American producer and DJ Odd Nosdam takes his experience of working with Boards Of Canada and turns ‘Shaley Brow’ into a sinister tape collage, entirely in keeping with the murky history of the locale; E Ruscha V, the erstwhile Medicine guitarist also known as Secret Circuit, converts ‘Cabin Hill’ into Balearic Blue Nile; finally Jefre Cantu-Ledesma lights up ‘Ashurst’s Beacon’ as an inferno of deliciously distorted shoegaze. All eight are so disparate and yet they hang together perfectly, resulting in an exciting musical journey to somewhere completely new. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Twenty Bridges (Andi Otto Remix)
2. Mann Island (Olga Wojciechowska Rework)
3. Windy Arbour (Brian Case Remix)
4. May Mill (Ulrich Schnauss Remix)
5. Gabriel’s Ladder (Moon Gangs Remix)
6. Shaley Brow (Odd Nosdam Remix)
7. Cabin Hill (E Ruscha V Remix)
8. Ashurst’s Beacon (Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Remix)

Out of the ashes of Joy Division, the remaining members decided to carry on recording under the name of New Order. The band’s debut album Movement recorded between 24th April to the 4th May 1981 at Strawberry in Stockport and featuring all new material, produced by Martin Hannett was released in 11th November 1981 on Factory Records.

The Movement boxed set will include the vinyl LP with its original iconic sleeve designed by Peter Saville, original album CD in replica mini album sleeve, a bonus CD of previously unreleased tracks, DVD of live shows and TV appearances plus hard backed book all housed in a lift off lid box.

The vinyl LP of the original album is cut on 180g and features the 2015 remastered audio, presented in a replica of the original sleeve.

The second CD includes 18 completely unreleased tracks made from Demos, Sessions, Rehearsal Recordings and an Alternative 7” version of Temptation

Accompanying the set is a 48page hard back book which features photos and an essay.

TRACK LISTING

LP / CD1 (original Album)
1. Dreams Never End
2. Truth
3. Senses
4. Chosen Time
5. ICB
6. The Him
7. Doubts Even Here
8. Denial

CD2 (previously Unreleased Tracks)
1. Dreams Never End (Western Works Demo)
2. Homage (Western Works Demo)
3. Ceremony (Western Works Demo)
4. Truth (Western Works Demo)
5. Are You Ready For This? (Western Works Demo)
6. The Him (Cargo Demo)
7. Senses (Cargo Demo)
8. Truth (Cargo Demo)
9. Dreams Never End (Cargo Demo)
10. Mesh (Cargo Demo)
11. ICB (Cargo Demo)
12. Procession (Cargo Demo)
13. Cries And Whispers (Cargo Demo)
14. Doubts Even Here (Instrumental) (Cargo Demo)
15. Ceremony (1st Mix - Ceremony Sessions)
16. Temptation (Alternative 7”)
17. Procession (Rehearsal Recording)
18. Chosen Time (Rehearsal Recording)

New Order - Movement DVD
Live Shows

Hurrah’s, NY 1980
In A Lonely Place
Procession
Dreams Never End
Mesh
Truth
Cries & Whispers
Denial
Ceremony

Peppermint Lounge, NY 1981
In A Lonely Place
Dreams Never End
Chosen Time
ICB
Senses
Denial
Everything’s Gone Green
Hurt – Instrumental
Temptation

TV Sessions

Granada Studios 1981
Doubts Even Here
The Him
Procession
Senses
Denial

BBC Riverside 1982
Temptation
Chosen Time
Procession
Hurt – Instrumental
Senses
Denial
In A Lonely Place

Extras

Ceremony CoManCHE Student Union 1981
In A Lonely Place Toronto 1981
Temptation Soul Kitchen, Newcastle 1982 

At the third New Interplanetary Melodies' astral journey stopover, it was mandatory to catch an Italian project deeply inspired by the Sun Ra visionary realm, expressing contemporary trials of hybridising jazz with artful electronica. So Ra Toth and The Brigantes' Orchestra landed on vinyl grooves for the label, after having previously appeared on the likes of Mathematics and Berceuse Heroique. Behind the sound, we find the elusive and unpredictable genius of the well-respected producer Marcello Napoletano.

NIM received the distorted sound signal from Napoletano taken over by the Egyptian deity born from the lips of Ra. Who knows if those noises were coming from a parallel dimension, outer space, or some otherworldly sphere...? Submerged in dark bottom waters, the stormy waves of the 'Acid Sea' are made of convulsive afro-flavoured percussion with sharp synths looming out like the ivories of some freakish abyssal creatures.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Acid Sea
A2 Niko's Bass
B1 My Ghetto
B2 System Desease
B3 Marciolamenti

The record opens up with the poisonous title-track 'Two Scorpios', where sharp analogue leads lean on a relentless disco-funk groove, thrusting us out straight against the sweaty walls of the Chicago's Muzic Box. The airy and enchanting spirals of 'Solenoid' create a detachment for a sonic trip through circling arpeggios and sparkles. On the flip side, we reconnect Abyssy to the Young Soulomon of early 90's by a warm and robotics 'Dusty House'. The mood turns definitely more freaky with 'Slomo Kid': sampling divertissement with a punkish flavour and emphatic rhythmics, it is the perfect tune to shake down the whole ball of wax. 

TRACK LISTING

A1: Two Scorpios
A2: Solenoid
B1: Young Soulomon
B2: Slomo Kid

These New Puritans, the great heretics of British music, return with Into The Fire, their first new studio recording since 2013’s critically acclaimed album Field of Reeds.

To work on the follow-up to Field Of Reeds, Jack Barnett moved to Berlin, not in a 'trust fund edgelord in a black coat outside Berghain' sort of way, but purely because he could afford to get studio space in a large old Communist-era radio studio. "I'm not really in Berlin because I love the mystique of [the city] or anything like that, so the whole miserable winter thing doesn't really hold anything for me," he told me a few years ago. "It could be anywhere, I'm the sort of person where my environment doesn't have a massive effect on what I do, I don't think it would change the music particularly." There, he forged forward as part of a two-member core operation with twin brother George (Thomas Hein has departed to take a PhD in neuroscience). Additional contributions came from long-time collaborators Graham Sutton and conductor Andre De Ridder, yet even with this palette, this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, Field Of Reeds II. How could it be? That's not to say this is a comedown. It's a consolidation, yes, but rather than tread water These New Puritans continue to explore and augment their own landscape.

The Into The Fire artwork is a collaboration between George Barnett and the award winning photographer and director Harley Weir.

TRACK LISTING

1. Infinity Vibraphones
2. Anti–Gravity
3. Beyond Black Suns
4. Inside The Rose
5. Where The Trees Are On Fire
6. Into The Fire
7. Lost Angel
8. A–R–P
9. Six

Originally released on Factory Benelux in December 1981, this 12” featured Everythings Gone Green, which had previously been on the reverse of the band’s second 7” single ‘Procession’ in September 1981,and ‘Cries And Whispers’ and ‘Mesh’ whose titles were flipped on the cover causing confusion amongst fans and compilers ever since. This 12” features remastered audio and is pressed on heavyweight vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
Everything’s Gone Green

Side 2
Cries And Whispers
Mesh

Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz create candid music with deep emotional and personal resonance. The sisters, who record under the moniker Lily & Madeleine, boldly explore what it means to be women in the 21st Century and aren’t afraid to use their music to call out injustice or double standards. This fearless approach has permeated their three albums, which are full of insightful lyrics and thoughtful indie-pop.

With their fourth studio album, ‘Canterbury Girls’, named after Canterbury Park, located in their hometown of Indianapolis, the sisters are coming into their own as women and musicians. Using an eclectic playlist of songs as sonic inspirations - soul tunes and waltzes, as well as cuts from Midlake, ABBA and Nancy Wilson - Lily & Madeleine worked quickly, recording ‘Canterbury Girls’ in just 10 days.

Although the record contains plenty of Lily & Madeleine’s usual ornate music - including the languid ‘Analog Love’, on which twangy guitars curl around like a kite twisting in the wind - the album also finds the siblings exploring new sonic vistas. ‘Supernatural Sadness’ is an irresistible slice of bubbly, easy-going disco-pop; the urgent ‘Pachinko Song’ hews toward interstellar synth-pop with driving rhythms and ‘Can’t Help The Way I Feel’ is an effervescent, Motowninflected number.

Vocally, the sisters also take giant leaps forward. The dreamy waltz ‘Self Care’ is a rich, piano-heavy track on which their voices intertwine for soulful harmonies, while the meticulous ‘Just Do It’ has a throwback 70s R&B vibe. “This is the first record Lily and I have ever done where we have full control over all of the songwriting,” says Madeleine. “We did co-write with some people that we really love. But everything on this record is completely ours. I feel like I have full ownership over it, and that makes me feel very strong and independent.” With this growing self-confidence and musical poise, it’s clear that Lily & Madeleine are positioned for even greater things going forward.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lil & Mads' last outing, 'Keep It Together' was a big hit in the shop, and their latest, 'Canterbury Girls' will surely meet the same reception. Slightly more upbeat this time around, we get an infectious smattering of neo-soul, shimmering synth-pop and even the odd inkling of classic-rock melodies and the ever-present addictive two-part harmonies we've come to know and love. Beautiful stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Self Care
Supernatural Sadness
Just Do It
Canterbury Girls
Bruises Pachinko Song
Circles
Can’t Help The Way I Feel
Analog Love
Go

“Hello. I’m Robert Ellis, The Texas Piano Man. I wanted to take a moment to say a few words about this record and what you might expect from it. ‘Texas Piano Man’ is a collection of songs specifically written for my piano driven Rock & Roll band from the great state of Texas. Myself and the guys bring these songs to you in the very spirit of Texas itself; loudly, confidently, over the top, larger than life, at times deadly serious and yet always with a wink and a smile. We invite you to come on in, stay a while, and when you leave take with you the spirit of these songs, the spirit of Texas, and the spirit of The Texas Piano Man himself. Adios!” - Robert

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From the grand, cinematic soundtrackery of Elton John or off-kilter college-rock keyfoolery of Ben Folds, Robert Ellis skilfully weaves heartfelt piano minimalism into grand classic rock opuses (opii?) within the space of a couple minutes. Perfectly constructed and brilliantly conceived rock and/or roll.

TRACK LISTING

Fucking Crazy
When You’re Away
Nobody Smokes Anymore
Passive Aggressive
Father
There You Are
Let Me In
Aren’t We Supposed To Be In Love
Lullaby
He Made Me Do It
Topo Chico

The New Creation were a five piece ensemble made up of family members Robert James Randle (Aka Rasheed Shakoor Sr) his son Keith Randle (aka Rasheed Shakoor Jr) their nephew/cousin Mel Houston. Mel’s stepfather William Cooper (aka Wali Ali) and a fifth unrelated member Wayne E-2X.
The creator of The New Creation was William Cooper a guitarist who had previously worked with Norman Whitfield at Motown and had toured with The Undisputed Truth and The Jackson Five. He had also been employed by HB Barnum as part of Areatha Franklin’s touring band an association that would be relevant in The New Creation’s story.

The concept of The New Creation began sometime during 1973 when Robert James Randle penned the song “The Fish Song” ( credited as Robert 51-X) and William Cooper penned the song “Elijah Knows” amongst other material that never really got past the demo stage. Adding teenage cousins Mel Houston (Bass Guitar) and Keith Randle (Conga drums) and Wayne E-2X , The New Creation began performing through their affiliation to the African America political and religious movement , The Nation Of Islam with no lesser a person than Muhammad Ali, as a support act to his Celebrity Boxing Promotion Tours. They also toured as a support act to one of Philadelphia’s most well known soul groups, The Delfonic’s.
During the summer of 1974, under the tutelage of HB Barnum, The New Creation entered the Devonshire Recording Studio’s in North Hollywood to lay down the basic tracks of the above two songs with HB later adding the horn arrangements. The group pressed 2000 copies (plus a later 500) on their own Salaam label. They initially began to seek out radio airplay, unfortunately this wasn’t to be too forthcoming as the majority of radio stations considered “The Fish Song” to have been recorded as a commercial song , (which the group had no intention of) and demanded extortionate fees to promote. Therefore The New Creation were left with no choice but to promote their own product which they did by mail order and appearances throughout Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver (Colorado), Cleveland and New York selling their 45, for $5 each complete with a homemade promotional brochure.

With the groups growing popularity came the need for more rehearsals which sometimes lasted till three in the morning the teenage members of the group parents feared this would compound upon their High School work and so pulled them out of the group. They were replaced briefly by older members before the group broke up for good.

The New Creation’s “The Fish Song/Elijah Knows” is now a highly regarded and sought after 45 with sweet and harmony soul collector’s in Europe and it’s native USA.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1

1. "The Fish Song" (3:25)

Side 2

1. "Elijah Knows" (3:55)

LIMITED TO 250 COPIES FOR RETAIL.

These New Puritans, the great heretics of British music, return with Into The Fire, their first new studio recording since 2013’s critically acclaimed album Field of Reeds. Into The Fire, featuring Current 93’s David Tibet, is available via Infectious Music from all digital retailers and a 7-inch coloured vinyl is now available for pre-order, backed with a remix by These New Puritans as Mick The Asbestos. The Into The Fire artwork is a collaboration between George Barnett and the award winning photographer and director Harley Weir.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Into The Fire

SIDE B
1. Into The Fire (Mick Abestos Remix)

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

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

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

‘Finally Free’ marks Daniel Romano’s eighth long playing album in the last eight years. He has had what understatedly would be considered a prolific output of incredibly entrancing, poignant and creative records in this span of time. Recording, producing, designing and landing his records into the minds and hearts of scores of fans the world over. He has been called a shapeshifter, contrived, a chameleon, a charlatan, the best living songwriter, an asshole and a genius. His last record, ‘Modern Pressure’, received outstandingly high acclaim and praise from every notable publication out there and was acknowledged by a plethora of voguish year-end lists. Despite being the bronze placeholder in most of these dogfights, he is most often noted as a person of astounding influence on all of his musically economic successors.

“No matter what he does, everything he puts out is better than anything else being put out by anyone else.” - Unnamed Subjugate

Romano’s new effort, ‘Finally Free’, could stand alone as being pivotal if it were only its profound and breath-taking prose on paper. Writing now like an agnostic Whitman in his prime, Romano explores and uncovers new language and meaning for old sentiments grown tired, stating, “these poems are most certainly my finest and most principled efforts to date.”

‘Finally Free’ sings like a radical revelation, exploring the concepts of music as a celestial being, flora as a consequential ancestor and singing, no matter its quality or sound, as the endmost important output of our species. This record contains a vivid religious articulation despite its clear condemnation of a god as a singular ruling white male. New words have replaced old words for new meaning and the definitions have been left up to interpretation.

TRACK LISTING

Empty Husk
All The Reaching Trims
The Long Mirror Of Time
Celestial Manis
Between The Blades Of Grass
Rhythmic Blood
Have You Arrival
Gleaming Sects Of Aniram
There Is Beauty In The Vibrant Form

Despite an incredibly short recording career Joy Division remarkably have stood the test of time in terms of influential British bands. Their dark, brooding sound has inspired more artists than could be listed and their continued adoration today is testament to the forward thinking yet inward projected music and lyricism of a young band on the brink of success yet unsure of how to deal with it. With the sad passing of Ian Curtis, from the ashes rose New Order; the same core band but with a new fresh approach to their chosen career path. Loud, colourful and full of life.

‘Total’ is a chronological look at the two bands most important tracks, covering Joy Division staples such as 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', and the resonating 'Atmosphere'. New Order bring to the table 'Blue Monday', 'Bizarre Love Triangle' and 'True Faith'. Also included is a brand new never released New Order track ‘Hellbent’.

TRACK LISTING

Side One
Transmission
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Isolation
She’s Lost Control
Atmosphere

Side Two
Ceremony
Temptation
Blue Monday

Side Three
Thieves Like Us
The Perfect Kiss
Bizarre Love Triangle
True Faith
Fine Time

Side Four
World In Motion
Regret
Crystal
Krafty
Hellbent

The Strange World of Suzie Pellet' is a hard rocking concept album featuring a dark, unsettling and mysterious tale of future street dweller Suzie Pellet. A feisty survivor in a ruined world, Suzie is the brainchild of Ian Miller, fantasy/horror artist and novelist. His surreal. nightmarish creations have graced book covers, graphic novels and films, and have given form to the works of HP Lovecraft, Tolkien and many more. Now, one of his own dark gothic characters comes to life. Not unlike Michael Moorcock guiding Hawkwind or Sandy Pearlman, The Blue Oyster Cult, or even a cranked up Moody Blues or Who, Transmaniacon bring Miller'svision to sonic life, aided and abetted by the outstanding vocal deliveries of punk poetess and avant rocker Lydia Lunch (a hind-sighted Suzie) and Maya Berlin (a future 'present-day' Suzie).

Sci-fi and space rock has always been present in Transmaniacon, a previous incarnation was XM3a who released the first New Heavy Sounds single, 'Bad Robot Man', an epic 9 min acid rock riff-fest. This was followed up (as Transmaniacon) by 'The Darkening Plain' their first concept piece containing the 25 min classic 'Quintessence of Dust' - bleak, dense, forboding, and heavy. - a sort of Killing Joke/Hawkwind/Pentagram hybrid which featured the first collaboration with Lydia Lunch. But with 'Suzie Pellet' Transmaniacon becomes more a musical collective. The core of the band remains, hard and heavy riffing guitars, overdriven Hammond Organ (and this time synth) but with the addition of Tom (Uncle Acid/Limb) Mowforth on drums they are a groovier, more athletic 70's rock beast. The twin heavyweights of Blue Oyster Cult and Mountain loom large, but this time with the added groove of an an organ-driven Black Mountain. Suzie Pellet is Transmaniacon's first true collaboration with Ian Miller. Miller resurrected his post apocalyptic tale of street survivor Suzie Pellet in a rotten and derelict London-esque urban-scape called Duht. Transmaniacon have taken and expanded Miller's vision into a story in which Pellet herself, describes the dark, underworld, its characters and situations, friends and foes, all in grisly-spoken and sung diary-like, excerpts.

Lydia Lunch was an obvious choice for the mature Pellet. A survivor of numerous underground scenes herself from punk and no-wave through noise, avant-rock and, appropriately enough here, spoken word. In 1975 Patti Smith perhaps could have been a young Susie Pellet, in 93 Polly Harvey, but now the role falls to Maya Berlin. With her band, Cold in Berlin delivering equal parts Punk, Doom and Goth over their three highly acclaimed albums (including 'The Comfort of Loss and Dust on Candlelight Records), she was perfect. And Suzie gives her the opportunity to expand her vocal (and theatrical) talents in Grace Slick or Julie Driscoll or even Chelsea Wolfe directions. Step into the nightmare world of Suzie Pellet. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's a pretty out-there idea, and more than fitting for the King Crimson / Blue Oyster it so readily references, but this particular concept is flawlessly accomplished and brilliantly overblown. Brilliantly heavy but nuanced psych rock with a host of talented musicians behind it makes it a must have for you LL fans out there.

TRACK LISTING

1. Inca Sunshine
2. Painted On Skin
3. The River, The Birds
4. Sexton Breen
5. Dogs Of War
6. Outrun The Pack
7. Tooled Up
8. Aerosol Death Rattle

If there’s one thing the acclaimed bassist Christian McBride knows, it’s that when it comes to grit there’s no better resource to draw from than his own hometown, Philadelphia. So, McBride turned to one of the city’s most beloved colloquialisms to christen his latest project, Christian McBride’s "New Jawn".

On the band’s eponymous debut, these four stellar musicians - including trumpeter Josh Evans, saxophonist Marcus Strickland, and drummer Nasheet Waits - ably walk the razor’s edge between thrilling virtuosity and gut-punch instinctiveness.

The result is a surprisingly bracing and adventurous outing for McBride. A world-renowned bassist regularly lauded as a musician who can do anything, he proves it yet again by venturing into new territory. "New Jawn" runs the gamut of stylistic approaches, from deep-rooted swing to daring abstraction, singular blues to exquisite balladry. At the core of it all is McBride’s trademark sound, robust and embracing, agile and inventive.

TRACK LISTING

Walkin’ Funny
Ke-Kelli Sketch
Ballad Of Ernie Washington
The Middle Man
Pier One Import
Kush
Seek The Source
John Day
Sightseeing

An early devotee of shoegaze and the dreamy melancholia of bands such as Mazzy Star and Sparklehorse, Khouri began her career as an acoustic singer-songwriter in New York, selfreleasing her first EP ‘A Song to the City’. Returning to London, she was eventually discovered by producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, This is the Kit) and began writing songs for what would become her first LP, ‘The Salted Air’ released in 2017. The album earned plaudits from the likes of MOJO and Drowned In Sound, was celebrated by Q (Feb 2017 Critics Choice) and selected as one of Rough Trade’s Albums of the Year 2017. In the past year, Khouri has toured in the UK and Europe and has shared the stage with artists such as Low, John Parish, Aldous Harding, H. Hawkline, Howe Gelb, Adrian Crowley, and many more.

Self-produced and recorded in London in between touring commitments, Khouri’s latest offering was mixed by Alan Weatherhead (Sparklehorse, Julien Baker) and is a powerful return from her acclaimed debut. If her debut ‘The Salted Air’ were an allegory for displacement, in ‘A New Dawn’ Khouri has found the shore and displays a quiet, newfound confidence. The title track, which premiered on CLASH in August, opens with droning harmonium, cascades of tremolo guitar and mermaid-like backing vocals.

‘To Sleep’ sees violinist Basia Bartz doubling Khouri’s nylon string guitar in a pizzicato set against swelling harmonium, piano and flurries of guitar delay. Penned as “a lullaby she wrote from the point of view of a younger self” in a war zone, Khouri deals with the sounds of shelling by singing herself to sleep: “Teach me / A melody / So I can hum myself to sleep”. The beautifully arranged EP highlights Khouri’s talent for creating songs that feel both vast and intimate, as her sumptuous vocal takes centre-stage with poignant lyrics set against delicate atmospheric soundscapes.

TRACK LISTING

1. A New Dawn
2. To Sleep
3. The Hours

HARMONY IN MY HEAD is another of Cherry Red’s celebrations of a bygone era – this time, the boom in Power Pop and New Wave which followed the Punk explosion in 1977. This triple-CD box set spins off the success of the 4-CD compilation Action Time Vision (2016), which documented Punk on independent labels. New Wave was a term coined in 1977 to describe a clutch of new artists whose music shared much of the energy of punk, but boasted a more sophisticated level of musicianship and a heavier reliance on traditional pop melodies. Although the term had such a wide definition in the States that it was quickly rendered almost meaningless, it was more strictly applied in the UK, with the radio-friendly likes of Elvis Costello and Squeeze scoring numerous hits and influencing younger bands to the extent that, by the early Eighties, the New Wave itself had become Old Wave.

The British scene’s reiteration of the appeal of a more traditional pop approach saw several attempts to provide an alternative to the unsatisfactory ‘New Wave’ epithet. Nick Lowe coined the phrase “pure pop for now people” to describe his approach, early brand leaders The Pleasers described their sound as Thamesbeat (a literal update of Merseybeat), while a handful of bands (including The Monos! and The Monochrome Set) played regularly at a London club that marketed itself as Newbeat, “a reaction to punk”. But none of these terms caught on, and instead the genre became known as Power Pop. Once again, there was a significant difference between the UK and US models, but Britain had its own Power Pop scene that slowly mutated into the Mod Revival. Many of the Mod bands drew heavily on melodic 60s records (it was, after all, The Who’s Pete Townshend who had coined the term ‘Power Pop’ back in 1967), although by late 1981 that scene had in turn morphed (in London, at least) into the short-lived New Psychedelia movement.

HARMONY IN MY HEAD includes many of the New Wave/Power Pop scene’s biggest hitters alongside the more melodic Punk bands. Name acts include Elvis Costello, Squeeze, Buzzcocks, Eddie & The Hot Rods, Nick Lowe, The Jags and Wreckless Eric, who are joined by other less successful but nevertheless key players (The Records, The Freshies, The Flysetc) as well as a host of rare 45s on tiny labels, many of which have never been on CD before. The deluxe clamshell package includes a weighty booklet full of illustrations, with a 12,000-word sleeve-note incorporating band-by-band biographies by compiler David Wells.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. HARMONY IN MY HEAD - The Buzzcocks
2. YOU BELONG TO ME - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
3. TIME GOES BY SO SLOW - The Distractions
4. TAKE ME I'M YOURS - Squeeze
5. TROUBLE WITH LOVE - Any Trouble
6. RICH KIDS - Rich Kids
7. TEENARAMA - The Records
8. BORN A WOMAN - Nick Lowe
9. SUFFICE TO SAY - Yachts
10. FIRST TIME - The Boys
11. HE'S FRANK (SLIGHT RETURN) - The Monochrome Set
12. SARAH SMILES - Bram Tchaikovsky
13. YOU KNOW WHAT I'M THINKING GIRL - The Pleasers
14. DOES STEPHANIE KNOW - Squire
15. HOWARD HUGHES - The Tights
16. SHE'S GONNA BREAK YOUR HEART - Salford Jets
17. TEENAGE CRUSH - The Trend
18. STRIKE TALKS - The Donkeys
19. COULDN'T BELIEVE A WORD - The 45's
20. THIS IS THE WAY â| OK - Bleeding Hearts
21. (YOU'RE GONNA) LOSE THAT GIRL - The Name
22. CAN'T SEE - The Drones
23. TURN THE LIGHTS OUT - Venigmas
24. CRAZY TODAY - UXB
25. (I WISH IT COULD BE) 1965 AGAIN - The Barracudas

Disc: 2
1. DO ANYTHING YOU WANNA DO - Eddie & The Hot Rods
2. I'VE GOT A HEART - The Realists
3. THE REAL ME - Radio Stars
4. IRENE - The Photos
5. I'M SORRY - Straight Eight
6. WEST ONE (SHINE ON ME) - Ruts
7. BILLY - The Circles
8. BROKEN DOLL - Wreckless Eric
9. I NEVER WAS A BEACH BOY - The Jags
10. BIFF! BANG! POW! - The Times
11. LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER - The Radiators
12. JILLY - The Piranhas
13. EVERYDAY, EVERYWAY - Really 3rds
14. HOW ABOUT ME AND YOU - The Carpettes
15. UFO - The Monos!
16. 9 O'CLOCK - Snips
17. SHATTERED BY IT ALL - TV21
18. HEY BABY - Disguise
19. SOME BOYS - Going Red
20. DON'T WANT YOU BACK - The Letters
21. RUBY TOOT - The Vandells
22. WHILE I'M STILL YOUNG - The Autographs
23. WASTING TIME - Strangeways
24. CURTAINS FOR YOU - The Accidents
25. DOWN AT THE ZOO - Those Naughty Lumps
26. 24 HOURS - The Chefs

Disc: 3
1. LOOK AT THE OUTSIDE - Chelsea
2. PLAIN JANE - New Hearts
3. CRAZY WEEKEND - Staa Marx
4. STRAIGHT LINES - New Musik
5. COMMON TRUTH - Amazorblades
6. YOU'RE SO FUNNY - Fast Cars
7. SHE'S SO GOOD LOOKING - Knox
8. ANGRY WITH MYSELF - The Smirks
9. MY BUSINESS - Eater
10. NOW THAT IT'S OVER - The Users
11. SCIENCE FICTION (BABY YOU'RE SO) - The Dodgems
12. LADY OF THE AFTERNOON - Shooter
13. NO MONEY - The Freshies
14. NAME DROPPING - The Flys
15. OUT OF PLACE - The Outsiders
16. MAGIC ROUNDABOUT - The Stiffs
17. SOMETHING TO TELL YOU - The Wasps
18. (I CAN'T) PUT MY FINGER ON YOU - The Amber Squad
19. MR. SAD - The Thought Police
20. SONS OF SURVIVAL - Doctors Of Madness
21. HAPPY SONG - The Nips
22. WAIT A MINUTE - The Cherry Boys
23. HIGH RISE - The Trainspotters
24. DRUMMER MAN - Tonight
25. HEARTS IN HER EYES - The Searchers

The Hawklords open the doors of perception to a 'Brave New World' In celebration of a decade since The Hawklords re-booted for the 21st century in 2008, the band release their seventh consecutive studio album "Hawklords VII: Brave New World". It follows the band's critically acclaimed 2017 album "SIX" which charted in the Official UK Top 40 Rock Chart. Featuring former Hawkwind members Harvey Bainbridge (synths & vocals) and Jerry Richards (guitar & vocals), with Dave Pearce (drums) and Tom Ashurst (bass & vocals), "Brave New World" is an album of soaring transcendence and grinding power.

The songs and narrative’s on LONER reflect my life over the last couple years––I joined Tinder, I got my first apartment and painted it teal, I went to par¬ties, I discussed politics, I had a girlfriend, we traveled the country, we broke up. I learned, for better or worse, how to be a member of the modern world. Turns out the modern world is terrifying.

Tired of the bottomless pit of sad songs, I decided to put a spin on my greatest songwriting inspirations––misogyny, unplanned pregnancy, Capitalism, anxiety, loneliness and death––and wrap such depressing subject matter in a sprightly, angsty pop burrito…Because it’s hard being serious all the time and sometimes sad songs just need a cocktail. Loner reflects the styles of music I love––pop, folk, punk, electronic, and surf music––all thrown into a blender with a ladle full of cheeky satire. I call it Schizodrift. It sounds like Blondie drunk on mai tais.

Loner was co-produced by myself and the wonderful Paul Butler (Deven¬dra Banhart, Michael Kiwanuka, St. Paul & The Broken Bones) and recorded in freezing Northern California, in addition to my parent’s attic and my last apart¬ment. It was mixed by sound guru Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Show Me The Body) in Brooklyn, NY.

Last year, Amusement Parks On Fire returned with their first release in '8.8 years'. The single 'Our Goal To Realise' saw the Nottingham art-rockers reappear with signature songwriting sophistication and sonic scope. 'All The New Ends' seeks to further cement their insignia whilst eschewing genre-tropes and preconceptions of form. Like the expansive concept-singles surrounding their second album 'Out Of The Angeles', the medium-length format once-again provides the perfect platform to push perceptions and extend expectations.

Sometimes in improvised music there can be a distance between listener and players, a sense you’re sitting back and admiring their interplay and abstraction – but with Szun Waves’ second album, you’re right in there with them, inside the playing, experiencing the absolute joy the three musicians feel as they circle around each other, exploring the spaces they’ve opened up.

The three members already have sparkling pedigrees of their own. Norfolk’s Luke Abbott is well known for his explorations of the zones between pure ambience and the leftmost fringes of club culture. With Portico Quartet and Circle Traps, Jack Wyllie has been in the vanguard of UK fusions of jazz, classical and club music. Australian drummer Laurence Pike has likewise found a unique voice in improvised and experimental music-making, whether in the bands Triosk or PVT, or as a solo artist.

The trio’s musical relationship has grown naturally and steadily, and it shows. From Wyllie adding shimmering sustained sax notes to Abbott’s gorgeous ambient pieces in 2013, Szun Waves emerged when Pike was added to the mix, energizing the sound but still keeping its levitational qualities. Their 2016 self-released debut album hit a natural groove, and now they’re in a place of pure spontaneity: "New Hymn To Freedom" is a document of six entirely live improvisations – no edits or overdubs – and its title couldn’t be more apt. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Constellation (video)
A2. Fall Into Water
B1. High Szun
B2. Temple
C1. Moon Runes
C2. New Hymn To Freedom
D. Slow Motion (vinyl Only Bonus Track)

The power of words isn’t lost on longstanding Americana triumvirate The Devil Makes Three - Pete Bernhard, Lucia Turino and Cooper McBean. For as much as they remain rooted in troubadour traditions of wandering folk, Delta blues, whiskey-soaked ragtime and reckless rock ‘n’ roll, the band nod to the revolutionary unrest of author James Baldwin, the noholds barred disillusionment of Ernest Hemingway and Southern Gothic malaise of Flannery O’Connor.

In that respect, their sixth full-length and first original material since 2013, ‘Chains Are Broken’ resembles a dusty leatherbound book of short stories from some bygone era. As the band began writing ideas for the record they veered off the proverbial path creatively. 

Instead of their typical revolving cast of collaborators, The Devil Makes Three stuck to the signature power trio, with one addition. This time they invited touring drummer Stefan Amidon to power the bulk of the percussion.

Another first, they retreated to Sonic Ranch Studios in El Paso, TX a stone’s throw from the Mexican border to record with producer Ted Hutt (Dropkick Murphys).

The incorporation of new sounds as well as the experimentation in space finds The Devil Makes Three crafting a new yet still familiar sound. Coupled with a continued focus on in-depth lyricism that tells a story in every song, ‘Chains Are Broken’ is a liberating, rump-shaking collection of past, present and future.

TRACK LISTING

Chains Are Broken
Pray For Rain
Paint My Face
Can’t Stop
Need To Lose
All Is Quiet
Bad Idea
Deep Down
Native Son
Castles
Curtains Rise

Zero 7 were formed in 1997 by producers Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker. In 2001 their debut album "Simple Things" was released selling over a million copies to date and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Zero 7 were also nominated as Best Newcomer at the Brit Awards 2001. "Simple Things" peaked at no.28 in the UK album chart and spent 89 weeks on the chart. Stateside, the album hit no.4 on the Billboard Dance / Electronic album chart and stayed on that chart for 52 weeks.

Singles taken from the original album included ‘I Have Seen’ featuring Mozez, ‘Destiny’ featuring Sia & Sophie Barker, "In the Waiting Line" featuring Sophie Barker and "Distractions" featuring Sia. The LP has been out of print for almost two decades and second-hand copies of the original pressing are changing hands on Ebay and Discogs for upwards of £100!

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Beautiful, lushly produced downtempo grooves topped with sweet melodies, somewhat akin to French masters Air but with soul and jazz flavours, this is a timeless classic, and every home should have one!

TRACK LISTING

LP:
I Have Seen
Polaris
Destiny
Give It Away
Simple Things
Red Dust
Distractions
In The Waiting Line
Out Of Town
This World
Likufanele

CD:

Disc 1:
I Have Seen
Polaris / Destiny
Give It Away
Simple Things
Red Dust
Distractions
In The Waiting Line
Out Of Town
This World
Likufanele
End Theme

Disc 2:
Simple Things (KFOG Session)
Destiny (KFOG Session)
In The Waiting Line (KFOG Session)
Monday Night
Spinning
Salt Water Sound
Distractions (Version Idjut)
In The Waiting Line (Dorfmeister Con Madrid De Los Austrias Dub)
End Theme (Herberts Chop Dub)
Distractions (Block 16 Mix)
Destiny (Photek Remix)

Maps and Atlases Lightlessness Is Nothing New, their first since 2012s critically acclaimed Beware & Be Grateful, serves to foreshadow an emotionally and musically dynamic collection of songs that contemplates the jolt of loss and the strain of longing to music that, against our better judgment, makes us want to dance.

TRACK LISTING

The Fear 
Fall Apart
Ringing Bell
Violet Threaded
Fog And The Fall
Learn How To Swim
Super Bowl Sunday
War Dreams
4/25
Wrong Kind Of Magic

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

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Easily his best solo album.

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Sometimes the catalyst for creating great art is simply being in the right place at the right time. For Arthur Buck, the new collaboration between singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur and guitarist Peter Buck, that place was Mexico and that time was the fall of 2017. Specifically, a little town off the Baja coast named Todos Santos, with the Sierra de la Laguna mountains to the east and the bright blue Pacific stretching out infinitely to the west. It is here that Buck has held the Todos Santos Music Festival for the last several years, which he created in 2012 with his wife, Chloe Johnson, shortly after R.E.M. called it a day.

Among the many artists who have played the festival is Joseph Arthur, who also happened to leave behind a guitar - a Dobro, specifically - after his last appearance there. And so last year he made the trek down to Todos Santos to pick up the instrument. Which is where he ran into Peter Buck. That was the beginning of Arthur Buck.

The creative result of this relationship is a vibrant 11-song collection that captures the spontaneity at the heart of the project - right down to the 1-2-3-4 count off from Buck that opens the record - with sounds and styles meshed together in an easy, almost playful manner.

Tchad Blake was brought in to mix the proceedings and the product is the new Arthur Buck - the outcome of a shockingly productive burst of inspiration.

TRACK LISTING

I Am The Moment
Are You Electrified? The Wanderer
Forever Waiting
If You Wake Up In Time
Summertime
American Century
Forever Falling
Before Your Love Is Gone
Wide Awake In November
Can’t Make It Without You

Preoccupations’ songs have always worked through themes of creation, destruction, and futility, and they’ve always done it with singular post-punk grit. The textures are evocative and razor-sharp. The wire is always a live one. But while that darker side may have been well-explored, that’s not quite the same as it being fully, intensely lived. This time it was, and the result is ’New Material’, a collection that broadens and deepens Preoccupations to a true mastery of their sound. In it lies the difference between witnessing a car crash and crashing your own, between jumping into an ocean and starting to swallow the water.

“It’s an ode to depression,’ singer Matt Flegel says plainly. “To depression and self-sabotage, and looking inward at yourself with extreme hatred.” Typically resilient, the months leading up to recording ‘New Material’ brought a new order of magnitude to feelings that had been creeping up on Flegel for some time. He’d written bits and pieces of lyrics through the course of it, small snippets he hadn’t assigned to any one thought or feeling but were emblematic of a deeper issue, something germinating that was dense and numb and fully unshakeable. As the band began writing music, that process gave shape to the sheer tonnage of what he’d been carrying. With virtually nothing written or demoed before the band sat down together, the process was more collaborative than before. It was almost architectural, building some things up, tearing others down to the beams, sitting down and writing songs not knowing what they were about. But for Flegel, it led to a reckoning. “Finishing ‘Espionage’ was when I realized,” says Flegel. “I looked at the rest of the lyrics and realized the magnitude of what was wrong.”

‘New Material’ builds a world for that feeling, playing through its layers and complexities while hiding almost nothing. That inscrutable side is part of the magic, here, and a necessary counterweight to the straight-jab clarity of Flegel’s lyrics. You can deep-dive the lyrics or zone into a riff; you can face it or you can get lost in it. “My ultimate goal would be to make a record where nobody knows what instrument is playing ever,” says multi-instrumentalist Scott Munro, “and I think we’ve come closer than ever, here. It shouldn’t sound robotic — it should sound human, like people playing instruments. It’s just maybe no one knows what they are.”

Opener “Espionage” lives up to Munro’s goals, kicking off with a clattering, rhythmic echo that gives way to sprinting percussion and a melody in the orbit of Manchester’s classics. “Manipulation” explores the futility of going through the motions, balancing a droney, minimal march with a thunder roll that brings it to the brink, and to the doomed romantic declaration, “please don’t remember me like I’ll always remember you.” “Disarray” bursts up like a blackened confetti cannon, the song’s undeniably bright melody dancing over a refrain of “disarray, disarray, disarray” and literally nothing else. “A lot of this is about futility,” he says, “trying to find something where there’s nothing to be found.” That hunt turns into a search-and-destroy mission on “Decompose”, a tense, speedy, “blow yourself up and start again” type of song, the very picture of creation and destruction, as Flegel writes “for better or worse, we are cursed in the ways that we tend to be.” And while calling an album ’New Material’ might seem like a smartass move, the truth is it’s as matter-of-fact a title as Espionage, Disarray, or anything else on the record. Why fight that?

If the through-line unifying Preoccupations’ work is a furious, almost punishing cyclical quality, ‘New Material’ does offer some relief. “This is somehow the most uptempo thing we’ve ever done,” observes Flegel. That propulsive, itchy quality rescues ‘New Material’ from the proverbial bottom of the pit. To write these songs is to force oneself to reignite, to play them is to stand up and reengage. Closer “Compliance” may not seem revelatory on first listen, but it is deeply elemental, a crucial finale and the band’s first standalone instrumental. Original versions were built to death, reexamined and re-destroyed until they landed on just two chords — something simple, fundamental — and resolved to make meaning out of that, to show instead of tell. Flegel acknowledges it is more affecting to him than any other song on the record. It’s not redemption, more like a forced reprieve.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: One of the greatest modern post-punk outfits return for one of their most blistering outings yet. Atmospheric and ambient in parts, and downright catatonic in others, this is the sound of a band reaching the peak of their game.

TRACK LISTING

Espionage
Decompose
Disarray
Manipulation
Antidote
Solace
Doubt
Compliance

A triple CD set of archive / unreleased / unearthed MWC sounds to celebrate their 10th year of functionality. The first disc, A Field Full Of Sunken Horses hearkens back to MWC’s earliest phase c. 2003-2009, including the titular fan fave which was issued as 128kbps MP3 only by The Wire in 2005, and now appears in high quality along with the flanging, bubbling magick of Rotten Druid and the bandy-legged swagger of Owd Lad Night. The 2nd disc, Tripping In The Elizabethan Sense brings us up to the period surrounding Clutch It Like A Gonk, namely variations on a "dance” music theme and the results spell out an array of eerie-step beats and mystic foxtrots.

The final disc We In This Hill Are Alive relinquishes a further 22 tracks of undulating soundscapes, taking inspiration from rugged Northern English hills and valleys to render a series of deep topographical studies mapping plasmic links between stone circles, hill mounds and ancient folk dressed in cutting edge couture. This is a music and upside down world unto itself, one where clocks go backwards and anthropomorphic fancies are an everyday occurrence ~ familiar to many, and seductive to many more.

TRACK LISTING

A - A Field Full Of Sunken Horses (GEPH010CDA)

1-1 Planting By The Signs
1-2 Peel Of Bees
1-3 A Central Variation
1-4 The Moontower
1-5 Magpie Mine
1-6 He've Got Saint Lawrence On The Shoulder*
1-7 Wolves In My House
1-8 The Potting Shed
1-9 Return To Shoebox Garden
1-10 Penfriends
1-11 Rotten Druid
1-12 Marshlight No. 2
1-13 Squire Skipling's Horrible Hobby
1-14 The Rabbit's Warning
1-15 Shopping In Fog
1-16 Curdled Footpath
1-17 Carousel Jack
1-18 13 O'Clock Hallucinations 2
1-19 Owd Lad Night
1-20 Autumn Fair Advertisement
1-21 10,000 Frozen Steps
1-22 Music In The Woods

B - Tripping In The Elizabethan Sense (GEPH010CDB)

2-1 Autumn Theatricals
2-2 Galaxy Class
2-3 Circle Of Power
2-4 Infernal Devices (Electrickery Mix)
2-5 Gonk Electric
2-6 Original Wolf Bounce
2-7 Gonk Operetta (Phantom Mix)
2-8 Gonk Stealth
2-9 Sly Gavotte (Dizzy Mix)
2-10 Special Nougat (Ghastly Nougat Mix)
2-11 Antiques Roadshow (Lost Somewhere Mix)
2-12 Spellcasting Summat (Could Be Hiding Mix)
2-13 Gonk Woozy
2-14 Always A Party (Fancy Fizz Mix)
2-15 Teatime Tick-tock Club
2-16 Gonk Materialize
2-17 Tudorbethan Jobbernowl (Full Jobbernowl Mix)
2-18 History Of Light Entertainment
2-19 Gonk Express
2-20 Strangewood Fair (Flaming Candyfloss Mix)
2-21 Hunted By Sentient Topiary
2-22 Ponder Ye (Extra Ponder Mix)

C - We In This Hill Are All Alive (GEPH010CDC)

3-1 Another Another Dreame
3-2 Endless Library
3-3 Location Spell
3-4 Eye Spy The Grey World
3-5 Refined Treacle Scryer
3-6 Nine Decaying Castles
3-7 Eternal Lovebirds (Midnight Mix)
3-8 Scorpio Pankenmannikins
3-9 Dispatch The Courtiers (Body Switcher)
3-10 Fine Big Hats
3-11 Exit Magic Control
3-12 Meadow Signals
3-13 If You Had The Key *
3-14 Midsummer Visitation
3-15 Silver Wolves
3-16 Creeping Into The Kitchen
3-17 Time Means Nowt
3-18 Redcaps In Barley
3-19 Absurd Games Night
3-20 A New Face On An Old Friend (Blazing)
3-21 Coaxing Zeus Into Bird Parallel *
3-22 Answer The Silent Question

The Classic Debut Album Plus Over 20 Unreleased Tracks! Both Mono And Stereo Album Mixes, The ‘Santa Dog’ Ep, Out-Takes And The Previously Unknown ‘1-10 (With A Touch Of 11)’ Recordings. All Material Remastered From The Original Tapes. Produced With The Residents And The Cryptic Corporation. Includes Rare And Unseen Imagery + Essay And Sleevenotes By Ian Shirley And The Residents’ Mysterious Archivist.

The First In A Series Of Deep, Archival Re-Issues From The Legendary San Francisco Collective. Long-Awaited By The Residents’ Large International Fanbase. Formed in the early 1970s, The Residents have been charting a unique path through the musical landscape for over 45 years. From far-out, experimental recordings to highly conceptual, innovative multi-platform projects, the band has refused to stand still, and continues to move in several different directions at once. Produced with the involvement of The Cryptic Corporation, and with full access to the band’s extensive tape archive, this package explores and expands the classic debut album and related 1972-1973 material. Including both mono and stereo mixes of “Meet The Residents”, the ‘Santa Dog’ EP, alternate versions of classic album tracks and other long-lost unreleased material, this is The Residents as we’ve always wanted to hear them. Remastered, expanded, and pREServed for future generations - this is the first in a series of archival Residents reissues that will continue throughout 2018 and beyond.

This is the album that might have saved Bob Dylan’s career. At the least, it proved the icon still relevant. It immediately followed what remains the artist’s biggest disaster, Self Portrait, a nearly unlistenable attempt that caused many to wonder whether Dylan had lost his mind. If intended as a joke, it bombed, making the sublime New Morning all the more important to restore faith in the singer’s creativity and songwriting prowess. It did all this and more, and would stand as his finest studio effort during a five-year span. “Many of the songs seem to have been made up on the spot, with confidence in the ability of first-rate musicians to move in any direction at any time,” wrote Dylan expert Greil Marcus in his original review for The New York Times. These observations hold true today, for the 1970 effort claims a daring flair Dylan rarely exhibited on albums before or since. An enthusiasm and excitement surrounds his singing, and his work on the 88s underlines the liberating arrangements.

Mastered on Mobile Fidelity’s world-renowned mastering system, this restored album spotlights the open, woozy sound that welcomes wholeheartedly Dylan’s piano, several eager guitars, female background singers, Al Kooper’s organ, and snappy drumming into a world of their own. The instruments retain an off-the-cuff sensibility relating to a nightclub atmosphere or live stage feel. On this reissue, notes naturally dangle and fade, allowing the playful vibes and humor to come through like never before. Consequently, New Morning can be experienced with newfound perspective.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

1. "If Not For You" 2:39
2. "Day Of The Locusts" 3:57
3. "Time Passes Slowly" 2:33
4. "Went To See The Gypsy" 2:49
5. "Winterlude" 2:21
6. "If Dogs Run Free" 3:37

Side Two

1. "New Morning" 3:56
2. "Sign On The Window" 3:39
3. "One More Weekend" 3:09
4. "The Man In Me" 3:07
5. "Three Angels" 2:07
6. "Father Of Night" 1:27

Finally one of the most requested, eagerly anticipated and generally exciting LPs of the year has finally landed. That's right, ambient maverick, electronic legend, jungle revivalist and abstract jazzer Four Tet is back with his first full length (longer than two conceptual suites) LP of brand new material in four years. Leaving the archival "0181" to one side, Kieran's last two LP outings were the extended and mind expanding ethno-lectronica of "Morning / Evening" and the dislocated, narcotic and blunted jungle of "Beautiful Rewind". Much to the delight of the KH traditionalists out there (cough...Barry) there's nary a spinback in sight on the blissful "New Energy", the producer opting instead to stroll calmly through the ambient pads, twinkling sequences and sublime textures which kept us company from "Everything Ecstatic" through to "There Is Love In You". Float away on the chilled waters of "Alap", nod along to the harp-led downbeat of "Two Thousand And Seventeen" and smile along to the soft focus stylings and pastoral glitch of "LA Trance". The B-side brings the "Ringer" style hypno-rhythm and "Love In You" beauty of "Lush", before darting off into the skitterish BOC beat space of the jazz flecked "Scientists". Boasting subtle breakbeats, cinematic swells and pulsating electronics, not to mention a bewitching kalimba refrain, "You Are Loved" sees out the first disc in sublime fashion.
Onto the second platter and "SW9 9SL" (a nod to Four Tet's Brixton Academy all nighters) is a streamlined club banger decorated by shuffling percussion, rumbling bass and a massive, hands aloft breakdown. "10 Midi" offers a moment of calm after that dancefloor burner and leads nicely into the harpy downbeat of "Memories". Referencing the mantra like vocals of "Morning/ Evening" and "There Is Love...", "Daughter" is a gossamer blend of reversed vocals, cascading melodies and soothing bass - the perfect companion to the astral, ethno-techno of "Planet". Pulsating space sounds, scattered vocals and trilling kora dip in and out of the spectral arps, riding a sturdy 4/4 thump into the furthest reaches of our galaxy. All that remains is to buy yourself a copy, sit comfortably by the speakers and rest easy in the knowledge Four Tet's done it again.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Combing the brilliant off-kilter jazztronic excursions of early years with the more downbeat, dancefloor-orientated kinetic outings of late (not that late) has worked a treat. Properly beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

01 Alap
02 Two Thousand And Seventeen
03 LA Trance
04 Tremper
05 Lush
06 Scientists
07 Falls 2
08 You Are Loved
09 SW9 9SL
10 10 Midi
11 Memories
12 Daughter
13 Gentle Soul
14 Planet

The former Boo Radleys artist released previous album 'The Breaks' a few years back now, an intriguing document that dealt with the songwriter's increased feeling of isolation from the world around him.

Spending time working - unsuccessfully, he adds - on pop projects for other acts, the death of David Bowie left an enormous impact on Martin Carr.
Sparking a period of re-analysis, he emerged stronger and definitely reinvigorated. He explains: "I was wasting my time scrabbling around in the dirt for pennies, making myself more and more miserable. I reflected on how many years I'd wasted chasing smoke and mirrors, living the life of an artist but neglecting the art."

"I ditched everything else I was working on and decided to write a new album rather than waiting until I had a few songs. I started completely from scratch, writing and recording, often at the same time, in my home studio in Cardiff. I was looking for a sound and a voice to call my own. That was the starting point. The theme was to be myself, to attempt to discover what made me tick, to work out why I behaved the way I did. I wanted to go deeper and find more room in the depths."

As their first release featuring songs written collaboratively by all three band members, it only makes sense that Honey’s sophomore LP New Moody Judy was recorded with the intent of perfectly capturing the dynamic, human energy that’s a vital component of their sound.

From the opening track, "Wage Agreement," – a song featuring a repeating blues lick framing verses that could either be about begging your boss for more hours or fighting with everything you have to not fall out of love – Honey make it clear that even with its ferocious riffs and careening rhythms, New Moody Judy’s message is one of empathy. “Through that front door / I’ll find anything but love” Dan Wise sings from the gut – what person hasn’t experienced the futility of trying to escape from a feeling like that. Equally relatable, if slightly more uplifting, is the message of the album’s first single “Dream Come Now”, an anthem to never giving up on your dreams even when they seem out of reach. Sonically, the song displays a new level of concision and brute heaviness previously known only to those who have seen Honey play live: the pummel and swing, the rave-ups and come downs -– the sound of perfect rock and roll, music always on the edge of spinning out of control.

From the tight jam giving way to a thrilling cascade of riffs that fuel the rush of "Hungry" to the ender-ender blowout of "Peggy Ray," New Moody Judy sees Honey giving everything to the music, and in doing so they create an LP that is meant to be felt all the way through. A band can't swing this heavy without heart, and New Moody Judy is about staying sensitized; about not numbing yourself to your relationships and the world around you even during the times that everything seems to be going to hell.

TRACK LISTING

Wage Agreement
Dream Come Now
New Moody Judy
Spped, Glue
Hungry
Bagman
Power
Wage Too
Peggy Ray

Dinner is Danish producer and singer Anders Rhedin. Following the release of his EP collection and last year’s debut album, ‘Psychic Lovers’, the now LA-based artist presents New Work on Captured Tracks.

With ‘New Work’, Dinner had a wish to do things differently. “I just needed to get back to the approach I used when I was still self-releasing cassettes, back in Copenhagen. I spent way too much time on the previous record. I was sitting in front of a computer-screen alone for seven months working on it, obsessing over it. This time I wanted to work very fast in order to think less. I wanted to collaborate more. I hoped that other people’s presence would keep my perfectionism in check.”

Dinner enlisted Josh da Costa (Regal Degal, Ducktails) to produce the album with him. He and Josh worked in the night time at off hours at a studio in an industrial part of downtown LA. The album’s songs were recorded on the spot with no preparation time. In-between studio sessions, Dinner recorded and overdubbed material in his apartment on an early 80s 4-track recorder.

“We did very little editing, we just tried to record what was there. You’ll hear a lot of first-takes on the record. The best part of the process was driving home early in the morning though the empty streets of LA, listening to the night’s recordings. Because it was such an immediate experience.”

The two previous Dinner releases were recorded in Berlin and Copenhagen with mostly European musicians. This isn’t the case on ‘New Work’, which features performances by Andy White (Tonstartssbandht), Charlie Hilton (Blouse), Rori McCarthy (Infinite Bisous, Connan Moccasin), Staz Lindes (Paranoyds) and a duet with Sean Nicholas Savage. “A lot of my favorite music is American. I thought it would be fun to go a little bit less Euro on this one. I’m plenty Euro by myself, some might say. I wanted to add a different color.”

Asked to describe the sound of ‘New Work’ after the first listen, Captured Tracks owner Mike Sniper texted: “Julian Cope, 60’s Baroque Pop, early 70’s Canterbury Sound, Japan, Ryuichi Sakamato, ‘Raspberry Beret’-era Prince... Need to listen a few more times before anything concrete comes!”

TRACK LISTING

Un-American Woman
Don’t Belong
Walk Away
Siren Song
Marble Eyes
Illusions
Get Real
Copenhagen
Waitin’
Thwl

• July 2017 sees the new album by the Fall – their first since Sub Lingual Tablet in 2015 – containing 11 new tracks recorded at various studios in the UK and produced in conjunction with Mark E Smith.

• The band, now in their 41st year, have proven a major influence to many a band in both the UK and around the world (bands such as Pavement, Hole and even Faith No More).

• New Facts Emerge is their third studio album for Cherry Red and adds to the list of over 100 live and studio albums released by the band over the years.

• Formed in 1976 by Mark E Smith, the band has gone through numerous line ups but retain a consistency that many other bands would envy.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1
1. SEGUE - THE FALL
2. FOL DE ROL - THE FALL
3. BRILLO DE FACTO - THE FALL
4. VICTORIA TRAIN STATION MASSACRE - THE FALL
5. NEW FACTS EMERGE - THE FALL
6. COUPLE VS JOBLESS MID 30'S - THE FALL

DISC 2
1. SECOND HOUSE NOW - THE FALL
2. O! ZZTRRK MAN - THE FALL
3. GIBBUS GIBSON - THE FALL
4. GROUNDSBOY AND THE TWO AMENDMENTS - THE FALL
5. NINE OUT OF TEN - THE FALL

The latest transmission from the world of Gunnar Haslam, "Kalaatsakia" wildly sprawls across the intersections of techno and more abstract sounds to take us on a wideranging journey from the subterranean to the coastal, from blown-out dub tones through fractured rhythms. An incredible work that is not easy to pigeonhole, "Kalaatsakia" is a full length album that navigates and sketches landscapes where new languages are created from old, dead ones to emerge as the lingua franca of interconnected immersive zones.

Haslam is an avid home listener of dub, dancehall and calypso, and that influence is quickly felt as Kalaatsakia launches with a tight electro snap and dubwise crash. Kalaatsakia advances and retreats seasonally, tightening up for the floor with the chrome-plated “Broadcast” and “Kjolle” while splintering apart on “Kalapuyan” and “nxbound”. Its constituent parts are often left to collapse in on themselves, smearing themes into residual trails. As the narrative of the album disintegrates and unfolds into more deconstructed territory, it stretches out even further with a striking skittering mental tease, settling into burbling sub-audible vocals and resonant spaces that all form a part of Haslam's self-created subconscious language.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Been patiently waiting for this epic long player since hearing the clips a few weeks back. Gunnar Haslam is a stone cold gee, and we're lucky enough to be accompanying this producer on his ascension in real time - with each release superseding the last. "Kalaat Sakia" is a modern masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

1. Broadcast
2. Kalapuyan
3. Transdisciplinary
4. Nxbound
5. Kjolle
6. Rservoir
7. Istvaeonic
8. Kpalaga
9. Kaltrees
10. Invariance
11. Density
12. Second Version 

If you want to know the secret to happiness, look no further than transcendental psychedelic pop outfit Glass Vaults. The New Zealand via Berlin band led by Richard Larsen, Rowan Pierce and Carpark Record’s signee Bevan Smith, create a unique concoction of joyously uplifting pleasure in their sonic laboratory and The New Happy is the result – an exploration of the euphoric sensations associated with Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR).

Glass Vaults' sophomore LP was recorded and mixed to seduce. ASMR, otherwise known as a “brain orgasm,” is an aurally triggered euphoric experience characterised by a tingling in the scalp which travels down the neck and spine and The New Happy was specifically mixed to elicit an ASMR effect. “We focused on retaining short high frequency transients and worked on modulating and panning certain sounds to induce goose bumps and shivers when listened through headphones,” Smith explains of the record’s atmospheric ambiance. “It looks not to emulate a sexual high, but a deeper, euphoric wave, that washes over the body in feelings of comfort and security… a new kind of happy.”

“We have always considered Glass Vaults to be an extension of our larger artistic interests and process,” Richard reveals. “One thing which has never changed is our goal of creating music that fully immerses those who experience it. We’re creating worlds and stories to fully transcend the audience.”

Whether it’s capturing the feelings brought about by recollections of the pair’s pre-teen days chatting with friends on MSN and downloading music from Napster (‘Savant’) sitting on Manhattan rooftops (‘Brooklyn’) or watching the sun rise after a long cold winter (‘The New Happy’), each song is a shot of serotonin to the synapses. Speaking of the title-track Larsen says; “I was interested in creating the feeling of the classic New Zealand summer. When I listen to this song I imagine a Fruju iceblock advert shown there in the 90s. Young beautiful people jumping off a boat, eating ice blocks and singing “Ooh Aah!”

Not stopping at physical pleasure, The New Happy’s absorbing soundscapes delve deeper into the unconscious by exploring nostalgia and dreams; ‘Rewind’ was inspired by a dream of hitting rewind on life whilst ‘Mind Reader’ refers to the way dreams linger, well into waking hours.

The New Happy sees the band peeling away at a once hazy veneer to reveal vibrant and colourful majestic pop moments crafted with precision and clarity. “The New Happy is a sonic departure for us… where once we would have relied on large crystalline reverbs, this record takes cues from intimate spaces, percussive rhythm and groove to elicit a different kind of transcendence.” Glass Vaults’ unique brand of dreamy psychedelic pop has wowed capacity crowds everywhere from drained swimming pools and humid forests, to New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.A.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mindreader
2. Ms Woolley
3. Brooklyn
4. Savant (NOT ON VINYL / CD ONLY)
5. Sojourn
6. Rewind
7. The New Happy
8. Bleached Blonde
9. Halaah Ha!

Likely titled New Lands due to Flying Saucer Attack being lauched upon "phase two" (as the liner notes put it), this release finds FSA down to Pearce and Pearce only, as before with a bit of help here and there from Rocker and, on "Present," the co-writing skills of two members of Amp. That the first two tracks are called "Past" and "Present" and that the first has more of a "classic" FSA sound with a steady rhythm and huge solo while the second revolves around a buried, near inaudible series of loops, seems to be part of the album's plan, such as it is. New Lands in general showcases Pearce in testing mode, seeming to see what works and what doesn't, looking backward as much as forward. Indeed, the lengthy, majestic steady build of "Whole Day Song" reappears from the Goodbye/and Goodbye EP, this time with vocals and a low-key, softly intoxicating piano line. While the more experimental parts of New Lands aren't really Pearce completely trashing his general aesthetic and trying something new, they do show him attempting and often succeeding at introducing further variety to his murky, intriguing field. Thus, "Up in Her Eyes" has a very familiar vocal and guitar style, but the obsessive, upfront yet still shadowy percussion -- sounding more like a chugging train engine than anything else -- dominates the track, at least up until its slightly more ambient, free-flowing end. Other curious rhythms, reminiscent of past comparisons to the work of Main, crop up more than once -- the near arrhythmic, squealing loop that introduces "Respect" or the blunt, brusque punch of "The Sea." Through it all, the combination of Pearce's tender, dark folk vocals and skybursting guitar provides the central point of the experience, making for some fascinating, entrancing results. - Allmusic

Whiteout Conditions, the new full-length record from critically acclaimed supergroup The New Pornographers, is released via Caroline and the band's own imprint, Collected Works.

Of writing the new record, founder and frontman A.C. Newman notes that, "At the beginning of this record, there was some thinking that we wanted it to be like a Krautrock Fifth Dimension. Of course, our mutated idea of what Krautrock is probably doesn’t sound like Krautrock at all. But we were thinking: Let’s try and rock in a different way.”

Sunrise, Sunset, Wherever. And who are ya!? We are Höga Nord Rekords and we´re busy keepin on. This time with a fresh 7" release from Minami Deutsch. Pure kraut live and direct from Tokyo. The quartet released their debut during 2015 on Chapata Records/Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Guru Guru Brain in Japan. Of course you can hear their love for kraut-rock legends such as Can and Neu! But more interesting is the bands members definition of themselves as repetition freaks.

A-Side New Pastoral Life sounds like a repetitive mystic chant that wants to communicate with Klaus Dinger on a ouija board in a distant and deep forrest.

B-side Tunnel offers a straight forward monokrautriot. Kyotara Miula (guitar, vocals, synthesizer), Taku Rauschenberg (guitar), Keita Ise (bass) and Hikari Sakashita (drums) surely comes from the same strain as Bo Ningen, Cybele no Nichiyobi and Kikagaku Moyo. Act like you know! 

Nocturnal Habits marks a return for influential guitarist / vocalist Justin Trosper. His work in the seminal post hardcore band Unwound and more recently the angular rock of Survival Knife are evident in the overall sound of ‘New Skin For Old Children’ his debut album for Glacial Pace.

There is a new tone, however, focused more sharply on the songwriting and production. The angles have been softened to create crushing, blunt force blows rather than sharp cuts.

Recorded throughout the world from Italy to Los Angeles and the backwoods of the Northwest, ‘New Skin For Old Children’ reunites Trosper with Sara Lund, his Unwound collaborator and so called ‘secret weapon’, as well as Dale Crover (Melvins), Sherry Fraser, and Scott Seckington (Two Ton Boa).

TRACK LISTING

Echophilia
Good Grief
Back To Snowdonia
The Staircase
Wall Of Early Morning Light
Sketchbook For The
Living
New Skin
Ice Island
Dog Meets Wolf

‘A New Place 2 Drown’ is a soundtrack by Archy Marshall (aka King Krule). It scores a book of the same name that Archy made with his brother Jack.

Previously released as a digital-only album, ‘A New Place 2 Drown’ is now available on vinyl. The original digital release was #33 in Pitchfork’s Top 50 Of 2015.

“‘A New Place 2 Drown’ evokes a septic world filled with flickering halogen bulbs, sticky synth keys, and corroded outputs. Marshall has made tremendous strides as a producer, gorgeously reproducing the gloom and loneliness of early ‘90s hip-hop and finding a way to integrate it into his own style.” - Pitchfork

“The album’s restrained, nuanced intelligence is a testament to Marshall’s pure talent and compelling persona” - SPIN

“Leisurely, immersive, strange and powerful” - The Guardian

The essence of Underground, Spiritual Jazz, figuratively and literally: their first album was recorded in a Boston, Mass. church’s basement. Both World’s Experience Orchestras albums were recorded in and around Boston, Massachusetts in the mid to late 1970s and committed to vinyl in miniscule press runs by a visionary, bassist / composer / arranger John Jamyll Jones. Jones is a magical type, who communicates with his instrument, his ensembles, and jazz’s ancient lineage in a manner so profound that his late-‘70s album are out of time with jazz’s trajectory, but timeless when presented today. By the late ’90s the music of World’s Experience Orchestra was circulating throughout the collections of esoteric jazz fans, the likes of Gerald “Jazzman” Short and Gilles Peterson, who played “The Prayer” for those, the Coltrane-enthralled searching for something new, something different. Something spiritual and honest. Peterson first offered to reissue “The Prayer,” as part of an anthology he was putting together with Los Angeles reissue label Ubiquity Records and that, to date, is the only official issue of any of Jones’ music. This set is the definitive catalog of Jones’ ensembles’ released work. “I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know when,” says Jones of the road to seeing his music re-issued. “It’s 35 years or more now, and I’ve been waiting for this, and I’m quite sure I’m not the only one.”

TRACK LISTING

Disc One: The Beginning Of A New Birth:
1. The Beginning Of A New Birth
2. The Prayer

Disc Two: As Time Flows On
1. Rain
2. Nine Degrees And Cold
3. Intro
4. Black Woman
5. To Do Nothing
6. The Mind

‘Singularity’ is the third single from New Order’s critically acclaimed hit album ‘Music Complete’. The track has been highlighted as one of the standout tracks from the album and is now released as on CD single and 12”  with an exclusive remix package. Remixes are provided by Erol Alkan, Mark Reeder, JS Zeiter and Liars. There is also an extended 12” mix of ‘Tutti Frutti’ by Tom Rowlands which was previously given away free to fans on New Years Eve.

TRACK LISTING

12”
Singularity (Extended Mix)
Singularity (Mark Reeder Individual Remix)
Singularity (Erol Alkan’s Extended Rework)
Singularity (JS Zeiter Dub)

CDS
Singularity (Single Edit)
Singularity (Extended Mix)
Singularity (Erol Alkan’s Stripped Mix)
Singularity (Mark Reeder’s Duality Remix Edit)
Singularity (JS Zeiter Remix)
Tutti Frutti (Tom Rowland’s Remix)

Former Smith Western frontman Cullen Omori releases his debut long player, ‘New Misery’, through Sub Pop Records.

The album, which features the highlights ‘Cinnamon’ and ‘Sour Silk’, was recorded by Shane Stoneback (Sleigh Bells, Fucked Up, Vampire Weekend) at the now defunct Treefort Studios and was mastered by Emily Lazar (Sia, HAIM, Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, Bjork) at The Lodge.

In early 2014 Omori began working on the solo material that has now fully materialized as ‘New Misery’, a collection of 11 songs building upon his own musical past while reaching towards the future of what guitar rock could be. His songs marry dark yet blissful pop with vocal melodies and hooks that are at once immediate yet demand to be heard again and again.

Along with Omori, ‘New Misery’ features additional bass and keyboards from Ryan Mattos, drums from Loren Humphrey and James Richardson on guitar. Unlike the more distributed roles within the Smith Westerns, Omori wrote, played and oversaw nearly every part of the new album, beginning a true new chapter of his long-term creative growth.

Cullen Omori knows it’s a false cliché to say there are no second acts in American lives but after the 2014 breakup of his acclaimed band the Smith Westerns living that cliché was his greatest fear. His solo debut is a direct challenge to that anxiety: an album that goes beyond the glam punch of the Smith Westerns to new sounds, new sources of inspiration and greater self-awareness.

TRACK LISTING

No Big Deal
Two Kinds
Hey Girl
And Yet The World Still Turns
Cinnamon
Poison Dart
Sour Silk
Synthetic Romance
Be A Man
LOM
New Misery

‘Keep It Together’, the third album in just over three years by Indianapolis-based sisters Lily & Madeleine, is set for release via esteemed New West Records.

The spellbinding ten-song statement is the dynamic product of two distinct musical personalities, bound by kinship, melding seamlessly into one ephemeral and dreamy collection.

The sisters have come a long way since they began making YouTube videos in 2012, releasing two critically acclaimed albums on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty Records and selling out myriad shows both in the US and overseas.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Cheery jangly Summer-pop on the newest album from singer-songwriting sisters Lily & Madeleine. Upbeat but slightly introspective, minimal pop-pieces for hazy days and sunsets. Beautiful stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Not Gonna
For The Weak
Westfield
Chicago
Hourglass
Hotel Pool
Smoke Tricks
Midwest Kid
Small Talk
Nothing

New View, the third solo album by Eleanor Friedberger, was rehearsed in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Echo Park and recorded in upstate New York. In the past, she was a member of the much loved Brooklyn two-piece, The Fiery Furnaces.

The songs were recorded live to tape with simple instrumentation: drums, bass, Wurlitzer and 12-string acoustic guitar on almost every track. These come courtesy of the band Icewater (Malcolm Perkins, Jonathan Rosen, Michael Rosen, Noah Hecht), with Dorian DeAngelo contributing a handful of well-placed guitar solos. Producer Knieper (son of Jurgen Knieper, the German composer whose credits include the score to Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire) gives the album a classic sound, like something that's existed forever on a record collector's shelf, wedged in with Dylan's New Morning and John Cale's Vintage Violence.

For everything new about New View, it still fits comfortably in the continuity of Friedberger's work. Songs like "Open Season" recall the Furnaces at their most magisterial. The wry, plainspoken "Because I Asked You" builds on the style Friedberger first polished on her solo debut Last Summer. And then there's "A Long Walk," the sun-striped finale that lends a memorable afterglow to New View. She's never lacked confidence -- this is someone who once took a fractured nine-minute ballad about the international blueberry trade and put it across like it was "Thunder Road" -- but there's a new kind of confidence on this record. It's a sweet, aching goodbye from an album that seems full of them

TRACK LISTING

01 He Didn't Mention His Mother
02 Open Season
03 Sweetest Girl
04 Your Word
05 Because I Asked You
06 Never Is A Long Time
07 Cathy With The Curly Hair
08 Two Versions Of Tomorrow
09 All Known Things
10 Does Turquoise Work?
11 A Long Walk

Reissued on LP with a sumptuous, five-color, 22” x 22” poster of the cover art, all wrapped in a Stoughton tip-on jacket and thick polybag.

Times are tough, the economy is rough, everybody’s tryin’ to make a dollar. Sometimes you get away from yourself. Won’t you go back and break bread, while we still have some to break? So implored James Brown, Fred Wesley and even album engineer Bob Both, on the back cover liners of the 1974 soul classic 'Breakin’ Bread'. Times were indeed tough for everyday folks in the waning days of the Nixon era. Escape-ism was needed. Humanity sometimes seemed to be in short supply. But James Brown and his assembled People Records roster were always there to take soul music fans away from their everyday trials and tribulations, even while occasionally funking up negative situations (for instance, “Rockin’ Funky Watergate,” one of the centerpieces of this album). The heavy grooves laid down by trombonist and bandleader Fred Wesley, saxophonist and arranger St. Clair Pinckney and Fred’s assembled “New JB’s” were, almost literally, comfort for the ears. 1974 saw a vortex of superfunk coming out of James Brown’s People Records stable, and this platter wasn’t even the only JB’s album that year. But it is one that added to the powerful musical and social legacy of that crew. It’s an air-tight, eight course meal, with most platters clocking in at four delicious minutes each. “Breakin’ Bread” is a truly memorable funk stew, with warm, call-and-response vocals, complicated-but-laidback soul, and an important message - alluded to in the back cover plea. “I Wanna Get Down,” “Rice ‘N’ Ribs” and “Funky Music Is My Style” all feature intricate, infectious grooves. In fact, there isn’t much time to catch your breath on Breakin’ Bread, and that’s a beautiful thing.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Breakin’ Bread
A2. I Wanna Get Down
A3. Little Boy Black
A4. Rice ‘N’ Ribs
B1. Rockin’ Funky Watergate
B2. Makin’ Love
B3. Funky Music Is My Style
B4. Step Child

Psychedelic Pirates formed in Manchester, UK in 2013. They had the aim to produce a new genre of music, one that had never been heard before and pose the question... what is music???

They have now achieved this with their debut album... The New Sound.

The Pirates use the latest computer technology and some incredibly talented musicians to make a symphony of psychedelic sounds. Each song explores a different a genre ensuring the listener is taken on a trip through new musical possibilities.

Their live show is an eccentric mix of Pirate cabaret and tantalising circus performance, including fire performance and ariel arts.

So far their quest has taken them around UK, Europe, Asia and Africa performing at various festivals and events.

Will you join their crew?

Performers // Josh Lisiuk - Vocals / Luke Slater - Ableton, Synthesizer, Kaoss Pads, Bazooki, Samples, Effects & VST's / Martyn Jarmin - Guitar, Bass Guitar / Happie - Percussion / Elliot Slater - Saxaphone / Anna Lowenstein - Violin / Tom Moon - Trumpet, Melodica, Accordion / John Lisiuk - Mandolin / Ben Of The Green - Didgeridoo

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Finally a new arrrtist with a new sound. Plenty of hooks without going overboard. On sail now.

If you aren't familiar with this album's first single, then you must not have been listening to the radio in the summer of 1993, because "Regret" was virtually everywhere at the time, hitting #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock and Hot Dance Music / Club Play charts, #7 on the Top 40 Mainstream chart, and even provided the band with a top-30 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Other key tracks on the album included "Ruined in a Day," "World," and "Spooky," each of which made it into the top 30 of at least one Billboard chart. Given that it was New Order's first album in four years at the time of its release, it's probably fair to call it a comeback, and a successful one at that.

TRACK LISTING

Side A: 
Regret 
World 
Ruined In A Day 
Spooky (Minimix) 
Everyone Everywhere

Side B:
Young Offender 
Liar
Chemical 
Times Change 
Special Avalanche 

After releasing ‘Easy Fantastic’, his acclaimed third LP with The Boat on Moshi Moshi Records last year, Tom Williams jumped ship to explore a stripped back solo venture that focuses entirely on the charming intensity of his lyrical songwriting and the minimal arrangements provided by a close circle of friends. The “New House” mini-album follows “New Guitar” (released in March this year) and both feature seven new songs each, all written over the past two years and put to tape at 2kHz Studios in Crouch End, London with Ian Grimble (The Fall, Manic Street Preachers, Siouxie And The Banshees). The collection of songs give an intimate insight into Tom’s transition from band to solo artist, his relocation from Tunbridge Wells to St Leonards and eventually settling in the new house which became the central point to the stories tying all these songs together. Playing with Tom on many of the tracks and also on stage is Ant Vicary from The Boat as well as Sarah Maycock, Fiona Keeler and Catherine Black on piano, vocals and cello respectively. 

Eight years after 'Republic', New Order finally got around to regrouping again, this time for an effort which - at least at present - remains the last time all four core members of the band (Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Gillian Gilbert) played on a New Order album. The big single from the proceedings was "Crystal," which gave the group another #1 on the Hot Dance Music / Club Play chart, with "Someone Like You" cracking the top 40 of the same chart, but many people remember Get Ready for its two tracks with guest vocalists: "Turn My Way," with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, and "Rock the Shack," with Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
Crystal 
60 Miles 
Turn My Way
Vicious Streak 
Primitive Notion

Side B:
Slow Jam
Rock The Shack
Someone Like You
Close Range
Run Wild

Panagiotis Melidis started writing music as Larry Gus (λάρυγγας [larigas], Greek for larynx) in 2006, after his previous band, the bass and drums duo Ginger, parted ways. Initially his music combined sample-based constructions and psychedelic pop melodies, merged into an infinitely dense amount of layers and polyrhythms. He soon became known for his energetic and chaotic improvised live performances that involve intricate layering of vocals, drums, and electronics… along with lively stage banter.

On his new DFA album, "I Need New Eyes" (a title inspired by a Marcel Proust misquotation), moving slowly out of his sample-based roots and using clearer songwriting structures as his starting point, he stares intensively into his obsessions, anxieties and inadequacies, namely failure, humiliation, subservience, submission, and comparisons with other musicians’ careers, always through the prism of a provincial outsider.

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Veil Of Fail
2. NP Complete
3. A Set Of Replies
4. Taking The Personal Away
5. Belong To Love
6. All Graphs Explored
7. The Sun Describes
8. Nazgonya (Paper Spike)

‘Music Complete’ is New Order’s ninth LP (tenth if you count 2013’s mini album ‘Lost Sirens’) and possibly their most eclectic collection of songs yet. Whichever way you count it, it’s New Order’s return to recording after an absence of more than a decade.

‘Music Complete’ finds the group revitalised, refreshed and razor sharp, looking to their past while forging forward. Where the group has previously pushed toward synthesisers or guitars, here the two are in balance.

Art direction by long term collaborator Peter Saville.

“New Order’s best album since ‘Technique’” - GQ

“Their best record for over 25 years” - Q (****)

“‘Music Complete’ includes a couple of contenders for the canon of all-time New Order greats” - Uncut

“... sounds more like New Order than New Order have sounded in two decades” - Classic Pop

“New Order is back with their best album in years… an album that is more inspired than anything we could have expected” - Under The Radar

“A runaway victory for class over hype” - Mixmag (8/10)

TRACK LISTING

1. Restless
2. Singularity
3. Plastic
4. Tutti Frutti
5. People On The High Line
6. Stray Dog
7. Academic
8. Nothing But A Fool
9. Unlearn This Hatred
10. The Game
11. Superheated

Not quite country, Americana, folk, songwriter or pop, Daniel Romano’s exquisite and expansive new album - ‘If I’ve Only One Time Askin’’, released on New West Records - is pieces of each but ultimately the work of asingular mind.

As hailed by Rolling Stone, the 11 self-produced and largely self-performed new songs “lead their baritone-voiced creator down a path filled with countrypolitan crooning, honky-tonk heartache and midcentury melodrama.”

In the two years since his critically acclaimed third full length ‘Come Cry With Me’, Romano has toured North America and Europe extensively, collaborating with and supporting a wide spectrum of artists, including Old Crow Medicine Show, Wanda Jackson, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Caitlin Rose.

TRACK LISTING

I’m Gonna Teach You
Old Fires Die
Strange Faces
All The Way Under The Hill
If I’ve Only One Time Askin’
The One That Got Away (Came Back Today)
There’s A Hardship
Learning To Do Without Me
Two Word Joe
If You Go Your Way (I’ll Go Blind)
Let Me Sleep (At The End Of A Dream)

"In 2005, having decided to approach Gil Scott-Heron to suggest that we made a record, I stopped listening to any of his previous output. This was to avoid feeling intimidated by the weight of Gil's musical history, and by the sheer quality of the 14 studio albums he'd released since 1970.

Part of my initial suggestion to Gil was that we recorded sparse, stripped down versions of his old songs. We both thought that might make an intriguing album. So we started off recording versions of some of Gil's repertoire, just voice and piano. But our album gradually evolved into something different - "I'm New Here", which as the title suggested, didn't touch on any of Gil's previous recordings (except for "Your Soul And Mine", which is a re-imagining of "The Vulture" from Gil's 1970 debut LP "Small Talk at 125th and Lennox").

I didn't pay much attention to the acoustic versions of Gil's older repertoire that we had recorded, as I was so focused on our making an entirely new album. We didn't make the album we set out to; we made something different.

In November 2011, six months after Gil died, I sat down to listen to the whole of Gil's back catalogue, on vinyl, album by album, chronologically. It's an incredible body of work; 13 albums between 1970 and 1982, and then 2 ("Spirits" and "I'm New Here") until Gil passed in 2011. I did this as a sort of meditative exercise, for the joy of sitting and listening to Gil, now that I was no longer getting to hear his voice down the phone from Harlem.

I listened to these 15 albums over the course of a few weeks as a way to keep our communication going. They led me back to the acoustic piano versions of Gil's old songs that we had captured in New York and I found that they were in themselves remarkable; completely different to the originals, and full of magic in their simplicity. I realised we in fact had made the album we originally set out to, as well as "I'm New Here". We had recorded an album's worth of new, stripped down versions of some of Gil's best (but not necessarily best known) songs. We had recorded an album I thought should be called "Nothing New".

"Nothing New" is recordings Gil and I made in New York of songs he chose from his catalogue, just voice and piano, pure Gil. I realised that each song he had chosen was from a different album of his. He had carefully curated the selection, so the album serves as an excellent introduction to his previous output.

In our early letters, Gil had picked up on my use of the word "spartan" to describe how our record could be. The Oxford dictionary defines "spartan" as showing "indifference to comfort or luxury". Very Gil. "Nothing New" is truly spartan in that it is utterly sparse and devoid of anything that is not completely necessary. All it contains is Gil's singing and piano playing.

You also hear excerpts of our conversations between takes; these give a sense of Gil's profound and profane nature. I believe Gil would approve of calling an album of him covering his own material "Nothing New"; the wordplay is inspired by him. Gil once expressed that he felt our album "could do with a few more yuks" - so now you can check out some of Gil's asides, and particularly the final interlude "On Bobby Blue Bland" for a glimpse of the man's playful sense of humour.

Once I'd compiled and edited these songs, I made three acetates, and we screenprinted artwork at XL. I gave one of these three special copies to Gil's son Rumal Rackley, sent another to Gil's friend and keyboard player Kim Jordan in Washington DC, and the third went to Ms Mimi, who kept Gil's house in order. This could have been the end of the process, but Rumal felt we should share this work with people - so here it is.

I hope you enjoy this album. It completes the set of 3 albums generated from our sessions in New York between 2005 and 2009 - the first 2 records being the main work "I'm New Here" and Jamie xx's remix album "We're New Here".

This is "Nothing New"."

Richard Russell, XL Recordings, London, 2014

TRACK LISTING

01. Did You Hear What They Said
02. Better Days Ahead
03. Household Name (Interlude)
04. Your Daddy Loves You
05. Changing Yourself (Interlude)
06. Pieces Of A Man
07. Enjoying Yourself (Outro)
08. Alien (Hold On To Your Dreams)
09. Before I Hit The Bottom (Interlude)
10. 95 South (All Of The Places We’ve Been
11. The Other Side
12. The On/Off Switch (Interlude)
13. Blue Collar
14. On Bobby Blue Bland (Outro)

The Male Eunuch follows the highly acclaimed Music for People Who Hate Themselves and its remixed companion album Music for Homeowners. Early material has been streamed online and has had strong radio play with tracks Speed Queen and A Song for One Direction.

The bands own protest ambassador Stu Boreman stated: "Binary Digital Bankruptcy converts this Sonic Debris into the sound of summer. Off shore becomes on shore as British Summer Time arrives early. Shot thru the Black Hole into the hole in your heart, it's the colour chart from hell. Foxton's still burns. Face-sitting is banned. Froch vs Groves. Farrow & Ball. We are at War."

“The Pre New bring absurdist punk spleen, synth pulse and the chaotic free play of signifiers – with an enraged estate agent on vocals, a Zal Cleminson lookalike in a hoodie and samples from Mike Leigh’s ‘Nuts in May’” – Q
“The Pre New – as the name suggests – are the a mix of the noble past and the glorious future” – THE HERALD
“Wow – that was definitely made for television...brilliant” – BBC 6 MUSIC - MARC RILEY
“Wrap your ears round the warped brilliance of The Pre-New” – THE QUIETUS

The latest album, 'Heartbreak Pass', by seminal alt-country / rock band Giant Sand marks their 30th anniversary. Individually, each track on the record looms large on its own but, when heard as one complete offering, you know that you are listening to something very, very special.

The Arizona desert has been a predominate theme and source of inspiration for Howe Gelb, the indie rock pioneer and frontman for Giant Sand. The group can also be looked at as Howe’s one-man-band with many guests and collaborators. The album features Steve Shelly (Sonic Youth), Grant-Lee Phillips and Ilse DeLange (Common Linnets). 

TRACK LISTING

1. Heaventually
2. Texting Feist
3. Hurtin' Habit
4. Transponder
5. Song So Wrong
6. Every Now And Then
7. Man On A String
8. Home Sweat Home
9. Eye Opening
10. Pen To Paper
11. Bitter Suite
12. House In Order
13. Gypsy Candle
14. Done
15. Forever And Always

Matt and Kim, aka Matt Johnson (vocals/keyboards) and Kim Schifino (drums), get things rolling in their exuberant style with a performance lyric video for the song “Get It”: Three minutes and seven seconds of heaven for anyone who has, or hasn’t yet, seen Matt and Kim’s legendary live shows.

Previously, Matt and Kim’s video for “Lessons Learned,” in which they strip naked in Times Square on a very cold February day, won an MTV Music Award for “Breakthrough Video” in 2009. 2012’s Lightning (FADER) featured the Alternative radio hit “Let’s Go” and single “Daylight” was certified Gold in the US and very close to platinum certification. All the while they toured the globe, becoming the go-to band for raw exuberance, bombastic beats, sing-along refrains and dance-ready anthems on larger and larger scales.

After releasing Tom Williams and The Boat’s acclaimed 3rd LP ‘Easy Fantastic’ on Moshi Moshi Records, Tom is jumping ship to explore a stripped back venture called ‘New Guitar’, one that focuses entirely on the charming intensity of his lyrical songwriting and the minimal arrangements provided by a close circle of friends.

The first single ‘New Guitar’ is revealed here in the form of a live performance at Replay Acoustics, the place where Tom found the Guitar that “all kinds of new songs fell out” of. The first song that did, is about moving down to the sea and serves as a perfect introduction to the project. The mini-album features more songs written over the past two years and studio versions (available upon release) were put to tape at 2kHz Studios in Crouch End, London with Ian Grimble (The Fall, Manic Street Preachers, Siouxie And The Banshees). Footage from these sessions was captured to create The Making-of “New Guitar” Mini Album Documentary directed by Jake Cunningham, giving a insight into Tom’s transition from band to solo artist, his relocation from Tunbridge Wells to St Leonards and the pivotal instrument that ties all these songs together.

This release see’s Tom accompanied by Ant Vicary from The Boat as well as Sarah Maycock, Fiona Keeler and Catherine Black on piano, vocals and cello respectively. It is released on Tom’s own Wire Boat Recordings label.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Guitar
2. Oh Boy
3. Tuesday Morning
4. Open Mic
5. She's Everything
6. I've Been Thinking
7. 1992

Reissue of previously deleted classic Folk album - Back to Black.

Mysteries is just as it implies. A few months ago the felte label received an anonymous demo accompanied by a photo of 3 figures, faces covered like some sort of futuristic druids. To this day the label still doesn't know the group's origin, but the joy of discovering this music unimpeded renders this fact almost irrelevant.

There’s a sense that the band would prefer to keep your focus on the music and not who they are, where they come from or what you might perceive them to be before hearing a single note. If you need glorious mug shots and preamble to capture your intrigue, then this is not for you. The album’s title, New Age Music is Here, could even be interpreted as a sarcastic shot at the new listening habits dictated by the constant noise all around us, but is more likely a simple invitation to engage with the music on its own terms, in its own universe. One thing is certain. New Age Music Is Here glows with exotic, crunchy, muscular, expressive pop music built around vocals and drums, rather than the big synth or guitar riffs prevalent today. Almost like a psych-rock, cyborg, 50's doo-wop Alice Coltrane if you will. Is it truly new age? We definitely haven't heard much like it.

Listen with an open mind and heart and you too might believe in music once again strictly for music’s sake. Let’s get to it then, shall we?

TRACK LISTING

01. Introduction (New Age Music Is Here)
02. Knight Takes Rook
03. Newly Thrown
04. Stateless Wonder
05. Authenticity Machine
06. Motion
07. Ev’rything
08. I Wanna
09. Call And Respsone, With Morals
10. In The Dark
11. Deckard
12. Trust

The otherworldly yet lifelike ‘The New Today’ is 2562’s fourth album and presents his first new material in this guise since 2012’s ‘Air Jordan’ EP, which was also self-released on his When In Doubt imprint.

As with that last EP, ’The New Today’ was sketched out during a trip abroad - a six week stay in New York in late summer 2013 - and later arranged at his home studio in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Composed as a narrative collage drawing upon and splicing from an eclectic library of early European synth experiments, new age tapes, musique concrète, krautrock, post punk, obscure electro-pop and other largely forgotten and out of print music, ‘The New Today’ loosely references the novel of ideas tradition of writing as a restless, eight-track drift bolstered and propelled by his signature texturhythms.

From the humid concrète drone sphere of ‘Arrival’ through the hypnotising gyrations of ‘Terraforming’, to the airborne rhythmelodies and mercurial syncopation of ‘Vibedoctor’ and centrepiece ‘Utopia’, the tension and conflict of aural assault ‘Drumroll’ and ultimately the celestial sweep of closing chapter, ‘New Life’, it’s equally the most diffuse, cohesive and involving LP in his celebrated cache.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Arrival
A2. Terraforming
B1. Cosmic Bounce
B2. Vibedoctor
C1. Utopia
C2. Drumroll
D1. Cauldron
D2. New Life

These New Puritans’ album ‘Field of Reeds’ was a beacon of experimental music last year, bathed in the adoration of critics.

‘TNP: Expanded (Live at The Barbican)’ captures the incredible performance from 2014 of These New Puritans performing with a full orchestra at The Barbican Centre.

“Joined by an orchestra and the spellbinding Portuguese fado singer Elisa Rodrigues, the brothers Barnett capture the beautiful, foreboding majesty that marks their music” - The Guardian

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

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

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

UK rock/punk/pop band The Subways release limited edition 7" record, their first physical release since 2011 via their own label YFE Records/Cooking Vinyl.

The 7" vinyl features the new single, 'My Heart Is Pumping To A Brand New Beat', written, produced and mixed by the band’s singer Billy Lunn, as well as a further new track 'Taking All The Blame' recorded live by SWR/Dasding at Sousthside Festival in Germany.

“I wrote this track after I recently resolved a difficulty in my life as I was surrounded by the pulsing beats of my favourite songs and a throng of complete strangers crashing around the dance floor. Music has a wonderful power to heal wounds.” Billy

Brill Bruisers is the first new release in four years from the acclaimed supergroup, who have been called, “Virtually peerless in the world of power-pop and indie-rock” by NPR Music. Additionally, the New Yorker describes the band’s music as “Magnificent and clever” while Stereogum proclaims “In recent history, no group has featured so much formidable established talent, collaborating on a regular basis.”

Of the album, lead-singer and main songwriter AC Newman comments, “This is a celebration record. After periods of difficulty, I am at a place where nothing in my life is dragging me down and the music reflects that. I’m grateful.”

Produced by band-members John Collin (bass) with Newman, the 12-track album was recorded primarily at Little Blue in Woodstock, NY and at JC/DC Studios in Vancouver B.C. with additional recording in Austin, Brooklyn and Vermont.

Collaborating with drummer Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Man Forever), guitarist Alan Licht (Lee Ranaldo & the Dust, The Blue Humans, Love Child, Run On, etc.) is back for another release on New Images Ltd. We Thought We Could Do Anything is a far less literal take on spontaneous dialogue than his “talk-rock” project Title TK, whose album / sleeve / book Rock$ was published in 2013. Impressive pedigrees aside, Licht and Chase are a real-deal pairing; each has a longstanding involvement in underground rock, minimalism, experimental music, and free improvisation.

We Thought We Could Do Anything is their first record together and it lives by its intrepid name. Conceived as a series of structured improvisations, it joins fiery drumming with titanic guitar abstraction for a collection of sharply focused sonic passages. It’s music with the harshest colors up front and in detail. Licht’s guitar is the torrential speech at hand, and its dynamic limits are bound only by the album’s run-time.

On improvisatory epic “18:12,” Chase teases out overtones from his snare drum and toms that interface with the flood of harmonics spilling out of Licht’s dizzying runs. The searing ambient drone piece “Irreal / Erosion” is a mind-meld employing the just intonation experiments of Chase’s solo Drums and Drones CD (Pogus, 2013) as a launching point. “Immediate Release” and “Double Rubble” are shorter studies - Licht adds his trademark twirling-screwdriver-onopen- strings technique to one of Chase’s drum-sourced electronic thunderclouds on the former, while Chase improvises with percussion over a treated field recording of a ventilation unit on the latter. Together Licht and Chase forge a collaborative language impressively non-referential, rendering genre labels obsolete. In essence, it’s free: the album’s title is taken from a book about screenwriting in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and reflects the wide open approach that these two artists take.

• Four song full-length from minimal / experimental veterans.

TRACK LISTING

1. 18:12
2. Immediate Release
3. Irreal / Erosion
4. Double Rubble

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

RSD 2014 exclusive. 500 pressing, picture bag.

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

Finally! The horn-wailing, mic-swinging, percussion-overloaded, call-and-response explosiveness of the Melt Yourself Down experience is captured on plastic in all its sweat-drenched fury
This Record Store Day exclusive LP was recorded at MYD’s sold out show at The New Empowering Church in east London late last year: “the house band from hell” in the house of GodA raw and ragged document of sweet sonic violence in a small room, it’s a strobelit snapshot, warts and all, captured for you

MYD twist jazz, punk, funk and afro-beat into strange and brilliant new shapes
They’ve kept raising their game since the release of their self-titled debut album in June 2013 (appearing on Later… and hitting the album of the year charts in Rough Trade, Time Out and more), and will appear on festival stages throughout the land this summer. The campaign begins with shows at SXSW and in New York in March, and club nights with MYDJs will follow ahead of the festivals - all confirmed dates below. Strictly limited edition Record Store Day vinyl LP (900 copies for the world) also includes a download of the live album. The LP is packaged in a new, dayglo variant on the already iconic album artwork. MYD have already started work on their second album. Don’t take your eyes off them

New Bums are a new band featuring two wellseasoned veterans of the underground music wars: Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance, Comets On Fire, 200 Years, Rangda).

Debut album ‘Voices In A Rented Room’ tells New Bums’ whole life story and probably more of yours than you’d care to admit. The voices are two, spinning harmonies both heavenly and saltpickled.

Picking their direction and floating along on a pair of acoustics, New Bums are the sound of old drunk America, dancing out of the shadows, coming forth again to stand in the light, in the hopes of repopulating those sad old single-occupancy hotels before they’re all torn down.

TRACK LISTING

Black Bough
Pigeon Town
Your Girlfriend Might Be A Cop
Sometimes You Crash
The Killers And Me
Your Bullshit
It’s The Way
Welcome To The Navy
Burned
Town On The Water
Mother’s Favorite Hated
Son
Cool Daughter

"We predict many wonderful things for their dubbed-out, thoughtful and intelligent rhythms." - The Quietus

A common complaint of 21st century music is that, with the ability to create & communicate at its most accessible point in history, there is very little being said. In light of the myriad holes humans keep digging & falling into, music is in real danger of becoming pure advertising for the mundane & narcissistic. NEW WARfrom Melbourne, Australia are a tonic then, possibly an antidote, or perhaps something larger.

NEW WAR were sown several years ago with the dissolution of Seattle-based Kill Rock Stars act, Shoplifting. Singer Chris Pugmire & bassist Melissa Lock hibernated for a couple of years, then quietly re-emerged in Melbourne. Lock then reconnected with Steve Masterson, drummer for the infamous Bird Blobs(which she briefly played in) and mutual friend Jesse Shepherd, the Gainsbourgian keyboardist forSir.

The brief was simple and half-spoken: no repeating the past, no guitar, plenty of space for Shepherd's noir-drenched keyboard work & Pugmire's barbed, feverish lyrics, with primacy given to the Lock/Masterson rhythm section.

The band rehearsed patiently for over a year, letting songs appear and take their course, careful to not force anything. When the time seemed right NEW WAR emerged quietly; playing often as part of Melbourne's rich underground with fellow free-thinkers such as Lost Animal, Fabulous Diamonds, My Disco & Beaches. Word spread; they carved out a reputation as one of Australia's best, most intense live bands & were picked for several choice supports including Wire, The Gossip,Laughing Clowns, Jandek,Michael Rother's Neu!/Harmonia show Wild Flag, Deerhoof, EMA & Electrelane.

The band headed into Birdland Studios with producer Lindsay Gravina (Rowland S Howard), keen to capture the alchemy of their live show. The basic tracks were all recorded live to analog tape; with limited vocal, keyboard & percussion overdubs added later. The sessions were focused & brisk, with recording, mixing & mastering completed in 10 days.

Re-issue of the debut album.

Black Moth are four super talented individuals, Harriet Bevan - vocals, Jim Swainston - guitar, Dave Vachon - bass, and Dom McCready, battering the crap out of his drums. Formed 2 years ago out of the ashes of Leeds garage rockers The Bacchae, the band were seduced by the brutal and hypnotic lure of the riff, to emerge translucent skinned and bleary eyed from their cocoon as the ferocious kick-ass heavy rock outfit that is Black Moth (see attached scan). Taking a powerful chunk of influence from proto-punk acts such as Iggy and the Stooges, Motorhead and early Alice Cooper as well as a sliver of 90s grunge and stoner rock and a big dose of doom, Black Moth draw out the darker elements and combine them with the heaving riffs of heavy metal giants, Pentagram and Black Sabbath, with "hooks so sharp you could hang a corpse on them".

They also look to more current acts such as the Melvins, Sleep and Electric Wizard for inspiration, though singer, Harriet Bevan, still maintains a vocal style that evokes the haunting psychedelia of Grace Slick and psych-Satanist, Jinx Dawson from Coven: the woman responsible for the "sign of the horns" in rock'n'roll. They're also a big part of the burgeoning Leeds heavy rock scene alongside Pulled Apart By Horses, Kong, Hawk Eyes and Gentlemen's Pistorls, it looks like it's about to break. Songs that the band have honed and crafted in the mighty maelstrom that is the Leeds heavy rock scene, have been rippin’ ‘em up live not only in Yorkshire but everywhere they’ve played. Now all they needed was to be brought to vivid screaming life on record. Enter Mr Jim Sclavunos, the multi talented Grinderman and Bad Seed, not to mention the superbaaad connoisseur of the mixing console, fresh from producing the storming second Jim Jones Revue album. One of their shows was all it took. ”Black Moth reminds me of my misspent youth” he said. And judging by the all out assault that he’s crafted with the Moth, he must have been a very bad boy indeed. The Killing Jar is their debut from New Heavy Sounds and it rocks like a bastard.

TRACK LISTING

The Articulate Dead
Blackbirds Fall
Banished But Blameless
Spit Out Your Teeth
The Plague Of Our Age
Chicken Shit
Blind Faith
Plastic Blaze
Land Of The Sky
Honey Lung

Fantastic Voyage’s new series, Soul City, explores the music being produced in key centres in the early 1960s, when R&B was evolving into the style that was soon widely referred to as soul. Having kicked off the series in Detroit, we now turn our attention to the Big Apple.

While New York may not have a distinctive musical ‘sound’ or style such as those which more readily identify R&B and soul recordings made in Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia or Nashville, the city was the home of countless singers and musicians through the decades, and also a veritable hotbed of independent record labels and producers, all seeking to make their fortunes by creating and promoting the next million-seller. The first step towards this was getting your record into the local radio station chart, hoping to break into what was then (1962) the R&B Top 50. While this may have been an easier process away from the metropolis, the audience was significantly larger and the potential reward greater for those based in the Big Apple, and the artists and tracks in Soul City New York provide a good overview of the range of talent and relative success achieved as the world of rhythm and blues evolved towards soul.

Most of the tracks in this collection, which has been compiled and annotated by soul music authority Clive Richardson, were recorded for independent labels, some of which have grown in reputation over the decades such that they are now regarded as comparable to the majors of that time, and their owners have carved their own niches in the history of soul. More is known of Juggy Murray (Sue/Symbol), Florence Greenberg (Scepter/Wand) and Bobby Robinson (Fire/Fury) than of any executive of Brunswick or Roulette, and their artists have become our heroes in the annals of music history, emerging as they did from the very roots of rhythm & blues/soul music due to their mentors’ ears for talent.

Here are some early tracks cut by Ike & Tina Turner, starting their hit trail on Sue, a range of songs by Chuck Jackson and Tommy Hunt, founding superstars of the soul era, breakthrough hits by the Isley Brothers, Dionne Warwick and Gladys Knight & the Pips, landmark recordings by Shep & the Limelites, an array of gospel-soul performances by the emergent Sam & Dave, vibrant vocals from the twilight of Dinah Washington’s career, hard-to find gems from Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford, collectors’ items from Jackie Wilson, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and James Ray, a chance to hear such great unknowns as the Jokers, Elmore Morris and Titus Turner, and a dose of humour from Buster Brown and Big Dee Irwin. Truly a ‘Voyage’ of discovery into the emergence of Soul City New York!

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. If (Ike And Tina Turner)
2. You Can T Blame Me (Ike And Tina Turner)
3. Mind In A Whirl (Ike And Tina Turner)
4. Sleepless (Ike And Tina Turner)
5. Tra La La La La (Ike And Tina Turner)
6. Careless Hands (Baby Washington)
7. I've Got A Feeling (Baby Washington)
8. Come On, Let Me Try (Linda And The Del Rios)
9. It Seemed Like Heaven To Me (Elmore Morris)
10. People Sure Act Funny (Titus Turner)
11. Mama, Here Comes The Bride (The Shirelles)
12. You Re A Sweetheart (Dinah Washington)
13. It S A Mean Old Man S World (Dinah Washington)
14. You Re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You (Dinah Washington)
15. Operator (Gladys Knight And The Pips)
16. I Ll Trust In You (Gladys Knight And The Pips)
17. I Need Your Loving (Don Gardner And Dee Dee Ford)
18. Tell Me (Don Gardner And Dee Dee Ford)
19. Don T You Worry (Don Gardner And Dee Dee Ford)
20. Honey Sweet (Don Gardner And Dee Dee Ford)
21. Don T Make Me Over (Dionne Warwick)
22. I Smiled Yesterday (Dionne Warwick)
23. Didn T I Tell You (Tommy Hunt)
24. Poor Millionaire (Tommy Hunt)
25. And I Never Knew (Tommy Hunt)
26. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (Tommy Hunt)
27. Everybody S Got A Dance But Me (Big Dee Irwin)
28. And Heaven Was Here (Big Dee Irwin)
29. Sugar Babe (Buster Brown)
30. I M Going But I Ll Be Back (Buster Brown)
Disc: 2
1. Soul Twist (King Curtis)
2. Right Now (The Isley Brothers)
3. The Snake (The Isley Brothers)
4. Twist And Shout (The Isley Brothers)
5. Time After Time (The Isley Brothers)
6. So Tight (The Jokers)
7. Whisper (The Jokers)
8. Angel Of Angels (Chuck Jackson)
9. Everybody Needs Love (Chuck Jackson)
10. Any Day Now (Chuck Jackson)
11. Make The Night Just A Little Longer (Chuck Jackson)
12. I Keep Forgettin (Chuck Jackson)
13. In Between Tears (Chuck Jackson)
14. Daddy S Home (Shep And The Limelites)
15. Three Steps From The Altar (Shep And The Limelites)
16. Oh What A Feeling (Shep And The Limelites)
17. Our Anniversary (Shep And The Limelites)
18. Who Told The Sandman (Shep And The Limelites)
19. If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody (James Ray)
20. You Remember The Face (James Ray)
21. I Need Love (Sam And Dave)
22. Keep A Walkin (Sam And Dave)
23. No More Pain (Sam And Dave)
24. My Love Belongs To You (Sam And Dave)
25. She S Alright (Sam And Dave)
26. It Feels So Nice (Sam And Dave)
27. I Found Love (Jackie Wilson And Linda Hopkins)
28. Sing (And Tell The Blues So Long) (Jackie Wilson)
29. I Hear Voices (Screamin Jay Hawkins)
30. Just Don T Care (Screamin Jay Hawkins)

SIDE ONE
1. If (Ike And Tina Turner)
2. Mind In A Whirl (Ike And Tina Turner)
3. Sleepless (Ike And Tina Turner)
4. I’ve Got A Feeling (Baby Washington)
5. Come On, Let Me Try (Linda And The Del Rios)
6. People Sure Act Funny (Titus Turner)
7. Mama, Here Comes The Bride (The Shirelles)

SIDE TWO
1. I Need Your Loving (Don Gardner And Dee Dee Ford)
2. Honey Sweet (Don Gardner And Dee Dee Ford)
3. You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You (Dinah Washington)
4. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (Tommy Hunt) 5. Everybody’s Got A Dance But Me (Big Dee Irwin)
6. Sugar Babe (Buster Brown) 7. Soul Twist (King Curtis)

SIDE THREE
1. Twist And Shout (The Isley Brothers)
2. Time After Time (The Isley Brothers)
3. So Tight (The Jokers)
4. Everybody Needs Love (Chuck Jackson)
5. In Between Tears (Chuck Jackson)
6. Daddy’s Home (Shep And The Limelites)
7. Oh What A Feeling (Shep And The Limelites)

SIDE FOUR
1. If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody (James Ray)
2. You Remember The Face (James Ray)
3. Who Told The Sandman (Shep And The Limelites)
4. No More Pain (Sam And Dave)
5. She’s Alright (Sam And Dave)
6. I Found Love (Jackie Wilson And Linda Hopkins)
7. Just Don’t Care (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins)

Field recordings of the Mijikenda tribes, made in different spots in and around Mukunguni village, coastal Kenya, throughout September 2011: mostly healing music (especially for mental problems), but also love-songs, and spiritual contributions to weddings and burials; mostly in the Sengenya style which evolved in the early twentieth century, adding pace, new Tsikitsi rhythms and extra drums to the traditional Dumbwi forms of the Duruma tribe.

Besides the Sengenya drums - bumbumbu, dahdahe, chapuro, vumi, ngoma - there are lungo and dena (metal rings), kayamba (raft rattle), njunga (bells), ukaya (metal tray), bamba (metal guiro) and bottle-tops. Our album opener is solo dena, played to sound like a bat and heal the village sick, with the ear for frequency and timbre of a stringent minimalist. There are the piercing, reeded nzumari oboe and bung'o horn, sounding like fierce free-jazz improvisation; and two gently stunning marimba solos, with complex, overlaid melodies and rhythms, played in polyphonic accents, almost like talking drums.

Most of the recordings here are songs, with strong tunes, robustly delivered, different solo voices leading the group - to heal; to chase away Pepo Mlume, the devil who poisons the imagination; to get you on your feet, dancing; to celebrate dowry payments and weddings; to bring the Mijikenda cultural inheritance to life. Matatizo - 'Worries' - was recorded spontaneously at a bus-stop, waiting for a ride: it's a Swahili love-song, with a plaintive female vocal performed to the accompaniment of five or so people rubbing their palms together in tight rhythmic patterns. 'The lord conferred this love on us, my sister. Is it human, or from the angels? Flowing out of binoculars... or computers? I can't figure it out, but my heart aches so badly.'

The vinyl set is two ten-inch records, plus the CD, in a gatefold sleeve. Besides photos, both formats contain the musicians' own introductory notes, snatches of translation, and brief track-by-track commentary.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. Ndema
2. Dena
3. Mambodze
Disc: 2
1. Matatizo
2. Pepo Mlume
3. Chela
Disc: 3
1. Bung’o
2. Ngoma Wira
3. Bamba
4. Mwanzele
5. Tungwa
Disc: 4
1. Gaserego
2. Kiringongo
3. Puredi

MTV Unplugged in New York was recorded live at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993. The show was directed by Beth McCarthy and first aired on the cable television network MTV on December 14, 1993. As opposed to traditional practice on the television series, Nirvana played a setlist composed of mainly lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets (during which they were joined by two members of the group onstage), and Leadbelly.

180g black vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
About A Girl
Come As You Are
Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam
The Man Who Sold The World

Side B
Pennyroyal Tea
Dumb
Polly
On A Plain
Something In The Way

Having initially found fame as guitarist and ‘curator’ of all things music with The Smiths, the ever pragmatic and effortlessly cool Johnny Marr did not take long to find his feet post Smithsdom. Having kick-started a (Britpop) generation of guitarists with his rickenbacker-esque fretwork in The Smiths, Johnny went on to find fame in super-group Electronic before eventually joining both Modest Mouse and The Cribs respectively as a semi-permanent member, performing on and touring at least one record with both acts. Somewhere in between all of this, with a fleeting appearance as a member of The The, Marr’s first foray into solo territory began - a debut record from Johnny Marr & The Healers. Now, 10 years on - and this time sans The Healers, Marr returns with his most accomplished work to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: At last, Johnny sounds like Johnny! Respect to J.M. for not wanting to be pigeonholed, but here he is chiming, ringing and rocking just like in the old days. What's more, these are pop-songs, every one a potential single. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

1 The Right Thing Right
2 I Want The Heartbeat
3 European Me
4 Upstarts
5 Lockdown
6 The Messenger
7 Generate! Generate!
8 Say Demesne
9 Sun & Moon
10 The Crack Up
11 New Town Velocity
12 Word Starts Attack

Errors announce the release of a brand new 8- track mini-album, the new record, entitled ‘New Relics’, follows on from the critically acclaimed ‘Have Some Faith In Magic’, released earlier this year.

‘New Relics’ was recorded by the 3 piece during the Spring of 2012 in their Glasgow studio and is released via Rock Action Records.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: A mesh of synthetic sound scapes and bizarre escapes into a new sound. An excellent release from Errors

Following on from 2011’s debut album Enter Castle Perilous and Christmas single Lucybel, Factory Star return with a new 10” mini-LP on Occultation Recordings.

Asked to comment, Factory foreman Martin Bramah merely muttered something about “channelling the Dark Spark...”

Released on Frankie & The Heartstrings' Pop Sex label, this two track CD is limited to 250 copies. Packaged in a 7" sleeve, it includes a postcard and badges. Each one is hand numbered too.

New Build are a fresh alternative pop band from London formed by Al Doyle (LCD Soundsystem / Hot Chip), Felix Martin (Hot Chip) and Tom Hopkins (engineer and producer). The band meld the world of dance music with subtle soulful pop beautifully. For fans of Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Human League, Robert Wyatt and Hot Chip.

TRACK LISTING

1. Introduction
2. Medication
3. Misery Loves Company
4. Miranda, Be My Guide
5. Behind The Shutter
6. Schism Of The Mind
7. Do You Not Feel Loved?
8. The Third One
9. Mercy
10. Finding Reasons
11. Last Gasp
12. Silence And The Muttering

The second album from Holiday Shores is a real step on from their brilliant, zeitgeist spearing, debut 'Columbus'd The Whim'. ‘New Masses For Squaw Peak’ sees them channeling 'Here Come The Warm Jets' era Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Donald Fagen and Can, but losing none of their trademark twinkling and zigzagging melodies, building their shape shifting pop in to something as wide open a landscape as the title suggests. ‘New Masses for Squaw Peak’ is packed tight with style: experimentation; jazz-chord death-pop; shifty proto-prog; nervy, dissonant, white funk; instinctive tribal rhythms; historical and personal mythologies weaved through its passages, creating something akin to pop sci-fi. Described as equal parts Studio 54 and tropical. ‘New Masses For Squaw Peak’ was laid to tape in the belly of an abandon Philadelphia textile factory; run through three mixing boards by three separate sets of hands; and ultimately mixed into its final form by the band. Holiday Shores are Nathan Pemberton on vocals and guitar, multi-instrumentalists Josh Martin and Brian Forfa and drummer John Frank.

TRACK LISTING

1. Airglow
2. We Couldn’t Be Together
3. Threepeat Got Old
4. Ocotillo Dripping
5. Spells
6. Squaw Peak
7. Mystic Pharaohs (Masc Pharaohs)
8. Coming To Shores
9. Cord Du Roi
10. New Masses
11. Injun
12. Shadie Spun Gold

"The New Mastersounds release their first ever US-recorded album, 'Breaks From The Border'. 'Breaks...' marks a new era in the band's sonic landscape by topping their unique syncopated grooves with group vocal stylings. Band tested, fan approved. After a major US festival tour, instead of flying home to England, they diverted to El Paso, Texas, from where they made the short journey to the outskirts of the border town of Tornillo. Sonic Ranch is a residential studio in the middle of a huge pecan orchard, and this was the setting for the band’s seventh studio album, Breaks from the Border. “This group was one of the few bands to draw the festival’s jam, funk and hipster crowds to one stage.” - Jambands.com.

TRACK LISTING

01. Take What You Need 3:11
02. Run The Gauntlet 4:20
03. On The Border 4:11
04. Free Man 3:20
05. Freckles 3:43
06. Passport 4:44
07. Walk In These Shoes 5:50
08. Josus 4:56
09. Can You Get It? 7:20
10. Turn It Up 3:08
11. Up In The Air 3:38

Comb & Razor Sound launches its exploration of the colourful world of popular music from Nigeria, starting with the post-disco era of the late 1970s and early 80s.The years between 1979 and 1983 were Nigeria’s Second Republic, when democracy finally returned after 23 years of uninterrupted military dictatorship. They were also the crest of Nigeria’s oil boom, when surging crude prices made the country a land of plenty, prosperity and profligacy. The influx of petrodollars meant an expansion in industry, and the music industry in particular. Record companies upgraded their technology and cranked out a staggering level of output to an audience hungry for music to celebrate the country’s prospective rise as global power of the future. While it was a boom time for a wide variety of popular music styles, the predominant commercial sound was a post-afrobeat, slickly modern dance groove that retrofitted the relentless four-on-the-floor bass beat of disco to a more laidback, upbeat-and-downbeat soul shuffle, mixing in jazz-funk, synthesizer pop and afro feeling. At the time, it was still mostly locally referred to as 'disco', but has since been recognized as its own unique genre retrospectively dubbed 'Nigerian Boogie'. "Brand New Wayo" collects 15 pulsing Nigerian boogie tracks in a lovingly compiled package chronicling one of the most progressive and creative eras in the history of African popular music.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Mixed Grill - A Brand New Wayo
2. Kris Okotie - Show Me Your Backside
3. Murphy Williams - Get On Up
4. Joe Moks - Boys And Girls

Side B:
1. Amas - Slow Down
2. Oby Onyioha - I Want To Feel Your Love
3. Dizzy K. Falola - Excuse Me Baby
4. Chris Mba - Funky Situation

Side C:
1. Bayo Damazio - Listen To The Music
2. Martha Ulaeto - Music Alone
3. Segun Robert - Big Race
4. Amel Addmore – Jane

Side D:
1. Honey Machine – Pleasure
2. The Stormmers - Love Or Money
3. Emma Baloka – Let’s Love Each Other

"New Chain" is the debut long-player from New York's Small Black. Richly coloured and thickly layered, it is an absorbing, eclectic and obsessive body of work. The Brooklyn group have succeeded in melting together locked and popped drum-shudder, gauzy spirographic synths and subtly contagious, half-remembered melody into ebullient bursts of evocative, subliminal and thoroughly modern pop. The songs are equally informed by the rhythmic bounce and stylistic swagger of more left-leaning contemporary radio rap and R'n'B as it is the submerged kaleidoscopic swirl of the early 4AD dream factory.

Formed at the tail-end of 2008 as a bedroom recording project, Small Black first made waves with their eponymous debut EP. Recorded in the attic of singer Josh Kolenik's uncle's remote Long Island beach-house/surfboard workshop, it served as an ideal introduction to the group with its pulsing patchwork synths and addictive, stay-gold hooks that seemed to unfurl themselves gradually over repeated listens. Slightly more immediate and polished than its predecessor, Small Black's new album "New Chain" remains a continuation of this contrasting ethos - a delirious smudging of the lines between melancholy and nostalgia, tension and celebration, unabashed pop music and experimentation. 'It's always been a question for us', explains keyboardist/songwriter Ryan Heyner, 'of how much to push it, how much to reveal. I find a lot of the best music creeps up on you'.

"New Chain" was predominantly written, recorded and fully realized in the seclusion of sleepy, suburban Delaware, where bassist/songwriter Juan Pieczanski spent his childhood summers., and then mixed by Nicolas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors) at his Rare Book Room studio in New York City. The group spent the hours in Delaware as Kolenik says 'trying to take the excitement and stimulus of NYC to a place far from distractions, where it could be organized properly'. The effect of the transposition between city life and the isolation could explain the way the record's full-blown party jams are tempered with weirder moments of longing and enigma, and conversely, how its more discordant, foggy moments conceal huge moments of melody.

A thinker's party record? A party-hardy thinker's record? Not sure. All we know is that New Chain is one of the most involved, intriguing and effortlessly human collections of organic pop music you're likely to hear this or any other year.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Evoking the dreamy pop delights of the 4AD label back catalogue this is an effortlessly beautiful and sumptuously rich album.

Thread Pulls are nearly a rock band, stripped back to a core of drums and bass. Skewed grooves anchor their hypnotic proto-disco sound-kick-drum centred and sub-bass heavy. Roughly cut vocal layers and eastern trumpet-echoes coupling solar-synth-drones bring to mind early elements of future sounds. With echoes of Sheffield’s most prolific sound processers Cabaret Voltaire and the complex polyrhythms and repetitive dance styles of New York’s ESG, the band now releases their debut album "New Thoughts" on Irish independent label OSAKA recordings.

TRACK LISTING

1. How To Talk
2. Weight
3. These New Thoughts
4. Starts Ends
5. HhYy
6. Sink And Swim
7. Dead Heat
8. Wake Up
9. Joujouka Reminder
10. No Sound

Compiled by Mark Ainley and Mark Ernestus (Basic Channel etc) "Shangaan Electro" delivers a selection of the breakneck Shangaan dance output of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009. Shangaan music is fast - we're talking 180bpm+ here - coming across like high life-meets-soca-meets-baile-funk-happy hardcore! When you hear those marimba beats, that live guitar and those toms, you know it’s Shangaan. The sound grew out of the Shangaan disco movement, a music that dominated in the 1980s with artists like Penny Penny and Peter Teanet and has slowly got faster and faster until we have Shangaan electro. There’s something distinctive in this Shangaan perspective: they are one of the more rural and traditional groups in the wealthiest African nation, yet ‘tradition’ to them can also be living, electronic and nuanced. If you enjoy the global beats of Africa Hitech or Poirier, or the simplicity and speed of baile funk from Brazil's favelas, then this is sure to be of interest.

TRACK LISTING

01. BBC - Ngunyuta Dance (The Shake-Your-Behind Dance)
02. Tshetsha Boys - Nwa Pfundla (Pfundla's Daughter)
03. Mancingelani - Vana Vasesi (My Sister's Children)
04. Zinja Hlungwani - Ntombi Ya Mugaza (Shangaan Woman)
05. BBC - Ngozi (Danger)
06. Zinja Hlungwani - Nwa Gezani (Gezani's Daughter)
07. Tiyiselani Vomaseve - Vanghoma
08. Nka Mwewe - Khulumani (Let's Talk)
09. Tiyiselani Vomaseve - Na Xaniseka (I'm Suffering)
10. Zinja Hlungwani - Nwa Gezani My Love (Gezani's Daughter, My Love)
11. Tshetsha Boys - Uya Kwihi Ka Rose (Rose, Where Are You Going?)
12. Zinja Hlungwani - Thula (So Quiet)

Forget everything you thought you knew about New Young Pony Club because on their second album it's all changed. If 2007's critically acclaimed, Mercury Music Prize nominated "Fantastic Playroom" was the culmination of the hybrid disco sound they pioneered, "The Optimist" heralds the beginning of a brave new future for the band. Self-produced and more importantly self-funded and self-released, "The Optimist" is the sound of a band taking full control of their present and future, circumnavigating their own way. With no four to the floor, no cowbell (!) and no monotone sexy talk, the creative freedom enjoyed by the band has opened up a new 'indie' side, as shown by the psychedelic dub balladry of "Stone" and the atmospheric, cracked beauty of "Architect Of Love", and the singles "Lost A Girl", "Chaos" and soon-to-be-huge "We Want To". It's an assured, deliciously adventurous next step for New Young Pony Club, open your ears and have a listen.

STAFF COMMENTS

Philippa says: A current shop stereo favourite!

Andy says: Still groovy, still dead melodic, but now with a heavier, almost Gothic flavour. There's more depth but no less FUN. It's the perfect blend.

After three well received 12” releases, The Love Supreme long player is finally here. The Love Supreme’s method of composition comes with a sonic laboratory ethos with equal measures of real instruments and vintage ‘electro-acoustic’ synthesizers. This can be seen on the pulsating opener "Elsewhere Once More", the arpegiated "Tiefferre" and the robo-tincan musings of "Alles Liebe". The early 1970s Krautrock pioneers Faust, Can and Amon Düül II, and the sounds of Tangerine Dream’s "Pink Years" period also weave their fabric through motorik tracks such as "Boy", "Rocquet" and "The Parrot". The production retains an Italian polish throughout, and the album’s peppier tracks hark back to early 1980s New York and all things CBGBs. "Gold Dust" and the highly accessible "Waiting For The Love" feature vocals from UK based Ben Smith (Fug, Nuphonic) and grooves and arrangements that wouldn’t be amiss on an early Blondie album. Single "Sugar" features a foot-stomping single note bass, underpinning Talking Heads rhythms and synthesizers, with Ben’s staccato, punchy, on-the-beat vocal just adding just enough flavour as to not interfere with the groove. Proceedings round off with a cover of the Bauhaus classic "Bela Lugosi’s Dead". NYC vocalist Lord does a fine job of capturing the spirit of Peter Murphy and of fronting The Love Supreme’s electro-ching backing.

The inside cover of this CD reveals a post-apocalyptic Trafalgar Square complete with burning buses, a can-opened National Gallery and Nelson’s Column snaking off in collapsed sections towards The Strand. For such a seemingly gentlemanly acoustic album this might appear incongruous - the first song sounds like it was recorded at a cocktail party at the Savoy sometime in the 1930s - but closer inspection of Matthew Neel’s world reveals a catalogue of current psychological ills, from the inevitable environmental to more straightforward existential woes. "Well Anyway" sums up the landscape - 'We are the beaten generation, black-and-blue and godforsaken. But don’t start thinking that we’re easy prey cos we’ll never give an inch and we’ll dig our teeth in', while "First World Blues" resonates with a deep sense of the impending (producers of Panorama looking for a title for their next climate-change special take note). Elsewhere, "Hey Citizen" finds our hero back at the Savoy for a light supper whilst all around genuine pop moments are surfing away happily on top of the angst. often this is due to the deft guitar playing of cohort Luke Brighty - particularly "Emily" with it’s lilting beat and pay-off line 'well I want you for your mind although you’ve got a great behind'. Likewise "Wise Up", complete with Nick Cave cowboy-choir backing vocals and "We Will Be Dreaming"'s instantly familiar 'smiles on our faces' refrain. "New Maps Of Hell" is an accomplished debut, a roadmap for our times and an album that soothes as much as it pricks. like emily, it’s got the lot..

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2011

'I’m New Here' sees proto-rap pioneer Gil Scott-Heron still looking forward, still challenging conventions and expectations, with his first album in 13 years. Without doubt one of the most important voices in 20th century music, Gil Scott-Heron’s unfailingly sharp and ironic eye spared neither Black Power phonies or scheming presidents. In 1971 he laid out the blueprint for the whole rap genre with his slinky anthem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" while, throughout a career spanning five decades, his deep, soulful voice spoke of nukes, Reaganomics or apartheid, always from deep inside the tradition. "I’m New Here" sees Gil Scott-Heron sounding as vital as ever; a record that reveals something unexpected at every turn; one that sees Scott-Heron pushing, probing and testing the boundaries just as he always has. Alongside his "I’m New Here" collaborator – producer and XL Recordings head Richard Russell – Scott-Heron has made an album that eschews the cosy arrangements and retrospective leanings one might expect from an artist over forty years into their career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: A truly remarkable album, and an almost permanent fixture on my turntable this year. Gil's storytelling is second to none; from the melancholy of opening track, "On Coming From A Broken" home, to the raw blues-stomp of "Me And The Devil" to the dark brooding "Where Did The Night Go" he paints vivid pictures of his world. He even takes a Bill Callahan (Smog) song and makes it his own. (It's so good in fact that it gives the album its name!) Sad, witty, melancholic, uplifting and thought provoking - this is Gil on top form.

TRACK LISTING

1. On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 1)
2. Me And The Devil
3. I’m New Here
4. Your Soul And Mine
5. Parents (Interlude)
6. I’ll Take Care Of You
7. Being Blessed (Interlude)
8. Where Did The Night Go
9. I Was Guided (Interlude)
10. New York Is Killing Me
11. Certain Things (Interlude)
12. Running
13. The Crutch
14. I’ve Been Me (Interlude)
15. On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 2)

Vinyl Bonus Disc:
1. Piano Player (Intro)
2. Home Is Where The Hatred Is *
3. Winter In America *
4. Jazz (Interlude)
5. Is That Jazz *
6. A Place To Go (Interlude)
7. My Cloud **
* Live Studio Version
** Previously Unreleased

"Hidden" is the highly anticipated comeback from a band whose debut "Beat Pyramid" earned them huge critical acclaim. It's an epic return, featuring six foot Japanese taiko drums, a thirteen piece brass and woodwind ensemble and Foley sound effect recording techniques.
Produced by These New Puritan’s Jack Barnett along with Graham Sutton, and mixed by Dave Cooley (J Dilla, MF Doom) the single is strange as it is confrontational. It draws equally on the rhythmic lexicons of dancehall, 20th century post-minimalism, and the plastic textures of modern US Pop.
The album’s heavy layers of rhythm combined with the classical minimalist instrumentation will challenge, perplex and mesmerise the listener and more than reward any attention lavished upon it. Sometimes brutal, sometimes melancholy, and sounds like nothing else.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Heavy percussive rhythms provide the backbone here, embellished with choral chants, brass, woodwind – in fact just about everything but the usual indie-band staple - guitars. (Well, if they're in there, they're pushed way back!) It's an intriguing album, kicking off with a solemn brass-led intro it then plunges into the 7 minute epic of the single "We Want War", which is an amazing amalgamation of heavy Steve Reich-esque percussion, Eastern rhythms, half whispered vocals, blasts of brass and even a choir. The stand out track for me is the dark, claustrophobic "Three Thousand" that reminds me a little of Massive Attack.
The rest of the album follows a similar path to these three opening tracks at times brutal and percussive, at others heavy and oppressive, and at others almost soundtracky with the brass and woodwind reminiscent of Prokofiev’s eerie masterpiece “Peter And The Wolf”.
It’s quite proggy and maybe a bit overindulgent at times, but it’s a unique and amazingly ambitious follow up to "Beat Pyramid" that’s well worth your time.

Constellation's second vinyl-only release from Godspeed contains two long songs, and sets the bar for the sprawling compositions that would characterize the group in the years to follow. Side one is cut at 45rpm and features "Moya", a broiling cascade of upward scales that repeatedly explodes beyond its own threshold. "BBF3" on Side two clocks in at 18 minutes, and is the band's most lyrical, multi-movement music to date -- more elaborated melodic figures wind around an angry spoken-word field recording (infamously culminating in the recital of the speaker's poem -- verses lifted straight from Iron Maiden). Both songs were recorded with Dale Morningstar at the old Gas Station studio in Toronto.

On this record New Order took the solid songwriting of "Lowlife" and made a sort of sister album. The rocking songs were heavier and the electronic ones even more beautiful. They were mostly split into what used to be the old Side 1 and Side 2, with the career highlight "Bizarre Love Triangle" opening the latter. This, "All Day Long" and "Angel Dust" make a gorgeous run of sweeping electronic pop songs that pointed the way to the slick majesty of "Technique" which was to follow.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Paradise
A2 Weirdo
A3 As It Is When It Was
A4 Broken Promise
A5 Way Of Life
B1 Bizarre Love Triangle
B2 All Day Long
B3 Angel Dust
B4 Every Little Counts

This is the album which spawned "Blue Monday"(needless to say these arty buggers didn't include it on the record) and features spacious, electronic pieces amidst two stone classics. "Age Of Consent" with its propulsive Hook bassline and V.U. slashing Bernard outro (which would become a trademark) and the beautiful "Your Silent Face" were still included on the band's final tour. 

The year was 1989 and whilst Acid House exploded around them, New Order went international with their poppiest, most expertly blended album yet. Apart from the bizarre but exciting opener, this was a seamless sequence of stunning songs which made their dark, dislocated early years but a distant memory. Something was lost in that journey though, and it was no surprise that this was New Order's last record for Factory Records.