Blue vinyl reissue of OMD's 13th studio album The Punishment of Luxury - back on vinyl for the first time in 7 years.

The follow up to the critically acclaimed ‘English Electric’ (released in 2013) ‘The Punishment Of Luxury’ is a daring collection of stylish synth pop and masterful songwriting which will certainly rank alongside their very best.

Written, recorded, produced and mixed by OMD – Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys – the album is the sound of a band in their prime. ‘On this album we have managed to make beautiful things out of noises and repetitive patterns’, explains Andy. ‘The trouble is, we just cant help but write a catchy melody!’

The album takes its name from an 1891 painting by the Italian Giovani Segantini and contains everything from the Kraftwerkian ‘Isotype’ and ‘Robot Man’ to the blue eyed soul ballads of ‘One More Time’ and ‘The View From Here’ as well as more traditional OMD songs like ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Bang’ and the synth heavy title track.

TRACK LISTING

A1) The Punishment Of Luxury
A2) Isotype
A3) Robot Man
A4) What Have We Done
A5) Precision & Decay
A6) As We Open, So We Close
B1) Art Eats Art
B2) Kiss Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Bang
B3) One More Time
B4) La Mitrailleuse
B5) Ghost Star
B6) The View From Here

Everybody, Anyone features 11 new songs and as before, there’s a sprinkling of guest musicians who feature on the album including Kathryn Williams, Dr Robert, Mick Talbot, Steve White, & The Average White Band’s Hamish Stuart. And unable to stay away, Paul Weller (who produced and featured on the last album) sneaks back in with a bit of piano, guitar and BVs on a couple of tracks. The Midlands based band’s 5th studio album was recorded at Paul Weller’s Black Barn Studios in Surrey and produced by Stone Foundation founding members Neil Jones and Neil Sheasby and engineered by Charles Rees.

The band, buoyed & encouraged by the reception to their last album Street Rituals (chart position: 25), have taken a slightly different direction and hit upon a creative formula that clearly works. After a long period of extensive touring, which included headline shows at Shepherds Bush Empire and a storming set at Glastonbury, the band were so stoked that they went straight back to the studio to start work on Everybody Anyone while the creative juices were still flowing.

Everybody, Anyone sees a harder, heavier funk vibe than it’s predecessor but with the great grooves comes great songs. Talking about the album, bassist Neil Sheasby says: “In recent years I’ve heard a lot of records with great grooves but there’s no song, the message & melodies were still key to the records creation. To me it sounds like a very cohesive collection of tunes, a body of work that hangs well as a complete album. The next natural step for Stone Foundation” 

We Are Scientists, the Brooklyn, New York based power pop troupe are set to return with their sixth album. Titled ‘Megaplex’ and released via 100% Records on April 27th, the infamous duo, Keith Murray (guitar/vocals) and Chris Cain (bass), are once again set to dazzle the world with ten brand new splashes of colourful and utterly addictive pop that serve as a welcome distraction to these bleak times we live in.

“In the past we’ve used our music to educate, to enlighten, to awaken people to the depth and complexity of moral concerns. This time, we really wanted to drop a fun-bomb. Something to dance or f*** to,” states Chris and ‘Megaplex’ achieves just that. Recorded at Tim Wheeler from Ash’s Atomic Heart Studios in NYC and once again produced by Max Hart (ex-Katy Perry), the duo set about honing down a sprawling burst of creativity to make the concise pop beast that is ‘Megaplex’.

"At this point in our career, we’ve written so many songs,” explains Keith. “The pool for this record alone was something like 90 songs deep — that we know exactly what we want out of a We Are Scientists record. We want it to be taut, to bang hard, to have a big hook every four seconds or so. We don’t have to be precious about which songs make it onto a record; we can listen to the ones that didn’t make it at home, on our own time. ‘Megaplex’ is just the ten most delicious songs that we have — a stacked-up compound of entertainment."

"It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of honing of craft to make it to six records,” continues Keith. “ I mean, the Velvet Underground never made six albums. The Smiths didn’t. Pavement, Guns N’ Roses, The Stooges — none of them could do it. So, I guess we’re just objectively better than those bands now? It’s just a mathematical fact, right? Van Halen made six with David Lee Roth but only four with Sammy Hagar, so I guess we’re better than Hagar-era Van Halen but only just as good as Roth-era? Which, saying it out loud, makes total sense, yeah."

These are stark facts that cannot be argued when faced with the ten melodious molten nuggets that are simply blinding in their brightness. Yes folks, We Are Scientists are very much back.

“Our brilliant work in pop song writing is unsurpassed,” summarises Keith. “And will probably make the We Are Scientists Name live beyond eternity.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bright, soaring melodies and bolshy, neon synths thump around the stereo image while the vocals soar over the top. Unashamedly retro but brilliantly modern, and great fun throughout.

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. One In, One Out
2. Notes In A Bottle
3. Heart Is A Weapon
4. Your Light Has Changed
5. KIT
6. No Wait At Five Leaves
7. Not Another Word
8. Now Or Never
9. You Failed
10. Properties Of Perception

LP
A1. One In, One Out
A2. Notes In A Bottle
A3. Heart Is A Weapon
A4. Your Light Has Changed
A5. KIT
B1. No Wait At Five Leaves
B2. Not Another Word
B3. Now Or Never
B4. You Failed
B5. Properties Of Perception

The bands 4th studio album was produced by Paul Weller, who also features on all the tracks (piano, guitar & vocal including lead vocal on ‘Your Balloon Is Rising’). Having been hugely impressed by Stone Foundations previous endeavours, Paul personally contacted the band to propose the idea of working together, initially on one specific track, but having enjoyed the process so much, the resulting ten compositions on ‘Street Rituals’ now all have musical input from Paul. Two songs - ‘The Limit of a Man’ & ‘Colour Of’ - are co-writes with a Jones/Sheasby/Weller credit.

Stone Foundation’s Neil Jones commented: "Paul contacted us at the start of 2016 after hearing our last record. He wanted to know if we'd like to get involved with a demo he'd been working on and we obviously grasped the opportunity with both hands. ‘The Limit of a Man’ was born out of those early exchanges and from that point onwards we never looked back". Neil Sheasby added “Paul pretty much joined the band for the recording sessions, playing guitar, piano and adding vocals to several songs as well as overseeing the production of the record.”

Elsewhere on the album there are stunning contributions from legendary soul singers William Bell, who lends his voice to ‘Strange People’, and the unmistakable tones of Bettye Lavette, providing the lead on ‘Season of Change’. The collaboration between Stone Foundation and these internationally celebrated artists cements the bands incredible reputation as one of the finest British Soul bands in existence.

With an extraordinary history of constant surprises and success against the odds, ‘Street Rituals’ feels like the culmination of years of hard work paying off for Stone Foundation as they continue to develop their unique style of soul on a much broader scale. Subtle horn & string arrangements add glorious swathes of colour and light to a new collection of songs that are unquestionably the groups strongest to date. Co-writers and founding members Neil Jones and Neil Sheasby have consciously delivered thought provoking lyrics that reflect current issues of uncertainty and division, but smartly balance that with a prevailing sense of hope and optimism within their musical delivery.

"These are dark, dark times so I was glad to hear a positive voice and vibrations in the words and a joy in the music...what a pleasure and a privilege it was to work with these fellas". “It’s their best songwriting to date, and I just hope people get to hear it because there are some great tunes and I like the message on the record. I like the social comment, because you have so little of that these days.” - Paul Weller on the band and record

TRACK LISTING

CD
1) Back In The Game (feat. Paul Weller)
2) Open Your Heart To The World
3) Love Rediscovered
4) The Limit Of A Man
5) The Colour Of...
6) Street Rituals (feat. Paul Weller)
7) Strange People (feat. William Bell)
8) Your Balloon Is Rising (feat. Paul Weller)
9) Season Of Change (feat. Bettye LaVette)
10) Simplify The Situation

CD+DVD
CD Same As Above
DVD
1) The Making Of Street Rituals
2) Back In The Game [In-studio Performance]
3) Your Balloon Is Rising [in-studio Performance]
4) Strange People [In-studio Performance]

LP
Side A
1) Back In The Game (feat. Paul Weller)
2) Open Your Heart To The World
3) Love Rediscovered
4) The Limit Of A Man
5) The Colour Of...

Side B
6) Street Rituals (feat. Paul Weller)
7) Strange People (feat. William Bell)
8) Your Balloon Is Rising (feat. Paul Weller)
9) Season Of Change (feat. Bettye LaVette)
10) Simplify The Situation

We Are Scientists, the Brooklyn, New York based power pop troupe are set to return this coming April 22nd with their fifth album. Titled ‘Helter Seltzer’ and released via 100% Records, it is preceded by the single release of ‘Buckle’, the album’s opening track, available today for stream and download.



For this album We Are Scientists asked their ex-keyboard player Max Hart to produce. Max had just finished a three-year stint as the keyboardist for international super-mega-person Katy Perry, choosing as his final gig Ms. Perry’s performance at the 2015 Super Bowl. After a number of small producing projects squeezed in between tours, he was ready to roll up his sleeves and dive in.



Max rented a studio space in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighbourhood, outfitting it with gear he had accumulated over a decade of obsessive internet shopping. In early March, the team got to work. At their disposal was a trove of new We Are Scientists demos as well as Max’s inside-out familiarity with hits like ‘Teenage Dream’ and ‘Firework’ and ‘Dark Horse.’ Sifting through the options, a direction emerged: they would use the tones and trickery of radio pop to add a sweet sheen to the new crop of distinctively We Are Scientists songs. Months of toil and trial and error finally brought the right balance, and the finished recordings were shipped to mixer Chris Coady at Sunset Sound in L.A. Coady has quietly emerged in recent years as one of the finest mixers of glossy indie pop, with credits that include Future Islands, Beach House, and !!!.



In ‘Helter Seltzer’ he knew he had an album that should shimmer but also bang, and he applied all of the magic and sauce at his disposal to insure it did exactly that. Finally, the music was passed through the deluxe mastering machine that are the ears of Greg Calbi (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Noel Gallagher, Perfume Genius) to add a coat of heft and sparkle, and in January of 2016, nearly a year after construction began, the album was pronounced complete.



"We've always made overtures toward being a pop band, but we've generally had the inclination to obscure those pop leanings in grit and chaos — to screw them up with fuzzed-out tones and raucous performances," says guitarist and vocalist Keith Murray. "It's made us really think about what our musical genre is. We're not punk — we're too interested in making our songs as pretty as possible. We're not straight-up rock — our tastes our too left-of-centre. We're not indie-rock — our heads aren't far enough up our own butts. So finally, after putting as much time into thinking about it as we're apt to — about ten minutes, over beers — we decided that our genre is 'Helter Seltzer.'"



"Declaring a new genre is obviously douchey as hell, though, and impossible to deliver with a straight face," adds bassist Chris Cain, "so we did the noble thing and just made ‘Helter Seltzer’ the album title. It's especially apt for us these days, though. The songs here are more effervescent than we've ever managed to deliver, but they've still maintained a measure of that ‘Helter Skelter’ element — no matter how fizzy and refreshing the tunes are, they've always got a bit of that seamy, scuzzy, 'cult on Spahn Ranch' vibe."



"Incidentally, the album title represents a secondary bonus of proselytizing to the world about seltzer, which is woefully under-recognized outside the United States. We've polled foreign friends and associates about their awareness of seltzer, and found out that most of them thought it related either to a hangover cure or to that fusty comedic "squirt in the face" gag from classic cinema. Almost none recognized the fine pleasure of sipping on a nice, refreshing seltzer water, available everywhere in bottles and cans throughout the U.S. We therefore consider this album, as a vessel of both sweet pop tunes and seltzer outreach, to be a work of undisguised philanthropy on our part."

TRACK LISTING

1. Buckle
2. In My Head
3. Too Late
4. Hold On
5. We Need A Word
6. Want For Nothing
7. Classic Love
8. Waiting For You
9. Headlights
10. Forgiveness

The new long player was recorded in New York City over the last year with producer Chris Coady (Smith Westerns, Beach House, Gang Gang Dance, Blonde Redhead), and lands in the middle of the band’s 5 month tour of Europe, America & Australia. A summer of festivals will follow.

Asked to comment on the unusual title, bassist Chris Cain explains, “It’s in French, I think. At least some of the words.”

Singer and guitarist Keith Murray elaborates: “We wanted to get at the seemingly inevitable parallax that happens between two people in a relationship, that sense that you get the gist of what the other person needs and wants and how they feel about you, but only the gist — you’re relying on these broad cues a lot of the time to tell you what the hell’s going on.”

We Are Scientists exploded onto the U.K. scene with one of 2005’s iconic indie dance rock records, ‘With Love & Squalor’. Years of touring followed, as did a second album, ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’, that spawned now-classic nightlife anthem ‘After Hours’ (a #11 charting single). Main stage slots at Reading & Leeds, Glastonbury, T In The Park, and festivals all over Europe, as well as appearances on Later with Jools Holland, and their own series of comedic MTV shorts (‘Steve Wants His Money’), followed by third album ‘Barbara’… all served to cement and increase their legacy.

Now, after releasing a 7-inch and a 5-song EP in 2013, the band prepare to share their finest collection of songs to date.

According to Cain, “The guy who was producing everything looked different from the one who did those other three records.”

Murray further enthuses, “Yeah, working for the first time with Chris Coady as producer had a huge effect — he has such a distinct and well-developed sense of what’s cool and what sounds good, but he’s also emphatic about keeping the rawness of the performances in there.”

Drummer Andy Burrows, who also recorded ‘Barbara’ with W.A.S., relocated to New York for a year to work on the new album, and lends his world-class efforts behind the kit and elsewhere.

TRACK LISTING

1: What You Do Best
2: Dumb Luck
3: Make It Easy
4: Sprinkles
5: Courage
6: Overreacting
7: Return The Favor
8: Slow Down
9: Don't Blow It
10: Take An Arrow