The final part of this ‘A.R. Kane reissue collection is 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

TRACK LISTING

1) Hello
2) A Love From Outer Space
3) Crack Up
4) Timewind
5) What’s All This Then?
6) Snow Joke
7) Off Into Space
8) And I Say
9) Yeti
10) Conundrum
11) Honeysuckleswallow
12) Long Body
13) In A Circle
14) Fast Ka
15) Miles Apart
16) Pop
17) Mars
18) Spook
19) Sugarwings
20) Back Home
21) Down
22) Supervixens
23) Insect Love
24) Sorry
25) Catch My Drift
26) Challenge

‘Sixty Nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary – Neil Kulkarni.

Dream POP, they called it. Given AR Kane’s Alex Ayuli once worked for advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, it’s no surprise that he and collaborator Rudy Tambala invented their own genre before critics could stick their oar in. It was a canny move, but more importantly, it was accurate: the music of AR Kane was made for dreamers, by dreamers, and its languor and longing made it particularly bewitching listening; their music is often smeared and blurry, happily lost in its own indefinable pleasures. “We wanted dream pop,” Tambala says, “that feeling of a dream where the rules are different. Dream logic.” -UNCUT REISSUE OF THE MONTH

"A.R. Kane carved out a unique musical path, welding elements of pop, psych, dub, electronica, funk, noise, jazz, ambient and more in a way that had never been done before. Or since. Their debut in particular is a work of unbridled brilliance." *Electronic Sound*

TRACK LISTING

A1. Crazy Blue
2. Suicide Kiss
3. Baby Milk Snatcher
4. Scab
5. Sulliday
B1. Dizzy
2. Spermwhale Trip Over
3. The Sun Falls Into The Sun
4. The Madonna Is With Child
5. Spanish Quay

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second-generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and
artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that!

The duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here – a tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits.

The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. SimonReynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Baby Milk Snatcher
2. W.O.G.S
3. One Way Mirror
4. Up

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.

Miles Kane & The Evils is a four track RSD exclusive released on physical format only. Limited to 500 copies this colour vinyl lets fans explore Miles' passion for 60's sounding surf rock instrumentals. Recorded with long term collaborators Sunglasses For Jaws. Quote from Miles ìSurf guitar has been a passion of mine since day one hearing dick dale for the first as a kid in pulp fiction blew my mind I connected with the sound immediately. Even going back further as a kid hearing the Batman theme, the pink panther theme and James Bond I was obsessed I would listen over and over to those theme songs! When I was a teenager I heard Link Wray for the first time and it changed my life I was like that is the guitarist I wanna be-twang-whammy bar-reverb-tremolo! That has been my guitar sound on every album Iíve made from the little flames to the rascals to the puppets and my solo albums! This surf mini album is me having my guitar front and centre imagining Iím in a cool badass Tarantino filmî

A.R. Kive collates the three most astonishing works from that most miraculous of duos - A.R. Kane - comprising the ‘Up Home’ EP from 1988 that signified the band’s dawning realisation of their own powers and possibilities, their legendary debut LP ‘sixty nine’ (1988) and its kaleidoscopic, prophetic double-LP follow up ‘i’ (1989).

In founder-member Rudy Tambala’s new remastering, the music on these pivotal transmissions from the birth of dream pop, have been reinvigorated and re-infused with a new power, a new depth and intimacy, a new height and immensity. Vivid, timeless and yet always timely whenever they’re recalled, these records still force any listener to realise that despite the habits of retrospective myth-making and the safe neutering effects of ‘genre’, thirty years have in no way dimmed how resistant and dissident to critical habits of categorisation A.R. Kane always were. Never quite ‘avant-pop’ or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘post-rock’ or any of those sobriquets designed to file and categorise, A.R. Kive is a reminder that those genres had to be coined, had to be invented precisely to contain the astonishing sound of A.R. Kane, because previous formulations couldn’t come close to their sui generis sound and suggestiveness. This is music that pointed towards futures which a whole generation of artists and sonic explorers would map out. Now beautifully repackaged, remastered and fleshed out with extensive sleeve notes and accompanying materials, ‘A.R. Kive’ reveals that 35 years on it’s still a struggle to defuse the revolutionary and inspirational possibility of A.R. Kane’s music.

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second- generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that! We could express ourselves like that!’ moment”, recalls Tambala - and through a mix of confidence, chutzpah, ad hoc almost-mythical live shows and sheer innocent will the duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here - a tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits. The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. Simon Reynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ that forms the first part of ‘A.R. Kive’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

‘sixty nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary.

The final part of this ‘A.R. Kive’ contains 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

TRACK LISTING

UP HOME EP
1) Baby Milk Snatcher
2) W.O.G.S
3) One Way Mirror
4) Up

69 LP
1) Crazy Blue
2) Suicide Kiss
3) Baby Milk Snatcher
4) Scab 5) Sulliday
6) Dizzy
7) Spermwhale Trip Over
8) The Sun Falls Into The Sea
9) The Madonna Is With Child
10) Spanish Quay

i LP
1) Hello
2) A Love From Outer Space
3) Crack Up
4) Timewind
5) What’s All This Then?
6) Snow Joke
7) Off Into Space
8) And I Say
9) Yeti
10) Conundrum
11) Honeysuckleswallow
12) Long Body
13) In A Circle
14) Fast Ka
15) Miles Apart
16) Pop
17) Mars
18) Spook
19) Sugarwings
20) Back Home
21) Down
22) Supervixens
23) Insect Love
24) Sorry
25) Catch My Drift
26) Challenge

DIGITAL POSTCARD
1) Baby Milk Snatcher
2) W.O.G.S
3) One Way Mirror
4) Up
5) W.O.G.S (Slowdive Remix)
6) Baby Milk Snatcher (Tim Reaper Remix)
7) Baby Milk Snatcher (Louis Tambala Remix) 

Miles Kane returns with a blistering new album One Man Band, out August 4th on Modern Sky Records. The album’s first offering is the exuberant indie banger ‘Troubled Son’.

Opening the record, ‘Troubled Son’ is raw, pop-driven indie, made for festival stages. “It’s about the struggle we all have in life,” Miles said of the track. “Sometimes we have our shit together and sometimes we don’t. This is me acknowledging my faults and my fears and showing the journey I’m taking as I try to figure it all out.

Miles returns to his guitar hero best on One Man Band as he focuses on big hooks and even bigger anthems. Sharp, infectious, urgent and packed to the brim with singalong moments, it’s Miles on the top of his game. A deeply personal record, Miles returned to Liverpool to work on the album, finding himself reflecting on his journey.

“Making the album back in Liverpool with my family really helped to bring this out of me,” Miles said of the writing process. “We left no stone unturned. Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards, and this album helped me rediscover why I picked up a guitar in the first place. This album is like a brand new, yet somehow familiar leather jacket. A comforting melting pot of all the music that has inspired and continues to inspire me every day.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Miles Kane returns for his most focused outing yet, clearly showing his role in the hugely popular Last Shadow Puppets with Alex Turner. Asymmetrical indie-rock, full of soaring melodies and Kane's distinctive vocal drawl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Troubled Son
2. The Best Is Yet To Come
3. One Man Band
4. Never Taking Me Alive
5. Heartbreaks The New Sensation
6. The Wonder
7. Baggio
8. Ransom
9. Doubles
10. Heal
11. Scared Of Love

Nubiyan Twist and Swindle reimagine two Blue Note classics for Blue Note Re:imagined II; a new 16-track compilation featuring fresh takes on music from the illustrious Blue Note vaults recorded by a heavyweight line-up of the UK jazz, soul and R&B scene’s most hotly-tipped rising stars. Arriving off the back of the widespread international success of the first volume, which topped jazz charts around the globe, Blue Note Re:imagined II once again infuses the spirit of the new UK jazz generation into the legendary label’s iconic catalogue, balancing the genre’s tradition with its future and reflecting the melting pot of talent and diversity within the current scene. 

Neil Young is set to deliver more rare live recordings from his extensive archives with the Neil Young Official Bootleg Series (OBS) which began last autumn with the release of Carnegie Hall 1970 (OBS1).

On May 6th Young will release the next three installments in the bootleg series as follows: Royce Hall, 1971 was recorded January 30 on the UCLA campus, a solo acoustic gig. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 1971 – also solo acoustic -- is the last US show of Young’s 1971 solo tour. Citizen Kane Jr. Blues (Live at The Bottom Line), from New York City 1974 is a surprise set. Where analog tape exists in Young’s archive, these concerts have been mixed properly, providing much higher quality recordings than have previously existed – Royce Hall 1971 and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion 1971 are from the original analog masters. If no tape exists, the original bootleg has been restored and remastered to bring listeners the best audio experience possible - Citizen Kane Jr. Blues (Live at The Bottom Line), from New York City 1974.

The original bootleg artwork has also been replicated wherever possible, lending each release that treasured collector’s vibe and conjuring the era they were first created in. 

TRACK LISTING

01 Pushed It Over The End
02 Long May You Run
03 Greensleeves
04 Ambulance Blues
05 Helpless
06 Revolution Blues
07 On The Beach
08 Roll Another Number (For The Road)
09 Motion Pictures
10 Pardon My Heart
11 Dance Dance Dance

Following a chance “no frills session” with psych-rock duo Sunglasses For Jaws at the band’s Hackney studio, Miles’ fourth solo album ‘Change the Show’ really began to take shape. “I saw myself in their energy, but also their taste and their knowledge of music,” Miles explains. “It was the first time I’d felt old!”

Opening with the honest soft croon of ‘Tears are Falling’, the album is a joyous ride from start to finish and features a surprising, but spectacular appearance from Grammy-nominated singer Corinne Bailey Rae for a duet on ‘Nothing’s Ever Gonna Be Good Enough’. ‘Don’t Let It Get You Down’, the first track released from the record, is Miles Kane at his very best: energetic, infectious and full of swagger, the track opening with a sample from fellow Wirral alumnus Paul O’Grady. It's an album that best represents Miles himself: charmingly authentic, and like nothing else you'll hear in pop music today.

“This album was born out of an intense period of self-reflection; having all this unexpected time on my hands,” Miles said of the last 18 months. “I wrote songs about big highs, big lows, daydreams, true friends and deep feelings. I learnt to let the future unfold of its own accord, while staying true to myself and that has led to what feels to me like a really uplifting album!”

A record for fans both new and old, ‘Change the Show’ is the Miles Kane album we’ve all been waiting for. The apotheosis of his previous works, incorporating those classic rock and glam influences, but focusing more closely on Motown, soul, and Fifties R&B.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tears Are Falling
2. Don’t Let It Get You Down
3. Nothing’s Ever Gonna Be Good Enough (Feat. Corinne Bailey Rae)
4. See Ya When I See Ya
5. Never Get Tired Of Dancing
6. Tell Me What You’re Feeling
7. Coming Of Age
8. Change The Show
9. Constantly
10. Caroline
11. Adios Ta-ra Ta-ra

Released in 2020, Rheinzand’s self-titled debut LP heralded an authentic vibe of retro-futuristic disco-pop, distinguishing themselves in the current climate of dance music. The album was met with acclaim, picked by Piccadilly Records as their nr. 1 album of the year. Since, the material on that album have proven fertile ground for practitioners in the art of the remix. On this EP, we release a selection of those efforts.

On the first slot, we have Running Back label owner and longstanding DJ heavyweight Gerd Janson polishing off his house music fluency with a gleaming take on ‘Blind’. The swerving vocals of Charlotte Caluwaerts’ reverberate through space ray arpeggiators and burnished drum gates.
Belgian compatriot Blitzzega, the neon-drenched moniker of composer Bjorn Eriksson, features with a dizzyingly switched-on version of ‘Mi Mundo’, sporting gnawing synths and hijacked funk licks.

Next, dub-pop wizards Peaking Lights serve up a heady brew of plugged-up melodies braided around Reinhard and Charlotte’s shuffling vocals. This remix blends the magenta glow of synthwave with the deep grooves of maybe late Theo Parrish. We round off the EP with a treat form Dennis ‘Citizen’ Kane, the iconic dance music figure who emerged in mid-90s NYC downtown scene. A veteran DJ and disco-head, Kane applies a luminous hand to Rheinzand’s ’14 Again’, deepening the vibe of kittenish mystery through carefully layered work of phasing drones, wandering synths, and mushrooming rhythm section (think T-Connection). 

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: After the success of the first remix EP we'll again be stocking an exclusive 12" by our album of the year winners Rheinzand, this time featuring remixes by Running Back mastermind Gerd Janson and shop favourites Peaking Lights. LUSH!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Blind (Gerd Janson Dance Mix)
A2. Mi Mundo (Blitzzega Mix)
B1. Synti (Peaking Lights Disco Dub Mix)
B2. 14 Again (Dennis Kane Remix)

Recorded in his hometown of Dunedin at the notoriously haunted Chick’s Hotel studio, Kane teamed up with producer Stephen Marr from trip hop group Doprah for Two Hearts and No Brain. The collaborative result is a razor sharp blend of intelligent alt-rock, bearing the signatures of grunge/alt rock swiftly executed with careful, meticulous precision over 11 tracks. Marr’s influence brings a pristine, retro-futuristic sheen which complements Strang’s perfectionist recording style, sharp melody, and verbose lyrical neuroticism. Taking to well-worn subject matter (heartbreak, loneliness, family) with a disarmingly frank scalpel, Strang’s wryly deadpan lines never miss a beat – the results often sardonic, and always captivating.

Two Hearts and No Brain is pure pop genius from start to finish. It’s hard to imagine who else could convincingly fuse fuzzy synths with slide guitar; crunchy chords with chiming vocals in such a kaleidoscopic pop vision. The album’s cover art, featuring a refracted analogue photograph taken of Kane atop of a rocky precipice; echoes the spirit of lean guitar-pop shining through a truly contemporary, innovative lens. His attention to detail shows up the fat slack present in the work of many of Kane’s contemporaries; yet his sound remains emotive and playfully laced with a tongue-in-cheek nostalgia – timelessly old and new in the same breath.

What sets Kane apart from the rafts of DIY indie songwriters is a willingness to push further. Having mastered the lo-fi aesthetic, he’s stretched his already limber songwriting legs and production chops to new unexpected spaces on Two Hearts and No Brain. Kane’s vision of extending his sound far beyond the bedroom promises international touring and releases the world over. With a live show that exhibits his unpredictable and exhilarating command on stage, Kane’s amassed a band of cohorts to execute his vision with arresting impact, sure to charm crowds with his sideways slant of guitar pop.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lagoons
2. Silence Overgrown
3. Not Quite
4. Oh So You’re Off I See
5. See Thru
6. Summertime In Your Lounge
7. My Smile Is Extinct
8. Two Hearts And No Brain
9. It’s Not That Bad
10. Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost)
11. Good Guy

Jonathan Kane's fat-bottomed grooves take your breath away, make you lose your mind? Well, it's the holidays, and Jonny can give as well as he can take, so here's his gift to you, boys and girls. It's a classic, "The Little Drummer Boy", done in his inimitable style, with layers of guitars, snow-drift-deep bass and you'd better believe there's drums. Hop into this sleigh; it's jacked-up, tricked-out, it's got 850 horses and not a restrictor plate in sight.