New Bad Manners from a legend! Tough, uncompromising techno that'll level bunkers.

Pre-orders advised!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Trooper
A2. Male Function
B1. Eighty Four
B2. Com

French producer Yse Saint Laur'ant is exactly the sort of artist you want to hear from as the sun begins to shine more often. He's a master of escapist, beauty, classy grooves that marry disco and Balearic into pure magic. 'Space Ride' does that on a bubbly groove with a cosmic edge and 'Saint Tropez' brings loose-limbed funk and boho percussion to a Provencal sound. 'Monaco' is bathed in sunlight and made all the more classy with some gorgeous stings and mellifluous chord work, then 'Esplanade' shuts down with a dubby, flute-led sound with a whimsical charm.

TRACK LISTING

Space Ride
Saint Tropez
Monaco
Esplanade

It’s not every day you hear about a new Lost Animal album. In fact, it’s been ten years between drinks. The debut 'Ex Tropical' (Hardly Art/Sub Pop) was released in 2011, and followed by 'You Yang' (Remote Control) in 2016. So what happened, and where’s frontman/mastermind Jarrod Quarrell been for the last ten years?

From the horse's mouth, “I don't give a fuck about productivity”. A humbling reply. It confirms Quarrell's MO: here’s an artist as a non-conformist. And when he does see fit to bless us with his unique vision of what music can sound like, it has the ability to completely charm and disarm. Amongst a sea of rock bands, LA is essentially a solo act. Simply put; LA is JQ. But on the other hand, amongst an ocean of solo acts, LA possesses the grandiosity of a full band, punk in spirit, but without being fast, or heavy.

Armed with keys and synths, timbres align more with what a toucan might listen to, as opposed to what's heard commonly throughout Melbourne's gig economy. Strings are gently plucked and horns are tenderly blown. These are the colourful brush strokes that decorate the upper frequencies. They’re the ticket to a far away land;exotic, and potentially very dangerous. If the crew from Hear My Eyes are reading this, consider Lost Animal performing 'Give Some Get Some' as the soundtrack to the next time you screen The Hangover Part 2. Yeah, the one where shit gets super fried in Thailand.

The album examines the underbelly of what a ten year journey might rub up against. As one may expect, a lot of that action is below the belt. Tracks like 'Do That Thing', and 'In<inity Repeats', showcase the bass as the propulsive vehicle. It rides alongside a drum machine, where a swinging 3/4 beat mimics sensuality and sexuality. Bobbing back up to the surface, the buoyancy of the wah guitar lets it all coalesce. So soak it up.

Rewinding, a few things have happened in the past ten years that are worth illuminating. Shags is no longer commandeering the bass full time. Though he does make an appearance on a couple tracks. The main difference from present day to yesteryear LA is Dan Luscombe (The Drones). Luscombe has jumped into the role of producer (and also part of the live band). One could say he’s a producer of the Spector-ilk: playing a hands-on approach and assisting Quarrell's song crafting. He may have suggested to add a chorus or two, but the chord progressions remain distinctly Lost Animal. You'll recognise them easily by their beauty, combined with either fragility or rigidity. Luscombe is arguably the defining force that made this album happen. Perhaps he had Quarrell at gunpoint. Yet to be confirmed. Regardless, thank fuck for Luscombe because it may have been another decade.

But the album's defining feature is arguably Quarrell's lyricism. He may not cross-examine where he's been, but his voice does unmask where he is: absolved and reincarnated. The decade-long journey has resulted in him looking inwards and unlocking himself. The album's many mantras suggest that he may be a bird ('I'm a Bird Now'), or that he is living on another planet ('Never is Forever'). Whatever and wherever he may be, 'Give Some Get Some' invites the listener to reflect on their own journey over the past decade. Because the game's got a price. So ask yourself what have you taken, and what have you given? Life ain't a box of chocolates. It's a bowl of berries. And when fruit symbolizes temptation, get some. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Never is Forever 
2. Bowl of Berries
3. Sex Wounds
4. Young Blood Blue Sky
5. I’m a Bird Now
6. Do That Thing
7. After the Sun Cleared the Rain
8. In<inity Repeats
9. True Hearts
10. Give Some Get Some

Since its understated debut in a former South London industrial space in 1991, Ministry of Sound has become a defining force in dance music worldwide. As CBGB was to punk and Studio 54 to disco, Ministry emerged as the quintessential home of house the venue that captured and propelled an era. Inspired by the groundbreaking disco and rave clubs of the 1980s, including New York s Paradise Garage and Manchester s Hacienda, Ministry built its reputation on an unparalleled sound system and a philosophy that placed music and movement above trends.

The club elevated DJs to stardom and championed influential names such as Larry Levan and David Morales. What began as a cult hotspot quickly grew into a global phenomenon, expanding into the world s largest independent record label. This dynamic volume offers an eclectic, immersive portrait of the club s history and cultural impact.

Archival photography, posters, and record sleeves appear alongside immersive photography and personal recollections from musicians and cultural figures including Paul Oakenfold, Judge Jules, DJ Paulette, LTJ Bukem, Princess Julia, Pete Tong, Steve Angello, and Honey Dijon among many more. Blending the official with the underground, the iconic with the candid, the book captures the spirit, irreverence, and enduring legacy of a true legend of club culture.

Between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, musicians across the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten created music that crossed stylistic boundaries, forming a close-knit network shaped by common histories and identities, while rarely receiving wider recognition. From the psychedelic funk of local stars Sugar Ice Tea and Cryptus Confession to the Latin influences of visiting musicians like Puerto Rican star Mon Rivera via Surinamese-influenced soul and the garage rock of Los Honda, the islands nourished a huge array of styles and talent. Antiyano Progresivo unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming Caribbean. During the twentieth century, oil industries, migration and tourism reshaped the islands, creating unparalleled cultural exchange while deepening social divisions. African, Latin American, North American and European musical traditions intertwined with local forms, producing a rich and distinctive musical landscape. Tambú, tumba, calypso and Caribbean dance music coexisted alongside soul, funk, psychedelic rock, reggae, Latin music and American and British pop. Musicians moved fluidly between these styles, developing sounds that were unmistakably local while remaining connected to wider currents across the Caribbean and beyond. The period also coincided with growing movements for cultural and political self- determination. Events such as Curaçao's Trinta di Mei uprising in 1969, the emergence of Black Power movements and increasing calls for greater autonomy fostered renewed pride in African heritage, local languages and cultural expression. These ideas resonated through music, inspiring artists to challenge conventions and create work that reflected changing identities.

TRACK LISTING

1. Quinteto Winoe - La Cumbanchera
2. Los Dangers - Punda Y Otrabanda
3. Sugar Ice Tea - Madua
4. Superfly Bros of St. Martin - Another Star
5. Grupo Enry - Ahi Viene El Sheriff
6. Los Honda - Nunca Volveras
7. Explosion - Remalloo
8. The Hornet's – The Hornet’s Revolution
9. Double You And Tee - Confusion
10. Lloyd And The Joys - The New York Business
11. Cryptus Confession - Rhythmotion
12. Brotherhood of Man - Big Lou
13. Lloyd And The Joys - That Look of You
14. Mystic Roots - Loose Yourself
15. St. Maarten's Rolling Tones - It's a Feeling
16. Cool Creations of St. Maarten - Wish Upon Love

'Edge Conditions' is a fresh look at the beat-forward electronic music of Jeremiah Chiu. In 'Electric Time', his 2023 first-thought-best thought album recorded at the Vintage Synth Museum in LA, offered a glimpse a solo process and sound, fast becoming a fan favorite. In many ways this new work is a total reset.

Following two ambient-leaning duo albums with Marta Sofia Honer and a pair of improvisatory trance-jazz LPs with LA quintet SML, 'Edge Conditions' settles Chiu into a world of layered, alternately dance-able or chillout-able, rhythm excursions a la classic Four Tet or Aphex Twin.

TRACK LISTING

1. Way in
2. A.M. Fuses
3. In Visibility
4. Edge Conditions
5. Interfaces feat. Ben Lumsdaine
6. Plastic Mind / Elastic Machines feat. Booker Stardrum
7. Sentimental Object feat. Marta Sofia Honer
8. Doubles
9. Non-narrative
10. A Floral Pattern
11. Night Fog

P.P. Rebel is the harmonium-led, spiritually inspired project of Melbourne artist Paris Rebel Richens (Singer of Parsnip, Hierophants), who has been making all kinds of extraordinary sounds over the past fifteen years and has more recently found a new direction through the spiritual path of Kriya Yoga.

Drawing on both Eastern spiritual traditions and Western influences such as The Incredible String Band, The Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett, and Skip Spence, P.P. Rebel has developed a sound distinctly its own: beautiful, calming, spiritually charming songs for the soul. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Sanctuary
2. Gregor Mendel

3. Happy
4. Ascension
5. Swathe
6. You Are Hidden

7. Hiranyaloka

'Intentions', the debut of LA-via-Chicago beat maker, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Megiapa, is a 40 minute master class in synth-heavy, jazz-informed Neo-soul.

Megiapa's lush and emotionally layered album feels less like a collection of songs and more like a living archive of transformation. Across its warm synths, fluttering basslines, meditative voice notes and spiritual grooves, the Los Angeles-based producer, vocalist and composer maps the uncertain terrain between heartbreak, healing, fear, and surrender.

The album's title is genuine.

"The record is literally my intentions," she says. "It's a representation of my intentions, my dreams over the last five years or so."

Those years carried the weight of upheaval: the pandemic, the collapse of a long-term relationship, a move away from Chicago, and the disorientation that follows when the structure of your life suddenly disappears beneath you. But Intentions never sounds defeated. Instead, it radiates the quiet confidence of someone learning to trust herself in real time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Open Your Eyes
2. …..!
3. Dreaming About You
4. ( ( on the spaceway ) )
5. Black Gold of the Sun
6. To Enjoy
7. Can’t Believe
8. on the spaceway (frfr)
9. My Baby
10. wishing (u) well
11. 11.11
12. (SMT)
13. Crashing Down
14. rising_outro

'Small Change' is a masterpiece that contains some of Waits' best early work. Classic jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and Stephen Foster filtered through Tom's unique worldview and lyrical genius. Heartbreaking, hilarious and always vivid, songs like 'Step Right Up', 'Tom Traubert's Blues', 'I Wish I Was in New Orleans', 'The Piano Has Been Drinking', and 'Invitation to the Blues' are all classics that have influenced generations of songwriters since. Recorded with a live orchestra and featuring jazz legend Shelly Manne on drums, 'Small Change' is a classic and stands as one of Tom Waits' most popular recordings.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tom Traubert's Blues 
2. Step Right Up 
3. Jitterbug Boy
4. I Wish I Was In New Orleans 
5. The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) 
6. Invitation To The Blues 
7. Pasties And A G- String 
8. Bad Liver And A Broken Heart 
9. The One That Got Away 
10. Small Change 
11. I Can't Wait To Get Off Work

Montréal-based sound artist Steve Bates expands his strategies and stylistic influences on 'An Infinite Antenna', his second solo album for Constellation, giving freer reign to melodic components and textural dynamics: leftfield synth work, deconstructed drum machine, pointillist electric guitar, and radiostatic blur are all part of the new brew swirling around his bruitist signal-bending and field-recording sensibility. Arguably a more ambient album than his acclaimed 2022 Constellation debut, 'An Infinite Antenna' is at the same time more densely packed with ideas, dynamics, evocations and earworms.

Coming out of the anarcho-punk scene of the Canadian Prairies in the 1990s, Bates founded Winnipeg’s experimental sound festival Send + Receive in 1998 before moving to Montréal to become Sound Coordinator at Hexagram (Concordia University), delving further into sonic research and theory, tape-based composition, and installation work. Alongside the curatorial arc of his own sound art label The Dim Coast, Bates released several solo and collaborative albums on ORAL_records leading up to 'All The Things That Happen', the 2022 Constellation debut praised by Boomkat for its “grittily iridescent ambient billow rendering maximalist panoramas” and by Backseat Mafia as “extraordinary soundscapes of unstable, destructive cacophony and tender calm, echoes of the threat of power.” Where that album was noisier and single-minded, made with the self-imposed limit of a Casio SK-1, Bates plays more widely with instrumentation and atmospheres on 'An Infinite Antenna', also drawing on his post-hardcore roots in seeking a sort of track-by-track concision nonetheless driven by the album’s coherence as a seamless work. “I was trying to set durations I associate with punk rather than the longer, sprawling music coming from more ambient styles (that I very much love), and while I wasn’t able to quite pare it down to Minutemen durations, I had that reduction to essential elements as a sort of whisper over my shoulder.” Incorporating source recordings made throughout 2023-2025, including at artist residencies and site-specific sound installation visits in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the album’s cover photo was taken in Sarajevo), Austria, Greece, and Saskatchewan, 'An Infinite Antenna' combines Bates’ “idea of slowly scanning a radio dial” with a soundworld of recurring timbral and textural touchstones that forge an integrated whole. The album’s 12 tracks work effectively as stand-alone pieces, replete with shifting undercurrents, buried melody, and stuttering kinetics, and as a sequential flow where the brief interstitial silences between them are like short pauses to flip the next page in a sketchbook of perspectival studies of a wide but singular tableau.

The glistening atonal synth expressionism of opener 'Pink pink pink pink…pink pink' drifts gently toward submerged ambience, darkened by the noised rumble and static interference of 'Green as a ghost', which introduces broken beats and piano chords in its denouement. Tracks like 'Battles and sieges and street trees' and 'Easier sad than done' work the foundations of low-end field-recording resonance, but dappled with lovely melodic droplets of treated guitar and synth. 'Waste, songs of the world' and 'Disaster loans' are among the album’s most explicit stylistic references to posthardcore, with distorted ambient bass and gently abrasive drum sampling. Closing track 'Swamps and factories', the album’s longest piece, is perhaps most reminiscent of Bates’ previous record with its sustained dissonant glimmer-drone, but the journey 'An Infinite Antenna' traces to get there is Bates at his most dynamic, diverse, distinctive, and engaging. Thanks for listening.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pink Pink Pink Pink…Pink Pink
2. Green As A Ghost
3. Battles and Sieges and Street Trees
4. Waste, Songs Of The World
5. Easier Sad Than Done
6. Mountain Scene
7. Swiss Apartment Layouts
8. Decades Of River Widths
9. Disaster Loans
10. Corporate Activity, Ancient Shipwrecks
11. Lettre D’amour à Fly Pan Am
12. Swamps and Factories

With only two albums out, Slow Pulp are one of the defining bands of the generation that grew up on '90s alt rock radio and came of age with the 2000s indie wave.

Their new album 'Melodie' was produced by Elliott Kozel (whose credits include SZA, Lizzo, Jean Dawson, and Rosalia) and was co-written by Emily Massey and Henry Stoehr in the band. Melodie sees the band exploring beyond their shoegaze roots into new sonic territory with pop-tinged hooks and melodies.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yellow and Green
2. These Days
3. Better Man
4. Melodie 
5. Red Car 
6. Not for Nothing
7. Entertainer 
8. Like Me 
9. Spill 
10. Up to You 
11. Slip Away

Savage first-wave screamo from San Diego’s white belt progenitors. Collected for the first time on this 39-minute LP are Antioch Arrow’s complete Gravity recordings, including In Love With Jetts LP (+ a pair of previously unissued outtakes), The Lady Is A Cat 12”, Candle split, and two live Che Cafe tracks captured at the quintet’s spazzy peak. 23 tracks remastered from corroded DATs and annotated by Tony Rettman, plus lyrics, photos, and flyers, all housed in a stunning gatefold jacket for maximum McClard ragebaiting.
”A roar of nothing”—HeartattaCk.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Angels Lawn
2. The Puppy Love
3. Chaos vs Cosmos
4. Space Age
5. This Great Wall
6. Somba
7. Antioch Gold For You
8. The Blessed Test
9. Suspicious Uzi
10. Picnic Pants (Live at Che Cafe)
11. Antioch Gold For You (Live at Che Cafe)
12. The Suspicious Uzi (Unreleased Recording)
13. This Great Wall (Unreleased Recording)

SIDE B
1. Conspiring The Go-Go
2. Lightning Bolt
3. Ain’t My Day
4. The Fixed Orbit
5. The Guardian Angel
6. Kluts On Broadway
7. Teenage Debutaunt And The Debutaunt Ball
8. Stilts
9. Times Square
10. The Fixed Orbit (7” Version)

On June 29th, 2023, Jeremiah Chiu walked into the Vintage Synthesizer Museum (VSM) in Highland Park, Los Angeles, with no plan more specific than “let’s fire this stuff up and see what happens.” Exploring theVSM’s vast collection of classic, rare and staple synthesizers, he would sequence, trigger, and layer the machines together with help fromVSM founder/curator Lance Hill. Hill recalls: "Jeremiah arrived before the engineer showed up. We talked for maybe 5 minutes before he started programming a sound and sequence into the Gleeman Pentaphonic. By the time the engineer showed up, Jeremiah had built several other parts around the Gleeman that weren't synced by any Control method but sounded like they were just calling and responding to each other. They plugged the Tascam 388 into the patch bay, and hit record. Jeremiah played with it, and that was it. First piece written and recorded in under an hour. It felt natural, fun and free. And that's pretty much how the rest of the session went. Constant ecstatic motion. It was the funnest non-HipHop session I've ever worked on."

The resulting album – 'In Electric Time' - was recorded in just two days, and edited to completion in the two days following. It was captured fully analog by engineer Ben Lumsdaine, who contributes performances on a few tracks himself. Cooper Crain (of Bitchin Bajas) makes an appearance as well; but ultimately the collection is an intuitive expression of organic electronic Music conceptualized and created in-context by Chiu alone, as he calls on a lifetime of work in sound synthesis to paint a fulgent, refreshingly undercut sequence of cinematic sketches and in-process themes. In some ways, 'In Electric Time' reflects the directness of Raymond Scott’s electronic studio recordings — with sharp cuts and room chatter — and, in others, it conjures the in-the-Moment magic of Harmonia.

TRACK LISTING

1. ElectroComp 101
2. Seawater Swell
3. For Voices
4. Rococco Rondo
5. A Cloud Song
6. Rhythm Bell
7. Brush with Thin Air
8. Rhythm Serge
9. State Stone Railway
10. Transparent Spheres
11. Echo Arp Hold
12. In Electric Time

In August 2022, the late Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations.The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively. Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition.

The essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the Artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music.They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer & Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other.The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the Music further.The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done.The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing.The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones.There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ten Hour Wave
2. Breathing In Three Orbits (Intro)
3. Breathing In Three Orbits
4. The Closest Thing To Silence
5. Dizzy Ditty
6. Une Ombre Légère
7. New Air
8. Écoute Au Loin
9. A Treasure Chest
10. Stay Centered
11. Stack Attack

For those who read these things without listening first, you might ask: what does this R.M.F.C. sound like? Let’s stay with the overused descriptors – I think R.M.F.C. is rock music band, more specifically a post-punk band. Indulge me. If you could say anything about post punk it means post-Wire, who were past punk before punk had an opportunity to codify and become everything brilliant and stupid that we’ve spent 40 years unpacking. Wire’s opening Pink Flag jab – Chairs Missing straight – and 154 hook knockout has haunted the mixing desks of ambitious post-punk bands since, and every major city in the western world has at least one Pink Flag band, one Chairs Missing band, one 154 band. Few bands manage to sound like all 3 records, but R.M.F.C. are a Rock Music Fan Club...

Anyone paying attention to underground Australian guitar overdose would relate: the R.M.F.C. Club Hits LP has been the culmination of five years of work, patience and discipline. If you’ve heard these songs live at any of their shows over the past couple of years you’ll understand – the wait is over and the result is exhilarating.

‘Bands like Devo, The Fall, and The Birthday Party have set the way for this type of post-punk rock (all in their own way). Surely, also, the rock scenes of the past fifteen years in Australia have also been influential. Thinking of bands like Royal Headache, Dick Diver, and Eddy Current Suppression Ring, there’s even been a fairly recent tradition of expanding styles of rock and roll (let alone the bigger, famous rock-centered acts). The Sydney based R.M.F.C., and the scene (or friend circle) from which it’s emerging, is carrying a torch of rock music which has the potential of a wider appeal.’ - POST-TRASH

Written, recorded and mixed by Buz in Burrill Lake and Sydney between January 2022 & April 2023. Mastered by Mikey Young. Nightclub Hits Edition out September 18th, 2026.

TRACK LISTING

01. Introduction
02. Spectrum
03. Sterile Century
04. The Trap
05. Access
06. Vanishing Aisle
06. Access
07. Two Stars
08. Frogs
09. Harmless Activity
10. The Web
11. New Diversion
12. Human State
13. Rock Tune

On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album 'Panamá 77', but most of the music remained unreleased.

'Lados B' is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker, and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation – flow as informed by the Latin funk of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly humanity trance of Brain Records – while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on their ETA IVtet LPs) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.

TRACK LISTING

1. Traveling With
2. Sunset Cliffs
3. Republic
4. Chicali Outpost
5. Bring it
6. Salute
7. Daytime Nighttime
8. Things Can Be Calm
9. Rug Motif

'Mighty Vertebrate' is the International Anthem debut from Anna Butterss. The Adelaide-born bassist / composer has been a first call for LA tour and studio work since relocating there in 2014 – racking up credits with notables across the experimental, jazz, and pop worlds alike – but their most notable contributions to the burgeoning LA scene have been as a member of both Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and rising proto-trance supergroup SML, who Pitchfork says “represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community.”

“I had just gotten off of a bunch of touring at the end of 2022 and just wanted to write music,” says Butterss. “The best way for me to do that, I’ve found, is to set myself a discreet and focused task.

I’m going to make a song where the bass doesn’t function in the role of a bass.
I’m going to work on this for an hour and then I’m going to stop.
I’m going to make a song that uses groups of three-bar phrasing.
I want to sample something and make it into a song.
I’m going to start with a drum machine.

The music itself reflects that structure beautifully, with the material being tightly composed and melodically realized by Butterss well in advance of production concerns. Herethey reconvene a group of trusted longtime collaborators to bring their compositions to fruition: Ben Lumsdaine (drums, guitar, production), Josh Johnson (sax), and Gregory Uhlmann (guitar), plus a smoking guest appearance from Jeff Parker. The breadth and scope of the results might have been difficult to achieve otherwise. From the Robbie-Shakespeare-in-groove-mode intro to the album opener 'Bishop' to the spacious cinematic doom of 'Seeing You', there is a lot to wrangle into one cohesive concept. On 'Mighty Vertebrate', Butterss and crew do just that.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bishop
2. Shorn
3. Dance Steve
4. Ella
5. Lubbock
6. Pokemans
7. Breadrich
8. Seeing You
9. Counterpoint
10. Saturno

***********AVAILABLE INSTORE ONLY***********

Sports Team is back! 'Billy' is the first new single off the upcoming new LP due out in early 2027. To celebrate the release, the band made a small batch of limited edition 7inch flexi discs of the single, a special collectors item for those die hard fans.

The deluxe 10th anniversary edition of 'Case/Lang/Veirs' features the new track 'Accidental Tattoo' and twelve never-before-released live recordings alongside the original studio album from supergroup of singer-songwriters Neko Case, kd lang and Laura Veirs.

Released in 2016, 'Case/Lang/Veirs' is a true collaboration between three phenomenal, self-driven artists: "the strongest voices in their field - lang the full-voiced seductress, Case the hurricane, and Veirs the wry storyteller" (Pitchfork). The women wrote all 14 songs and shared lead vocals equally, sometimes even within the same track. Full of stunning harmonies and spellbinding rhythms, 'Case/Lang/Veirs' travels through aches and eras, torch songs and tributes to the undersung.

"There's a generosity of spirit to case/ lang/ veirs," NPR praised upon the album's release, "a worthy extension of three tremendous catalogs, in which three great singer-songwriters sound enhanced and invigorated by the challenge of living up to each other's legacies." They worked over two and a half years in Portland, Oregon, where lang and Veirs both live, sometimes in lang's loft with a view of Mount St. Helens, others in Veirs' dining room or backyard studio. The album was written from the ground up without any real plan beyond a desire to make music together and a faith that it would reveal itself. They produced the album with Tucker Martine, at his Portland studio in November 2015.

TRACK LISTING

Atomic Number
Honey and Smoke
Song for Judee 
Blue Fires 
Delirium 
Greens of June 
Behind the Armory 
Best Kept Secret 
1,000 Miles Away 
Supermoon 
I Want To Be Here 
Down I-5 
Why Do We Fight 
Georgia Stars 
Accidental Tattoo (Bonus) 
Greens of June (Live) 
I Can See Your Tracks (Live) 
Margaret v. Pauline (Live)
Supermoon (Live) 
July Flame (Live) 
Sorrow Nevermore (Live) 
Man (Live) 
Best Kept Secret (Live) 
Hold On Hold On (Live)
Constant Craving (Live) 
People Have The Power (Live)

Manchester-born poet, writer, and producer Antony Szmierek has announced the release of his second album, Decoding Birdsong. Just eighteen months after his critically acclaimed debut, Szmierek returns with a new body of work that signals a clear evolution in both sound and scope. Rooted in his personal touchstones within electronic music, the album pairs expansive, immersive production with his trademark razor-sharp lyricism.

Where his debut had been a solo endeavour, Decoding Birdsong brims with collaboration, including Australia’s Pretty Girl, London band Los Bitchos, and Bristol producer 1-800 GIRLS, as well as Imogen and the Knife and indie pop star Ellur. Speaking about the new record, Antony explains “Decoding Birdsong is about choosing to believe in something. Coincidence as a religion. Making your own luck in the face of loneliness and doubt. The smallest things can feel seminal, seismic and life affirming if you just choose to lean in, but it also asks if this is a dangerous way to live. What happens when your numbers come in? What are the consequences of luck? Should you listen to the birds, or are you only ever going to hear what you want to hear? To help us explore this: a heron, dice, a plummeting airplane, the late-night TV show Aussie Gold Hunters and a fibreglass replica of Godzilla.”

Decoding Birdsong follows the wild success of his debut album, 2025’s Service Station at the End of the Universe, which launched Antony into a whirlwind of Glastonbury, Jools Holland, and repeat BBC airplay. He’s sold out venues across the UK and Europe, and in February 2026 performed to 20,000 while closing Solomun’s Alexandra Palace shows. The former English teacher had been working at a college for special needs students when his blend of spoken word and dance music started taking off, earning him accolades such as 6Music’s Artist of the Year in 2023 following his Poems To Dance To EP, and frequent comparisons to Mike Skinner, Jarvis Cocker and John Cooper Clarke.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Nothing could make me happier than seeing Szmierek's latest album, and this downright lovely bunch of lads making such a meteoric splash. Huge, pumping percussion and deep basses beneath Antony's perfect vocal drawl, ideal for the dancefloor but also custom made for a sweaty gig in a packed-out venue. Soaring, inventive and rousing spoken-word / electronic / indie / everything else. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Chalk
2. The Heron
3. Bookie’s Favourite (ft. Ellur)
4. Godzilla Hotel (ft. 1-800 Girls)
5. Seminal
6. Flight Simulator (ft. Imogen and the Knife)

Side B:
1. Dave’s Angling Superstore (ft. MAX RAD)
2. The First Five Minutes Of Magnolia (ft. Pretty Girl)
3. The Same Heron Again
4. Commune
5. You’re Not Supposed To Do This Forever
6. Decoding Birdsong
7. Aussie Gold Hunters

DINKED EDITION 7” TRACKLISTING:
Side A:
Three Crystals
Side B:
Seminal - Los Bitchos Remix

Brennan Wedl's self-titled album is a testament to collaboration, with old selves, the selves yet-to-be and the friends helping you along the way.

It's an anthology of spiritual awakening that sizes up the road ahead, encapsulating the messes and triumphs when leaving a traditional path for something less steady.

Wedl is already a prolific artist, releasing solo music since 2012, and co-founding the queercore outfit Dazey & The Scouts in 2015. On her debut album for ANTI-, she shakes off the prying eyes of expectation, leaving behind the anxiety of forming yourself for others and welcoming in the delight of finally being exactly who you are.

Wedl enlisted Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) and Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Hurray for the Riff Raff) to co- produce and play on the album, with instrumentalists Colin Croom, Lindsey Jordan and Matt McCaughan also sprinkled throughout. Together, they formed a middle ground between punk, grunge and Americana -- 'grungetry' as they affectionately call it -- capturing all tracks within a 10 day stay at Cook's studio in Durham, NC.

TRACK LISTING

1. Scorpio 
2. I Know How This Goes 
3. Pretty Little Fantasy 
4. High Priestess 
5. Tasmanian Devil 
6. Just Another Daddy Who Did Me Wrong 
7. Let's Be Models 
8. Airplane Movies 
9. I Wanna Be Your TV 
10. Fake Cowboy 
11. Two Dollar Pistol 
12. June Gloom 
13. When The Crazy Comes Out

Manchester-born poet, writer, and producer Antony Szmierek has announced the release of his second album, Decoding Birdsong. Just eighteen months after his critically acclaimed debut, Szmierek returns with a new body of work that signals a clear evolution in both sound and scope. Rooted in his personal touchstones within electronic music, the album pairs expansive, immersive production with his trademark razor-sharp lyricism.

Where his debut had been a solo endeavour, Decoding Birdsong brims with collaboration, including Australia’s Pretty Girl, London band Los Bitchos, and Bristol producer 1-800 GIRLS, as well as Imogen and the Knife and indie pop star Ellur. Speaking about the new record, Antony explains “Decoding Birdsong is about choosing to believe in something. Coincidence as a religion. Making your own luck in the face of loneliness and doubt. The smallest things can feel seminal, seismic and life affirming if you just choose to lean in, but it also asks if this is a dangerous way to live. What happens when your numbers come in? What are the consequences of luck? Should you listen to the birds, or are you only ever going to hear what you want to hear? To help us explore this: a heron, dice, a plummeting airplane, the late-night TV show Aussie Gold Hunters and a fibreglass replica of Godzilla.”

Decoding Birdsong follows the wild success of his debut album, 2025’s Service Station at the End of the Universe, which launched Antony into a whirlwind of Glastonbury, Jools Holland, and repeat BBC airplay. He’s sold out venues across the UK and Europe, and in February 2026 performed to 20,000 while closing Solomun’s Alexandra Palace shows. The former English teacher had been working at a college for special needs students when his blend of spoken word and dance music started taking off, earning him accolades such as 6Music’s Artist of the Year in 2023 following his Poems To Dance To EP, and frequent comparisons to Mike Skinner, Jarvis Cocker and John Cooper Clarke.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Chalk
2. The Heron
3. Bookie’s Favourite (ft. Ellur)
4. Godzilla Hotel (ft. 1-800 Girls)
5. Seminal
6. Flight Simulator (ft. Imogen and the Knife)

Side B:
1. Dave’s Angling Superstore (ft. MAX RAD)
2. The First Five Minutes Of Magnolia (ft. Pretty Girl)
3. The Same Heron Again
4. Commune
5. You’re Not Supposed To Do This Forever
6. Decoding Birdsong
7. Aussie Gold Hunters

DINKED EDITION 7” TRACKLISTING:
Side A:
Three Crystals
Side B:
Seminal - Los Bitchos Remix

Jeff Parker’s 2016 album 'The New Breed' was a turning point for both Parker and for International Anthem, changing the trajectory of his solo career as well as drawing an abundance of attention to our fresh imprint despite our then very limited catalog. Most importantly though, the album is the first to give voice to Parker’s wholly unique take on sample-based beat construction augmented by a crack squad of improv-savvy LA breezers—the high-level crew of Paul Bryan (bass), Josh Johnson (alto sax), and Jamire Williams (drums), augmented by Jay Bellerose (drums) and Ruby Parker (vocals).

What began as Jeff’s interest in understanding his own idea of hip-hop processes (and how they related to his work in jazz) expanded into a blueprint for much of his work since then. (see also: 'The New Breed’s rock-solid followup 'Suite For Max Brown', the gentle deconstructionist solo guitar of 'Forfolks', and the long-form slow bloom dub improvisation of 'The Way Out of Easy' — all released via International Anthem)

TRACK LISTING

1. Executive Life
2. Para Ha Tay
3. Here Comes Ezra
4. Visions
5. Jrifted
6. How Fun It Is To Year Whip
7. Get Dressed
8. Cliché

​​Norrisette - meaning 'little Northerner' - is a jazz and folk-inspired songwriter from Newcastle upon Tyne who has lived in Manchester for 12 years. She is the alter-ego of classical composer Anna Appleby. Her lyrics often bind heartbreak and the natural world together, with surrealism along the way. Despite being more widely known for her experimental electronica, piano is often at the heart of her music, it being her 'computer' since the age of 5.

TRACK LISTING

1. Silver Tree 
2. Connieflower
 3. Frog 
4. ;( 
5. Anthropocene
6. You Be The Lake
7. Norrisegge

There is a particular kind of strangeness that arrives on long drives across Europe. Flat light, service stations and fields stretching endlessly past the window. It might look mundane at first glance, but becomes faintly surreal when the tiredness of touring blurs the edges of everything.

That feeling became the quiet engine behind 'Driving Through Belgium', the debut solo album from Anton Pearson, best known as one of the guitarists in respected post-punk outfit Squid. The title grew from a track that felt like the record’s centrepiece, which itself came from the recurring image of extensive periods on the road across the continent. It is a record shaped in the margins of touring, and finessed in the in-between hours.

Across six pieces, Pearson leans into atmosphere, texture and space. It is ambient in spirit, adjacent to contemporary classical in feeling, but composed less with notes in mind than with sound itself. The compositions rarely began with harmony or melody, with Pearson instead responding to his environment and sounds in real time, placing trust in his instinct.

Although initial inspiration came from the road, the album was recorded in a studio he shares in Brighton, and marks his first fully solo project made in that setting. It gave him access to not only new tools and techniques, but a hitherto un-experienced freedom. Much of the process began experimentally, feeding instruments into unfamiliar chains, pitching loops into unexpected registers and playing with previously unused synthesizers simply to see what they might reveal. Many of the sounds were created out of pure curiosity, wanting to understand a piece of equipment or technology, and then following wherever it led.

The album was built with this experimentation at its core, as Pearson would layer then extract, processing stacks of sound until things blur and confuse. Guitars dissolve into drones, a Pianet Clavinet dances against muddier textures whilst a Korg PS-1000 occasionally cuts through with its glittering top end. On ‘Driving Past the Muscular Cows in Belgium’, a flat, still drone is pushed through valve amps until it growls and tightens with tension, before receding again. Even the trumpet, which Pearson freely admits he is not technically proficient at, is embraced in its naivety, its squeaks left intact rather than corrected. The twin ‘Tintinnabulation’ pieces frame the record with looping, pitched bell like tones, accidental discoveries that became structural anchors. Meanwhile, ‘Teeth to Cut the Grass’ deliberately introduces abrasion, some of the harshest textures on the record, a refusal to become passive background music.

That embrace of imperfection is central. In contrast to the hyper-analytical precision of his band, Pearson was keen to honour first takes. If something felt good, it would stay. The end result is an album that favours looseness, instinct and the energy of creation itself. If Squid thrives on propulsion and tension, Anton Pearson finds his energy in suspension on 'Driving Through Belgium'. It is curious rather than declarative, creating a space where experimentation feels playful again.

TRACK LISTING

1. Driving Past the Muscular Cows in Belgium
2. Builder in a Bottle
3. Tintinnabulation I
4. Teeth to Cut the Grass
5. Tintinnabulation II
6. Tern Daylight

Antal, founder of the Amsterdam-based Rush Hour Records & Store, curates a personal selection from the historic Timeless Jazz label. Antal is renowned for his global DJ touring and eclectic sets spanning house, techno, rare funk, soul, and jazz. For this compilation he handpicked highlights from 1974–1994 by jazz luminaries such as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Pharoah Sanders, Carter Jefferson, Gary Bartz, Woody Shaw, and more. “I want to thank the Wigt family for allowing me to dig deeper into their catalog to compile a selection of personal jazz favorites. Their passion for jazz and independent labels has inspired me as a DJ and record store owner. A great song is a great song, no matter when or where it was made,” Antal reflects. For this double album, Antal shares his love for modal and spiritual jazz, celebrating a pivotal era in jazz and creating a must-have for collectors, selectors, and new explorers.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Pharoah Sanders - Moon Child
2. George Adams - City Of Peace
3. Ronnie Mathews Trio - Selena's Dance

Side B
1. Rodney Jones - Articulations
2. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Oh By The Way
3. John Lee & Gerry Brown feat. Gary Bartz - Rise On

Side C
1. Joe Gilman feat. Joe Henderson - Non Compos Mentis
2. Joanne Brackeen - Haiti B
3. Woody Shaw & Tone Jansa Quartet - Boland

Side D
1. Carter Jefferson - Why
2. Pharoah Sanders - You've Got To Have Freedom

SML is a Los Angeles based quintet featuring Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann.

'Spontaneous Music Live' contains two side-length pieces of unedited improvisation, recorded live at Los Angeles venue Zebulon during SML's December 2025 three-night residency, just weeks after the release of the band's second album 'HOW YOU BEEN'. It was recorded and mixed live to stereo tape by Bryce Gonzales (the same engineer/wizard known for his gorgeous live captures/mixes of Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet).

Between 'HOW YOU BEEN' and their 2024 debut 'SMALL MEDIUM LARGE' (both of which were heavily edited, shaped and post-produced) the band has developed a reputation for records that are heavily fused, polished, and punchy. The medium is on full post-modern display on those LPs, and the band’s post-production knife can be responsible for much of the perspective—the tastiest morsels collected, arranged, and rearranged just so.

But the source material from both those albums were live recordings. Longform, unwieldy, ebbing and flowing. On top of that, every performance the band has ever done has been fully improvised in that spirit. So in the sphere of live performance the band’s esteem has grown down a different path—one of linear, hypnotic, expansion. It’s a perceived split persona shared by some of SML’s most inspiring conceptual bedfellows: compare the extended madness of Can’s 'Live in Paris 1973' to the relative tight form of Future Days from the same year; the speed-funk chaos of Miles Davis’ 'Dark Magus' to the heavily deconstructed 'On The Corner' or 'Big Fun'.

'Spontaneous Music Live' removes the curatorial perspective and pulls the curtain back on that search-pluck-reconstruct editing process. What we’re left with is the psychedelic realism of the band in situ, in their home town, collectively improvising, fully in-the-moment, mining for that moment of discovery. We hear, in macro, each nugget of sound which could be the basis for a future SML album track, spattered amongst the collective chaos-and-control like stars in the night sky.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A slowly moving behemoth, crafted by a host of incredibly capable musicians at the peak of their game, seemingly connected by intuition. Think jazzy breaks, slowly developing grooves and wily, blipping synthesis undepinning the shole expedition. Completely unpredictable but effotlessly listenable avant electrojazz.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Drums (Live)
2. Roundabouts (Live)

London, 1978 — Emerging from the UK’s underground, Gloria Mundi were never just another punk band. Their debut album, I, Individual, is a bold, theatrical and uncompromising statement—one that fuses aggressive rock with performance art, intellect, and confrontation that collided with punk rock.

Formed in mid-70s London by Eddie Maelov and Sunshine (Valerie Patteson), Gloria Mundi began as an ambitious sci-fi rock opera concept before evolving into one of the more distinctive acts orbiting the early punk movement. Sharing stages with the likes of early Ultravox (then Tiger Lily) and playing iconic venues including the Roxy, Vortex and the Marquee, the band quickly built a reputation for shows that were as visually arresting as they were sonically intense. Their name—drawn from the Latin phrase “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” (“thus passes the glory of the world”)—captures the band’s core irony and intent: to challenge, provoke, and resist easy definition.

Released on RCA in 1978, I, Individual channels that ethos into a record that pushes beyond punk’s three-chord limitations. Combining driving guitars, angular arrangements, and the striking addition of saxophone, the album delivers a layered, “chunky” sound underscored by Maelov’s theatrical vision and Sunshine’s fierce, uncompromising vocal presence.

While contemporaries chased immediacy, Gloria Mundi embraced complexity—something that divided critics but earned them a devoted following. As fanzine writer Mick Mercer observed: “Truly, a classic, under-appreciated band. They’ll either make perfect sense to you or no sense at all.” The band’s live performances were something to check out: stark white lighting, confrontational staging, and a commitment to total performance blurred the line between concert and theatre. “If people just wanted to listen,” Maelov remarked at the time, “they’d stay home with a record. We give them something happening—something exciting.” Despite the backing of infamous manager Rod Smallwood (next band Iron Maiden!) a major label—and even a personal nod from David Bowie himself—I, Individual remained an outsider record: too conceptual for the mainstream, too theatrical for purist punk. Yet that outsider status is precisely what makes it endure.

Now remastered, I, Individual stands as a vital document of a band that refused to conform—capturing a moment when punk was still being invented, and Gloria Mundi were already pushing it somewhere stranger. It’s arguably the bridge to Goth and the angular existentialism of Bauhaus, Sex Gang Children, Death Cult and the like. Gloria Mundi didn’t follow the movement. They challenged it!

Added to the album is their debut single A side - Fight Back.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Pack
2. Condemned To Be Feee
3. Daughters Of Rich Men
4. I Like Some Men
5. I.Individual
6. You Talk
7. Park Lane
8. Split Personality
9. Victim
10. Fight Back (Single Version)

The Interrupters bring a sharp, soulful energy to modern ska-punk, fusing driving rhythms, sing-along hooks, and a defiant spirit rooted in community and resilience.

Built around the powerhouse vocals of Aimee Interrupter and the tight, telepathic chemistry of the Bivona brothers, the Los Angeles band has crafted an instantly recognizable sound that feels both timeless and urgent. Across records like their selftitled debut, 'Say It Out Loud', and 'Fight the Good Fight', they've turned personal struggle and social tension into cathartic anthems, including their breakthrough single 'She's Kerosene'.

Balancing raw honesty with an unshakable sense of hope, The Interrupters continue to galvanize fans worldwide, embodying the unifying, celebratory heart of punk and ska.

TRACK LISTING

1. Anything Was Better 
2. As We Live (feat. Tim Armstrong & Rhoda Dakar) 
3. Raised By Wolves 
4. In The Mirror 
5. Kiss The Ground
6. Jailbird 
7. The Hard Way
8. My Heart 
9. Let 'Em Go 
10. Worst For Me 
11. Burdens (feat. Hepcat) 
12. Love Never Dies (feat. The Skints)
13. Afterthought 
14. Alien

"Expand" is the fourth release from French producer Antoine Bourachot. The LP features five original tracks, including the staFndout singles "Sailing Away" and "Who Said?", with soulful vocals form Sodade.

Also included are two special live recordings of "Sailing Away" and "Who Said?", captured at the legendary Motorbass studio in Paris with a ten-piece band.

RIYL: Jeroboam, Another Taste, Crazy P, Arp Frique

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Silky and celebratory with a fresh contemporary feel, Antoine Bourachot deploys a radio-friendly, almost pop-sensibility to the classic tropes of boogie-funk, resulting in a highly enjoyable LP that's brimming with feel-good vibrations.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sailing Away
A2. Qué Más Da
A3. Diving Deeper
A4. Who Said?

B1. Ace
B2. Sailing Away (Live Motorbass)
B3. Who Said? (Live Motorbass)
B4. Far Too Long

'Mana' is the International Anthem debut by trombonist and composer Kalia Vandever.

The collection carries the spirit of their first solo album, 'We Fell In Turn', while entering a new landscape of spacious songwriting. 'Mana', which in Hawaiian means “foundational, supernatural, or divine power and strength,” reveals more of their voice and words, drawing from yearning, loss, and bewilderment.

Vandever’s music has quickly and widely gained traction in the last few years despite the fact that their style has been consistently difficult to pin down, boasting a compositional scope ranging from the palatial modern jazz of their quartet work to the synthetic, gauze-like droning ambience of their solo material.

'Mana' leans into the expansion of the latter: solo trombone filtered through a well-dialed pedalboard, manipulated live; spare piano à la the late-career work of Ryuichi Sakamoto; electroacoustic interplay simultaneously echoing and transforming the long-note melodicism of Vandever’s melancholic brass work; head-on, unambiguous, and deeply personal lyricism—a particularly fresh move for the composer…

Appropriate for the early riser’s first step into the day or the night owl’s weary and quiet walk home.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hubbard Road
2. Murmuray
3. Waiting
4. Tough Play
5. In The Folds
6. Your Fault
7. Holding

Death Cab for Cutie is one of the definitive indie-rock bands of the century.

After twenty-odd years in the major label system, the band returned to their indie roots and signed with ANTI- Records and they're back with their brand-new eleventh album. I Built You A Tower is the sound of loss, compartmentalization, and then grief bursting out from the seams. It's also the sound of the growth that comes after falling apart, of acknowledging pain without letting it destroy you. "I see the tower existing on your emotional horizon," Ben Gibbard states. "You don't always have to look at what's inside it, but it's a reminder that it happened. You know it's there. You have to face it."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brand new, vigorously energetic slice of DCFC's trademark poppy indie, wrapped in the freedom of small-label release and unhindered by expectation. The resulting album is gloriously chameleonic and in parts, emotionally taxing. In the end though, if you're a fan of DCFC, you'll love this and if you're not already then this might be time!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Full Of Stars
2. Punching The Flowers
3. Pep Talk
4. I Built You A Tower (a)
5. Envy The Birds
6. Stone Over Water

Side B
1. How Heavenly A State
2. Trap Door
3. Riptides
4. The Flavor Of Metal
5. I Built You A Tower (b)

Andy Blade pays tribute to The Damned’s Brian James with and EP of songs they co-wrote. The lead track is an instant classic.

“Ain’t That A Shame” channels the bittersweet grandeur of classics like “Ain’t It Fun” by the Dead Boys, “Baby Baby” by The Vibrators, and “You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory” by Johnny Thunders, alongside the melodic ache associated with The Only Ones.

Sometimes you play a song, and it feels like you’ve known it your whole life.
Nearly 50 years after it was first written, 'Ain’t That A Shame' finally emerges as the 24-carat earworm it was always destined to be — a lost punk era classic reborn.

In 1978, during a late-night, alcohol-fuelled studio session, Andy Blade (formerly of Eater), Brian James (founding member of The Damned) and Mark Laff of Generation X came together for an all-star collaboration. The trio recorded two tracks of the four Blade/James songs they had written together - "Lying Again” and “Death Awaits” - showcasing a psychedelic new wave edge driven by James’ unmistakable guitar and Blade’s urgent vocal delivery.
Shortly after the session, the short-lived union dissolved. James would later revisit one of the songs they’d worked on together “Ain’t That A Shame” (originally titled "I’m Not Taking All The Blame” with Blade’s lyrics) - reshaping it for his first solo single before going on to form The Lords of the New Church with Stiv Bators.

For decades, that could have been the end of the story but in 2025 Andy Blade decided to re-record the original version with Billy King (John Mckay’s Reactor) playing Brian’s parts. The result is nothing short of a revelation - an irresistibly catchy song, driven by a nagging, poignant guitar coda and Blade’s characteristically emotive vocal. It is a fitting tribute to the late Brian James, complete with a solo that captures James' distinctive, razor-sharp style. "I am sure Brian would approve. It is my tribute to him”, says Blade.
Timeless in its appeal, “Ain’t That A Shame” feels equally at home in a sweaty club or blasting across a festival field — the kind of anthem that has crowds singing back, arms and phones aloft.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ain’t That A Shame
2. Death Awaits
3. Lying Again

Recorded in an intimate hometown setting in Doylestown PA, ‘Reconcile At The Tile Works, Recorded Live’ captures Anthony Green in a rare, up-close performance that leans into the emotional core of his songwriting. With minimal, stripped-back arrangements, the focus stays on the songs themselves—highlighting the immediacy of Green’s voice and the connection he’s built with listeners over the years. The setlist draws from across his catalog, blending fan-favorite material from Circa Survive with selections from his solo work, alongside previously unreleased songs. These versions feel raw and present, giving familiar tracks a different kind of weight while introducing new material in its earliest form.

TRACK LISTING

1. So It Goes
2. I Don't Want To Die Tonight
3. Act Appalled
4. Strange Terrain
5. Miracle Sun
6. I Felt Free
7. This Song Won't Save You
8. Holding Someone's Hair Back
9. The Difference Between Medicine And Poison Is In the Dose
10. Frozen Creek
11. Don't Dance
12. Reconcile
13. Dear Child (I've Been Dying To Reach You)
14. Fucks Me Up

Andy Blade pays tribute to The Damned’s Brian James with and EP of songs they co-wrote.

The lead track is an instant classic. “Ain’t That A Shame” channels the bittersweet grandeur of classics like “Ain’t It Fun” by the Dead Boys, “Baby Baby” by The Vibrators, and “You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory” by Johnny Thunders, alongside the melodic ache associated with The Only Ones. Sometimes you play a song, and it feels like you’ve known it your whole life.

Nearly 50 years after it was first written, 'Ain’t That A Shame' finally emerges as the 24-carat earworm it was always destined to be - a lost punk era classic reborn.

In 1978, during a late-night, alcohol-fuelled studio session, Andy Blade (formerly of Eater), Brian James (founding member of The Damned) and Mark Laff of Generation X came together for an all-star collaboration. The trio recorded two tracks of the four Blade/James songs they had written together - "Lying Again” and “Death Awaits” - showcasing a psychedelic new wave edge driven by James’ unmistakable guitar and Blade’s urgent vocal delivery. Shortly after the session, the short-lived union dissolved. James would later revisit one of the songs they’d worked on together “Ain’t That A Shame” (originally titled "I’m Not Taking All The Blame” with Blade’s lyrics) - reshaping it for his first solo single before going on to form The Lords of the New Church with Stiv Bators.

For decades, that could have been the end of the story but in 2025 Andy Blade decided to re-record the original version with Billy King (John Mckay’s Reactor) playing Brian’s parts. The result is nothing short of a revelation - an irresistibly catchy song, driven by a nagging, poignant guitar coda and Blade’s characteristically emotive vocal. It is a fitting tribute to the late Brian James, complete with a solo that captures James' distinctive, razor-sharp style. "I am sure Brian would approve. It is my tribute to him”, says Blade. Timeless in its appeal, “Ain’t That A Shame” feels equally at home in a sweaty club or blasting across a festival field — the kind of anthem that has crowds singing back, arms and phones aloft. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Ain’t That A Shame
2. Death Awaits
3. Lying Again

Panamá-born, Chicago-based drummer Daniel Villarreal is known to many for his work in Dos Santos, Wild Belle, The Los Sundowns, Valebol Rudy de Anda, and many more. For his lead artist debut 'Panamá 77' he engages a diverse array of friends and collaborators - including Bardo Martinez (Chicano Batman), Jeff Parker (Tortoise), Marta Sofia Honer (Adrian Younge), Anna Butterss (Jenny Lewis), and Aquiles Navarro (Irreversible Entanglements) - to create a vibrant and verdant suite of multi-textural psychedelic instrumental folk-funk.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bella Vista
2. Ofelia
3. Uncanny
4. I Didn’t Expect That
5. In/On
6. Cali Colours
7. Activo
8. Sombras
9. Parque En Seis
10. Patria
11. 18th & Morgan
12. Messenger

Featuring 36 tracks in total, with 5 brand new original recordings, spanning newly commissioned songs and an expansive original score. Long-time Peaky Blinders collaborators Antony Genn and Martin Slattery return to compose the film’s original score, while Grian Chatten from Fontaines D.C. and Amy Taylor of Amyl & the Sniffers contribute powerful new recordings that bring new voices to the Peaky Blinders soundscape.

Alongside the original material, the soundtrack features a curated selection of needle-drops from artists who have shaped the Peaky Blinders sound, including Nick Cave, Lankum, and McLusky. Highlights include a newly recorded version of Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand,’ Grian Chatten’s collaboration with Lankum on ‘Hunting The Wren (The Immortal Man version),’ and two transformative Massive Attack covers—one by Grian Chatten, the other by Girl In The Year Above. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As usual, a perfectly tailored and hugely evocative selection of pieces composed by Genn & Slattery, for the IP monolith that is Peaky Blinders. This time sees a couple guest spots adding more weight to the already hefty pieces, resulting in something that's as good to listen to outside of the film setting as it is within.

TRACK LISTING

1. Opening Scene/ The Currency - Antony Genn, Carlos O’Connell And Martin Slattery
2. The Immortal Man - Antony Genn, Carlos O’Connell And Martin Slattery
3. Ruby’s Scarf - Antony Genn, Martin Slattery And Grian Chatten
4. Nobody’s Son - Amy Taylor,Tom Coll, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
5. No Heaven No Hell For Duke Shelby - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
6. People Person - Andrew Falkous, Jack Egglestone, Damien Sayell
7. Duke And Beckett Strike A Deal - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
8. An Intruder In The House - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
9. Ada And Duke - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
10. Opium Dreams - Antony Genn, Martin Slattery And Grian Chatten
11. Tommy, Kaulo And Zelda - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
12. Black Dahlia - Grian Chatten, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
13. Beckett Tests Duke - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
14. Close The Door - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
15. Dukes Descent - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
16. A Hero’s Death - Grian Chatten, Carlos O’Connell, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, Tom Coll
17. Pig Pen - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
18. Puppet - Grian Chatten, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
19. A Gun Is No Good - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
20. Tommy Vs Duke - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
21. St Elizabeth’s Mortuary - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
22. Confession - Carlos O’Connell, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
23. Stable Shootout - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
24. Red Right Hand (Immortal) - Nick Cave, Mick Harvey And Thomas Wydler
25. The Bullet - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
26. The Coin - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
27. Teardrop - Girl In The Year Above
28. Romance - Grian Chatten, Carlos O’Connell, Tom Coll, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan (III)
29. The Map - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
30. Angel - Grian Chatten, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
31. The Tunnel - Antony Genn, Martin Slattery And Grian Chatten
32. Medusa - Grian Chatten, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
33. Tommy Vs Beckett - Carlos O’Connell, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
34. Father And Son - Antony Genn And Martin Slattery
35. Hunting The Wren (The Immortal Man Version) - Lankum With Grian Chatten
36. Ellipsis - Grian Chatten, Antony Genn And Martin Slattery

Alto saxophonist and flutist Alan Braufman first emerged as a singular voice in New York’s 1970s loft-jazz scene with his 1975 debut 'Valley of Search', a record that would later be recognized as a landmark of spiritual and free jazz. After decades outside the spotlight, Braufman returned with a new wave of acclaim, releasing two highly regarded albums in 2020 and 2024 that reestablished him as both an essential elder and a vital contemporary presence—long described as “a legend in free music” (Gilles Peterson / BBC).

Recorded in a single day in the fall of 2025, 'Anthem for Peace' is a fully new studio album that captures Braufman in the present tense. Leading a quartet with vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Chad Taylor, he delivers concise, hook-forward compositions that move fluidly between spiritual anthems, buoyant post-bop, and hypnotic, eastern-influenced themes. Brennan’s vibraphone—shimmering acoustically and occasionally treated electronically—adds depth and color, while Stewart and Taylor form a deeply locked, responsive rhythm section. The result is music that is “playful and light, yet texturally dense” (NPR): optimistic, focused, and driven by a clear sense of forward motion. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Angels
2. The Journey
3. Anthem For Peace
4. Snow In Central Park
5. In Motion
6. Cosmic Blues
7. Reflections On a Rainy Day 

'Happy Today' is the third album from guitarist/bandleader’s Jeff Parker’s long-running ETA IVtet, recorded live at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on August 20, 2025. This fresh entry into the IVtet’s catalog captures the instantly recognizable group sound of Parker and the band—including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson—on record outside of the now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA for the first time ever.

'Happy Today' is that sound—the IVtet's signature syntax built around long-form, minimalist improvisation—expanding confidently into larger space while creating the same hypnotizing, deeply-tuned listening effect on visibly enraptured audiences. The album contains two sidelong pieces recorded as the band performed in the round at Lodge Room, surrounded by an audience of 400 or so deep listeners. (The venue, appropriately enough, sits on the same street and just a few hundred feet away from the storefront that used to be ETA.)

Recorded and mixed live, direct to a Nagra tape machine by engineer Bryce Gonzales, utilizing a compact outboard rig that he built himself, specifically to record this band.

A full album length film by Charlie Weinmann, documenting the band's performance of 'Happy Today' at Lodge Room, will be released in tandem with the album. A shadow-laden, almost noirlike capture of the band in its full sprawling glory, Weinmann’s camera makes the joyful reality of seeing the IVtet at work widely accessible for the first time. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Swirls of reverbed saxophone and skittering percussion, the funky throb of upright bass and Parker's otherworldly guitar solos that push and pull, reminiscent of blues guitar but played through a microphone set up on the other side of the space.

TRACK LISTING

1. Like Swimwear
2. Happy Today

Originally released in 1995 and out-of-print for 13 years, Bikini Kill's 'The Anti-Pleasure Dissertation' is available once again on baby blue vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. In Accordance To Natural Law
2. Strawberry Julius
3. Anti-Pleasure Dissertation
4. Rah! Rah! Replica

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2025

Manchester-based poet, writer and producer Antony Szmierek has announced the release of his debut album, Service Station At The End Of The Universe. The past few years have been a wild ride for the artist. Cutting his teeth on the Manchester spoken word scene and gaining notoriety for his seamless flow skewering everything from the hardships of contemporary British life to finding the unexpected beauty in the everyday, it was the 2023 release of his single ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy’ that kicked off his meteoric ascent. The earworming track soon found its way onto the BBC 6 Music airwaves and led Szmierek to be named an Artist of the Year 2023 by the station. There followed appearances on Later… with Jools Holland, a BBC Radio 1 Maida Vale session, multiple triumphant Glastonbury sets and a flurry of comparisons: to the pavement prose of The Streets, the poetry of John Cooper Clarke if he found himself at the Haçienda, or like Jarvis Cocker for the UK Garage generation.

Yet, with the release of his 2023 indie-influenced EP Poems To Dance To and now his banger-filled, dancefloor-focused debut album, Service Station at the End of the Universe, Szmierek cements his sound as one that is distinctly his own. While the album provides a culmination of the deep dancefloor poetry that began with ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fallacy’, it also showcases a new side to Szmierek’s writing, producing moments of downbeat, dark poignance. The album produces a cohesive and infectious journey through pop melodic hooks and thumping dancefloor orchestrations.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: If you didn’t love him already ‘Service Station…’ lets us so intimately into Szmierek’s life that I find myself strangely, almost adoring him like a friend or brother! Such is the genuine sentiment coursing through the album.
A confident but gentle beta-male with the same insecurities and foibles as the rest of us. The polar opposite of the faux bravado of Old Manchester whilst still, somehow, possessing that patented swagger and our inability to take anything toooo seriously. Thoughtful, and with an acute awareness of the times in which we live. What I love about this particular album is, you feel Antony’s lived every single one of these tales. When he finishes “Yoga Teacher” with its deeply self-critical prose, you know it’s a real, honest assessment of himself. His heart never leaves his sleeve throughout and his beautiful sensitivity is articulated perfectly as he discusses love, life and The Great Pyramid Of Stockport. There’s goosebump after goosebump inducing moment and lyrically, there’s few male singers that can have me so close to tears. I fuckin’ love you Antony!

Laura says: Manchester and its surroundings have a long history of producing great wordsmiths. Be it the literary genius of Antony Burgess and Shelagh Delaney, the songwriting chops of Morrissey, Ian Curtis and Shaun Ryder or the punk poetry of John Cooper Clarke, there seems to be a knack in these parts for documenting the grit and reality of city life with wit and charm. It should be no surprise then that our favourite album this year comes from an artist following in this storytelling lineage. Set to a backdrop of serotonin boosting beats that nod to the Manc dancefloor through the decades, be it baggy grooves, full on dancefloor euphoria or slo-mo late-night-early-morning pulses, Antony’s stories are steeped in real life with all its joys, anxieties, ups and (come) downs, swirled together with a stream of consciousness meanderings and a heavy dose of surrealism. It’s an album with its heart in the city, and its feet on the dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Service Station At The End Of The Universe
2. Rafters
3. The Great Pyramid Of Stockport
4. Big Light
5. Yoga Teacher
6. Crumb

Side 2:
7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy
8. Passingthru
9. Take Me There
10. Restless Leg Syndrome
11. Crashing Up
12. Angie’s Wedding

'XKatedral Anthology I' is the first release in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette tape early on in the label’s history, while the two remaining pieces were presented by the label for the first time on this compilation. This record is released in conjunction with reissues of 'XKatedral Anthology Series II-III'.

The works 'Ir Himinn, Grooenn' by Kristofer Svensson, 'Disquiet (Heart)' by Marta Forsberg and 'Lamé' by Isak Edberg were first released on the cassette tape compilation 'XKatedral Volume II' in 2016. Svensson’s piece from 2014 combines gamelan percussion and prepared piano intricately interwoven in a way that obscures the boundaries between the two instrument groups. Forsberg and Edberg’s pieces both use a monolithic form to explore the timbral and harmonic spaces provided by the Düben Baroque organ situated in Tyska Kyrkan in the oldest part of Stockholm. While similar in terms of instrumentation the two works differ formally - Edberg’s 'Lamé' composed in 2010 uses the registers of the organ to articulate a seamless spectral transformation while Forsberg’s 'Disquiet (Heart)' from 2014 deals in blocks of sound with a varying degree of opacity, saturation and intensity.

'Glory' for two electric guitars by Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone was composed and recorded in Tempo Reale in Florence, Italy, and was originally released on the cassette tape compilation 'XKatedral Volume III' in 2016. This music takes the form of an ever-evolving hypnotic pattern shared by the two instruments articulated through an additive and subtractive canon.

'Dissolving Ceremony', composed in 2012 by Edberg/Erlandsson/Lisinski, was first presented publicly on the self-released record Stratum. The music contained in that release was formed from a collection of gamelan percussion instruments augmented by two sets of live-electronic instruments tuned to the harmonic framework formed by the partials of the metal percussion. Originally positioned in the center of the record running order between two long monolithic process-based pieces, 'Dissolving Ceremony' now stands on its own as a memory of a time and methodology from the not so distant past.

The newest piece in this set is 'Shipwrecks' by Daniel M Karlsson. While this work is a recent one Karlsson should be considered one of the forerunners of the musical expression contained within this record set. Active within new music for two decades his strongly articulated musical ideas and constantly evolving craftsmanship has resulted in an enormous body of work, and has served as an inspiration for many of his fellow composers. This piece is a celebration of transposition and its immense capacity for timbral transformation using a vast array of instruments performed, recorded and electronically treated by the composer to form a liquid uncanny topography where a deeply personal harmonic language constantly shifts, slides and shivers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kristofer Svensson - Ir Himinn, Grooen
2. Marta Forsberg - Disquiet (Heart)
3. Isak Edberg - Lamé 
4. Edberg/Erlandsson/Lisinski - Dissolving Ceremony
5. Kali Malone & Caterina Barbieri - Glory
6. Daniel M Karlsson - Shipwrecks

'XKatedral Anthology II' is the second installment in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by composers affiliated with XKatedral working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2018 - 2020. This collection of pieces focuses on the use of synthetic sound and algorithmic composition languages as tools for precise work within the realm of spectral exploration. In addition to this, the electronic instrumentation in many of the pieces is augmented by acoustic instruments. This record is released in conjunction with reissues of 'XKatedral Anthology Series I & III'.

The first piece on Side A is Kali Malone’s 'Music for Low Quartet'. This piece is an adaptation of the composition 'Rose Wreath Crown' originally released on The Sacrificial Code in 2019. In this iteration, the music is scored for two double basses played by Vilhelm Bromander and Zach Rowden, and sine tone electronics performed by Malone herself. The recording of this piece was made at EMS in 2019. Closing Side A is Jessica Ekomane’s 'First Light'. This computer music work focuses exclusively on digital sound, layering razor sharp synthetic textures into an otherworldly dynamic weave. The music heard here is an adaptation of a piece originally commissioned by Semibreve in 2020.

Side B contains the work 'Hands Melt In The Sun' by Mats Erlandsson. This composition is built from electronically processed tuned zithers and synthetically generated tones arranged in a series of chordal inversions over a sustained fundamental tone. This music, written as a love-letter to the localized drone tradition of Stockholm in the years 2008-2012, was composed and recorded in seven days while in residence at Ställbergs Gruva in Bergslagen, in the summer of 2018.

Opening the second half of the collection is 'Rough Draft v.7' by Theodor Kentros. Kentros’s compositional practice usually combines acoustic and electronic source material and in this piece he molds the output of the Buchla 200 and a collection of recorded wind instruments into a molten mass of sound. In its original form, this music was presented as a multichannel immersive work and even in the current stereo configuration it retains some of that enveloping sense of depth. The second piece on Side C, 'Inertia', is by Wilma Hultén, who makes her debut on record here. An exclusively synthetic piece, 'Inertia' utilizes internal digital feedback in a sealed synthetic system to manifest a harmonic field that swells and abates throughout the length of the piece, interspersed by small gestural elements.

Closing Side D of 'Anthology II' is Maria W Horn’s work 'Dies Irae' for vocal quartet, pitched glass and synthesis. 'Dies Irae' uses a modified form of traditional tonal harmonic language to invoke an uncanny and restless middle ground between the classical western polyphonic vocal tradition and contemporary electronic music. The version heard here is a live recording from Eric Ericssonhallen in Stockholm on May 30th 2020. Performing the piece here are the vocalists Katarina Henryson, Lisa Holmgren, Vilma Ogenblad and Paula Wegmann, as well as Maria herself on glass and electronics.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kali Malone - Music For Low Quartet
2. Jessica Ekomane - First Light 
3. Mats Erlandsson - Hands Melt In The Sun 
4. Theodor Kentros - Rough Draft V.7 
5. Wilma Hultén - Inertia
6. Maria W Horn - Dies Irae

'XKatedral Anthology Series III' is the third installment in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. The pieces presented here focus on the use of synthetic and acoustic sound as well as algorithmic composition as tools for precise work within the realm of spectral exploration.

This double-vinyl set is issued in celebration of the label’s decennalia and contains works from 2014 - 2025. It is released in conjunction with reissues of 'XKatedral Anthology Series I-II'.

'My Falling Sinks' by Kali Malone is a sparse descending melody for justly tuned organ, cello and acoustic guitar featuring Lucy Railton and Stephen O’Malley. The piece is a compositional sketch in septimal just intonation made on an experimental tuning organ at La Temple de La Tour-de-Peilz while in residency at La Becque in 2021.

'Empyrean Flare' by Maria W Horn was composed in 2022 for 'The Dawn Chorus' by choreographer Stina Nyberg. This piece uses the Tintinnabuli technique created by Arvo Pärt to animate four supersaw oscillators in slow diatonic arpeggiation, circling around a minor tonic triad, and destabilizing the harmonic framework by means of glissandi and amplifying the sum of its parts by means of analog tape saturation.

'Tessellation' by David Granström was composed using generative synthesis methods in the summer of 2017. The musical periodicity and harmonic movement heard within the piece emerges as a result of fixed synthesized tape loops - exploring a space that opens up between antithetical worlds.

'To Whoever Shall Inherit the Earth' is the first piece of solo music made by Jessica Ekomane and it came together, according to the composer, almost by accident. The work was recorded late one night a decade ago and captures a fleeting, fragile, and unrepeatable moment preserved exactly as it happened.

'Smoking Mother' by Stephen O’Malley was created for Gisèle Vienne’s 'Der Teich / L’Etang' by Robert Walser. It was composed during a residency at the SMEM synthesis archive in Fribourg in 2018 and produced at EMS in August 2020. The piece draws from the works of Zia Mohuiddin Dagar, Krzysztof Penderecki and Popol Vuh while exploring the roots of minimalism.

'Att böja själarna' by Mats Erlandsson was composed in 2018 and was included in 'On Eternity', a collection of four texts and four ten minute cassette loops released in the form of a limited edition box set in 2021 by Irrlicht Förlag. This work features performances by Gaianeh Pilossian and Sara Fors, on violin and voice respectively.

'This will be my last piece for organ' was composed by Theodor Kentros in 2025 and uses groups of clustered oscillators through resonant feedback to synthesize the fluctuating frequencies heard wandering through physical space when detuning an organ.

'Fault Lines' was composed by Daniel M Karlsson using generative methods with a deterministic and finite output solidified for this release. This piece features vocal performances by Sara Fors, Ansis Bētiņš and Artūrs Čukurs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Kali Malone - My Falling Sinks
2. Maria W Horn - Empyrean Flare 
3. David Granström - Tesselation 
4. Jessica Ekomane - To Whoever Shall Inherit The Earth 
5. Stephen O’Malley - Smoking Mother 
6. Mats Erlandsson - Att Böja Själarna
7. Theodor Kentros - This Will Be My Last Piece For Organ 
8. Daniel M Karlsson - Fault Line

Brand new release from Analog Africa. Double LP in Gatefold Cover pressed on 140g high quality virgin vinyl.

Even the most dedicated crate-digger might go their whole life without stumbling across any of the three LPs Antoine Dougbe released in the late 1970s and early '80s.

Yet he is remembered with a mixture of admiration and fear; for Antoine Dougbe was not merely one of the most inventive songwriters to emerge from the fertile music scene of Cotonou, but also a powerful Vodun initiate whose close connection to the spirit world allowed him to refer to himself as "the Devil's prime minister." Whether driven by the thrill of the music or by fear of crossing the Devil's prime minister, Dougbe's records all feature Orchestre Poly-Rythmo playing at the absolute height of their considerable powers. But Dougbe was unique in the sense he neither sang nor performed any of the main instrumental parts. It has been suggested that his involvement with Vodun prohibited him from using his voice for anything as frivolous as a popular song. Instead he provided his songs to Melome Clement, who arranged them for the band; most of the vocals were handled by Lohento Eskill and Amoussou William.

Despite a moderate early success, Dougbe never quite found the audience he deserved, and by the early eighties he had vanished from the music scene. Analog Africa now brings his small but extraordinary body of work to a wider audience with a double LP compilation featuring 12 songs, a mixture of Cuban son, rumba and traditional rhythms of Benin.

TRACK LISTING

1. We Tayi Sin Assi Tche
2. Ze Nou Mi
3. Djomido Ma Dougbe Tche
4. Gnin We A Na Mon
5. Ye Ko Gni Me Towe Dea
6. Adin Gban Non Chouwe
7. Gbe Nan Tche
8. Vile De Nan Gni Noude
9. Mon Non Doto Nagbe Leo
10. Towe Nin
11. Vio Se Gan
12. Ma Won Min Towe Leo

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2026 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Never before heard demos of the band's recent album 'Antidepressants'.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2026 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 18TH 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 (BST) ON MONDAY APRIL 20th).

Limited coloured vinyl triple LP for RSD 2026. 500 copies only. bis celebrate 30 years of Disco Punk on the periphery of the mainstream with a career spanning triple vinyl set showcasing their uncanny knack for spiky Pop earworms like early hits Kandy Pop and This Is Fake DIY through the luxurious Synth-Pop stylings of Eurodisco and Dead Wrestlers to their more esoteric later offerings all the way to their recent Rave revival of Lucky Night. A band constantly sonically restless and consistently underrated, over 6 sides of vinyl bis demonstrate their unique qualities that have kept an extraordinary passionate hardcore dedicated for three decades with new converts regularly joining the cult. Includes all of the big songs from the 90s as well as several obscurity, many making their vinyl debut - including the band's legendary theme tune to The Powerpuff Girls classic cartoon. 

TRACK LISTING

LP1 - The Punk / Pop One. A1. Tell it to The Kids A2. School Disco A3. Kandy Pop A4. Sound of a Heartbreak (single edit) A5. Sweetshop Avengerz A6. Secret Vampires A7. Monstarr B1. Statement of Intent B2. Kill Yr Boyfriend (Grand Royal Version) B3. Starbright Boy B4. There Is No Point (Other Than The Point That There Is No Point) B5. This Is Fake DIY B6. Everybody Thinks That They're Going To Get Theirs B7. The Powerpuff Girls End Theme. LP2 - Electronic Dance and Sound. A1. Eurodisco A2. Lucky Night A3. Dead Wrestlers A4. Kiss And Tell A5. Cubis (I Love You) 12" version B1. Action And Drama B2. Beats At The Office B3. Robotic (Just Last Week) B4. Why Are We Waiting? B5. Stress (Altern-8 mix). LP3 - Odds and Sods / Melancholic Electronic. A1. Am I Loud Enough? A2. Sense Not Sense A3. Social Dancing A4. How Can We Be Strange? A5. Control The Radical A6. Honesty Is Stupid B1. The End Starts Today B2. Remember The Scene B3. Silver Spoon B4. Sound Of Sleet B5. Return To Central

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2026 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 18TH 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 (BST) ON MONDAY APRIL 20th).

Dear Children of Our Children, I Knew is a new EP recorded by Alabaster DePlume in the middle of his March 2025 US tour. DePlume had been playing shows with bassist Shahzad Ishmaeli and drummer Tcheser Holmes, performing music of his critically-acclaimed album A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole (released March 2025). The trio's rapport was so strong that DePlume chose to use an off day in Brooklyn to record this collection of instrumentals, which were inspired by experiences he had sharing, performing and improvising off the music of A Blade for audiences across the US. Dear Children in a sense serves as an epilogue to A Blade, which makes it all the more appropriate that the B side of its RSD-exclusive vinyl release contains the three song EP Cremisan: Prologue to A Blade, which was released (digital only) in fall 2024. As with almost everything that DePlume has put forth in recent years, the connection of this work to Palestine is deep: the Cremisan EP itself was recorded in Palestine; Dear Children includes samples of children recorded in Bethlehem; and the album's cover art depicts wheatpaste posters of a drawing made by a 13 year old boy from Gaza (used with permission).

Allison and Katie Crutchfield have formed a new band called Snocaps with the help of their friends MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook so you know it's going to be good....

An indie-rock record that recalls Allison's band Swearin' and Katie's early records as Waxahatchee, Snocaps was born out of the twin sisters' desire to work on music together as they had in their teens and twenties. Allison and Katie are backed by friends and close collaborators Brad Cook and MJ Lenderman. The album was produced and almost entirely engineered by Cook, and all four musicians play multiple instruments across the record.

After a handful of shows at the end of 2025, Snocaps will be put on ice for the foreseeable future, although, as Katie says, "Allison and I have been, in some way, shape or form, doing this together for over 20 years," so it is practically a given that they will work together on music at some point again in the future.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully dynamic, grungy behemoth of an LP that mixes the gritty drive of Dinosaur Jr. or woozy skate-pop leanings of Momma, with huge melodies and vocal harmonies all over the gaff. A wonderful creation, from an intensely talented pair of siblings (plus help from some incredibly musical friends). A wonderfully dynamic, easy flowing cross-genre masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

1. Coast
2. Heathcliff
3. Wasteland
4. Brand New City
5. Hide
6. Cherry Hard Candy
7. Avalanche
8. Doom
9. Over Our Heads
10. Angel Wings
11. Don't Want To
12. You In Rehab
13. Coast II

Musician and animator Sean Solomon had great expectations. But when his hopes for an abundant world crashed against an unforgiving reality, he decided to feel nothing. For a time, the Los Angeles-born-and-raised singer/songwriter and cartoonist/animator gave into the void, but artistic expression can be a release valve - a way to comprehend the world and build community, which is exactly what Solomon does on his debut solo album 'The World Is Not Good Enough'.

The album art features Sean's winking take on a Richard Scarry book cover and mirrors the cognitive dissonance that pervades the album, which seamlessly moves from bare-bones acoustic guitar to a Neutral Milk Hotel-esque cacophony of marching drums and horn blasts. "I was thinking about those books and how they show an idyllic version of the world," Sean says. "I thought it was kind of funny -- the contrast between the title and the images. Like, there's a dog walking a dog on the back cover, an elephant drinking out of a coffee cup with its snout. It was fun to study these children's books and think about what my version would be."

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Solomon felt especially drawn to both music and animation and immersed himself in episodes of The Simpsons and illustrated stories by graphic novelist and Ghost World author Daniel Clowes. Meanwhile, Sean was an avid fan of seminal '90s and early 2000s punk and alternative acts such as Daniel Johnston, Elliott Smith and Nirvana, the latter of whom he admired for the way they preserved their artistic integrity in the face of global stardom. Adopting his own punk sensibility, Sean and his high school band, the folk-punk Moses Campbell, played all over LA, booking their own shows at coffee shops, houses, and famed DIY venue The Smell. This was followed by playing in the three- piece band Moaning who released two albums on Sub Pop.

After Moaning went on indefinite hiatus in 2023, Solomon thoughtfully wrote and recorded his first solo songs over the better part of two years, culminating in what would become 'The World Is Not Good Enough'. The contemplative eight tracks feature fellow Sub Pop veteran and Sean's former roommate Shannon Lay on backing vocals and guitar and producer Jarvis Taveniere (Whitney, Purple Mountains, Waxahatchee), who produced and stood in on bass and some percussion.

TRACK LISTING

1. Car Crash
2. Finish Line
3. Shooting Star
4. Overdose
5. Remember
6. Postcard
7. Black Hole
8. Korpo

Finally, the long-awaited repress of this tech-house banger by French producer Bobby Parker from ’03. A real classic from DJ Francesco Del Garda. The B-side comes from another sick release on the label, this time with Mogcha. It’s a straight-up electro-house heater, perfect to get that dancefloor hyped. Antinote’s also planning to reissue some of the Monster Funky catalog in the next monthes. Stay tuned!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A tech-house rukus that's both hypnotic, sublime and kickin' in equal measure. This is 100% my jam atm, and unlikely to leave the record boxes of anyone with a penchant for Villalobos, Craig Richards, Francesco Del Garda and Call Super.

TRACK LISTING

automatic bpm
our house

The VinylCareSystem x Joy Division carbon fiber brush neutralizes static electricity, gently removes dust, and protects your vinyl records. Cleaning before each play extends the life of the stylus and enhances the listening experience.

Antonio Carlos & Jocafi, the legendary duo from Bahia whose music has embodied the soul of Brasil for over five decades, return with a bold new collaboration: 'Jazz Is Dead 026'. Introduced to Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad by Beto Barreto of Baiana System, the meeting was instant magic. “The first time we met, it was like family,” they recall. That kinship led Younge and Muhammad to invite the duo to Los Angeles, where they carried a handful of ideas and created new songs on the spot—an intuitive, improvisatory process that defines the Jazz Is Dead ethos.

With this release, Antônio Carlos & Jocafi reaffirm their creative vitality while introducing their timeless Bahian spirit to a new generation. “Adrian’s love for Brasil is greater than that of many Brazilians,” they say, noting how deeply he listens, studies, and channels the rhythms, stories, and feelings of their culture. The result is an album that bridges Salvador’s Mercado Modelo with the global stage, weaving Bahia’s folkloric traditions into Jazz Is Dead’s analog soul.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rala-Bucho
2. Canarin Da Alemanha
3. Menino Tororó
4. Tá Com Medo Por Quê?
5. Bacáxá
6. Oxóodô
7. Um Abraço No Adrian
8. Nunca Mais (feat. Loren Oden)
9. Loca Pasión (feat. Loren Oden)

TRACK LISTING

1Mis Armas Se Habian Caido Al Suelo
2Puertas De Mi Cuerpo
3Antidoto
4Aguas Abiertas
5Libres Antes Del Final

Anthony Gomez III explores how out of the commercial failure of the 1980s Paisley Underground genre, a Los Angeles that suffered one of the highest crime rates in the country, the rise of Chicano/a art in the public eye, and record label disputes, singer Hope Sandoval and guitarist David Roback form the influential dream pop band Mazzy Star.

Mazzy Star's So Tonight That I Might See was a slow, reluctant success. Pushed by Capital Records as an album for teenagers to make out during, as a record about girlhood, and as music for those uninterested in the era's male aggression, the album's reputation has been plagued by these forced connections ever since.

But by tracing the hurried development of So Tonight That I Might See and the band's efforts to bend the record company's wants to their will, this book revisits and challenges these imposed narratives that have overshadowed the band's interest in the mystical, the American Southwest, ranchera music from the mid-century, and a surrealism which summons the strange, dark shadows of everyday life in the US.

Blending elements of soul, folk, and blues, Son Little captures his signature sound along with expressive yet personal lyrics. 'Cityfolk' is a reflection on love, loss, and finding peace in the chaos. It's about holding on, letting go, and learning to breathe again when the world feels heavy.

Born Aaron Earl Livingston to a preacher and a teacher in Los Angeles, Little's collaborations with The Roots and RJD2 helped him make a name for himself in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia. Critics were quick to recognize the unique power of Little's solo recordings, which stripped the past for parts that could be reconstituted into something wholly new and original. NPR hailed Little's "impeccably crafted songs" as "honest and unpretentious," while The Independent proclaimed him "a formidable talent."

Since then, his catalog has racked up over 250 million streams, and Little has toured with everyone from Leon Bridges and Kelis to Shakey Graves and Mumford & Sons alongside festival appearances at Bonnaroo, Newport Folk, and more. Never one to rest on his laurels, Little also earned a GRAMMY for his work helming Mavis Staples' acclaimed 'See That My Grave Is Kept Clean'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rabbit
2. Whip The Wind
3. Let's Get Involved
4. It's Your World
5. Cherry
6. Bottomless
7. Be Better
8. The Valley
9. In Orbit 
10. Paper Children
11. Breathe

'If You Wanna Laugh, You Gotta Cry Sometimes: Archives Vol. 3, 1972-1975' is yet another magical discovery from Georgia-born singer-songwriter and guitarist Robert Lester Folsom’s oeuvre of soft psychedelia and rural Southern rock n’ roll, written and recorded over fifty years ago yet prophetically relevant today. Born of lost summers, new love (and the breaks that follow), and hippie bluegrass shakes, these spirited takes to 4-track tape capture Folsom’s earliest wizardry. A prismatic window into a young artist finding their artistic footing, and a testament to why Folsom’s legacy burns bright to this day.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Don't Know
2. What Are You Thinking Of? 
3. Sitting On The Moon 
4. Mountain Air Rag 
5. Atlanta LaLa 
6. It's Raining Now Outside 
7. And God Made The Pine Trees, Too 
8. One More Song 
9. Burnt Carmine 
10. Gene Autry 
11. This Blue Eyed Boy 
12. Little Ditty 
13. I Want To Tell You 

Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart are a trio of improvisers individually rooted in deep sound exploration, multi-disciplinary composition, and all manner of cross-genre collaboration. The musical ground covered by their solo practices is correspondingly expansive, and their individual recording and performance credits read as a veritable who's who, ranging from DIY darlings to household names of experimental avant-garde, electronic, indie rock, and more.

Their collective sound is based in improvised performance automatic, intuitive composition via their three voices and three string instruments: viola, cello, and violin, respectively. Influences here are vast, dispatched with more playful ease than a trio of string instruments is typically approached with, and just as likely to be found in the cloud-obscured mountains of Donegal, the low-rent cacophony of a midwestern basement, or the revelatory expanse of the Nurse With Wound list as in the storied hals of the academy.

As a recording unit, the trio hones and transforms their performance concept with careful post-production, using multiple tape machines and outboard effects to reimagine their improvised material into meticulously crafted compositions. It's al a response to the spaces they are collectively engaged with, and the use of a highly physical medium like analog tape deepens that spatial engagement with striking, organically psychedelic results.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dawn | Pulse
2. Laundry | Blood
3. Chewing Gun
4. Door | Watch
5. Stone | Piece
6. Burning | Counting (sleeping)
7. Shadow | Mess
8. Paper Folding | Disappearing
9. Cough | Laugh
10. Snow | Touch
11. Fog | Mirror

'Extra Stars' is Gregory Uhlmann's solo debut on International Anthem. It's a deep and gorgeous expansion of the LA-based multi-instrumentalist producer / composer's rhythmic ambient side, as nascently explored in his much-lauded duo with Meg Duffy, his trio work with Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes, and in the gentler moments of SML (the improvising trance-jazz unit of which he is a member).

A radiant sidereal serenade, the album's fourteen miniature infinities swirl serendipitous synthesis and measured, melody-rich song into a panoramic menagerie of sound. For a record that seldom incorporates percussion instrumentals, the music is distinctly rhythm-forward, while Uhlmann also leans heavily into swaths of pastoral beauty. Extra care was clearly poured into the kind of harmonic depth that's often missing from vibe-only "ambient" music, making for a delightfully refreshing take on the electronic, processing-heavy quiet sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's a deep and gorgeous expansion of the LA-based multi-instrumentalist producer / composer's rhythmic ambient side, as nascently explored in his much-lauded duo with Meg Duffy, his trio work with Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes, and in the gentler moments of SML (the improvising trance-jazz unit of which he is a member).

TRACK LISTING

1. Pocket Snail
2. View Above
3. Lucia
4. Like Tea
5. Days
6. Worms Eye
7. Burnt Toast
8. Dottie
9. Bristlecone
10. Voice Exchange
11. View Below
12. Back Scratch
13. Imprint
14. Sugar Water

Anthony Naples returns with his seventh full length album, "In Studio Magic," comprised of ten new songs. A departure from the serene, dubbed out house off his last excursion; "In Studio Magic", moves in a more non-linear fashion, merging electro-acoustic elements and a dubwise sensibility into something resembling modern electro-avant-jazz! Still executed with the delicate finesse we've come to expect from this NYC legend; it's a seriously intriguing listening, allowing us access to a side of the producer's persona we haven't really been privy to before. Well worth a listen!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Harmonie
A2. Dustos
A3. Opal
A4. Fragment Memory
A5. Whisper
B1. Aris
B2. On Your Own Again
B3. May
B4. Yours Truly
B5 Perix

Reissue of late-’90s hip-hop classic. Beats and rhymes from Madlib with Wildchild and DJ Romes.

'Soundpieces: Da Antidote!' was the first album fully produced by Madlib and introduced a stable of MCs including Quasimoto, Oh No, Declaime, and more. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Da Antidote
2. Questions
3. Long Awaited
4. B-Boy Theme
5. Whenimondamic
6. The Anthem
7. Level Zero
8. Crate Diggin'
9. Law Of Physics
10. Frenz Vs. Endz
11. Interview With Kurt
12. Speaker Smashin'
13 New Year's Resolution
14. Answers
15. Likwit Fusion
16. Hityawitdat
17. Verbal Experiments
18. Stylewild
19. Weededed
20. 20 Questions
21. Break Dat Party
22. Wanna Test
23. Episodes
24. Outro

Compilation of singles from Adam Ant, kicking off with Adam & The Ants first single, "Young Parisians", through to all their hits inc.: "Dog Eat Dog", "Ant Music", "Stand And Deliver" and "Prince Charming" and closing with some of the finest moments of his solo career.

TRACK LISTING

1. Young Parisians
2. Zerox
3. Cartrouble
4. Kings Of The Wild Frontier
5. Dog Eat Dog
6. Antmusic
7. Stand And Deliver
8. Prince Charming
9. Ant Rap
10. Goody Two Shoes
11. Friend Or Foe
12. Desperate But Not Serious
13. Puss 'n Boots
14. Strip
15. Apollo 9
16. Vive Le Rock
17. Room At The Top
18. Rough Stuff
19. Can't Set Rules About Love
20. Wonderful

Something of a lost 80s classic, the 'Prince Charming' album is home to three of Adam & The Ants biggest hits – 'Stand And Deliver', 'Ant Rap' and title track 'Prince Charming'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Scorpios
2. Picasso Visita El Planeta De Los Simios
3. Prince Charming
4. Five Guns West
5. That Voodoo!
6. Stand And Deliver
7. Mile High Club
8. Ant Rap
9. Mowhok
10. S.E.X.
11. The Lost Hawaiians

Robin Pecknold brings light to the bleakest of winters with Fleet Foxes' 'A Very Lonely Solstice' a 13-track career spanning collection recorded in December 2020, at Brooklyn, NY's St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church.

'A Very Lonely Solstice' captures a poignant moment in time. The recording was originally broadcasted as a live-stream event on the winter solstice of 2020, just days after New York declared a state of emergency tightening restrictions again in response to increasing COVID-19 cases. Pecknold describes the set as "me by myself on the longest night of the year... honoring the loneliness of 2020 with a nylon string and some songs new and old." Fans worldwide tuned in while quarantined at home, finding solace and a sense of community in a period of extreme isolation.

Much of the performance showcases a solo focus on Pecknold who offers up acoustic arrangements of fan-favorite songs spanning Fleet Foxes' catalog. Selections cover all four of the band's studio albums, including their 2008 self-titled debut album ("Tiger Mountain Peasant Song") to 2011's Helplessness Blues ("Blue Spotted Tail") and 2017's Crack-Up ("If You Need To, Keep Time On Me"), all the way to their latest release, Shore. Resistance Revival Chorus joins Pecknold on Shore tracks "Wading In Waist-High Water" and "Can I Believe You." Also featured: a cover of Nina Simone's "In The Morning" and a rearrangement of the traditional "Silver Dagger."

TRACK LISTING

1. Wading In Waist-high Water
2. Sunblind
3. In The Morning
4. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
5. Maestranza
6. Helplessness Blues
7. Silver Dagger
8. Featherweight
9. A Long Way Past The Past
10. Blue Spotted Tail
11. If You Need To, Keep Time On Me
12. I'm Not My Season
13. Can I Believe You

By popular demand El Michels Affair presses two standouts from the new '24 Hr Sports' on a flawless 7”. The A side is 'Anticipate' featuring Clairo, and the B side is 'Indifference' featuring Shintaro Sakamoto. Two incredible tunes, one incredible 45…

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The primo cinematic / hip-hop soul collective present two of their favourite vocal tracks from their new album.

TRACK LISTING

1. ANTICIPATE Feat. CLAIRO
2. INDIFFERENCE Feat. SHINTARO SAKAMOTO

For years, Jackson C. Frank was as ghostly a legend as they come. Even the relatively few record collectors who revered his work were only aware of the lone LP released during his lifetime. For all most listeners knew, Frank made an incredible album in 1965 and then vanished, despite that record having been produced by Paul Simon.

'1975 Mekeel Sessions' features six tracks recorded in the mid-’70s at a studio in Lake Hill, New York about five miles from Woodstock where Frank was living at the time. Only uncovered decades later, these recordings hum with the same mysterious warmth that defined Jackson at his peak. His guitar work, alternating between strummed and fingerpicking, is perfectly understated. His stark and somber voice, more weathered than the lighter tone on his debut.

While the Mekeel tapes were intended for Frank’s sophomore album, it never came to be. What one hears is not a singer-songwriter fading out of view, but rather a singular artist who never stopped trying to build his own world—even when no one was watching. For fans of everyone influenced by Jackson: from Nick Drake, Sandy Denny and Bert Jansch to more contemporary acts like Elliott Smith, Vincent Gallo and Iron And Wine who surely used Frank’s sparse approach as a template.

TRACK LISTING

1. Marlene
2. Marcy's Song
3. Madonna Of Swans
4. Relations
5. Cryin' Like A Baby
6. The Visit

At the dawn of the 21st century, the New York City indie rock scene emerged as a beacon of artistic innovation, capturing widespread attention. Within this vibrant milieu, Interpol's second album, Antics, stands out as a landmark release.

Released in 2004, Antics initially received a spectrum of responses-acclaimed by fans yet, somewhat dismissively regarded by critics; nevertheless, time has favored Antics, elevating it to a revered status among aficionados. Covering the album's intricate musical craftsmanship to its innovative marketing, and with insights from lead singer Paul Banks, this book reveals the depths of Interpol's creative evolution and the album's shift towards distinct singles while maintaining its atmospheric essence. Highlighting the band's widespread appeal, especially in Latin America, the book looks into the band's fervent fanbase and the cultural phenomena that arose, showcasing the enduring bond between Interpol and their international audience. It discusses the global impact of Antics, and underscores the album's longevity and Interpol's status as architects of a sound that has resonated across borders and generations, cementing their place in the annals of modern music history.

Antique burgundy beanie with multi coloured Piccadilly Records logo embroidered.

Heavyweight Digital Reggae featuring the late, great Jamaican singer Pad Anthony! For the lovers of King Jammys Digi era productions, and those ‘Shaka Style’ soundsystem selections.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Rebel
B1. Version

To Cy and Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 is a collection of Mancunian poet, singer, saxophonist and composer Alabaster DePlume’s simple and serenely intimate wordless adventures in melodic ennui. The collection properly introduced the world to a previously under-exposed, undeniably deep dimension of DePlume who, at the time of the its release, was most known to his (majorly British, majorly committed) followers for his music with words, his poetry, and his prowess as an impassioned orator. His performances (especially those that were part of his monthly Peach residency at Total Refreshment Centre in London) were becoming legendary for blurring the boundaries between secular sermon, theatrical monologue and song, as he turned audiences into experimental large ensembles and lead full-throated shout-a-longs to tunes like “Is It Enough” and “Be Nice To People” (both from his 2019 Lost Map album The Corner of a Sphere). The instrumental pieces that quietly buffered the big vocal moments of his recorded catalog, to that point, had mostly lived, quietly, in those buffers.

We’re not really sure what inspired DePlume to gather all of his recorded instrumentals, add a couple new ones, and invite International Anthem to collaborate on the campaign (we had only recently been getting to know him a little deeper, after our second trip to Total Refreshment Centre in the fall of 2018 when we recorded jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise). But what we do know is, not long after To Cy & Lee’s February 2020 release and the subsequent arrival of a global pandemic, those recordings went very far, very fast, taking on a new life as stay-at-home hits — the quiet catharsis we didn’t know we needed in the face of rapidly unfolding confusion, fear, and isolation. As the people of the world found themselves inside their small rooms, they began to search for smaller, more intentional sounds to fill them. These instrumentals carried the healing qualities we were after then, and still seek now. As we cite on the obi strip, the music is an antidote with seemingly ancient sonic characteristics, and a unique ability to embrace the core of our very being.

To Cy & Lee was also the first document of an ongoing collaboration between DePlume and International Anthem, which has already yielded the albums GOLD (2022), Come With Fierce Grace (2023), and A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole (2025), in addition to sundry singles and EPs. The depth of partnership between DePlume and our crew that has developed since To Cy & Lee, coupled with the endlessly quenching spiritual comforts the album continues to provide, makes it an absolute essential of the International Anthem catalog and a proud choice for the final three of the IA11 series.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Visit Croatia
A2. What's Missing
A3. Song Of The Foundling
A4. Whisky Story Time
A5. Not Now, Jesus
A6. If You're Sure You Want To
B1. The Lucky Ones (with Danalogue)
B2. Why, Buzzardman, Why
B3. Not My Ask
B4. Turpentine
B5. I Hope

jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise, originally released in the fall of 2019, was hugely anticipated in its time.

Roughly a year before its release, and following the success of her debut Fly or Die album, branch whisked her incredible quartet across Europe for a string of performances in November 2018. Across that tour, the group stretched a songbook in-process to its limit, improvising en modo deconstructivo, tugging at the music’s edges and relentlessly morphing the sound of a four-fold liberation machine that included branch (trumpet), Chad Taylor (drums), Jason Ajemian (bass), and newcomer Lester St. Louis (cello), who had recently replaced Tomeka Reid.

The continued rise of branch’s star coincided with an increasingly deep connection to International Anthem as the label formed tighter and tighter bonds with friends across the pond, particularly in London, where most of bird dogs of paradise was recorded – in studio at Total Refreshment Centre over three days, and live at Café OTO over two nights that same week – at the tail end of that November 2018 tour. The album itself captures a very significant moment in the arc of the band. St. Louis’s presence had provided a fresh injection of virtuosic curiosity, and the interplay between him and Ajemian rejiggered the crew’s string-driven multi-rhythmic plonk swing while also refreshing their alternately aggressive and melodious heavy-bite bowing within an ever-expanding pocket. It was a highly fertile foundation for branch to experiment and explore, reach for the nether regions of her instrument, and continue to focus and refine her flagship ensemble into a wholly original sound.

FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise also introduced the wider world to branch’s singing voice. “prayer for amerikkka pt. 1 & 2” - written and first performed by branch in Paris on the night of the 2018 US midterm elections - has since become a rallying cry for those who share her sense of justice in a world controlled by those who are seemingly unconcerned with it. And on “love song” (for assholes & clowns), branch shows us her cards with a wink and a smile. “So much beauty lies in the abstract of instrumental music,” branch says in the album’s original notes, “but being this ain’t a particularly beautiful time, I’ve chosen a more literal path. The voice is good for that.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Birds Of Paradise
2. 4. Prayer For Amerikkka Pt. 1 & 2
3. Lesterlude Twenty-Three N Me, Jupiter Redux
5. Whales

Side B
1. Simple Silver Surfer
2. Bird Dogs Of Paradise
3. Nuevo Roquero Estéreo
4. Love Song (for Assholes & Clowns)

The 2018 release of Universal Beings, in many ways, feels like the moment that the dam broke for both Makaya McCraven and International Anthem. On one hand, it's a four-sided communal showcase of the inter-city exchange that had started to develop in the “new jazz” hubs, collecting group improvisations from New York, London, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On the other, it is an editing and post-production masterclass – the MVP of McCraven’s “organic beat music” concept – and a landmark moment where his cut-splice-reassembly chops shine as brightly as the players themselves.

The musicians on the album were a combined who’s-who and who’s-gonna-be-who of their respective scenes: Brandee Younger (harp), Joel Ross (vibraphone), Tomeka Reid (cello), Dezron Douglas (double bass), Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone), Junius Paul (double bass), Nubya Garcia (tenor saxophone), Ashley Henry (Rhodes piano), Daniel Casimir (double bass), Josh Johnson (alto saxophone), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (violin), Jeff Parker (guitar), Anna Butterss (double bass), and Carlos Niño (percussion). In our original press release, we called it “an inspiring display of the organic global inter-connectedness of the Black American music tradition in 2018.” Not in the press release, in our off-the-record conversations at the time, we said it was ‘like Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, but for jazz’.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 – Side A (New York Sessions)
1. A Queen’s Intro
2. Holy Lands (feat. Brandee Younger)
3. Young Genius (feat. Joel Ross)
4. Black Lion (feat. Dezron Douglas)
5. Tall Tales (feat. Tomeka Reid)

Disc 1 – Side B (New York Sessions Continued)
6. Mantra
7. Pharaoh’s Intro
8. Atlantic Black
9. Inner Flight

Disc 2 – Side C (London Sessions)
10. Wise Man, Wiser Woman (feat. Shabaka Hutchings)
11. Prosperity’s Fear (feat. Junius Paul)
12. Flipped OUT
13. Voila (feat. Daniel Casimir)

Disc 2 – Side D (London Sessions Continued)
14. Suite Haus (feat. Nubya Garcia, Ashley Henry)
15. Butterss’s Fly
16. The Way Home
17. Kings & Queens
18. The Loneliness

12LP Box
4 x 3LP albums in triple gatefold sleeves and slipcase

The Anthology Collection 12LP set includes the three groundbreaking Anthology albums from the mid-1990s, remastered in 2025 by Giles Martin, plus a new compilation, Anthology 4. Containing 191 tracks, the collection’s studio outtakes, live performances, broadcasts and demos reveal the musical development of The Beatles from 1958 to the final single ‘Now And Then’ released in 2023.

Anthology 4 features 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from Super Deluxe versions of five classic albums. In addition to fascinating outtakes dating from 1963 to 1969, the album includes new 2025 mixes by Jeff Lynne of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’.

Furthermore, Anthology 4 presents 26 tracks that have never previously been released on vinyl.

Pressed on 180g black vinyl, each 3LP album will be housed within a triple gatefold sleeve, featuring the original art, sleevenotes by Mark Lewisohn, and restored photos for Anthology 1-3; Anthology 4 has brand new sleevenotes written by Kevin Howlett alongside photos. The outer slipcase features the original Klaus Voorman triptych art, and a 3/4 O-Card image of the band with detailed track listing.

8CD Box
4 x 2CD albums in gatefold digisleeves with booklets in slipcase

The Anthology Collection 8CD set includes the three groundbreaking Anthology albums from the mid-1990s, remastered in 2025 by Giles Martin, plus a new compilation, Anthology 4. Containing 191 tracks, the collection’s studio outtakes, live performances, broadcasts and demos reveal the musical development of The Beatles from 1958 to the final single ‘Now And Then’ released in 2023.

Anthology 4 features 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from Super Deluxe versions of five classic albums. In addition to fascinating outtakes dating from 1963 to 1969, the album includes new 2025 mixes by Jeff Lynne of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’. Furthermore, Anthology 4 presents 17 tracks that were previously unavailable on CD.

Each 2CD album in the set is housed in a gatefold digisleeve, with a 40+ page booklet featuring the original art, sleevenotes by Mark Lewisohn, and restored photos for Anthology 1-3; Anthology 4 has brand new sleevenotes written by Kevin Howlett alongside photos. The outer slipcase features the original Klaus Voorman triptych art, and a 3/4 O-Card image of the band with track listing.

TRACK LISTING

Anthology 1

LP1 – Side 1
1: Free As A Bird (1995 Mix)
2: John Lennon Speech 1
3: That’ll Be The Day
4: In Spite Of All The Danger
5: Paul McCartney Speech 1
6: Hallelujah, I Love Her So (Home Demo)
7: You’ll Be Mine (Home Demo)
8: Cayenne (Home Demo)
9: Paul McCartney Speech 2
10: My Bonnie
11: Ain’t She Sweet
12: Cry For A Shadow
LP1 – Side 2
1: John Lennon Speech 2
2: Brian Epstein Speech 1
3: Searchin’ (Decca Audition)
4: Three Cool Cats (Decca Audition)
5: The Sheik Of Araby (Decca Audition)
6: Like Dreamers Do (Decca Audition)
7: Hello Little Girl (Decca Audition)
8: Brian Epstein Speech 2
9: Besame Mucho (June 1962 Version)
10: Love Me Do (First Version)
11: How Do You Do It
12: Please Please Me (First Version)
LP2 – Side 3
1: One After 909 (Takes 3, 4 And 5)
2: One After 909 (Edit Of Takes 4 And 5)
3: Lend Me Your Comb (BBC Recording)
4: I’ll Get You (Sunday Night At The London Palladium)
5: John Lennon Speech 3
6: I Saw Her Standing There (Live In Stockholm)
7: From Me To You (Live In Stockholm)
8: Money (That’s What I Want) (Live In Stockholm)
9: You Really Got A Hold On Me (Live In Stockholm)
10: Roll Over Beethoven (Live In Stockholm)
LP2 – Side 4
1: She Loves You (Royal Variety Performance)
2: Till There Was You (Royal Variety Performance)
3: Twist And Shout (Royal Variety Performance)
4: This Boy (The Morecambe And Wise Show)
5: I Want To Hold Your Hand (The Morecambe And Wise Show)
6: Speech From The Morecambe And Wise Show
7: Moonlight Bay (The Morecambe And Wise Show)
8: Can’t Buy Me Love (Take 2 With Solo From Take 1)
LP3 – Side 5
1: All My Loving (The Ed Sullivan Show)
2: You Can’t Do That (Take 6)
3: And I Love Her (Take 2)
4: A Hard Day’s Night (Take 1)
5: I Wanna Be Your Man (Around The Beatles)
6: Long Tall Sally (Around The Beatles)
7: Boys (Around The Beatles Session)
8: Shout (Around The Beatles)
9: I’ll Be Back (Take 2)
10: I’ll Be Back (Take 3)
LP3 – Side 6
1: You Know What To Do (Demo)
2: No Reply (Demo)
3: Mr Moonlight (Takes 1 And 4)
4: Leave My Kitten Alone (Take 5)
5: No Reply (Take 2)
6: Eight Days A Week (Takes 1, 2 And 4)
7: Eight Days A Week (Take 5)
8: Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! (Take 2)

Anthology 2
LP1 – Side 1
1: Real Love (1996 Mix)
2: Yes It Is (Takes 2 And 14)
3: I’m Down (Take 1)
4: You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away (Take 5)
5: If You’ve Got Trouble (Take 1)
6: That Means A Lot (Take 1)
7: Yesterday (Take 1)
8: It’s Only Love (Takes 3 And 2)
LP1 – Side 2
1: I Feel Fine (Blackpool Night Out)
2: Ticket To Ride (Blackpool Night Out)
3: Yesterday (Blackpool Night Out)
4: Help! (Blackpool Night Out)
5: Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby (Live At Shea Stadium, New York)
6: Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (Take 1)
7: I’m Looking Through You (Take 1)
8: 12-Bar Original (Take 2 Edited)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)
2: Got To Get You Into My Life (Take 5)
3: And Your Bird Can Sing (Take 2)
4: Taxman (Take 11)
5: Eleanor Rigby (Take 14 – Strings Only)
6: I’m Only Sleeping (Rehearsal)
7: I’m Only Sleeping (Take 1)
8: Rock And Roll Music (Live In Tokyo)
9: She’s A Woman (Live In Tokyo)
LP2 – Side 4
1: Strawberry Fields Forever (Home Demo Sequence)
2: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 1)
3: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 7 And Edit Piece)
4: Penny Lane (Remix)
5: A Day In The Life (Takes 1, 2, 6 And Orchestra)
6: Good Morning Good Morning (Take 8)
7: Only A Northern Song (Takes 3 And 12)
LP3 – Side 5
1: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (Takes 1 And 2)
2: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! (Take 7)
3: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Takes 6, 7 And 8)
4: Within You Without You (Instrumental)
5: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (Take 5)
6: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) (Stereo Remix)
LP3 – Side 6
1: I Am The Walrus (Take 16)
2: The Fool On The Hill (Demo)
3: Your Mother Should Know (Take 27)
4: The Fool On The Hill (Take 4)
5: Hello, Goodbye (Take 16)
6: Lady Madonna (Takes 3 And 4)
7: Across The Universe (Take 2)

Anthology 3
LP1 – Side 1
1: A Beginning
2: Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Esher Demo With False Start)
3: Helter Skelter (Take 2 Edited)
4: Mean Mr Mustard (Esher Demo)
5: Polythene Pam (Esher Demo)
6: Glass Onion (Esher Demo)
7: Junk (Esher Demo)
8: Piggies (Esher Demo)
9: Honey Pie (Esher Demo Edited)
10: Don’t Pass Me By (Take 3 With Take 5 Vocal)
11: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (First Version - Take 5)
12: Good Night (Rehearsal And Take 34)
LP1 – Side 2
1: Cry Baby Cry (Take 1)
2: Blackbird (Take 4)
3: Sexy Sadie (Take 6)
4: While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Acoustic Version - Take 1)
5: Hey Jude (Take 2)
6: Not Guilty (Take 102 Edited)
7: Mother Nature’s Son (Take 2)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Glass Onion (Original Mono Mix)
2: Rocky Raccoon (Take 8)
3: What’s The New Mary Jane (Take 4)
4: Step Inside Love / Los Paranoias (Studio Jam)
5: I’m So Tired (Edit Of Takes 3, 6 And 9)
6: I Will (Take 1)
7: Why Don’t We Do It In The Road (Take 4)
8: Julia (Take 2)
LP2 – Side 4
1: I’ve Got A Feeling (Apple Studio)
2: She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Apple Studio)
3: Dig A Pony (Apple Studio)
4: Two Of Us (Apple Studio)
5: For You Blue (Apple Studio)
6: Teddy Boy (Apple Studio)
7: Medley: Rip It Up / Shake, Rattle And Roll / Blue Suede Shoes (Apple Studio Jam)
LP3 – Side 5
1: The Long And Winding Road (Apple Studio)
2: Oh! Darling (Apple Studio)
3: All Things Must Pass (Demo)
4: Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues (Apple Studio Jam)
5: Get Back (Third Rooftop Performance)
6: Old Brown Shoe (Demo)
7: Octopus’s Garden (Take 2)
8: Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (Take 5)
LP3 – Side 6
1: Something (Demo)
2: Come Together (Take 1)
3 Come And Get It (Demo – 1996 Remix)
4: Ain’t She Sweet (Studio Jam)
5: Because (Vocals Only)
6: Let It Be (Apple Studio)
7: I Me Mine (Take 16)
8: The End (Remix With The Final Chord Of A Day In The Life)

Anthology 4
LP1 – Side 1
1: I Saw Her Standing There (Take 2)
2: Money (That’s What I Want) (RM7 Undubbed)
3: This Boy (Takes 12 And 13)
4: Tell Me Why (Takes 4 And 5)
5: If I Fell (Take 11)
6: Matchbox (Take 1)
7: Every Little Thing (Takes 6 And 7)
8: I Need You (Take 1)
LP1 – Side 2
1: I’ve Just Seen A Face (Take 3)
2: In My Life (Take 1)
3: Nowhere Man (First Version – Take 2)
4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second Version – Unnumbered Mix)
5: Love You To (Take 7)
6: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26)
7: She’s Leaving Home (Take 1 – Instrumental)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Baby, You’re A Rich Man (Takes 11 And 12)
2: All You Need Is Love (Rehearsal For BBC Broadcast)
3: The Fool On The Hill (Take 5 – Instrumental)
4: I Am The Walrus (Take 19 – Strings, Brass, Clarinet Overdub)
LP2 – Side 4
1: Hey Bulldog (Take 4 – Instrumental)
2: Good Night (Take 10 With A Guitar Part From Take 5)
3: While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Third Version – Take 27)
4: (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Studio Jam)
5: Helter Skelter (Second Version – Take 17)
6: I Will (Take 29)
7: Can You Take Me Back? (Take 1)
8: Julia (Two Rehearsals)
LP3 – Side 5
1: Get Back (Take 8)
2: Octopus's Garden (Rehearsal)
3: Don't Let Me Down (First Rooftop Performance)
4: You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36)
5: Here Comes The Sun (Take 9)
6: Something (Take 39 – Instrumental – Strings Only)
LP3 – Side 6
1: Free As A Bird (2025 Mix)
2: Real Love (2025 Mix)
3: Now And Then

Anthology 4, is newly curated by Giles Martin, including 13 previously unreleased demos, plus fascinating session and other rare recordings dating from 1963 to 1969. It also includes the band’s final single, ‘Now And Then’, released in 2023, and new mixes of The Beatles’ Anthology-associated hit singles: the GRAMMY-winning ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, given new life by their original producer, Jeff Lynne, using de-mixed John Lennon vocals. 

The track notes are written by Kevin Howlett with an introduction compiled from 1996 interviews recorded with The Beatles’ close friend and adviser Derek Taylor.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Saw Her Standing There (Take 2)
2. Money (That’s What I Want) (RM7 Undubbed)
3. This Boy (Takes 12 And 13)
4. Tell Me Why (Takes 4 And 5)
5. If I Fell (Take 11)
6. Matchbox (Take 1)
7. Every Little Thing (Takes 6 And 7)
8. I Need You (Take 1)
9. I’ve Just Seen A Face (Take 3)
10. In My Life (Take 1)
11. Nowhere Man (First Version – Take 2)
12. Got To Get You Into My Life (Second Version – Unnumbered Mix)
13. Love You To (Take 7)
14. Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26)
15. She’s Leaving Home (Take 1 – Instrumental)
16. Baby, You’re A Rich Man (Takes 11 And 12)
17. All You Need Is Love (Rehearsal For BBC Broadcast)
18. The Fool On The Hill (Take 5 – Instrumental)
19. I Am The Walrus (Take 19 – Strings, Brass, Clarinet Overdub)
20. Hey Bulldog (Take 4 – Instrumental)
21. Good Night (Take 10 With A Guitar Part From Take 5)
22. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Third Version – Take 27)
23. (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Studio Jam)
24. Helter Skelter (Second Version – Take 17)
25. I Will (Take 29)
26. Can You Take Me Back? (Take 1)
27. Julia (Two Rehearsals)
28. Get Back (Take 8)
29. Octopus's Garden (Rehearsal)
30. Don't Let Me Down (First Rooftop Performance)
31. You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36)
32. Here Comes The Sun (Take 9)
33. Something (Take 39 – Instrumental – Strings Only)
34. Free As A Bird (2025 Mix)
35. Real Love (2025 Mix)
36. Now And Then

With 'Hourglass', Antibalas returns to its instrumental roots. Previous albums featured lyrics that addressed topics like patriarchy, climate change, militarism, late stage capitalism, oligarchy, white ethnonationalism, and the genocide of Native Americans. In this album the group rearticulates these themes, however speaking through melody and rhythm.

“Once a song has lyrics, everyone who doesn’t speak that language is on the outside. We use rhythm and melody to translate the emotions in the album and make it universally accessible,” explains the co-producer/founder Martin Perna.

The new album draws on compositions written by several current and emeritus members of the group. 'Hourglass' begins with a plaintive and ecstatic tenor saxophone solo before digging into an intense 12-8 groove. The group pivots with 'Lo-Life' highlighting the group’s ability to swing a lá Machito or the 1970s Ghanaian dance band leaders like Guedu Blay-Ambolley.

Others like 'Solace', 'Escape' and 'Lo Ceiba', conjure echoes of the classic Lagos afrobeat sound, albeit spoken with a Brooklyn accent. 'Oasis', the album's finale, is a step into a psychedelic unknown future, with a deep sense of liberatory funk eternally at its core. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Solace
2. Lo Life
3. Escape
4. Hourglass
5. La Ceiba
6. Oasis 

Grim days call for fierce love, and Mavis Staples, one of the most enduring
figures in American music, is laying it down.

'Sad And Beautiful World' is the latest solo album from a national treasure and
multigenerational talent.

Produced by Brad Cook, Sad And Beautiful World spans seven decades of the American songbook -- a range nearly as vast as Mavis' career -- and includes reinventions of timeless songs by Tom Waits, Sparklehorse, Gillian Welch, Frank Ocean and more.

Cook imagined an album in the tradition of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a group of artists coming together to celebrate community -- in this case, one centered on Mavis. Collaborators include Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Tweedy, Derek Trucks, Katie Crutchfield, MJ Lenderman, and Justin Vernon.

Inducted into several halls of fame (Blues, Rock, and Gospel), a Kennedy Center Honoree, a winner of multiple GRAMMYs (including a Lifetime Achievement Award), Mavis is musical history. She's collaborated with nearly every major figure of her era(s), from Bob Dylan to Prince, Aretha Franklin, and Willie Nelson -- not to mention countless stars from subsequent generations.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chicago
2. Beautiful Strangers
3. Sad And Beautiful World
4. Human Mind
5. Hard Times
6. Godspeed
7. We Got To Have Peace
8. Satisfied Mind
9. Anthem 
10. Everybody Needs Love

SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their second album, 'How You Been', finds the supergroup of prolific composer/producers pushing ever further into the hyperrealist, collectivist approach to music creation nascently explored on their debut 'Small Medium Large', which was lauded as "awe-inspiring" by Glide, "exuberant" by the Los Angeles Times, and "an exciting milestone" by Pitchfork.

'How You Been' represents a breakthrough in the musical language of the group. This new work was crafted via extensive post-production of recorded improvisations from a handful of shows in a similar fashion to their debut, but whereas 'Small Medium Large' was constructed from analog tapes of the band's very first (and very modest) shows at bygone Highland Park LA venue ETA, 'How You Been' was built with a far higher level of self-awareness and a far deeper pool of source material.

As SML has evolved and spread out in space-time, their fluencies, both as an improvising unit in performance and as a production team in the studio, have sharpened. At inception the band inspired disparate but distinctive artist comparisons like Essential Logic, Oval, Herbie Hancock's Sextant, and electric Miles Davis, as well as assorted genre touchpoints like Afrobeat, kosmiche, proto-techno and new-jazz. With 'How You Been' their work manages to both collapse and explode such derivatives, displaying a new, high resolution version of SML, fully-flowered into a new strain of sound, bound to incite its own copycats in due time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I realise the first thing people will think of when they see International Anthem is jazz music, and it kind of is jazz music but only in the same way that tomato is a fruit. For me, this sort of wildly percussive, fluid movement is more reminiscent of weirdo alt-electronic / post-rock like Battles or Errors. Your mileage may vary, either way it's properly fascinating and incredibly dextrous.

TRACK LISTING

1. Gutteral Utterance
2. Chicago Four
3. Taking Out The Trash
4. Plankton
5. Chicago Three
6. Daves
7. Old Mytth
8. Stepping In / The Loop
9. Brood Board SHROOM
10. Odd Evens
11. How You Been
12. Moving Walkway
13. Mouth Words

MJ Lenderman writes songs that are amorphous and elastic, rising to fill the
venue they're in, generous to accommodate the number of players on stage,
less concerned with replicating the studio version than they are with meeting
the crowd where they're at. On 'And the Wind (Live and Loose!)', the Asheville-based Lenderman handles most of the playing, but with The Wind, it's a multi-headed beast.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hangover Game
2. Knockin
3. You Have Bought Yourself A Boat
4. TLC Cagematch
5. Rudolph
6. Toon Town
7. Dan Marino
8. Under Control
9. SUV
10. Catholic Priest
11. Gentleman's Jack
12. Someone Get The Grill Out Of The Rain
13. You Are Every Girl To Me
14. Tastes Just Like It Costs
15. Long Black Veil (feat. Styrofoam Winos)

With 'Touch', the Tortoise bandmembers — Jeff Parker, Dan Bitney, Douglas McCombs, John Herndon, and John McEntire — harness their collectivist songwriting approach, a slightly anarchistic but resolutely egalitarian process where ideas triumph over ego towards an abstracted muscularity. While there are still excursions into the dusky, elegantly gnarled jazz ambience that flourished on landmark works like 'Millions Now Living Will Never Die' and 'TNT', 'Touch' is perhaps most remarkable for Tortoise's unapologetic embrace of grand gesture. Aerodynamically re-engineered Krautrock, hand-cranked techno rave-ups, and pointillist spaghetti western fanfares are all imbued with Tortoise's now-signature internal logic — equally alluring and confounding, a puzzle to be savored rather than solved.

The stylistic diversity is also a reflection of the band's current operating circumstances: With two members now in Los Angeles, another in Portland, and just two remaining in the band's Chicago hometown, their creative process has shifted dramatically from when they lived together in a loft space in the late 1990s, honing their sound over endless hours of collective experimentation.

Recorded between the three cities — Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago — Touch is the result of an intentional effort by these five musicians to reconnect, recenter, and reinvigorate their sound for what is perhaps the group’s most diverse release to date.

'Touch' is the culmination of a long-gestating reunion, the results of which Tortoise first shared this past March, when they released 'Oganesson' — "an off-kilter, 7/4 funk tune with a spy-movie ambience" ( New York Times) that is included on the new album — ahead of a career-spanning opening night performance at the boundary-crossing music festival Big Ears. They followed that with the 'Oganesson Remixes' EP, which featured reworks of the track from poet and activist Saul Williams, prolific mastering engineer Heba Kadry, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, indie music icons Broken Social Scene, and International Anthem labelmate Makaya McCraven.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vexations
2. Layered Presence
3. Works And Days
4. Elka
5. Promenade à Deux
6. Axial Seamount
7. A Title Comes
8. Rated OG
9. Oganesson
10. Night Gang

Ireland has had its fair share of international breakout successes recently,including Tompkins Square’s own discovery, Muireann Bradley. Perhaps less known is that Ireland is a wellspring of amazing solo acoustic guitar talent. Guitarist Cian Nugent recruited some of the leading lights of Irish guitar to create 'Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV : Ireland'. The release coincides with Tompkins Square's 20th Anniversary. The label launched October 25th, 2005 with the release of the first volume of its acclaimed guitar compilation series, 'Imaginational Anthem.’ The first four volumes of the guitar series featured early recordings by crucial figures such as James Blackshaw, Daniel Bachman, Nathan Salsburg and Jack Rose while re-discovering earlier masters like Suni McGrath, Michael Chapman, Max Ochs, Fred Gerlach, Steve Mann, and many more. Subsequent volumes were handed over for curation : Sam Moss Vol. 5 ; Chris King Vol. 6 ; Hayden Pedigo Vol. 7 ; Michael Klausman & Brooks Rice Vol. 8 ; Ryley Walker Vol. 9, Marcus Fruit Vol. 10 ; Luke Schneider Vol. 11 ; Henry Parker Vol. 12, James Toth Vol. 13, and Cian Nugent Vol. 14. In a full circle moment, a teenage Cian Nugent appeared on the cover of ‘Imaginational Anthem vol. 3’, and contributed one of his first solo compositions on that album. His liner notes for IAXIV illuminate the new project, highlighting each artist, and (rather humorously) framing the acoustic guitar in Irish music history.

“There’s a scene in Steve Coogan’s 1997 sitcom I’m Alan Partridge where the central character Alan starts talking to some Irish TV producers about Ireland and its varied poor representations (badly tarmacked driveways, people with eyebrows on their cheeks, and horses running through council estates) and suggests that perhaps a tagline for a new Irish era should be ‘There’s more to Ireland than this’. And while I didn’t quite have the facetious gall to call this album just that, the temptation did make me chuckle. Perhaps the intention of putting this collection together was to show a different side of Irish guitar. The guitar has often played a questionable role in Irish music. Its tendency towards bashing and harmonising has many times raised eyebrows at traditional sessions, and the good lord knows the dread that befalls faces when a guitar is produced unprovoked at a party. Passing a Dublin tourist trap pub, the sound of a plastic piezo strum can elicit horror in the passerby. But the guitar can also be a tool for dreaming and mystery. It can soothe a sleepless night or transport us in memory. This compilation includes guitar that does just these things by some of Ireland’s most imaginative guitarists. Some brief introductions: David Murphy is a pedal steel player from Cork who has recently been arranging Irish tunes for the steel in a way that is perfectly familiar yet unusual. The March of The King Of Laois is an old pipers’ tune from the 16th century, which David has worked his magic on arranging for the steel. Brendan Jenkinson is a guitarist and producer from Meath who I’ve known for a long time. I’ve often urged him to record some of his solo music, and he has finally given in and done just that, resenting his original Paris Blues. I am excited to see what comes next. Junior Brother AKA Ronan Kealy is a guitarist and songwriter from Kerry known for his powerful lyricism and singing, whose playing I’ve admired since I first heard it many years ago. He takes on the traditional tune The Lark In The Morning in a way I’ve never heard before, infusing it with joy. Caoimhe Hopkinson is a Irish-Okinawan guitarist from Mayo who grew up playing traditional music. She has become an in demand guitarist and bassist and her solo guitar playing has a unique and lyrical way of approaching traditional tunes fingerstyle such as Jamieson’s Favourite. Damian O’Neill is a guitarist from Derry who is probably best known for playing with the bands The Undertones and That Petrol Emotion. More recently he has been crafting reflective delicate instrumentals, which draw on traditional music and blend it with a contemporary sensibility, such as his original Inside Out. My own selection is a traditional Irish tune called I Am Asleep And Don’t Waken Me that I learned from the harp arrangement, which I’ve seen credited to both Turlough O’Carolan and Edward Bunting. Those who know me may notice the title’s aptness to my own wont to slumber. It seemed remiss to compile a record of Irish guitar music without mention of Arty McGlynn, the Tyrone guitarist who reimagined what was possible for the guitar in Irish music, exploring the instrument as a melodic vehicle rather than simply an accompaniment. Tyrone musicians Jerome McGlynn (son of Arty) and Mark McKowski (known as half of The Lost Brothers) render a beautiful take on Arty’s arrangement of the traditional tune The Blackbird. NC Lawlor is a guitarist originally from the north of England who has called Dublin home for a long time, and is known for providing beautiful live soundtracks to the city’s streets for many years. I’ve long been a fan of his playing and was excited to include his original Laurie Rose. Aonghus McEvoy is a guitarist and improviser from Dublin who I’ve known since we were teenagers. He grew up playing in punk bands and in more recent years has taken to exploring solo acoustic playing. His arrangement of Jimmy Guiffre’s Cry, Want is processed into a drastically different context, giving space for him to roam the melody and ruminate over the form. Sean Carpio is an Irish Peruvian musician from Dublin who is usually known as a jazz drummer but never ceases to confound and surprise people by the many strings to his bow. He has a solo guitar practice that he has been developing almost in secret for many years and I was pleased to bully him into recording some of it for this record. His piece Labour of Love is an original written while watching the James Graham play of the same title on television. In Sean’s own words, “although not connected directly to the meaning of the play, it was still about the dedication it takes to make a change, even often beyond your lifetime”. So hopefully beyond the rising rents, tourist traps and badly tarmacked driveways this collection shows there is more to Ireland than this.” Cian Nugent Dublin, 2025

TRACK LISTING

1. David Murphy -- The March Of The King Of Laois
2. Brendan Jenkinson - Paris Blues
3. Junior Brother - The Lark In The Morning
4. Caoimhe Hopkinson - Jamiesons Favourite
5. Damian O'Neill - Inside Out
6. Cian Nugent - I Am Asleep And Do Not Wake Me
7. Mark McKowski & Jerome McGlynn - The Blackbird
8. NC Lawlor - Laurie Rose
9. Aonghus McEvoy - Cry, Want
10. Sean Carpio - Labour Of Love

2x GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter Madi Diaz is known for searing
explorations of romance and has created her most powerful statement.

Raw and stripped down, 'Fatal Optimist' is Madi at her most intimate and most bold. She and producer, Gabe Wax (Soccer Mommy, Zach Bryan), set out to strip these songs back, relying on her performance and her writing. The result is a classic and timeless indie-folk album. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Hope Less
2. Ambivalence
3. Feel Something
4. Good Liar
5. Lone Wolf
6. Heavy Metal
7. If Time Does What It's Supposed To
8. Flirting
9. Why'd You Have To Bring Me Flowers
10. Time Difference
11. Fatal Optimist

'Blight' asks many questions without offering easy answers. Over the course of nine new songs, The Antlers' founder and primary songwriter Silberman reckons with our passively destructive tendencies - absent- minded pollution, unwitting wastefulness, and the inadvertent devastation of the natural world. But despite its heavy themes, 'Blight' is far from a punishing listen. With its adventurous arrangements and persistent momentum, it plays more like an iridescent odyssey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Consider The Soruce
2. Pour
3. Carnage
4. Blight
5. Something In The Air
6. Deactivate
7. Calamity
8. A Great Flood
9. They Lost All Of Us
10. Need Nothing *
11. Tide *
12. Rains *
13. I Was Not There *
14. Ahimsa *

* Deluxe LP Only

As if cosmically enacted, Neko Case breaks to the surface once again with
the new album 'Neon Grey Midnight Green' and reminds listeners that she is one of our greatest living songwriters - perpetually becoming more fearless and adventurous.

Her first new music this decade, 'Neon Grey Midnight Green' follows 2018's 'Hell-On', an eclectic piece that The Guardian called "a pitch-perfect roar of female defance." Her latest is no less urgent but carries a deep blue streak of sentimentality in its incandescent blaze. The album pays tribute to the musicians, producers and activists who have passed away in recent years, all artists Neko was lucky enough to call not just infuences but close friends. She rises on the shoulders of her musical heroes, using the tools they lent her to create her most inspired work.

TRACK LISTING

1. Destination
2. Tomboy Gold
3. Wreck
4. Winchester Mansion Of Sound
5. An Ice Age
6. Neon Grey Midnight Green
7. Oh Neglect...
8. Louise
9. Rusty Mountain
10. Little Gears
11. Baby, I'm Not (A Werewolf)
12. Match-Lit

'Kaleidoscopic Visions' unfolds across two distinct sonic landscapes. Side A presents entirely instrumental compositions performed by Skinner's live Bishara band—bassist Tom Herbert, cellist Kareem Dayes, and Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael on various woodwinds and reeds—with electric guitar on two tracks courtesy of Portishead's Adrian Utley. A drummer-composer bringing his wealth of experience to bear on the role of bandleader, Skinner composed primarily on guitar, embracing the freedom that came with writing on his secondary instrument.

These compositions include 'Auster', dedicated to late novelist Paul Auster, and 'Margaret Anne', which honours Skinner's mother Anne Shasby, a former classical concert pianist prodigy who abandoned her own promising career in the face of systemic misogyny, only to impart on her son what Skinner calls "the gift of music."

Skinner’s musical world opens further on Side B, where a collection of poised vocal collaborations stretch out from jazz and improvisation towards a more dream-like, soulful sound. The centerpiece is 'The Maxim', a ten-minute collaboration with Grammy Award-winning Meshell Ndegeocello, a dubby, spacious meditation on life and death, delivered with a free-spirited grace. For Skinner, working with Ndegeocello—whom he first saw at Glastonbury as a teenager in 1994—represents a full-circle moment, indicative of the indirect paths and inspirational detours that have shaped his life.

The album goes on to feature South Carolina-based singer Contour (Khari Lucas) who appears on the low-lit soul ballad ‘Logue’, and closes with ‘See How They Run’, featuring London keyboardist-vocalist Yaffra (Jonathan Geyevu). It is the album’s most overtly lyrical track, an articulate exposition of jazz-inflected spoken word that speaks not only to the genre-fluid nature of the music but the breadth of Skinner’s palette.

This should come as no surprise. 'On Kaleidoscopic Visions', one of London’s most vital musical figures gives us a sparkling glimpse of the multi-coloured lens through which his unique sound is now refracting.

TRACK LISTING

1. There's Nothing To Be Scared Of
2. Auster
3. Margaret Anne
4. Kaleidoscopic Visions
5. MHA
6. Still (Quiet)
7. The Maxim (feat. Meshell Ndegeocello)
8. Extensions 12
9. Logue (feat. Contour)
10. See How They Run (feat. Yaffra)

The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album By Myself, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’.

Voices of Bishara began life when Tom Skinner asked some musician friends to join him for a Played Twice session at London’s Brilliant Corners. The regular event had a simple format: play a classic album in full through their audiophile system and then have an elite ensemble improvise their response. The night in question focused on drummer Tony Williams’ 1964 Blue Note album Life Time and the music he and his friends conjured up was so special that it inspired Skinner to write an album’s-worth of phenomenal new music based on the work of Wadud, with a process inspired by this group-reimagining of Life Time.

The result is a tight, hypnotic and unique 31-minutes of music. Voices of Bishara is sculpted around timeless and deeply emotional music that contains masses of movement and exceptional harmonic depth and texture. It sweeps and soars through soundworlds, rich in musicality and always anchored by the deep doubling of cello and bass. It also, of course, contains Skinner’s percussive magic.

“We’re individual voices, coming together collectively,” says Skinner. “The idea was that we could collectively bring something more positive to the table. It’s the start of something.”

Tom Skinner and Voices of Bishara: bringers of good news.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Bishara – 5:37
2. Red 2 – 2:57
3. The Journey – 5:01

Side B
4. The Day After Tomorrow – 4:59
5. Voices (of The Past) – 4:50
6. Quiet As It’s Kept – 4:03

Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople is the first collaborative album from poet/vocalist Saul Williams and percussionist/producer Carlos Niño. The album was recorded live underneath black oak and walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2024.

The performance, which was organized by Noah Klein of Living Earth on the grounds of longstanding conservationist organization TreePeople, was the first of its kind for Williams and Niño, who have been friends since the late 1990s.

For the occasion, Niño assembled and directed an ensemble of frequent collaborators including Nate Mercereau (Guitar Synthesizer, Live Sampling with Midi Guitar, Sample Sources), Aaron Shaw (Flute, Soprano Saxophone with Pedals, Tenor Saxophone), Andres Renteria (Bells, Congas, Egyptian Rattle Drum, Hand Drums, Percussion), Maia (Flute, Vibraphone, Voice), Francesca Heart (Computer, Conch Shell, Sound Design), and Kamasi Washington (Tenor Saxophone). 

TRACK LISTING

1. Sound Then Words
2. We Would Lift Our Voice...
3. We Are Calling Out In This Moment...
4. The Water Is Rising / As We Surpass The Firing Squad…
5. We Have Work To Do... (Speaking After The Concert)

Angel Bat Dawid's International Anthem debut 'The Oracle' introduced her multifaceted voice to the world. The response to its modest, initial cassette/digital release in January of 2019 was immediate, and immense. Within a month of its announcement, Dawid was being featured on magazine covers and receiving offers from international festivals; and her subsequent activity marked the beginning of an epic run of creative output (including 2020's 'LIVE' double LP, the same year's EP 'Transition East', 2021's 'Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology', and the sprawling opus 'Requiem for Jazz', released in 2023) that continues through the present.

The collection of compositions on The Oracle present a deep blend of powerful and emotive songs alongside heavy and free improvisation. In true DIY fashion, Dawid recorded and mixed the album using only her cell phone.

"Angel's fieldnote approach affirms that the everyday remains a legitimate site of creative production," says South Africa based percussionist, collaborator, and IARC labelmate Asher Gamedze in his liner notes for the album's IA11 Edition. Gamedze - the only other musician to appear on 'The Oracle' besides Dawid, who constructed most of the album's tracks by layering, overdubbing, and arranging lo-fi symphonies of her own voice, wind instruments, percussions, and keyboards - waxes extensively about Dawid's significance in his notes, calling her "a living exemplar and extension of the spacious sonic horizons opened by the likes of the AACM and their refusal of any limitations on their creative vision and the destruction of the demarcation between composer and improviser."

TRACK LISTING

1. Destination (Dr. Yusef Lateef)
2. Black Family
3. What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black (Dr. Margaret Burroughs)
4. Impepho
5. We Are Starzz
6. London
7. Capetown (feat. Asher Simiso Gamedze)
8. The Oracle

Broken Social Scene’s breakthrough album 'You Forgot It In People' has cemented its place amongst indie rock’s greatest. 'ANTHEMS: A Celebration of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People' is a front-to-back tribute to the hallowed Toronto band’s 2003 masterpiece. The album reimagines 'You Forgot It In People' with cover versions from today’s indie music icons, including Toro y Moi, The Weather Station, serpentwithfeet, and more

TRACK LISTING

1. Hovvdy - KC Accidental
2. Toro Y Moi - Stars And Sons
3. Miya Folick & Hand Habits - Almost Crimes
4. The Weather Station - Looks Just Like The Sun
5. Mdou Moctar, Mikey Coltun - Pacific Theme
6. Maggie Rogers & Sylvan Esso - Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl
7. Middle Kids - Cause = Time
8. Benny Sings - Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries
9. SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - Shampoo Suicide
10. Serpentwithfeet - Lover's Spit
11. Sessa - Ainda Sou Seu Moleque

Suede have announced details of their 10th studio album ‘Antidepressants’. Due for release on 5th September via BMG, the album is a milestone achievement that sees the band at the top of their game. It follows the success of their critically-acclaimed ninth top 10 album ‘Autofiction’ released in September 2022, which charted at No.2 on the UK Albums Chart and was their highest-charting release in over 20 years.

Suede will celebrate the release of ‘Antidepressants’ with a takeover of London’s Southbank Centre, through a series of exciting live performances kicking off in September, Suede’s four-night residency will commence with two consecutive nights at the Royal Festival Hall on September 13th and 14th, followed on September 17th by an intimate stripped-back performance at the Purcell Room, culminating in a collaboration with the Paraorchestra on September 19th at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Suede were there before Oasis, hammering away at the Britpop bell, but they've not stayed there, they've chameleonically and expertly shifted through various states of indie-adjacent heaviness and landed on 'Antidepressants', a roaring garagey slab of snarling post-britpop heft. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

Standard Format
1. Disintegrate
2. Dancing With The Europeans
3. Antidepressants
4. Sweet Kid
5. The Sound And The Summer
6. Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star
7. Broken Music For Broken People
8. Criminal Ways
9. Trance State
10. June Rain
11. Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment

Deluxe Formats
1. Disintegrate
2. Dancing With The Europeans
3. Antidepressants
4. Sweet Kid
5. The Sound And The Summer
6. Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star
7. Broken Music For Broken People
8. Criminal Ways
9. Trance State
10. June Rain
11. Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment
12. Dirty Looks
13. Sharpening Knives
14. Overload

In the making of his fourth full-length, the Atlanta-based singer/songwriter dreamed up a batch of songs exploring the longing and unease of being far from home--a true-to-life refection he soon expanded into an elaborate concept album about a pilot lost in space.

The latest addition to an acclaimed catalogue including his 2017 breakthrough Face Your Fear (co-produced by Danger Mouse), 'Departures & Arrivals: The Adventures of Captain Curt' merges the lavish scope of a space opera with the pure feeling of classic soul--ultimately bringing an even greater potency to his wildly eclectic sound.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Gorgeously evocative soul music rendered in laid-back country rock guitars and rolling basses, reminiscent of the chill of Khruangbin / Leon Bridges' 'Texas Sun' or Jalen Ngonda's Daptone hit, 'Come Around And Love Me'.

TRACK LISTING

1. There She Goes
2. Out In The Black
3. Banh Me
4. Time
5. Hard As Stone
6. The Power
7. True Love Can't Be Blind
8. I'm With You
9. Felt It Inside
10. The Winter Soldier
11. Running Outta Space

Written in Los Angeles and self- recorded in the band's hometown of Auckland, 'Straight Line Was A Lie' (their first release for ANTI-) follows 2022's critically celebrated LP 'Expert in A Dying Field'. Lead singer and songwriter Liz Stokes delves deeper into her psyche to address everything from roundabout progress to physical and mental health challenges, and fraught family dynamics. Inspired by The Go-Go's, Olivia Rodrigo, flmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and Stephen King's On Writing, amongst others, Stokes' songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability.

Fans will agree that 'Straight Line Was A Lie' is the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: While the high moments on The Beths' brilliant 'The Straight Line Was A Lie' are amongst the most profoundly beautiful and deeply melodic of their career, the album is a much more nuanced exploration of the human condition warts and all. There are pieces that swim with melodicism but drift into near-mournful placidity. It's a beautifully nuanced, gorgeously evocative indie-rock opus.

TRACK LISTING

1. Straight Line Was A Lie
2. Mosquitoes
3. No Joy
4. Metal
5. Mother Pray For Me
6. Til My Heart Stops
7. Take
8. Roundabout
9. Ark Of The Covenant
10. Best Laid Plans

“For many bands, having all their gear stolen would be catastrophic. For Third Ear Band, this unfortunate 1968 incident opened a portal to beneficial change. Leader/percussionist Glen Sweeney viewed the heist as a sign to alter Third Ear Band’s approach, and they switched to exclusively using acoustic instruments. With electrified psychedelia in full bloom, Sweeney, Paul Minns (oboe, recorder, whistles, flutes) and Richard Coff (violin, viola) struck out on an individualistic path, blending Indian raga with chamber music—without plugging in.

“Third Ear Band’s 1969 debut album, Alchemy, established them as a solemn, powerful force in the global underground. On Alchemy, Sweeney laid down a steady pulse on hand drums, while Minns and Coff wove in melismatic patterns on oboe, recorder, violin and viola. This approach carried over to Third Ear Band’s self-titled sophomore album, often called Elements due to its track titles being named after the four basic components of medieval European alchemists’ doctrines.

“On this 1970 LP, Third Ear Band sounded at once ancient and contemporary, yet they turned on the hippies with their epic, trance-inducing jams that suggested secret knowledge of infinity. Although Third Ear Band flourished during the West’s countercultural zenith, they were peculiarly estranged from it on a sonic level. Even outré contemporaries such as Comus and Jan Dukes De Grey sounded like pop groups compared to TEB. Having no traditional front person or electric instruments, Third Ear Band forged a singular path that flowered most vividly on Elements.

“The long songs here stream forth from their skilled hands, evoking a communal transcendence in sound—a hypnotic swirl that doesn’t swing, but rather wafts and undulates with cloistered beauty. TEB’s music exists in an eternal now, a perpetual wow. It is an ouroboros of organic textures, seemingly magicked into the air spontaneously, yet possessing a rigor that suggests long hours in the lab. Without electricity, it somehow burrowed deeper into your consciousness.”

— Dave Segal (excerpt from the liner notes).

TRACK LISTING

1. Air
2. Earth
3. Fire
4. Wind

Maybe I’m Dreaming is the latest collection selected by Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring) and Keith Abrahamsson (Founder and Head of A&R at Anthology Recordings), the mangled minds behind the beloved Follow the Sun, Sad About the Times, and …Still Sad compilations. The twenty tracks of Dreaming make a conscious, and unconscious, detour from its predecessors, sourced entirely from private press releases, spanning new decades and production modes within homespun folk, soft rock, and otherwise 70s and 80s FM radio adjacent music. The magic of Dreaming is the untold story of the artists behind these songs; those who missed the big time, but whose song craft and unrequited care hit the right notes, both high and low.

Where Follow the Sun and Sad About the Times introduced us to the fame chasing, ambition crashing crooners who missed their shot in the mainstream, Dreaming delves deeper into the isolated wilds — a private world where production quirks, late-night tape hiss, and one-man studio dreams were not necessarily a choice but the hand that was dealt. With the parameters set to "private press only,” Young and Abrahamsson follow a circuitous trail of invention and emotion, documenting a spirit that’s more homespun, sometimes lonelier, and often a little weirder. The guitars still strum, but the keyboards’ hum is more prevalent and precious; wistful harmonies brush up against lo-fi drum machines; a bittersweet fog lingering over even the brightest melodies.

As with their previous collaborations, Young and Abrahamsson weren’t interested in constructing a museum or drafting a historical survey. Dreaming is a sentimental mixtape, assembled late at night when the mind wanders and old memories blur with imagined futures, those within reach and those far too mysterious to ever encounter. Songs were unearthed in personal collections, deep YouTube burrows, dilapidated web archives, and the dim corners of Discogs, with many selections tied not only to intuition but to personal connection. Some tracks arrived via friends — Kelley Stoltz, a frequent guide for Young, tipped him off to both Peter Kraemer’s lost gem “Let the Light Slip” and Awakening’s revelatory closer — adding an unseen but deeply felt thread of camaraderie to the compilation.

The journey takes in a wide, strange sweep: The Watson Brothers Band's “Just Whistle” opens the collection with a sigh and a shrug, a song that feels like it’s been waiting for decades to be heard again. Jim Huxley’s “Tessa on a Magazine,” rediscovered after a long and winding search by Young, shimmers with a distinctly Australian melancholia. The heartbreak of Rick Penta's “My Story Changes” and Twice As Nice’s delicate “Thoughts of You” float easily alongside the more buoyant, radio-dream sheen of Barracuda’s Baby “I Love You” and MAK’s sunshine-dappled “That's Life.”

Widening the aperture to the late 70s and early 80s allows for a deeper exploration into evolving production techniques and musical technologies. The Squad’s “D.L.M.H.I.M.A.” and Christoph Spendel Group’s “Forever” crackle with the kind of bedroom synth warmth that could only come from the analog age, while the soulful, yearning undercurrent of Awakening’s “Gotta Do Somethin / Might As Well Cultivate” caps the collection with a call for action — or maybe just acceptance – in an accidental Brian Eno Here Come the Warm Jets parroting.

While Dreaming moves away from the "sad man with guitar" archetype that hovered over its predecessors, it remains tethered to a familiar emotional gravity — a balance of longing and lightness that defines this corner of the musical universe. Each track shuffles gently between resignation and hope, sadness and serenity, as if the artists themselves were chasing a dream just beyond reach, recording not for fame but for the simple act of getting it, that primal, creative itch, out into the world.

The result is a collection that feels both ephemeral and eternal. A flicker caught in amber. A transmission from the other side of the night; a place where the angels and demons mingle, sharing shots and lines with those that enter their parlor. Dreaming is an invitation to drift a little while longer, eyes half-closed, into that liminal space between memory and imagination. Maybe you're dreaming. Maybe you're awake. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Gorgeously evocative drifters that span the psychedelic spectrum, from saturated folk and woozy country to blipping synthpop and bold, bubbling minimalism, all perfectly slotted together. A proper melting pot of influence, brought together with clear respect for the source material, and a deep field of knowledge.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1. The Watson Brothers Band - Just Whistle
A2. Jim Huxley - Tessa On A Magazine
A3. Rick Penta - My Story Changes
A4. MAK - That's Life
A5. Palm Pizazz! - Silent Letter
A6. Twice As Nice - Thoughts Of You

Side B
B1. Barracuda - Baby I Love You
B2. Elderberry Jak - Forrest On The Mountain
B3. Dennis - Walk With Me
B4. Jim Ware - Green Eyed Gypsy
B5. John Lyle - Oh My Wind

Side C
C1. Peter Kraemer - Let The Light Slip
C2. Brian Freel - Nightrider
C3. Michael Moore - Holland
C4. Clete Stallbaumer - John's Song
C5. Ronnie White - The Jump

Side D
D1. David Owens - Take Off Your Armour
D2. The Squad - D.L.M.H.I.M.A.
D3. Christoph Spendel Group - Forever
D4. Awakening - Gotta Do Somethin / Might As Well Cultivate

It has been over a decade since Anthony Mills created his most celebrated project, Wildcookie. Filled with joints like "Heroine" and "Serious Drug," the project broke into numerous radio playlists, including Gilles Peterson's show, turning those tracks into underground hits. The Cookie Dough album captured listeners' hearts worldwide, and even after all these years, it remains a favorite on streaming platforms. Fourteen years after that success, Anthony Mills makes his long-awaited return, teaming up with Marek “Latarnik” Pędziwiatr to create Crack Rock—a bold evolution of the Wildcookie legacy.

The warm, jazzy beats centered around the Fender Rhodes sound, a hallmark of Wildcookie, have given way in Crack Rock to compositions rooted in the 1980s, crafted by Marek Pędziwiatr. The keyboardist of bands like EABS, Błoto, and Zima Stulecia, Pędziwiatr fully utilized his extensive collection of synthesizers. Together with Anthony Mills, Marek Pędziwiatr delved into the nuances of the yacht rock genre during their studio sessions, drawing inspiration from icons like Fleetwood Mac and Michael McDonald. They retained the genre's essence: high production quality, clean vocals, and a focus on light, catchy melodies. Eventually, their love for experimentation has led them into unfamiliar territory. The final result turned out vastly different from their initial vision—yacht rock began to crack and fray at the seams. Thus, Crack Rock was born, accompanied by a clever play on words.

A multilayered play on words is Anthony Mills’ hallmark, and the band’s name not only nods to the genre but also delves deeper into the themes found on the album. As the vocalist shares: “I listened to the song Crack on repeat. It brought me to tears more than once. Growing up in the crack era was incredibly painful. The PTSD I endured has now become a powerful source of inspiration for me.”

The challenging backdrop against which Anthony Mills paints his stories gives the songs about love and human relationships a far-from-perfect edge. His music embodies a sense of “cold love”—a unique kind of feeling that lures you in with its charm and splendor, only to reveal itself as destructive. Yet, you keep coming back for more. This love is contagious, intensely addictive—just like another hit of crack.

Exploring this addictive state also became the central theme in the collaboration of the Crack Rock duo, transforming into a multidimensional sonic landscape. Beneath the surface of light, catchy songs lie serious, pain-laden themes hidden in metaphor. “I see this album as therapy, as well as a testament to the magic we create in the studio. Our creative process is a mysterious blend of musical mastery and deep, layered conversations about life. For me, it feels like soul cleansing,” says Marek Pędziwiatr.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Inviting
A2. Crack
A3. Ratchet
A4. C
A5. Passive Lover
A6. Neck
B1. Candy Apple Red
B2. Glue
B3. Le Jardin
B4. Stay Ready
B5. Lurk

'Gilles Peterson presents International Anthem' is a compilation chronicling the legendary London-based radio host, DJ, label head, curator and cultural impresario's long-standing affinity for and interaction with artists and music from the Chicago-born record label International Anthem.

The tracks on this compilation were chosen by Peterson via an extensive review of track lists from his broadcasts on BBC Radio 6 Music, Worldwide FM, and various syndicated radio programs. The compilation also includes a previously unreleased track recorded live on the Peterson-founded online radio station Worldwide FM.

This album is released via International Anthem as part of their "IA11" series of releases and events - where the label celebrates their eleventh year of existence by looking back on their first ten years while establishing new standards for the next ten years.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chicago, January 13th, 2020
2. Makaya McCraven - The Jaunt
3. Junius Paul - Asé
4. Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger - The Creator Has A Master Plan
5. Resavoir - Taking Flight
6. Irreversible Entanglements - Open The Gates
7. Angel Bat Dawid - We Are Starzz
8. Rob Mazurek - Exploding Star Orchestra - Abstract Dark Energy (Parable 9)
9. The Most Amazing Time
10. Damon Locks - Black Monument Ensemble - Rebuild A Nation
11. Dos Santos - A Shot In The Dark
12. Daniel Villarreal - In/On
13. Anna Butterss - Pokemans
14. SML - Industry
15. Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Snåcko
16. Jeff Parker - Cliche
17. Jamire Williams - And Then The Anointing Fell
18. Carlos Niño & Friends - Please, Wake Up.
19. Thandi Ntuli With Carlos Niño - Voice And Tongo Experiment
20. Tom Skinner - Quiet As It’s Kept
21. Ruth Goller - Next Time I Keep My Hands Down
22. Alabaster DePlume - A Gente Acaba (Vento Em Rosa)
23. Old Fashioned Chicago Music
24. Jaimie Branch - Theme 001 (live)
25. Tomin - Angela’s Angel
26. Asher Gamedze - Melancholia
27. Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly - MESTIZX (Brownswood Basement Live)
28. Ben LaMar Gay - Oh Great Be The Lake
29. Charles Stepney - Step On Step 

Irreversible Entanglements’ self-titled debut album was originally released in September 2017, and features the first music ever played together by the freshly assembled super-group of Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), Luke Stewart, Keir Neuringer, Aquiles Navarro, and Tcheser Holmes. The explosive collection of improvised free-jazz with spoken word accompaniment was born after the group's initial meeting at a “Musicians Against Police Brutality” event following the state-sponsored killing of Akai Gurley.

As the OG press release puts it, “the spirit and subject the band channels and explores represent a return to a central tenet of the free jazz sound as it was founded—to be a vehicle for Black liberation. As creative and adventurous as any recording of contemporary avant-garde jazz but offering listeners no abstractions to hide behind, this is music that both honors and defies tradition, speaking to the present while insisting on the future.”

The IA11 Edition LP features our IARC 2025 obi strip, plus a new 8-page 11x11" insert booklet with unpublished session photos and new liner notes by Irreversible Entanglements bassist Luke Stewart.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chicago To Texas
2. Fireworks
3. Enough
4. Projects

One of the hardest working singer- songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she's never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo- fi folk to lush alt- tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers's Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.

And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City- after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road- Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse- an ethnologist of the self- forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she's arriving at revelations and she ain't holding them back.

TRACK LISTING

3 Sisters
Evil Spawn
Ice Cold
Right Back To It
Burns Out At Midnight
Bored
Lone Star Lake
Crimes Of The Heart
Crowbar
365
The Wolves
Tigers Blood

Gay's de facto debut album—the 2018 compilation 'Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun'—properly introduced him to the world by placing fifteen stylistically diverse tracks from seven then-unreleased albums next to one another. The release of his critically-acclaimed 2021 song cycle 'Open Arms To Open Us' followed, and then the explosive free-electronics of 2022’s 'Certain Reveries'. In addition to being featured on a staggering number of International Anthem releases (including albums by Makaya McCraven, jaimie branch, Damon Locks, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly), Gay is one of the most prolific collaborators in creative music today, making active contributions to Mike Reed’s Separatist Party, Joshua Abrams’s Natural Information Society, Bitchin Bajas, Theaster Gates’s Black Monks of Mississippi, and many more.

A uniting factor in Gay's deep, multi-faceted discography is a never-ending commitment to taking the stories of the past and pushing them outward, filtered through a sense of self, to keep that information moving. Information moves through 'Yowzers' via the intuitive physicality of Gay’s creative polyrhythmic constructions, as he covertly delivers familiar folk melodies. “It’s the most natural thing,” says Gay. “That’s how the world is. There are overlapping rhythms all around us, and so it reminds you of the reality of the world when you hear them. It’s a loop and the loop is always changing.”

'Yowzers' features Gay's working quartet with Tommaso Moretti (drums, percussion, voice), Matthew Davis (tuba, piano, bells, voice), and Will Faber (guitar, ngoni, bells, voice), as well as guest instrumentalist Rob Frye and a mini-choir comprising vocalists Ayanna Woods, Tramaine Parker, and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu. The album recalls the high-minded freedom of Liberation Music Orchestra, the glitched-out electronic webs of Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, the unbridled rhythms and sandpaper bellows of Bukka White, and the harmolodic cartoon glory of Arthur Blythe’s Illusions. It’s all there, filtered through an improvisational approach and a lifetime of secrets embodied. For a man who has inhabited and traveled these continents so extensively, it’s safe to call this work true “Americana,” despite what that word might mean to the average person in the United States. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Yowzers
2. The Glorification Of Small Victories
3. There, Inside The Morning Glory
4. Roller Skates
5. For Breezy
6. I Am (bells)
7. Promontory
8. John, John Henry
9. Damn You Cute
10. Cumulus
11. Touch
12. Leave Some For You

Manchester-based poet, writer and producer Antony Szmierek rose to prominence on the Manchester spoken word scene with his 2023 single “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fallacy”. His debut book Roadmap, launched at Hay Festival 2025, is a hyper-visual experience, packed with exclusive material. It includes Szmierek’s debut album lyrics and an ‘exploded view’ on the tracks, alongside additional poems, sketches and stories, presented as a full-colour paperback.

Hand-break off, SPORTS TEAM are back. With musical pedals to the metal and saxophones at full throttle, the Mercury-nominated six-piece bring us their third studio album, Boys These Days. After their first two, Top 3 records – the Mercury Prize-nominated ‘Deep Down Happy’ (2020) and ‘Gulp!’ (2022).

Think Prefab Sprout meets Roxy Music the band ally a seer-like lyrical insight with their most dynamic musical performances to date, Sports Team are piercing the content abyss. A “carousel of 21st-century sins”, this witty and insightful examination of modern life is both a critique and a celebration of its times. Yes, ‘Boys These Days’ takes aim at everything from advertising hype to relationship dysfunction, stationed at the point where the digital tide crashes onto IRL shores, but their perspective is fuelled by immersion in that landscape as Sports Team are scrolling along with the rest of us.

Though recorded in Bergen, the birthplace of black metal, the sessions at the start of 2024 saw Sports Team create their brightest and most beguiling record yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. I'm In Love (Subaru)
2. Boys These Days
3. Moving Together
4. Condensation
5. Sensible
6. Planned Obsolescence
7. Bang Bang Bang
8. Head To Space
9. Bonnie
10. Maybe When We're 30