30 year anniversary of the perfect album. 12 tracks of high-voltage power-pop that still sound as urgent and melodic as ever, from the adrenaline rush of ‘Lose Control’ to the widescreen closer ‘Darkside Lightside’.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting:
1. Lose Control (2022 Remaster)
2. Goldfinger (2022 Remaster)
3. Girl from Mars (2022 Remaster)
4. I’d Give You Anything (2022 Remaster)
5. Gone the Dream (2022 Remaster)
6. Kung Fu (2022 Remaster)
7. Oh Yeah (2022 Remaster)
8. Let It Flow (2022 Remaster)
9.  Innocent Smile (2022 Remaster)
10. Angel Interceptor (2022 Remaster)
11. Lost in You (2022 Remaster)
12. Darkside Lightside (2022 Remaster)
13. Day Of The Triffids (2026 Remaster)
14. Luther Ingo's Star Cruiser (2026 Remaster)
15. Astra Conversations With Toulouse Lautrec (2026 Remaster)
16. Cantina Band (2026 Remaster)
17. 5am Eternal (2026 Remaster)
18. Gimme Some Truth (2026 Remaster)
19. I Need Somebody (2026 Remaster)
20. Sneaker (2026 Remaster)
21. Get Ready* (2026 Remaster)
22. T Rex (2026 Remaster)
23. Everywhere Is All Around (2026 Remaster)
24. Does Your Mother Know (2026 Remaster)

CD Tracklisting:
1. Lose Control (2022 Remaster)
2. Goldfinger (2022 Remaster)
3. Girl from Mars (2022 Remaster)
4. I’d Give You Anything (2022 Remaster)
5. Gone the Dream (2022 Remaster)
6. Kung Fu (2022 Remaster)
7. Oh Yeah (2022 Remaster)
8. Let It Flow (2022 Remaster)
9. Innocent Smile (2022 Remaster)
10. Angel Interceptor (2022 Remaster)
11. Lost in You (2022 Remaster)
12. Darkside Lightside (2022 Remaster)
13. Bittersweet Blue (2022 Remaster)
14. Oh Yeah (2026 version)
15. Girl From Mars (Demo 2026 Mix)
16. Gone The Dream (Acoustic 2026 Mix)
17. Lose Control (Live from STABAL)
18. Goldfinger (Live from STABAL)
19. Girl from Mars (Live from STABAL)
20. I’d Give You Anything (Live from STABAL)
21. Gone the Dream (Live from STABAL)
22. Kung Fu (Live from STABAL)
23. Oh Yeah (Live from STABAL)
24. Let It Flow (Live from STABAL)
25. Innocent Smile (Live from STABAL)
26. Angel Interceptor (Live from STABAL)
27. Lost in You (Live from STABAL)
28. Darkside Lightside (Live from STABAL)
29. Coasting (Live from STABAL)
30. Sneaker (Live from STABAL)
31. American Devil (Live from STABAL)
32. T. Rex (Live from STABAL)
33. Punk Boy (Live from STABAL)
34. Silver Surfer (Live from STABAL)

The definitive story of the making and legacy of Paul Simon's Graceland. In 1984, Paul Simon was at a professional and personal crossroads. His marriage was failing, his career was in danger of declining and the music scene was shifting to a world of synths, drum machines and music videos. But a chance encounter with the sounds of South Africa created a spark, recalling the joy of the early rock and roll days and inspiring a bold new direction.

Simon travelled to Johannesburg in 1985 which would become the first step on a musical journey that would lead him to New York, Los Angeles, Louisiana and London, culminating in Graceland, a global phenomenon that won multiple Grammys, sold millions of records and helped redefine popular music. Days of Miracle and Wonder is the first book to tell the full story, offering a richly detailed account of artistic collaboration, technical innovation and cultural exchange, alongside the controversies that the album raised and which remain today. It sheds light on a rare cultural moment when America opened its doors to global sounds and a masterpiece emerged from a complex and divided world.

Fresh off the back of his latest #3 UK charting album 'Lovin You', Richard Ashcroft releases his first ever live album, a collection of recordings spanning his solo career as well as highlights from The Verve.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sonnet
2. Out Of My Body
3. A Song For The Lovers
4. This Is How It Feels
5. Break The Night With Colour
6. Velvet Morning
7. The Drugs Don’t Work
8. Hold On
9. Lucky Man
10. Cmon People
11. They Don’t Own Me
12. Music Is Power
13. Bittersweet Symphony

Considered the most accomplished modern jazz harpist, Dorothy Ashby established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument. She proved the harp could play bebop as adeptly as the instruments commonly associated with jazz. Presented here is one of her best albums, The Jazz Harpist, presenting her in a quartet format backed by Frank Wess on flute, Eddie Jones and Wendell Marshall alternating on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums.

Includes the bonus tracks: 'There's A Small Hotel', 'Back Talk', 'Charmaine', and 'Dancing In The Dark'.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Thou Swell
2. Stella By Starlight
3. Dancing On The Ceiling
4. Aeolian Groove
5. There's A Small Hotel

Side 2
1. Quietude
2. Spicy
3. Lamentation
4. Back Talk
5. Charmaine
6. Dancing In The Dark

Considered the most accomplished modern jazz harpist, Dorothy Ashby (1932-1986) established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument. She proved the harp could play bebop as adeptly as the instruments commonly associated with jazz. Presented here is one of her best albums, Dorothy Ashby Plays for Beautiful People (Prestige PR7639 - also issued as In a Minor Groove), a 1958 quartet session featuring venerable players Frank Wess, Herman Wright, and Roy Haynes.

Includes the bonus track track: 'Moonlight In Vermont'.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Rascality
2. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
3. It's A Minor Thing
4. Yesterdays
5. Moonlight In Vermont

Side 2
1. Bohemia After Dark
2. Taboo
3. Autumn In Rome
4. Alone Together

Mega slice of Peven Everett basement soul here nicely touched up by masters Danny Krivit and Phil Asher. "Stuck" bucks along on a loose house groove, with Peven's unstoppable vocal flow providing much of the direction and decoration. Mr. K's version has a really deep, organic feel to it, with careful attention to instrumentation and arrangment. 

Phil Asher adds a more upfront house feel to proceedings: louder drums, busier arrangement, but still possessing all of Peven's natural charasma and soul oozing off the record. A real doozy! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Danny K and Phil Asher offer up two takes on this Peven Everett classic. Danny's is more suited to the backroom with its restrained and understated approach while Phil Asher ups the energy for the main room.

TRACK LISTING

A. Danny Krivit Mix
B. Phil Asher Mix 

Spiritual World presents: Ashleigh Ball — "Center of the Universe", a transcendental flute journey from the singer and flutist of Teal. "Center of the Universe" is a 32-minute improvisational odyssey recorded inside the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO), a National Historic Site on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia Canada..

Inspired by the pioneering work of Paul Horn and his Inside series, the recording channels a similar spirit of reverent exploration within a space rich in history and resonance. Completed in 1918, the observatory is home to the Plaskett Telescope - once among the largest and most powerful in the world - playing a key role in mapping the Milky Way.

Following months of coordination, three hours of private access were granted on the morning of August 25, 2025. Beneath the observatory’s towering telescope, Ball performed a wordless meditation, moving between alto flute and soprano concert flute, allowing each note to merge with the chamber’s vast natural reverb. Tones bloom, linger, and return, carried along the massive curved steel walls.

Captured using a minimalist recording approach, "Center of the Universe" preserves the purity of the moment—its warmth, stillness, and the architecture’s subtle mechanical resonance. Here, the observatory itself becomes an instrument, shaping the sound into something elemental, timeless, and deeply human. 

RIYL: Paul Horn, Pauline Oliveros, James Newton & Kali Malone

TRACK LISTING

1. Side 1: 17:34
2. Side 2: 14:40

Naya Beat is excited to announce 'PAWA!', a soaring disco-funk anthem celebrating feminism and the power (pawa) of togetherness. It is a mouthwatering collaboration between legendary jazz vocalist and disco pioneer Asha Puthli and NYC’s punk-chic, discodelic stars Say She She.

A fortuitous and fleeting window between touring schedules allowed Puthli and Say She She’s Nya Gazelle Brown, Sabrina Cunningham, and Piya Malik to write and record ‘Pawa!’ with members of the cult funk band Orgone in the English countryside at Mike Oldfield’s (Tubular Bells) studio. Pawa! is a tribute to female fortitude and an anthemic call to action for unity and collective action. PAWA TO THE PEOPLE! Asha’s spoken word bursts into a soaring falsetto while Say She She’s celestial three-part harmonies make for a sublime call and response between the fabled mentor and her gifted disciples. Throw in a stellar bassline and one of tightest rhythm sections around, and you have an instant classic. And if that wasn’t enough, four remixes bring Pawa to the dancefloor! The UK’s legendary Crazy P deliver not one, but three future classics – an epic house take with a stomping bassline, a stripped-down vocal dub, and a sunshine-ready disco dub. Not to be outdone, Greece’s favourite dance duo Boys’ Shorts add magical disco touches and reimagine the original as an eight-minute Balearic opus.

Featuring beautiful artwork and a premium poly-lined inner sleeve, the 12" has been cut to vinyl for the discerning DJ and listener by Grammy-nominated Frank Merritt from The Carvery, London.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Another hot-to-trot number from Asha P gets the Crazy P and Boys' Shorts treatment. Hard not to shake a tail feather or two to these lush disco arrangements.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Pawa!
A2. Pawa! (Crazy P Vocal Dub)
A3. Pawa! (Crazy P Disco Dub)

B1. Pawa! (Boys' Shorts Remix)
B2. Pawa! (Crazy P Remix)

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

First repress of a 1979 European cover colour vinyl g/fold sleeve yellow vinyl with red splatter. Emerging onto the worldstage via Lee Scratch Perry's 1977 masterpiece Heart Of The Congos, the group established a unique cache in the international reggae market. Cedric Myton, Watty Burnett, and Roy Johnson struck out on their own to produce Image of Africa and Congo Ashanti, both released in 1979. Each album is remembered for a distinct studio sound, more mainstream than Scratch's hazy experiments and in line with the late 70s golden era. Standout tracks include "Youth Man," "Days Chasing Days," "Hail The World Of Jah," and "Thief Is In The Vineyard." Featured players include Ernest Ranglin, Sly & Robbie, and Tommy McCook. The reissue features the images by acclaimed photographer Antoine Giacomoni. Newly remastered with liner notes and rare images.

The debut LP from Liverpool band the Wild Swans finally gets a re-release. Originally released in 1988, it's an absolutely beautiful record full of jangling guitars and pounding drums, topped with Paul Simpson's melancholic vocals.

Despite being signed to Sire Records by Seymour Stein, they never received the same acclaim as some of their Liverpudlian contemporaries, which is a perplexing as this LP has all the hallmarks of Liverpool at that time along with some great songwriting. It's an album full of melancholy and hope and still sounds absolutely wonderful 30 odd years later.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Absolutely glorious record showcasing Liverpool legend Paul Simpson's brilliant song writing in tandem with that beautifully romantic Liverpool sound so redolent of the early 80's. Maybe the fact this debut wasn't released until 1988 was a reason for its perceived "failure". All irrelevant now; this is a wonderful record.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Young Manhood
2. Bible Dreams
3. Bitterness
4. Archangels
5. Northern England

Side B
1. Whirlpool Heart
2. Bringing Home The Ashes
3. Mythical Beast
4. Now And Forever
5. The Worst Year Of My Life

Hot off their highly sought after EP of Dimitri From Paris’ seminal remixes of Asha Puthli’s iconic track ‘Space Talk’, Naya Beat now offers up the first of two full-length releases based around her music. Cosmic disco pioneer, Studio 54 icon and jazz improviser Asha Puthli has recorded, sung or shared the stage with the likes of Roy Ayers, Alice Coltrane, Grace Jones, Barry White, Andy Warhol and many more. From David Mancuso's The Loft, to Giorgio Moroder's early work with Donna Summer, to hip-hop where she has been sampled extensively, Asha's musical influence and impact is profound. She was the first artist of South Asian descent to successfully crossover and make a mark on dance, jazz and pop culture in the West.

For this LP, Naya Beat tracked down the long mythologised original stems and recordings of Puthli's most seminal albums, including ‘The Devil is Loose’, and working closely with Asha, they have tasked a series of producers inspired by her work to remix her music.

Yuksek opens up with a pumping disco remix of 'I Am Song (Sing Me)' awash with uplifting synths and big claps next to the original vocals, which soar to the heavens. The seminal 'Space Talk' is remixed by Maurice Fulton into super steamy and late-night territory. The live drums and jumbled percussion are lit up with soulful chords as Puthli's carefully delivered vocals seduce up top. 'Lies' (Kraak & Smaak Remix) rides on fat-bottomed drums and bass that unfold with a dub swagger beneath a nebulous eco-system of cosmic synths and dramatic vocals. Label heads Turbotito & Ragz flip 'One Night Affair' into a leggy disco celebration with sweeping synths and bright effects, and Psychemagik's 'Right Down Here' is a pulsating mix of dark, snaking bass and drums with deep space ambience and raw hits making for a turbulent and tense atmosphere. Lastly, Jitwam closes out with a smooth disco sound laced with dynamic drums and cruising chords next to another sensuous top line from Asha Puthli.

Housed in a deluxe sleeve with window cut out and embossed gold lettering this is a disco lovers dream as well as a beautiful insight to one of the scene's more charismatic stars. 

TRACK LISTING

I Am Song (Sing Me) (Yuksek Remix)
Space Talk (Maurice Fulton Remix)
Lies (Kraak & Smaak Remix)
One Night Affair (Turbotito & Ragz Remix)
Right Down Here (Psychemagik Remix)
I'm Gonna Dance (Jitwam Remix)

'A Semblance: Of Return' is the new album from South African drummer, composer, and bandleader Asher Gamedze. Gamedze gathers a close ensemble of longtime collaborators to explore what he calls “practices of assembly” - ways of making sound, and imagining new and old modes of freedom. Based in the independent music scenes of Cape Town and rooted in Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness, 'Of Return' extends the political and musical commitments that have defined Gamedze’s work from 'Dialectic Soul' (On The Corner, 2020), to 'Turbulence and Pulse' (International Anthem, 2022) and 'Constitution' (International Anthem, 2024) while opening a newly collective chapter in his practice, this time on Northern Spy.

The band on the album - Ru Slayen (percussion), Nobuhle Ashanti (keys & synth), Zwide Ndwandwe (bass), and Keegan Steenkamp (trumpet), with Gamedze on drums - formed as a social unit: a group for whom music is part of a broader shared life, full of playing, thinking, laughing, and struggling. That ethos animates the music. Across the album’s two sides, 'Of Return' serves as a gathering place: a living room, a rehearsal, a shady club, a study group, a home. The music moves with a grounded, searching energy, shifting between group vocals, groove-heavy ensemble passages, and moments of stark melodic clarity. The grooves are earthy and lived-in; the improvisations feel like conversations; the lyric fragments echo the project’s probing around notions of return as integral to any forward, future-oriented motion. 'Of Return' enacts both return and departure, or more precisely, extension/elaboration. This it does through a rootedness in the traditions and politics of the Cape underground, and opening a sonic invitation to dream, to struggle together, and, fundamentally, to assemble.

TRACK LISTING

1. Stranger No Death
2. Progressive
3. Air
4. Following Up
5. Distractions
6. Of The Fire
7. War
8. Lowland
9. Extension
10. State (Of The Internation)
11. Turnin'

The best political punk band of the 1990s returned in 2001 with their fiercest record yet, 14 tracks of thundering thrash. Knowledge is power. Arm yourself.

After 1993’s ‘How To Clean Everything’ and 1996’s ‘Less Talk, More Rock’, ‘Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes’ was Propagandhi’s third and penultimate album on FAT. It marked a transition period for the band. Not only was it their first record after the departure of bassist / vocalist John K. Sampson - who was replaced by Todd Kowalski - but it also saw the start of the shift towards the sound that has now come to define them.

The result was an album that, despite singer Chris Hannah’s reservations, truly set the benchmark back then, and does so even more in its new sonic form. Just listen to what opener ‘Mate Ka Moris Ukun Rasik An’ or the caustic title track sound like now, not to mention the still-eyeopening blast of ‘With Friends Like These Who the Fuck Needs COINTELPRO?’, the lyrical content of which remains as shocking today as it was back then.

Intelligent and visceral in equal measure, ‘Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes’ - thanks to songs like ‘Albright Monument, Baghdad’, ‘March of the Crabs’ and ‘Bullshit Politicians’ -offers up one of the most vicious indictments of American (and, to be fair, Western) imperialism ever committed to tape.

Reissue of 20th anniversary pressing. All tracks fully remixed and remastered.

Produced by Ryan Greene at Motor Studios. Mixed and mastered by Jason Livermore at The Blasting Room.

TRACK LISTING

Mate Ka Moris UkunRasikAn
Fuck The Border
Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes
Back To The Motor League
Natural Disasters
With Friends Like These Who The Fuck Needs COINTELPRO?
Albright Monument, Baghdad
Ordinary People Do Fucked-Up Things When Fucked-Up Things Become Ordinary
Ladies Nite In Loserville
Ego Sum Papa (I Am The Pope)
New Homes For Idle Hands
Bullshit Politicians
March Of The Crabs
Purina Hall Of Fame

An audio essay on crossing to the other side.

The two distinct faces of the vinyl trace the boundary between life on earth and what lies beyond.

Written, performed, recorded, and mixed by Sissi Rada,

with cherished appearances and collaborations from Charis Karantzas, Jay Glass Dubs, Oï les Ox, and Theodor Milkov.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ave Verum
2. FOGO
3. Benches
4. Haint Harp
5. Nana Butu
6. After Sleeping
7. MI-MI (feat. Jay Glass Dubs)
8. She Reads Now (feat. Theodor Milkov)
9. FOMO
10. Message (feat. Oï Les Ox)
11. Your Order At 4
12. Wooden Floors (feat. Charis Karantzas)

Following the overwhelming response to the Warner remix series produced by Joe Claussell, with copies disappearing in hours-another Stella remix package steps forward. This is not part of the Edits & Overdubs series. No loops. No shortcuts. Like the previous release, Ashford & Simpson’s “Stay Free” was rebuilt straight from the original 48-track 2-inch multitrack tapes, resulting in two fully realized remix versions designed for the floor. The A-side delivers a 14+ minute deep, extended journey-patient, evolving, and powerful, injecting new life while honoring the soul of the original. The B-side flips the script with an Alternate Instrumental, stripped back and ready for late-night moments. Cut, tested, and refined on dance floors worldwide over several years, these versions have already proven their weight in real club settings. Pressed on green vinyl, housed in a heavy Japanese-style cardboard sleeve, and accompanied by a Warner-style disco promo one-sheet and bumper sticker-a nod to the golden era of 12” promos.

Limited to 300 copies. Similar to the Deodato Whistle Bump 12” - No repress. No extras.

TRACK LISTING

A. Stay Free
B. Instrumental 

There are all kinds of summits, but the Mountains of Madness top all others. The Ahsol Caravan was the ultimate challenge, and together they found the highest high. But also the deepest depths.

Considered a lost film for close to 50 years, Theo Buhara’s AHSOL CARAVAN can now finally be experienced as the independent movie masterpiece it is, and as a true cinematic phoenix, with a spectacular soundtrack to boot, written by Motorpsycho, the very same band that scored his neo-spaghetti western THE TUSSLER in the early 90’s.

TRACK LISTING

1. Have You Got It Yet? ( Theme From Ahsol Caravan)
2. Prince Rupert's Holy Mountain
3. The Sicle Girls
4. Gong Phishin'/ Edgar's Bathtub
5. Sonic Cherrox / The Visions Of St. Ephy Seim
6. The Coming Of Prince Rupert / Ahsol Caravan
7. Intermission
8. The Ecstacy Of Christian Block (The Witch)
9. Yeni The Yeti & The Lonely Droner/ Other Voices
10. Kailash Ascended (Death In The Ice)
11. Florian's Final Flowering
12-.Theme From Ahsol Caravan (Slight Return)

'Un’altra Forma' is the third album from French krautrock project Ashinoa. Whilst still driven by the synthesised motorik beats and rhythms and experimental electronica of 2022's 'L'Orée', on its follow up Ashinoa move into new, dreamlike territory – assuming 'another form', as the title translates. Here, Matteo Fabbri, Stefan Chamolt and Mathias Chirpaz enlist a cast of players between Lyon, Venice and Beaujeu and expands the Ashinoa palette with clarinet, saxophone, flute and piano, weaving in hazy shades of psychedelic jazz and echoes of 1960s Brazilian music and lo-fi breakbeats. The result is a record that balances heavier head-down electronics and moments of breezy, downtempo bliss “Un’altra forma refers to that which differs from the known", Fabbri says, "and is a tribute to the reassuring confusion one can feel when discovering that something one thought was defined or finished can take on another form. The distortion of the senses, whether intentional or not, is the common thread running through the album, and variations on this concept can be found in several tracks, such as ‘Nudity and Salt Water’, ‘Keplerstrasse’ and ‘Room of Whispers’. The musical research that followed aimed to orchestrate this idea of alternating between the known (ordinary) and the new (extra-ordinary) in the best possible way." Although 'Un'altra Forma' finds Fabbri helming the songwriting solo following the departure of Jeremy Labarre, with whom he started the band in 2015, it's also Ashinoa's most collaborative record to date. Much of the album was written in Beaujeu, at a friend’s house among the Beaujolais vineyards. There he is joined by the rest of the band, Mathias Chirpaz and Lucien Chatin on drums and Stefan Chamolt on guitar. In two intense weeks, the band records 10 tracks: “We worked day and night to find the textures that best suited the project,” he recalls. The second phase continued in Venice and Lyon, where further layers were added by friends and collaborators. Andrea Vecchiato’s flute, Alberto Collodel’s clarinet, and Teresa Lo Greco’s vocals were recorded in Venice, adding an airy and cinematic dimension.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nudity And Salt Water
2. Un'altra Forma
3. Keplerstraße
4. Monstera
5. Feliz
6. Moon Of Feathers
7. Faart Intro
8. Faart
9. Fish In The Pool
10. Room Of Whispers

The ‘Lovin’ You’ album opens with its first single ‘Lover’. The song interpolates Joan Armatrading’s classic ‘Love And Affection’, which earned the praise of the legendary songwriter herself: “I love how he’s used my song and I love his song.”

That single sets the standard for a record which finds Richard at the peak of his powers. It’s a set which spans the many facets of his sound, from his classic string-soaked acoustic balladry and anthemic indie-rock, through to flashes of Americana, soul and glitchy electro beats. Its themes are intimate and personal, dominated by love, romance and affecting messages of support for those struggling with life’s challenges.

The songs on ‘Lovin’ You’ were written by Richard, who co-produced the album with Chris Potter and Emre Ramazanoglu. There is also the track ‘I’m A Rebel’, co-written and produced with Mirwais of Madonna fame.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: He's had a good yeah hasn't he, Richard? Some lovely reissues of those killer Verve albums, a load of superb performances at the biggest live shows of the year and now a brand new album, spanning the melodic indie-folk vibes of yesteryear and Richard's take on grooving, dancefloor pop as well as everything in between. Keep 'em comin, Rich.

TRACK LISTING

1 Lover
2 Out Of These Blues
3 Heavy News
4 Oh L'amour
5 I'm A Rebel
6 Find Another Reason
7 Lovin' You
8 Live With Hope
9 Crimson Fire
10 Fly To The Sun

Ash release their ninth studio album Ad Astra on October 3rd via Fierce Panda Records, and share lead single 'Give Me Back My World'.

Containing eleven brand new tracks, including their raucous take on surprise single and ‘Beetlejuice’ staple ‘Jump In The Line’, Ad Astra sees Blur guitarist Graham Coxon appear on two particularly sassy songs and catches the perennial power-pop kings in especially rocket-fuelled form.

Ad Astra follows hot on the heels of 2023's Race The Night (the band's highest charting album for 20 years), being released two years and one month later, and this is no coincidence. Ever the band who live for live music, Ash vowed that the fierce pandemic-induced five year chasm between [2018 album] Islands and Race The Night would never happen again. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: BOOM, not only do one-time Idlewild bring back the 90's with a brand new album, but their one-time tour buddies Ash grace our turntables once again. Ad Astra sees the band in fine form, perfectly crafting crunchy guitars and Wheeler's soaring vocals into instantly recognisable melodies. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Zarathustra
2. Which One Do You Want?
3. Fun People (feat. Graham Coxon)
4. Give Me Back My World
5. Hallion
6. Deadly Love
SIDE B
1. My Favourite Ghost
2. Jump In The Line
3. Keep Dreaming
4. Dehumanised
5. Ghosting
6. Ad Astra (feat. Graham Coxon)

On the cover of '8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living', the new album by Asher White, The Statue of Liberty is in pieces but not destroyed-- in progress, being built, not yet complete. Her torch is on the ground, her head somewhere out of frame. Before she was a symbol, she was metal, and living, sweating people riveted her together.

The spirit of de/construction characterizes '8 Tips...', White’s 16th LP overall and first since signing to Joyful Noise. Like White's previous albums, '8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living' darts boldly among varied musical styles. Doom metal splits open into bossa nova; psychedelic rock and power pop flip into industrial techno. Each song emerges from its composite parts in the studio: White doesn't draft or demo before recording, but builds out her pieces sculpturally, sound by sound. "It’s forever collage, forever assemblage," she says of her music. "To me, it has more to do with J Dilla, L.A. beat, and musique concrète than pop songwriting." The record's quick turns and vivid contrasts reflect White's cultural voraciousness. A writer, painter, and sculptor as well as a musician, she gathers materials constantly, always digging for new ideas in every possible form. The films of Claire Denis, the novels of Clarice Lispector, and the memoirs of Eve Babitz all funnel into White's reflection of 21st century disaster capitalism.

'8 Tips...' is also White’s first album to have been mixed outside her Providence studio; after recording it herself, she brought tracks to Seth Manchester (Lightning Bolt, Battles, The Body) who gave the album its brawny, unruly charge. "I was interested in making something that serves dually as a self-help book and a chronicle of self-destruction," says White. Overlaying autobiography onto character vignettes, '8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living' wrenches open the idea of apocalypse -- an abrupt disaster rained down on uncomplicated innocents -- and peers inside at its bursting, devastated particulars. Apocalypse is slow and uneven. Nations falter as do individual people, clinging fast to their old, dilapidated self-preservation strategies. What saved you in the past might destroy you in the future. Flip it around, shake yourself loose, ruin the person you've known yourself to be, and you might get the chance to become something else.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Sink Thank You
2. Beers With My Name On Them
3. Why I Bought The House
4. Travel Safe
5. Cobalt Room: Good Work / Silver Saab
6. Voice Memo
7. Like Another Planet Instrumental
8. Country Girls
9. Falls

Ash Ra Tempel is the eponymous debut studio album by the Krautrock band Ash Ra Tempel. It features guitarist Manuel Göttsching with drummer Klaus Schulze and bassist Hartmut Enke. Engineered by Conny Plank it was recorded in March 1971 and released in June 1971 on Ohr Records.This 50Th Anniversary Album is released in memoriam of all the musical contributors to this release and on Manuel Göttsching´s MG.ART label.

It's the fourth and headlining edition in this series and was finalised, carefully overseen by Manuel Göttsching himself in the late Autumn of 2022.

Much has been written about the record and band. Having finished a first musical chapter with their Steeple Chase Bluesband and still at the very young age of only 17 and 18 years old Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke met Klaus Schulze. Together they started to write and compose what, to many, became one the holy grails of Psychedelic Rock and early Electronic Music – the German variant which was later also named “Krautrock”:

“The trio of Klaus Schulze, Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke decided to abandon conventional composition and songwriting, in favour of free-form improvising and developing a new musical language. As such, they became notorious for jams that could exceed 30 minutes.” Says Discogs. “Some of these recordings can be found on Manuel Göttsching´s “The Private Tapes” releases”, which will be re-released on MG.ART as well, following this edition.“

AllMusic called the album "both astonishingly prescient and just flat out good, a logical extension of the space-jam-freakout ethos into rarified realms.”

Here we would like the Band to be heard, for what can easily be said as the first time in 50+ years, with the exception of some early Journalists for whom the young Manuel Göttsching wrote a statement of intent (the original text can be found inside this edition) as following:

“Our musical concept is based on a combination of blues rock and delicate collages of electronic sound. These two elements should remain inseparable. And in their complex unity, the different musical philosophies of each musician find a common sweet spot. Our music is a permanently impulsive experience left to develop as it will, starting from a common fixed point of departure. This is where the difficulty of the music begins: No standardized formulation of our music can and should be possible. Only the constant reaction within the band can determine the musical result. And this requires constant listening with full concentration on the part of the creators. The idea of a particular musician will be – if flexible enough – absorbed by the others, transposed to their own instrument, and reflected back into the music as an individual contribution. This reciprocity within the band is then transferred over to the audience. And this process means that their reaction is not only a contribution to the end result; it actually makes them jointly responsible for the creation of the final musical product. …

On our album, the track “Amboss” represents the first layer. Conventional instruments communicate familiar music which is in part expanded through electronic means. In the second track of the album – “Traummaschine” – the actual basic sound approach is dissolved into an electronic Nirvana which no longer allows the concrete identification of actual instruments. Innocent, virgin listening, free from any and every association, can finally begin – and the music can be absorbed and processed free from the limitations of categorization. That is the purpose of our music: To convey freedom without any predetermined criteria or traditions. Thank you for your attention.”
(Taken from the original A-R-T Bio 1970)

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
"Amboss" (19:40)
Side B:
"Traummaschine" (25:24)

After the dissolution of his band, The Cardinals, in 2009 and some much-needed R&R, Ryan Adams returned in style in 2011 with his 13th studio album.

'Ashes & Fire', produced by Glyn Johns and preceded by one of Adams’ most popular singles, ‘Lucky Now’, entered the UK chart at number nine (his best showing) and in the US at number seven. It features significant contributions from Norah Jones (piano and backing vocals) and Benmont Tench of Tom Petty ‘s Heartbreakers (keyboards) and is widely regarded as one of the artist’s best and most consistent efforts.

Indeed, here in the UK BBC Music described it as, "an album that delivers more and more with every listen,” while NME called it, “an album worth celebrating now”; an assessment that still applies 14 years on.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dirty Rain
2. Ashes & Fire
3. Come Home 
4. Rocks 
5. Do I Wait 
6. Chains Of Love
7. Invisible Riverside 
8. Save Me
9. Kindness
10. Lucky Now
11. I Love You But I Don't Know What To Say

Representing the spirit of the underground in Dubai, Shadi Megallaa is a multifaceted music lover whose unwavering passion for music permeates throughout all of his endeavours. A pioneer of Dubai’s electronic music culture, Shadi’s roots lie with the foundations of modern day electronica: all shades of house, techno and beyond. His commitment to preserving and evolving the culture is inherent in his record shop, The Flip Side, which has been intrinsic to the growth and development of music culture in Dubai. As a DJ and producer he draws on a multitude of experience, diverse taste and a refined ear that has instilled the ability to craft compelling productions. On Spirits Of The Deep we find Shadi exploring the deeper side of electronic music, creating layers of vibration designed to immerse the listener in layers of positive vibration.

As prescribed by Shadi himself, we start the traditional way, with Side B (the info side), where ‘Microgravity’ transports us into the cosmos. Soothing sonics envelop a taut low end with crisp percussion and swathes of pad work cultivating an interstellar atmosphere. Subtly shifting layers keep you locked into a groove, as the track maintains its energetic pulse. The synth lines increase with intensity midway through, adding more potency. Across almost nine minutes Shadi takes us on an excursion beyond the stars…

This is followed by ‘G-Dub’, a smooth jazz-inflected piece full of soul nourishing goodness. Intuitive drum programming with a groove-laced low end form the propulsive backbone of this track. The dreamlike melodic elements are almost transcendent in their illuminating impact. With all of its elements combined, ‘G-Dub’ is a glorious foray into the depths of true deep house. Shadi keeps things interesting throughout, adding and subtracting layers to complement the pace. Those hi-hats and intermittent cymbal crashes are especially impactful. A delight.

On the flip we have ‘Pressure’, where Shadi’s UK breaks influence comes through. A characterful vocal sample features throughout the intro before we enter a world of unusual sounds. The beats are, once again, impeccably executed, accompanied by a dubby bassline and an ever-evolving cacophony of squelchy sounds and chirps. Running at just over 9 ½ minutes, ‘Pressure’ sees Shadi flexing his creative muscles with a heady, expansive composition that invites us on a deep musical trip.

Finally, ‘The Poet’ closes out the EP on an emotive tip. The track is dedicated to the Palestinian poet and activist Refaat Alareer, who was killed during an airstrike on Gaza in December 2023. It utilises Refaat’s powerful poem If I Must Die, with the spinetingling words taking centre stage, as Shadi’s beats, bass and bright pads provide the backdrop. A piano-led melody appears in the latter part of the track, amplifying its emotionally-charged atmosphere. A wonderfully imagined homage to a martyr for peace. As the samples state, Let it bring hope… 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Deep and dubby with nods to microhouse and glitch. Think Akufen, Magda, Craig Richards, Bunney and Willow.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Pressure
A2. The Poet
B1. Microgravity
B2. G-Dub

Originally issued on Hut Records in October 2002, 'Human Conditions' built on the success of 'Alone With Everybody', retaining the new fans he had gained with that record - This reissue replicates the 2002 UK first pressing and is available on audiophile 180g double vinyl in gatefold sleeve.

"It's a beautiful world," sings Ashcroft on opening track and lead single 'Check The Meaning'. Its eight-minutes seem a culmination of all of Ashcroft's work to date – a haunting guitar figure, swelling strings, and subtle orchestration back a lyric that catalogues the battle of love over evil, ending with Ashcroft assuring the listener "It's gonna be alright." It is a powerful beginning to a powerful album. 'Buy It In Bottles' maintains the introspection of 'The Drugs Don't Work', a mood that can be also found on 'Running Away' and 'Lord I've Been Trying'; while 'Bright Lights' and 'Paradise' bring the anthemic rock.

When Brian Wilson guests on one of your albums, it suggests a certain status has been attained; Richard Ashcroft demonstrated that he could hold his own in such company; both are songwriters of the human condition, and the song Wilson appears on 'Nature Is The Law', closes 'Human Conditions' in stellar fashion.

TRACK LISTING

1. Check The Meaning
2. Buy It In Bottles
3. Bright Lights
4. Paradise
5. God In The Numbers
6. Science Of Silence
7. Man On A Mission
8. Running Away
9. Lord I've Been Trying
10. Nature Is The Law

Originally issued on Parlophone in January 2006, 'Keys To The World' was Ashcroft's first release in four years, coming soon after he had guested with Coldplay at Live 8 - Released at the height of CD's popularity, 'Keys To The World' is available on vinyl for the first time and is pressed on audiophile 180g vinyl in gatefold sleeve.

Chris Martin introduced Ashcroft singing 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' at Live 8 saying it was "probably the best song ever written, and here's the best singer in the world." 'Keys To The World' was a very welcome return, reaching No 2 in the UK charts and being certified Platinum.

The album certainly has a spring in its step – 'Why Not Nothing' blasts the album off, with strings and saxes over a northern soul beat. With its sample of Walter Jackson's 'It's All Over', 'Music Is Power' is one of Ashcroft's best songs – another where he celebrates the command that popular music has had over him. The catchy, incessant 'Break The Night With Colour' – the album's first single – placed him back in the UK Top 10; with it vocal samples and ominous string bed, the title track is powerful, topped with a passionate vocal. 'Sweet Brother Malcolm' is one of Ashcroft's most poignant numbers, inspired by the flowers and tributes that amass on suburban lampposts after a tragic occurrence.

TRACK LISTING

1. Why Not Nothing?
2. Music Is Power
3. Break The Night With Colour
4. Words Just Get In The Way
5. Keys To The World
6. Sweet Brother Malcolm
7. Cry Til The Morning
8. Why Do Lovers?
9. Simple Song
10. World Keeps Turning

Originally issued on Hut Records in June 2000, 'Alone With Everybody' was eagerly anticipated, as it was Ashcroft's first recordings since the demise of the group he founded and led, The Verve - This re-issue replicates the 2000 UK first pressing and is available on audiophile 180g double vinyl in gatefold sleeve.

Opening the album with its string overture, 'Song For The Lovers' signalled Ashcroft's intent immediately. Intensely melodic, anthemic, it picked up exactly where The Verve's 1997 multi-platinum album 'Urban Hymns' left off. Lifted as a single, it reached No 3 in the UK and spent most of the summer on the charts.

Recorded at Olympic Studios and Metropolis in London, big, bold and frequently beautiful, 'Alone With Everybody' raced to No 1 in early July; it played to all of Ashcroft's strengths, memorable hooks, catchy choruses, beats subtly influenced by dance music; the brass-blazing bold hoedown of 'Money To Burn' was the album's second single; other highlights include the ballad 'Slow Was My Heart', the upbeat joy of 'C'mon People (We're Making It Now)' and the reflective, string-enrobed 'You On My Mind In My Sleep'.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Song For The Lovers
2. I Get My Beat
3. Brave New World
4. New York
5. You On My Mind In My Sleep
6. Crazy World
7. On A Beach
8. Money To Burn
9. Slow Was My Heart
10. C'mon People (We're Making It Now)
11. Everybody

We are thrilled to announce the highly anticipated re-issue of Ash Ra Tempel's legendary 5th Studio Album "Starring Rosi" in our "50th Anniversary Edition". Originally released in 1973, this seminal work remains a cornerstone of the Krautrock and "Kosmische" movement, blending psychedelic rock, ambient soundscapes, and early electronics into a transcendent auditory experience.

The Album has been recorded by Manuel Göttsching in it´s entity, with additional help to come from Producer Dieter Diercks playing bass, percussion, Drummer Harald Grosskopf and of course Rosemarie "Rosi" Müller.

"Starring Rosi" is an essential piece of their continuation of blending cosmic psychedelia, ambient textures, and avant-garde electronic experimentation. Originally released in 1973, this album marked a significant departure for the band, featuring Rosi Müller, who added a lyrical and vocal dimension to the band's typically instrumental soundscapes & Manuel Göttsching background singing.

To many technically Ash Ra Tempel last, yet most accessible, release, although there was the soundtrack to Philippe Garrel´s movie "Le Berceau de Cristal" and there might be some further previously unreleased, music to come out later.

Album Background:
'Starring Rosi' stands out in Ash Ra Tempel's discography for its lighter, more accessible sound, balancing the band's signature cosmic explorations with melodic structures and poetic lyrics.

It marks an unique chapter in Ash Ra Tempel's discography, featuring the ethereal vocals of Rosi Müller alongside Manuel Göttsching's visionary guitar work. The album is a sonic journey that takes listeners through seven distinct tracks, each showcasing Manuel Göttschings pioneering approach to music.
From the dreamy opening track "Laughter Loving" to the meditative "Day-Dream" and the atmospheric "Interplay of Forces," songs that illustrate the band's evolution from their earlier, more intense and improvisational albums, showcasing a more reflective and introspective side .
"The Fairy Dance" is delving into the mystical and meditative, transporting listeners to a dreamlike state.

While "Schizo" sounds like a continuation of the best moments of the previous Ash Ra Tempel records, is the last track "Bring Me Up" an Up-tempo Song that features Manuel as well on vocals.
"Starring Rosi" captivates with its blend of cosmic improvisation and melodic beauty.

Reissue Details:
This reissue of *Starring Rosi* has been introduced and overseen by Manuel Göttsching still, and finalised by his Family exactly to his standards, in which the meticulous approach to his work lives on.
An updated 2024 recut carefully commissioned by Schnittselle in Berlin (who also signs responsible for the previous ART Reissues, likewise, the 2016 E2 E4 Anniversary Edition ensure the warm depth sound while bringing out the rich textures and nuances, all of the original recordings. The reissue is available on 180-gram Black vinyl and a Limited Edition in transparent Pearl Sunrise Vinyl.
Both vinyl editions comes with a replica of the original Vinyl Artwork including it´s original Backside.
The Limited Edition also includes a Poster of the alternate Backside, used later on the CD Editions showing Rosi and Manuel improvising during studio sessions. Also included are prints of previously unreleased Original "The Fairy Dance" Music and "Schizo" Composition Sheets handwritten by Manuel.

TRACK LISTING

1. Laughter Loving
2. Day-Dream
3. Schizo
4. Cosmic Tango
5. Interplay Of Forces
6. The Fairy Dance
7. Bring Me Up

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 29TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8AM ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 30TH).

Double Black LP Vinyl with etching on Side D. The entire album was recorded live in 2020, in Richmond, VA. This recording was part of the Ashes 20 project. 

A BONA FIDE ‘CULT’ CLASSIC, AFRO-HARPING IS THE FIRST OF A RAREFIED AND OUTSTANDING TRILOGY OF SOUL-JAZZ ALBUMS BY DOROTHY ASHBY THAT WERE PRODUCED FOR CADET RECORDS (CHESS) BY RICHARD EVANS BETWEEN 1968 AND 1970.

Remastered from the original ¼ inch tapes by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios, Afro-Harping is filled front-to-back with sumptuous and hypnotic grooves. Its African percussion, soulful orchestrations, in-the-pocket rhythms and Dorothy’s virtuosity take it far beyond jazzy mood music and made it a favourite of beat heads and producers; sampled by Pete Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Dee (aka J Dilla), Madlib, Flying Lotus and many others.

This deluxe version features eight bonus tracks, alternate takes from the surviving four-track session reels that are arguably superior to those on the album, including an explosive rendition of the single, ‘Soul Vibrations’, extended versions of its title track and ‘Little Sunflower’ and two fantastic jazzy readings of ‘Theme from Valley of the Dolls’.

Additional flavour is provided by some of the in-studio ‘atmosphere’ that accompanies the bonus cuts. The session reels also featured the voices of Dorothy, Evans and others: encouragement, laughter, a brief burst of beatboxing and a mild disagreement over how many bars had been played, for example. In many cases these elements have been left where they were found, the better to experience the sheer joy of being in the room with Dorothy and some of the Chicago’s finest musicians in the winter of ’68.

By that time, Evans was running every aspect of Cadet Records, applying his emerging funk formula to new and established artists, with an overflowing pipeline of work for Ramsey Lewis, John Klemmer, Frank D’Rone, Odell Brown and many more. His growing Afrocentricity, coupled with Ashby’s desire to highlight the Black struggle that had been the subject of several plays (from which three of the tracks on Afro-Harping were drawn) that she and her husband John had produced in her hometown of Detroit, provided the foundations for the recording of Afro-Harping. “Her jazz playing was very New York-ish, very sophisticated,” Evans said. “But I wanted things to be very Black, very funky at Cadet.”

Jazz harpists are uncommon, and Dorothy is rightly regarded as probably the greatest of a rather exclusive club that also includes Gail Laughton, Corky Hale, Alice Coltrane and, more recently Verve’s own Brandee Younger. Though all her recorded output is strong, Afro-Harping is truly special. “She was an expert on the harp and did things very instinctively. I think she just wanted to please me, and that’s why those recordings are different,” Evans remembered.

Unfortunately, on release Afro-Harping came and went without significant fanfare and, not long after their third and final record together, The Rubaiyat…, the Ashbys left Detroit and moved to LA, where Dorothy concentrated on session work, appearing on records for Bill Withers, Bobby Womack, Stevie Wonder and others. Two years after her final solo album was released in 1984, she died of cancer at the age of just 53 and didn’t get to witness her star rising as her work was widely rediscovered, a process that really began at the turn of the ‘90s.

Evans soldiered on at Cadet as the Chess empire crumbled away following its sale to GRT in 1969, but continued to arrange, produce, and perform for other artists and labels. He released a brace of solo albums, in 1972 and 1979, before becoming professor of music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a position he held for more than two decades. He died at the age of 81 in 2014. Unlike Dorothy, he was blessed to see his work reach new audiences when Afro-Harping and countless other records he had presided over were rediscovered and sampled by hip-hop producers and DJs like Gilles Peterson and 4Hero.

Together their partnership scaled new summits, beginning with this record. It was the convergence of two individual journeys through jazz, soul, and funk, and the blueprint for what would become a legendary triumvirate of rare quality. This special release is testament to its lasting appeal, the bonus tracks shedding new light on the inner workings of Dorothy Ashby at the peak of her creativity alongside a visionary producer able to highlight her gifts in a way that perhaps only he ever could. As Marshall Chess says, “You know, I get asked about The Blues and Chuck Berry or The Rolling Stones all the time, but Dorothy Ashby and Richard Evans were both geniuses that a lot of people still don’t know about today.”

The LP is housed in a gatefold sleeve with black poly-lined inner sleeves and an illustrated eight-page insert featuring detailed notes by Seán Casey of Shindig! Magazine, whose investigative work has unearthed new information about the making of Afro-Harping. The CD is housed in a digipack with 28-page booklet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Master harpist Dorothy lays down spiritual grooves over insanely fat orchestral arrangements courtesy of Richard Evans (think Alice Coltrane crossed with Rotary Connection and David Axelrod). Remastered from the original ¼ inch tapes by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios and featuring eight bonus tracks, it includes the much sampled “Soul Vibrations”.

TRACK LISTING

2LP
Side 1
SOUL VIBRATIONS
GAMES
ACTION LINE
LONELY GIRL
LIFE HAS ITS TRIALS

Side 2
AFRO-HARPING
LITTLE SUNFLOWER
THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
COME LIVE WITH ME
THE LOOK OF LOVE

Side 3
ACTION LINE MASTER A, TAKE 2
AFRO-HARPING ALT. TAKE
THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS MASTER B, TAKE 2
LONELY GIRL MASTER G, TAKE 1

Side 4
SOUL VIBRATIONS ALT. TAKE
LIFE HAS ITS TRIALS MASTER C, TAKE 2
LITTLE SUNFLOWER MASTER F, TAKE 3
THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS MASTER B, TAKE 6

CD
SOUL VIBRATIONS
GAMES
ACTION LINE
LONELY GIRL
LIFE HAS ITS TRIALS
AFRO-HARPING
LITTLE SUNFLOWER
THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
COME LIVE WITH ME
THE LOOK OF LOVE
ACTION LINE MASTER A, TAKE 2
AFRO-HARPING ALT. TAKE
THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS MASTER B, TAKE 2
LONELY GIRL MASTER G, TAKE 1
SOUL VIBRATIONS ALT. TAKE
LIFE HAS ITS TRIALS MASTER C, TAKE 2
LITTLE SUNFLOWER MASTER F, TAKE 3
THEME FROM VALLEY OF THE DOLLS MASTER B, TAKE 6

‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the new album by Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman.The pair have orbited each others worlds for a number of years through audio-visual collaborations spanning record releases, films and sound installations.

Wasylyk’s cinematic compositions have been nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award and been awarded BBC Radio 6 Music’s Gideon Coe’s Album of the Year. He has collaborated with former National Poet for Scotland, Liz Lochhead, and written soundtracks for Radio 4. Perman’s work as a musician and DJ has taken him across the world, with numerous record releases under his own name and with experimental group/arts collective FOUND, alongside visual works at the Sydney Opera House and National Museum of Scotland.

‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the pair’s first collaborative album as a duo.The record is rooted in Perman's ambient-acid-house grooves and multi-textural percussion built from sampling the knocks, clangs and creaks of Wasylyk’s upright piano.These are woven through a palette of drum machines, rolling transcendental piano motifs, fluttering synthesisers, saxophones swells and hymnal choral vocals.

Approaching the meditative ten-song collection,Tommy posted Andrew three envelopes containing ‘Recording Instructions’, ‘Tempo Cards’ and ‘Chord Cards’. Nodding towards the Fluxus instructions of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit and the environmental cues of Perman and Wasylyk’s collaboration on Sing the Gloaming (‘If it’s wet outside: 100bpm. If it’s dry outside: 70bpm’) the cards inspired exploration and improvisations which were then cut up and collaged.

The spirit of this project channels through ‘Communal Imagination’ as Wasylyk’s trademark airy piano chords float above Perman’s juddering rhythms, conjuring a Balaeric abstraction of Basil Kirchin.The group brass and stuttering echoes of ‘Root Grow Emerge’ are accompanied by field recordings of Tommy’s children playing and reciting cyclical chants. ‘Blessing Of The Banners’ slowly unspools through spiritual cinematic jazz patterns into a hymn of hope, whilst ‘Spec Of Dust Becomes A Beam’ ignites into an expansive, kosmiche four-to-the-floor crescendo.

A sense of warmth, openness and curiosity floods through ‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’.A document of forward-thinking artistic union from a pair at the height of their imaginations, perched over the Tay estuary.

“So leave us as you found us, walk with us or around us, you might find nothing to see here, but come tomorrow we’ll still be here,” warmly warns Aidan Moffat (Arab Strap) over ascending chords on the album’s closing track ‘Be the Hammer’: a mantra of quiet defiance from idiosyncratic composers in full flight. Liminal, illuminating ideas landing where melody meets rhythm: ‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is a place where community, love and goodness prevail. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Climb Like A Floating Vapour
2. Communal Imagination
3. Root Grow Emerge
4. Blessing Of The Banners
5. The Unbearable Sound Of The Roses
6. Spec Of Dust Becomes A Beam
7. Unrepeatable Air
8. Remain In Memory Full Of Light
9. Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On
10. Be The Hammer (feat. Aidan Moffat)

This is the repeated call and the rallying chorus of the nearly 40-minute centerpiece to composer and percussionist Asher Gamedze’s new album Constitution. The expansive double album, a minoritarian fellowship in breath, is Gamedze’s follow-up to 2023’s Turbulence and Pulse (IARC0057), and his first with The Black Lungs. The album – recorded in one day at Cape Town’s Sound and Motion Studios – is an elaboration of the possibilities of autonomous constitution in and through polyrhythmic, modal, large ensemble music.

On Constitution, the power of the question, the possibility of an improvised answer and the celebration of being together exists not in the solo but in the group, the ensemble. Here The Black Lungs collectively explore and deconstruct the conceptual, tonal, and atonal possibilities of themes which are at once of old and new dreams - curious and instantiative, melancholic and emergent.


“The Black Lungs is inspired by the revolutionary thought and practice of the Black Consciousness Movement. In particular, the relationship between antagonism – constituting a united front of all the oppressed against white supremacy and racial capitalism – and the possibilities for resistance and elaboration - the creative militant capacities of those assembled – enabled and unleashed by that process of constitution.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Find Each Other
2. Determining Facts
3. Antagonism
4. Elaboration
5. Constitution
6. Destitution
7. High Land, New Home
8. Melancholia
9. Deposition: A Song For The Dialectician 

Los Angeles-based ASHRR are back with a new cut which comes from their forthcoming Sunshine Low album which they have re-interpreted as their ASHRR Soundsystem alter ego, while System Olympia also steps up with a remix on this fine new package from 20/20 Vision. In the hands of the latter, 'What's Been Turning You' is a remix with plenty of hi-fidelity cosmic details over mid-tempo deep nu-disco drums. The version from ASHRR is a chugging and Italo-tinged classic with loose-limbed and jumbled drum funk and plenty of bright, shiny arps. A great collection then.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Following up that essential release from last year on 20/20 Vision, ASHRR hammer home their strengths as new comic / electro-disco main players with a release that should have fans of Baldelli, ALFOS, Idjut Boys and everyone in between wetting their pants with joy.

TRACK LISTING

A1 "What’s Been Turning You On" (System Olympia Remix)
A2 "What’s Been Turning You On" (System Olympia Instrumental)
B1 "What’s Been Turning You On" (ASHRR Soundsystem Version)
B2 "What’s Been Turning You On" (ASHRR Soundsystem Instrumental Version)

Race The Night, the band’s eighth studio album, is released via one of their earliest label homes Fierce Panda. With 29 years, 18 hit singles, seven studio albums and an unfathomable number of tour dates since their appearance on the label’s 1994 Crazed And Confused compilation, Race The Night is both a party with old friends and a message to leap into the present with arms wide open.

Fitting then that the lead single should be the album’s title-track, with its super-charged and widescreen anthemia being the perfect primer for a record that has melodies to spare. “Before the shadows let us go, and it’s too late, to race the night” sings lead vocalist and guitarist Tim Wheeler as the band feel the heat of obsession on their backs and motor away to grab hold of opportunity.

Wheeler comments: “Race the Night is the sound of the band revelling in the sheer joy of being a band after being separated by time and distance through the insanity of the early 2020s. Lyrically it's all about seizing the crossroads moments in life with both hands. Take every chance as if it could be your last.”

Continuing about the video he says: “Race the Night video is the product from the fevered mind of long time friend and horror director Jed Shepherd. He's taken a song about seizing the moment and had the band seized by a super fan who proceeds to force the band into doing her bidding. Enjoy the Misery…”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I kind of feel like i've grown up with Ash at this point, and there's still something wildly nostalgic that triggers whenever I hear the start of their debut LP, '1977'. It's some comfort then that verging on 30 years later, we're still presented with a heavy, unmistakeable but also undeniably unique Ash offering. Huge melodies, hints of melancholy and loads of drive. Exactly the ticket.

TRACK LISTING

1. Race The Night
2. Usual Places
3. Reward In Mind
4. Oslo (feat. Démira)
5. Like A God
6. Peanut Brain
7. Crashed Out Wasted
8. Braindead
9. Double Dare
10. Over & Out
11. Like A God (Reprise)

Expanded CD Bonus Tracks:
12. Race The Night (Acoustic)
13. Usual Places (Acoustic)
14. Reward In Mind (Acoustic)
15. Peanut Brain (Acoustic)
16. Oh Yeah (Teenage Years) [The Subways Cover]
17. Like A God (Extended Version)
18. Race The Night (Antosh V Ash Remix)

To celebrate 3 years since the release of Andrew Ashong & Kaidi Tatham’s now classic Sankofa Season, Kitto Records invite some of their favourite artists to remix and reimagine the music. The result is an all-star line up that crosses genre and generations to produce a truly cracking EP, one that is clearly rooted in the original music while also moving into new, unexpected territories.

Whether it is dubstep pioneer Mala bringing a heavy and sophisticated twist to ‘Low Ceilings’, or breakthrough post-punk artist Wu-Lu flipping ‘Washed in You’ into a completely new realm, complete with a captivating feature from the one and only Lex Amor, the quality on show is undeniable.

Shy One brings one for the bruk heads, with a bumping remix of ‘Learning Lessens’ that flips between styles and mood, deftly using Andrew Ashong’s floating vocals to great effect. Gavsborg and Shanique Marie round out the EP by bringing the full force of their forward thinking Jamaican music collective Equiknoxx to bear with a soulful reimagining of ‘To Your Heart’. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Absolute royalty grace this 12"... Ashong, Thatham, Shy One, Mala, Wu-Lu, Gavsborg; you almost need to don your Sunday best just to listen to it!

TRACK LISTING

A1 Low Ceilings (Mala Remix)
A2. Washed In You (Wu-Lu Remix)
B1. Learning Lessens (Shy One Remix)
B2. To Your Heart (Gavsborg Remix) 

Scott Hepple and the Sun Band are a Psychedelic Rock Band from Newcastle, UK. The band favours a 60's/70's sound, with influences including Neil Young, Black Sabbath, The Beatles and Ty Segall.

Debut album 'Ashes to Wildflowers' was recorded analogue with Maximo Park's Duncan Lloyd, and was mastered by the renowned Chicago-based engineer Carl Saff (Sonic Youth, Ty Segall, J Mascis).

"The album's main theme of reincarnation goes hand in hand with the production" Scott says. "I wanted to produce the overdriven raw analogue sound that was rife in the late 60's/early 70s, which is where I take alot of my inspiration from".

The first single 'Letting Go' was released in January, followed by 'Nobody Else (Is Gonna Do It For You)' in April. On the run up to their headline UK and European album tour in Autumn/Winter, the band are supporting acts such as Love, Teke Teke, Nice Biscuit, GIFT and Ghost Woman. In June 2023, they performed at Third Man Records in London.

TRACK LISTING

1. Letting Go
2. Warm Night
3. Nobody Else (Is Gonna Do It For You)
4. Caligula
5. Leisure Cruise
6. Spirit Animal
7. Hair Of The Dog
8. Wildfires
9. Chosen

Asha Well is a San Francisco Bay Area based non-binary singer, songwriter, and visual artist. “Water Words” is their debut album, featuring atmospheric textures and haunting melodies set to thought provoking imagery. Working with co-producer Jason Kick (Mild High Club, Sonny and the Sunsets) at his Tunnel Vision studio in Oakland, CA the pair recorded 1-2 songs a week at the height of the pandemic. Kick brought his knack for arrangement, synthesis, and drum programming, helping to create a supportive environment for Wells’ atmospheric guitars and haunting melodies. The resulting album pairs textured sounds with tender harmonies, calling to mind the work of contemporary art forward singer-songwriters like Aldous Harding, Hand Habits, and Cate Le Bon as much as torchbearers like Patti Smith, Cat Power, and Jeff Buckley. Highly anticipated debut album from Asha Wells, co-produced by Jason Kick (Mild High Club, Sonny and the Sunsets). Press coverage includes reviews and features in Various Small Flames, Psychedelic Baby Magazine, and more.

TRACK LISTING

Water Words
At Night
Mood Indigo
California
Marianne
Bonjour Tristesse
Blue Angels
Drugstore Perfume
The Well
Up In A Cloud
The Weight
Motorbike

New Land are proud to present the first multi-disc box set from one of the most overlooked artists in Jazz history: Dorothy Ashby. The 6 LPs contained within this lavish box-set will give long overdue retrospection to her early works from 1957 to 1965, a period that found her represented by some of Jazz music’s most important record labels; Regent, Prestige, Jazzland, Argo and Atlantic. The Jazz Harpist, Hip Harp w/ Frank Wess, In A Minor Groove w/ Frank Wess, Soft Winds: The Swinging Harp Of Dorothy Ashby, Dorothy Ashby and The Fantastic Harp Of Dorothy Ashby have been officially licensed with the full support of the Dorothy Ashby estate.

All albums were remastered and lacquers cut by the exceptional Kevin Gray directly from the original analog tapes except The Jazz Harpist and Dorothy Ashby from which the original tapes have unfortunately been lost. Manufacturing has been handled by Pallas and all albums have been pressed on 180gm black vinyl and housed inside thick reverse-board sleeves.

At the centre of this package is a 44-page book featuring a foreword from Grammy nominated harpist Brandee Younger. Impassioned and deeply researched liner notes by Shannon J. Effinger provide historical context to Dorothy’s life, offering the most in-depth piece of writing ever committed to print on Dorothy as well as interviews with those that knew her best. 

Sold out on release in 2020, Asher Gamedze's Dialectic Soul finally returns as a limited edition clear vinyl press ahead of On The Corner’s 10th anniversary. Dialectic Soul is the debut album from one of Cape Town's most cutting-edge, visionary artists and musicians, the drummer Asher Gamedze.

This is Jazz at its most spiritual, most progressive and most appealing form. As Asher himself says: Dialectic Soul is about motion and a refusal to remain static or stay still. It’s the commitment to be continually moving’.

Recorded live over two days at the Sound and Motion Studios in Cape Town with renowned musicians (Thembinkosi Mavimbela (bass), Buddy Wells (tenor sax), Robin Fassie-Kock (trumpet) Nono Nkoane (voc)), Dialectic Soul is breathtaking in its musical vitality and expression of soul seeking truth. By incorporating the concept of the Total Art for this project, it fits perfectly within On The Corner's aesthetic of music, art and vision for creative innovation. Label art director Victoria Topping created the sleeve design working with Asher's drawings and concept. Asher continues: "My composition "state of emergence" introduces the themes that constitute the album; free drums representing autonomous African motion, the saxophone reflecting deeply and honestly on the violence of colonialism, the teachings of Coltrane, Biko, Makeba, Malcom and others inspired the music's positive manifestations of resistance."

"Fundamentally, it is about the reclamation of the historical imperative. It is about the dialect of the soul and the spirit while it moves through history. The soul is dialectic. Motion is imperative. We keep moving." 

TRACK LISTING

1. Movement One: Thesis
2. Movement Two: Antithesis
3. Movement Three: Synthesis
4. Siyabulela
5. Interregnum
6. Eternality
7. Hope In Azania
8. The Speculative Fourth

Kaleidoscopic pop songs in the vein of Devendra Banhardt, Dirty Projectors and The Kinks.

Guest appearance on "Garden" by guitarist Eli Winter.

Asher White’s music is a complex and heartfelt reaction to the churn of our modern world. With tender intimacy and resounding anxiety, White takes a wide view through the lens of her own queer sexual politics and transgender identity; what does it mean to renew, to progress, to transform? What is lost, gained, or irreversibly altered?

At 22 years old, White has developed a massive self-released discography: over a dozen albums since 2015, each one started the moment the last one was finished. New Excellent Woman is a distillation of these experiments and discoveries, a new achievement in songwriting that stands astride the cracks in the earth and lopsided ground. Songs jump between styles like a pubescent sex drive, all locked together by White’s ability to pull melody out of chaos.

New Excellent Woman wanders a meticulous cut-and-pasted path paved by forebears like The Books and Animal Collective. It sounds like a live band, bursting with kinetic energy, but the album was constructed alone in her Providence, RI studio, where she arranged, performed, recorded, and mixed the record herself. The ingenuity of Dirty Projectors is laced with the catchiness and warmth of The Kinks, and maybe a dash of Elephant 6. It’s like an ADHD party and you’re the first to arrive.

New Excellent Woman is built from detritus, often quite literally: from the thrift store amplifiers and scavenged keyboards she uses to her penchant for discovering and sampling obscure YouTube videos into her songs. The thick fog of “Bedsong” is made up of little more than a Hammond organ found on craigslist and a few muffled drums piled with rags; opener “Ptolemy” uses a seemingly random video of teenage boredom as its textural and rhythmic backdrop.

The ceaseless march of our modern world can feel both awe-inspiring and abysmal. New highways and condominiums are erected in a matter of weeks as historic burial grounds are demolished. Even short TikToks seem to expire in real time. Asher White won’t change things, but New Excellent Woman gives us a fresh and poignant perspective of the shifting world around us through her eyes—and maybe a connection is the best we can hope for.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ptolemy
2. Skate Park Anthem
3. Saturday Morning
4. Mare
5. Tresemme Instrumental
6. Modern Guilt
7. Garden
8. Bedsong
9. New Excellent World

Released on the Cadet label in 1970, this album’s wondrous mix of spiritual and funky jazz and unique instrumentation defy categorization. Harpist Ashby adds the koto, a 13-stringed Japanese instrument to her arsenal, and her long-time arranger Richard Evans blends flutes, vibraphone, oboe, kalimba and Ashby’s own vocals into a singular and soul-affirming set.

This Verve By Request title is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Third Man in Detroit. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Myself When Young (Side A)
2. For Some We Loved (Side A)
3. Wax And Wane (Side A)
4. Drink (Side A)
5. Wine (Side A)
6. Dust (Side B)
7. Joyful Grass And Grape (Side B)
8. Shadow Shapes (Side B)
9. Heaven And Hell (Side B)
10. The Moving Finger (Side B)

Cape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out on International Anthem in collaboration with Johannesburg-based label Mushroom Hour Half Hour.

Though this is Gamedze's first record with International Anthem as a leader, fans of AngelBat Dawids' debut, The Oracle, might recognize his name from their epic first-meeting-turned-song: Capetown or from his drumming on Angel & Tha Brothahoods LIVE. Close followers of free music may also know Asher from last year's offering on Astral Spirits, Out Side Work (which features scorching duets with fellow Brothahood member Xristian Espino: Sun City GirlsA l a n Bishop), or from his ZUZU debut album Dialectic Soul, which was ranked in the New York Times' Top Ten Jazz Albums of the Year.

Turbulence andPulse comes as a reset and a reintroduction, even while Gamedze is again joined by his core quartet from Dialectic Soul -South African musicians Thembinkosi Mavimbela (bass), Robin Fassie (trumpet), and Buddy Wells (tenor sax).

The album opener "Turbulence's Pulse" serves as a manifesto to inform the album that follows: a multi-rhythmic groove exploration of a collection of pieces initially composed by Gamedze on piano. The result is his most soulful and accessible album yet, and a sweet-vet-energetic addition to the South African jazz cannon. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A new rising jazz artist from Cape Town lays down his musical manifesto and boy is it impressive. Brimming with complex poly rhythms, highly eloquent sax and sentiment rich piano and vocal contributions its a top drawer addition to the South African jazz cannon.

TRACK LISTING

1. Turbulence's Pulse
2. Wynter Time
3. Locomotion
4. If It Rains. To Pursue Truth
5. Melancholia
6. Alibama
7. Can't See The Sun
8. Sometimes I Think To Myself
9. Out Stepped Zim
10. Underground Formation

Named after a line taken from the great Edinburgh poet Norman MacCaig’s Praise of a Man, Tommy Ashby’s stunning debut album ‘Lamplighter’ distills the idea that after someone significant enters your life, the light they pass on will spread and illuminate others. Once that light is lit, it never really goes out. The album is a sincere and touching meditation on relationships; familial and friendships, the romantic and the unspoken. Capturing snapshots of people, places and moments in time, the work beautifully illustrates the effect that a person can have on your life and reflects on how the important relationships in our lives shape us; “It depicts all the people who were lamplighters in my life”.

After swapping a one-bed flat in London for the big skies, reed beds and sunsets of rural Suffolk, Tommy found himself writing about relationships with family and friends, along with a sense of place and its significance. Recorded in a series of secluded retreats tucked away in the hidden corners of the UK, an affinity for location and nature permeates the record. You can hear the trickle of streams in the woods of the Scottish Borders, birds spinning off the sea-cliffs of Zennor in Cornwall and the misty autumn chill of days spent recording in Suffolk and Pembrokeshire. Throughout ‘Lamplighter’, Tommy reminisces over many fond childhood memories of wandering wild Scottish woodlands with his parents, his grandma’s enthusiasm for naturalist poetry and folk music or nights spent sneaking into pubs and bars to play the blues with his dad. As the album unfolds the songs muse over these memories. You get a sense that Tommy is trying to come to terms with how these personal connections have changed over the years and how they’ve come to shape him as an individual.

TRACK LISTING

1. Running
2. My Old Man
3. Moonflower (Best Friend)
4. Closer
5. When Love Goes Dark
6. Floorboards
7. Not That Far To Go
8. A Beautiful Day
9. Safe And Sound
10. Lifeline
11. Which Way The Wind Blows
12. Weigh Me Down
13. Comeback Kid

Nu-Clear Sounds was the second smash hit album from Ash. The album a reached No.7 within the UK and has since become a gold record. The hard rock album contains monster hits Jesus Says, Wildsurf and Numbskull.

Ash and BMG are proud to reissue Ash’s second LP ‘Nu-Clear Sounds’ for the first time on Clear and Nu-Clear Green splatter vinyl. This album has not been re-issued since it’s 1998 release, so will be an exciting prospect within the Ash community. Meltdown contains hit after hit and with its hard rock sound resonates strongly with a wide audience. Upon release Ash drew critical acclaim from multiple publications including Wall Of Sound, Pitchfork and many more, whilst touring the album worldwide, and appearing as one of the main acts at the Glastonbury Festival. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Projects (2023 Remaster)
2. Low Ebb (2023 Remaster)
3. Jesus Says (2023 Remaster)
4. Wildsurf (2023 Remaster)
5. Death Trip 21 (2023 Remaster)
Side B:
1. Folk Song (2023 Remaster)
2. Numbskull (2023 Remaster)
3. Burnt Out (2023 Remaster)
4. Aphrodite (2023 Remaster)
5. Fortune Teller (2023 Remaster)
6. I’m Gonna Fall (2023 Remaster)

TRACK LISTING

Hit The Switch
Down In A Rabbit Hole
Arc Of Time (Time Code)
Ship In A Bottle
Agenda Suicide
Gold Mine Gutted

“The first three are innocent in a way, because we didn’t have an audience when we were making them,” says Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. “But from ‘Lifted’ on, I was definitely aware of an audience. ‘Lifted’ was well received right away, and then everything happened with ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Digital Ash’.”

Those two albums came out simultaneously. And their lead singles - ‘Take It Easy (Love Nothing)’, from the austere, remote ‘Digital Ash’, and ‘Lua’, from the warm, folky ‘Wide Awake’ - debuted in the top two slots on the Billboard Hot 100. ‘First Day of My Life’, also from ‘Wide Awake’, would later be voted the Number One Love Song Of All Time by NPR Music’s readers’ poll. 

Bright Eyes had officially broken through. It was a heady, exciting time, but also fraught and tense, both because of the band’s careening new fame, and because of the state of the world. When Bright Eyes made their Tonight Show debut in 2006, they chose to perform none of their shiny new hits, instead delivering a searing, harrowing rendition of their caustic anti-Bush anthem, ‘When The President Talks To God’. 

TRACK LISTING

Time Code
Gold Mine Gutted
Arc Of Time (Time Code)
Down In A Rabbit Hole
Take It Easy (Love Nothing)
Hit The Switch
I Believe In Symmetry
Devil In The Details
Ship In A Bottle
Light Pollution
Theme To Piñata
Easy/Lucky/Free

Meltdown was the fourth smash hit album from Ash. The album again reached No.5 within the UK and has since become a gold record. The hard rock album contains mega hits including Clones, Orpheus, Starcrossed, Renegade Cavalcade and Meltdown.

Ash and BMG are proud to reissue Ash’s fourth LP ‘Meltdown for the first time on Orange and Black splatter vinyl. This album has not been re-issued since it’s 2004 release, so will be an exciting prospect within the Ash community. Meltdown contains hit after hit and with its hard rock sound resonates strongly with a wide audience. Upon release Ash drew critical acclaim from multiple publications including Pitchfork, The Guardian, Drowned In Sound and many more, whilst touring with allusive contemporaries The Darkness, and headlining Coachella Festival.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Evil Eye (2022 Remaster)
2. Orpheus (2022 Remaster)
3. Meltdown (2022 Remaster)
4. Starcrossed (2022 Remaster)
5. Clones (2022 Remaster)
Side B:
1. Renegade Cavalcade (2022 Remaster)
2. Vampire Love (2022 Remaster)
3. Out Of The Blue (2022 Remaster)
4. Won’t Be Saved (2022 Remaster)
5. On A Wave (2022 Remaster)
6. Detonator (2022 Remaster)

Free All Angels was the third smash hit album from Ash. The album again reached No.1 within the UK and has since become a platinum record. The punk rock pop album contains mega hits including the Ivor Novello winner ‘Shining Light’, the NME single of the year ‘Burn Baby Burn’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘There’s A Star’, ‘Candy’ and Walking Barefoot’.

Ash and BMG are proud to reissue Ash’s third LP ‘Free All Angels’ for the first time on vivid yellow and clear splatter vinyl. This album has not been re-issued since it’s 2001 release, so will be an exciting prospect within the Ash community. Free All Angels contains hit after hit and with its punk rock sound resonates strongly with a wide audience. Upon release Ash drew critical comparisons to works of China Drum, Compulsion and The Replacements, , whilst touring with allusive contemporaries Weezer and Smashing Pumpkins and many more.

This re-issue coincides with the release of Free All Angels on immersive Sony 360RA for the very first time. This unique mix will give fans insight into Tim Wheeler’s sonic spatial sphere bringing Ash’s incredible hits into the new age.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
Walking Barefoot (2022 Remaster)
Shining Light (2022 Remaster)
Burn Baby Burn (2022 Remaster)
Candy (2022 Remaster)
Cherry Bomb (2022 Remaster)
Submission (2022 Remaster)
Side B:
Someday (2022 Remaster)
Pacific Palisades (2022 Remaster)
Shark (2022 Remaster)
Sometimes (2022 Remaster)
Nicole (2022 Remaster)
There’s A Star (2022 Remaster)
World Domination (2022 Remaster)

The spectacular debut release from Ash, 1977 was a monumental album in the brit-rock scene, reaching No.1 within the UK and has since become a platinum record. The Northern Irish (NI) band, smashed out the huge singles ‘Girl From Mars’, ‘Kung Fu’, ‘Goldfinger’, ‘Angel Interceptor’ and ‘Oh Yeah’ on the album.

Ash and BMG are proud to reissue Ash’s debut LP ‘1977’ for the first time on stunning black and white splatter vinyl. This album has not been re-issued since it’s 1996 release, so will be an exciting prospect within the brit-rock community. 1977 was included in NME’s 500 best albums of all time, so resonates strongly with a wide audience. Upon release Ash drew critical comparisons to Buzzcocks, Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, whilst touring with allusive contemporaries Weezer and Smashing Pumpkins and many more.

This re-issue coincides with the release of 1977 on immersive Sony 360RA for the very first time. This unique mix will give fans insight into Tim Wheeler’s sonic spatial sphere bringing Ash’s incredible hits into the new age.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
Lose Control (2022 Remaster)
Goldfinger (2022 Remaster)
Girl From Mars (2022 Remaster)
I’d Give You Anything (2022 Remaster)
Gone The Dream (2022 Remaster)
Kung Fu (2022 Remaster)
Side B:
Oh Yeah (2022 Remaster)
Let It Flow (2022 Remaster)
Innocent Smile (2022 Remaster)
Angel Interceptor (2022 Remaster)
Lost In You (2022 Remaster)
Darkside Lightside (2022 Remaster)

We can't think of many other performers like the singer/songwriter/ dancer/actress Asha Puthli who have excelled in such a broad range of genres.

From 60s psych, Classical Indian music, Free Jazz, Pop, Soul, Disco, to Rock, the list goes on. A 'best- of' or an 'essential collection' is always going to be a subjective thing, but for what is unbelievably the frst ofcial compilation covering the full breadth of Asha's illustrious career, we aimed to provide a snapshot into her ever- evolving musical journey and a tribute to the vast richness of her catalogue. Some singers want to be famous, others are pop star icons, and some are artists; Asha is the latter. Asha is a true force of nature, regardless of the genre she explores, she fully commits, moves on, and reinvents herself, always progressing.

Looking back on Asha's career, it is evident what a trail-blazer she was, opening doors for her contemporaries and those who came later to step through. Whether it was conscious or not, you can recognise Asha’s infuence in aspects of Kate Bush's ethereal image and performance, in Donna Summer’s high-smooth vocal sound and disco stylings, and in the gumption and power of Grace Jones. Kick-starting the compilation is ‘Pain’, the Indian psychedelic garage rock sounds of The Savages featuring Asha. We have to admit, we had to strongarm Asha into letting us include this track at frst; also due to its rare nature (and lack of any master tapes) the recording we present here is raw and low-f. However, we felt its inclusion was important to fully represent the journey of Asha's career, the same consideration was also applied to two of the Asha & The Surfers’ songs that we have included in this collection.

Asha saw a link between jazz and classical Indian music "the improvisation, the minor chords, the free form, the liberalness of the art" we showcase her love of jazz here with seminal works with the legendary Ornette Coleman, taken from the revered 'Science Fiction’ album. Asha's 'CBS years' are represented here, how could we not include 'Space Talk' on this collection, and how these years progressed into her amazing disco offerings such as 'I'm Gonna Dance' & 'Music Machine'. The bizarre 'We're Gonna Bury The Rock With The Roll Tonight' from 1980 has also won us over. A pseudo-50s throw- back song that sounds not un- similar to the post-modern, leftfeld, pop of an MIA production to come years later. Rounding off the compilation we have Asha's interpretation of a Michael Jackson classic that sat lost on a cassette-only released in India.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mr Bongo bring us another top release, this time from all-round legend, Asha Puthli. With her influence stretching so far, and there being so many releases to cover, the best way to do this is definitely a career-spanning best of, and Mr. Bongo are ALWAYS to be trusted with a good comp. Win / win.

TRACK LISTING

W/ The Savages – Pain
W/ The Surfers – Sound Of Silence
W/ The Surfers – Sunny
W/ The Surfers – Fever
W/ Ornette Coleman – What Reason Could I Give
W/ Ornette Coleman – All My Life
W/ Charlie Mariano – Mirror
Right Down Here
Lies
Devil Is Loose
Space Talk
One Night Affair
I’m Gonna Dance
Music Machine (dedication To Studio 54)
Peek A Boo Boogie
Mister Moonlight
Prism Of The Sun (song For Dieter)
1001 Nights Of Love (reprise)
We’re Gonna Bury The Rock With The Roll Tonight
Asha Puthli - Chipko Chipko

At times percussive and dancey, at others hypnotic and cinematic, the largely synthesiser-driven soundscapes of 'L’Orée' feel both of the past and the future. It’s the sound of two different worlds – a record capable of being as primal and ritualistic as it is synthesised and digitally manipulated. Where the band’s prior minimal Krautrock (see their 2019 ‘Sinie Sinie’ LP) might have brought to mind cold, dark post-industrial cities, ‘L’Orée’s kosmische experimentalism takes you instead on an instrumental journey through the natural wilderness via the medium of shape-shifting psychedelic electronics.

That ‘L’Orée’ explores a more natural and organic sound than heard on their previous releases owes largely to the environment it was made in. Recorded in a tucked-away house in the French countryside that bordered on a surrounding forest, Ashinoa recall sessions spent soaking up their surroundings with a number of collaborators coming in and out to perform on the record: “The house we recorded the album in was kind of in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by douglas pine trees.

From this proximity to the forest, we wanted to take our soundscapes to a place we’ve never been before. Before we were surrounded by concrete, and then far from it. We were looking for a new listening place, to discover new intriguing sounds. We had laid down the basis of the album and then musician friends that would visit us at the time were invited to participate in the making of the album, each one of them bringing a touch of their own.” Since forming in 2015, the French five-piece comprised of Chris Poincelot, Matteo Fabbri, Jérémy Labarre, Paul Renard and Ghazi Frini have been at the forefront of the alternative scene in their home city of Lyon.

Initially associated with the city’s Misère Records movement and collective, the band have now signed to London-based label Fuzz Club Records (Night Beats, Tess Parks, The Underground Youth) for their latest. It follows the band's debut 'Sinie Sinie' LP and a vinyl-only release of the 'Koalibi' single as part of Fuzz Club's Reverb Conspiracy compilation series. Having toured around France on a number of occasions Ashinoa have also through the years shared stages with the likes of Metz, Flamingods, Tomaga, Warmduscher, Bo Ningen, Kikagaku Moyo, Minami Deutsch, The Holydrug Couple and many more.

TRACK LISTING

1) Vermillion
2) Koalibi
3) Feu De Joie
4) Space Cow
5) Falling Forever
6) Fuel Of Sweet
7) Unknown To Myself
8) Selvatica
9) BAde BaidebSz
10) Disguised In Orbit
11) Yzmenet
12) Outro

We proudly announce the authorised 50th Anniversary Edition 2021 of the 1972 Original release , one of the most important German Krautrock albums in a 2021 re-cut carefully overseen by Manuel Göttsching himself.

As for the info we refer to Julian Cope´s review in his “Krautrocksampler” Book, Publisher : Head Heritage (1 Oct. 1995) :

“Beware of Schwingungen!” That should be the large sticker on the front of all copies of this record. For it is dangerous to be casually introduced to something that is life-changing, as I found out to my cost when first listening to this record. It all starts fairly simply and without any cause for alarm - “Look at Your Sun” begins with a Doorsy lone groover guitar begins a pedestrian blues, beautiful. Then the most crushed voice, a cross between Johnny Rotten and Tiny Tim, preaches its way into the proceeds. God, it is beautiful - John L. repeats over and over, “We are all one, we are all one”, until a howling fuzztone solo guitar blows the whole onechord “Signed D.C.” ringing-cymbals torture to an end. And then the most far out track of all begins. This is called “Flower Must Die” and it is a free-rock giant that transcends everything else in its field (there are no contenders.) As I've written before, PIL sounds like this. John L. was John Lydon in a previous incarnation. After a slow weird build, a frantic streamlined one-chord mantra kicks in and it’s like the Stooges’ Funhouse period but in a Righteous Vision Zone that fucks them right off. Phasing tears at the whole tracks as this Holy Racket crosses into Hyper-space and everything gets all hyphenated just-for-the-sake-of-it. “Flowers Must Die”, man, it’s fucked up.

Over on Side 2, the title-track (“Vibrations”) begins poetically enough with Wolfgang Muller’s epic and hugely reverbed vibraphone. Organ fades in and FX guitars, and time passes by. Finally, tom-toms roll and the developing pace is built upon until that great eternal chord sequence finally materialises — this is the one that Göttsching and Enke believed was the sound of heaven. They may have been right. And Schwingungen was a gift from the Gods.“

TRACK LISTING

Side A :
Light And Darkness
A1. Light: Look At Your Sun 6:20
A2. Darkness: Flowers Must Die 12:20
Side B :
Schwingungen 19:00

The album features twelve newly recorded acoustic versions of classic songs from his back catalogue spanning both his solo career and his time with The Verve.

After lockdown was lifted, Richard decided to start the project as a way to reunite the community around him, bringing a selection of great musicians and old friends back together again. As the project took shape, they discovered just how varied their new approaches could be. Some of the arrangements proved to be timeless and remained similar to the originals, with years of experience and a new found passion that saw Richard’s vocals express a fresh empathy within their lyrics. Meanwhile, other songs took on a new shape in this stripped-back set-up.

The rebirth of the iconic ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ was an emotional moment for Richard. It felt particularly poignant re-recording a song that he had written almost twenty-five years ago, especially as it's now officially his composition after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards relinquished their writing credits to him.

Another big moment comes with the new version of ‘C’Mon People (We’re Making It Now)’, a duet with Richard’s old friend Liam Gallagher. The pair have often talked about recording or performing the song together since it was first released in 2000, and now it’s finally happened - the sheer energy and delight that they shared during the session is palpable as the new recording beams with a joyous feeling of optimism.

‘Velvet Morning’ is another track that has been transformed. The vocals on the original version, as featured on The Verve’s classic ‘Urban Hymns’, were sung via a megaphone that Richard had purchased from a car boot sale the day before the recording session. Now Richard’s vocal really shines as it unleashes the song’s full magnitude.

The biggest surprise on ‘Acoustic Hymns Vol. 1’ is the inclusion of ‘This Thing Called Life’, a song which Ashcroft has rarely played live. It was originally recorded with No I.D. in the USA as a highlight of his soul-tinged RPA & The United Nations Of Sound project. Now taken back to basics, the new arrangement reveals a song that feels perfectly at home alongside Richard’s most highly regarded work.

Produced by Richard with regular collaborator Chris Potter, the album features his regular live band boosted by some special collaborators. Wil Malone provides the string arrangements, which were recorded at Abbey Road Studios. In addition, Chuck Leavell (The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers) performs piano, Roddy Bloomfield leads the brass section, and Steve Wyreman (Leon Bridges, Vic Mensa) contributes acoustic guitar and backing vocals.

TRACK LISTING

CD
Bittersweet Symphony
A Song For The Lovers
Sonnet
C'mon People (We're Making It Now) – Featuring Liam Gallagher
Weeping Willow
Lucky Man
This Thing Called Life
Space & Time
Velvet Morning
Break The Night With Colour
One Day
The Drugs Don't Work

Vinyl Tracklist
SIDE A
Bittersweet Symphony
A Song For The Lovers
Sonnet
SIDE B
C'mon People (We're Making It Now) – Featuring Liam Gallagher
Weeping Willow
Lucky Man
SIDE C
This Thing Called Life
Space & Time
Velvet Morning
SIDE D
Break The Night With Colour
One Day
The Drugs Don't Work

Live at New Belgium Brewing Company, Asheville, NC, USA, September 1st 2019

Recorded by our sound crew: Sam Joseph, Stacey Wilson and Gaspard Demulemeester

TRACK LISTING

1. Evil Star (Live In Asheville '19)
2. Self-Immolate (Live In Asheville '19)
3. Venusian 1 (Live In Asheville '19)
4. Alter Me III (Live In Asheville '19)
5. Altered Beast IV (Live In Asheville '19)
6. People-Vultures (Live In Asheville '19)
7. This Thing (Live In Asheville '19)
8. Beginner?s Luck (Live In Asheville '19)
9. Rattlesnake (Live In Asheville '19)
10. Cyboogie (Live In Asheville '19)
11. Loyalty (Live In Asheville '19)
12. Horology (Live In Asheville '19)
13. Boogieman Sam (Live In Asheville '19)
14. Plastic Boogie (Live In Asheville '19)
15. Mars For The Rich (Live In Asheville '19)
16. Hell (Live In Asheville '19)
17. The Lord Of Lightning (Live In Asheville '19)
18. The Bitter Boogie (Live In Asheville '19)

Recorded and mixed by Joshua Wells (Destroyer, Lightning Dust, ex-Black Mountain). Guest vocals from Bonnie “Prince” Billy on the “Don’t Slow Me Down” single. Guest pedal steel guitar from Paul Rigby (known mostly for his studio work with Neko Case) on 3 of the 10 tracks. Support thus far from FLOOD Mag, Stereogum, KEXP, KCRW, Popular TV (ex-Nylon writers), Pitchfork, Exclaim! & more. “Tonight” single synced for a Netflix series 13 Reasons Why in March 2017.

Ashley Shadow winks at darkness, but she won’t lead you towards it. It’s easy to fall under the spell of Ashley’s haunting voice. The Vancouver, B.C. based songwriter forged her own identity as a songwriter with 2016’s eponymous self-titled debut. Her sophomore effort, Only the End, maintains the moody introspection that is ingrained in Pacific Northwest life, but now comes armed with a palpable hope complementing her signature melancholy. Ashley explains, “I wanted to make a more upbeat album, something you could play with some friends over. Some of the songs I wrote were initially bummers, but when we went to record them, we lightened them up.”

Balancing a couple of jobs and navigating life and love in increasingly unstable times, the album was written over two years by Ashley at her apartment. Her confident vibrato above lightly, distorted guitars mirrors the album’s theme of resilience, if not triumph, over adversity. There is comfort in these warm songs that endorse the realism of contented acceptance, rather than the naïve search for non-existent utopias. While the songs were conceived in contemplative solitude, Ashley invited some very capable collaborators for their journey into the studio. Ashley’s first album saw her take center stage after more than a decade of gracing friends’ projects in a supporting role.

The move to the front was a cautious one. “First record was, can I do a solo album? This time, I know what I’m doing. It’s way more clear.” "Don’t Slow Me Down" reunites Ashley with Bonnie “Prince” Billy for the first time on record when she sang vocals on Bonnie's Lie Down In Light album in 2018. The album also includes contributions from Paul Rigby (Neko Case), Colin Cowan (Elastic Stars), Joshua Wells (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust) and Ryan Beattie (Himalayan Bear). It’s clear to anyone listening. It’s Only the End. If only all endings were so glorious.

TRACK LISTING

01. Gone Too Long
02. For Love
03. Don’t Slow Me Down (feat. Bonnie "Prince" Billy)
04. Grey
05. From You
06. I Will Remember
07. Unspoken
08. Nothing
09. Catlin
10. Bury 

Maples, Ash, and Oaks: Cedars Instrumentals is a mesmerizing soundtrack for a long walk in the woods, made up of pedal steel, oud, guitar, hurdy-gurdy, and piano. Based on the original Field Works album Cedars, this new suite of instrumental music brings the listener even deeper into the forest. For this special limited-edition release, Stuart Hyatt deconstructed each track from Cedars and rebuilt them one layer at a time. He removed the narrators’ voices and invited Julien Marchal to introduce piano as the new protagonist.

The 15 new tracks are named from each line of the new poem, Deciduous, by Cecily Parks. The musical frameworks are based on the Field Works album Cedars, created by Marisa Anderson, Fadi Tabbal, and Stuart Hyatt – and performed by Julien Marchal, Youmna Saba, Dena El Saffar, Danny Paul Grody, Bob Hoffnar, Stuart Hyatt, Tomás Lozano, Nathan Bowles, Alex Roldan, Fadi Tabbal, and Marisa Anderson. The forest soundscape was recorded by Harrison Ridley in the Welsh countryside. PRESS - “For those interested in the intersection between field recordings and music, this is a must-have.” A Closer Listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Morning Bends Down (2:36)
2. To Meet The Canopy (2:54)
3. That We Walk Under. (2:19)
4. We Know The Moss, Forget-Me-Nots (2:08)
5. And Blue-Green Spruce (2:41)
6. But We Want To Be Known (2:32)
7. By The Woods. We Say (1:29)
8. Without Saying, Forget Me Not. (2:18)
9. We Listen To Maples, Ash, And Oaks, (1:58)
10. Without Hearing, But Not Hearing (2:12)
11. Doesn't Mean That We Aren't (2:01)
12. Being Spoken To. (2:16)
13. What Was That? Leaves Rustle (2:14)
14. As If To Say, You Forget. (1:48)
15. We Forgot. (2:07)

"We can’t think of many artists that have had as diverse a career and who have been involved in as many different genres of music as Asha Puthli. A musical pioneer who forged a path through 60’s psych, free-jazz, pop, rock, disco, and more.

Asha’s 1976 album ‘The Devil Is Loose’ is maybe her most well-known record. Featuring the beautiful disco-funk-classic ‘Space Talk’, Asha’s ethereal soaring vocals take us on a journey that almost mirrors Asha’s eclectic career. The track was championed by a wide-range of musical scenes and movements, and over space and time it has been commandeered as their own.

Y ou would hear it played by David Mancuso at the now ‘mythical’ underground New York party ‘The Loft’, in the most discerning disco nightclubs across the globe, in the Rare Groove scene, and also being sampled by hip-hop heavyweights such as The Notorious B.I.G / P Diddy, and The Pharcyde. The appeal and lifespan of ‘Space Talk’ keeps on extending and morphing as new audiences gleefully discover it for the first time - it still sounds as relevant and fresh on the dancefloor today - a sign of a true classic.

Here at Mr Bongo we are thrilled to be releasing records by such an iconic musical maverick as Asha, from her roots in India to becoming a globe-trotting artist with a celebrated career in music and acting, whilst always staying true to her art. She has blazed a trail so that others could follow. Whether you are buying this album as a replacement for your worn-out original copy or it’s the first time you’ve heard of Asha Puthli and you’re just intrigued and drawn in by the cover, we hope you enjoy this quintessential slice of Asha’s world."

TRACK LISTING

Flying Fish
The Devil Is Loose
Hello Everyone
Wonder Why
My Buddy And Me
Say Yes
Space Talk
Our Love Is Making Me Sing
Good Night

Having successfully outlasted their self-described ‘guaranteed real teenagers’ tagline when they first burst into earshot in 1994, ASH announce the release of Teenage Wildlife: 25 Years Of Ash.

- Career Spanning Best Of
- Includes brand new track Darkest Hour Of The Night
- Includes hits Girl From Mars, Shining Light and Burn Baby Burn

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sometimes it's just the first chord of a tune you need to hear to have all the endorphins come flooding back and for me, Ash's 'Girl On Mars' is about as close as you can get to a time capsule. Add that to 'Oh Yeah' and 'Goldfinger', and you have an absolutely essential collection for fans and a great best of for those uninitiated.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. A Life Less Ordinary (#10 UK Charts)
2. Arcadia
3. Darkest Hour Of The Night
4. Kung Fu
5. Cocoon
6. You Can't Have It All

Side B
1. Girl From Mars (#11 UK Charts)
2. Wildsurf
3. Shining Light (#8 UK Charts)
4. Starcrossed
5. Goldfinger (#5 UK Charts)

Side C
1. Burn Baby Burn
2. Dare To Dream
3. Annabel
4. Machinery
5. Sometimes

Side D
1. Oh Yeah (#6 UK Charts)
2. Angel Interceptor
3. Jesus Says
4. Orpheus
5. Jack Names The Planets

In 1976, a brand new, exhilarating musical revolution was beginning to gather momentum in London, instigated by grown ups, but embraced and spearheaded by a dissatisfied youth, bored of the stagnant stench of a music industry that said, and meant, nothing to them. 200 miles North up the M1 was a city that was primed ready and able to play it’s part in the growth of punk rock in the U.K; Manchester.

This book aims to explain why punk was the ideal natural musical progression in the city, as told by the people who were there at that embryonic stage before it entered into mainstream consciousness. In a time when hairstyle and dress sense defined your personality, nailing your colours to the mast of a grey and monochrome backdrop. Where people’s indifference to difference was measured in punches, and intolerance of tolerance was metered out in kicks. Working class kids from the inner city council estates who found escape from their surroundings in music and fashion. Not off the peg fashion, but homemade ingenuity, glamour through austerity, there’s nothing like a bit of individuality to make the natives restless.

Manchester has been the home of many musical firsts; Halle Orchestra, Top Of The Pops, Sex Pistols on television, Independent record release. An infamous gig that spawned a plethora of bands, writers, photographers, artists. It was home to The Electric Circus, Pips, Rafters, Band On The Wall, venues which are all (predominantly) fondly remembered as memories of a well spent youth.

The book charts those protagonists from their early life growing up, socially and musically, the impact that punk had on their lives, including the bands that sprung up from it, how it allowed them to express their beliefs, and how it’s ideology has stayed with them up to the present day. The time line is between the early 1960’s until December 1977 (ish). The story is predominantly told through the words of the subjects, after hours of editing face to face interviews and emails, interspersed with my narrative connecting and introducing the differing topics and chapters.

It is a social history document as well as a musical coming of age memoir, a time capsule of days of which we will never again see the like.

TRACK LISTING

Chapter Breakdown
1: History Of Manchester’s Slum Dwellings From The 19th Century To 1960’s.
2: Interviewee’s Experiences Of Growing Up In The Inner City. Musical Influences And Access To Physical Musical Output.
3; Nightclubs/Bars Of Manchester. The Gay Scene, Pips, The Ranch Bar. Bowie/Roxy
4; The Electric Circus. Early Gigs Including Sex Pistols And Buzzcocks.
5; So It Goes- Sex Pistols First Appearance On T.V. Recollections From The Producer.
6; Early Punk Fashion In The City. People’s Stories Of Homemade Clothing.
7; Violence On The Streets Of Manchester And The Terraces. Football And Punk.
8; Venues Of Manchester; Band On The Wall, Rafters, The Oaks, Apollo Theatre.
9; The Growth Of Punk In Manchester, Interviewee’s Gig Memories.
10; So It Goes Second Series. Recollections Of Outside Broadcasts From Director And Video Assistant.
11; The Closure Of The Electric Circus.
12; The Dissolution Of Punk At The End Of 1977. The Lasting Legacy Of What Punk Meant To The People Interviewed For The Book.

A heavyweight astral shower of rhythm and vibes, Ash Walker’s third album ‘Aquamarine’ is released on 19th July 2019 via Night Time Stories. Ash’s production output is similarly exploratory: his journeys have taken him far and wide, from tunnels under the river Thames to recording local percussionists in the Atlas mountains of Morocco. Inspired by a deep dive of sounds from artists including Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, King Tubby, Bo Diddley, 4Hero, J Dilla, Pete Rock, Curtis Mayfield, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich; his first two albums, ‘Augmented 7th’ (2015) and ‘Echo Chamber’ (2016) gained attention from the likes of BBC 6 Music DJs Gilles Peterson, Don Letts, Gideon Coe and Clash Maga- zine, XLR8R and MIMS.

‘Aquamarine’ is a projection and culmination of all he’s absorbed. A cosmic explosion of sound and colour, rhythm, shape and patterns. The arrival of an unassuming dreamer now projecting his unique flavour of expression. ‘Aqua- marine’ is the take-off of this audial spaceship, a sound discovered in the grooves of thousands of records, united in one. A meditation designed to inspire good energy, Ash hopes to bring a sense of calm and tranquility to the listener amongst the chaos of life. Recorded at home with the freedom of time and space, it combines analogue with digital, and a fondness for normally unwanted shapes and textures such as fuzz, hiss and crackle.

“My previous albums have felt to me more like ventures on land. This one feels more like a deep sea voyage into the subconscious. Living to dream with visions of grandeur. Manifesting a beautiful path to walk on. It was inspired by everything around me, from friends and family to art and design, engineering and architecture, movement and how we use our five senses. I love to try and push my own boundaries of what I perceive to be right and wrong, seeing mistakes as innovations, and obstacles as inspiration.”

Highlights on the album include ‘Under The Sun’, ‘Time’ and ‘Finishing Touch’, all of which feature the smooth and silky voice of Laville. Themes of metaphysical exploration and transportation re-occur in the cosmic jazz of ‘Brave New World’ and the smoked beats on ‘Come With Us’. Also featured across the album are trumpet and flugel-horn genius Yazz Ahmed, bassist Marc Cyril (Keziah Jones, Jr Walker & The All Stars) and renowned musician and producer Jonathan Shorten.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mixing elements of downbeat, hip-hop and a healthy dose of soul, 'Aquamarine' is another superb outing for the ever-talented Ash Walker. Shadowy beats clash with reverbed guitar and echoing vocals before breaking into loungy slow-jazz and heady opium-den instrumentals. It actually confounds all genre expectations and is all the better for it. Proper lovely.

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. Under The Sun (ft Laville)
2. Time (ft Laville)
3. Come With Us
4. Brave New World
5. Finishing Touch (ft Laville)
6. Aquamarine 07. Sanity (ft Laville)
8. I Need Money
9. Fat King Smoke
10. Aint Got You (ft Laville)

Vinyl
A1. Under The Sun (ft Laville)
A2. Time (ft Laville)
A3. Come With Us
A4. Brave New World
A5. Finishing Touch (ft Laville)
A6. Aquamarine B1. Sanity (ft Laville)
B3. I Need Money B4. Fat King Smoke
B5. Aint Got You (ft Laville)
B6. The Dagon's Cashmere Jumper

As the frontman for the epic British drone-pop band The Verve, Richard Ashcroft proved himself the spiritual descendant of rock & roll icons like Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison - rivetingly charismatic, menacingly serpentine, and possessed of an almost shamanic intensity, he embraced and articulated the anthemic fervor of rock music with a power and eloquence unparalleled by any of his contemporaries.

Featuring ten new songs, all of which were written by Ashcroft, ‘Natural Rebel’ was produced by the singer-songwriter alongside Jon Kelly (Paul McCartney, Kate Bush) and Emre Ramazanoglu, Bobby Gillespie). The majority of its recording took place at State of the Ark Studios in Richmond, with further sessions at The Bunker, Tileyard Studios and Hoxa HQ.

TRACK LISTING

1. All My Dreams
2. Birds Fly
3. Surprised By The Joy
4. That's How Strong
5. Born To Be Strangers
6. That's When I Feel It
7. We All Bleed
8. A Man In Motion
9. Streets Of Amsterdam
10. Money Money

French-Cuban twins Ibeyi are back with their second album ‘Ash’, a record that tackles subjects as diverse as womanhood, spirituality, activism and racism, all conveyed in Ibeyi’s own unique blend of modern pop, hip-hop and electronic influenced music that incorporates the traditional sounds of Yorùbá. ‘Ash’ is the follow-up to the twin’s 2015 critically acclaimed, eponymous debut album that made Ibeyi a globally recognized name.

While Ibeyi’s first album grappled with the past—the sister’s relationship, origins, loss, and roots. It earned them fans and collaborators in some of the most iconic and crucial artists of today, Beyoncé and Alvin Ailey included. By contrast, Ash is a more visceral and potent political statement, and while firmly rooted in Afro-Cuban culture and history, finds itself entirely concerned with Ibeyi’s present: Who Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi are, what’s important to them, and how they live today, especially given that the spheres, both personally and politically, are entirely different from when Ibeyi was recorded.

‘Ash’ was recorded in November 2016 in London with producer Richard Russell at his studio The Copper House. The album features twelve new tracks, including ‘Away Away’ which was released in June, and includes appearances from Kamasi Washington, Mala Rodriguez, Chilly Gonzales, Meshell Ndegeocello.

‘Deathless,’ the second track to be debuted from ‘Ash’, features the incomparable Kamasi Washington on saxophone, and was written in the wake of an experience that Lisa-Kaindé had when she was sixteen that involved her being wrongly arrested by French police. She went home and wrote the emotive ‘Deathless,’ in which she describes her experience: “I was writing ‘Deathless’ as an anthem for everybody!” Lisa-Kaindé says. “For every minority. For everybody that feels that they are nothing, that feels small, that feels not cared about and I want them to listen to our song and for three minutes feel large, powerful, deathless. I have a huge amount of respect for people who fought for, what I think, are my rights today and if we all sing together ‘we are deathless, ’they will be living through us into a better world”.

Step out of the gloom and into Ibeyi’s world, a place of optimism, openness and acceptance. The modern world never looked so beautiful as it does through Ibeyi’s lens

Greg Ashley has been a ¬fixture on the underground music scene since the late 90’s while stra¬ng eardrums as a teenager in Houston in garagepunk band The Strate-Coats. Since then he’s proven himself not only as a songwriter, singer and guitar player in bands like The Mirrors & The Gris-Gris, but also as a producer / sound engineer.

His career as a solo artist is vast & varied, spanning the gamut between fried & beautiful psychedelia, gorgeous & cathartic symphonic suites & gentle, damaged folk music, beginning with 2003’s “Medicine Fuck Dream” & last leaving us with 2014’s “Another Generation of Slaves”. His latest, “Pictures of Saint Paul Street” carries forward that album’s musical palette (a rootsy amalgam of tortured, Cohen-esque folk tinged with the beer soaked recklessness of a West Texas honky-tonk).

The songs on “Pictures of Saint Paul Street” are lush & beautiful autopsies of society’s underbelly, with stark and brutally honest ruminations on humanity. Songs like “A Sea of Suckers” & “Pursue The Nightlife” pull no punches, while “Jailbirds & Vagabonds” and “Blues For A Pecan Tree” carouse on a more abstract, human (almost romantic) level. By the time you’ve hit the album’s centerpiece; “Bullshit Society”, Ashley’s songs move from ballads of hopeless misery to rallying anthems for the dispossessed.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Sea Of Suckers
2. Goodbye Saint Paul Street
3. Blues For A Pecan Tree
4. Two Person One Man Band
5. Bullshit Society
6. Jailbirds And Vagabonds
7. Self-Destruction Derby
8. Medication #9
9. Pursue The Night Life
10. Six A.M. At The Black And White

To coincide with the 20th Anniversary of their number one debut 1977, Ash have announced the release of a live album called Live On Mars: London Astoria 1997. Recorded over the band's record breaking five night run at the London Astoria from the 28th February to the 4th March. The album includes their hit singles ‘Girl From Mars’, ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Kung Fu’, as well as a covers of Abba’s 'Does Your Mother Know’ and Dusty Springfield’s 'I Only Want To Be With You’.

The set captures the raw energy of the band on their homecoming celebration to wrap up the epic year of touring for 1977, which was released the previous year.

The album will be released as a limited edition numbered and coloured vinyl, CD and download via the band’s website, the live shows and select retailers.

The band said "The Ashtoria Five Night Stand was one of the most memorable run of shows for us. It really was the icing on the cake of a manic year since 1977 was released. We'd achieved a number one album followed by a world tour that came close to breaking us. These shows allowed us to look back and celebrate with everyone involved. And it was one hell of an aftershow!"

“These five nights at The Astoria, from February 28th to March 4th 1997, sound and feel like a party. An exuberant, irresistible celebration of a band who, transcending the faddishness of concurrent Britpop, succeeded on that rarest of commodities: raw talent.” - Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Lose Control
2. Season
3. Goldfinger
4. Girl From Mars

Side B
5. I’d Give You Anything
6. Lost In You
7. I Only Want To Be With You
8. Innocent Smile

Side C
9. Oh Yeah
10. T-Rex
11. Uncle Pat
12. Petrol
13. Let It Flow
14. Jack Names The Planets

Side D
15. Darkside Lightside
16. Gone The Dream
17. Does Your Mother Know?
18. Kung Fu

Asher Levitas is perhaps best known as part of Old Apparatus, the acclaimed and enigmatic London experimental outfit. Over the last few years he has featured on releases for labels including Deep Medi, Houndstooth and Left Blank as ‘Saa’ with the singer Linn Carin Dirdal. ‘Lit Harness’, his first solo album, started forming as a project in 2015 alongside the artist and writer Michael Crowe who worked on the live A/V show while Asher created the music with vocalist Marina Elderton (from the ethereal psych band Kull) who features on the tracks.The record follows personal themes in a time of extreme emotion: anxiety and madness but also serenity and acceptance, hence the term ‘Lit Harness’, which holds you in a calm place while chaos happens all around. Asher also wanted to describe the experience of the sleep paralysis, which he has had most of his life, into a musical sound world. That’s not to say the album is totally dark, but there’s intensity and transcendence here as well as an otherworldly beauty.

The music on ‘Lit Harness’ plays out in a shadowy hallucinogenic dream-like state where it’s not clear what’s meant to reflect reality or pure fantasy. Part of this process was the way the audio and visuals developed in tandem with each other, Michael passing Asher images and video, which Asher used to inject drama into the tracks and finish them. ‘Lit Harness’ could be described as ambient, but every track is filled with detail and a strange clanking drama, the hammering noises of ‘Withdrawn’ and the cold fever of ‘In The Eyes’ playing out like a dream. ‘Sheathe’ turns the record around with clouds of swirling choirs and ‘Waiting By An Open Door’ plays a hazy piano, with wind rushing through the soundfield. ‘Strongest Bonds’ has held descending chords with watery drum hits; ethereal vocals building in the background into a haze of noise. ‘Blessed Mother’s’ repeating vocals and rising chords ripple with a transcendent, gentle hopefulness, which gives way to the flatline drone and otherworldly voices of ‘Premature Exit’. ‘Anticipating Violence’ finishes the album with a sad, angry surrender, punctuated with rushes of cold hammering and reversed breaking glass.

TRACK LISTING

LP 
A1. Withdrawn
A2. In The Eyes
A3. Sheathe
A4. Waiting By An Open Doo
B5. Strongest Bonds
B6. Blessed Mother
B7. Premature Exit
B8. Anticipating Violence

CD:
01. Withdrawn
02. In The Eyes
03. Sheathe
04. Waiting By An Open Door
05. Strongest Bonds
06. Blessed Mother
07. Premature Exit
08/ Anticipating Violence

Over their almost decade-and-a-half career, The Kills have released four records. Each one a restless, reckless enigmatic art statement that bristled with tension, anxiety, sex, unstudied cool and winking ennui, yet not one of them sounded like the previous one. Ash & Ice is the follow up to 2011’s critically lauded Blood Pressures and was five years in the making in part due to Jamie Hince’s five hand surgeries, which resulted in him having to re-learn how to play guitar with a permanently damaged finger.

Unlike earlier albums, which have largely been written and recorded at Key Club Studio in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the bulk of the recording for Ash & Ice took place in a rented house in LA and at the world famous Electric Lady Studios in NYC. The album was produced by Jamie Hince and co-produced by John O’Mahony (Metric, The Cribs), and mixed by Tom Elmhirst (Adele, Arcade Fire, Amy Winehouse) and Tchad Blake (Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys).

It was during Hince’s recuperation from surgery that he first started sketching out what would become the songs for the album. To shake up the writing process, Hince booked a solo trip on the infamous Trans-Siberian Express for inspiration while Alison Mosshart, now residing in Nashville, TN, wrote some of the most affecting, poetically candid lyrics that she ever has, painting word pictures that mine the dangerous terrain between romantic obsession, prophecy and tough love. Where previous albums had an air of detachment and emotional austerity, underpinned by an uneasy self-awareness and unexpressed anger, the 13 songs on Ash & Ice are more understated, less tempestuous and more affecting because of that, exposing the kind of push-pull you feel when you find yourself in a complicated but all-consuming relationship. Ash & Ice is The Kills at their emotionally charged, arresting best. Prepare to be slayed.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The Kills return with their newest album since 2011's 'Blood Pressures' and this might just be their most intricate and emotive offering yet. Further emphasising their innate ability to pluck at the heartstrings whilst soothing the soul. Mossheart's vocals are as sultry and emotive as ever, and the instrumentation is just as you'd expect : raw, honest and beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1. Doing It To Death
2. Heart Of A Dog
3. Hard Habit To Break
4. Bitter Fruit
5. Days Of Why And How
6. Let It Drop
7. Hum For Your Buzz
8. Siberian Nights
9. That Love
10. Impossible Tracks
11. Black Tar
12. Echo Home
13. Whirling Eye

With the release of her eponymous debut album, Ashley Shadow has at long last taken center stage after a decade of valuable contributions to highly regarded, diverse musical acts. Though bestowed with a strong voice both lulling and bracing in its quality, Ashley spent the first five years of her musical career playing bass guitar for rock-noir outfit The Organ before recording and/or touring with Bonnie Prince Billy, Pink Mountaintops, The Cave Singers and Lightning Dust. Her self-titled debut endeavors to find certainty amidst incessant change and ensures that her talent -- a secret long known around her home of Vancouver, British Columbia -- will be shared with the rest of the world's melody lovers.

Enlisting the help of producer and multi-instrumentalist Josh Wells (Black Mountain), guitarists Ryan Beattie (Himalayan Bear) Peter Le Grand and Darcy Hancock, Ashley Shadow has asserted an independent stake in the musical community she has enriched for so long. Prior to focusing on her own songwriting, Ashley has given much of her heart and energy to working with the marginalized, at risk population in Vancouver. When she stepped back to reflect on these experiences, songs were inspired by both relationships during that time and the unique emotional work and struggles she involved herself in. 

The legacy of North Carolina’s Ashrae Fax seems destined to be appreciated in retrospect, in no small part given to the tremendous power of the group’s 2003 release Static Crash!, reissued twice from its initial CD-R run before appearing on Mexican Summer last year.

The Goth/ethereal duo of vocalist Renée Mendoza and producer/guitarist Alex Chesney had built a long, strange and mostly undocumented legacy prior to that release, and Never Really Been Into It extends the tale back even further: ten songs, sketched out in the late ‘90s, most of which were never completed and remained unheard until now.

Rescued from a shoebox of ephemera from the band’s earliest days, when Mendoza and guitarist Alex Chesney drifted out of high school and into the uncertainties of early adulthood, these songs were the product of a band whose members had nothing but time and ambition, influence and desire to transcend their humble beginnings. Pieced together and re-recorded in 2013 by Renée in her home studio, from mere stems and forgotten takes preserved on decades-old minidisc recordings, the songs reflect disquiet, uncertainty, absolute beauty, along teenage obsessions with The Cocteau Twins and The Cure, refracted through the lens of latter-day experience – pristine musicianship, gorgeous vocals, cryogenically frozen until now. Had these songs been properly released when initially conceived. First new record in over 10 years

For Fans of: Lush, This Mortal Coil, The Cure

TRACK LISTING

1: Dreamers Tied To Chairs
2: Chkn
3: The Big Lie
4: Fits And Starts
5: Decaax
6: Hurricanes In A Jar
7: You Make Me Question My Mind (In A Thousand Words About Time)
8: Intexus
9: Seconds Chances
10: In Motion

After an intense year of touring, Brooklyn-based recording artist Jesse Marchant, a.k.a. JBM, felt an insatiable need quietly gestating. After a much-needed break, he relocated to a remote cabin in the Catskills and started the long process of writing and recording Stray Ashes, his UK debut and follow-up to 2010's limited edition ‘Not Even in July’.

Rather than starting with an acoustic guitar and vocals, Marchant experimented with drums and loops of electric guitar melodies. John Congleton joined the project for additional recording and mixing and his contributions help to define a sonic space throughout ‘Stray Ashes’ that perfectly cradles Jesse's earnest vocals, as do the additional performances of McKenzie Smith (of Midlake, Drums), and Macey Taylor (of A.A. Bondy, Bass) on several tracks, which were recorded by Congleton in his Texas studio.

The gauzy sonic blanket Marchant and Congleton have created provides a foundation for this mysterious collection of songs. ‘Stray Ashes’ tested the limits of loneliness and self-discipline, and reveals itself to be a dark, dynamic and raw album. It flows with refined grace and intense force, with the elegance in restraint of Marchant’s haunting vocals and arrangements enveloping the listener in a sound that is at once eerie and comforting.

Ashley Eriksson (darling to many for her work with LAKE) has achieved a status few artists ever know: her song "Island Song" can be hummed by almost any teenager in the United States (a surprising discovery she made while teaching Portland's Rock Camp for Girls last summer). Used as the closing theme for Cartoon Network's cult sensation Adventure Time, "Island Song" has over a million views on Youtube and has generated dozens of cover videos, making Ashley Eriksson the equivalent of a "household name" to the youth of America. Now Ashley Eriksson has recorded Colours [KLP245], her inspired solo debut on K, and a collection of piano pieces, ballads and songs for her fans around the world. Tucker Martine (producer of LAKE, Decemberists) planted the idea that Ashley should make a solo record after they worked together in 2011, but it wasn't until returning from a trip to Sweden that Ashley was motivated to create Colours, and her vision for a solo piano album quickly evolved to include songs with her beloved '70s style of instrumentation and pop sensibility (most strikingly her cover of "Ett Stilla Regn" a song by the tragic Swedish pop team Ted and Kenneth Gärdestad, adapted in the style "Me and My Arrow" by Harry Nilsson). Because Ashley engineered and recorded the album herself (using the same 8-track she's been recording with since she was a teenager), she was able to capture her collection of songs in a variety of old haunts, including favorite grange halls and churches, her tiny shed in northern Sweden, friends' houses, and in the Whidbey Island studio-trailer where she lived with husband (and LAKE collaborator) Eli Moore.

TRACK LISTING

1. March Of The Conch
2. Why Are You So Helpless?
3. West Of The Mountain
4. Arguably
5. Ett Stilla Regn
6. Good Storm
7. Colours
8. Bury The House
9. Mother Nature’s Promise
10. Sunset
11. Humming In The Dark
12. Organ Music
13. In The Stubborn Eyes Of A Demon

A - Z Vol. 1 marks the halfway point in Ash’s groundbreaking 26 single campaign the A-Z Series. Wrapping up singles A to M alongside a host of bonus material, the compilation illustrates Ash’s rejuvenated creative zeal.
Currently back in their Manhattan HQ recording tracks which will complete the second half of the series, Ash have been spurred on by the unique challenge of a singles only future. The scrutiny of each track being drip-fed to fans, juxtaposed by freedom from the traditional 2-year album cycle, has fostered a new Ash era of diverse, imaginative pop.

This ain't called "Meltdown" for nothing. It takes all the pop thrills, kinetic melodies, slam-dunking riffs that made the world love Ash, then douses them in petrol and drops in a match. After the fireworks, out come 11 white-hot slabs of pure rock power. From the butane rush of the single "Orpheus" to the skyscraping peaks of "Evil Eye" and the fierce-yet-beautiful love "Starcross'd", this is Ash at their melodic best with a ton of new engines strapped on for extra power.

Recorded with the bands last line up in Paris in October 1999.