Search Results for:

BLUR

Blur

The Ballad Of Darren

    One of the most successful British bands of the last 3 decades, Blur are back with their first new album in over 8 years: The Ballad of Darren. 

    Produced by James Ford and recorded at Studio 13, London and Devon, The Ballad of Darren is the band’s ninth studio album, their first since the chart-topping The Magic Whip in 2015, with artwork featuring an image by British photographer Martin Parr.

    TRACK LISTING

    01. The Ballad
    02. St. Charles Square
    03. Barbaric
    04. Russian Strings
    05. The Everglades (For Leonard)
    06. The Narcissist
    07. Goodbye Albert
    08. Far Away Island
    09. Avalon
    10. The Heights

    Bonus Tracks On Deluxe CD
    11. The Rabbi
    12. The Swan

    Blur

    Blur Present The Special Collectors Edition (RSD23 EDITION)

      THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

      The Special Collector's Edition on vinyl for the first time ever. Originally released in 1994, as a Japan-only CD, The Special Collector's Edition will be a 2LP pressed on coloured vinyl, featuring a collection of B-sides taken from the of their first three studio albums singles from the albums Leisure, Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife.

      TRACK LISTING

      Side A
      1. Day Upon Day (Live)
      2. Inertia
      3. Luminous
      4. Mace
      5. Badgeman Brown
      6. Hanging Over
      7. Peach
      8. When The Cows Come Home
      9. Maggie May
      10. Es Schmecht
      Side B
      11. Fried Feat. Seymour
      12. Anniversary Waltz
      13. Threadneedle Street
      14. Got Yer!
      15. Supa Shoppa
      16. Beard
      17. Theme From An Imaginary Film
      18. Bank Holiday

      Blur

      Bustin' + Dronin' - 2022 Reissue

        Originally released in 1998 in Japan-only, this compilation features remixes of tracks from their 1997 eponymously titled, number one album.

        Originally only available as a 2-CD set including a Radio 1 John Peel session, only a handful of copies made their way over to the UK on import.

        Bustin’ + Dronin’ features nine remixes (note: no Peel Session) by William Orbit (tracks 1, 6, 7 & 9), Adrian Sherwood (2 & 8), Moby (4), Thurston Moore (5) and John McEntire (7).

        Please note unlike the RSD edition the 2LP Black vinyl will not include the original OBI-strip or replica insert. The CD will feature an 8-page booklet along with a blur sticker sheet.

        TRACK LISTING

        A.
        1. Movin’ On (William Orbit Mix) - 08:00
        2. Death Of A Party (Well Blurred Remix) - 06:46
        3. On Your Own (Crouch End Broadway Mix) - 03:32
        B.
        1. Beetlebum (Moby's Mix) - 06:43
        2. Essex Dogs (Thurston Moore's Mix) - 09:01
        C.
        1. Death Of A Party (Billy Whiskers Mix) - 04:47
        2. Theme From Retro (John McEntire's Mix) - 05:43
        3. Death Of A Party (12” Death) - 07:08
        D.
        1. On Your Own (Walter Wall Mix) - 15:00

        Cryovac Recordings is allowed to exist by artists and craftsmen that take up the cause and come together to share their skillset. A Cryovac artist is a master of their own style. They are heros that represent the best of Detroit’s spirit. From Dietrich to Desmond to the house of Archer, Cryovac is a product that is crafted at each step by years of know-how. The Cryovac machine continues its course through an ever changing technosphere.

        James ‘jit’ Pennington aka The Suburban Knight has the honor of techno nobility; with a warrior ethos he loyally defends Detroit around the world. The Knights tracks are legendary and his service to the underground code compels him to come to the aid of Cryovac. "Lectrasonic” activates a hypersensitive conga rattling the night air and through swelling synth predatory melody becomes prey to a breaking kick.

        Mike Petrack is a cool customer with an easy style and his tracks are the same. Petrack’s Info Lines record label is the latest concoction from this ever innovating techno collaborator. “Holy Redeemer” rises with an infectious melody through bossa nova rhythm to a point of spiritual awareness inside a natural funk.

        A.garcia & M. Kretsch are a team that have learned to work in unison to develop all parts of a space with sound. Their construction and deconstruction of the techno sound is a reflection of a spartan Detroit ethos. “Invasion” is a 4/4 minimal rocker that rings to life with an eerie synth attacking with waves of effect bringing a tone of other worldly dread.

        Mollison Folson a.k.a. Body Mechanic brings his gregarious personality to all genres he delves into. He is a musician of instrument and computer with a focus on freeky love music. “Everything” is a smooth and jazzy minimal mover that harmonizes synth over a funky bass line. 


        TRACK LISTING

        A1. Suburban Knight - Lectrasonic
        A2. Mike Petrack - Holy Redeemer
        B1. A.Garcia & M.Kresch - Invasion
        B2. Body Mechanic - Everything

        Jonathan Wilson

        Rare Blur EP

          THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 6PM.
          LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.



          Jonathan Wilson follows up his Dixie Blur album, released earlier this year via Bella Union, with a new EP ‘Rare Blur’.

          The EP continues where Dixie Blur left off with Wilson recruiting a host of Nashville musicians to deliver 6 songs of beautiful folk music.

          Pressed on 180g black vinyl.

          Jonathan Wilson

          Dixie Blur

            Where do you go after making an album that the Guardian hailed as “a rich, ambitious triumph”, American Songwriter called “a strikingly original, complex and inspired work”, MOJO described as “a record you could lose yourself in for months”, and Billboard as a “most magnificent recording, one that is mandatory listening if you are in search of an immersive album rock experience in the 21st century”? It's a question Jonathan Wilson asked himself after his “maximalist” album Rare Birds was released in 2018 to glowing reviews. Not only did it earn him Album of the Year awards in Rolling Stone, France and Blitz in Portugal, it brought him his first national television appearances in the US, on Conan and CBS Saturday Morning.

            Rare Birds had been the culmination of three solo albums in seven years that the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer released to widespread acclaim. His first, 2011's Gentle Spirit, a beautiful California dream of an album, is a classic by now and won him the admiration and friendship of Graham Nash, David Crosby, Elvis Costello and Jackson Browne. His follow-up, Fanfare, was also well-received with Uncut calling it “a lavish musical epic, the work of a dedicated and stone cold studioholic.” But now Wilson was looking for something completely new.

            In 2019 he appeared on the celebratednationally-syndicated live music radio show eTown. “It was sort of bluegrass-based”, Wilson says, “and on this particular show I was playing with Steve Earle. Next thing you know, I'm talking with Steve about recording.” Earle advised Wilson that, if he had a bunch of songs written, he ought to take them to Nashville and make the record blind, since Nashville's crawling with studios and top-notch session players. “And that's how I got into the idea of going to Nashville and tapping into that sound,” says Wilson. “The sound of my home.”

            Wilson was born in a small town in North Carolina. As a child he was raised on a mix of Beatles, 60’s and 70’s rock, country, and bluegrass.His uncle played in bluegrass legend Bill Monroe's band. His father had a rock band, but he would often jam with local friends who could “moonlight on banjo and mandolin and do gospel harmonies that would knock you out. I would sit there and strum along,” says Wilson, “There’s this astute southern rhythm and musicality in western NC… Then there’s this crazy three finger banjo style that you have to be really good at it because you’re from the place where Earl Scruggs is from. One of my father’s best pals was the music director at the Caroleean gospel church where my grandfather was a preacher and on the side he could pick the shit out of a mandolin. So, I was exposed to something super-authentic that I was soaking up. In hindsight, it doesn’t get more authentic than that.”

            A musical prodigy himself, Wilson wrote his first song at three. He was also a musical polymath, playing drums, horns, woodwind, piano and guitar. He joined an R&B band at 14; left high school to study jazz with some old masters, and joined a rock band, Muscadine. He also became a noted luthier and a record producer. Among the artists he has produced albums for are Father John Misty, American band Dawes, British folk legend Roy Harper and Conor Oberst. In 2017-18 Rogers Waters asked Wilson to join him on his US+THEM tour on guitar and as musical director. Wilson also sang all the David Gilmour vocal parts. On that two-year tour, Wilson would sometimes find himself thinking about his Southern home. “Stuck out there in a hotel in Latvia, it's a long way from anything that feels like home or family. I felt I was subconsciously being led back to my roots.” In the new song '69 Corvette' he sings, I still think of Carolina sometimes. I miss the family. I miss that feeling. I miss home.

            Those feelings were still fresh in his mind during that conversation with Steve Earle. Making his next album live in the studio with a Nashville band, instead of building them alone, piece by piece in his L.A studio, seemed like a good way to go back while simultaneously moving forward. An example of that is Wilson's new take on “Korean Tea”, an old song he had done with his ‘90’s band Muscadine. “That is a song about having a shining musical gift to share with the world. My brother says that’s one of the prettiest melodies I’ve written, so I decided to bring it back into the world”. “Heaven Making Love” is a song Wilson wrote for Rare Birds but abandoned; “I tried but I could never really get it, it had that locomotive polka thing sorta so I guess it was waiting for an album like this to join!”

            With Wilson's longtime friend Pat Sansone of Wilco producing, Wilson and the band recorded in Studio A at the Sound Emporium, the late country maverick Cowboy Jack Clement's studio. The musicians included Nashville’s premier session players including bass player Dennis Crouch, Russ Pahl on pedal steel, multi-instrumentalist Jim Hoke, and world renowned Fiddle master Mark O’Connor. “I was thinking about fiddle as being an integral part of the record, and I needed to find the best. In my mind the best of the best was Mark O'Connor. So I decided to reach out to him. I said, ‘Hey man, I'm doing a session, would you like to come down and play fiddle?’ and he's like, ‘Thank you, but I haven't done a session since 1990.’ So, he didn't say no and he didn't say yes! Over time, he eventually said, ‘Maybe, but my only stipulation is it's got to be with the band, no overdubs. That's what drove me out of the session business.’ That was a big deal to all of us. Mark truly elevates the record and he shines as the most brilliant fiddler on Earth, I thank him for his beautiful melodies on this album.”

            Working with this Nashville band gave Wilson the same kind of feeling he had as a kid, strumming along with those bluegrass bands. “There's something about this level of musicianship, they've been in so many sessions. It was fun to play some of the more stoner Canyon-ey tunes for this crack session band and watch them write up their special Nashville charts with their numbers, symbols and diamonds… they call it ‘hillbilly arithmetic’ over there…. The album was cut in only six days. “It was so fast it was a blur.” Hence the title, Dixie Blur. “And there really is a magic that occurs when musicians play together in a room and create that one consistent thing in time, something is created by the collective energy that is impossible to recreate otherwise,” says Wilson.

            “It feels like another side, you know? Sort of like a personal, unplugged, just got off the road feeling. I think it's the most down to earth and emotional both musically and lyrically that I've ever been.”


            STAFF COMMENTS

            Barry says: Jonathan Wilson has had a stellar career as a songwriter and musician, following on from his equally stellar career as a producer and session muso, and 'Dixie Blur' just goes to show exactly why he's so in demand. Gorgeous melodies, flawless songwriting and a good dose of classic rock whimsy and downbeat ballad bliss.

            TRACK LISTING

            1.  Just For Love
            2.  69 Corvette
            3.  New Home
            4.  So Alive
            5.  Heaven Making Love
            6.  O' Girl
            7.  Pirate
            8.  Enemies
            9.  Fun For The Masses
            10.  Platform
            11.  Riding The Blinds
            12.  El Camino Real
            13.  Golden Apples
            14.  Korean Tea

            It’s 16 years since their last album as a four-piece and 27th April sees the release of a brand new album from Blur on Parlophone, titled The Magic Whip.

            The recordings, which began during a five-day break in touring in Spring 2013 - at Avon Studios in Kowloon, Hong Kong - were put aside when the group finished touring and returned to their respective lives. Last November Graham Coxon revisited the tracks and, drafting in Blur’s early producer Stephen Street, he worked with the band on the material. Damon Albarn then added lyrics and the 12 tracks of The Magic Whip are the result. 

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Lonesome Street
            2. New World Towers
            3. Go Out
            4. Ice Cream Man
            5. Thought I Was A Spaceman
            6. I Broadcast
            7. My Terracotta Heart
            8. There Are Too Many Of Us
            9. Ghost Ship
            10. Pyongyang
            11. Ong Ong
            12. Mirrorball

            Those Darlins

            Blur The Line

              "Blur The Line" feels like an eponymous debut. This record is not a departure, nor is it simply growth. It is a realization purely of where Those Darlins are as artists right now. After sophomore record "Screws Get Loose", Jesse, Nikki and Linwood set out to uncover the true complex, contradictory nature of themselves as individuals and as a band.

              The result is a record to file on your shelf between Patti Smith "Easter" and Fleetwood Mac's "Tusc". "Blur The Line" is a first-rate album of powerful tracks that mingle heavy rhythms and distorted Neil Young guitars with ear-candy harmonies and a slew of captivating lyrics.

              The band called on Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tenga, John Cale, Jeff The Brotherhood) to produce "Blur The Line" and it turned out to be a revelation...a chance to stretch and give shape to their work with his supportive, laid back demeanor and experienced hands at the helm.

              Blur

              Blur

                To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur’s eponymous fifth album has now been remastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright (The Smiths, Arcade Fire, New Order, Joy Division), with the remastering overseen by legendary producer, Stephen Street.

                Expanded across two discs, the LP format of Blur remaster is cut on heavyweight 180 gram, audiophile vinyl and housed in a replica of the original sleeve artwork.

                Blur

                The Great Escape

                  To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur’s fourth album The Great Escape has now been remastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright (The Smiths, Arcade Fire, New Order, Joy Division), with the remastering overseen by legendary original producer, Stephen Street.

                  Expanded across two discs, the LP format of The Great Escape remaster is cut on heavyweight 180 gram, audiophile vinyl and housed in a replica of the original sleeve artwork.


                  Blur

                  Parklife

                    To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur’s break-through album Parklife has now been remastered from the original tapes by Frank Arkwright (The Smiths, Arcade Fire, New Order, Joy Division), with the remastering overseen by legendary original producer, Stephen Street.

                    Expanded across two discs, the LP format of the Parklife remaster is cut on heavyweight 180 gram, audiophile vinyl and housed in a replica of the original sleeve artwork.

                    Blur

                    13

                      To celebrate the 21st anniversary of their debut release, Blur’s sixth album 13 has now been expanded across two discs, cut on heavyweight 180 gram, audiophile vinyl and housed in a replica of the original sleeve artwork.


                      Latest Pre-Sales

                      179 NEW ITEMS

                      E-newsletter —
                      Sign up
                      Back to top