Despite its title, Ratboys’ new album 'Singin’ to an Empty Chair' is not defined by what’s missing. Rather, it’s the beginning of an important dialogue with a close loved one, vocalist Julia Steiner finds herself estranged from. The music on the band’s sixth studio album – its first for New West Records – fills the space that person left behind with 11 songs showcasing Ratboys at the peak of their powers — twangy, effervescent, as confident as they’ve ever been, and perhaps more emotionally interrogative than ever before. The four-piece Chicago band followed up 2023’s highly acclaimed 'The Window' by reconvening with co-producer Chris Walla to begin tracking at a rural Wisconsin cabin before taking the songs to Steve Albini’s famed Electrical Audio studios in Chicago and later to Rosebud Studio in Evanston, Illinois. The results veer from bubbly power-pop on 'Anywhere' to irresistible post-country on 'Penny in the Lake', along with heart-piercing ballads like 'Just Want You to Know the Truth' and an exhilarating detour into the extraterrestrial on 'Light Night Mountains All That', which Steiner dubs the band’s mammoth “wormhole jam". 'Singin’ to an Empty Chair' also marks the first Ratboys album written since Steiner began therapy, which the singer/lyricist credits for the clarity found across the album’s unflinching examinations of relationship and self. Fittingly, as the album begins by extending a hand into the void, it concludes with a scene of serenity – all while weaving candid honesty, humor, chaos, and whimsy along the way. “It's not all doom and gloom,” Steiner says. “The experience of making this record definitely gives me hope for whatever happens next.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Open Up
2. Know You Then
3. Light Night Mountains All That
4. Anywhere
5. Penny In The Lake
6. Strange Love
7. The World, So Madly
8. Just Want You To Know The Truth
9. What’s Right?
10. Burn It Down
11. At Peace In The Hundred Acre Wood

Alice in Chains’ self-titled album, originally released in 1995, is a dark and introspective work that marked the band’s final studio effort with vocalist Layne Staley. The record blends heavy, sludgy riffs with haunting melodies and acoustic textures, creating a sound that is both aggressive and deeply melancholic.

TRACK LISTING

1. Grind
2. Brush Away
3. Sludge Factory
4. Heaven Beside You
5. Head Creeps
6. Again
7. Shame In You
8. God Am
9. So Close
10. Nothin' Song
11. Frogs
12. Over Now

'Songs From The Big Chair' is Tears For Fears' iconic second studio album, originally released in February 1985. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: Now here's a question... Is this the best album ever made? Dark but heartfelt pop songs, incredible song writing and musicianship and insanely good production. Ticks all the boxes for me.

TRACK LISTING

1LP Tracklisting:
1. Shout
2. The Working Hour
3. Everybody Wants To Rule The World
4. Mothers Talk
5. I Believe
6. Broken
7. Head Over Heels
8. Listen

2LP Tracklisting:
1. Shout
2. The Working Hour
3. Everybody Wants To Rule The World
4. Mothers Talk
5. I Believe
6. Broken
7. Head Over Heels
8. Listen
9. Shout (Alternative Mix)
10. The Working Hour (Piano Version)
11. Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Alternative Single Version)
12. Mothers Talk (Early Mix)
13. I Believe (A Soulful Re- Recording)
14. Broken (Demo)
15. Head Over Heels (Hughes 7" Edit)
16. Listen (Clean Intro)

3CD Tracklisting:

CD1 - Original Album & B-Sides:
1. Shout
2. The Working Hour
3. Everybody Wants To Rule The World
4. Mothers Talk
5. I Believe
6. Broken
7. Head Over Heels
8. Listen
9. The Big Chair
10. Empire Building
11. The Marauders
12. Broken Revisited
13. The Conflict
14. The Working Hour (Piano Version)
15. Pharoahs
16. When In Love With A Blind Man
17. Sea Song

CD2 - Edited Songs From The Big Chair:
1. The Way You Are
2. Mothers Talk (Short Version)
3. Shout (Alternative Version)
4. Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Single Version)
5. Head Over Heels (Dave Bascombe 7" N.Mix)
6. I Believe (A Soulful Re- Recording)
7. Everybody Wants To Run The World
8. The Way You Are (Edit)
9. Mothers Talk (U.S. Remix)
10. Shout (U.S. Single Edit)
11. Everybody Wants To Run The World (Running Version)
12. Head Over Heels (Hughes 7" Edit)
13. Mothers Talk (Video Version)
14. Shout (7" Edit)
15. Listen (Clean Intro)
16. Rolan & Curt Interviewed

CD3 - Remixed Songs From The Big Chair:
1. The Way You Are (Extended)
2. Mothers Talk (Long Version)
3. Shout (UK Version / Extended Version)
4. Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Extended Version)
5. Broken / Head Over Heels / Broken (Preacher Mix)
6. Mothers Talk (Beat Of The Drum Mix)
7. Shout (Extended)
8. Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Urban Mix)
9. Mothers Talk (Alternate U.S. Remix)
10. Shout (US Dub Version)
11. Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Instrumental)
12. Shout (Acapella)

Celebrating 'Psychocandy' on National Album Day with this limited edition splatter vinyl pressing. The 1985 debut from The Jesus and Mary Chain fused noise and melody to create a post-punk classic, featuring 'Just Like Honey' and 'Never Understand'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Just Like Honey
2. The Living End
3. Taste The Floor
4. The Hardest Walk
5. Cut Dead
6. In A Hole
7. Taste Of Cindy
8. Never Understand
9. Inside Me
10. Sowing Seeds
11. My Little Underground
12. You Trip Me Up
13. Something's Wrong
14. It's So Hard

For 5 years after they'd swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents' East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister. They knew they couldn't play in the same band because they'd argue too much, so they'd describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally they realised that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.

The rest was not silence, and picking up those conversations again more than 40 years later, William and Jim tell the full story of one of Britain's greatest guitar bands for the very first time - a wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, that also somehow manages to be a love letter to the Scottish working-class family.

Man/Woman/Chainsaw release their debut physical release in the form of a super limited 7" on So Young Records. Both tracks were recorded with Geordie Greep producer Seth Evans and Margo Broom at RAK Studios. 'Adam and Steve' is a heart wrenching pop nugget that features piano, strings, dual lead vocals, and hooks at every turn. 'MadDog' is more angular and softer but equally as captivating.

TRACK LISTING

1. Adam And Steve
2. MadDog

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Jesus And Mary Chain’s debut single ‘Upside Down’ is being reissued on 7” vinyl which - as per the original pressing of the release - comes with a colour variation of the original artwork design. To be released on 6 December 2024.

Originally released in November 1984, it put the band on the map selling 50,000 copies and subsequently became one of the first major successes for the now iconic British independent label Creation.

The b-side is a cover of the Syd Barrett written ‘Vegetable Man’, a track not officially released on a Pink Floyd album until 2016’s The Early Years 1965–1972 box set, but a track that caught the imagination of the band in the early-mid 80’s and their cover is an unmistakable and celebrated version.

The single topped the UK Indie Chart twice, once in February 1985 and then again in the March. It stayed in the Indie charts for a huge 76 weeks making it one of the biggest selling indie singles of the 1980s.

Hailing from East Kilbride in Scotland, The Jesus And Mary Chain revolves around brothers Jim and William Reid, the bands founders and only consistent members. The band are recognised as being key to the development of the shoegaze scene and have remained uncompromising in their sound releasing eight albums, most recently ‘Glasgow Eyes’ released earlier this year.

It all starts with the voice. At turns heavy and hulkingly powerful, yet agile and pointedly precise, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s vocal not only embodies the tradition of the Sufi qawwali but it is the emotive essence of singing itself.

Descended from a 600-year-old lineage of qawwali singers, Nusrat’s voice has been singularly responsible for spreading the devotional music of Sufism to the world, ever since he became the leader of his family’s musical group in 1971. It is a formidable heritage for an ancient song. Originating in 10th Century Iran, qawwali is the music of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. Characterised by states of musical ecstasy and sophistication, qawwali singers are the mouthpiece of divine power, tasked with capturing the audience’s attention and heightening their consciousness to receive a spiritual message.

‘Chain of Light’ is an album of previously unheard recordings of the singer and his qawwal party made at Real World Studios in 1990, whilst he was at the height of his vocal capabilities. Carefully restored from the original analogue tapes, this ‘lost album’ of traditional qawwals includes a pristine recording of the much-loved classic ‘Ya Allah Ya Rehman’, as well the only known performance of ‘Ya Gaus Ya Meeran’.

The late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice is universally recognised as one of the greatest in musical history and he was key in bringing the Qawwali music tradition to the Western world. Khan’s legacy has enraptured millions across the globe with his magnificent and haunting voice. In his lifetime he collaborated with many Western musicians, including Peter Gabriel, Eddie Vedder and Michael Brook. His vocals appeared on soundtracks to films directed by Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Shekhar Kapur and Tim Robbins.

TRACK LISTING

Ya Allah Ya Rehman
Aaj Sik Mitran Di
Ya Gaus Ya Meeran
Khabram Raseed Imsha

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s swooning debut Psychocandy seared through the underground and through the pop charts, shifting the role of noise within pop music forever. Post-punk and pro-confusion, Psychocandy became the sound of a generation poised on the brink of revolution, establishing Creation Records as a tastemaking entity in the process. The Scottish band’s notorious live performances were both punishingly loud and riot-spurring, inevitably acting as socio-political commentary on tensions emergent in mid-1980s Britain.

Through caustic clangs and feedback channeling the rage of the working-class who’d had enough, Psychocandy gestures toward the perverse pleasure in having your eardrums exploded and loudness as a politics within itself. Yet Psychocandy’s blackened candy heart center – calling out to phantoms Candy and Honey with an unsettling charm – makes it a pop album to the core, and not unlike the sugarcoated sounds the Ronettes became famous for in the 1960s. The Jesus and Mary Chain expertly carved out a place where depravity and sweetness entwined, emerging from the isolating underground of suburban Scotland grasping the distinct sound of a generation, apathetic and uncertain.

The irresistible Psychocandy emerged as a clairvoyant account of struggle and sweetness that still causes us to grapple with pop music’s relation to ourselves.

Originally released in 1994, Jar of Flies is the 4x platinum EP including hit songs “I Stay Away,” “No Excuses,” and “Nutshell”. The acoustic-based album described as ‘deeply gorgeous’ by Rolling Stone magazine reached No. 4 in the UK Charts (as well hitting the top spot in the US – a first for an EP).

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Rotten Apple
2. Nutshell
3. I Stay Away
4. No Excuses

Side B
1. Whale & Wasp
2. Don’t Follow
3. Swing On This

The Japanese band CHAI cast a spell on the world in 2017 with their debut album, PINK, a collection of songs that introduced their singular brand of playful pop. The enthusiastically feminist follow-up, PUNK, raked in accolades from the music press and fellow artists. That led to WINK, which CHAI made via remote Zoom sessions, a limitation that became a strength by allowing MANA (lead vocals and keys), KANA (guitar), YUNA (drums), and YUUKI (bassist-lyricist) to collaborate with artists abroad to create a work that found catharsis in their international community.

Unlike WINK, the band’s new self-titled album finds CHAI returning to their roots, drawing inspiration from their Japanese heritage and the music that raised them. “Everything reflected in the lyrics expresses our experience as Japanese women,” MANA says. CHAI’s ethos is one of inclusion, and lead single “We The Female!” – recorded live to honor the band’s riotous performances – beckons listeners into the mission. “We are human and were born as female, but we have both female and male aspects in each of our souls, each with our own sense of balance,” CHAI said in an accompanying statement. “We can’t just label ourselves into clear-cut, simple categories anymore! I’m not anyone else but just ‘me,’ and you are no one else but just ‘you.’ This song celebrates that with a roar!”

During their post-pandemic touring, performing for enormous crowds in cities like Santiago, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo made CHAI realize they had unlocked a global audience. CHAI wrote the new record on the road, finding time to record in the days between shows at Stones Throw Studio in LA, Ometusco Sound Machine in Mexico City, and Grand Street in New York. As they realized their liberatory, empowering message applied to people outside of Japan, CHAI considered what facets of their upbringing might resonate with audiences outside of their home country.

On CHAI, the band draws directly from city pop, a Tokyo-born sound popularized in the ‘70s and ‘80s. City pop was a Japanese take on Western lounge music, borrowing from jazz, boogie, funk, and yacht rock to create a sound that straddled two cultures. While city pop has recently found a US audience via TikTok and YouTube, CHAI grew up on the genre. For production, they tapped previous collaborator Ryu Takahashi, who shared their love of city pop, eurobeat, and the melodies of J-pop artists like Maria Takeuchi. “They wanted to dig into their Japanese identity, not in a traditional sense, but in this filtered Western way,” Takahashi says. Working well-equipped studios allowed them to experiment with aesthetics as-yet-unheard on a CHAI album. For example, at Stones Throw Studio, CHAI recorded “GAME” with the sole intention of writing something listeners will recognize as new wave, riding on a house synth line and minimalist production that recalls the eurobeat influences most recently associated with Robyn’s Honey. “GAME” might be the perfect distillation of CHAI’s ethic, as it urges listeners to keep moving through this life with joy and passion. Per MANA: “It’s not about winning or losing as competition, but about what you need to do, personally, to feel you’ve won.”

TRACK LISTING

MATCHA
From 1992
PARA PARA
GAME
We The Female!
NEO KAWAII, K?
I Can't Organizeeee
Driving22
LIKE, I NEED
KARAOKE

One-off Soul Jazz Records’ collectors Punk 45 pressing. Comes in fold out paper sleeve and specially silk-screened Punk 45 outer sleeve.

Electric Chairs’ ‘So Many Ways’ is post-punk / funk at its height in 1979 - tough rhythms, avant-garde, addictively hypnotic and hypnotic. Two hard to find bomb tunes.

Superb exact reproduction of this excellent postpunk / funk mini masterpiece by the Electric Chairs, who were Wayne / Jayne County and the Electric Chairs until Wayne / Jayne County, true to their own song, ‘Fucked Off’. The Electric Chairs included in their line-up Henry Padovani, who joined the group after being chucked out of a new band called The Police (replaced by Andy Summers).

However, it’s the production skills of David Cunningham that sets this apart from most punk / post-punk singles. At the time Cunningham was working with a stunning array of avant-garde artists including This Heat, Michael Nyman, David Toop and his own ‘experimental pop group’, The Flying Lizards.

Electric Chair’s ‘So Many Ways’ features on Soul Jazz Records’ ‘Punk 45: I’m A Mess’.

TRACK LISTING

So Many Ways
J’Attends Les Marines

Welsh post-punk unit Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materialising in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London. Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. In this time they successfully channelled their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far.”

Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra). Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks, drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.” A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued.

The album’s title track is also its closing cut, a stomping, sparkling ode to “the wrong side of the night, where time goes to die.” Smith describes the scene: “Everyone’s talking, screaming, trauma bonding, but no one’s listening. Broken dialogue. Shouting over each other. You want to switch off, but everyone’s too fucked.” The guitars spiral and slide towards the oblivion of dawn, the chance to crash and do it all again. The song’s refrain captures the elision of time, spilling through the haze of days, from chaos to acceptance: “I can’t see the clock through the shrouds of smoke / Does it matter? / Common ground / In a never ending space.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)
2. Cosmic Whip
3. Serving Purpose
4. Praying Hands, Turtle Doves
5. Amphetamine Luck
6. Torcalon
7. The Wall
8. Old Human Material
9. Anomia
10. Never Ending Space

Shake Chain have been busy demolishing audiences and expectations for the best part of three years. Vocalist Kate Mahony sets that standard by starting each live performance by crawling from the back of the room through a disbelieving crowd’s legs in a shiny yellow raincoat. The resulting questions that frantically arise of ‘what’s going on?’, ‘am I hallucinating?’ and ‘is this part of the show?’ are hallmarks of how Shake Chain approach making their unruly, lyric-bespattered rock music.

The four-piece from London are completed by Robert Syres (guitar, synth), Chris Hopkins (bass, synth) and Joe Fergey (drums), all artists hailing from Goldsmiths College, Nottingham Trent and Wimbledon, University of the Arts. A mutual love of thought-provoking performance art and a yearning for disruption have helped Shake Chain lock into their wayward sound. Twitchy guitar lines jolt and jerk, synths burble noisily and tack-sharp drums pin things down for Kate’s reeling vocal to vault and slur. Kate’s singing has drawn comparisons with Yoko Ono, Su Tissue and even a seance with it’s unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant.

Shake Chain’s debut album ‘Snake Chain’ was recorded in the New Forest’s Chuckalumba Studios early in 2022. The tranquil setting only slightly skewed by the intense extratropical cyclone occuring outside. When asked to sum up the album the group collectively settled on it sounding like “crying in a Catholic sex dungeon with Eastenders on”, perhaps only half tongue in cheek given the soapy dramatics of opening track ‘Stace’. ‘RU’ is a stompy triumph of ad lib monotony, heavy and wonky, its vocal slowly unwinding into residual sense. Shake Chain’s songs are populated with cowboys, cherry-pickers, content-addicts, private investments, a careless driver called Mike, architects and by much lamentation at the state of our confusing existencies. This last point underlined in luminous marker pen with slow-building vortex ‘Highly Conpeptual’ and whispered closer ‘Duck’.

‘Copy Me’ races along with radiant headbangs of dynamic abandon, one part tumble, two parts pummel, “hold your breath til something changes” commands Kate whilst everything of course is in hammering flux. ‘Second Home’ is similarly coruscating yet bouyant, whilst ‘Arthur’ feels like it could tear inside in two amid sobbing wails and the twining of its disparate parts. Throughout all the unhinged freakouts, found sounds and blasting rhythms though is Kate’s questioning, resilient presence, anchoring everything. On bruising creeper ‘Birthday’ she asks most tellingly “Do we speak language or does language speak us? Is there a mouth in the middle of the desert? Do you ask how cups are designed? Would you say yes when you really mean I don’t know”? Shake Chain are cathartic and absurd, humorous and deadly serious yet always inspired. Its this tightrope walk which makes their album such a thrilling, vital listen.

TRACK LISTING

01. Stace
02. RU
03. Copy Me
04. Birthday
05. Cavalry
06. Highly Conceptual
07. Mike
08. Second Home
09. Arthur
10. Architecture
11. Internet
12. Duck

"Dirt" is the second studio album by the American rock band Alice in Chains. Originally released on September 29th 1992 through Columbia Records. The album received critical acclaim and has gone on to sell five million copies worldwide, making "Dirt" the band's highest selling album to date. It was also the band's last album recorded with all four original members. 'Rolling Stone' placed the album at No 26 on its list of the '100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time'. "Dirt" was included in the 2005 book '1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'. It was voted "Critic's Choice Album of the Year". 'Guitar World' named "Dirt" as the best guitar album of 1992. 'Loudwire' named it as one of the best Metal albums of the 1990 s, and 'Rolling Stone' ranked it at No 6 on its list of "50 Greatest Grunge Albums" in 2019. 

Methods of parenting and education have progressed in recent years, especially compared to some of the more casually experimental routes inflicted on children of artistic professionals in the 70s and 80s. One experience that would take some beating is that endured by Baxter Dury. When punk rock star Ian Dury disappeared to make films in the late 80s, he left his teenage son in the care of his roadie, in a rundown flat in Hammersmith.

But this was no ordinary roadie; this was the Sulphate Strangler. The Strangler, having taken a lot of LSD in the 60s, was prone to depression, anger and hallucinations. He was also, as the name suggests, a drug dealer.

What could possibly go wrong?In a period that we can now only imagine, a young Baxter ricocheted from one adventure to another, narrowly swerving one disaster only immediately to collide with another. At times, his situation was perilous in the extreme - the world is lucky to have him at all. CHAISE LONGUE is an intimate account of those escapades, evocatively illuminating a bohemian west London populated with feverishly grubby characters.

Narrated in Dury's candid tone, both sad and funny, this moving story will leave an indelible imprint on its readers.

Since breaking out in 2018, CHAI have been associated with explosive joy. At their live shows, the Japanese four-piece of identical twins MANA (lead vocals and keys) and KANA (guitar), drummer YUNA, and bassist-lyricist YUUKI have become known for buoyant displays of eclectic and clever songwriting, impressive musicianship, matching outfits, delightful choreography, and sheer relief. At the core of their music, CHAI have upheld a stated mission to deconstruct the standards of beauty and cuteness that can be so oppressive in Japan. Following the release of 2019’s second album PUNK, CHAI’s adventures took them around the world, to music festivals like Primavera Sound and Pitchfork Music Festival, and touring with indie-rock mainstays like Whitney and Mac DeMarco.

Like all musicians, CHAI spent 2020 forced to rethink the fabric of their work and lives. But CHAI took this as an opportunity to shake up their process and bring their music somewhere thrillingly new. Having previously used their maximalist recordings to capture the exuberance of their live shows, with the audiences’ reactions in mind, CHAI instead focused on crafting the slightly-subtler and more introspective kinds of songs they enjoy listening to at home—where, for the first time, they recorded all of the music. Amidst the global shutdown, CHAI worked on Garageband and traded their song ideas—which they had more time than ever to consider—over Zoom and phone calls, turning their limitations into a strength.

Their third full-length and first for Sub Pop, WINK contains CHAI’s mellowest and most minimal music, and also their most affecting and exciting songwriting by far. While the band leaned into a more personal sound, WINK is also the first CHAI album to feature contributions from outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK) as well as a feature from the Chicago rapper-singer Ric Wilson. CHAI draw R&B and hip-hop into their mix (Mac Miller, the Internet, and Brockhampton were on their minds) of dance-punk and pop-rock, all while remaining undeniably CHAI. Whether in relation to this newfound sense of openness or their at-home ways of composing, the theme of WINK is to challenge yourself.

WINK is a fitting title then: a subtle but bold gesture. A wink is an unselfconscious act of conviction, or as CHAI puts it: “A person who winks is a person with a pure heart, who lives with flexibility, who does what they want. A person who winks is a person who is free.” YUUKI noted that “With this album, we’re winking at you. We’re living freely and we hope that when you listen, you can wink and live freely, too.”

CHAI came to see the album—with its home-y feel—as a collection where each song is like a new friend, something comforting to rely on and reach out to, as the album was for them throughout 2020. This impulse towards connection is in WINK’s title, too. After the “i” of their debut album PINK and the “u” of PUNK—which represented the band’s act of introducing themselves, and then of centering their audiences—they have come full circle with the “we” of WINK. It signals CHAI’s relationship with the outside world, an embrace of profound togetherness. Through music, as CHAI said, “we are all coming together.” In that act of opening themselves up, CHAI grew into their best work: “This album showed us, we’re ready to do more.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A vibrant mix of deep, grooving disco beats and perfectly effervescent production has come to characterise the CHAI experience, and 'Wink' is absolutely the peak of this aesthetic. Brilliantly playful but ram-packed with moments of sheer synthy perfection, CHAI really are one of the most exciting bands around at the moment.

TRACK LISTING

Donuts Mind If I Do
Maybe Chocolate Chips (feat. Ric Wilson)
ACTION
END
PING PONG! (feat. YMCK)
Nobody Knows We Are Fun
It's Vitamin C
IN PINK (feat. Mndsgn)
KARAAGE
Miracle
Wish Upon A Star
Salty

Japanese four-piece CHAI may worship at the altar of kawaii - their homeland’s culture of cute– but they’re not about to be pushed around by the idle bosses and the ignorant patriarchy. The ultra-concise garage-pop race of their debut LP PINK is about to be overhauled on their new album. CHAI are ready to light the fuse; CHAI are PUNK.

“’PUNK’ for us, of course, is not the genre of music,” say the band. “‘PUNK’ to us is to overturn the worn-out values associated with ‘kawaii’ or ‘cute’ created up until this point. ‘PUNK’ is a word that expresses a strong sense of self. To be yourself more, to become the person you truly want to be, to believe in yourself in every instance!”

First single ‘Fashionista’ is a rebellious demand for self-acceptance in the face of society’s pressures: “Even if you don’t dress or do your makeup like how society expects you too, you’re still a “Fashionista” by expressing yourself how you want to. You decide what you want to wear, how you want to look, what you don’t want to wear, and that is what makes you a Fashionista!”

At the core of CHAI’s music is the concept of "Neo-Kawaii." They outlined to concept in several interviews in 2018. In Pitchfork's Rising interview, it's described as "a move towards the embrace and celebration of human imperfection. 'Neo-Kawaii' is properly summarized on the single 'N.E.O.' from PINK, which directly comments on oppressive beauty standards, offering a list of supposed imperfections that translate to 'Small eyes/Flat nose/No shape/Fat legs!' CHAI seek to reclaim them as perfect."

On ‘GREAT JOB’ CHAI compare house work to ridding yourself from all negativity. “Some people look at house work as a negative duty but it’s actually a positive duty that represents a refreshed, new you.” Yuuki picks up on this: “Of course we want to continue show our style of positivity-meets-pop but in life there’s definitely times of sadness, times of frustration and even irritating moments that with ‘PUNK’, we want everyone to know can be used as energy to fuel the positivity from the negativity”.

Lead singer and keyboardist Mana reflects this mood, this search for something heavier, but still retaining their ultra-pop framework. Maybe it’s the huge success in their native Japan, or even their cult status in the UK, touring alongside Superorganism last year – whatever the reason, there’s a silent change. She adds: “We feel a stronger sense of self… we want to create music with deeper meaning, we want to release more of our individuality”.

This inner strength comes out in the music. If PINK was a plastic, hyper-bright introduction then PUNK is a deeper, less blinding but more impactful graduation. It’s the movement from vivid orange to slow-burning red. Drummer Yuna adds: “Compared with our first album, PUNK represents a more concentrated version of all of our individualities”. Or as guitarist Kana puts it: “Everything has a PUNCH!”

Yuuki crafted the irrepressible album sleeve, with a laughing girl bursting through a shell. The message, they say, is clear: “Hello, New Me!” You under-estimate CHAI at your peril.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Chai is a fascinating middleground between clashing snarling punk (a-la Lovely Eggs etc), and the ever-increasing wave of synthy J-Pop. Brilliantly nuanced at points but swimming with the kind of carefree frivolity and funky grooves that make this an essential soundtrack to the summer.

TRACK LISTING

1 CHOOSE GO!
2 GREAT JOB
3 I'm Me
4 Wintime
5 THIS IS CHAI
6 Fashionista
7 FAMILY MEMBER
8 Curly Adventure
9 Feel The BEAT
10 Future

Japanese culture has long since developed a fascination with the cute, the innocent, the throwaway; it’s termed ‘kawaii’, more of a cult than a concept, and it runs through the veins of incoming hyper-animated four-piece Chai.

Hailing from Japan’s Nagoya region, the band formed around identical twins Mana and Kana, before close friends Yuna and Yuuki completed the line up.

Imagine a world dominated by bright colours and squeaky clean plastic, where endless cartoons and guilt-free meal times combine to offer hymns to empowerment, and a rejection of the mundane. Imagine Chai’s electrifying, hallucinatory, but wonderfully real debut mini-album ‘Pink’.

Plugged in to pop culture on a 24/7 basis, Chai practically have modems for stomachs and phone lines for veins. Just the first glitter-strewn belch to eminate from Chai, ‘Pink’ is the kind of guilt-free hyper-pop overdose you’ve waited your entire life to hear. It’s cute, but beneath the surface there’s a whole new world to explore.

TRACK LISTING

Hi Hi Baby
N.E.O
Boyz Seco Men
Horechatta
Fried
She Is Kitty

The power of words isn’t lost on longstanding Americana triumvirate The Devil Makes Three - Pete Bernhard, Lucia Turino and Cooper McBean. For as much as they remain rooted in troubadour traditions of wandering folk, Delta blues, whiskey-soaked ragtime and reckless rock ‘n’ roll, the band nod to the revolutionary unrest of author James Baldwin, the noholds barred disillusionment of Ernest Hemingway and Southern Gothic malaise of Flannery O’Connor.

In that respect, their sixth full-length and first original material since 2013, ‘Chains Are Broken’ resembles a dusty leatherbound book of short stories from some bygone era. As the band began writing ideas for the record they veered off the proverbial path creatively. 

Instead of their typical revolving cast of collaborators, The Devil Makes Three stuck to the signature power trio, with one addition. This time they invited touring drummer Stefan Amidon to power the bulk of the percussion.

Another first, they retreated to Sonic Ranch Studios in El Paso, TX a stone’s throw from the Mexican border to record with producer Ted Hutt (Dropkick Murphys).

The incorporation of new sounds as well as the experimentation in space finds The Devil Makes Three crafting a new yet still familiar sound. Coupled with a continued focus on in-depth lyricism that tells a story in every song, ‘Chains Are Broken’ is a liberating, rump-shaking collection of past, present and future.

TRACK LISTING

Chains Are Broken
Pray For Rain
Paint My Face
Can’t Stop
Need To Lose
All Is Quiet
Bad Idea
Deep Down
Native Son
Castles
Curtains Rise

Wire’s first three albums need no introduction. They are the three classic albums on which Wire’s reputation is based. Moreover, they are the recordings that minted the post-punk form. This was adopted by other bands, but Wire were there first. These are the definitive re-releases. Each album is presented as an 80-page hardback book – the size of a 7-inch, but obviously much thicker. After a special introduction by Jon Savage, Graham Duff provides insight into each track. These texts include recording details, brand-new interviews with band members, and lyrics.

This stunning set of presentations also includes a range of images from the archive of Annette Green. Wire’s official photographer during this period, Green also shot the covers for Pink Flag and Chairs Missing. Promotional and informal imagery – in colour and black and white – is featured throughout the books. Most of the photographs have not been seen for 40 years – and many have never been published anywhere before.

With "Pink Flag" Wire tapped happily into punk's energy and iconoclastic tendencies, "Chairs Missing" is, perhaps, a little truer to their own instincts. They didnt completely shed the past completely; the joyful "Sand In My Joints" and grinding "Mercy" have more than a hint of "Pink Flag" about them, but their 1978 offering is moodier and much more textured than its predecessor, the addition of swathes of electronic sounds moving them firmly into post punk territory, a genre they helped to spawn. There is pure pop beauty on here too, of which "Outdoor Miner"  and "French Film Blurred" being the most gorgeous examples. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Their most varied L.P. and possibly their finest hour (or so). Straddling the fire of punk and the colder, darker charms of brooding electronic post punk, it also contains within its grooves moments of melodic magic. Worth buying for the outrageously amazing "Outdoor Miner" on its own.

TRACK LISTING

SE Tracklist: Disc 1 (Original Album)

01/PracticeMakesPerfect
02/French Film Blurred
03/Another The Letter
04/Men 2nd
05/Marooned
06/Sand In My Joints
07/Being Sucked In Again
08/Heartbeat
09/Mercy
10/Outdoor Miner
11/IAmTheFly
12/I Feel Mysterious Today
13/From The Nursery
14/Used To
15/Too Late

Disc 2 (Singles, B-sides & Studio Recordings)

01/I Am The Fly (single Version)
02/Dot Dash
03/Options R
04/Outdoor Miner (single Version)
05/Practice Makes Perfect (single Version)
06/Underwater Experiences (Advision Version)

Disc 3 (Studio Demos) Fourth Demo Sessions

01/Practice Makes Perfect
02/OhNoNotSo
03/Culture Vultures
04/It’s The Motive
05 Love Ain’t Polite
06/French Film Blurred (version 1)
07/Sand In My Joints
08/Too Late
09/I Am The Fly
10/Heartbeat
11/Underwater Experiences
12/Stalemate
13/I Feel Mysterious Today Fifth Demo Sessions
14/ Dot Dash
15/ French Film Blurred (version 2)
16/ Options R
17/ Finistaire (Mercy)
18/ Marooned
19/ From The Nursery
20/ Indirect Enquiries (version 1)
21/ Outdoor Miner
22/ Chairs Missing (Used To)
23/ Being Sucked In Again
24/ Men 2nd
25/ Another The Letter
26/ No Romans 

First new album from Alan Sparhawk’s Black Eyed Snakes in 17 years.

Starting abruptly, mid-downbeat, the Black-Eyed Snakes' new release opens up like walking into the room where the grit and groove has already been rolling, for who knows how long. In 1999 and 2001, the Snakes released two full-length recordings that would lay the foundation and frame to what would become a unique and dynamic live force. Their shows are legendary - a chaotic swirling stomp, based on the most primitive elements of electric blues and punk. The band has become a wide regional favorite, playing festivals and bars and multiple tours in the US, UK, and Europe, sometimes opening for artists like Wilco and T. Model Ford.

The new record, "Seven Horses" is the culmination of a simple but visceral path cut with blood, sweat, loud guitars, and dancing. Singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk, who is also in the band Low, howls through the squelch and bash, sometimes to rally the congregation as on "Church Song" and sometimes the voice of pleading despair as on "Don't Kick Me Out." Influenced by legends like The Staple Singers, John Lee Hooker, Fred McDowell, and Ali Farka Toure, the songs jump out of the speakers raw and heavy, inviting the listener to pull up a chair, sit in with the band and let the blues flow through them.

TRACK LISTING

1. Walkin'/Talkin' Blues
2. Church Song
3. Losing Water
4. Pony
5. Seven Horses
6. Alright Boys
7. Don't Kick Me Out
8. Return Of Halfstick
9. Out Of My Head

Sheffield-based Seize The Chair release ‘Knew You’d Never Been There’ on 7” on the Too Pure Singles Club.

Warm and melodic with a soft grooving bassline, there’s a great 90s nostalgia to ‘Knew You’d Never Been There’.

Backed with brand new track ‘Secret Sister’.

For fans of Ride and The Charlatans.

TRACK LISTING

Knew You’d Never Been There
Secret Sister

Chain & The Gang are different than the rest—you won’t see their name on the garbage heap of hyped bands pushed by paidoff web-zine tastemakers. They’re not “jingle-core,” tattooed onto your subconscious via Madison Avenue mind-control ad campaigns. They’re not middle brow NPR indie-listening for Prius-owning cubicle rockers or a tiresome teenage retread of ’90s surrender sludge. No, Chain & The Gang are singular, terrifying, and unparalleled. Not only the most ferocious live combo ever witnessed but also the world’s only anti-liberty rock ’n’ roll group. Their motto? “Down with Liberty … Up with Chains!”

This band doesn’t care about grades, likes, traffic or hits. They don’t petition publicists for goofy hype or pander to the corrupt institutions who molest rock ’n’ roll and use it as their plaything. Chain & Co. don’t play that game. They want total destruction of the insipid rock ’n’ roll status quo and the foul system from which it purports to offer relief, but in fact keeps afloat. They’ve released five uncompromising records, each one a brilliant, tossed-off sketchbook of insolence and provocation: Down with Liberty … Up With Chains!, Music’s Not For Everyone, In Cool Blood, Minimum Rock ’n’ Roll, and Experimental Music.

Now only one is needed: Best Of Crime Rock. Just recorded, it’s easily the best record, with the most passion, the most accuracy, the most cunning, and the most vigor. Every song on these records is a classic, each lyric an anthem. The tunes are simplistic to the point of parody; call and response rhythm chants which infiltrate the consciousness and leave the listener forever transformed. Each group member is a star. But together they’re something greater than the parts. An irresistible combo that provides the best hope for the future and the only answer to the embarrassing slime pit called “culture.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Devitalize
2. Certain Kinds Of Trash
3. Why Not?
4. The Logic Of Night
5. I See Progress
6. What Is A Dollar?
7. Mums The Word
8. Free Will
9. Come Over
10. Livin Rough
11. Nuff Said
12. Deathbed Confession

NME recently put Chains of Love as number 3 in their top ten 'buzziest' bands of SXSW 2012, and no doubt we will be hearing a lot more from them this year! Their début album, Strange Grey Days, will see a UK release on Manimal.

With an intoxicating energy, Vancouver-based, Chains of Love's sun-soaked romantic pop is injected with the stomp of vintage 60s soul, the wild abandon of 70s garage, and the guitar grime of The Cramps and early JAMC. The group formed when guitarist, Felix Fung, the engineer and owner of Vancouver’s Little Red Sound, hatched a plan to start a girl group with Nathalia Pizzaro. Things took shape quickly and with the harmonic help of Rebecca Marie Law Gray, the band knew they had something very special at hand.

Chains of Love's début record, Strange Grey Days is their first body of work (and first release with Manimal Vinyl) and one that proves that they are no one trick pony. While the band's yearning for a certain period of rock and roll which is ingrained in their DNA, it seems to be more about unearthing something timeless rather than simply nostalgia. There is of course that grooving ‘wall of sound’ meets Motown boogie that first gained the group notoriety throughout the record, but the songs also sound bigger with intricate layers amounting to mini-symphonies. Some songs experiment with noisier guitar textures, while others venture into more psychedelic, darker territory. They are still all centred around Pizzaro and Gray's sublime, inescapably catchy hooks and rousing sock-hop harmonies.

In a recent interview, singer Nathalia Pizzaro said, “I don’t want to just say that we sound retro or Motown—that we’ve got a kitschy, candy shop vibe to us—I feel like there’s a raw element to our sound, too.” The band would all agree that Chains of Love is truly a passion project, putting every bit of energy and emotion into it. Uninitiated audiences who have been lucky enough to stumble across seeing them live, will come away witnessing the best show they never expected to see!

Their attention to musical detail combined with the heavenly vocal harmonies of ALAN SPARHAWK and MIMI PARKER are perfectly attuned to both traditional carols like “Silent Night” and more contemporary tunes such as “Blue Christmas.”

Christmas contains a selection of seasonal songs, including four originals by the band, mostly recorded at Lowʼs 20º Below studio in Duluth, MN. “If You Were Born Today” and “Blue Christmas” were released as a 7-inch single in 1997 on the English Wurlitzer Jukebox label, while “Taking Down The Tree” is taken from a 1998 compilation of live recordings issue by the Dutch VPRO radio station.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: "Just Like Christmas" is a sublime pop song with sleigh bells that give it a sprinkling of festive cheer without coming across all "Now That's What I Call Christmas"!

TRACK LISTING

Just Like Christmas
Long Way Around The Sea
Little Drummer Boy
If You Were Born Today
Blue Christmas
Silent Night
Taking Down The Tree
One Special Gift

"New Chain" is the debut long-player from New York's Small Black. Richly coloured and thickly layered, it is an absorbing, eclectic and obsessive body of work. The Brooklyn group have succeeded in melting together locked and popped drum-shudder, gauzy spirographic synths and subtly contagious, half-remembered melody into ebullient bursts of evocative, subliminal and thoroughly modern pop. The songs are equally informed by the rhythmic bounce and stylistic swagger of more left-leaning contemporary radio rap and R'n'B as it is the submerged kaleidoscopic swirl of the early 4AD dream factory.

Formed at the tail-end of 2008 as a bedroom recording project, Small Black first made waves with their eponymous debut EP. Recorded in the attic of singer Josh Kolenik's uncle's remote Long Island beach-house/surfboard workshop, it served as an ideal introduction to the group with its pulsing patchwork synths and addictive, stay-gold hooks that seemed to unfurl themselves gradually over repeated listens. Slightly more immediate and polished than its predecessor, Small Black's new album "New Chain" remains a continuation of this contrasting ethos - a delirious smudging of the lines between melancholy and nostalgia, tension and celebration, unabashed pop music and experimentation. 'It's always been a question for us', explains keyboardist/songwriter Ryan Heyner, 'of how much to push it, how much to reveal. I find a lot of the best music creeps up on you'.

"New Chain" was predominantly written, recorded and fully realized in the seclusion of sleepy, suburban Delaware, where bassist/songwriter Juan Pieczanski spent his childhood summers., and then mixed by Nicolas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors) at his Rare Book Room studio in New York City. The group spent the hours in Delaware as Kolenik says 'trying to take the excitement and stimulus of NYC to a place far from distractions, where it could be organized properly'. The effect of the transposition between city life and the isolation could explain the way the record's full-blown party jams are tempered with weirder moments of longing and enigma, and conversely, how its more discordant, foggy moments conceal huge moments of melody.

A thinker's party record? A party-hardy thinker's record? Not sure. All we know is that New Chain is one of the most involved, intriguing and effortlessly human collections of organic pop music you're likely to hear this or any other year.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Evoking the dreamy pop delights of the 4AD label back catalogue this is an effortlessly beautiful and sumptuously rich album.

Since 2000, Copenhagen-based quartet Efterklang (plus an ever evolving number of collaborators) have been quietly honing their craft, fusing left-of-centre electronic beats with grand orchestral gestures. Self-sufficient by nature and necessity, the band have, until now, always written, recorded and produced every element of their music from the comfort of their Copenhagen bunker. In this time, they have also released records through their own Rumraket label, working with the likes of Grizzly Bear, Amiina and Slaraffenland. So far, the results have been nothing short of revelatory; in particular, 2007’s hugely ambitious "Parades", an album that was difficult to define but even harder to fault, it raised their profile enormously, and with "Magic Chairs" they continue their evolution, exploring previously unchartered territory.
The result is an intimate and immediate record that exudes warmth. The grandiose classical structures heard so prominently and admired so highly in previous albums "Tripper" and "Parades" have been replaced by something far more streamlined, deconstructed and altogether melodious. Opening track "Modern Drift" is a statement of intent with its intricate and looping arpeggios whilst "I Was Playing Drums" is arguably their most accessible pop song to date, the echoes of its refrain linger irresistibly in the ear. ‘Magic Chairs’ still bears the occasional signature moment (an electronic buzz here, a choral flair there) but, all told, it is an album that is an even bolder step forward.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Featuring a host of guest musicians including Peter Broderick, "Magic Chairs" is an immense melodic strewn avant epic, that snuggles nicely in your collection between the latest Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear albums.

Breezy bedsit melodic latino-jazz influenced pop from Manchester's Whiskycats.

NYC's Battletorn's debut single sold out in a week, and their ten minute sets are becoming stuff of legend around NYC. Lead vocalist Beverly is one of the best female vocalists in the game, recalling the aggression of a female Jello Biafra. Fans of The Comes or Sin 34 or even JFA should take notice.

Darren Jackson, better known on the independent music scene as Kid Dakota. Recorded mostly live, "The West Is The Future" captures the intensity and dynamic range of Jackson's Minneapolis band as a four-piece, with long-time drummer Christopher Mcguire (John Vanderslice), guitarist Erik Appelwick (Vicious Vicious, Olympic Hopefuls) and bassist Zak Sally (Low) offering up offering a moody fusion of rock, folk, and country that has garnered comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse, the Black Heart Procession, and Pink Floyd.