The gift that keeps on giving, Purple Disco Machines’ ‘Exotica (Deluxe Album)’ is being treated to some epic remixes of your favourite songs now available on vinyl.

First up, a Club Dub version of ‘In The Dark’ and Monte Remix of ‘Can’t Get Enough’ which are both guaranteed to get you on your feet.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Purple Disco Machine, Sophie And The Giants – In The Dark (Club Dub)
B1. Can't Get Enough Feat. Sahara Beck - Monte Remix

The second instalment of Matador’s 2022 “Revisionist History” Catalog Series, including albums from Pavement, Interpol and Spoon.

“A stone cold classic.” – Rolling Stone

“The greatest band in the universe.” – Pitchfork

“I Can Hear The Heart helped teach people how to listen to music.” – Stereogum

TRACK LISTING

1. Return To Hot Chicken
2. Moby Octopad
3. Sugarcube
4. Damage
5. Deeper Into Movies
6. Shadows
7. Stockholm Syndrome
8. Autumn Sweater
9. Little Honda
10. Green Arrow
11. One PM Again
12. The Lie And How We Told It
13. Center Of Gravity
14. Spec Bebop
15. We're An American Band
16. My Little Corner Of The World

The third ever release on Damaged Goods was the original vinyl version of this album. (FNARRLP3) ‘Terminal Stupid’, their one and only single was one of my favourite singles from 1977 and in 1988 I searched out lead singer Giovanni Dadomo and together we put together this album. It features both sides of their that 7” plus another track they released on the Beggars Banquet compilation ‘Streets’ (Beggars first release), although they had to change their name (to Arthur Comix) as Beggars were worried about the word ‘shits’ on the cover of their album! Anyway we found another six or so tracks, mastered it with Dave Goodman and put it out, at the time Gio had also unearthed one of the three tracks that he cowrote and recorded with The Damned, ‘There ‘Aint No Sanity Clause’ is included on the LP & CD. This is a review of the original album from the Trouser Press website....

“The hazard of anyone-can-do-it musical movements is what might get dragged in. Fortunately, the jokey Snivelling Shits - two London rock critics (singer Giovanni Dadomo and guitarist Dave Fudger) and such musician friends as Steve Nicol of the Hot Rods and bassist Steve Lillywhite - were sharply skilled at smuttily satirising the sounds of '77. As anthologised in this archival colored-vinyl document, the band's brief recording career (eight whole tracks, including the viciously irreverent "isgodaman?," originally released on a Beggars Banquet compilation LP under the name Arthur Comics?) included incisive swipes at the Sex Pistols, John Cooper Clarke ("I Wanna Be Your Biro") and the Velvet Underground.” That's history for you!

TRACK LISTING

1/Crossroads
2/I Can’t Come
3/Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi
4/I Wanna Be Your Biro
5/Bring Me The Head Of Yukio Mishima
6/Only 13
7/Terminal Stupid
8/Isgodaman?
9/There ‘Aint No Sanity Clause
10/Terminal Stupid (demo)
11/I Can’t Come (demo)
12/Isgodaman? (demo)

Nowadays, voice memos, videos, and pictures chronicle our lives in real-time. We trace where we’ve been and reveal where we’re going. However, Suki Waterhouse catalogs the most intimate, formative, and significant moments of her life through songs. You might recognize her name or her work as singer, songwriter, actress but you’ll really get to know the multi-faceted artist through her music. Memories of unrequited love, fits of longing, instances of anxiety, and unfiltered snapshots interlock like puzzle pieces into a mosaic of well-worn country, ‘90s-style alternative, and unassuming pop.

She writes the kind of tunes meant to be grafted onto dusty old vinyl from your favorite vintage record store, yet perfect for a sun-soaked festival stage. Her first album for Sub Pop, I Can’t Let Go, is a testament to her powers as a singer and songwriter. In Suki’s words: “The album is called I Can’t Let Go because for years it felt like I was wearing heavy moments on my sleeve and it just didn’t make sense to do so anymore. There’s so much that I’ve never spoken about. Writing music has always been where it felt safe to do so. Every song for the record was a necessity. In many ways, I’ve been observing my life as an outsider, even when I’ve been on the inside. It’s like I was a visitor watching things happen.”

Growing up in London, Suki gravitated towards music’s magnetic pull. She listened to the likes of Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple, and Oasis held a special place in her heart. She initially teased out this facet of her creativity with a series of singles, generating nearly 20 million total streams independently.

Nylon hailed her debut track, “Brutally,” as “what a Lana Del Rey deep cut mixed with Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides, Now’ would sound like.” In addition to raves from Garage, Vice and Lemonade Magazine, DUJOR put it best: “Suki Waterhouse’s music has swagger.”

Suki is constantly consuming artists of all stripes, and, in the lead-up to making I Can’t Let Go, she was particularly drawn to the work of Sharon Van Etten, Valerie June, Garbage, Frazey Ford, Lou Doillon, and Lucinda Williams. After falling in love with Hiss Golden Messenger’s Terms of Surrender, she reached out to its producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, War On Drugs, Snail Mail, Waxahatchee) to help define the sound of I Can’t Let Go.

On I Can’t Let Go, Suki not only catalogs her life up to this point, but she also fulfills a lifelong ambition. “When I’ve been stuck or feel out of touch with a sense of inner meaning and outer purpose, I’ve found both through searching my memories and finding those events buried in the shadowy areas of the psyche where they were ignored,” she says. “So many times of change in my life have required return visits—especially at the transitions through to the next stages. The album is an exploration of those moments when there is nothing left to lose. What is left and can’t be thrown away is the self.”

TRACK LISTING

Moves
The Devil I Know
Melrose Meltdown
Put Me Through It
My Mind
Bullshit On The Internet
Wild Side
On Your Thumb
Slip
Blessed

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

One of the more idiosyncratic U.S. independent labels must be the 'Hep Me' imprint from New Orleans run by veteran Soulman Senator Jones. Very few of Hep' Me's numerous releases made it out of New Orleans and the ones that did tended to go into collections and nowhere else. Las Vegas Connection's "Running Back To You" surfaced some time in the mid 1970s but there were never enough copies for it to take off. Hopefully that will change with this re-release on the original label. Also, a lovely piece of mid-tempo soul on the flip with the stunning "Can't Nobody Love Me Like You Do". Original copies are few and far between and the current price benchmark for this superior slab of New Orleans vinyl is hovering around the £250 mark. As with most of our reissues this will appeal to across-the-board scenes.

Yet another all killer no filler album from Omar S! Understandably, the price tag is gonna put most folks off, so I assume it's exclusivity is backed by some high quality content which, thankfully, it is.

The pinball wizard seems to be adopting a kind of pseudo-George Clinton persona as he matured into middle age; enlisting a veritable selection of Motor City musicians, vocalists and talent for each separate project he undertakes. The results are both accomplished but reassuringly gritty and DIY; taking the punk ethos into various mutations of Detroit soul, house, beatdown and funk.

It's an expansive collection, which incorporates some of the tasty 7" releases that have eminated out of his FXHE studio recently - albeit with some interesting twists and alternative versions. It finds the producer applying his gritty and idiosyncratic drum programming and blurred synth methods to a whole range of new styles yet effortlessly held together by the producer's unescapable aesthetic. A magnum opus of Detroit soul - don't miss! 

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Start This Over Again (feat Supercoolwicked)
2. Jump
Side 2
1. Virgil (feat Mitchell Yoshida)
2. Bend Who (feat Milf Melly & King Milo)
Side 3
1. Money Hit Da Floor" (feat Supercoolwicked & Amir Hassan)
2. Outer Jass Authority (feat Supercoolwicked, De'Sean Jones & Ian Finkelstein)
Side 4
1. Inner Luv (Intrumental Mix)
Side 5
1. Aaayoooooo (feat Alister Fawnwoda)
2. Multiple Orgasms
Side 6
1. Ice Cream (feat Alandra O Smith & Supercoolwicked)
2. Can't Change
Side 7
1. My Momma & 'Nem Said I Don't Have To!!!
2. Miss Hunn'nay (feat Mad Mike Banks)
Side 8
1. Whale Sex

A 50th anniversary release of the classic 1970 LP from Van Der Graaf Generator. Newly remastered from the original first-generation master tapes. Includes rare poster.

'The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other', is technically the second Van Der Graaf Generator album, but is the first with the full band. Recorded in late 1969 at the cutting edge Trident Studios, 'The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other' was listed at #15 on Q & Mojo's "Top 40 Cosmic Rock Albums". An absolute classic of British progressive space rock.

Taken from "Echoes Of Africa" the most requested track from the album, "People All Around The World, Can Make It" is dealt with themes of climate change with their strong afrobeat/funk personality, are intoxicants, choral aphorisms, reminiscent of American funk bands of the '70s. It doesn't take much to change direction, to erase the negative effects caused by the recent years' globalisation …We can Make it!

TRACK LISTING

1. People All Around The World, Can Make It (Album Version)
2. People All Around The World, Can Make It (Studio Live Take)

Following the release of the first two parts of CAN’s live series, Mute and Spoon Records reissue a limited edition run of Monster Movie on blue vinyl.

With the sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Captain Beefheart and The Velvet Underground ringing in their ears, Holger Czukay and Irmin Schmidt left behind their careers in academia to form the influential group in the late 60s. Together with Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit and American singer Malcolm Mooney, they recorded their debut album Monster Movie in a castle near Cologne in 1968. The record was then remastered in 2004 from the original master tape for a CD release. It was overseen by Holger, Irmin and Jono Podmore to refine it to how it was always intended to be heard.

“Monster Movie is an amazing debut” Pitchfork

“Monster Movie, sounds like nothing else released in 1969 - and still acts as a template for the future” Sound Affects

“Had Can’s debut album, Monster Movie, been their only one, it would have assured their place in the history of German music and of rock as a whole” Shindig Magazine

TRACK LISTING

A1 Father Cannot Yell
A2 Mary, Mary So Contrary
A3 Outside My Door
B1 You Doo Right

Following the release of the first two parts of CAN's live series, Mute and Spoon Records reissue a limited edition run of Soundtracks on clear purple vinyl.

Soundtracks, a compilation of songs Can had composed for different movies, was released in 1970 before the band started work on their second album. This record said goodbye to the band's original vocalist Malcolm Mooney, who features on ‘Soul Desert’ and ‘She Brings The Rain’, to be replaced by Japanese singer Damo Suzuki. Bridging the gap between the improvisatory rock jams of their earlier recordings, Monster Movie and Delay 1968, Soundtracks also laid the foundations for their more electronic and experimental sounding work, such as Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.

“Intricate and subtle” All Music

“Often overlooked… A good sampling of their more straightforward experiments” Pitchfork

TRACK LISTING

A1 Deadlock
A2 Tango Whiskyman
A3 Deadlock
A4 Don't Turn The Light On, Leave Me Alone
A5 Soul Desert
B1 Mother Sky
B2 She Brings The Rain

Idris Muhammad was born Leo Morris in New Orleans in 1939. He mastered the drums at a very early age and can be heard on Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” at just seventeen! His early career was steeped in R&B before moving to New York to embrace the jazz scene. “I’m A Believer” is the perfect fusion of the two genres and features the sublime vocals of his wife Dolores LaLa Brooks of the Crystals (aka Sakinah Muhammad). Our chosen B-side by Chicago soul singer JEAN SHY is the rare modern soul masterpiece “What Can I Do I’m So In Love With You” reissued here for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

1. What Can I Do I'm So In Love With You
2. I'm A Believer

A nine-track compilation gathering David era-appropriate rarities and B-sides, all of which were previously available only on 7”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Queen Of Hearts (Demo)
2. What Would You Do
3. Do All Words Can Do
4. Into The Light
5. Byrdsdale Garden City
6. What They Didn't Know
7. The Truest Road
8. Remember Me
9. Octavio Made The Bomb

More imperative, PCP-soaked DJ tools from the Dirty Blends crew continuing in the vein of classic Chi-town tweakers Ron Hardy / Adonis / Jamal Moss etc. No-one's come as close to recreating that druggy, head twisting lysergic vibe of the Muzic Box as much as these cats in recent times.

William Kincaid takes over side A with a muddy whiplash of Ron Hardy's "Your Passion" - with that incessant woodblock sound twisting your melon inside out!

Lex Lathan lays down some jackbeat damage on "Mayhem Manipulation" - utilizing those echo soaked drum boxes to devastating effect as a plethora of squiggly sfx, warbled vox and flailing sine tones drips through the mix.

Proper warehouse voodoo for the freaks and rave gremlins. You need. 

TRACK LISTING

William Kincaid - Can't Be
Lex Lathan - Mayhem Manipulated

The South-London based musician TONE drops his debut album “So I Can See You” via Rhythm Section. With a mixtape already under his belt, one that he says was thrown together on a whim; this new body of work was created during the pregnancy and subsequent birth of his daughter. TONE, real name Basil Anthony Harewood, was compelled to capture this significant moment, recording mostly at night, with his new life and old life in mind. The album is less a departure of who he was but an embrace of the future and the new life that arrives with beginning a family.

Across the 11 tracks, we hear tender guitar riffs and off-beat R&B elements press up against influences of dub and shoegaze leaving you with a woozy afterglow. TONE’s distinctive vocals are complemented by the familiar voices of Coby Sey on “So I Can See You”, Fran Lobo on “From the North” and Roxanne Tataei on “Make It Drop”. Having both Afro-Caribbean and Welsh heritage has informed the ways in which he sees things and the music he has been magnetized to, especially growing up in both a tiny village in the north of England in East Yorkshire as well as further afield in Europe.

Time spent in St Kitts and Nevis as a child opened his eyes and ears to calypso, reggae and dub and while back home in the UK, he fell in love with ska, punk and skinhead culture none of which he ever outgrew and to this day still informs his music practice.

Each track was recorded on a Tascam 38 tape machine in the studio he set up with Mica Levi and Coby Sey in Hither Green with the drums, played by Marc Pell (Good Bad Happy Sad) were recorded at Andy Ramsey’s studio (Stereolab).

Alongside, Levi and Sey TONE is a CURL collective member and was half of the short-lived punk-duo, Farai.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Nice
A2. Like It Was Yesterday
A3. Gotta Get My Life Right
A4. Move Now
A5. So I Can See You (ft. Coby Sey)
B1. Nailed It
B2. From The North (ft. Fran Lobo)
B3. In And Out
B4. Make It Drop (ft. Roxanne Tataei)
B5. Dawn

Dashboard Confessional's ninth studio album, All The Truth That I Can Tell, is both a remarkable renewal and fortunate step forward for the band's songwriter, front man, and founder, Chris Carrabba.

All The Truth That I Can Tell stands among Carrabba's finest – a strikingly potent musical look at himself through a rediscovered keyhole, both an achievement of vision and a vital burst of artistic clarity; less like reading someone's diary and more like reading their eyes.

TRACK LISTING

Burning Heart
Everyone Else Is Just Noise
Here's To Moving On
The Better Of Me
Southbound And Sinking
Sleep In / Me And Mine
Sunshine State
Pain Free In Three Chords
Young
All The Truth That I Can Tell

Over eighteen boundless albums as experimental as they are pop, Deerhoof has continuously quested for radical sounds and daring storytelling. 2020’s Future Teenage Cave Artists explored fairytale visions of post-apocalypse, welding intrinsic melodies with absurdist digital recording methods. Its sequel Love-Lore, a live covers medley, channeled futurist mid-century artists Parliament, Sun Ra and Stockhausen, to name a handful into a patchwork love letter to the anti-authoritarian expressions that inspire the band.

Galvanized by the challenge of unifying many styles of music, Deerhoof landed on their next record’s concept: baroque gone DIY. Actually, You Can is a genre-abundant record that uses technicolor vibrancy and arpeggiated muscularity to offer a vital shock from capitalism’s purgatorial hold. “In the United States now, to be a moral person means to be a criminal, whether it has to do with a general strike or forming a union or Black Lives Matter protests,” clarifies Saunier of the album’s countercultural embrace of liberation. “If you follow the rules, you’re guilty. That’s the spirit we were trying to express: an angelic prison bust, a glamorous prison bust.” It’s a condemnation of America’s mundanity, replacing violence with the heartfelt power of mutualism.

With state lines and oceans separating band members, Deerhoof not only reinvented their sonic and thematic credo, but also their recording process. Deerhoof’s players are not strangers to home-recording their individual parts, and have long embraced composing via file trading. But 2020’s halt to touring kicked off their longest separation from playing together, foregrounding new priorities. As the group’s combined demos became increasingly layered, bassist and vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki put her foot down, insisting the new album should replicate concert energy. Visualizing the quartet on huge stages with past tourmates Radiohead and Red Hot Chili Peppers, Saunier fugue-arranged his bandmates’ complex demos into songs to make an audience smile and dance. He sought out far-traveling delays, heavy playing, and unique panning to evoke the power of outdoor music. Matsuzaki scrutinized spots that would betray the conceit, eliminating anything that took away from the sound of onstage grandeur. “We spent so much time imagining playing together in the process of recording, it’s almost like a false memory of us playing this music together,” Saunier marvels.

For Deerhoof’s members to continually uncover new corners of their own talent requires deep wells of gratitude, not only for each others’ creativity but for the freedom their career affords. But by embracing each other’s art with curiosity, Deerhoof authors a musical alphabet that continues to astound and inspire, a unique lexicon expanding limitlessly with each album. For new listeners and decades-long devotees, Deerhoof’s electrifying, generous approach to collaborative worldbuilding on Actually, You Can is an emboldening call to support our communities with renewed strength, infinite love, and the resilience to keep exploring.

TRACK LISTING

1. Be Unbarred, O Ye Gates Of Hell
2. Department Of Corrections
3. We Grew, And We Are Astonished
4. Scarcity Is Manufactured
5. Ancient Mysteries, Described
6. Plant Thief
7. Our Philosophy Is Fiction
8. Epic Love Poem
9. Divine Comedy

Brand new 7” from Leeds' finest! A taster from their next full-length LP due out later in the year Ever been interrogated by the punk rock police? Are you manufactured by a company? Is your band real or plastic? Have you ever paid a thousand quid for a poster? Can the kids be trusted with rock n roll? Answers on side A.

Geraldine Hunt's 1980 classic "Cant Fake The Feeling" gets the remix treatment from none other than Carl Cox. Featuring 2 new mixes from Carl plus the original and the highly useful dub.

"Can't Fake The Feeling" held the #1 spot of the Billboard Dance chart for several weeks in 1980 and sounds as fresh as ever... Carl Cox needs no introduction with a career dating 4 decades and still going strong. Oh yes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Coxy gets his mitts on this upper echelon disco totem. He doesn't do much to it other than straighten out the arrangement and add a thumpin' kick, for an Ibiza-friendly terrace workout that's sure to please the masses. Thankfully it also includes the original AND the dub - so this is one bumper package of this truly great moment of disco history.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Cant Fake The Feeling (Carl Cox Remix)
A2. Cant Fake The Feeling (Carl Cox Rework)
B1. Can't Fake The Feeling
B2. Can't Fake The Feeling (Dub)

The Twilight Sad’s third full-length, No One Can Ever Know, marks a sonic shift for the band. Freshly inspired by a listening diet of Cabaret Voltaire, Can, Liars, Magazine, Autechre, and Public Image Limited, the band turn to a dark, synth-heavy sound for No One Can Ever Know; the resulting LP shares thematic and sonic space with the most innovative offerings from Depeche Mode, The Cure, or even Nine Inch Nails. “We wanted to be a lot more spontaneous, get outside our comfort zone - not to fall back into repeating what we’ve done previously,” explains guitarist Andy MacFarlane. “So we moved to London for a month to record at The Pool and got Andrew Weatherall involved to bounce ideas off and to generally reassure us of the direction we were already progressing in – toward a sparser sound, with a colder, slightly militant feel.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Alphabet
2. Dead City
Side B
3. Sick
4. Don’t Move
Side C
5. Nil
6. Don’t Look At Me
7. Not Sleeping
Side D
8. Another Bed
9. Kill It In The Morning

As no strangers to the West End Records back catalogue – both having taken on remix duties individually in the past – 2022 sees Michael Gray and Dr Packer combine to give two classics a modern rebuff. Brenda Taylor’s seminal “You Cant Have Your Cake And Eat It To” is finessed into a contemporary disco standard: Taylor’s voice still cutting through with plenty of soul while synth and pianos provide the groove. “Don’t Make Me Wait” cuts a tougher tone than usual, with acid-like bleeps and plenty of edgy boogie bass combining with a rock solid 4/4 house beat. Sure to be a big hit at modern dances like Horse Meat Disco, Homoelectric and Supernature Disco…

TRACK LISTING

A. Brenda Taylor - You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too (Michael Gray & Dr Packer Remix)
AA. NYC Peech Boys - Dont Make Me Wait (Dr Packer & Michael Gray Remix)

The Dream Syndicate’s 1986 album is back on CD for the first time in 24 years. Hidden inside of ‘Out of the Grey’ are some of Steve Wynn’s strongest songs - “Slide Away” is delightful pop, “Now I Ride Alone” is moody and intense “like the hardboiled typewriting of novelists Jim Thompson, Ross MacDonald, and James Cain” that Wynn dug back in July ‘85. The epic “Boston” imagines the era in which Van Morrison was holed-up in that city circa 1967-68 writing the songs that comprised Astral Weeks while “50 in a 25 Zone” is a vehicle for a band-driven, slow burn groove.

Deliciously remastered with new liner notes from the band’s historian Pat Thomas, the package compiles 51 songs spread across 3 CDs, including a previously unreleased live album (from July 1985) and many unreleased demos and out-takes. The deluxe reissue also features interviews with Steve Wynn, Mark Walton, Paul Cutler, and Dennis Duck - plus plenty of rare photos.

Discs 2 and 3 reveal a wealth of unreleased material – including a never-before-heard July 1985 live album which has the ‘balls to the wall’ energy hard not captured in the studio. The songs were so fresh on that July night - they had not been recorded in the studio yet. On Disc 3, you’ll hear alternate versions of several Out of the Grey songs recorded as ‘demos’ before the album versions. These studio versions also have the raw energy of the live show, plus the band plays rare cover versions by Pink Floyd, Cream, Santana, Green on Red, Alice Cooper, Temptations, and Dolly Parton.

51 songs including 34 never-before heard Dream Syndicate recordings – released under the title of: What Can I Say? no regrets... Out of the Grey + live, demos & outtakes… in other words, you need this!

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 – Out Of The Grey
1 Out Of The Grey
2 Forest For The Trees
3 50 In A 25 Zone
4 Boston
5 Blood Money
6 Slide Away
7 Dying Embers
8 Now I Ride Alone
9 Drinking Problem
10 Dancing Blind
11 You Can't Forget
12 Let It Rain
13 Cinnamon Girl
14 Ballad Of Dwight Frye
15 Shake Your Hips
16 I Won't Forget
17 The Lonely Bull

Disc 2 - Live At Scorgies NY, 1985
1 Out Of The Grey (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
2 50 In A 25 Zone (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
3 That's What You Always Say (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
4 Slide Away (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
5 Dancing Blind (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
6 Blood Money (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
7 Dying Embers (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
8 It Hits You Again (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
9 Now I Ride Alone (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
10 John Coltrane Stereo Blues (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
11 Still Holding Onto You (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
12 When You Smile (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)
13 Days Of Wine And Roses (Live At Scorgies NY, 1985)

Disc 3 - Odds & Sods
1 Here On Earth As Well (Demo, 1985)
2 Dancing Blind (Demo, 1985)
3 Blood Money (Demo, 1985)
4 Dying Embers (Demo, 1985)
5 Slide Away (Demo, 1985)
6 It Hits You Again (Demo, 1985)
7 Now I Ride Alone (Demo, 1985)
8 Eighteen
9 Another Brick In The Wall
10 Brain Damage
11 Out Of The Grey Waltz
12 The Munster's Theme Song
13 Sixteen Ways
14 Papa Was A Rolling Stone
15 Low Rider
16 Papa Jam
17 I Ain't Got Nobody
18 Jeannie's Afraid Of The Dark
19 Badge
20 Dancing Blind (Live At The Stone SF, 1984)
21 Blood Money (Live At The Stone SF, 1984)

“Live In Brighton 1975” is the second album of a curated series of CAN live concerts. Available in full for the first time on triple vinyl, double CD and digitally. Originally recorded on tape, this carefully restored live album comprises the entirety of the show in the format of a story with a beginning, middle and end, bringing CAN’s performance to life. Limited edition triple Gold vinyl in triple gatefold sleeve plus a 2CD edition in card pack with 16 page booklet, both with extensive sleeve notes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's not much I can tell you here that you won't already know.. this is the second wonderfully pressed collection from Can of live performances following 'Live In Stuttgart' that was released in May. There are very few musicians that could pull off this level of out-there musicianship, and this is a wonderful and accurate document of their live legacy. Essential.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Brighton 75 Eins
A2 Brighton 75 Zwei
A3 Brighton 75 Drei
B1 Brighton 75 Vier
B2 Brighton 75 Fünf
C1 Brighton 75 Sechs
C2 Brighton 75 Sieben

AVAILABLE ONLINE ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 8AM.

LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

A crazy 22-track collection containing some of the biggest dance craze hits from the Philadelphia label that got the world dancing in the early 1960sIncludes tracks by Cameo Parkway’s biggest stars: Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, The Orlons and The Dovells as well as R&B greats Don Covay and The Turbans. Twelve Top 40 hits including three number 1 chart toppers!Chubby Checker’s original hit version of “The Twist,” which has the distinction of being the only single of the rock era to reach number 1 twice in two consecutive years, is included. Features an essay by acclaimed rock & roll and R&B historian John Broven. Mastered from the original master tapes from ABKCO’s Cameo Parkway archive
Bespoke printed inner bags including extensive liner notes and period photos.

One of a series of three long out of print New Orleans funk 45's from Soul Jazz Records.

Chuck Carbo’s ‘Can I Be Your Squeeze’, backed with ‘Take Care Your Homework Friend’, are two of the most infectious break-heavy funk party tunes you will ever hear, written and produced by the legendary Eddie Bo and featuring the awesome syncopated drums of the phenomenal New Orleans drummer James Black.

TRACK LISTING

Can I Be Your Squeeze
Take Care Your Homework Friend

Quantrells’ only single release from 1972 goes for two to three hundred pounds if you can find a copy on the Chicago-based Yambo label. A deep soul smoocher with a glorious vocal with enormous brass stabs, it’s like a roughed up version of The Jackson 5. Backed with Promise’s ‘I’m Not Ready For Love’; one of two singles from the mid ‘70s by this all-girl teenage four piece on the New Directions label. Built with a driving bass and the girls’ gorgeous vocals dropping into party mode over a funky guitar break midway through, it’s a classic ice breaker. Copies go for around £100.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Deptford Northern Soul Club continue to attack the market value of this elite scene by repressing some of the most memorable and must-have records at an everyman's price. I've always championed such behaviour and I'll be honest, it was one of the things that always left a sour taste in my mouth about the Northern scene. It's nice to hear these tracks on vinyl without having to worry about auctioning off your liver.

TRACK LISTING

Quantrells - Can’t Let You Break My Heart
Promise - I’m Not Ready For Love

How Beautiful Life Can Be, recorded at Parr Street Studios, Liverpool. In the company of producers, James Skelly and Chris Taylor, pushes The Lathums’ remarkable story into the next, even more exciting phase. The Great Escape, having been previously self-released by the young band, emerges from the album sessions in sparkling, new form, whilst retaining the melodic stardust that caused the first rumblings of the social-media led stampede to their early gigs.

Kick-started by growing pains and life’s unlucky twists, fuelled by the simple salvation of six guitar strings and supercharged by the fans that found them slogging their gear into the north of England’s pubs and small venues, The Lathums story may turn out to be the perfect not-all-nice-guys-finish-last tale.

It was only in the summer 2019 that the band’s fuse was lit by Tim Burgess, who offering them a late slot at Kendal Calling where, inside 24 hours, social media chatter caused their audience to spill into the field beyond their tent. A year later they had achieved their first UK Album Chart Top 20 for vinyl-only EP compilation, The Memories We Make, recorded their debut appearance for Later… With Jools Holland and joined the BBC Sound Poll 2021 list of tipped acts at the end of a year that skidded on the black ice of a global pandemic but, somehow, left the band on their feet.

For a band whose singing songwriter had never been to a gig before playing his own, yet incomprehensibly carried a trunk load of sensitively-crafted, empathetic, sing-a-long anthems straight into their first rehearsal, The Lathums have flown at nosebleed speed to where they are now.

Hailing from Wigan on the overlooked fringes of Greater Manchester, The Lathums are Alex Moore, casting a new outline of the modern frontman, singing alongside student of the Marr-esque jangle guitar, Scott Concepcion, rapid-fire, wise-cracking bassist, Jonny Cunliffe (aka: Bass Mon Jon) and the steady, rhythmic, wise head, Ryan Durrans on drums. Pithily described by those closest as ‘like The Inbetweeners in a Shane Meadows film’, they are four bright, wild flowers growing between grey paving stones. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This new LP is sure to continue the meteoric upwards trajectory of The Lathums, swimming with influences from The Smiths, The Coral and 90's Britpop into a wonderfully upbeat and undeniably melodic full-length. This Wigan quartet are definitely going places.

TRACK LISTING

1. Circles Of Faith
2. I’ll Get By
3. Fight On
4. How Beautiful Life Can Be
5. The Great Escape
6. I Won't Lie Side B
7. I See Your Ghost
8. Oh My Love
9. I’ll Never Forget The Time I Spent With You
10. I Know That Much
11. Artificial Screens
12. The Redemption Of Sonic Beauty

Geoffrey O'Connor, one time frontman for euphoric guitar pop band Crayon Fields, returns with his first solo album in seven years - but is it really a solo album? For As Long As I Can Remember is a suite of duets with some of Australia's most iconic modern singers, including Jonnine (HTRK), Sarah Mary Chadwick, Laura Jean, Sui Zhen and more. The album explores late night tales of unsublimated desire, a synth-pop cocoon world where obsessions drift slowly into the rear view mirror and exert an unsteadying backwards pull. Geoffrey's duet partners do not proffer easy love or solace, rather they challenge him, gently put him down, or glance back at a history of faded passion.

Other guests include Nicole Thibault of Chapter artists Thibault, Jess Ribeiro, June Jones, Summer Flake's Steph Crase, Sienna Thornton (Cyanide Thornton) and Mystery Guest's Caitlyn Lesiuk. Sydney funk sophisticate Donny Benet appears on bass on two tracks. Since his previous solo album, 2014 critic favourite Fan Fiction (written up by Pitchfork, Spin, All Music and elsewhere), Geoffrey has released Crayon Fields comeback album No One Deserves You (2015) and an expanded reissue of 2009 classic All the Pleasures Of the World. He has also produced albums for Sarah Mary Chadwick, June Jones, Summer Flake and others. Geoffrey has appeared on records by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Donny Benet, been remixed by Chet Faker, and was a member of Melbourne psych pop band Montero

TRACK LISTING

1. For As Long As I Can (with Jonnine)
2. Foolish Enough (with Laura Jean)
3. What A Scene (with Sui Zhen)
4. Renee (with Sienna Thornton)
5. Strange Feeling (with Sarah Mary Chadwick)
6. Precious Memories (with Remember Sarah Mary Chadwick)
7. Catwalk (with Caitlyn Lesiuk)
8. Tired Of Winning (with June Jones)
9. Shelley Duvall (with Nicole Thibault)
10. Tunnel Of Love (with Jess Ribeiro)
11. Love Is Your Best Friend (with Stephanie Crase)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JULY 17TH 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 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JULY 17TH).

Unreleased track(s)

Much needed reissue of this super-rare 12" from 1983. Released on Jeff Weston's Record Shack it often fetches large sums second hand and has an undeniably loose & weighty feel, with soulful vox and rugged instrumental backing. On the flip, "Galactic Funk", by Soul Shack is even earlier - from 1980 and littered with sci-fi sfx and a sludgey, sloppy proto-boogie groove. This is some epochal shit dancers! Two super in-demand cuts on one nicely pressed 12". You need.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Tony Simmons - I Can't Let You Go (5:48)
Side 2
1. Soul Shack - Galactic Funk (5:21)

Composed as a disco soundtrack for condemned night clubs and empty venues, "I Can See You Outside" is the latest single from Dubstar, a further collaboration with Stephen Hague, who produced their earliest hits.

Recorded at the end of the UK's first COVID-19 lockdown, it forms a companion piece with their previous single “Hygiene Strip”. While the previous song, “Hygiene Strip”, revealed an ordinary human predicament set “I Can See You Outside” is a defiant expression of optimism, and the resolution to transcend an existential threat. The EP features brand new extended and dub remixes which add variety and depth to this otherwise quite radio-friendly of hits. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. I Can See You Outside
2. I Can See You Outside (Dub Mix)

Side B

1. I Can See You Outside (Extended)

Alongside Jeb Loy Nichols' new album, Timmion releases a series of double-sided 7" singles from it. The second one of them features a folky mid-tempo soul groove in "I Just Can't Stop" backed with the solid beat-ballad "Help Me Along". Jeb once again proves his skills in writing songs that provoke both thoughts and emotions.

The sunny disposition painted by Jeb's acoustic guitar and Cold Diamond & Mink's effortless playing on the A side turns out to be a facade. What is revealed is a bittersweet story about heartbreak and social distress, in the midst of which Jeb's protagonist denounces himself to be no better than the rest of those crooks, kings and pimps. B side's "Help Me Along" kicks off with Seppo Salmi's familiar guitar licks and a sweet horn section intro, before Jeb starts developing his narrative about the importance of communications in a relationship.

Jeb Loy Nichols is veteran musician with a major label past, who is able to sing about our everyday pains and joys, and raise his songs well above average voices. With this 45 in your box, you'll have soul on your side.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Just Can't Stop
2. Help Me Along

Live in Stuttgart 1975 is the first of a curated series of Can live concerts available in full for the first time on vinyl, CD and digitally. Originally recorded on tape, these carefully restored live albums will comprise the entirety of each show in the format of a story with a beginning, middle and end, with Can’s performances taking on a life of their own.
Available on triple vinyl and double CD. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's really not much that can be said about live Can material that you wouldn't already know, but it's safe to say that this sounds superb and is the perfect recreation of a perfectly sculpted live Can show from the comfort of your own home. An intoxicating and transportive collection, and an essential document of one of the greatest Krautrock pioneers in the biz.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Stuttgart 75 Eins
A2 Stuttgart 75 Zwei
B1 Stuttgart 75 Drei (Part 1)
B2 Stuttgart 75 Drei (Part 2)
C1 Stuttgart 75 Drei (Part 3)
C2 Stuttgart 75 Vier
C3 Stuttgart 75 Fünf

CD TRACKLIST
1 Stuttgart 75 Eins
2 Stuttgart 75 Zwei
3 Stuttgart 75 Drei
4 Stuttgart 75 Vier
5 Stuttgart 75 Fünf

A classic Vee-Jay side from 1965 that originally sneaked out on the Bay Area Wee label. The original goes for around £100, the second Wee press for £75, while the Vee-Jay version is 50 quid a throw. That said, copies are few and far between these days.

Featuring an upbeat, brass-powered Temptationslike harmony with a call and response, a deep sax wail and a piano motif pushing it forward towards a glorious middle eight that breaks into a Gospel roll out.

Powered by Ric-Tic-like drum rolls; a euphoric soulful classic split into two essential parts.

The Ballads were a four-piece from Oakland, across the bridge from San Francisco, featuring Freddie Hughes, who would later sign to Wand. The band themselves almost made it, charting in 1968 with the Willie Hutch-produced ‘God Bless Our Love’ but this earlier recording is the business.

Both sides remastered from the original sound source.

TRACK LISTING

I Can’t See Your Love (For The Tears In My Eyes) Pt.1
I Can’t See Your Love (For The Tears In My Eyes) Pt.2

From the cavernous reverbed percussion and spoken word meanderings of 'It's Ok To Be Tired', it's clear that there is a wealth of influences that, while important to the overall feel of Meena's 2nd release 'Can't See', refuses to be bound by their comparisons. Though the opener is rich with the 80's post-punk aesthetic we all know and love, it finds itself more indebted to shoegaze and ambient than it would first appear. 

'God's Make Me Free' definitely leans into the shoegaze sound with a wall of rich guitar through some sort of pitchshifting delay, lending an otherwordly aesthetic that continues into 'Growing Old' but with the addition of electronic percussion and a tentative reverbed drawl. It's an intoxicating and rewarding first half to the release, that turns a corner into more subdued almost post-rock territory with 'Dying', albeit a little more overdrive. It's the vocals that really draw back into the post-punk sound, at once immediate but foreshadowed by mile-long delays and machinated clattering percussion. 

Closing things off with the astounding hypnotic duo of 'Bad Trip' and 'Alcohol', providing the perfect closing duo to the EP, displaying a keen sense of narrative closure, with 'Alcohol' being the perfect bombastic closer to an excellent journey. :Lovely stuff. 

TRACK LISTING

1. It's Okay To Be Tired 03:56
2. God's Free Make Me 02:47
3. Growing Old 02:38
4. Dying 03:07
5. Bad Trip 03:14
6. Alcohol 04:47

Straight out from the green hills of the Welsh countryside comes Jeb Loy Nichols, the newest sensation in Timmion's growing roster of soul-fuelled vocalists. And we certainly have a double sider of the highest calibre on offer. A seasoned and versatile music scene veteran with a major label past, Jeb has everything it takes to polish Cold Diamond & Mink's rough grooves into shining gems.

The A side gives us a rolling southern-style soul banger, which the Wyoming-born singer attacks effortlessly with his praise for an honest dance. Jeb's talent for clever song writing shines through in the lyrics which connect to our current reality, where truth has become an endangered species. The slower flip side kicks off with a Sunday afternoon worthy duo of organ and acoustic guitar before Jeb shows us how a story is weaved from minimalistic ingredients. From the rural beginnings to pastoral hardships, he lays it all bare for the listener.

In addition to this single, Jeb and Cold Diamond & Mink have a whole album of soulful gold dropping later this year. Make sure to be there to catch it when it drops.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Super catchy, smooth funky soul. What more could you need? ‘We Gotta Work On It’ is a swooning ballad and the flip side is uplifting in every way, difficult not to sway to. Enjoy!

TRACK LISTING

1. Can't Cheat The Dance
2. We Gotta Work On It

Can was founded in 1968 by Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit who formed a group which would utilise and transcend all boundaries of ethnic, electronic experimental and modern classical music.

Damo Suzuki’s last album with Can as Vocalist. Only 4 tracks, but includes the astonishing 20 minute version of Bel Air and the 3 minute pop masterpiece Moonshake. This 1973 epic encapsulates everything great about Can then and now.

Can’s powerful influence has never diminished, and their indelible mark is apparent in the bands who freely acknowledge their importance - from Portishead, James Murphy, New Order, Factory Floor, Public Image Ltd, Mogwai, Kanye West and Radiohead - as well as across other disciplines such as visual art and literature.

"Can are impossible to classify and it’s impossible to ignore their seismic influence on so many diverse musical paths" Richard Hawley.

"Can are the most revolutionary band ever" Stephen Morris (New Order).

TRACK LISTING

A1 Future Days
A2 Spray
A3 Moonshake
B1 Bel Air

'Happening Right Now' feature in Shindig (March 2021) Legendary New York author and musician joins Andalusian troubadours for a startling record of gospel, rhythm and futuristic punk folk blues. A powerful statement of love and protest Get ready for an adult dose of Old Testament gospel, smoldering songs of freedom, salvation, and lots of love - hollering and deep country crooning, twisted blues, plantation tunings, African percussion, and outer-space spirituals - this is a new breed of rhythm and roots music, a sonic manifesto for these crazy times!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A brilliantly energetic and varied coalition of clashing folk-punk, frenetic distorted 12-bar and galloping Americana. It's an intoxicating and rich juxtaposition of chaos and beauty, and a must-listen for anyone who likes the more esoteric ends of any of the above.

By the time Chris Korda broke one small, cis section of the internet (the Boiler Room comment section) the politically minded agent provocateur had been courting controversy for close to three decades. As the co-founder of the Church Of Euthenasia alongside Pastor Kim, Chris had promoted restoring the balance between Humans and the other remaining species on the planet via mass population reduction - Save the planet, Kill Yourself. As the world's only anti-human religion, the organisation encountered a whole load of opposition, not least when they took out advertisements for a suicide helpline, which helped you to commit suicide. Jerry Springer dubbed them a suicide cult, and their dadaist tactics bemused and enraged the minds of middle America in equal measure. But behind the scenes, behind the sensationalist headlines, Chris Korda was turning the fucking party with a string of essential techno, essentially militant club cuts, most of which are captured here. Highest grade tech-funk with heavily politicised messages and contributions from Chicks on Speed, Michelle Grinser and DJ Naughty. Anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist and heavily ecological hits for the thinking dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Buy
A2. Six Billion Humans Can't Be Wrong
A3. Sex Is Good (With Marilyn)
B1. Save The Planet Kill Yourself
B2. Buy More
B3. Sex Is Good
C1. Victim Of Leisure
C2. Stencil
D1. Fleshdance
D2. Steel Peas

Two classic cuts from the President catalogue.

Doris Willingham ‘You Can’t Do That’ - A big Northern floorfiller from a renowned soul backing singer who cut her own material later as Doris Duke. Her only release under the Willingham name, originally out on the super cool UK Jay Boy imprint in 1968 (the label’s debut release - BOY1).

Produced by Bernard Purdie (Funky Donkey label) who was at the controls for a number of super rare Northern sides. An early gem from the artist who ended up working with the legendary Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams) charting with the ballad ‘To the Other Woman (I’m The Other Woman)’.

Pat Hervey With The Tiaras ‘I Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind’ - An anthemic, handclap-friendly gem that goes for anywhere between £50 to £100. Released on the UK President label from 1966.

Blue-eyed Canadian soul backed by black Canadian harmony group The Tiaras (not to be confused with the LA harmony outfit). A slow burner that ramps up the horns and strings behind some funky guitar chops and Hervey’s euphoric vocal, her one-off stab at the soul charts guaranteeing obscurity and legendary status.

TRACK LISTING

Doris Willingham - You Can’t Do That
Pat Hervey With The Tiaras - Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind

Countdown Records (via Acid Jazz) are proud to announce the release of the label’s first 7” single in over 30 years. And what could be more apt than the single that never was by label favourites Makin’ Time?

Produced by The Truth and 9 Below Zero’s Dennis Greaves and Mick Lister, this was to have been the West Midland group’s debut single for Countdown.

Featuring the group’s original members, it remained unreleased when that line-up changed and Countdown’s parent label Stiff decided in a change of direction, aiming the group at the pop charts.

Featuring two highlights of their early live set - the Fay Hallam composed ‘Honey’ and ‘Take What You Can Get’, written by Martin Blunt.

The 7” comes in an exclusive Countdown sleeve so make sure to get your copy now.

TRACK LISTING

Honey (Original Version)
Take What You Can Get (Original Version)

Previously Unreleased Disco-Soul-Funk Album With Mixes By Kenny Dope. The Gatefold LP Includes Extensive Liner Notes And A Download Card to WAV Files Of The Full Album. CD Contains Instrumentals And Kenny Dope Extended Remixes. Tucked in the back corner of a linen closet in Macon, Georgia since 1979 sat a box that very few people knew existed. Lost and presumed forgotten, this box contained reel-to-reel tapes of the lost album by the band that issued the lauded Black Gold as The Mighty Chevelles in 1977. By 1979, while transitioning to the name Music Makers Band, the band entered Capricorn Studios and recorded this previously-unreleased disco funk opus, finally issued as You Can Be as part of the Now-Again Reserve series. Nearly all songs have been remixed from the original multi-track masters by Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez. Georgia funk and soul historian Brian Poust details the band and album’s story in detailed liner notes in an oversized booklet.

TRACK LISTING

A1. That Look In Your Eyes
A2. You Can Be
A3. Lady In My Dream
A4. Let Me Start Lovin’ You

B1. That’s The Way
B2. Shake Your Booty
B3. That True Love Of Mine
B4. We’re The Band…. 

"I took a trip to see something sublime. There was no need to satisfy, nothing to fill. I just wanted to look. If only you knew what these forms meant to me, we could fill this dead room with talk. They’ve been there for so long, floating, bending the space, sculptural hymns to colour a vacant spirit. In some time, like you and me, they will be lost."

A beautiful message I'm sure, but doesn't help you understand what this sounds like. Well, for "Design Of The Body Sublime", Call Super and Parris push a futuristic hybrid of dancehall and tech house, topped with a great vocal from MCRs leading singjay Fox. We nudge into new age house on "...An Eye Sublime", while B-side "Design Of A Lost Sublime" is a slinky trip into the minimal techno revival - play it next to yr MS DOS.

TRACK LISTING

1. Design Of The Body Sublime Featuring Fox
2. Design Of An Eye Sublime Featuring Fox
3. Design Of A Lost Sublime

Hip-hop is now a global multi-billion pound industry. It has spawned superstars all across the world. There have been tie-in clothing lines, TV stations, film companies, cosmetics lines.

It even has its own sports, its own art style, its own dialect. It is an all-encompassing lifestyle. But where did hip-hop culture begin? Who created it? How did hip-hop become such a phenomenon?Jeff Chang, an American journalist, has written the most comprehensive book on hip-hop to date.

He introduces the major players who came up with the ideas that form the basic elements of the culture. He describes how it all began with social upheavals in Jamaica, the Bronx, the Black Belt of Long Island and South Central LA. He not only provides a history of the music, but a fascinating insight into the social background of young black America.

Stretching from the early 70s through to the present day, this is the definitive history of hip-hop. It will be essential reading for all DJs, B-Boys, MCs and anyone with an interest in American history.

Into The Labyrinth (1993) is Dead Can Dance’s sixth album, one of their most successful releases, its title a reference to the Greek legend of Theseus going into the Labyrinth to slay the Minotaur. It came when Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard had embarked on more individual personal paths, now writing their songs independent of one another, and on separate continents. Engineered and produced by Brendan at his Quivvy Church studio in Ireland, the album is an audiophile benchmark and also noted for being their first without any guests, instead they played all the instruments.

The 2016 LP version is also a double LP like the original release, but comes with brand new cover artwork and an altered track sequence.

The album is accompanied by a selection of some of the band’s favourite demo recordings made between 1988 and 1994.

The long awaited and eagerly anticipated new album by BOB captures the band at their peak and includes some of their best material ever committed to vinyl and CD. A 12-track vinyl record is available in coloured and black vinyl and includes digital download of all 28 tracks contained on the double CD version. ‘You Can Stop That For A Start’ is an exclusive album of previously unheard material written and recorded by BOB over a five day period in 1992. The almost legendary archive of unreleased professional and demo recordings by BOB is a rich one, and this release showcases some of the band’s best work.

All the recordings in the set have been newly mixed by songwriters Simon Armstrong and Richard Blackborow, and come packaged in artwork conceived by the band and accompanied by period images and new sleeve notes. 

Potted BOB History:
BOB’s initial line-up was Richard Blackborow (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Simon Armstrong (guitar, vocals).
Jem Morris (bass guitar), joined the duo in 1986 and, augmented with a drum machine, they recorded the band’s first release, a flexi disc, released in 1986 on their own House Of Teeth label, and containing three short songs: “Prune (Your Tree)”, “Groove” and “Brian Wilson’s Bed”. The band gave a copy to John Peel in a fortuitous encounter in the Rough Trade record shop, and he played it many times.
The drum machine was replaced by drummer Gary Connors in 1987, and this line-up recorded 1987’s What a Performance single and the first of three John Peel sessions. The band were now able to take to the UK’s motorway network in their newly acquired ‘vintage’ Transit van, and begin a series of tours that eventually saw them play hundreds of gigs the length of the country and beyond.

Early in 1988, Gary Connors was replaced by former Jamie Wednesday drummer Dean Leggett, and the band recorded their second single, Kirsty, a session for BBC Radio One’s Simon Mayo, and their second John Peel session. Both singles received heavy play by John Peel. The two singles were brought together with the earlier flexi disc as the compilation LP Swag Sack, which was their final release on the Sombrero label. All later records were on their own House Of Teeth label.

In 1989, the band released a single Convenience, which charted well in the NME and Melody Maker indie charts and, more importantly, reached no.31 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty at the end of the year. This was followed by a limited edition/fan club release containing three songs: “Esmerelda Brooklyn”, “I Don’t Know” and “Sink”. After their third and final John Peel session, Morris was replaced by ex-Caretaker Race bassist Stephen ‘Henry’ Hersom, and this final line-up recorded the Stride Up EP in 1990, an LP Leave The Straight Life Behind, the single Tired in 1991, and one last 12”, the Nothing For Something EP in 1992.
BOB became one of the victims of the demise of Rough Trade’s distribution arm, which limited sales of the album and forced the band to tour for an extended period to recoup the album’s costs. A feeling of disillusionment with the ‘business’ side of the music caused a drop in morale, and despite having produced a large body of unreleased work, they disbanded early in 1995.

In February 2014, “Leave the Straight Life Behind” was re-released by British independent label 3 Loop Music as a 2CD expanded edition which included the remastered album plus a bonus CD of all the John Peel and BBC sessions, as well as extra tracks.

In 2015, “The Singles and EPs” was released by 3 Loop Music as a 2CD compilation of remastered tracks from Swag Sack and all vinyl Sombrero and House of Teeth releases.

In 2019, the band announced six final concerts in England and Germany featuring Blackborow, Armstrong, and Leggett with newly recruited old friend Arthur Tapp on bass. A limited edition 7” of Convenience with an unreleased B-side from 1992 was released on Optic Nerve. The single reached number 18 on the official UK vinyl sales chart.

BOB on the new album You Can Stop That For A Start:
“The tracks that make up You Can Stop That For A Start were recorded over a five day period in our final years, as the hectic touring schedule that had kept us financially viable began to tail off. What funds the band could glean from occasional publishing deals were spent on studio time, with the hope of creating work that would eventually attract more substantial financial investment. As this never materialised, the songs have largely remained unheard since the early nineties. 

TRACK LISTING

TRACKLIST LP
SIDE ONE
01 Telepathy
02 Say You’re Alone
03 That’s What Tomorrow Brings
04 Round
05 Now
06 Sundown

SIDE TWO
01 Plastic
02 She’s Something Like Me
03 Green Pepper Feast
04 Queen Of Sheba
05 Plastered In Paris
06 Don’t Kid

TRACKLIST 2CD
CD1
01 Telepathy
02 Say You’re Alone
03 That’s What Tomorrow Brings
04 Round
05 Now
06 Sundown
07 Plastic
08 She’s Something Like Me
09 Green Pepper Feast
10 Queen Of Sheba
11 Plastered In Paris
12 Don’t Kid
13 I Must Need Some Sleep

CD2
01 Long May We Increase
02 Too Far Down
03 STP
04 When The Saints
05 Helvetia
06 On Your Side
07 Buy Me A Barstool
08 There She Was
09 Shoot
10 207
11 Jehovah
12 Hanging On
13 Thunderfeet
14 Turn That Racket Down
15 Before A Fall

‘Girls Can Tell’, the third studio album from Spoon, originally released in 2001.

Newly recut from the original masters.

“A start-to-finish triumph” - Rolling Stone. 

‘Girls Can Tell’ is released as part of the Slay On Cue series, which will see the reissue of the band’s first eight records in original editions - Telephono (1996), Soft Effects EP (1996), A Series Of Sneaks (1998), Girls Can Tell (2001), Kill The Moonlight (2002), Gimme Fiction (2005), Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007) and Transference (2010).

“Some of these albums haven’t been available on vinyl or CD in years, and in some places they never actually came out,” says frontman Britt Daniel.

TRACK LISTING

Everything Hits At Once
Believing Is Art
Me And The Bean
Lines In The Suit
The Fitted Shirt
Anything You Want
Take A Walk
1020 AM
Take The Fifth
This Book Is A Movie
Chicago At Night

Madcliff recorded one album in 1977 from which come these two tracks for the first time on 7” single. Singer, Songwriter, Drummer, Bassist and Keyboardist Chris Hills wrote the songs and was integral to the group before joining Players Association. The killer cut is the funk bomb “You Can Make The Change” which was made popular by Keb Darge at his legendary deep funk nights and has been sought after ever since.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: If you’re in need of some more funk in your life – look no further. Two killer tracks from Madcliff are on fire with these catchy lyrics and irresistible grooves . First time pressed on 7” which won’t be around for long!

TRACK LISTING

1. You Can Make The Change
2. What People Say About Love

“I felt totally unrestrained making this album” says Lindstrøm about his 6th solo album On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever (a title inspired by the 1970’s musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever starring Barbra Streisand). “I’ve listened to Robert Wyatt’s solo albums and his Matching Mole’s debutalbum a lot lately. It so effortless, fearless and free. And not insisting. I was very inspired by this”

In the autumn of 2018, Lindstrøm composed a commissioned piece for Norway’s premiere art centre Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. Sketches from the three sold-out performances became the foundation for the new tracks. “I decided to keep some of the initial ideas and develop them further. All the songs are based on long one-take recordings”, says Lindstrøm “Also I’ve been very conscious about the music on the album not exceeding the length of the physical limitations of the vinyl-format, finding that 2 long tracks on each side were the perfect balance for this album”

This is also the first time ever Lindstrøm has made an album entirely with hardware instead of computer-plugins. He utilised thirty plus synthesizers and drum-machines during his performance at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. The experience inspired him to embrace a similar set-up when making the album. “The joy of making music on actual physical objects and devices makes a lot of sense to me now. After working on a computer for over 15 years, I don’t think I’ll ever look back” he says with an almost childlike excitement.

It was the accessibility to his enviable collection of music gear – largely consisting of sought after synthesizers – that allowed Lindstrøm to experiment so freely with ideas and soundscapes. “The title track is a 10-minutes improvisation on the Moog Memorymoog. I liked the loose feel so I decided to keep everything unedited. The other tracks were written and arranged prior to the recordings. I then set up the instruments needed for my sessions, then recorded more or less everything in a single take. I’m really happy with the way this album came together.”

Lindstrøm has cited classical music as an inspiration the last couple of years “I used to study classical music at school. Back then I was listening to a lot of Opera, orchestral music and solo music on the piano. Listening to classical music again has been a revisit to my childhood days, just like I did when I embraced the 80s in the early 2000s”. Once embracing the freedom and the joy of making music without inhibitions, immersing himself in to the physical realm of making music with hardware, Lindstrøm learned something new not only about music – but about himself. “I guess I've been trying to re-educate myself”.

TRACK LISTING

A1. On A Day Like This I Can See You Forever
A2. Really Deep Snow
B1. Swing Low Sweet LFO
B2. As If NoOne Is Here

A hugely ambitious, widescreen and epic record that recalls everything from the far away electronics of Basic Channel and Carl Craig, through the skewed songwriting of Postal Service, Flaming Lips and Grandaddy to the euphoric sound-scapes of Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine, We Can Create is a work of heart stopping extremes.

The album was recorded without computers, preferring the painstaking process of splicing sounds together on MAPS’ battered 16 track recorder in his Northamptonshire bedroom, the results were subsequently co-produced by Valgeir Sigurdsson (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Bjork) and mixed by Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, Hope Of The States). The critically acclaimed album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2007.

Maps has remixed Depeche Mode, Public Service Broadcasting, Susanne Sundfør, Moby, C Duncan, M83 and more.

TRACK LISTING

A1 So Low, So High
A2 You Don’t Know Her Name
A3 Elouise
A4 It Will Find You
B1 Glory Verse
B2 Liquid Sugar
B3 To The Sky
B4 Back + Forth
C1 Lost My Soul
C2 Don’t Fear
C3 When You Leave

Don Blackman was an American pianist, singer and songwriter from Jamaica, Queens in New York. Better remembered for his seminal self titled album released in 1982 on Arista, his influence stretches much further. Blackman played in his younger days with household acts such as Parliament, Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and Roy Ayers; and through collaborating as a songwriter and session musician with artists such as Kurtis Blow, Bernard Wright, Roy Ayers or Weldon Irvine.

In 2002, Blackman released his second and final album dedicated to his family, "Listen", in the UK in CD format only. Among the songs included on the CD, one of the tracks wasn’t supposed to be there until Blackman’s spouse convinced him otherwise: "Just Can’t Stay Away", a straightforward DIY boogie banger with a soulful edge, was originally written and produced by Blackman as a greeting message for her answering machine! DJs such as Motor City Drum Ensemble, Jeremy Underground, Sadar Bahar and Floating Points have been playing the tune for some years now but it’s in 2018, whilst Floating Points was DJing in the US and played "Just Can’t Stay Away", that Blackman’s children, Kyle and Irene happened to be in the crowd and a connection was made.

Carefully remastered, MEL017 is presented in 7-inch format for the first time and comes with a 14’x14’ poster.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Just Can't Stay Away (Stereo)
Side 2
1. Just Can't Stay Away (mono)

Here the ever reliable Soundway Records reissue Free Youth’s long sought-after 1985 single “We Can Move” - one of the first known examples of Ghanaian hip hop, emerging at the dawn of ‘hip-life’ (hip hop meets highlife). It was the trio’s only release and originally pressed on 7” vinyl, but now comes fully restored, remastered and available for the first time on 12” vinyl along with the original cover art.
Free Youth comprised three main members: Terry “Sir Robot” Bright, Lenny “Nii Addy” Dimple, and Abednego “King Abed” Ayim Bright. In the early 80s they began performing in clubs and parties across Accra, with friends and other dancers occasionally joining them on stage - including Reggie Rockstone, who later went on to find global stardom.
In 1985, the band were approached by a producer and invited to record at a local studio. Without having written down any music, Terry, Lenny and Abed sang the parts and beatboxed the rhythms to the session musicians prior to recording. Out of this session came “We Can Move”, a blend of hip-hop and Afro-funk with a proto disco-boogie beat, punchy trumpet riffs and melodic rap flow.
Included in this Soundway release is an exclusive instrumental cover version from Welsh ensemble Drymbago. This replaces the original B side track “Freedom Video Centre” which was an advertising jingle for a business associated with their former producer.

TRACK LISTING

We Can Move
We Can Move (Drymbago 2019 Instrumental Version)

Night Moves’ new album, ‘Can You Really Find Me’, pulsates and glows with the same sublime energy that radiated from breakout single ‘Carl Sagan’ in 2016, however in the intervening years, John Pelant and Micky Alfano have grown up.

The songwriting, while still steeped in super-catchy, velvety riffs and pure pop glaze, feels more sophisticated and modern. Since the pair met in high school, awestruck by such ear-candy wizards as Brian Wilson, Todd Rundgren, Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, they set off to craft their version of what sophisticated, emotional modern pop music can and should sound like.

2016’s ‘Pennied Days’ was a breakthrough and set a new bar for the members of Night Moves. After spending the subsequent two years on ‘Can You Really Find Me’, they’ve scaled new heights, where the sounds are still just as sweet but now smarter, more evocative and perfectly designed for a summer release.

‘Can You Really Find Me’ was produced by Jim Eno (founding member and drummer of Spoon) out of Public Hi-Fi Studios in Austin, TX and recorded with live band members Mark Hanson and Chuck Murlowski.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Night Moves expertly craft a brilliantly emotive and drippingly filmic selection of 80's inspired ballads and rhythmically fluid disco-tinged pop anthems on 'Can You Really Find Me'. Any of these pieces could easily be a slow-motion montage soundtrack, dynamic but with a hint of latent morosity, these are modern and eminently enjoyable anthems, and another reason to pay attention to Night Moves.

TRACK LISTING

Mexico
Recollections
Keep Me In Mind
Strands Align
Waiting For The
Symphony
Ribboned Skies
Coconut Grove
Saving The Dark
Angelina
Can You Really Find Me

LTD pressing of AA 7" single. 1000 pressed. “No strangers to a cover, The Lemonheads perfect the art” NME // Limited edition pressing of AA 7” single, ‘Can’t Forget’ is the lead single, and Yo La Tengo cover, from the new Lemonheads album. AA-side is unreleased cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Wild Child’ this is an exclusive and not on the album. Produced by Matthew Cullen and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Beastie Boys, Nirvana, The Ramones). It’s nearly ten years since The Lemonheads strummed to a halt on their ninth studio album, a perky well received set of covers that brought together many unlikely bedfellows (Gibby Haynes produced, Kate Moss did a cameo vocal). The band’s follow up repeats the formula with Evan way out upfront, his emotive slow maturing vocal making sense of another wide-beam playlist. He really has become one of the great expressive singers. “Heartfelt songs and a honey voice with which to sing them” GQ // “Boppy, overcast alt-rock delivered at a fast clip and sung in a whiskey tenor” Pitchfork // Track List A – Can’t Forget AA – Wild Child

Walter Martino's "What Love Can Do", a dreamy piece of Italian disco, was originally found on Martino's 1980 album, "Nervi A Pezzi". Virtually impossible to acquire via discogs, I reckon this is previously the domain of secretive trips to the Italian countryside, pretending to the missus that you're taking her on a dream holiday when really you're off to mine the chazzers of Sardinia. Anyway, not only have Miss You sourced the best track of the whole album, they've given it a whole side of fresh 12" wax to entertain with, and backed with a tasty AF remix from Castro Helicopter which transforms it into an avant-disco percussive tool laced with acid blasts and a full percussionist really going to town. Essential stuff for the glitter ball dancefloors and certain to fly outta the door. Get those orders in quick folks! 

TRACK LISTING

A1. What Love Can Do
B1. What Love Can Do (Castro Helicopter Bonus Beats)

In 1978, Nova performed for Obama. Well, kind of: Nova was the band for the Punahou School prom in Honolulu, Hawaii, and a young student named Barack (known then as “Barry”) was in attendance.
Backtrack to 1976, and Nova was the opening band for Donald Byrd at the nearby Blaisdell Arena. The day was Sunday, June 27. The following day, Isaac Hayes would perform on island for the admission price of $1.
Nova, led by singer Checo Tohomaso, was one of several go-to party bands during the golden era of Hawaii funk and soul music in the mid-1970s through early 1980s.
The band’s infectious gospel-funk-disco can be heard on their sole release, a self-titled 1980 LP that feels like one big party recorded live in the studio. (Check out the Marvin Gaye-inspired “I Feel Like Getting Down” on the 2016 ‘Aloha Got Soul’ compilation on Strut Records).
The story is all too familiar, however: funk band releases LP, the music goes dormant in years to follow, and today original copies sell for hundreds online.
Not long after the album’s 1980 release, Checo met Marvin Gaye, who was living on Maui (where George Benson also resided). Shortly after, Marvin invited Checo and his counterparts to join his multi-city tour across Europe. Videos of Checo rocking keyboards, percussion and singing background vocals for Marvin Gaye’s last European tour can be found online.
Checo, born in Florida yet raised in lush Manoa Valley as well as Okinawa, Japan, now resides in Vancouver, Canada, where he leads the VOC Sweet Soul Gospel Choir and continues to deliver his signature sound: high energy, positive, “sweet soul” music.
AGS-7010 features two non-stop groovers with a 7” edit by Roger Bong on the A-side. LP reissue in the works!"

TRACK LISTING

01. Can We Do It Good
02. I Like It, The Way You Dance

Seasick Steve, fresh from a fantastic performance at London’s Hyde Park (6th July), is announcing the release of his new album, ‘Can U Cook?’, on the 28th September 2018 via BMG Rights Management.

‘Can U Cook?’ has Steve mixing up all of his much-loved ingredients to deliver a fresh new record that’s full of sunshine, as well as being a good ol' Seasick mix of boogie, blues, rock, americana and folk-music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hate Da Winter
2. Sun On My Face
3. Can U Cook?
4. Last Rodeo
5. Down De Road
6. Chewin On Da Blues
7. Shady Tree
8. Lay
9. Locked Up And Locked Down Blues
10. Young Blood
11. Get My Drift
12. Ain’t Nothin But A Thang
13. Company

Limited Edition LP (download Card To Include Full 13 Track Album)
Side 1
1. Hate Da Winter
2. Lay
3.shady Tree
4. Chewin On Da Blues
5. Young Blood

Side 2
6. Can U Cook?
7. Get My Drift
8. Down De Road
9. Sun On My Face
10. Company

"I Can See Through You" is a club classic in its own right. A massive rare groove dancer that gives you all the vibes and feels! "Chicken Yellow" is a heavy mid-tempo groover with a classic heavy drum break sample. A long awaited 45 release!

TRACK LISTING

A1 I Can See Through You
B2 Chicken Yellow

Oakland band Rays return with their second album, You Can Get There From Here, their first release since their eponymous Trouble In Mind debut in 2016. You Can Get There From Here represents a turning point for the band, angling their scrappy, post-punk fury into a more refined & melodic pop sensibility, drawing inspiration from UK DIY pop & punk like Dolly Mixture, Cleaners From Venus & Television Personalities. Songs like "Fallen Stars" & "The Garden" temper their sonic crunch ever so slightly, relying more on the harmonic wallop of a solid hook than the sheer volume of guitars.

This is urgent, chiming guitar pop that clangs with a sonorous melancholy & a ramshackle grace. Rays can still lay it down with the rest of 'em; tunes like "Subway" & "Work of Art" shuffle & stumble forward, skirting chaos in a flurry of strums, recalling antipodean groups like UV Race or Dick Diver who cull inspiration from idiosyncratic UK greats like Mark E. Smith or Robyn Hitchcock. The new album finds the core group of Stanley Martinez, Eva Hannan, Troy Hewitt & Alexa Pantalone augmented by new member & keyboardist Britta Leijonflycht, whose synth flourishes add melodic embellishments, sonic heft or psychedelic swirl where needed. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Fallen Stars
2. The Garden
3. The Big One
4. To The Fire
5. Veterans
6. Yesterday’s Faces
7. Around The Town
8. Anti-Hand Man
9. Subway
10. Work Of Art
11. Ray Johnson
12. Before Sunrise 

Super limited, super illicit, mega heavy dub-wise soundsystem weapon here from DJ Madd. Landing slap bang in the middle of halt-time d'n'b and future dub, "Can't Test You" is the kinda secret bomb that'll send carnival crowds into uproar. Hoover subs ensure the subs are given an adequate workout while the tight flurries of hyper breaks tease ever-closer to erupting into jump up without ever breaking the seal.

Highly recommended!

TRACK LISTING

A. Can't Test You

Formed in the mid 80s wreckage of American punk and hardcore, Laughing Hyenas were comprised of staples of the Detroit punk scene, including John Brannon (Negative Approach) and Larissa Strickland (L Seven) along with the locked-in rhythm section of Kevin Strickland and Jim Kimball. Groundbreaking, game-changing and some of the scariest records to come out of Detroit...or anywhere.

Taking the name from a Mark Twain line, the Laughing Hyenas went back into Smart Studios with Butch Vig to record their debut full-length You Can’t Pray A Lie. The Hyenas further elaborated on the template that Merry Go Round set. Kevin, Jim and Larissa lay down deceptively simple hillbilly voodoo blues that at the same time is so rhythmically complex you’re never quite sure what’s going on. Brannon’s vocals are as frenzied and intense as ever. With the balance and everything just right on YCPAL, our dear Hyenas recorded and released one of the milestone/cornerstone albums of the 1980s American underground music scene.

TRACK LISTING

1. Love’s My Only Crime
2. Seven Come Eleven
3. Black Eyed Susan
4. Lullaby And Goodnight
5. Sister
6. Desolate Son
7. Dedications To The One I Love
8. New Gospel

"When Can You Start? recounts a week in the life of an ordinary office worker. The diary of a nobody who represents everybody. He doesn’t know it, but this week is different. Because this week is his last on earth.

Storytelling, humour and everyday observations wrapped up in sharp melodies. When Can You Start? is a story of the very ordinary told differently.

The first track to be released from the album is ‘Top of Your Game’. You used to be someone, you used to be a contender. Now you work in an office doing nothing of consequence for people you hate. The memories are still there though, and there’s still a small chance you could still make it big! Upbeat, uplifting, a hint of melancholy – this is Heavyball!

Heavyball are a self titled ‘new tone’ 4 piece band originally from Nottingham; signed to Magnetic North Melodies. They describe their sound as 'new tone', a modern interpretation of two tone and ska. Influences include Viz, Shane Meadows and the story writing traditions of country and western. "

TRACK LISTING

Top Of Your Game
Heist
Internet Detective
People Person
Yesterday's Man
A Quick Drink In The Worst Bar In The World
The Perils Of Midweek Drinking
Office Party
After Dark
Retail Is Detail
Year Out
No More 9 To 5

Recorded between the chaos and bustle of a New York cinema on Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn and the windswept loneliness on the south-side of the Isle of Wight in the spring of 2017, I Can't Stand The Sound is the second album from Berlin based English/Irish songwriter Ryan O'Reilly. Produced by David Granshaw and in collaboration with Canadian, Tyler Kyte the album is an exploration in searching for meaning, the meaning in a fatal car accident, the beauty and darkness on the streets of Berlin, comprehending the American landscape at the end of 2016 and trying to filter out the noise of relentless opinions on 24 hour news TV and online.

Littered with snapshots from myriad conversations; A Grandmother's warning that ghosts are never as dangerous as humans, talking to a loved one after a terror attack, a fall from a horse, with a hangover whilst reading in the bath and the faceless people who blithely tell you to 'live your dreams' the characters and conversations restlessly change locations and perspectives.

I Can't Stand The Sound began life on the journey between New York and Tennessee in the aftermath of the American election in 2016, the long conversations, the search for conclusions and reasoning in a void of reason. Written on municipal Frisbee-golf course in East Nashville, a front porch in Hamilton, Ontario and along side the beautiful, dirty Spree in Ryan's adopted hometown of Berlin each place finds it's way into the heart of the album. In May 2017 Ryan, Tyler and Dave travelled back to New York. Joined by members of Toronto's Dwayne Gretzky and Ryan's European touring partners The O'Pears to begin recording of I Can't Stand The Sound in the Cinema/bar where the journey towards the album began six months earlier. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t You Know That
2. Make It Holy
3. Never Be Afraid Of Ghosts
4. I Can’t Stand The Sound
5. People Tell You
6. The Modern World
7. Flesh & Blood
8. Conversation
9. Somethings Really Wrong
10. Till It Ends

Officially now a duo, Merrill Garbus is joined by long-time collaborator Nate Brenner. Their new album, I can feel you creep into my private life, tackles race, politics, intersectional feminism and environmental prophecies head on. But in the billows of intense subject matter, the album is their most immediate and upbeat yet – this is Tune-Yards’ music to dance to.

The follow-up to 2014’s acclaimed album, Nikki Nack, much of I can feel you creep into my private life was recorded at John Vanderslice’s new Tiny Telephone studio in their hometown of Oakland, CA. To help finish this stunning record, they enlisted mixer Mikaelin “Blue” Bluespruce (Solange, Skepta, Kendrick Lamar) and mastered it in Harlem, NY with Dave Kutch (Jay-Z, Chance the Rapper).

TRACK LISTING

1. Heart Attack
2. Coast To Coast
3. ABC 123
4. Now As Then
5. Honesty
6. Colonizer
7. Look At Your Hands
8. Home
9. Hammer
10. Who Are You
11. Private Life
12. Free

After the release of 2016's 'When Shall This Bright Day Begin', Jozef Van Wissem returns to Consouling Sounds for the follow-up album 'Nobody Living Can Ever Make Me Turn Back'. The album is inspired by a Vanitas painting by the Belgian artist Cindy Wright, which is also the cover of the album. This inspiration is beautifully reflected in the music of the album: Jozef Van Wissem's lute arrangements sound fragile, his sparse vocals delicate, as if the vanity, the temporality and senselessness of everything has been rendered audible. 

Now available on vinyl for the first time, Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker’s ‘Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour’ album from 2014.

A year in the making, ‘Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour’ builds on the blend of traditional and contemporary songwriting first explored in 2013’s ‘Fire And Fortune’.

Drawing on sumptuous chamber folk textures and rich instrumentation, this new record has a timeless yet current sound, examining and reflecting upon the theme of time past, present and future.

The album title seems to refer to the contrast between what our elders tell us and the perspectives we form out of our own experiences. There's a vacillation between idealism and realism, and it expresses itself musically in the hairpin turns from gentle folk into brazen experimental flourishes, like on “Funeral Potatoes.” The track opens with lilting, somber, Satie-esque piano, but at the halfway point, typical choices of song structure and transition are discarded in favor of a screeching, static-washed loop of violin and feedback that transcends the formality of songcraft, becoming something altogether more daring and collage-like.

The more band-driven songs on 50 Million recall an early-1990’s style of production in the way chorus-twinged electric guitars and tight, papery drumbeats point our mind’s eye to the West Coast sunset, like on the mid-album standout “Gravy Days.” Sallee decorates the background of most songs with hushed humming that could stand alone as a minimalist-ambient choral album, and when employed on her songs, elevates the ¬final product to an astral level. Sallee’s gift lies in pitting the familiar against the unexpected with a delicate assuredness, never compromising the one for the other. These kinds of debuts can sometimes feel like an over-promise of what is to come, but in the case of Caroline Says there's clearly plenty more thread to be unraveled. It'll be a pleasure to see where the next bus ride takes us. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Winter Is Cold
2 I Think I'm Alone Now
3 Funeral Potatoes
4 Streetlights
5 My Fiance's Pets
6 Gravy Dayz
7 Ghost Pokes
8 God Knows
9 Lost Feeling 

Can – The Singles, a brand new collection of all of the band’s single releases, on triple vinyl and CD.

This unique document is the first time the singles have been presented together and shows the breadth of their influential career, from well loved tracks like Halleluwah, Vitamin C and I Want More to more obscure and sought after singles such as Silent Night and Turtles Have Short Legs.

The tracks are all presented in their original single version, many of which have been unavailable for many years and not presented outside of the original 7" release.

The triple vinyl comes packaged in a trifold sleeve and decorated with a beautiful spot gloss lamination and is designed by the award winning Julian House from Intro, a long time design collaborator of Can's.

The CD and download versions of the album serve as the perfect easy entry point to the world of Can for the uninitiated and are priced accordingly.
The vinyl serves as a wonderful document to this corner of the Can world for the hardcore fan and is an often overlooked area of the band's career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Once described by my colleague Mandy (names have been changed for confidentiality) as a bunch of German druggies each playing a different song, Can have a reputation for the eccentric (or eclectic, or insane). It may surprise some then that the Kosmische legends were more than capable of knocking up killer pop tunes, 23 of which feature here. Alongside big tracks like the b-boy classic ‘Vitamin C’ and wavy Krautfunk great ‘I Want More’, we also get to sample some lesser known sounds like the bluesy blinder ‘She Brings The Rain’ and the infectious idiocy of ‘Turtles Have Short Legs’.

TRACK LISTING

1 Soul Desert
2 She Brings The Rain
3 Spoon
4 Shikako Maru Ten
5 Turtles Have Short Legs
6 Halleluwah 
7 Vitamin C
8 I'm So Green
9 Mushroom
10 Moonshake
11 Future Days 
12 Dizzy Dizzy
13 Splash
14 Hunters And Collectors 
15 Vernal Equinox 
16 I Want More
17 ....And More
18 Silent Night
19 Cascade Waltz
20 Don’t Say No
21 Return
22 Can Can
23 Hoolah Hoolah 

The third album from Philadelphia's Nightlands (War On Drugs’ Bassist Dave Hartley), is an exercise in synthetic nostalgia. Each of the nine songs use meticulous choral arrangements and bittersweet pop melodies to evoke a unique type of longing, not for the past, but for a future that once lay ahead but has drifted out of reach. For Dave Hartley, the artistic force behind Nightlands, the answer is found on an inward retreat, away from the cold static of modern life and into the warmth of love and protection. I Can Feel the Night Around Me showcases Hartley's finely tuned ability to layer his voice and conjure some of the most beautiful and elaborate virtual choirs in modern music. If his first two records were vocal layering experiments, his third stands as Hartley's thesis statement: "I was determined to use vocal stacking to enable my songwriting, not shroud or obscure it."

He recorded most of the album alone in a cold warehouse basement, which he affectionately calls The Space -- it's where The War on Drugs formerly rehearsed and stored their equipment. "The dissonance between the sound of the album and the atmosphere in which it was recorded is pretty striking," Hartley says. Indeed the music seems more geographically inspired by the microclimates of the Lost Coast and the moonrises of Big Sur than the post-industrial cityscape of North Philadelphia. Perhaps his periodic westward sojourns and healthy obsessions with mid-career Beach Boys albums and Denis Johnson's Already Dead: A California Gothic were influencing him more than he was aware.

Despite the warm astral vibes of opener “Lost Moon," the song was born in that unheated warehouse basement during a record-setting blizzard. "I wanted to write a song like Jimmy Webb's ‘Wichita Lineman’," he recalls. "But it didn't come out like that at all. I ended up in a lonely and unexpected place, which was a really nice surprise." The massive "Only You Know”, a cover from Dion's Phil Spectorproduced masterpiece Born to Be With You, blends perfectly with the rest of the album's shades of psyched-out doo wop revivalism If there is an outlier on I Can Feel the Night Around Me, it's the exotica-tinged “Fear of Flying,” which Hartley composed with minimalist synth virtuoso Frank LoCrasto before the two had ever even met. Soft tangles of voice wash up on the shore of the song's warbling synth backbone, pushing the album briefly into the sunlight without sacri¬cing its melancholy, late-night vibe. It's the sound of the earth turning, night falling. Soon it will be dark, but there's still light seeping over the horizon. And that's a beautiful thing. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Lost Moon 5:56
2. Depending On You 3:55
3. Easy Does It 4:19
4. Only You Know 4:23
5. Love's In Love 4:09
6. Fingers In My Ears 4:57
7. You're Silver 3:54
8. Moonbathin 5:34
9. Human Hearts 4:03

Ghana's ancient empire and the 21st century global express. The rhythms that created the past alongside the beats forging the present. In King Ayisoba, they all converge. Everything morphing into one. And on his new album, "1000 Can Die", they stand together, history and today, side by side. The tradition hewn from the future.  "King Ayisoba and his band know that traditional instruments are stronger than anything modern," says album producer Zea (the Ex's Arnold de Boer). "Playing them is a gift from God. They'll take what they can use from electronica, from hiplife (the hugely popular Ghanaian style that fuses the local highlife music with hip-hop) but they won't let it beat them, because they know what they have is more powerful. Their music is pulled from the ground." The juxtaposition of the two on "1000 Can Die" shows the irresistible drive of both sides. The thick, squelching bass and beats that push under the older rhythms of "Anka Yen Tu Kwai" are overtaken by the guluku and dundun drums that bring in "Yalma Dage Wanga," its rapid-fire melody dictated by Ayisoba's voice and two-string kologo lute. Ayisoba toured Europe together with Zea, opening up solo, providing guitar, vocals and live electronics on stage, and Francis Ayagama joined King Ayisoba's band on djembe and bemne drums. Piece by piece, the experiments grew into the juggernaut of "1000 Can Die". Guests brought new facets to some of the tracks. The trailblazing Nigerian saxophonist Orlando Julius adds a raw, reedy quality to "Dapagara," while on "Wine Lange," the only song not to feature kologo, Sakuto Yongo's one-string gonju fiddle takes the music into a different, ancient dimension. The title cut features Ghanaian rapper/producer M3nsa alongside the shape shifting vision of legendary reggae producer Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

Alone or with beats, ultimately the power that propels 1000 Can Die comes from the band itself, from the sense of history that forms every piece of music. It's there in every musician. They all go home and farm. They're connected to the land, and the songs are part of the harvest they bring from the fields and from their own families.

It's a force that Ayisoba has inherited. He's absolutely compelling, charismatic. Not only in his imposing appearance, but in his kologo style – part rhythm, part melody - and singing. Whether the words are in Frafra, Twi, or his own style of pidgin English, the sense is always there: this is a man who has something important to impart. Every moment is intense and urgent. It leaps over the sounds of the album's opener, "Africa Needs Africa," and remains, gentle and soothing, on the acoustic last track, "Ndeema."

Spiritchaser, Dead Can Dance’s seventh album, came out in 1996 and is the final studio album the band released with 4AD (it was to be another 16 years until they reconvened to make their eighth, Anastasis). Again recording at Brendan’s Quivvy Church in Ireland and as hinted at by the album’s title, the band had moved their focus away from the traditional medieval and Eastern sound of their middle albums to work with African and Caribbean tribal rhythms. With percussion at the fore, Spiritchaser is mainly just Brendan and Lisa, whose strong singing – like most their career’s work - remains the album’s centrepiece.

HELENA CELLE is the synth work and multi-dimensional audio practise of Glasgow-based musician Kay Logan. A 21st century polymath, Logan’s interests lie in the power relationships inherent in technology, how to harness aleatoric practise in a discipline that is often rigid and in exploring the interface between computer science (Logan is also a computer programmer) and sound. Originally recorded in 2014, "If I Can't Handle.." is the first step on the wander, a deliriously sun-burnt foray into abstract techno and a very personal take on an electronic music language that remains obscure to outsiders but here rendered a unique form of emotional communication.

While Logan’s interests are powered by academic exploration, what’s most striking about Helena Celle’s approach to electronic music is how effortlessly she deconstructs it, makes it personal: the results are emotive without being explicit, raw and engaging, a true outsider music. The taking apart of norms can be heard on the squelched solo on "I'm Done With 666", governed by the love of noise, the wave is eviscerated, smothering the track in a glorious disregard for convention. The crashing, ultra-compressed chords that flatten opener "Streaming Music for Biometrics" re-wire the listener to appreciate chance, to break the loop. Recorded exclusively using a faltering MC303, live in a room straight to consumer dictaphones, the breadth of texture and depth of ideas on these tracks is truly astonishing. "Miming Swinging Baseball Bat" manages to submerge a bass-line straight into the tape heads, grounding a celestial synth arpeggio that flutters overhead.

Informed by limit yet sounding limitless, If I Can't Handle Me... evokes a personal space, a rewired take on electronic music, convention seen through the prism of anti-tradition, a wonderfully careless disregard for electronic music dogma before Logan's next phase as Helena Celle. After several releases under various other pseudonyms (Rick Ross, Larks) Helena Celle sees Logan focusing her ideas into a coherent whole, questioning the hegemony of neo-liberal ideas and their intersection with capital, culture and social practises, how these ideas inform the music we make, the choices we buy. Indeed, while Logan's current practise is moving further into the field of an open-source musical programming language, developing a truly democratic music practise set adrift from capital, here Logan's intent is to make sense of the nonsense we take for granted.

‘Toward The Within’: Released in October 1994 and out of print on vinyl ever since, ‘Toward The Within’ was an audio and video document of the 1993 sell-out Dead Can Dance World tour. Recorded at the Mayfair Theater in Santa Monica, California, it marked one of the final performances at the historic theatre as it later suffered major structural damage in an earthquake in 1994. Despite being a live recording, ‘Toward The Within’ includes twelve previously unrecorded tracks as well as material from their six previous studio albums.

LuckyMe star and bass-house monolith Jacques Green returns with "Afterglow", alongside fan favourite and summer hit single "You Can’t Deny".  It’s been two years since we last heard new music from the Canadian artist and producer who helped revolutionize the palette of new dance music with his colourful set of contemporary influences. "Afterglow" on first listen has the potential to be this year "Hyph / Mngo", or some equally large Floating Points numbers. Anthemic yet painfully contemporary, it's gonna sound equally catchy blazing out of the Funktion1's at your local dance party as it is blaring obnoxiously out of the mid-range tweeter on your Samsung Galaxy.  "You Can't Deny" matches its former, possibly surpassing it even with sheer serotonin-flooded luminescent joy. A speed up RnB vocal riding neon-purple synth stabs and dropping with an almighty snare roll. The main hook consisting of rock solid 808 subs, trap-style hats, and a consistent vocal stab. Like "Afterglow" there's huge chorus' and massive hooks but the whole thing is wrapped in a futureproof glow that cement it as a sure fire hit with the yoof.
Born and raised in Montreal, now residing in Toronto via New York’s Lower East Side, Jacques Greene broke out of a generation of independent electronic labels like Uno, 3024, Night Slugs and LuckyMe as a genre-defining artist (via 2011’s ’Another Girl’, one of Pitchfork’s Songs Of The Decade) who laid the blueprint for countless young producers and DJs inspired by the intersection of contemporary music such as hip hop, RnB, house and techno. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Toronto bass head Jacques Greene with two ridiculously catchy numbers on the ever reliable Lucky Me

As anyone who’s ever stayed in one place far too long will know, sometimes a drastic change is what’s needed. For Holy Family, the duo of non-blood brothers Anton Ekman and Viktor Hansson, a radical relocation from Sweden to Canada has helped shape the sound of their transatlantic debut album Can’t Dance, Wont Steal, Need Some Help.

“The last months before moving to Montreal, living in Gothenburg had become increasingly unbearable,” recalls Ekman. “To us, Gothenburg was the city that we'd initially adopted as our home and it's accepting us was a big deal. But inevitably we started dragging our feet behind us and needed a change of pace.”

Country kids at heart, Montreal’s lush scenery provided respite from the daily rigmarole of their home city with Canada’s open spaces having a far bigger influence on the pair than they expected. The expedition wasn’t a case of simply ‘finding’ themselves, this was a band who had already met, gotten to know each other, performed at Toronto Film Festival, received an award from the Swedish Association of Composers (STIM), and broken up with themselves; originally a trio until their third member left town, if anyone could be certain of their identity, it’s Holy Family. “As a trio we struggled to make long-distance work but after a while we had to accept that sending files back and forth between each other wasn't for us,” admits Hansson. “Our sole goal was to make enough tracks to fund inter-rail tickets for an Eastern European tour. Somewhere down the line we stopped dreaming of Eastern Europe but continued making tracks.”

Ironically, going the distance was precisely what the pair needed, and under their new guise as a duo they set course for Montreal having felt a kinship with Canadian exports Wolf Parade and Godspeed You! Black Emperor whilst needing to venture far enough away so that backing out wasn’t an option. Whilst strolling around downtown on one of their first days in the city, the pair passed a homeless man with sign that said "Can't dance, won't steal, need some help". “It stuck with us. Possibly because it did feel like we needed a whole lot of help being in a new town without any real safety nets,” they remember.

Superbly demonstrating Holy Family’s uniquely ambivalent sense of place, five of Can’t Dance’s tracks were completed in Montreal with the other five completed back in Gothenburg. The sound of two worlds colliding, it’s a culmination of where the duo is headed and where they’ve already been. Written whilst sharing the one-bedroom Montreal apartment where the band currently resides, ‘East Coast Nerves’ resurfaces the mechanical rhythms heard by Viktor in a previous life as a Gothenburg dock-worker, whilst home-grown track ‘Youth Cult’s stripped back mood looks towards the pair’s future in their new location. The fuzz ripping through the doom laden garage sound of Gothenburg track ‘Keeping Up’ recalls the city’s unquenchable thirst for romanticising the industrial working class days and it’s brilliantly offset against the uplifting atmospherics of Montreal track ‘Trail Of Songs’.

“To be able to have the perspectives of both being inside looking out and outside looking in was important,” they say. “The first couple of months after moving to Montreal we hadn’t really started working so inevitably a lot of time was spent reflecting on how our lives had been previously and trying to figure out how we wanted them to be.”

Whether finding a way to mix things up a little or simply as a means of escape Can’t Dance is an album fuelled by hope. From questioning the status quo and social roles of a previous life to focusing upon wants and needs mostly born out of personal frustrations for now, Holy Family’s distinct approach comes from appreciation rather than disdain; from hoping that life will prove itself somewhat moldable, wherever they find themselves. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Fell Into My Hands
2. Airy Janes Flying Carpet
3. Trail Of Songs
4. Alexander The Great
5. One Of These Days
6. My Kayfabe Babe
7. East Coast Nerves
8. Youth Cult
9. Keeping Up
10. Oh

Sorrow Cow are a band from between Liverpool and Manchester.

Following the release of the ‘Can Vinyl Box’ - the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the Can studio albums individually on vinyl.

‘Out Of Reach’, ‘Can’, ‘Rite Time’, ‘Delay’ and ‘Unlimited Edition’ are the third wave in the series, following ‘Monster Movie’, ‘Soundtracks’, ‘Tago Mago’, ‘Ege Bamyasi’, ‘Future Days’, ‘Soon Over Babaluma’, ‘Landed’, ‘Flow Motion’ and ‘Saw Delight’.

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. The remastering and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator Jono Podmore. Additional titles will be released over the coming months.

‘Out Of Reach’ has been unavailable in any official format since its original release in 1978.

‘Out Of Reach’ is one of Can’s rarest, less-known albums. This is due in a large part to the fact that bassist Holger Czukay left the band and drummer Jaki Liebezeit has a reduced role, leaving most of the rhythm duties to percussionist come-lately Reebop Kwaku Baah.

As on the group’s proper swansong, 1977’s ‘Saw Delight’, new bassist Rosko Gee largely leads the group, and his jazz-inflected playing is marvellous, especially on the centrepiece improvisations ‘November’ and ‘Serpentine’.

Following the release of the ‘Can Vinyl Box’ - the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the Can studio albums individually on vinyl.

‘Out Of Reach’, ‘Can’, ‘Rite Time’, ‘Delay’ and ‘Unlimited Edition’ are the third wave in the series, following ‘Monster Movie’, ‘Soundtracks’, ‘Tago Mago’, ‘Ege Bamyasi’, ‘Future Days’, ‘Soon Over Babaluma’, ‘Landed’, ‘Flow Motion’ and ‘Saw Delight’.

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. The remastering and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator Jono Podmore. Additional titles will be released over the coming months.

‘Rite Time’ was originally released in 1986. Can got back together with original vocalist Malcolm Mooney to record again.

Revaluated as one of the classic Can albums, they show again how everything changes yet remains unmistakably Can.

Following the release of the Can Vinyl Box – the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the CAN studio albums individually on vinyl. 

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. Remasters and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator, Jono Podmore. 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Future Days
2. Spray
3. Moonshake

SIDE B
1. Bel Air

Following the release of the Can Vinyl Box – the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the CAN studio albums individually on vinyl. 

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. Remasters and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator, Jono Podmore. 

Following the release of the Can Vinyl Box – the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the CAN studio albums individually on vinyl.

Released in batches, the first albums in the series to be released are Monster Movie, Soundtracks, Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. Remasters and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator, Jono Podmore.

Monster Movie is the debut album of Can, recorded and released in 1969. The use of improvisation, experimentation, editing and layering of sounds set a standard for Can's subsequent albums in the early 1970s, which were seminal to the freewheeling avant-garde style dubbed "krautrock" by the British music press.

The album is credited to "The Can", a name suggested by vocalist Malcolm Mooney and adopted by democratic vote. Previously the band had been known as "Inner Space", which later became the name of their purpose-built recording studio. Some copies of the LP bore the subtitle "Made in a castle with better equipment", referring to Schloss Nörvenich, the 14th-century castle in North Rhine-Westphalia where the band recorded from 1968-69.

The 20-minute jam "Yoo Doo Right" was pared down from 6 hours' taping, while the lyrics of "Mary, Mary So Contrary" riff off of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, a popular English nursery rhyme.

Monster Movie was the only Can album on which Malcolm Mooney performed all of the vocals until Rite Time, 20 years after.

TRACK LISTING

Father Connot Yell
Mary, Mary, So Contrary
Outside My Door
Yoo Doo Right

Following the release of the Can Vinyl Box – the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the CAN studio albums individually on vinyl.

Released in batches, the first albums in the series to be released are Monster Movie, Soundtracks, Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. Remasters and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator, Jono Podmore.

A “landmark release in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” – MOJO Honours List winner of Classic Album Award

“stunning” – John Lydon “sounds only like itself, like no-one before or after” – Julian Cope

“mind expanding” – Q

“The music was like nothing I'd ever heard before, not American, not rock & roll but mysterious and European." – Bobby Gillespie, Primal Scream

Of all the band’s oeuvre, Tago Mago has been most often cited as an influence for a host of artists including John Lydon, Radiohead, The Fall, Ariel Pink, Fuck Buttons, Sonic Youth, Factory Floor and Queens Of The Stone Age. Just last week Geoff Barrow (Portishead) mentioned Can as his favourite and most inspiring band ever (The Quietus).

Tago Mago the first album with Damo Suzuki on vocals, features the Can line up of Holger Czukay on bass, Michael Karoli on guitars, Jaki Liebezeit on drums and Irmin Schmidt on keyboards, and was recorded at Schloss Nörvenich in 1971.

TRACK LISTING

Paperhouse
Mushroom
Oh Yeah
Halleluwah
Aumgn
Peking O.
Bring Me Coffee Or Tea

Following the release of the Can Vinyl Box – the limited edition box set that consisted of 17 LPs housed in a linen wrapped box, Mute are now proud to release the CAN studio albums individually on vinyl.

Released in batches, the first albums in the series to be released are Monster Movie, Soundtracks, Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.

The albums were mastered and cut to vinyl by Kevin Metcalfe at The Soundmasters, London. Remasters and vinyl processing was coordinated by long time collaborator, Jono Podmore.

Soundtracks is a compilation album, first released in 1970, consisting of tracks written for film.

The album marks the departure of the band's original vocalist Malcolm Mooney, who sings on two tracks, to be replaced by new member Damo Suzuki.

"She Brings the Rain", originally appearing in the 1969 film Bottom – Ein großer, graublauer Vogel by Thomas Schamoni, was later featured in Wim Wenders' 1994 film Lisbon Story, the 2000 Oskar Roehler film Die Unberührbare and Tran Anh Hung's film Norwegian Wood, released in 2010.

"Don't Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone" features Damo Suzuki's first recorded performance with Can.

In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Mother Sky" at number 48 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

TRACK LISTING

Deadlock
Tango Whiskyman
Deadlock (Instrumental)
Don't Turn The Light On, Leave Me Alone
Soul Desert
Mother Sky
She Brings The Rain

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

The Wedding Present’s 'Record Store Day' releases seem to have become something of a little obsession for David Gedge. The yearly 10” EPs make him little profit; he just gets the satisfaction of singing and recording in other languages… and producing Extremely collectable records. In 2012 he tried his tongue at French and 2013 brought us his Teutonic warblings. This year, he’s really gone all out… this 10” vinyl only release has been sung in Welsh! A big fan of Wales and the Welsh in general, David doesn’t actually speak the language, but this didn’t stop him. He called in renowned Welsh actor, Andrew Teilo, who translated and created demos of four existing Wedding Present songs. David then travelled to Penarth where he and Andrew recorded the vocals with some recording expertise from Arwyn Davies. They kept the Welshness going with a little help from Andrew's fellow actor, Llinor ap Gwynedd, on backing vocals. The songs [recorded in the same session as the recent album, ‘Valentina’] are different from the songs on the other two ‘language’ EPs from Record Store Days past… and include the charming ‘Valentina’ album track ‘Meet Cute’. There were a few little hiccoughs during the translation from English into Welsh… the first song, 1000 Fahrenheit, had to be translated into Welsh as 10,000 (Deng Mil) Fahrenheit... not because there is no word for 1000, but apparently it just sounded better! Perhaps the songs all sound better in Welsh! All Welsh album next time Mr. Gedge?! The band will be promoting the release of ‘EP 4 Cân’ with a performance at the 'Wales Goes Pop’ festival in Cardiff during the evening of April 19 following an acoustic set at Spiller’s Records during the afternoon.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. 1000 Fahrenheit [Welsh Version]
2. Meet Cute [Welsh Version]

Side B
1. Journey Into Space [Welsh Version]
2. Can You Keep A Secret? [Welsh Version]

Nathan Salsburg’s 2011 debut was a beautiful ode to racehorses (a point of pride for any resident of Kentucky). Comprised of seven acoustic guitar instrumentals and one vocal track, ‘Affirmed’ caused Popmatters to declare the record “one that others like it will soon be measured against.”

His second album, ‘Hard For To Win And Can’t Be Won’, is a grander effort. Although still primarily composed of acoustic guitar, the songs sound bigger. They bounce along, weaving through unexpected twists and turns, with the occasional piano melody or fiddle line.

TRACK LISTING

First Field Path
Mrs Gristles Reel
Paraffin Turpentine
Coll Mackensie
Concessions
Dog At Bay
Chief Wants
To Welcome The Travelers Home
What Can’t Be Won

Third Man is proud to present the first vinyl release from one of our favorite local bands recorded live in our blue room as openers for Seasick Steve this past October. Promised Land are one of the most promising (see what we did there?) bands in Nashville right now. They're all youthful scruff and bluff and they crank out tunes that would be right at home in Link Wray's 3 Track Shack or hanging with the specters of long lost 45s that haunt Nashville's overflowing legend filled cemeteries. Pay attention y'all, there's big things coming from this gang. In Third Man live sleeve.

Dead Can Dance release ‘In Concert’, a document of their tour for the ‘Anastasis’ album, released through [PIAS] Recordings.

Originally released last August, ‘Anastasis’ is Dead Can Dance’s first album since 1996’s ‘Spiritchaser’, and has sold over 150,000 copies worldwide.

“I would say without hesitation that this has been the most rewarding tour that we have ever undertaken,” notes Brendan Perry. “On one level it has been an absolute pleasure to perform in such beautiful locations with such a wonderful band and crew, but also to be able to connect on a personal level with the many devoted admirers of our art both old and new. It would seem in our case absence has certainly made the heart grow fonder and it has been an absolute joy to be given the opportunity to be able to share our music in the ultimate setting of the living work.”

Vocalist Damo Suzuki’s departure from CAN in 1973 had forced the band to re-evaluate their sound. Now with Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt sharing vocal duties, the band had also begun drawing on influences from disco and glam. While still remaining staunchly outside the mainstream, they undoubtedly became more accessible to a wider audience, and soon had a huge fan base in the UK. In fact, just a few months after playing the live show found on this double LP (recorded in Lyon in January of 1976), CAN was even on Top Of The Pops!

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A: “The Yellow Side”
1. Citrus
2. Red Hot Indians

SIDE B: “The Cyan Side”
1.Dizzy Dizzy
2. Chain Reaction

SIDE C: “The Red Side”
1. One More Night
2. Vernal Equinox

SIDE D: “The Black Side”
1. More Spree Vitamin C

Despite having been responsible for some of Belle and Sebastian's best-known songs (Jonathan David, Chickfactor, Seymour Stein and I'm Not Living In the Real World), it has taken Stevie Jackson sixteen years as a member of the band before releasing his first collection of solo recordings.

'(I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson' was recorded over the last three years in Glasgow and Vancouver and features twelve songs. The Glasgow sessions, which were recorded at the band's own studio feature a range of his friends and musical collaborators including members of Belle and Sebastian, The Pastels, Trembling Bells and the songwriting triumvirate, The Company (Jackson, Roy Moller and Gary Thom). The Vancouver tracks were recorded with the New Pornographers' rhythm section of Kurt Dahle and John Collins. Jackson has toured in the UK and Europe with a band supplemented by Bob Kildea (Belle and Sebastian), Marco Rea and Stuart Kidd (The Wellgreen) and as a solo performer in the USA and Canada with more shows planned for later in 2012.

Press on (I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson:
"The best solo album by a guitarist since Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" - The Herald
"an LP with a long gestation period but a short attention span that revels in 1960s pop music and is as fun as it is jangling." - No Ripchord
"beautifully realised melodic pop songs" - The Scotsman

The new mini-album from Manchester-based, indiepopping Amida, and their first for Seattle's legendary Jigsaw Records. “Caffeine fueled dumpster diving hijinks.”- LOOFK.

"Not one, but two songs, essentially epic in their succinctness. A 7-inch’d musical debut with a view (and an audible one at that), with its A-Side offering of ‘a life that’s moving too fast-track’, nimble on it’s Snide-winding feet and lyrically heralding a drum punctuated game of ingestible and acronym’d chemical keepie-up. An inaugural no’ that’s closely followed flipside by an east-coasting and bass city roller of a tune, one initially dominated by a ruddy and happy slapping bass guitar, artistically doodling and fluidly noodling away, not unlike the re-vivified ghost of a certain and funk-driven finger and thumbing Bobby Watson. 2 fine and finite examples of some altogether raucous and truncated brevity, with each track vocally Cruickshank’d by ‘The Rhythm’s’ North-Eastern and Full-Back to Frontman. Frenetically delivering 2 songs, ever so quickly, by First-Class-Post-punk; postally popping itself straight through our Bonjouring and Branching French-Letterbeatboxes. Zut alors!"
The Lonely Piper 2010

Laura Marling’s 2008 debut album "Alas, I Cannot Swim" proved to be one of the most endearing critical successes of recent years and earned the young singer-songwriter a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and more importantly being one of our top five albums of the year. Now Marling is back with her second album, "I Speak Because I Can". Crafted with producer Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Paolo Nutini, Rufus Wainwright), "I Speak Because I Can" sets quintessentially English lyrical themes and stories to a backdrop of music that recalls prime Americana and the Laurel Canyon scene. Backed by sublime performances by musicians including Mumford & Sons, the album represents a coming-of-age for Laura; her unique identity - thoroughly English, unapologetically female, and a fully-fledged musician – now freshly defined.

TRACK LISTING

1. Devil's Spoke
2. Made By Maid
3. Rambling Man
4. Blackberry Stone
5. Alpha Shallows
6. Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)
7. Hope In The Air
8. What He Wrote
9. Darkness Descends
10. I Speak Because I Can

Manchester-based six-piece Table are led by songwriter David O'Dowda, who combs together different strands of modern folk music to create something new and wonderful on this, their first seven-inch titled "Songs You Can Sing". The two tracks on this single are sumptuous delights, airy and ornate while being oddly familiar. Marshalled by David, Table waltz through quietly elegant folk-pop with minimal guitar, stately piano and low-key vocals on what sounds like an endearingly sweet single, despite the deceptively barbed tale woven throughout. If "Songs You Can Sing" is beguilingly understated, then "Most" is multi-layered and bursting with ideas where electronic and organic sounds collide. It's a many hued delight which pulls together disparate elements and twists them into a myriad shapes, blurring excitedly before sweeping to a beautiful climax. Music that reaches into you and pulls out your soul, personal and frankly as dangerous as it is fragile. Imagine East River Pipe covering a Richard Hawley penned lullaby and you'll have a good idea of what to expect.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: I can't really think what to say about this, other than I really like it! Two slices of cleverly constructed folkiness which despite the addition of electronics, maintains a real warmth and charm. Lovely stuff!

Philadelphia's The Capitol Years return with this new single on new label SOE. "You Can Stay There" is wonderful sunkissed pop that has similar shimmering pop dynamics to The Shins: Melodic, intricate guitars, vocal harmonies, and dreamy vocals. Over on the flip, "1000 Guns" employs the same melodic guitar work, over a lolloping drum beat again topped with gorgeous dreamy vocals. Reminiscent of Piccadilly favourites Ambulance LTD. Lovely stuff!

Finn is German singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and fashion designer, Patrick Zimmer who splits his time between Hamburg and London, where he recently found a new home with cinematic music label Erased Tapes – a conceptualist with the voice of Leonard Cohen on helium. Born in 1977, yet combining influences that span decades, Finn had to wander through a playground of electronica and low-fi recordings to get here. His third album "The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own" shows a surprisingly mature and cohesive collection of haunting and mesmerizing songs as a result from his consequential musical progression. Finn lived, recorded and produced the album over the course of seven months in the catacombs of an old 14th century church underneath the streets of St. Pauli. With this release, Patrick Zimmer prescribed himself a concept album.

Originally released in 1982, "Nothing Can Stop Us" compiles the first four singles Robert Wyatt issued for Rough Trade. The A-sides were all cover versions, ranging from Chic's "At Last I'm Free" to his version of the unofficial Cuban anthem "Caimanera" ("Guantanamera") and a haunting version of "Strange Fruit" depicting the lynching of three young black men in the US in the 1930s and made famous by Billie Holiday. The other tracks include Wyatt's most political recordings including the spine-tingling "Born Again Cretin" or "The Red Flag" and shows him at his uncompromising best.

Nelson have been hailed as 'the best French band to join the music scene in over 10 years'. Their music can be described as a cross between Joy Division, The Rapture, and Animal Collective. They promise explosive performances where aggressive guitars compete with delicate electronic sounds.

The album condenses the bands first three years of work, influenced by the likes of Fugazi, Fela Kuti and The Mars Volta into one un-cohesive package. Ranging from the folky lament of "Menwith Hill" to the frenetic avant-rhumba-punk of "Zeroes And Ones", a dystopian view of 'the idea of a liberating universal internet consciousness'.

O Fracas return with the limited edition "Factfinding" EP featuring two tracks from their forthcoming debut album, "Fits & Starts", due early next year (08). The band recently signed to I Can Count in the UK and Vinyl Junkie in Japan and this release follows the release of two critically acclaimed singles on Marquis Cha Cha. This EP comprises of two lead tracks "Factfinding" and "And So A Scratch Runs Down A Wall", taken from "Fits & Starts". Along with "Moth To A Flame" and a remix of "Scratched Wall" by Leeds' up and coming hip hop export Breaking The Illusion. O Fracas are the collision of a myriad of influences. Inspired as much by the DC hardcore of Fugazi and Q And Not U along with the rhythms of Billy Cobham and Fela Kuti, they bring this together with the range of Talking Heads songbook and condense it into three minutes pop songs played with a vigour and taut musicianship beyond many of their peers. Lyrically, lead singer Ben writes about the human condition with the insight of a man twice his age, O Fracas set themselves apart from the pack and with an average age of just twenty this really is surely just the beginning for O Fracas.

Double A-side from this Manchester band featuring their live mini-anthems "Can We Do it Again" and "The Carjack Song".

Originally released in 1976, this album features their chart 'hit' single, the cosmic disco infused "I Want More". A diverse album which was actually Can's most commercially successful album.