Now, following great acclaim for Volume 1, CTR is proud to unveil another equally eclectic Post-Punk Era Selection Compiled by Jason Boardman ( Before I Die Records) Celebrated Manchester club-night curator & record Label Owner , DJ & digger - supreme.

A second compilation of late 1970s / early 1980s Post-Punk era bedroom & small studio innovations & DIY Inspirations - Featuring more rarely & never heard cuts from that period. Including tracks from the enigmatic Prana, Blank Students, Janet Armstrong & The Native Hipsters ..A rich vein

"It was a delightful shock that No Ones Listening Anyway Volume One was so well received - thanks to everyone one who bought & enjoyed it. This led to John asking me to collate Volume Two, so here it is.

This time all the material was recorded & released in the UK between 1978 & 1984.

I was conscious that there was minimal female energy on Volume One so have tried to rectify that here on Volume Two. I have also tried to make it as varied as possible with none hit wonders, oddities, collectables, under the radar B-sides & a couple of previously unreleased on vinyl selections."
(Jason Boardman June 2025)

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Gotta give it to JB - he dunt rest on his laurels. After becoming the Aficionado (gerrit?) of the Balearic game; he's quickly moved onto pastures new. Digging deep into the recesses of post-punk, DIY dub and the fertile soils in between. Volume 2 of this essential series and he's even left our inhouse punk encyclopaedia Martin scratching his head to the origin of these tracks!

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
And The Native Hipsters-There Goes Concorde Again
Dislocation Dance - YOPS Course
Laughter In The Garden - Clutching At Straws
Airkraft- Here Comes That Sound

Side 2
Prana - All The Earth Is Sacred
Surface Mutants - Souls Will Cry
Ingrid- A Dream
The Flying Lizards-Another Story

Side 3
Siren -Breaking It Down
Blank Students - We Are Native
The Drezznels-Class Distinction
Some Now Are – Aftermath

Side 4
The Gist-Fool For A Version
Johnny G - Miles & Miles
Janet Armstrong-Exploitation
The Sticks-Dole Queue Rock

Coming in for a victory lap after releasing 2023’s highest-rated, most reviewed album, cultural force and pop innovator Caroline Polachek released the deluxe edition of her Grammy-nominated 2023 album 'Desire, I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition' on February 14th, 2024, via Perpetual Novice / The Orchard. The Everasking Edition features a reworked version of one of the album’s most spellbinding tracks, “Butterfly Net” featuring Weyes Blood. Also included in the deluxe version of the album is the labyrinthine and feverishly rich “Dang” which took the internet by storm after her performance of it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, becoming their most-viewed performance of 2023 and 2024. It also features two brand new songs "Meanwhile" and "Gambler's Prayer", a rework of the Default Genders song "Pharmacoma", and a gorgeous acoustic version of "I Believe" (her song in tribute to her friend Sophie). Co-producing many of the album’s tracks with artists like Danny L Harle, Polachek has delivered another installment of a body of work that showcases her range in artistry - dabbling in all the different elements of sonic bliss while transitioning seamlessly from track to track with Polachek’s signature range of vocals.

To say that the standard edition of Desire, I Want To Turn Into You took the world by storm would be an understatement. Aside from securing a Grammy nomination for Best Engineered Album - Non-Classical and a Brit Award nomination for Solo International Artist, her sophomore album has brought Polachek to be featured in NPR’s Tiny Desk Series, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, all while achieving 110 million streams worldwide and featuring on Vogue, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Fader, Consequence, I-D, Stereogum, The New York Times, Elle, and Variety’s Best of 2023 lists; placing #1 on year-end lists by publications such as Pitchfork, DIY, Exclaim, and DORK.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Oooof, now this is a lovely little package isn't it? Polachek's stunning original album plus a couple added gems including A rework of Butterly Net (feat Weyes Blood) and a lovely, big photo book. Pressed on milky clear double vinyl and with a new cover. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1
SIDE A
1. Welcome To My Island
2. Pretty In Possible
3. Bunny Is A Rider
4. Sunset
5. Crude Drawing Of An Angel
SIDE B
1. I Believe
2. Fly To You (feat. Grimes & Dido)
3. Blood And Butter
4. Hopedrunk Everasking
5. Butterfly Net
6. Smoke
7. Billions

DISC 2
SIDE C
1. Dang
2. Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In The Mouth

France - the 1980s. A local radio and studio system almost unsurpassed in
Europe - add brilliantly inventive labels and producers with a sense of fun & adventure & the result? A golden age of Synth-Pop – Post-Disco.. inventing the future.. celebrating the chanson of the past. Updating that for a new generation & a new dancefloor. With Tangui/Corinne Tell/Kelly Way and more ..

TRACK LISTING

A1: Corinne Tell -Histoire De Coeur 3:24
A2: Fanny Forest - Les Lolitas Des Magazines 4:01
A3: Fabienne Stoko – Poupee 2:56
A4: Valene - Sauve-Moi 3:12
A5: Kelly Way-Illusion 3:37
A6: Sonia - Sur Ma Musique 3:59

B1: Tangui-Amour Combat 3:56
B2: Praline Et Toni -Meteo 3:57
B3: Generation Egoiste (Tout Tout D'Suite) 3:03
B4: Kira – Vacances A Deux 2:47
B5: Geraldine Danon – Electric Eyes -3:05
B6: Nani Antoni - Faites Vos Jeux 3:45 

Jon Savage's Space - An amazing musical voyage through the theme and idea of Space - music for Space - Space - Music - Through West-Coast US Rock , Techno, Post-Punk , Jazz, Ambient & Experimental sounds-this is a journey like no other .. From Sun Ra to Mr Fingers and way beyond..

"We are taken to less familiar musical quadrants-fascinatedly & instructively so"
(Roy Wilkinson - MOJO Feb 2025) .

Returning with 'caroline 2', the eight-piece collective embrace a bolder, more expansive sound. Going beyond their debut's explorations of repetition, slowness and space, the new album pushes further into dynamic contrasts — organic and electronic, raw and refined. Launched with the striking single ‘Tell me I never knew that’, featuring Caroline Polachek’s unmistakable vocals, caroline 2 showcases a fearless interplay of layered instrumentation, warped vocal processing, and moments of both euphoria and melancholy. Intentional and immersive, this next chapter solidifies caroline as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: With the sort of off-piste melodic direction and slowly building, soaring verses you'd expect from any of the big post-rock bands, you'd be forgiven for thinking of Caroline as rich in feeling but lacking in hooks, fortunately you'd be dead wrong. This is beautifully structured, monolithic compositions with soul and intrigue that also get stuck in your head like nothing else.

TRACK LISTING

Total Euphoria
Song Two
Tell Me I Never Knew That (ft. Caroline Polachek)
When I Get Home
U R UR ONLY ACHING
Coldplay Cover
Two Riders Down
Beautiful Ending

CAROLINE TRUE RECORDS is thrilled to announce the long-awaited reissue of Henry Badowski’s 1981 debut album ‘Life Is a Grand’.

Regarded as one of the great ‘lost’ albums of that era, and out of print for over 40 years, ‘Life Is a Grand’ has become a word-of-mouth cult classic – a new-wave pop gem adored by those who’ve fallen for its charms and which has so far eluded the algorithm.

Once described as “Syd Barrett produced by Brian Eno”, the album casts Henry Badowski as a singular songwriter with a very English sensibility, whose effervescent songs are full of dreamy wonder and droll humour. That this album has remained untouched since 1981, almost forgotten, has somehow preserved its innocence, and it sparkles with freshness and vitality today.

Always one step removed from the London punk scene where he cut his teeth as a teenage bassist for Chelsea in 1977 before brief stints in The Damned and The Good Missionaries, Henry drew on his love of Roxy Music, Ian Dury and Jethro Tull for his own music. He emerged as a solo artist in 1979 with the double A-side ‘Making Love With My Wife’ and ‘Baby, Sign Here With Me’ for Miles Copeland’s Deptford Fun City label.

Radio 1 got behind ‘Baby, Sign Here With Me’ and so Copeland, enjoying huge success managing The Police, arranged a transfer for Henry to A&M where, try as they might, his run of brilliant singles – ‘Henry’s In Love’, ‘My Face’, ‘This Was Meant to Be’ – fell flat.

Recorded with Wally Brill at Matrix Studios in Bloomsbury, ‘Life Is a Grand’ includes four of the five singles as well as the gentle Lewis Carroll psychedelia of ‘Swimming With the Fish in the Sea’ and ‘Silver Trees’, both laced with swirls of synthesiser. The instrumentals ‘Life Is a Grand’ and ‘Rampant’ close each side with a swagger. Henry wrote all the songs and played most of the instruments, including drum machine and saxophone. His friend and former Chelsea bandmate James Stevenson played guitar, Dave Berk joined on drums and Aleksander Kolkowski added violin.

Released in June 1981 on A&M in the UK and Europe and IRS in the US, the album sank without trace – as did Henry, who gradually moved away from music into a series of other jobs. Some 30 years later, a zip file of the album began to circulate on blogs and forums where fans sang Henry’s praises and wondered how such a gifted musician could just disappear.

And the meaning behind the title? Well, a grand will always make your life easier, says Henry. At the time, in 1980, a thousand quid would go a long way – you could buy a second-hand E-Type Jaguar or a trip to New York on Concorde. Even today, if you’ve got a grand in your pocket, you’re feeling good – life’s alright.

TRACK LISTING

1 My Face
2 Henry’s In Love
3 Swimming With The Fish In The Sea
4 The Inside Out
5 Life Is A Grand
6 Silver Trees
7 This Was Meant To Be
8 Anywhere Else
9 Baby, Sign Here With Me
10 Rampant
11 Making Love With My Wife (CD Bonus Track)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2025 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 14th.

Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is Polachek’s first album release since her 2019 experimental pop masterpiece PANG which cemented her as a generational talent. Her profile has grown exponentially since – landing her everywhere from the direct opening spot on Dua Lipa’s 2022 North American Future Nostalgia Tour, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Primavera, All Points East, Governors Ball, Pitchfork Music Festival and Outside Lands, and involved with campaigns & shows for Loewe, Dior, Eckhaus Latta and Chloé, to late night performances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Night Show with James Corden. Standout viral tracks like “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” have contributed to the album’s 175M global streams and counting and ignited a dance trend on TikTok.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: Back in 2019, Caroline Polachek’s first fully-realised solo outing was a surprising-yet-welcome entry into the slowly emerging glitch and ‘hyperpop’ scene. By comparison, ‘Desire, I Want to Turn into You’ is an equally polished yet more outlandish attempt at pop perfection. Every track has some left-field eccentricity over a beautifully-executed synth-pop backing that keeps you thoroughly entertained, from the flamenco guitars of “Sunset”, to a children’s choir on my personal favourite track “Billions”, to even a bagpipe solo on “Blood and Butter”.

That’s not to say that the album isn’t enjoyable as a standard synth-pop experience; production from hyperpop-aficionado Danny L. Harle ensures you’re filled with a desire to bounce around the room. However, no song on this project would work without the glue that is Caroline’s exceptional vocal performance, highlighted through a virtuosic solo in the opening seconds of the album. This opening moment guarantees you know what a talent-filled, delicate and charming listening experience you’re in for; and I guarantee you’ll listen again just for the choruses!

TRACK LISTING

Welcome To My Island
Pretty In Possible
Bunny Is A Rider
Sunset
Crude Drawing Of An Angel
I Believe
Fly To You
Blood & Butter
Hopedrunk Everasking
Butterfly Net
Smoke
Billions 

Ramona Lisa was an early alias of Chairlift's Caroline Polachek. This is Polachek’s first self-produced solo record. Completely composed in MIDI, it is a concept album of love songs that are nature allegories, and vice versa, which Polachek calls "Pastoral Electronic Music". The making of Arcadia was a year¬long process that began and ended in an empty studio in Rome's Villa Medici and while on tour with her band, Chairlift. The record was made entirely on a laptop without instruments or external microphones - all vocals were sung directly into the computer, making use of hotel closets, quiet airport gates, and spare dressing rooms. Although the album was created on a laptop, the result is a lush and uncannily tangible world of warm textures, reminiscent of analog tape processes rather than a hard drive. Virtual oboes and organs interweave with synthetic insects and quivering sine waves, animated by Polachek's vocal at it's most delirious and intimate yet.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dominic
2. Arcadia
3. Backwards And Upwards
4. Arcadia Reprise
5. Izzit True What They Tell Me
6. Getaway Ride
7. Wing Of The Parapets
8. Avenues
9. Lady's Got Gills
10. I Love Our World
11. Hissing Pipes At Dawn

"If I knew I were alive, I could do so much better. If I knew what I had, then I could use it more wisely. If only I’d known before then I’d be in a better place already. If only."

London-based singer-songwriter Douglas Dare releases new EP, following on from his debut album Whelm. Named after album track Caroline and new track If I Knew I Were Alive, it also features remixes by fellow label mate Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles and Houndstooth’s own electronic producer Ross Tones aka Throwing Snow.

Caroline has always been a precious track for Douglas, one of the first tracks he recorded and a story in which he imagines his grandfather is writing to a loved one during the war. As the only song on his debut album that is stripped down to just his voice and piano playing, and it being a favourite amongst fans at his concerts, it was a natural choice as a first single.

The new track If I Knew I Were Alive Douglas wrote by creating beats, looping them and recording parts live. Dancing around to the beats in his room, he started singing melodies and coming up with ideas that he wouldn’t usually have, sitting at the piano. The idea that we can do a lot more if only we appreciated our own ability and opportunity encouraged Douglas to not take the track to anyone else to re-record it, but to work with what he had created himself.

“The recording has this demo quality, which I really enjoy. I love how revealing a demo can be. It seems to expose the fundamental ideas the songwriter had and the basic quality of the recording is very revealing. One of my favourite records is PJ Harvey’s ‘4 Track Demos’, where the songs are so stripped back that you can appreciate the finest details.” – Douglas Dare

Ryan Lee West, who crafted the Rival Consoles remix of album track Swim explains, “the track existed in a minimal state for a while, and I kept thinking something was missing. There's always something missing! And then out of casual chance, I was sorting through my portable recorder files, and I came across a recording of an installation that I did, which included four motors hitting glockenspiel or xylophone notes at random. I chopped it up in a few seconds and it worked perfectly. It adds texture and movement to the remix. But what's important about these sounds is that they are not in time. I think this remix creates sense of space, subtlety and physicality.”

"The original is so well put together, and the vocal so unique that it was a hard one to approach. I set out to reflect the beauty of the vocal in the intro, so that I could build it into something darker later on. This also mirrors the meaning of the vocal. The last sections are meant to evoke feelings of being washed away by a torrent” – Ross Tones about his Throwing Snow remix of Nile.

UK eight-piece caroline’s eponymous debut album often cascades with force like an avalanche, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other points they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet – a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release. These songs are expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of choral singing, Midwestern emo and O’Malley and Llewellyn’s roots in Appalachian folk.

“Sometimes things sound much better when there’s empty space,” says Llewellyn. “Sometimes you might populate [a song] with too many things and forget that an element on its own is enough.” Elsewhere on the record the band have employed a collage-like technique, combining snippets of lo-fi recordings from a myriad of different locations – a barn in France, the members’ bedrooms and living rooms, the atmospheric swimming pool in which they also filmed sublime live sessions for ‘Dark blue’ and ‘Skydiving onto the library roof’ – with more traditional group sessions at the Total Refreshment Centre and their studio in Peckham.

The growth that began as a scrappy guitar band above a pub many years ago is still continuing. caroline’s astounding debut album is merely the first step. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: What a fascinating sound caroline have managed to coax out here. It's a heady mix of post-rock, folk and avant rock pulled together with a keen ear for melodies and tempered with airy group vocals, a-la ASMZ. A dynamic and ever-shifting landscape of melody and texture.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Dark Blue
Good Morning (red)
Desperately
IWR
Messen #7
Side B
Engine (eavesdropping)
Hurtle
Skydiving Onto The Library Roof
Zilch
Natural Death

Dinked Edition 7” Tracklisting:
Side A - Good Morning (red) Demo
Side B - Dirty Triple (3) #2

The art of the good compilation album is one that is finely balanced between selecting the familiar and the obscure. Uncovered recordings that may open up exciting new areas ripe for contemplation. When Caroline True Records (CTR) embarked in 2006 in selecting the tracks for the definitive post-punk compilation album with Jon Savage curating, things were certainly never going to be neither humdrum nor boredom-inducing.

For those of you who might not already know him, Jon can best be described as a cultural commentator, writer and longtime music journalist. (The Guardian, the NME, The Face, Melody Maker). He is also the Sex Pistols and Joy Division biographer and writer of the acclaimed “Teenage” and soon-come documentary on the book. Actually, he’s a secret national treasure. At the heart of the London punk scene from the early days, and resident in Manchester during the post-punk era, Savage seems like the perfect person to select gems from his record collection

The spine of the collection features tracks by post-punk luminaries Wire, Joy Division and the Prefects. Not so 'secret' you may think, but consider the nascent and lo-fi Subway Sect, the tough polemic of Noh Mercy and the hyper obscure experimentalism of File Under Pop and you’re getting the idea. Containing 24 tracks in total, "Fame" is the perfect way to either dip a toe in the late 70s / early 80s post-punk underground for the first time, or take a trip down memory lane, with the tracks bringing back half-remembered John Peel plays.

TRACK LISTING

Pere Ubu - Heart Of Darkness
Chrome - Chromosome Damage
Nigel Simpkins - Times Encounter
Subway Sect - Imbalance (Rehearsal)
File Under Pop - Heathrow
Cabaret Voltaire - Partially Submerged
The Prefects - Total Luck
MARS - 3E
Rosa Yemen - Herpes Simplex
A.C Marias - Drop
Kleenex - Ain’t You
Noh Mercy - Caucasian Guilt
The Flying Lizards - Hand 2 Take
The Human League - The Dignity Of Labour Part 4
Wire - A Touching Display (Demo)
Joy Division - Autosuggestion
Robert Rental & Thomas Leer - The Hard Way In
The Urinals - Sex
The Method Actors - Do The Method
Rema Rema - Rema Rema
DNA - Blonde Red Head
IMPlog - Holland Tunnel Drive 

Drug Store Romeos formed at college in nearby Farnborough when childhood friends Jonny (Gilbert) and Charlie (Henderson) pinned an ad about finding a bassist for their new band to the school’s notice board – Sarah (Downie) replied and quickly proved herself a better vocalist than either of them. The trio spent the subsequent 24 hours discussing their love of Stereolab over messenger and watching Portishead and Mild High Club videos in the college’s computer lab.

The band soon cut their teeth playing live at college, at Guildford Boiler Room and Aldershot West End Centre, rather than the familiarly trodden paths in London although they did frequent Brixton Windmill as often as three times a week at one point; carrying all of their equipment back to Fleet by train as none of the band were old enough to drive. The 3am walk home from Fleet station, with amps and flight cases slung over their shoulder, would become a rite of passage; the quiet countryside influencing their hushed atmospheric sound and nocturnal aesthetics as much as their shared affection for Suburban Lawns, Broadcast, and Tom Tom Club.

Lyrical abstractness / concrete meaning. Danceability / lyingdownability. Minimalism / fullness. Introspective melancholy / playfulness. Lo fi / hi fi. Drug Store Romeos play with the senses and flip the expectations, finding the sweet spot every time. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's impossible not to hear a wealth of influence when listening to Drug Store Romeos, but each hint of another band really only serves to exacerbate how unique their sound is. It's wistful and wonderfully written, but melodically interesting with time signature changes and sonic curveballs being wonderfully woven into the fabric of the pieces.

TRACK LISTING

THE FUTURE BITES explores ways that the human brain has evolved in the internet era. Where 2017’s Top 3 album TO THE BONE confronted the (then) emerging global issues of post truth and fake news, THE FUTURE BITES places the listener in a world of 21st century addictions. It’s a place where on-going, very public experiments with nascent technology on our lives take place constantly; where clicks and Tiks have become more important that human interaction. THE FUTURE BITES is less a bleak vision of an approaching dystopia and more a curious and playful reading of a world made all the more strange and separated by the events of 2020.

Musically, THE FUTURE BITES positively gleams. Across the album, there’s tracks that deal in gorgeous electronics warped by human intervention (KING GHOST) and soaring acoustics that hit the stratosphere (12 THINGS I FORGOT); a ten minute treatise on the joys of oniomania laid out by Elton John over a Moroder-esque whirlwind (PERSONAL SHOPPER) and a relentless bass-driven Motorik groove that dives right into the murk of clickbait and online radicalisation (FOLLOWER). The album’s new recording, COUNT OF UNEASE, is a beautifully plaintive close to the album that floats out on a mix of piano and ambient sound. Together, the nine tracks form Steven’s most consistently brilliant work to date. THE FUTURE BITES was recorded in London and co-produced by David Kosten (Bat For Lashes, Everything Everything) and Steven Wilson. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As one of the greatest producers on the alternative scene, Steven Wilson was never going to stagnate in the psychedelic waters (Porcupine Tree, whilst brilliant admittedly sound a little dated now), and continues moving forwards with this varied and enduring collection of wry songwriting, clever lyricism and pitch-perfect instrumentation.

Twenty-five years ago this month, the cream of the British music industry walked into Abbey Road and studios around the UK and recorded an album for War Child in response to the plight of the thousands of families caught up in the bloody Balkans war.

It went onto become the most legendary charity album of all time. Inspired by a John Lennon quote "The best record you can make, is recorded on Monday, cut on Tuesday, pressed up on Wednesday, packaged on Thursday, distributed on Friday, in the shops on Saturday”, Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller formed the super group Smokin’ Mojo Filters and Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers, Portishead, Massive Attack, Suede, The Charlatans and many more contributed tracks.

Go! Discs’ Tony Crean and Andy McDonald, press officer Terri Hall and others rallied artists, media and the industry to come together in those few days. Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic wrote the sleeve notes, John Squire designed the artwork and Johnny Depp even popped in to play guitar.

Within 24 hours, 20 tracks had been recorded and it was in store five days later selling 70,000 copies in its first day. The album went on to make £1.25 million and launched War Child not only as the charity for British music, but more importantly, the only charity who specialise in protecting, educating and supporting children in war.

The difference this album made for War Child cannot be over emphasised. It was the starting point of a relationship with the British music industry that has seen some of the world’s biggest artists come together - but more importantly, it has enabled War Child to reach more than a million children caught in the crossfire of war over the last 20 years.

You only need look at the news today to see that War Child’s work is more important than ever. Four million Syrian refugees have fled the conflict, two million of these are children, some of whom are alone, all of whom are terrified and traumatised by what they have seen.

Since the HELP album, War Child’s work with music has gone onto raise more than £7 million for children in conflict. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Oasis And Friends – "Fade Away"
2. The Boo Radleys – "Oh Brother"
3. The Stone Roses – "Love Spreads"
4. Radiohead – "Lucky"
5. Orbital – "Adnan"

Side B
6. Portishead – "Mourning Air"
7. Massive Attack – "Fake The Aroma" (alternate Version Of "Karmacoma")
8. Suede – "Shipbuilding"
9. The Charlatans Vs. The Chemical Brothers – "Time For Livin'"
10. Stereo MCs – "Sweetest Truth (Show No Fear)"

Side C
11. Sinéad O'Connor – "Ode To Billie Joe"
12. The Levellers – "Searchlights"
13. Manic Street Preachers – "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head"
14. Terrorvision – "Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt"
15. The One World Orchestra Featuring The Massed Pipes And Drums Of The Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards (aka The KLF) – "The Magnificent"

Side D
16. Planet 4 Folk Quartet – "Message To Crommie"
17. Terry Hall And Salad – "Dream A Little Dream Of Me"
18. Neneh Cherry And Trout – "1, 2, 3, 4, 5 "
19. Blur – "Eine Kleine Lift Musik"
20. The Smokin' Mojo Filters – "Come Together"

Completing a compelling trilogy of albums since his late-flowering return to solo songwriting and singing six years ago, Ben Watt releases his fourth LP, "Storm Damage" on 31 January 2020, and with it a new sound and fervency.
"I needed a fresh approach," says Watt, 56. "The album came out of an intense period of personal anguish and political anger. Sometimes repeating yourself musically feels disrespectful to the sharpness of your feelings. You have to search for a new way to capture the energy."

Across four decades Watt has maintained a committed forward-looking course, from the ardent echo-drenched folk of his early solo work with Robert Wyatt, through seventeen years as musical mainspring and co-lyricist in the best-selling Everything But The Girl with Tracey Thorn - and ten at the helm of his smart electronic label Buzzin' Fly - to his recent moving non-fiction and mid-life solo albums, the award-winning "Hendra" (2014) and "Fever Dream" (2016). New album "Storm Damage" is no exception. Sonically adventurous, lyrically detailed and engaged, the album - written and produced by Watt - is a personal journey through anxiety and change cut through with an insistent defiance. 

What is "Drift"?

• It’s precisely one year inside the minds of Underworld.

• It’s a journey that began on 1st November 2018 when Underworld released the track "Another Silent Way" and set off with no map, no fixed destination and a simple mantra ('Drift is the opposite of ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ practice; we’ll do this until we’re dust'). Rick Smith and Karl Hyde’s aim was to create and publish music and film episodically for 52 weeks and see where the journey took them. Within a few weeks, the experiment found its own path, prompting the electronic pioneers to react to previous releases and create new works accordingly. Over time, the duo’s innate curiosity opened up a unique space in which they could experiment, learn and explore new frontiers - together and with others (including Tomato’s Simon Taylor, Australian improv-trance band The Necks, techno producer Ø [Phase], Japanese noise band Melt-Banana, economics writer Aditya Chakrabortty and members of Black Country, New Road). During the 52 weeks, five self-contained episodes were released (respectively in November, January, March, May and August) - collectively, they form "DRIFT Series 1". 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: An impressively on-going, interactive, year-long project from the band culminates in the album's actual release in October. Always keen to push the envelope, the idea behind this is very satisfying.

TRACK LISTING

Appleshine
This Must Be Drum Street
Listen To Their No
Border Country
Mile Bush Pride
Schiphol Test
Brilliant Yes That Would Be
S T A R (Rebel Tech)
Imagine A Box
Custard Speedtalk

The first new Iggy Pop album since 2016’s Post Pop Depression.

While it follows the highest charting album of Iggy’s career, Free has virtually nothing in common sonically with its predecessor—or with any other Iggy Pop album. On the process that led Iggy and principal players Leron Thomas and Noveller to create this uniquely somber and contemplative entry in the Iggy Pop canon, Iggy says:
"This is an album in which other artists speak for me, but I lend my voice...By the end of the tours following Post Pop Depression, I felt sure that I had rid myself of the problem of chronic insecurity that had dogged my life and career for too long. But I also felt drained. And I felt like I wanted to put on shades, turn my back, and walk away. I wanted to be free. I know that’s an illusion, and that freedom is only something you feel, but I have lived my life thus far in the belief that that feeling is all that is worth pursuing; all that you need – not happiness or love necessarily, but the feeling of being free. So this album just kind of happened to me, and I let it happen."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Iggy's back! One of the most recognisable figures in the punk community returns with his latest solo effort, shining with contemplative melodies and loungey percussive pieces, clearly showing a move towards a more freeform approach than his previous outings, with smooth jazzy horns and slow-burning developmental shifts. Lovely stuff, and perfectly illustrative of his mastery of a wide variety of disciplines.

TRACK LISTING

1. Free
2. Loves Missing
3. Sonali
4. James Bond
5. Dirty Sanchez
6. Glow In The Dark
7. Page
8. We Are The People
9. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
10. The Dawn

The Center Won’t Hold is the tenth studio album by Sleater-Kinney. It addresses transformation as it relates to the corrosion and decomposition of forms. Fractured and frayed by age or by loss, by internecine politics, by trauma or depression, these eleven songs ask what remains of a body, a human spirit, a relationship, a city, a country. The narrators herein sing from the brink of madness, corruption, loss, or grief. And though they speak to us from the narrow, near desperate strands to which they are consigned by others, or upon which they’ve self-exiled—feeling small, fearing obsolescence—they ask to be heard on the most sprawling of canvasses. By couching these personal stories in a sonic palette that unabashedly takes up space, what remains is a tale of survival: a treatise on female friendship, inner strength, resilience, and community.

If The Center Won’t Hold forces a reconsideration of a band people thought they knew, it’s due to the methodologies employed in the writing and making of the album. The tools upon which Sleater-Kinney had relied proved inadequate, both metaphorically and literally, so they sought new ones. They used the geographical distance between them, along with the larger uncertainty and brokenness swirling around them, as a means of inducing and exploring sonic change. Most concretely, they worked with producer Annie Clark (St. Vincent), who treated each song as its own world, letting them find a specific vernacular through careful construction and deliberation.

The most succinct thing to say about The Center Won’t Hold is that Sleater-Kinney continue to challenge the idea of what three women sound like when they create music together over the course of twenty-five years.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sleater-Kinney have been one of the most interesting outfits to have come out of the 90's post-grunge indie boom, and have remained a fierce musical force since then. Through a myriad of splits / reformations and stylistic turns they have returned with their beautifully crafted powerhouse, 'The Centre Won't Hold'. Huge stadium choruses and anthemic turns are infused with snapping percussion and echoing distorted guitar, all topped with those unmistakable vocals.

TRACK LISTING

CD
1. The Center Won’t Hold
2. Hurry On Home
3. Reach Out
4. Can I Go On
5. Restless
6. Ruins
7. LOVE
8. Bad Dance
9. The Future Is Here
10. The Dog / The Body
11. Broken

DELUXE VINYL
Disc 1 (LP)
SIDE A
1. The Center Won’t Hold
2. Hurry On Home
3. Reach Out
4. Can I Go On
5. Restless
SIDE B
1. Ruins
2. LOVE
3. Bad Dance
4. The Future Is Here
5. The Dog / The Body
6. Broken
Disc 2 (7” Vinyl)
1. Hurry On Home

The songs and narrative’s on LONER reflect my life over the last couple years––I joined Tinder, I got my first apartment and painted it teal, I went to par¬ties, I discussed politics, I had a girlfriend, we traveled the country, we broke up. I learned, for better or worse, how to be a member of the modern world. Turns out the modern world is terrifying.

Tired of the bottomless pit of sad songs, I decided to put a spin on my greatest songwriting inspirations––misogyny, unplanned pregnancy, Capitalism, anxiety, loneliness and death––and wrap such depressing subject matter in a sprightly, angsty pop burrito…Because it’s hard being serious all the time and sometimes sad songs just need a cocktail. Loner reflects the styles of music I love––pop, folk, punk, electronic, and surf music––all thrown into a blender with a ladle full of cheeky satire. I call it Schizodrift. It sounds like Blondie drunk on mai tais.

Loner was co-produced by myself and the wonderful Paul Butler (Deven¬dra Banhart, Michael Kiwanuka, St. Paul & The Broken Bones) and recorded in freezing Northern California, in addition to my parent’s attic and my last apart¬ment. It was mixed by sound guru Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Show Me The Body) in Brooklyn, NY.

Nine Inch Nails new full-length Bad Witch completes the trilogy that began with 2016’s Not The Actual Events and 2017’s Add Violence. 

We kick things off in spectacular style, with 'Shit Mirror' echoing the early days of NIN, all perilous ambient distortions and thumping machinated drums, while retaining the momentous drive of their later records. 'Ahead Of Ourselves' features Reznor's vox twisted out of all proportion, with a wizened percussive detritus trailing behind before snapping into a cutthroat about-turn into the trademark fuzzed-out static redux we've come to expect from them 

'Play The Goddamned Part' on the other hand is much more reminiscent of the scattered but cohesive ambience of their greatest full-scope cinematic epic, 'The Fragile, scattered insectile stutters and electronic static underpins the oft-uncomfortable dissonance of a chorus of horns and jazzed-out abstractions.  

Flipping over, we get a continuation of the horn-filled dissonance, but pulled along by a frenetic resonant saw-wave, lending an acidic undertone and momentous drive to proceedings before breaking down into a bleak and uncompromising closing duo of the full-spectrum gothic gloom of 'I'm Not From This World' and the twinkling syncopated shuffle of the chillingly deep 'Over And Out'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Shit Mirror
2. Ahead Of Ourselves
3. Play The Goddamned Part
4. God Break Down The Door
5. I’m Not From This World
6. Over And Out 

Moving beyond the surf-folk foundations of her debut, on No Fool... Sallee loosens her earthly tether, allowing her songs to float to ever higher altitudes on clouds of loops, immaculate melodies, and hypnotic harmonies, as she sings about aging, the daily grind, and hometown stymie. Moving to Austin in 2013 gave her a new perspective on her hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, which informed the overall vibe of the album. "I think leaving my fairly small hometown and then going back to visit it inspired the feeling I went for on this album. I observed that so many people I knew were content doing basically nothing.

Or that they were scared to try to do anything or leave town, like they felt stuck there." The ¬first few notes of the Daniel Rossen-esque opener “First Song” dutifully establish the surreal and slightly tragic tone of longing maintained throughout the album. The curiously upturning melodies ride out on a rich ambient texture before “Sweet Home Alabama” cuts the fog with a crackling 60's soul loop that's charming and catchy enough to induce a cathartic laugh from the listener. The brightness fades with the frosty and propulsive “A Good Thief Steals Clean,” which features lyrics inspired by the 1971 ¬lm Panic in Needle Park, and the idea of being in love with a heroin addict. “I tend to write from the perspectives of characters in dark situations, even though my songs may sound bright,” Sallee notes of her alluring juxtaposition of sunny production and grim lyrics.

She employs this dynamic again on “Rip O ,” a frenetically percussive song with lyrics inspired by an NPR story about a young Iraqi man who was killed in an ISIS bombing just before moving to NYC to become a professional dancer. Inspired by Terrence Malick's Badlands and Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska," the song “Black Hole" features multi-voice harmonies sung from the perspective of 50's spree killer Charles Starkweather. The hurdles she navigated to record naturally led to ad hoc recording techniques, and endless sonic experimentation, often leading to her use of the computer as an instrument. A tireless worker, and a wellspring of creativity, whatever Caroline Says, we will be listening.

TRACK LISTING

01 First Song 3:55
02 Sweet Home Alabama 3:22
03 Mea Culpa 2:54
04 A Good Thief Steals Clean 2:35
05 Rip O 3:40
06 Black Hole 2:31
07 Cool Jerk 3:03
08 I Tried 3:39
09 Lone Star Tall Boy 3:36

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