Underworld and Iggy Pop collaborate for "Teatime Dub Encounters", released via Caroline International.While overseeing the soundtrack for T2 Trainspotting, Underworld’s Rick Smith arranged a meeting with Iggy Pop in a room at the Savoy Hotel on London’s Strand to discuss working on collaborative music for the film.

Says Rick Smith 'Iggy was staying at The Savoy and graciously said 'yeah you know we we can meet and talk about something' because we both felt a strong connection to Trainspotting and to Danny. I turned up thinking I've got one chance here to convince this gentleman that we should work together. So I turned up with basically half my studio, hired a hotel room, set up and sat waiting'. Their respective tracks "Lust for Life" and "Born Slippy (Nuxx)" had perfectly bookended the first Trainspotting film two decades previously. On arrival, Iggy found a fully working studio set up and eagerness to get cracking.

Says Iggy Pop 'When you are confronted with somebody who has a whole bloody studio there in the hotel room, a Skyped director who has won the Oscar recently and a fucking microphone in front of you and 30 finished pieces of very polished music, you don't want to be the wimp that goes 'uh uhhh', so my mind was racing.'

"Teatime Dub Encounters" is the result of a few clandestine hotel room recording sessions, that began a few weeks after Underworld and Iggy Pop had each released their last albums. It is neither historical or a tribute to past work. It is the work of artists in motion, engaged in a process that both bring to all of their work - one that uses spontaneity as a spur for creativity.

The first track from "Teatime Dub Encounters", "Bells & Circles", was premiered live as part of Underworld’s recent headline performance at the BBC Biggest Weekend Belfast. A second track "I’ll See Big", is streaming everywhere now. Something of a flipside to "Bells & Circles"," I’ll See Big" is a
wash of gorgeous ambient sound that features Iggy recounting how friends – however dysfunctional – have saved him from a lifetime of bad decisions. The lyric for I’ll See Big was inspired by a conversation Iggy had with Danny Boyle about the subtext of both Trainspotting films.

World’s Strongest Man is the magnificent third solo album by Gaz Coombes. Inspired variously by Grayson Perry’s the Descent of Man, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Californian weed, British woodlands, unchecked masculinity, Neu! and hip hop (and a whole lot more besides), it’s a truly remarkable collection of eleven deeply personal songs each set to expansive, addictive melody.

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: Gatefold Sleeve Pink Coloured Indies Exclusive.

For the uninitiated, Moosebumps should be considered the true follow up to the critically acclaimed 1996 Dr. Octagon album Dr. Octagonecologyst, the strange and beautiful fruit of an inspired musical collaboration between legendary artists/producers Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, MC Kool Keith (Keith Thornton) and turntablist DJ Q-Bert (Richard Quitevis). Though Kool Keith continued to perform and release new material under the alias “Dr. Octagon” sporadically over the years – it was without the original partners Automator and QBert. For the first time in over two decades, Moosebumps has reunited the dream team in the studio and on the stage!

Also making a notable appearance on the Moosebumps album is rapper and frequent Automator collaborator, Del The Funky Homosapien, on the epic track “3030 Meets The Doc Pt.1”

The character Dr. Octagon is an extraterrestrial surgeon from Jupiter who uses space technology and primitive tools to perform medical procedures on his patients, some of whom die as he conducts his rounds, while others are murdered by his careless, barbaric acts.

Dan The Automator has worked with noteworthy artists including: Got a Girl, Miles Kane, DJ Shadow, Kasabian, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Gorillaz, Lovage, Head Automatica, Mike Patton, DJ Quest, Emily Wells, Depeche Mode, Pillowfight, Exodus, Primal Scream

Kool Keith has collaborated and worked with: Ultramagnetic MCs, The Cenobites, Godfather Don Tim Dog, KutMasta Kurt, Motion Man, Analog Brothers, Masters of Illusion, Jacky Jasper, Thee Undatakerz, The Diesel Truckers, Peeping Tom, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Chilly Chill, The Prodigy, Spazz, Princess Superstar, Nu:Tone, Esham, MF DOOM, L'Orange

DJ Q-Bert is one of the founding members of the band Invisibl Skratch Piklz, launched the Qbert Skratch University, an interactive online learning school and community for DJs, and has worked and collaborated with Mix Master Mike, DJ Shadow, Peanut Butter Wolf, A-Trak, Shortkut, Rasco, Dee Jay Bird, DJ Lord Wax, Herbie Hancock, The X-Ecutioners, Shock G, D-Styles, Motion Man, Praxis, N.A.S.A, L’Orange and Mr. Lif.

Deltron has worked with noteworthy acts: Hieroglyphics, Deltron 3030, Gorillaz, Da Lench Mob, Chilly Chill, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Ice Cube, El-P, Tame One.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xLP Info: 140/150gram double black vinyl in a gatefold jacket.

The band’s fifth album overall, it was recorded in London with Paul Epworth, the acclaimed producer who began his career with the likes of Bloc Party and Death From Above but is perhaps most known for his more recent work with Adele and U2. Epworth helped The Horrors explore a diverse sound that’s their “most expansive and progressive music” yet. Anyone who has heard low-slung and massive comeback single Something To Remember Me By should be in no doubt that this is a band expertly ringing the changes once again.  It's a swaggering blend of synths, groove and rock and, to these ears  sounds like the Human League. With Faris actually singing!  Whilst this is a revelation, it's also quite necessary, as this time out The Horrors have written the best pop songs of their whole career. It's dark, multi-layered and shifting, but it's also, bizarrely whistle-able as fuck!  Gonna shock all the aficianados, but I think this is their best album yet!

International treasures British Sea Power release their first new material in four years. Recorded in Sussex, London and on the Isle of Skye, it follows the band’s five studio albums for the great Rough Trade Records.

Let The Dancers Inherit The Party follows on from the 2013 album Machineries Of Joy - an album Q praised as “Their best record yet… a triumph of sophisticated rock engineering.” Let The Dancers Inherit The Party sees the band return to the kind of exhilarating and bright-minded guitar music that has seen them nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and which has drawn praise from David Bowie, Lou Reed and the National Maritime Museum, alongside Doctor Who, Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes (Peter Capaldi, Daniel Radcliffe and Benedict Cumberbatch have all declared an interest in the band). 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Four years since their last full-length, British Sea Power return with another album full of grand orchestral swirls, jangling guitar melodies and galloping stadium-rock percussion. Fortified with chirping synths, soaring vocals and fist-pumping melodies, 'Let The Dancers...' is British Sea Power at their absolute finest.