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CRIME

Crime & The City Solution

Room Of Lights - 2024 Reissue

    Following their 'The Dangling Man' EP and 'Just South of Heaven' mini-LP, 'Room Of Lights' was originally released in 1986 and featured the "London lineup" of Simon Bonney, former Birthday Party stalwarts Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard, Rowland’s bassist brother Harry Howard, and drummer Epic Soundtracks (formerly of Swell Maps and Jacobites). The album includes the remarkable ‘Six Bells Chime,’ which caught the attention of acclaimed German filmmaker Wim Wenders who invited the band to perform the song live in his 1988 masterpiece Wings of Desire. The album showcases great creativity filled with tension and marks the last release featuring Crime’s “London line-up”.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Right Man, Wrong Man
    2. No Money, No Honey
    3. Hey Sinkiller
    4. Six Bells Chime
    5. Adventure
    6. Untouchable
    7. The Brother Song
    8. Her Room Of Lights (For Lisa)

    Crime & The City Solution

    Just South Of Heaven - 2024 Reissue

      Originally released in 1985, this mini-LP featured the "London lineup" of Simon Bonney, former Birthday Party stalwarts Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard, Rowland’s bassist brother Harry Howard, and drummer Epic Soundtracks (formerly of Swell Maps and Jacobites). The record presented a more refined sound compared to their self-produced EP and was recorded between Hansa Tonstudios, Berlin and The Strongroom, London, with sound engineer Flood (a-ha, Depeche Mode, Erasure). In an interview with Uncut, Harry explained, “The first EP, 'The Dangling Man,' was a bit raw. For 'Just South Of Heaven,' we tried to create a more elegant record, and it worked quite well.”

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Rose Blue
      2. The Coal Train
      3. Stolen & Stealing
      4. Five Stone Walls
      5. Trouble Come This Morning
      6. The Wailing Wall

      Crime & The City Solution

      The Killer

        Crime & the City Solution return with their seventh studio album, and first in 10 years, the killer. Played out over 7 tracks and recorded in Berlin, the record is arguably Crime’s finest work and is set to be their masterpiece.

        The album sees central figurehead Simon Bonney’s trademark storytelling surrounded by the deep, layered and mesmerising instrumentation created by this new incarnation of the band, including long term member Bronwyn Adams and new members Frederic Lyenn, Donald Baldie, Georgio Valentino, Chris Hughes and Joshua Murphy. This is paired with Martin J. Fiedler’s (Josh T. Pearson, Alex White) production, creating a magical atmosphere of foreboding and opportunity.


        TRACK LISTING

        1. Rivers Of Blood
        2. Hurt You, Hurt Me
        3. River Of God
        4. Brave Hearted Woman
        5. Killer
        6. Witness
        7. Peace In My Time

        Crime & The City Solution

        The Bride Ship - 2023 Reissue

          A band out of time, Crime and the City Solution were perennial outsiders who could not rest in their native Australia, and instead found inspiration in the colder climes of London and Berlin. Their mesmeric, expressive music evolved through many incarnations and a great deal of adversity. The first incarnation of the band appeared in 1977/78, in the midst of Australia’s nascent punk scene and re-grouped in London in 1984. The later line-up of singer Simon Bonney, Einstürzende Neubauten’s guitarist Alexander Hacke, DAF’s synth player Chrislo Haas, jazz bassist Thomas Stern, violinist Bronwyn Adams and Bad Seed’s Mick Harvey on drums recorded 3 studio albums in quick succession.

          Originally released in 1989, The Bride Ship was a creative turn for Crime. Using the sea as the ultimate metaphor for freedom, the album highlighted Bonney’s skill as a lyricist and sense of melody. The crashing guitars and drums propelled a sprawling narrative which concerned itself increasingly with the universal as opposed to the personal.


          TRACK LISTING

          A1 The Shadow Of No Man
          A2 The Greater Head
          A3 Stone
          A4 The Dangling Man
          B1 Keepsake
          B2 The Bride Ship
          B3 Free World
          B4 New World

          Crime & The City Solution

          Shine - 2023 Reissue

            A band out of time, Crime and the City Solution were perennial outsiders who could not rest in their native Australia, and instead found inspiration in the colder climates of London and Berlin. Their mesmeric, expressive music evolved through many incarnations and a great deal of adversity. The first incarnation of the band appeared in 1977/78, in the midst of Australia’s nascent punk scene and re-grouped in London in 1984 with Simon Bonney being joined by former Birthday Party stalwarts Mick Harvey and Rowland S.Howard, Rowland’s bassist brother Harry and one time Swell Maps drummer Epic Soundtracks.

            With the departure of Soundtracks and the Howard brothers for the formation of These Immortal Souls, Bonney, Harvey and Adams settled in Berlin. Here they called upon Thomas Stern, Bronwyn Adams, DAF’s Chrislo Haas and Einstürzende Neubauten’s guitarist Alexander Hacke to create Shine. The album was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in the second half of 1987 and later released in 1988. Shine was more finely tuned, optimistic and delicately abrasive, with the reconstructed line-up admirably marrying Hacke’s post-punk-into-blues guitar with Adam's feathered violin and Bonney’s gruff vocals. 


            TRACK LISTING

            A1 All Must Be Love
            A2 Fray So Low
            A3 Angel
            A4 On Every Train (Grain Will Bear Grain)
            B1 Hunter
            B2 Steal To The Sea
            B3 Home Is Far From Here

            Crime & The City Solution

            Paradise Discotheque - 2023 Reissue

              A band out of time, Crime and the City Solution were perennial outsiders who could not rest in their native Australia, and instead found inspiration in the colder climes of London and Berlin. Their mesmeric, expressive music evolved through many incarnations and a great deal of adversity. The first incarnation of the band appeared in 1977/78, in the midst of Australia’s nascent punk scene and re-grouped in London in 1984. The later line-up of singer Simon Bonney, Einstürzende Neubauten’s guitarist Alexander Hacke, DAF’s synth player Chrislo Haas, jazz bassist Thomas Stern, violinist Bronwyn Adams and Bad Seed’s Mick Harvey on drums recorded 3 studio albums in quick succession.

              Crime’s freedom of expression and adventurousness reached an apex on 1990’s Paradise Discotheque and its epic Last Dictator saga, which spanned four songs laid out like chapters at the album’s conclusion. The album and the variety of styles used on it, from the metallic sounds of ‘I Have The Gun’ to the magic realism of ‘The Last Dictator’ quartet, were influenced by Bonney and Adams' move to Vienna. 


              TRACK LISTING

              A1 I Have The Gun
              A2 The Sly Persuaders
              A3 The Dolphins And The Sharks
              A4 The Sun Before The Darkness
              B1 Motherless Child
              B2 The Last Dictator 1
              B3 The Last Dictator 2
              B4 The Last Dictator 3
              B5 The Last Dictator 4

              Crime

              San Francisco's Doomed - 2022 Reissue

                The legend of CRIME looms large among punk aficionados the world over. Formed in the mid-1970s, the band's dual-guitar sound, confrontational image and sleazed methodology still serve as inspiration decades later. With only a handful of singles released during their active lifespan, CRIME's legacy grew significantly as archival recordings began to trickle out in the early 1990s. Of all these excavations, San Francisco's Doomed was one of the first and certainly one of the most powerful.

                Culled from 1978-79 studio demos and rehearsal tapes, San Francisco's Doomed captures the frenzy of CRIME's sound in a fittingly loose, devil-may-care framework. Side one is a gloriously unpolished assault of classic, gutter-level punk with vicious live set staples like "Feel The Beat" and "Piss On Your Dog" taking marquee placement over the more well-known singles tracks. Side two finds CRIME taking aim at the so-called New Wave, augmenting their attack with ripped odes that bear the direct influence of science fiction and rockabilly on the group. Few recordings from US punk's first wave match the raw intensity heard on San Francisco's Doomed.

                As Michael Stewart Foley writes in the liner notes, "Unimpressed with the once idealistic counter-culture and all the bands associated with it, CRIME declared itself San Francisco's First And Only Rock 'N' Roll Band. Dressed in police uniforms and driving sonic ice picks through listeners' eardrums with the volume cranked past 10, they looked more like a street gang that might take your wallet and slash your face with a switchblade just to watch you bleed. But despite the band's best efforts to stand apart, CRIME could have come from nowhere else, at no other time."

                TRACK LISTING

                Frustration
                Crime Wave
                I Knew This Nurse
                San Francisco's Doomed
                Rock 'n' Roll Enemy No. 1
                Piss On Your Dog
                Feel The Beat
                I Stupid Anyway
                Twisted
                Murder By Guitar
                Instrumental Instrumental
                Flyeater
                Rockabilly Drugstore
                Dillinger's Brain
                Flipout
                Emergency Music Ward
                Monkey On Your Back
                Yakuza
                Rockin' Weird
                Samura

                Chain & The Gang

                Best Of Crime Rock

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

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

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

                TRACK LISTING

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

                Cold Beat

                Over Me

                  Received a 7.6 rating from Pitchfork. Following the release of COLD BEATS Worms/Year 5772 EP via bandleader HANNAH LEW’s (GRASS WIDOW) Crime on the Moon imprint, Over Me is the Bay Area act’s debut album. Propulsive and taut performances from guitarist KYLE KING and drummer BIANCA SPARTA (ERASE ERRATA) bely Lew’s glassy vocal melodies.

                  A cathartic album, Lew sourced difficult personal experiences to create an immersive lyrical world sometimes fraught with paranoia, anxiety and impending doom, and also an exploration of hope and imagination—themes felt ever more acutely by a native San Franciscan artist in the midst of tech boom cataclysm once again. Over Me was recorded by PHIL MANLEY at Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco, and mixed and mastered by MIKEY YOUNG in Australia. As a Crime on the Moon release, a percentage of sales benefit Charity: Water, an organization committed to eliminating privation in developing nations.

                  Cold Beat

                  Into The Air

                    Received a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork. Less than a year after COLD BEAT's debut LP, Over Me, the band is set to release Into The Air on bassist, vocalist, and primary songwriter HANNAH LEW's label Crime On The Moon. Moving past the themes of grief and loss prevalent on Over Me, Into the Air explores ideas both earthly and celestial. Some songs are attempts at describing complex emotional landscapes, while others playfully wonder about physics and astronomy, often delving off into deep fantasy. But it doesn’t stop with the personal or metaphysical.

                    With the exodus of artists and musicians leaving San Francisco due to increased rent prices and overall cultural changes, Cold Beat has persevered through the city’s metamorphosis into a place less and less hospitable to artists. One can pick up on a sense of discontent in the face of a rapidly growing techie millionaire culture on Into The Air. There is a sense of fighting to survive. One can almost hear the struggle represented on the record as guitars face off against increasingly prevalent synths. 

                    PDP

                    Crime-Wave

                      Where To Now is a cassette label from Brighton. Their second release comes from PDP aka Paul Layzell. PDP is primarily an illustrator and animator, having recently completed videos for Crystal Antlers and Mazes... Turns out he's an absolute fiend when it comes to making music too - this music just had to be released! The tape is all over the place in the best possible way, veering from classic boom bap jams, to Dam-Funk esque boogie synth joints, to all out acid disco-house anthems.


                      Bettye LaVette

                      The Scene Of The Crime

                        After comeback album "I've Got My Own Hell To Raise", soul / R&B legend Bettye LaVette was coaxed back into the studio (and Fame Studios, Muscle Shoals at that!) again to put down a whole new album backed by the Drive-By Truckers. It's a record filled with mini dramas about life, love and survival: A blistering mix of anguished soul and greasy rock'n'roll laced with swampy guitars, Spooner Oldham's slippery Wurlitzer piano and Bettye's razor sharp voice up front.

                        Tokyo Police Club

                        A Lesson In Crime

                          Ok underground hipsters, get ready for the next sensations, ladies and gentlemen we give you from Montreal, Canada, the Tokyo Police Club... If you were to throw Bowie, Joy Division, The Arcade Fire, and two llamas into a blender, you would have one hell of a mess. Tokyo Police Club is here to help you clean up! – Raucous and delicious – with a lyrical sound resonating in Thurston Moore and the same musical concoction bands like Sonic Youth, Built to Spill and Pavement reeled in many moons ago. The boys are adorable, with an interesting new sound to offer. They've taken all the good bits from indie rock in the past decade and then put their individual spin on things.


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