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ESG

Keep On Moving - 2025 Repress

    It feels like someone left the light on in the studio and it all just ran itself, there had been a funky human input earlier in the day but, by a Darwinian machine-led kind of osmosis, the tracks recorded spent the wee small hours self-reducing and simplifying themselves. Marinated in music. “I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil,” said Truman Capote. ”Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” opined Leonardo da Vinci much earlier in proceedings. Yes, it’s the space around the object, what you leave out that makes what you leave in so important. ESG know this. Sure they can play the game but it’s the swagger of the groove and the minimal topping – like an anti-cup cake – that makes this unique New York sisterhood so appealing on ‘Keep On Moving’. Sampled on TV ads, lauded by critics and swooned over on the dancefloor, ESG’s post-punk took out the grunge and polished the basics. Cut them open and “less is more” is written all the way through. ‘Keep On Moving’ was released over ten years ago to much praise (Q said it was “even better” than 2002’s much loved ‘Step Off’). ESG had been sparring partners for PiL and early hip hop and four years after the ‘Off’, they were onto something new – rhythm as core, reflective storylines about relationship management, sensuality and insanity gather around the bass fix but they’re much blurrier than the incessant beats. Inadvertently they unmask techno and glitch and leave out any kind of superfluous fluff. It’s hard and temple throbbing. Turn it up. And keep moving.

    “If there's one tune which sums up ESG's enduring lust for life, it's the beautifully-judged Black Flag/early techno crossover of the closing 'Gimme A Blast'.” The Guardian 5/5

    “This album's every percussive aspect has been honed to impart the maximum amount of pleasure.” The Observer /

    “Despite their influence on younger bands (you can hear LCD Soundsystem's knobbly grooves on ‘Insane’), ESG still sound like nothing else.” The Guardian

    TRACK LISTING

    1 Purely Physical
    2 Keep On Moving
    3 Insane (Tambourine Mix)
    4 The Road
    5 Id Do It For You
    6 Everything Goes
    7 Ex
    8 Insane (Bass Mix)
    9 Gimme A Blast 

    ESG

    Come Away With Me - 2025 Repress

      Come Away With ESG - 35-year anniversary release of the classic genre-busting debut album by the Bronx sisters ESG. The sample-friendly opus that’s the inspiration for hip-hop, house and post punk. Music that falls outside of the no wave, new wave and post punk library, it’s for the dance floor but it’s not funk, there’s no horns, no driving organ; it’s the opposite of Sly And The Family Stone but no less cool and no less groovy.

      “A lasting document of their unique brand of minimal funk that would influence subsequent post-punk, hip-hop, and dance music acts. Stripped down to the most basic of drumbeats and rudimentary bass lines, ‘Come Away’ confirms the notion that the real rhythm is what happens between the beats. AllMusic // “This is dub disco with a punk edge.” Paste

      “Uncut punk-funk straight off the streets of the South Bronx.” Record Collector

      “ESG are that rare thing” Guardian

      “Come Away with ESG sounds so shockingly current.” Paste

      “A musical snapshot of New York City at the beginning of the '80s.” Allmusic

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Come Away
      2. Dance
      3. You Make No Sense
      4. Parking Lot Blues
      5. Chistelle
      6. About You
      7. It’s Alright
      8. Moody (Spaced Out)
      9. Tiny Sticks
      10. The Beat
      11. My Love For You

      ESG

      Step Off - 2025 Repress

        Pumping their way out of the South Bronx of New York in the early 80s, this rhythm and dance-punk outfit made unforgettable funk that was also unusually rooted in post-punk. This powerhouse of raw and cutting edge music ultimately made them ahead of their time. ESG enjoyed success sharing stages with PiL and Gang Of Four and have been heavily sampled as many musicians including TLC, Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys and Liars.

        “ESG's fusion of sweet soul and punk attitude with an intuitive understanding of dance music remains.” The Guardian

        “This is still funk with an alien otherworldliness the likes of which George Clinton never envisioned, stripped to its barest essentials for maximum impact.” All Music

        “ESG are as cool as ever.” The Guardian 

        TRACK LISTING

        1 Be Good To Me
        2 Talk It
        3 Its Not Me
        4 Six Pack
        5 Step Off
        6 Sensual Intentions
        7 My Street 

        Bardo Pond

        Volume 9

          Bardo Pond’s extensive archive recordings series opens up once again with 'Volume 9', an incisive journey into their hypnotic sound. Recorded in the early 2000’s it’s a heady mix of acoustic ambience and menacing distortion.

          Infamous purveyors of longform stoner rock, Bardo Pond embrace their sludgestorms with graceful nods to Hawkwind, Earth and my bloody valentine. For anyone uninitiated with the band’s tranquilizing sound, Volume 9 leans into their mesmeric practise with reckless abandon.

          Featuring two tracks recorded with ace percussionist Michael Zanghi (Kurt Vile/The War On Drugs) and the seminal two parter ‘War Is Over’, a lilting Floydian strum that’s invaded – quite literally – by unreconstructed noise. The Zanghi collaboration is an Eastern-facing mantra with percussive flurries and distorted modal shifts – like listening on the other side of feedback.

          “Effortlessly combining psychedelic inspirations from Pink Floyd's original explorations to the more modern reachings into the beyond” AllMusic.

          TRACK LISTING

          Side A
          A1 – Conjunctio
          A2 – The Nine Doubts
          A3 – War Is Over Part 1

          Side B
          B1 – War Is Over Part 2

          The Bevis Frond

          Little Eden

            ‘Little Eden’ glows with vintage McCartney-esque couplets before rolling out a chiming signature riff on ‘As I Lay Down To Die’ and adopting Jimi-like phrasing on ‘And Away We Go’. A psychedelically-hewn panoramic take on brutalism Britain punctuated with pure pop melodies and beautifully-observed English melancholy. This is an album that rekindles your love of music – from the harmonies that are oh-so Teenage Fanclub and Lemonheads, to the grunge and awe of Dinosaur Jr. There’s perspective and retrospective tale-spinning where we wait “for the wonderful world to come” (©‘Start Burning’), an imaginary future soundtracked by the spirit of Arthur Lee, brought into focus with witty wordplay on songs that are littered with spine tingling guitar breaks.

            TRACK LISTING

            Disc One:
            A1 Everyone Rise
            A2 And Away We Go
            A3 Brain Fatigue
            A4 You Owe Me
            A5 They Will Return
            B1 Find The Mole
            B2 Do Without Me
            B3 Hold Your Horses
            B4 The Man In The Garden
            B5 As I Lay Down To Die

            Disc Two:
            C1 Cherry Gardens
            C2 Numb In The Head
            C3 There's Always Love
            C4 Little Eden
            C5 Here Come The Flies
            C6 Pasted All Over
            D1 Start Burning
            D2 My Own Hollywood
            D3 Never Knew What Hit Me
            D4 Dreams Of Flying

            Faten Kanaan

            A Mythology Of Circles

              ‘A Mythology of Circles’ is the new album from Brooklyn-based composer and musical artist Faten Kanaan, her first to be released on Fire Records. Cyclical patterns and 'variation through repetition' are central to Faten’s music. Harmony and counterpoint are composed intuitively and treated as narrative tools- with sound, silence, and the resulting mystical relationship between notes used as gestures to tell a wordless story. The album is separated into a ‘dusk to evening’ side, and an ‘underworld/dream-state’ side; highlighting the myths of Ishtar, Inanna, Orpheus, Persephone, and others.

              Inspired by cinematic forms and mythological story structures: from sweeping landscapes and quiet romances, to patterned tensions and dream sequences; Faten brings an earthy, visceral touch to electronic music. In symbiosis with technology is an appreciation for the vulnerability of human limitations and nuances.

              All the sections are played in real time, neither looped nor sequenced- allowing for subtle changes to unfold. The use of VST sampled choral voices in this album embodies the forlorn state of technological acceleration, and the desire to return to a vulnerable human sound. The album art also explores a complicated relationship with technology: the statue comes from a series of digital replicas, returning in its last stage to a more intimate and handmade feel.

              Composed, produced and mixed by Faten Kanaan, the album was mastered by Heba Kadry (Bjork, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Julianna Barwick).

              STAFF COMMENTS

              Barry says: I've been a fan Of Faten Kanaan's work since her superb split 7" with Pye Corner Audio on Polytechnic Youth a few years ago. What we have here is the spiritual and logical culmination of an artist working hard at their already considerable skills in the intervening years. It's a stunning work of scope, beautifully transportive and haunting.

              TRACK LISTING

              1. Patagonia Motet 1: Lago
              2. The Archer
              3. Hesperides
              4. Birds Of Myrrh
              5. Night Tide / Anteros
              6. Sleepwalker
              7. Mist & Madrigal
              8. Rêve-Rivière
              9. Erewhon
              10. Patagonia Motet 2: Andes
              11. The North Wind
              12. The Heron
              13. Ishtar Terra

              RVG

              Feral

                Melbourne’s RVG return with their highly anticipated second album, Feral. Following their beloved 2017 debut ‘A Quality of Mercy’, RVG perform the tricky alchemy of combining rock’s urgency, punk’s anarchy, and pop’s empathy to create a record that feels vital: Feral is a catharsis, a call to arms, and a forthright indictment of contemporary complacency. ‘Feral’ was recorded at Head Gap studios with producer Victor Van Vugt (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Beth Orton). Internationally renowned, Van Vugt currently resides in Berlin, Germany and travelled to Melbourne to work with RVG. One of the producer’s key tenets is a sense of spontaneity, of capturing the essence of a song’s live performance, a concern that RVG prize above all else when recording The band recorded the album’s instrumentals live to track, allowing their playing to be infused with the kind of electricity that has seen the band’s live show lauded across Australia and internationally. ‘Feral’ is RVG’s first full-length release in three years and marks the beginning of an exhilarating new era for the band. Both a cry for help and a call to action, this is an album that demands your attention.

                TRACK LISTING

                Alexandra
                Asteroid
                Christian Neurosurgeon
                Little Sharky & The White Pointer Sisters
                Help Somebody
                I Used To Love You
                Prima Donna
                Perfect Day
                The Baby & The Bottle
                Photograph

                Bardo Pond

                Looking For Another Place

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

                  180 gram LP (part of a trilogy – complete on RSD 2015). Bardo Pond follow up last year’s RSD release ‘Rise Above It All’ with the second of a trilogy of RSD exclusive releases. Continuing their exploration and interpretation of existing tracks, this time they turn their attention to ‘Ride Into The Sun’ by the Velvet Underground and ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ by Brian Eno. The results are astounding and in the case of ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ wonderfully surprising, with Isobel’s voice embellishing a rendition of startling Bardo pop. Loosely formed in 1989 by guitar wielding art student siblings, Michael and John Gibbons, Bardo Pond became a reality in 1991 with the addition of vocalist and flautist, Isobel Sollenberger, bassist, Clint Takeda and drummer, Joe Culver (replaced in 1999 by trainee librarian, Ed Farnsworth). Bardo Pond are the flagship band of Philly's "Psychedelphia" space rock movement, which also included the likes of Aspera, Asteroid No. 4, the Azusa Plane, and tangentially the Lilys. They favour lengthy, deliberate sound explorations filled with all the hallmarks of modern-day space rock: droning guitars, thick distortion, feedback, reverb, and washes of white noise.

                  TRACK LISTING

                  1. Ride Into The Sun (The Velvet Underground)
                  2. Here Come The Warm Jets (Brian Eno)

                  The Moles

                  Flashbacks And Dream Sequences - The Story Of The Moles - 2xLP / 2xCD Edition

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

                    The complete collection from Australian band The Moles. The work of songwriter Richard Davies, who moved to the States and went on to join Eric Matthews in Cardinal, the story of the Moles is told through the release of ‘Untune the Sky’ and ‘Instinct’, which is now reissued on vinyl and CD along with a comprehensive CD containing bonus material from various EPs and singles including, the ‘Tendrils And Paracetamol’ EP, ‘The Moles EP’ and the ‘Propeller’ 7inch single, which brings the track “Propeller” to digital format for the first time, and finally ‘Odds and Ends’. Formed in Sydney in the late '80s, The Moles debuted in 1990 with the EP ‘Untune the Sky’, followed a year later by another EP, ‘Tendrils and Paracetamol’. After the 1992 release of their first full-length release -- also titled ‘Untune the Sky’ -- the group relocated to New York, where they released a pair of seven-inch singles (packaged together as the Double Single EP). A move to London followed, and although they garnered great acclaim from the British press, the band nonetheless broke up around the beginning of 1993. In 1994, however, Davies resurrected The Moles again for the album Instinct; a band effort in name only, it essentially marked the beginning of Davies' solo career, although he did not make his formal bow until 1996's ‘There's Never Been a Crowd Like This’.

                    TRACK LISTING

                    Vinyl :
                    Untune The Sky :
                    Side A
                    1. Wires
                    2. Accidental Saint
                    3. Rich Man
                    4. Curdle
                    Side B
                    1. Surf’s Up
                    2. Europe By Car
                    3. Bury Me Happy
                    4. Nailing Jesus To The Cross…

                    Instinct :
                    Side A
                    1. Minor Royal March
                    2. Eros Lunch
                    3. Already In Black
                    4. Instinct
                    5. Cars For Kings Cross
                    Side B
                    1. Cassie Peek
                    2. Raymond, Did You See The Red Queen?
                    3. Treble Metal
                    4. The Crasher…

                    CD Track Listing
                    DISC ONE
                    1. Wires
                    2. Accidental Saint
                    3. Rich Man
                    4. Curdle
                    5. Surf’s Up
                    6. Europe By Car
                    7. Bury Me Happy
                    8. Nailing Jesus To The Cross
                    9. Minor Royal March
                    10. Eros Lunch
                    11. Already In Black
                    12. Instinct
                    13. Cars For Kings Cross
                    14. Cassie Peek
                    15. Raymond, Did You See The Red Queen?
                    16. Treble Metal
                    17. The Crasher…

                    DISC TWO
                    Tendrils And Paracetamol EP :
                    18. Tendrils And Paracetamol
                    19. This Is A Happy Garden
                    20. Breathe Me In
                    21. Lonely Hearts Get What They Deserve.
                    The Moles EP:
                    22. What’s The New Mary Jane
                    23. Going Down
                    24. Saint Jack
                    25. Let’s Hook Up And Get Some.
                    Propellor 7”:
                    26. Propellor
                    27. With Body Wifes Seven Days. Odds And Ends :
                    28. The Crown Souls
                    29. Rebecca
                    30. Rich Man (original Mix)
                    31. Drink Talking
                    32. Bury Me Happy (early Version)
                    33. Flex
                    34. We Need An Electric Guitar
                    35. Mystery Song


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