Debut from genre-defying producer, Yosa Peit. Laurie Anderson meets Bjork; Prince overlapped with Arthur Russell and the hum of Blue Velvet, with jarred and splintered ambient production reminiscent of Aphex Twin. ‘Phyton’ gets a special expanded edition via Fire Records, featuring unreleased tracks; ‘Tyrann’, a live version of the haunting album track ‘Serpentine’ and end of the night lament, ‘Rise’.

‘Phyton’ is a conundrum with its own humour and beauty amid the electronica soundtracking; it’s a record that’s defied genre categories when first released on Tax Free Records two years ago. Yosa’s ascension from singer to producer is now complete.

“In my head I was making a movie,” Yosa told No Wave magazine, “I dreamed up a Coen Brothers’ movie scene for a few tracks.” The result is a haunting, provocative sound; a soundscape where songs merge and splinter, a trip that’s never predictable.

"The production is super fresh" Holly Herndon.

“Warped lo-fi meets glitchy electronica and pop” The Vinyl Factory.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Precious Lies
A2 Serpentine
A3 Anthy
A4 Curls
A5 Leaf I
B1 Serious People Chuckle
B2 Elephant
B3 Leaf II
B4 Lin
B5 New Stars
B6 Palm Tree Antenna
B7 Tyrann

Download Extras:
1. Serpentine (Live Bonus)
2. Rise (Bonus)

Heady with hooks and unforgettable melodies, gliding on deeply danceable grooves, always with Air Waves’ innate compassion, concision and uncanny pop sense shining throughout. A masterpiece that’s beautifully simple, instantly accessible and entirely addictive. Featuring Cass Mccombs, Skyler Skjelset (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), Luke Temple, Brian Betancourt (Hospitality, Sam Evian), Rina Mushonga, Frankie Cosmos, Lispector, David Christian, Ethan Sass, and Ben Florencio.

‘The Dance’ has waited three years to see the light of day and it comes to us now, blinking, smiling in the widening light of 2022 feeling more needed and necessary but also more joyous than ever before. It’s both a snapshot of these songs as they were recorded but crucially, in the intervening time those songs have had additional arrangements crafted by Nicole, created remotely and virtually, with a few like-minded collaborators. The result is simultaneously Air Waves freshest, most spontaneous yet finessed album yet.

Nicole Schneit released their first independent album in 2009 under the Air Waves moniker, a name inspired by a Guided By Voices song - subsequent albums like 2010’s ‘Dungeon Dots’ (which featured a guest vocal from fellow Brooklynite Sharon Van Etten), 2015’s ‘Parting Glances’ and 2017’s stunning ‘Warrior’ crystallised Schneit’s vision of loose-but-focused, convivial but startling pop. ‘The Dance’ continues that trajectory but finds Schneit opening up their music to a more fluid sense of space and movement, while keeping their lyrical eye between the personal and the political, from the specific to the universal with a haiku-like directness and suggestion.

You won’t find a better soundtrack for the solidarity, strength, romance and movement we all need right now than ‘The Dance’ - Air Waves’ best album yet.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Roof (feat. Luke Temple & Rina Mushonga)
A2. The Dance
A3. Star Earring (feat. Lispector)
A4. Alien (feat. Cass McCombs)
B1. Black Metal Demon (feat. Frankie Cosmos & Merce Lemon)
B2. Treehouse
B3. Wait
B4. The Light
B5. Peer Peer

A brand new six-track EP elevating the acclaimed Jane Weaver album, ‘Flock’, to a new esoteric panorama of pop. ‘Sunset Dreams’ features two unreleased tracks from the ‘Flock’ sessions and remixes from W.H. Lung and See Thru Hands.

“Having earned a cult audience for her psychedelia, Weaver makes her version of a pop record, where Kylie-level hooks are set against hallucinatory backings.” - The Guardian.

Featuring the stand-out ‘Sunset Dreams’ in its original breath-taking form. Plus an extended remix of ‘Solarised’, along with northern combo W.H. Lung’s remix of the track.

“Ominous and luminous, expansively spacious and sonically imploding, scientific, ephemeral and eternal.” - The Quietus.

Furthering the eclectic electronic vibe, there’s also a See Thru Hands mix of ‘The Revolution Of Super Visions’ and two new tracks; ‘The Lexical Distance’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong’, all capturing the pop vision of this ever-morphing electronic pioneer.

“The high priestess of eccentric exploration Jane Weaver goes pop with superlative results.” - The Line Of Best Fit.

The ‘Sunset Dreams’ EP continues the journey.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1. Sunset Dreams
A2. Solarised (Extended Rework)
A3. The Lexical Distance
Side B
B1. The Revolution Of Supervisions (See Thru Hands Remix)
B2. Solarised (W.H Lung Remix)
B3. Don't Tell Me I'm Wrong

The brand-new album from The Dream Syndicate blends vintage Krautrock, Eno-like ambience, Neu-inspired rhythmic groove and a Californian sun baked sheen into the their classic psychedelic, melodic, hue.

The Dream Syndicate have moved well past their early Velvet Underground influences and taken on British glam, German prog, and more Featuring singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Wynn, drummer Dennis Duck, bassist Mark Walton, lead guitarist Jason Victor plus their newest member Chris Cacavas on keyboards, plus guest appearances from Stephen McCarthy (of The Long Ryders) and Marcus Tenney's expressive sax and trumpet work.

“Clever, ambitious, and blessedly noisy.” - AllMusic.

“Atmospheric rock music veering between noise and subtlety compelling.” - Pitchfork.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Where I’ll Stand
A2. Damian
A3. Beyond Control
A4. He Chronicles Of You
A5. Hard To Say Goodbye
B1. Every Time You Come Around
B2. Trying To Get Over
B3. Lesson Number One
B4. My Lazy Mind
B5. Straight Lines

“It's a devastating debut...this album has struck me with a vengeance. Because it delivers such a powerful, complex and open-ended punch, it's almost impossible at such an early stage to explain why or how in full detail.” Melody Maker. / “I would be willing to sit down and argue that modern-day rock ‘n’ roll reached its peak in 1978 with Pere Ubu’s The Modern Dance and has declined ever since." Rolling Stone / “Peru Ubu’s full length debut fancies itself a fusion of musique concrete and The Stooges. Shrill and ugly it crystallises their original version of industrial rock” Uncut / ‘The Modern Dance’ is the first studio release from Pere Ubu set for reissue on Fire Records in August, 2015. Following their self-released first singles on Hearpen Records, the uncompromising complex debut has continuously stirred critics.

Today the record is still as direct and powerful as it was first heard. Exploding onto the scene with a handful of releases behind them, Pere Ubu’s ‘The Modern Dance’ stunned the music world and quickly began appearing on ‘Most Influential’ album lists. Pere Ubu originally formed as a studio project drawing on a body of musicians who were involved in the Cleveland underground music scene that had, by August 1975, seemingly run its course. The main objective of the band at that time was to document their work and then disappear. Luckily for us they were on the cusp of changing the face of rock forever. For this reworking, Paul Hamann at Suma has transferred from the original 2-track analogue mix tapes to digital at the highest resolution available which, is at least four times the resolution of the original. The tracks have carefully been re-mastered by sonic architect Brian Pyle so as to capture the unique qualities within

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Non-Alignment Pact
2. The Modern Dance
3. Laughing
4. Street Waves
5. Chinese Radiation

Side 2
1. Life Stinks
2. Real World
3. Over My Head
4. Sentimental Journey
5. Humor Me

‘Cinnamon Sea’ is the perfect introduction to one of the most mysterious, ever-morphing underground bands from New Zealand. The Garbage and the Flowers make their long awaited return with another psychedelic masterpiece from the band that gave us 1997's cult dreampop gem 'Eyes Rind As If Beggars'. A hybrid fusion of the Velvets, Elephant 6 and any God-fearing stoned strummers you can think of, with a nod to Charlie Manson’s bedside balladry to boot.

On their return, the band hone their songcraft with tracks like ‘Eye Know Who You Are’, a tantalising piece of Mazzy Star on steroids, a spiralling sonic rumble, that reaches a miasmic high on every hummed chorus. It opens the Pandora’s box of this release, a sleight of ear collection of five songs from this cosmology-observing Australia-based outfit. Tracks like ‘Red Star’ exist in a land where sound levels are destroyed by savage birds. ‘On The Radio’ trips into an untuned lagoon. There’s a quasi-religious zeal to proceedings, a nod to Sterling Morrison’s Velvet strum elsewhere, everything that would have been key to the Elephant 6 conglomerate not so long ago, maybe, if you can even imagine, My Bloody Valentine unplugged.

‘Cinnamon Sea’ was recorded in an abandoned courthouse in Freyerstown, a ghostly village in Victoria’s Goldfields in Southeast Australia, where you’re more likely to meet giant grey kangaroos bounding on its dusty main street than tottering prospectors these days. It unravels with claustrophobic glee as we traverse the structured climes of exemplary songwriting seasoned with the salt of improvisation. This from a band who previously released an album famously dubbed ‘Stoned Rehearsal’. It closes with the track ‘Jacob B’, a melancholy tale that’s a hybrid of Manson’s troubled tunes and the psychedelic folk songs of Quicksilver’s Dino Valente.

File under: outsider music for insiders.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Eye Know Who You Are
Cinnamon Sea
Red Star
Side B
On The Radio
Jacob B

A reawakening for the Swedish visionaries, Sincere solidifies their impressive trajectory in a fuzzed out haze of dark and arresting shoegaze pop. An expansive trip through noisier, bittersweet pop realms that recalls My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Deerhunter.

Underpinning everything there’s a continuing sense of drama throughout; richly textured crescendos, chiming guitars and delicate melodies are guided by Caroline Landahl’s tender yet sharpened vocals. Sincere is joyously effervescent, but with a dark underbelly where fury manifests in a swirl of entrancing and propulsive percussion.

A gorgeous and dazzling piece of aching romanticism, destined to feature on a thousand mixtapes.

Recorded last year in Malmö, Hater welcomed two new band members and those early day sparks saw them quickly turning demos into fully-formed new songs that appear on the record. Sincere was produced by long-time collaborator Joakim Lindberg and was mixed and mastered by John Cornfield, whose credits include Ride, The Stone Roses and Robert Plant.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Something
A2 I'm Yours Baby
A3 Bad Luck
A4 Proven Wrong
Side B
B1 Brave Blood
B2 Far From A Mind
B3 Summer Turns To Heartburn
B4 Renew, Reject
B5 Hopes High

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

1000 pressed. A much sought-after Kristin Hersh side project. Black Vinyl LP. Back on vinyl for this bracing, ever twitching opus made of seven fluid pieces that fold into one continuous mantra. An essential release from the Throwing Musesí offshoot helmed by Kristin Hersh and Bernard Georges, with Chalk Farmís Rob Ahlers on drums.

"Menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs." Drowned In Sound 9/10. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Medicine Rush
2 Honeysuckle
3 Power+Light
4 Skeleton Key
5 Broke
6 Wax, 7 Sun Dog Coma

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

1000 pressed. Rare EP from this much sought-after Kristin Hersh side project. Black Vinyl LP. Back on vinyl for this Kristin Hersh fronted project, a super rare 2016 EP of enchanting and exhilarating sounds that shift from dreamy and emotional melancholy to jagged and almost Neu!-like rhythms that evolve behind her pointed prose and astute one-liners. A rush to the head thatís caustic yet comforting. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Bath White
2 God's Not A Dick
3 Human
4 Ratted Out
5 St.Christopher
6 Sun Salute

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

1000 pressed. White vinyl pressing of this long out of print and super rare LP. Psychedelic, frog-licking weirdness on this re-etched edition of their debut album, originally released in 1995. Hailed as "synapse-destroying" by Trosuer Press, it's a post-Nuggets nugget rightly celebrated as a milestone in psyche rock, which actually sounds wholly unique today. Bardo Pond are one of those outfits where the adjective 'experimental' genuinely means what it says on the tin.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Adhesive
A2 Back Porch
A3 On A Side Street
A4 Capilary River
B1 No Time To Waste
B2 Absence
B3 Vent
C1 Amen (part 1)
D1 Amen (part 2)

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

1000 pressed. New compilation, pressed on 2xLP black vinyl, collecting the Kurt Cobain favourites singles, rarities and covers. A busking beauty; a career spanning double album delve into the street corner soul of the Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith-approved crooner. This new collection includes her Kill Rock Star singles, compilation rarities, covers of The Bevis Frond, Pink Floyd, Dylan, Daniel Johnston, Lucinda Williams and East River Pipe among others. A chunky power pop jangle, meets unravelling indie punk rawk as the lights change on Times Square. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Light Are Changing
2 The Inhibition Twist
3 Martian Saints
4 Metal Firecracker
5 Hard Road
6 He'd Be A Diamond
7 Camden Town Rain
8 Speeding Motorcycle
9 I Figured You Out
10 Half Right
11 Aim Low
12 Eternal Circle
13 Some Jingle Jangle Morning
14 Western Union Acoustic
15 His Indie World (Live)
16 You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
17 Sunspot Stopwatch
18 She Had You
19 My Buddy Valentine
20 Times Square Go-Go Boy
21 Driven Away
22 The Wind Blew All Around Me
23 Fearless
24 Cold Kilburn Rain
25 Wasting My Time
26 You Can Count On Me
27 His Lamest Flame

‘Black Pearl’ is the brand new album from 50 Foot Wave: Kristin Hersh’s ‘other’ band - active since 2003, with fellow Throwing Muses’ member Bernard Georges on bass and drummer Rob Ahlers. A sonic trip from the heavy, echoey riff of ‘Staring Into The Sun’ with all of its grunge melancholy and dronecore menace to the perfectly baroque ‘Hog Child’ with its spidery guitar that dissolves into motorik bass and drums.

Hailed in various quarters as “an outlet for the material deemed too weird or wild for Throwing Muses”, their “menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs, set alight” as “feedback rips into the fragile melody.”

50 Foot Wave continue to traverse the rigid tension of their own sound. They remain detuned and discordant at will.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been quite the week for heavy new music, with Kristin Hersch's band putting out this absolutely stunning mix of grooving post-rock and angular hardcore on the ever reliable Fire records. Roaringly heavy but imbued with myriad moments of paddling, Isis-like downtuned post-metal business. Really, very good indeed.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Staring Into The Sun
A2 Hog Child
A3 Fly Down South
A4 Black Pearl
Side B
B1 Broken Sugar
B2 Blush
B3 Double Barrel

There’s a mystery to Vanishing Twin – from their name to the multitude of sounds that inhabit their music. They don’t sound like many but they hint at plenty. ‘Ookii Gekkou’ (Japanese for Big Moonlight) is the sound of ordinary life under a different set of rules, a record conceived and created in dark times – a sort of dream catcher for all the madness of the past year.

Vanishing Twin explore new ground on ‘Ookii Gekkou’ incorporating elements of afrofunk, outer jazz and avant-garde, all while referencing Sun Ra to Alice Coltrane, Martin Denny to Morricone, Can’s Holger Czukay to meditative Gamelan, or The Free Design, to library music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Locked into their strangely-accessible groove is a history of ‘other’ sound, a crafted hauntology that evinces something completely new.

Hurricanes, organisms, vibes, bells, and percussive rallies purvey throughout ‘Ookii Gekkou’, each infiltrated with influences as diverse as Piero Umiliani, Art Ensemble of Chicago and ELO among others. Indeed, even a cursory earful adds to an ever-expanding palette of sound, no mean feat for the newly-trimmed quartet of songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, and synth/guitar player Phil MFU, this reduction resulting in no fewer ideas and even bigger steps. Vanishing Twin is a conundrum in these fragmenting times; familiar, yet different; appealing to this world, but from another, parallel one.

“A band that fearlessly floats in the hazy space between the real world and an imagined one, blurring the line between warmly nostalgic and eerily haunted” Pitchfork.

“One of the most original and exciting acts of the moment” The Quietus.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Both 'Choose Your Own Adventure' and 'Age Of Immunology' were big hits in the shop, and the superb new one from is sure to go down similarly well, though it further diversifies the psychedelic wooze of both into loungy jazz, avant pop and bright proggy synth. It's a wonderful progression and a superb, typically brilliant listen.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Big Moonlight (Ookii Gekkou)
A2 Phase One Million
A3 Zuum
A4 The Organism

Side B
B1 In Cucina
B2 Wider Than Itself
B3 Light Vessel
B4 Tub Erupt
B5 The Lift

Rewriting the history of music, Pere Ubu continue to confound convention and shift personnel. The next box set in Fire Records’ reissue series, ‘Nuke The Whales’ houses 4 LPs originally released between 2006 and 2014 –
'Why I LUV Women’, 'Carnival Of Souls’, ‘Lady Of Shanghai’ and Long Live Pere Ubu!’

‘Nuke The Whales,’ is a nod of respect to a couple in Cleveland who would daub such messages over the big news stations’ advertising boards. “Very few bands display such dedication to constant self-reinvention as Pere Ubu” The Quietus.

All four albums have been remixed and remastered by original Pere Ubu member David Thomas. ‘Why I LUV Women’, originally released on Glitterhouse in 2006, gains its first vinyl release. "Spews 11 tunes of arcane lyrics and dense music” shrieked The Cleveland Gazaette.

It’s joined by ‘Long Live Pere Ubu’ a soundtrack to a musical adaptation of the play. “Skronking, squalling rhythms and melodic snippets undulating round a pulsating soundscape." Record Collector

And ‘Lady From Shanghai’, their Fire debut for Fire in 2013. Originally released on the 35th anniversary of the group's debut, ‘The Modern Dance’, a latter day re-evaluation of the unprompted dance genre.

And its follow up ‘Carnival Of Souls’, a haunting “underscore’ to a tale of alienation, it “combines metallic percussion, spare guitars and David Thomas' muttered vocals into something rustic and rickety, yet threatening at a moment's notice.” AllMusic.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 - Why I LUV Women
A1 Two Girls (One Bar)
A2 Babylonian Warehouses
A3 Blue Velvet
A4 Caroleen
A5 Flames Over Nebraska
B1 Love Song
B2 Stolen Cadillac
B3 Mona
B4 Synth Farm
B5 Texas Overture

Disc 2 - Lady From Shanghai
C1 Thanks
C2 Free White
C3 Feuksly Ma'am, The Hearing
C4 Mandy
C5 Musicians Are Scum
C6 Another One
D1 And Then Nothing Happened
D2 Road Trip Of Bipasha Ahmed
D3 Lampshade Man
D4 414 Seconds
D5 The Carpenter Sun

Disc 3 - Carnival Of Souls
E1 Golden Surf II
E2 Drag The River
E3 Irene
E4 Road To Utah
E5 Throb Array
F1 Visions Of The Moon
F2 Dr Faustus
F3 Bus Station
F4 Carnival
F5 Moonstruck

Disc 4 - Long Live Pere Ubu!
G1 Ubu Overture
G2 Song Of The Grocery Police
G3 Banquet Of The Butchers
G4 Tear Your Eyes Out
G5 March Of Greed
G6 Big Sombrero
G7 Bring Me The Head
G8 Alienating The Audience
H1 Road To Reason
H2 Slowly I Turn
H3 Watching The Pigeons
H4 The Story So Far
H5 Snowy Livonia, Pt 1
H6 Elsinore & Beyond

Island Family is the fifth album from Isle-of-Eigg dwelling electro-acoustic psych-pop wonder Pictish Trail, AKA Johnny Lynch. A strange, unpredictable, sardonic and yet deeply personal record inspired by all from Fever Ray to The Flaming Lips, Liars, Mercury Rev and Beck, Island Family is Pictish Trail’s contrarian view of arcadia; a search for the euphoric in the bucolic, bound up in sometimes conflicting ideas and feelings around nature and environment, sincerity and artifice, escapism and belonging. It’s an album about how no man can remain an island, however hard he might try.

Released by Fire Records, with support from Johnny’s own label Lost Map, and produced by long-term collaborator Rob Jones (The Voluntary Butler Scheme, The Gene Dudley Group), ‘Island Family’ opens with its title track, a song of death, ghosts and the ties that bind, fusing abrasive electronic beats with a tongue-in-cheek fireside folk refrain and the haunted ice cream van melody of a digitally reincarnated traditional Scottish jig. A purgative surrender to nature’s whim driven by a clattering machine drumbeat rolled in a puddle of filthy dirty fuzz, ‘Natural Successor’ is five-and-a-half-minutes of cathartic churning bass.

‘In The Land of The Dead’ is an eight-bit glitch-core reflection on island party excesses spasming into existential dread and regret, suitably accompanied by a funereal mariachi band. It’s followed by the epic ‘It Came Back’, the understated verses and arms-aloft falsetto chorus of which are accompanied by a tense, foreboding bass-driven electro hip hop instrumental with (spoiler) a brain-shattering industrial-metal meltdown. ’Melody Something’ is the album’s purest moment, a cautiously uplifting solar-powered-ballad about losing track of time in the cycle of the seasons, and the gap between memory and reality. Shapeshifting closer ‘Remote Control’ is a channel hopping cabin-fever-dream flipping from warped boyband ballad to deep-fried fuzz pop.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The latest outing in the Pictish Trail odyssey takes the blippy, 8-bit sounds of 202's 'Thumb World' and winds them around a core of wicker-folk psychedlia and oddball glitched electronics for stalwart label, Fire Records. It's both wonderfully odd and stunningly melodic in parts, but beautifully balanced with just the right amount of syncopated oddity and swimming lysergic folk.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Island Family
A2 Natural Successor
A3 The River It Runs Inside Of Me
A4 In The Land Of The Dead
A5 It Came Back
Side B
B1 Thistle
B2 Melody Something
B3 Nuclear Sunflower Swamp
B4 Green Mountain
B5 Remote Control

Comedian Stewart Lee and director Michael Cumming (Brass Eye, Toast Of London) investigate a missing piece of punk history. Robert Lloyd, best known for fronting cult Birmingham bands The Prefects and The Nightingales, has survived under the radar for over four decades. But how, if at all, does Robert want to be remembered? The anti-rockumentary ‘King Rocker’ weaves the story of Birmingham’s undervalued underdog autodidact into that of the city’s forgotten public sculpture of King Kong, eschewing the celebrity interview and archive-raid approach for a free-associating bricolage of Indian food, bewildered chefs, vegetable gardening, prescription medicines, pop stardom and pop art. All of the highlights from the film are here, along with rarities which won’t appear on any of the deluxe reissues of the Nightingales’ catalogue, among them 7″ versions of “Use Your Loaf”, the Bob Luman hit “Let’s Think About Living” and “Black Country”, a glam remix of crowd favourite “Thick And Thin” and a version of Christy & Emily’s “Ghost” which rivals the Nightingales’ take on TLC’s “Unpretty” for sheer beauty. The only act with roots in the punk era that have gone on to make records more captivating, cutting and entertaining today than at any point in their past; 2022 will be a busy year for the Nightingales, with months of live dates planned, a limited edition remix 12″, deluxe reissues of both ‘Hysterics’ and ‘In The Good Old Country Way’, and a hardcover book collecting Robert’s lyrics.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A selection of brilliant Nightingales rarities and pieces from the film of the same name, written about Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales and The Prefects. A wonderful audio document in it's own right, and a perfect companion to a very funny film.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Use Your Loaf (7” Version)
A2 Surplus And Scarcity (Live)
A3 What A Carry On
A4 Let's Think About Living (7” Version)
A5 Black Country (7” Version)
A6 Ghost
B1 Born Again In Birmingham
B2 Overreactor
B3 Thick And Thin (Glam Version)
B4 Chaff
B5 The Desperate Quartet
B6 Gales Doc

Lemonheads’ seminal album ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’, lovingly reissued for it’s 30th Anniversary. The long overdue reissue includes a slew of extra material, including an unreleased ‘My Drug Buddy’ KCRW session track from 1992 featuring Juliana Hatfield, B-sides from singles ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ and ‘Confetti’, a track from the ‘Mrs. Robinson/Being Round’ EP, alongside demos that are released for the first time on vinyl. 

Described by music journalist and author Everett True as “A 30-minute insight into what it’s like to live hard and fast and loose and happy with like-minded buddies, fuelled by a shared love for similar bands and drugs and booze and freedom.”. ‘It's A Shame About Ray’ had a considerable impact back in those heady, carefree days of '92, the record perfectly captures Dando’s ability to effortlessly encapsulate teenage longing and lust over the course of a two-minute pop song.

Singles such as 'My Drug Buddy' and the breezy perfect pop of the title track might stand out (plus the add-on of 'Mrs. Robinson' which later copies included), but the album's real strength lies in the tracks in-between; the truly fantastic 'Confetti' (written about Evan's parents' divorce), and the eye-wateringly casual acoustic cover of 'Frank Mills' (from the "hippie" musical Hair), a version that seems to resonate with every ounce of pathos and emotion felt for the lost 1960s generation. To hear Evan Dando sing lines like 'I love him/but it embarrasses me/To walk down the street with him/He lives in Brooklyn somewhere/And he wears his white crash helmet' is to truly appreciate how wonderful and tantalising pop music can be. Then, there's the rush of insurgency and brattishness on the wonderfully truncated 'Bit Part'; the topsy-turvy 'Ceiling Fan In My Spoon'... this was male teenage skinny-tie pop music on a level of brilliance with The Kinks, early Undertones, Wipers.

TRACK LISTING

It's A Shame About Ray
1 Rockin' Stroll
2 Confetti
3 It's A Shame About Ray
4 Rudderless
5 My Drug Buddy
6 The Turnpike Down
7 Bit Part
8 Alison's Starting To Happen
9 Hannah & Gabi
10 Kitchen
11 Ceiling Fan In My Spoon
12 Frank Mills

Essential Extras
1 Mrs Robinson
2 Shakey Ground
3 My Drug Buddy (KCRW Session, 1992)
4 Knowing Me, Knowing You (Acoustic)
5 Confetti (Acoustic)
6 Alison's Starting To Happen (Acoustic)
7 Divan

Demo Recordings
1 It's A Shame About Ray (Demo)
2 Rockin' Stroll (Demo)
3 My Drug Buddy (Demo)
4 Hannah & Gabi (Demo)
5 Kitchen (Demo)
6 Bit Part (Demo)
7 Rudderless (Demo)
8 Ceiling Fan In My Spoon (Demo)
9 Confetti (Demo)

René Laloux’s celebrated 1973 sci-fi animation ‘La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet)’, is overhauled with a re-imagined soundtrack by electronic modernists Stealing Sheep and legendary sound innovators The Radiophonic Workshop. This exclusive release is part of Fire Records’ re-imagined score series, and is released on Delia Derbyshire Day 2021.

It’s a real pre-Avatar conundrum that Stealing Sheep, with the help of Bob Earland, Dick Mills and Roger Limb from the Radiophonic Workshop, unravel. Creating an ethereal excursion that’s narrated by Roger Limb; like a futuristic Martin Denny, or Dr Who gone ambient techno, with a hint of Forbidden Planet 50 years on. It’s an analogue swirl set in an off-world paradise; a field recording from the future. This is a creative, generation-spanning, union brought together to score this unique cult film.

A must for fans of psyche electronica and Stealing Sheep’s formidable ‘Big Wows’ album.

‘La Planète Sauvage’ is a thing of ambient beauty punctuated with electronic earworms that switches from intensely ominous to otherworldly dream like moments.

“No institution has had a greater impact on the development of electronic music than the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.” The Vinyl Factory

“Stealing Sheep devour a broad range of styles, incorporating everything from the dark dance-pop of Grace Jones to the experimentations of Radiophonic Workshop pioneer Delia Derbyshire and John Carpenter soundtracks.” The Guardian.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Opening Credits
A2 The Chase
A3 Saved/Captured
A4 The Bracelet
A5 Council Of Draags Pt.I
A6 Terr & Tiwa
A7 The Knowledge Pt.I
Side B
B1 The Fight
B2 The Knowledge Pt. II
B3 The Initiation
B4 Escape
B5 The Big Tree
B6 The Ritual
B7 The Duel
Side C
C1 Theft/Zarek
C2 The Bird
C3 The Free Oms
C4 The Purge
C5 The Journey To Ygam
Side D
D1 The City Of Free Oms
D2 Robot Attack
D3 The Fantastic Planet
D4 The Final Battle
D5 Terr C6 Council Of Draags Pt.II
D6 End Credits

Through the hazy daze of a smoky folk opus, Modern Studies craft rich soundtracks, stuttering Super-8 sketches from a washed-out world of melancholy, hand-tinted and tantalising. Lullaby couplets blossom into gorgeous chamber pop melodies, the drama unfolding behind Emily Scott’s plaintive vocal; part Julie London, part Sandy Denny, a little bit Kate Bush, with a hushed sigh of Joni.

Sweeping strings carry them into unchartered terrain on their new album ‘We Are Here’, flying high above their psych-folk roots, it’s an epic journey that’s exquisitely delivered, transcending categories, nodding to Brubeck, Low, Talk Talk, Jim O’Rourke and Pentangle, making music that is ready to cross over in these modern times with songs of substance.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Sink Into
A2 Light A Fire
A3 Comfort Me
A4 Two Swimmers
A5 Wild Ocean
Side B
B1 Open Face
B2 Won't Be Long
B3 Mothlight
B4 Do You Wanna
B5 Winter Springs

A beautifully observed baroque masterpiece, part dream pop, part futuristic psych-folk with ambient synths and Josephine Foster’s plaintive guitar. Godmother is a slowly unfolding song cycle that marries a myriad of previous musical escapades with electronic experiments.

Exploring new horizons on this record, it sees Foster at her most expressive and hypnotic. Now back home in the mountains of Colorado, Josephine’s 20-year journey to this new nirvana becomes enthralled further with a symphony of synths that sound like they are played in some neighbouring netherworld, through cotton gauze. It’s music that’s devotional, spiritual, a fitting soundtrack for any journey within or without, a means to experience places and vibrations beyond the boundary of time and space.

Discussing the record, Josephine explains “You may notice me travelling a bit further sonically from our precious earth, aspiring to rise into broader astral perspective, to contemplate the light and origins of it all, as I do believe there is a grand source that is the sum of it all, us all. Performing all the parts on this recording, you may sense me focussing gestures of my singing into the instrumentation, which is a very great relief indeed, as the voice has such grand dreams to be set free.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Hum Menina
2. Sparks Fly
3. Guardian Angel
4. Old Teardrop
5. Flask Of Wine
6. Gold Entwine
7. Dali Rama
8. Nun Of The Above
9. The Sum Of Us All

Following Lucy Gooch’s acclaimed ‘Rain’s Break’, her first release on Fire Records earlier this year, the artist’s acclaimed debut EP ‘Rushing’ is revisited with new artwork and a brand new track, ‘Orthione’.

“Lucy’s sound marries the etheral qualities of ambient music with buoyant, effortless pop” Crack

‘Rushing’ in its original shorter five-track incarnation was heralded as a touchstone beneath the cascading torrent of modern times and an oasis for turbulent times. An intimate collection of songs built around Lucy’s emotive vocals and unique ambient dream pop, the newly added stand-out track ‘Orthione’ trips into the esoteric world of Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass; here her voice is the grounding force that travels to a space that heals and grows.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. My Lights Kiss Your Thoughts Every Moment
2. Rushing
3. Stalagmites & Helicitites

Side B
4. Sun
5. There Is A Space In Between
6. Orthione

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)

An essential rock artefact tracing The Groundhogs from their pre - ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’ blues roots to the final live show for the classic line up of Tony McPhee (guitar and vocals), Pete Cruikshank (bass) and Ken Pustelnik (drums). Never before heard recordings from the Warner Brothers’ vaults including a vintage 1969 set from their show at the Richmond Athletic Ground (AKA The Crawdaddy Club) and their final explosive set at the Pocono Raceway track. Includes the live debut of what would become the anthemic ‘Cherry Red’ and McPhee’s seismic destruction of ‘Amazing Grace’. A career-spanning gem from the ultimate heavy rock power trio book-ending 976 days and 250-plus live shows. “In their stage act they concentrate on being as heavy and as hard-hitting as possible.” The Scene magazine. “Performing on stage we feel that the emphasis is on excitement so we play the numbers that involve the greatest amount of movement and dynamics,” Tony McPhee told Star Pop.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Cherry Red (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
A2 Mistreated (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
A3 Natchez Burning (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
B1 BDD (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
B2 Times (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969) 
C1 Still A Fool (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969) Side 
D1 Group Intro (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969)
D2 No More Doggin' (Richmond Athletic Ground, London - 1969) 
E1 Eccentric Man (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 8th July 1972)
E2 Music Is The Food Of Thought (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 1972)
E3 Cherry Red, Split Part 2 (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 1972) 
F1 Still A Fool, Amazing Grace (Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania - 1972)

A new four CD box set gathering A-sides, the would-be hits along with B-sides, tangential 12-inch tracks (the C-sides), and an excellent session for Los Angeles radio station KCRW from 1989.

Includes over a dozen indie chart hits including ‘Southern Mark Smith’, ‘Girl Go’, ‘The Human Jungle’, ‘16 Years’ plus a host of truly eclectic Butcher tunes from his early Glass recordings through his time at Creation.

This collection follows the much-praised ‘The Wasted Years’ covering his time at Glass and ‘The Violent Years’ at Creation expanded CD sets. An essential alternative world view, tracing pop culture through the kaleidoscope of the ‘80s and beyond, filled with a unique brand of wit and wisdom.

“The Jazz Butcher is one of the most brilliant incisive pop writers that Britain has produced since the glory days of Ray Davies and Pete Townshend” Alan McGee, Creation.

“Northampton’s cheekiest troubadour is best known for his twisted, obsessive songs. Tunes which focus a little unhealthily on dead authors, dead actors, elephants, tigers, chickens and Mark E Smith.” Louder Than War

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1 - A Sides
1 Southern Mark Smith (Original 45)
2 The Jazz Butcher Meets Count Dracula (B-side Of Mark Smith)
3 Marnie (Miaow Mix)
4 Roadrunner (12" Version)
5 Real Men (12" Version)
6 The Human Jungle (12" Extended Mix)
7 Hard (12" Version)
8 Angels (12" Version)
9 Spooky (12" Extended Mix)
10 New Invention (12" Version)
11 Girl Go (12” Mix)
12 We Love You (the Great Awakening) (12" B-side)
13 Sweetwater (Australian 7" Single)
14 Sixteen Years (CD Single Version)

Disc 2 - B Sides
1 Rain (Roadrunner B-side)
2 D.R.I.N.K. (Roadrunner B-side)
3 Water (What A Nice Way To Turn 17 Compilation)
4 The Jazz Butcher Meets The Prime Minister (Real Men 12" B-side)
5 Death Dentist (Human Jungle B-side)
6 The Devil Is My Friend (Human Jungle B-side)
7 South America (Distressed Gentlefolk CD Only Track)
8 Grooving In The Bus Lane (Hard 12" B-side)
9 Partytime (Hard 12" B-side)
10 Mersey (Angels 12" B-side)
11 Blame (Spooky 12" B-side)
12 Excellent! (Girl Go 12" Version)
13 President Chang (Von Daemmerung Remix)
14 Vodka Girls (Abus Dangereux Magazine Compilation)
15 Truck Of Fear (Sixteen Years CD Single Version)

Disc 3 - C-Sides (Or Bottom Of The Barrel)
1 Conspiracy (12" Version)
2 Forever (Conspiracy 12" Version)
3 Peter Lorre (Conspiracy 12" B-side)
4 Big Old Wind (Conspiracy 12" B-side)
5 City Of Night (50,000 Glass Fans Can't Be Wrong Compilation)
6 Vienna Song (Hard 12" B-side)
7 Lost In France (Gunfire And Pianos Compilation)
8 The Hairbrush And The Tank
9 Thing (Hard 12" B-side)
10 Rebecca Wants Her Bike Back (Angels 12" B-side)
11 Almost Brooklyn (New Invention 12" B-side)
12 May I? (Speedy Gonzalez 12" B-side)
13 Affection (12" Version)
14 Over You (Speedy Gonzalez 12" B-side)
15 Girls Who Keep Goldfish/Sweet Jane (Marnie 12" B-side)
16 Cowgirl Fever (Marnie 12" B-side)
17 Knocking On Heaven’s Door (Speedy Gonzalez 12" B-side)

Disc 4 - Seaside
(Live On KCRW, Santa Monica, December 1989)
1 New Invention (Live KCRW Session 1989)
2 Chickentown (Live KCRW Session 1989)
3 Angels (Live KCRW Session 1989)
4 Bad Dream Lover (Live KCRW Session 1989)
5 Burglar Of Love (Live KCRW Session 1989)
6 Girl Go (Live KCRW Session 1989)
7 Mister Odd (Live KCRW Session 1989)
8 The Jazz Butcher Meets The Prime Minister (Live KCRW Session 1989)
9 Moscow Drug Club (Live KCRW Session 1989)
10 Caroline Wheeler’s Birthday Present (Live KCRW Session 1989)
11 King Of Joy (Live KCRW Session 1989)
12 Looking For Lot 49 (Live KCRW Session 1989)

‘Until We Fossilize’ is the debut album from Marta Del Grandi, an eclectic singer songwriter from Italy. This is an award-winning jazz vocalist set in new territory, crossing borders of genre and style from West Coast ‘60s to ambient exotica, from plaintive Lynchian etherealism to dramatic Morricone scores. Marta gathers influences from near and far to create a unique genre-splicing style who’s now travelling her own unique and unchartered path.

Newly signed to Fire Records, this debut is an unravelling of time and distance; a breath taking journey from mainland Europe to the Far East and back again, delivered as an eerie, soundtrack by a captivating vocalist. A self-produced gem; filled with lush strings and electronic ambience and an eclectic vocal that transcends boundaries.

Lead single ‘Amethyst’ takes inspiration by the myth of Amethyst, filled with Greek mythology, touching the wildest manifestation of imagination, it’s the story of a woman who frees herself from the expectations imposed on her by patriarchy. Composed with Indian drummer Tarun Balani, Marta sounds like Sandy Denny backed by Eno on Gamelan with a nod to Sun Ra.

‘Until We Fossilize’ is a lyrically aware set of dramas littered with life-affirming couplets over gorgeous, dramatic turns.

“It’s modern and ancestral at the same time.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Del Grandi flirts with exotica, ambient, Mediterranean and West Coast moods on this LP, providing an accidental Balearic hit.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Taller Than His Shadow
A2 Shy Heart
A3 Amethyst
A4 Swim To Me

Side B
B1 Somebody New
B2 Lullaby Firefly
B3 Birdsong
B4 Totally Fine

1000 copies pressed. Fist time on vinyl. Double debut from Howe Gelb’s one-off project that features members or Arcade Fire, Grandaddy, Scout Niblett and M Ward among others. Featuring extensive notes and interviews with the collaborators, exploring how the whole thing was put together.

TRACK LISTING

Side A.

1 Velvet And Pearl
2 Where The Wind Turns The Skin To Leather
3 AAAA (1)
4 Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys.

Side B.

5 Man On A String
6 Bottom Of The Barrel
7 AAAA (2)
8 Can Do Girl.

Side C.

9 Blue Blue Marble Girl
10 Baby It's Cold Outside
11 Re-Entry
12 Loretta And The Insect World
13 AAAA (3)
14 Talula And The Last Straw.

Side D.

15 Vows
16 AAAA (4)
17 Recital
18 The Leaving You. 

A purgative surrender to nature’s whim driven by a clattering machine drumbeat and rolled in a puddle of filthy dirty fuzz, ‘Natural Successor’ is the riotous new single from isle of Eigg based Scottish psychedelic electronic-pop ogre Johnny Lynch AKA Pictish Trail.

Set for release on limited-edition 12” vinyl by Fire Records, with support from Johnny’s own label Lost Map Records, it’s the first taste of a set of brand-new Pictish recordings produced by longterm collaborater Rob Jones (The Voluntary Butler Scheme, The Gene Dudley Group).

The 12” single features exclusive remixes by Django Django and Makeness

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Always nice to hear from the driving force that is Johnny Lynch. "Natural Successor" is soaring psychedlic rock with stadium potential. Django Django jump on board with a baggy, ALFOS-friendly tweak too. Then Makeness twist things up with a frenzied jungle refix.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Natural Successor
A2. Natural Successor (Instrumental)
B1. Natural Successor (Django Django’s Fazed And Confused Mix)
B2. Natural Successor (Makeness Remix)

In 1994 Come responded to the difficult-second-album stereotype with the hypnotic, intense and emotional masterpiece ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’. Featuring the original line-up of Thalia Zedek, Chris Brokaw, Sean O’ Brien and Arthur Johnson, the Boston band broadened their sound by slowing down the tempos and creating a dense urban stream of consciousness that mixes noise, city blues and… catharsis. The album hits you immediately as one of the greatest dissident records ever made.

Lovingly remastered, this expanded edition includes 'Wrong Sides', an additional albums worth of b-sides and unreleased tracks, including the band's very first single 'Car' and their last recorded song, 'Cimarron', featuring this core line-up. These gems showcase the rawness and incredible growth of a band completely in command of their songwriting and at the same time paying homage to some of their punk roots with beautiful renditions of Swell Maps 'Loin Of The Surf' and X's 'Adult Books'. Also Includes new artwork with unearthed photos and fresh liner notes by the band.

Dissident from traditional rock this is a band playing music that thematically and structurally seems to pull from old Europa, from Eastern folk and modernist classical music as much as US and UK rock. Dissident from traditional ideas about singing and songwriting Thalia’s (ex of Live Skull) presence on songs like ‘Yr Reign’ and the astonishing closer ‘Arrive’ isn’t the pushy self-aggrandizement of a lead singer but the internal voice of the eternal migrant, someone who knows about survival, hiding, how living between multiple worlds can become its own refuge of distance, its own sanctuary of unbelonging Don’t Ask Don’t Tell emerged from a period of cohesion, a break from the tight and hectic touring schedule Come had been plunged into after the acclaim accorded 11:11, and you can hear that increased focus in every moment the layers of guitars and feedback are even more precise, the structuring of songs takes on a new openness and ambition, and the whole narrative arc of the record from ‘Finish Line’ to ‘Arrive’ is more exquisitely realised and sequenced.

TRACK LISTING

Don't Ask Don't Tell - Disc 1
A1 Finish Line
A2 Mercury Falls
A3 Yr Reign
A4 Poison
A5 Let's Get Lost
B1 String
B2 German Song
B3 In/Out
B4 Wrong Side
B5 Arrive

Wrong Sides - Disc 2
A1 Car
A2 Last Mistake
A3 Submerge
A4 Loin Of The Surf
A5 SVK
B1 German Song (Demo)
B2 Adult Books
B3 Who Jumped In My Grave
B4 Angelhead
B5 Cimarron

The final instalment to the trio of masterpieces from the legendary British rock group, The Groundhogs’ gets a reissue on black vinyl for the first time since 1991. Treading more progressive realms ‘Who Will Save The World’ sees Tony McPhee moving away from the blues territory of their earlier releases and towards a heavier more psychedelic sound. Achieving Top 10 album success back in 1972, ‘Who Will Save The World’ is the last record that features the classic line up of Tony McPhee, Pete Cruickshank and Ken Pustelnik.

A definitive collector’s item as part of the ongoing Fire Records catalogue campaign. This special reissue features the iconic artwork with sleeve notes and an interview with the original Marvel artist Neal Adams. Also includes a bonus download of an unreleased live recording from their final live show in Pocono, USA. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A

1 Earth Is Not Room Enough
2 Wages Of Peace
3 Body In Mind
4 Music Is The Food Of Thought.

Side B

1 Bog Roll Blues
2 Death Of The Sun
3 Amazing Grace
4 The Grey Maze.

Bonus Track Available As DL Only “Music Is The Food Of Thought” (Live At The Pocono Festival, Pennsylvania, 1972) 

‘Burning Your Light’ is a new six-track EP of covers from the remarkable Brigid Mae Power, it follows ‘Head Above the Water’ (2020) which saw her unique vocal style and music heralded in all corners. Power’s ability to interpret songs is unquestionable, as is her love of the art of songwriting. She skilfully brings joy from pain which is perfectly illustrated on this new EP.

Ranging from the brittle collapse of ‘Didn’t It Rain’ (Songs: Ohia) through to the slings and blows of Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Patsy Cline, she brings hope and reverence to these classic songs.

The EP features ‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ from the late great pioneer of alt-country Townes Van Zandt’s essential album ‘For The Sake Of The Song’ (1968), ‘One More Cup Of Coffee’ hails from Bob Dylan’s ‘Desire’, Aretha Franklin’s ‘It Ain’t Fair’ from her 1970 album ‘This Girl’s In Love With You’, Songs: Ohia’s ‘Didn’t It Rain’ to ‘Leavin’ On Your Mind’, a country standard by Patsy Cline from 1963, that’s now taken to new depths of despair.

Also reworked is ‘May Morning Dew’ an Irish ballad that allows Brigid’s voice to ululate in the best tradition of the genre; the traditional sound is brought into a new decade with its chilling ambience.

"A remarkable Irish singer emerges from filigree and shadow" Mojo.

“The magic is in the folk singer’s extraordinary voice” Sunday Times.

"A remarkable Irish singer emerges from filigree and shadow" Mojo.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Well, it's certainly a week for the cover versions isn't it? First Angel Olsen and now the folk stylings of Brigid Mae Power with her wonderful collection of folky covers of classics. It's Powers' voice that really tie together the songs here, filled with unrivalled emotion and brittle folky charm.

TRACK LISTING

A1. I’ll Be Here In The Morning
A2. One More Cup Of Coffee
A3. It Ain't Fair
B1. Didn't It Rain
B2. May Morning Dew
B3. Leavin' On Your Mind

Love Record Stores Edition available instore from 10am on Saturday September 4th, any remaining copies will be available on online from 9pm on the same day.
Limited to one per person.

‘Life Flows In Endless Song / The Body Is A Tide’ EP is released on vinyl for this year’s Love Record Stores on 4th September 2021.
Following the release of ‘The Weight Of The Sun’ LP, Modern Studies shift from light to dark over two new EPs brought together as six track 12-inch ‘Life Flows In Endless Song / The Body Is A Tide’, a record that further cements their reputation for innovative craftsmanship. ‘Life Flows In Endless Song’ showcases the band’s increasingly expansive sound, swelling with orchestrated drama behind the rich vocal pairing of Emily Scott and Rob St John, before their otherworldly dreaminess is pin-pricked at its height by Emily’s beautiful alto on ‘The Failing Light’. ‘The Body Is A Tide’ hails from ominous darker terrains, scratching further into their own psyche; it’s heady and baroque, ornate and super-detailed, an opus that climaxes with ‘High Hymn Summers’ and its slowly-rolling drone, created by processing all the songs from ‘The Weight of the Sun’ played at once. "The EP nods at the idea of our collective bodies weathering rough times, played out with massed strings, prepared guitars, slow bass grooves, hypnotic drums, wobbling saw, xaphoon and mellotron. We shook off our usual song structures in favour of something repetitive, slow and heavy; life flows in endless song." 

From the turn of the millennium, ‘Pennsylvania’ was the eleventh studio album from this uncompromising and influential group, presenting their dark take on pop music. This edition is newly remixed by David Thomas in 2021 and reissued on Fire Records. “Everyone talked about our artiness and our unlikeableness, people completely ignored for decades me saying, ‘We’re a pop band’.” David Thomas. With ‘Pennsylvania,’ Pere Ubu welcome you to a barely recognisable secret country drawn out of its own spectral geography... This is much more than just music.

“[Pere Ubu] were still creating great works of abstract art, pushing the limits of rock ‘n’ roll to twist into avant-garde explorations of the darkest recesses of the human mind” Classic Rock // “From the beginning they obviously understood the nuts and bolts of popular music, and then loosened them.” Mojo

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Woolie Bullie
A2 Highwaterville
A3 SAD.TXT
A4 Urban Lifestyle
A5 Silent Spring
A6 Mr Wheeler
A7 Muddy Waters

Side B
B1 Drive
B2 Indiangiver
B3 Monday Morning
B4 Perfume
B5 Fly's Eye
B6 Wheelhouse

Pere Ubu's darkest and most dramatic statement, ‘St Arkansas’ remains a work of offhand brilliance by a band who often seem capable of miracles. This edition is newly remixed by David Thomas in 2021 and reissued on Fire Records. Following ‘Pennsylvania’, ‘St Arkansas’ (2002) was Pere Ubu’s next studio album featuring a travelogue of characters encountered on the Mighty Road from Conway Arkansas to Tupelo Mississippi, I-40 to US 49 to State 6. “I drove the route and wrote down what the Road was telling me.” David Thomas. Pere Ubu are the mainstream.

“Immediate, energised and claustrophobic.. It's difficult to think of a more important band.” Mojo.

“Straddling the extremes of pure, uncompromising modern art and pure, uncompromising loud rock.” The Sunday Times.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 The Feverered Dream Of Hernando DeSoto
A2 Slow Walking Daddy
A3 Michele
A4 333
A5 Hell

Side B
B1 Phone Home Jonah
B2 Lisbon
B3 Mr Steve
B4 Where's The Truth
B5 Dark

Tenth anniversary reissue of Josephine Foster’s lauded ninth album ‘Blood Rushing’. The North American Colorado based singer-songwriter has lent her warbling mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to nearly two decades of self-produced recordings. Foster’s songs are rooted in early American folk-blues as well as classical art song and Tin Pan Alley. A rock-ballet chanté, the music is set to a Pueblo drum's metapulsing Pan-American heartbeat. Recorded in Colorado by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes) with the collaboration of her partner Spanish guitarist Victor Herrero, and musicians Paz Lenchantin (The Entrance Band), Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Ben Trimble (Fly Golden Eagle). A story within a story, ‘Blood Rushing’ is a glimpse into the world of Blushing, a heteronym of the artist Josephine Foster. “North American folk linage from Jean Ritchie and Hedy West through to the present, via the chugging, churning electronic (folk) rock of The Velvet Underground, all the time infused with a joyous communal warmth.”

TRACK LISTING

A1 Waterfall
A2 Panorama Wide
A3 Sacred Is The Star
A4 Child Of God

B1 Blood Rushing
B2 The Wave Of Love
B3 O Stars
B4 Geyser
B5 Underwater Daughter
B6 Words Come Loose

An exploration of repression, longing and ‘otherness’ amidst illusory landscapes, ‘Rain’s Break’ EP is inspired by the early technicolour films of Powell and Pressburger. Lucy Gooch uses synthesisers and vocal layering to concentrate elements of each film’s score and narrative into songs which move through different moods of yearning and renewal:
“I first experienced their strange cinematic worlds in childhood, and they stayed with me, like waking dreams – their vibrancy seemed to capture the hidden emotional lives of everyday people. The films’ fantastical sets were often met with the complexities of the inner female experience, as portrayed by each heroine. People wrestling with post-war isolation, changing attitudes to women and sexual repression alongside their struggle to establish equality and autonomy of their own lives.”

So, it is amidst 1940’s austerity that these films were an escape, an over-rich backdrop of possibilities. A snatched piece of dialogue, the film’s score, the crackle of uncertainty all succumbs to the layered ambience of Lucy’s music as she traces moods of yearning and renewal on ‘Rain’s Break’ EP.

Originally from Norfolk, Lucy studied Fine Art and later moved to Bristol to join the emerging ambient scene there - gradually developing her writing and finally releasing her debut ‘Rushing’ EP in early 2020. Over the past year, she’s dipped into a wealth of long gone celluloid as the basis for a filmic journey, a five song EP that relives formative movies in her unique take on ecclesiastical pop.

‘Ash and Orange’ emerged after listening to old recordings of women’s choirs from the 1930’s, their stoic sopranos circling churches and halls. In two parts, it touches on an everyday person’s hidden life that leads to an emotional breaking-down. A change from Lucy’s trademarked looping style it takes its inspiration from choral composition.

‘Chained To A Woman’ by contrast, is more playful, nodding to ‘80s synth pop, a homage to some degree to Blue Nile, pop music tinged with melancholy.

“I sought to stick to that tradition of talk-singing the verses, and it seemed to fit in with the feeling of the song, which is more ambiguous. I wanted the words to be about being devoted to something, like family, a person or religion and all the things that come with that kind of devotion.”

Inspired by the monsoon scene at the end of Black Narcissus (1947), the title track ‘Rain’s Break’ takes its lead from the weather to reflect an emotional journey.

“That amazing tradition in early film of using weather to reflect the character’s emotional journey - it seems cliched now but at the time it was revolutionary. This is my attempt at trying to recreate the feeling of total surrender to drama, of something totally sensual.”

This is music that takes you places, shifts focus, paints large canvases.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There are all sorts of musical touchstones flying out of the player for this one. It's essentially widescreen ambient music but with a focus on the walls of echo and reverb-effected synths more akin to shoegaze. Slowly building into crescentic waves of layered tones, brilliantly warm but undeniably massive.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Rain's Break
2 It Brings Me Back To You
3 Chained To A Woman

Side B
4 6AM
5 Ash And Orange

“Treacy is the outsider's outsider, committed to a raw honesty, constantly bearing witness to his own suffering, his own weakness and fallibility.” The Quietus // A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the Peel-approved ‘14th Floor’ through to the effervescent ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’ EP. Includes the super rare Creation flexi, the TVPs as The Gifted Children, and the even rarer Caff 45 where the band tackle Stock, Aitken And Waterman.Purists will also find two shelved 45s for the Dreamworld label plus their take on Syd Barrett’s ‘Apples And Oranges’ from the ‘Beyond The Wildwood’ tribute album. Features the seminal ‘Where’s Bill Grundy Now’ and the self-effacing ‘Part Time Punks’ alongside a host of pop culture-bating gems. A celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy

TRACK LISTING

Side One

01 - 14th Floor
02 - Oxford St., W.1
03 - Part Time Punks
04 - Where's Bill Grundy Now?
05 - Happy Families
06 - Posing At The Roundhouse
07 - The Prettiest Girl In The World
08 - If That's What Love Is

Side Two

01 - Smashing Time
02 - King And Country
03 - I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives
04 - Arthur The Gardener
05 - Three Wishes
06 - Geoffrey Ingram
07 - And Don't The Kids Just Love It!

Side Three

01 - A Sense Of Belonging
02 - Paradise Estate
03 - How I Learned To Love The Bomb
04 - Then God Snaps His Fingers
05 - Now You're Just Being Ridiculous

Side Four

01 - She's Only The Grocer's Daughter
02 - A Girl Called Charity
03 - Salvador Dali's Garden Party
04 - The Room At The Top Of The Stairs
05 - This Time There's No Happy Ending
06 - Part One: Fulfilling The Contractual Obligations

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 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 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

1500 pressed on Creamy White vinyl & DL card. First time on vinyl since 1998 for this magnificent patchwork collage of the Giant Sand main manís eclectic muses; a cut and paste gem, meandering, melancholy and beautiful. Classic solo album from Giant Sand's main man Howe Gelb circa 1998, re-issued with new liner notes and remastered on cream vinyl. A catch-all collection from the much-travelled troubadour that brings together a wealth of personal recordings edited into an intriguing ponder wander through the manís thinking.

A truly intoxicating set of songs buoyed by Howe Gelb's prosaic prose and effortless use of the mind-bending one-liner. ìíHisserí is the vision of a truly unique and engaging talent, and in its pure heart and soul lies a masterpiece.
College Music Journal // Pure genius and usually chaotic, Howe Gelb is a cottage industry often labelled the Godfather of alternative country. BOMB magazine // There are wonderful glimpses of what Gelb is capable of when heís not rushing off to dabble with the next nugget in a seemingly inexhaustible flow of ideas. The Line Of Best Fit // One of those albums that could have a semi-permanent spot next to the hi-fi for late-night playing. The Independent 

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Temptation Of Egg 2 4 Door Maverick 3 This Purple Child 4 Shy Of Bumfuck 5 Propulsion 6 Catapult 7 Creeper.
Side B. 8 Tanks Rolling Into Town 9 Halifax In A Hurricane 10 Living On A Waterfall 11 Like A Store Front Display 12 Explore You 13 Nico's Lil Opera 14 Thereminender 15 Hisser 16 Intro Speck 17 Soldier Of Fortune 18 Lull 19 Short Way To End The Day

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2021 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY JUNE 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 6PM ON THE SAME DAY (SATURDAY JUNE 12TH).

1000 copies pressed on Yellow vinyl & DL card. Fist time on vinyl. All-enveloping superbly alternative third take on 1988's Charmed Life album featuring previously unissued versions and a half dozen previously unreleased songs. Includes brand new liner notes and an interview with Jad and David Fair.

TRACK LISTING

Side A. 1 Said And Done (Alternate Version) 2 Evidence (Alternate Version) 3 Vietnam (Alternate Version) 4 Love At First Sight (Alternate Version) 5 Snake Line (Alternate Version) 6 Fun For All 7 Face Rake (Alternate Version) 8 Later In A Magazine (Alternate Version) 9 Red Dress (Alternate Version) 10 Charmed Life (Alternate Version 1).
Side B. 1 Day And Night With Angie 2 Madonna Nude (Alternate Version) 3 Ashes On The Ground 4 T For Texas 5 I'll Change My Style (Alternate Version) 6 Fortunate (Alternate Version) 7 Please Crawl Out Your Window 8 30 Seconds In Heaven 9 Charmed Life (Alternate Version 2)

Marina Allen glides on angelic highs, surfing the husky deep; she is one of the great new voices of her generation. Writing songs that carry notes from other realms; these are kitchen table tales about love and fear, the capturing of the wild heart, sketching the breaking of dawn, bringing real life back to life. Every song on stunning debut album ‘Candlepower’ is a tick box of influences, asides, inspirations, quickfire theories, storylines and melodic progressions that galvanise a chemical reaction for each dramatic scene that unfolds on this genre-traversing seven song epic.

One listen to opening track ‘Oh, Louise’ underlines the range of Marina’s talent, it’s a filmic play on words, with an arrangement that’s like a Kate Bush dream sequence. It’s the perfect foil for the plaintive strum of ‘Sleeper Train’, a haunting, folky paean fit for Judee Sill brought up to date with some echoey electric guitar; or the conversational ‘Believer’; with a nod to Joni Mitchell in the lyrics it sounds every bit like Simon And Garfunkel at their Big Apple best listening to the ‘7 O’Clock News’ re-imagined on Sunset. The stuff of legend for a voice that surfs many musical tangents, hovers, and persists, that stings with honesty; morphing from Karen Carpenter’s gentle reverence to Laura Nyro’s soulful grit, moving through the phases like some possessed Dada performance artist before throwing in a melody from Joni at her jazziest or from the close harmonies of the lamented Roches when they flipped out with Robert Fripp. ‘Candlepower’ is a juxtaposition of melodies, an achingly beautiful set of songs set against the clank of the mundane world, a beguiling commentary on the everyday and everywhere. It’s all here, in under 20 minutes… every second counts.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Oh, Louise
A2 Original Goodness
A3 Belong Here
A4 Sleeper Tran
B1 Believer
B2 Ophelia
B3 Reunion

New studio album from the Dunedin (NZ) songsmiths helmed by the enigmatic Martin Phillipps with artwork by Trees’ David Costa. Dunedin’s finest, The Chills release their seventh studio album ‘Scatterbrain’, a glorious self-examination of Martin Phillipps’ songwriting hot (ish) on the heels of the hugely successful ‘Snowbound’ (2018) and the critically-acclaimed movie ‘The Chills: The Triumph And Tragedy Of Martin Phillipps’ a year later. “It’s about artistic integrity, self-realisation, self-acceptance and a reflection on mortality.” The Guardian Now in 2021, Phillipps is now taking stock of things – everything. Yes, everything.

The result is this triumphant new Chills’ album ‘Scatterbrain’, a thought-provoking and evocative take from a man who has lived through good times and bad. A mature and honest reflection on life, destiny and the fate of our times delivered in beautiful melodies with Phillipps’ trademarked incisive turn of phrase. Viewed from the perspective of a man understanding his age and indeed his own mortality, the new album takes a mature look at matters arising with a side order of perspective. ‘Scatterbrain’ is a life passing before your ears as uncertainty increases and fake news rumbles on; during which aliens invade, Phillipps scales the walls beyond abandon as he probes the minutiae of worlds within worlds and the hourglass fills. A landmark album from one of the great modern song writers, it’s pure pop music for the new normal and we can’t wait to see how it ends…

TRACK LISTING

Side A

A1 Monolith
A2 Hourglass
A3 Destiny
A4 Caught In My Eye
A5 You're Immortal

Side B

B1 Little Alien
B2 Safe And Sound
B3 Worlds Within Worlds
B4 Scatterbrain
B5 The Walls Beyond Abandon

All formats come with a free Piccadilly Records EOY Sampler CD whilst stocks last.

One of the North-West’s finest exponents of otherworldly pop has landed back on earth with an album of shimmering space age bliss. Elements of disco, new wave and krautrock are undoubtedly present in Flock, but Jane never relies on genre tropes to carry her work. Instead, she harnesses familiar rhythmic devices and choices of instrumentation in her own distinctive way. And while comparisons could be drawn between Jane and contemporaries like Vanishing Twin and Gwenno, she has undeniably staked out her own domain within the realm of off-kilter synth pop.

Throughout Flock Jane demonstrates her delicate vocal agility over a series of hypnotic loops and clever synthesis. The lazy disco strut of “The Revolution Of Super Visions” sets up a jangling interplay between Jane’s sweetly sung declamations, new wave style guitar interjections and Cowley-esque synth squelch. While “Modern Reputation” is propelled forwards by a Broadcast style motorik rhythm with electronics whirring in the background and mantra-like vocal loops swirling in a strange ecstasy.

In the title track Jane’s gauzy vocals reverberate over the ebb and flow of a loose knit groove, while in “Sunset Dreams” ornate guitar riffs weave in amongst a haze of twinkling chimes and fizzing sawtooth synthesis. The album culminates in a moment of escapist pop euphoria with final track “Solarised”, laden with cascading arps and irresistible vocal hooks. Once again Jane has succeeded in creating something playful, fresh and unpretentious which is in equal parts a fun and intelligent listen. All hail the cosmic synth queen! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This new outing from Jane Weaver sees Jane and co skirting the outer reaches of Disco, Synth-pop and ambient to stunning effect, rich with hooks but unmeasurably deep, it's one that will reveal more and more with each listen. Unsurprisingly superb.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Heartlow
A2 The Revolution Of Super Visions
A3 Stages Of Phases
A4 Lux
A5 Modern Reputation
Side B
B1 Flock
B2 Sunset Dreams
B3 All The Things You Do
B4 Pyramid Schemes
B5 Solarised

One of the year's most daring and true pop records, private LIFE comes as the result of Virginia Wing living through, and with, huge personal emotional and mental traumas. It is a document of how the very process of music creation in a group can be of huge therapeutic benefit to people. The three members of Virginia Wing have explored the depths of their creative and artistic inspirations within performance, production and composition, and have made a candid and brash pop record that speaks clearly about hope, desperation, impulse, addiction, urge and shame.

More tumultuous than its predecessor, private LIFE knocks hard. The evolution of Virginia Wing’s sound continues to build on the broad creative flow of the last album whilst being another audacious contribution to contemporary pop. The drums are huge and playfully unquantized. Edits are both assured and heavy handed, the instrumentation lightly mediates the two and finds itself on the edge of collapse alongside them. The icy facade of Merida Richards’ words are still front and centre, but are contrasted by dense, multilayered improvisations, vying for attention throughout the record. Over ‘I’m Holding Out For Something’s relentless juggernaut of 90’s R’n’B beats, Richards examines the relentless hope and desperation glued to modern consciousness, and speaks of how we often find the answer, or the route through, right at the breaking point. Subsequently, ‘St Francis Fountain’ compounds the issue, observing that often our own coping mechanisms can grow into full blown traumas of their own. Virginia Wing’s last record opened its arms into euphoric light, private LIFE invites you through a door and closes it. It examines what we’re doing at night, on our own, after work. What we do to enjoy ourselves, to cope, to be together, to be alone. It shines a dim blue light on what might be happening, causing us anxiety, stress and desire.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Virginia wing bring another nuanced slab of moody synth-indie, with 'Private Life' displaying all of the superb songwriting prowess which made 2018's 'Ecstatic Arrow' such a heavy hitter, but with a more world-weary experience and depth of feeling. Superb stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 I’m Holding Out For Something
A2 Moon Turn Tides
A3 Soft Fruit
A4 Michael Returns To The Garden
A5 99 North
A6 Return To View

Side B
B1 St. Francis Fountain
B2 Private Life
B3 Half Mourning
B4 Lucky Coin
B5 OBW Saints
B6 I Know About These Things

Brigid Mae Power paints expansive songs that are effortless, hypnotic and folk-oriented like Judee Sill, Bill Callahan and Sharon Van Etten.

The third album from the celebrated singer/songwriter, ‘Head Above The Water’ is a coming of age opus featuring a ground-breaking amalgamation of traditional folk and country - an engaging blend of strings, bouzouki, piano and Power’s distinctive vocal make this an achingly beautiful body of work.

Recorded in analogue studio The Green Door in Glasgow with Alasdair Roberts co-producing alongside Brigid and Peter Broderick. It’s a continuing tale of everyday survival; more diverse, different, a bigger canvas, with broader brushstrokes…

Country and traditional folk rub shoulders, making for a juxtaposition of threads, with added instrumentation from five musicians lured into the studio to provide larger dynamics.

“Power meditates on the dichotomy that’s always existed in her work, melding atmospheric bliss and stark desperation.” Pitchfork.

“Power invokes the elements, either in contrast to internal weather or in sympathy with it.” The Guardian.

“Haunting and haunted” (The Line Of Best Fit), ‘Head Above The Water’ continues in that vein becoming more ethereal, more personal and even more alluring.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 On A City Night
A2 Wearing Red That Eve
A3 Wedding Of A Friend
A4 Not Yours To Own
A5 I Was Named After You

Side B
B6 We Weren't Sure
B7 You Have A Quiet Power
B8 I Had To Keep My Circle Small
B9 The Blacksmith
B10 Head Above The Water

The third album from Dutch punk-laced noiseniks adds new maturity and a conceptual feel that pulls the extremes of their sound together. A psychefuelled journey into the id punctuated with rhythmic kabuki modal mood swings, thunderstorms, digital beeps, traffic noise, and just plain old beautiful cacophonous reverb-drenched sound when needed.

The ‘third chapter’ refers to the last five years that the Dutch band have spent creating their “difficult” third album. Each song spins a yarn; there are plagues, dreams, wind and fire, ‘mythical’ characters, and the search for the secret government warehouse. Lead single, Tokyo Music Experience, resonates with a conveyor belt-propelled modal guitar, reflecting the halcyon days of Japanese super-productivity; a mesmerising mantra, infected with news bulletin on-thehour bleeps underlining its time-sensitive nature; a pristine super-commercial anthem to drive loyalty and reinforce solidarity with the party!

Having been described as creating “underground noise with a bracing, warped pop appeal” (Mojo), their new album is a coming-of-age post-classic with a unique worldview - inspired by Van Dyke Parks (Song Cycle) Scott Walker (3 & 4), Moondog (Elpmas), White Noise (An Electric Storm) and Beach Boys (Smile).

If their previous effort (Tape Hiss) was their very own sketch of a sketch for an incomplete concept album, a noisy reaction to their previous life, then ‘Excerpts From Chapter 3..’, with all its interlaced intricacies, is the realisation of their transition from punk-spiked-pop to psyche-pop protagonists. Evolving, testing, infectious...

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This wild and superb outing from Rats On Rafts shows that the bands playful spirit and whimsical melodies don't have to give way when things get serious. A brilliantly deep and eminently enjoyable third outing.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Prologue: Rain
2 A Trail Of Wind And Fire
3 Second Born Child
4 Tokyo Music Experience
5 The Rise And Fall Of The Plague
6 Another Year

Side B
7 Fragments
8 The Disappearance Of Dr. Duplicate
9 Excerpt Taken From Chapter 3
10 Where Is My Dream?
11 Part One: The Long Drought
12 Part Two: Crossing The Desert
13 Epilogue: Big Poisonous Shadows

Bonus Dinked Edition 7":
1. Tokyo Music Experience (Single Edit)
2. Osaka

Half Japanese return with another thrilling ride into unknown charters encountering beasts, celebrities, and menaces.

Purveyors of noise and indie rock for over four decades, Half Japanese have inspired generations of fans from musicians and critics alike.

Now set to release their 19th studio album ‘Crazy Hearts’ continues with their detuned, outsider pop capturing you in the way that only Jad Fair ever can.

A philosophical psych-tinged journey, these whip-smart observations are uplifting with life-affirming sentiments (‘Wondrous Wonder’) that we are familiar with. They meld melodic classic rock riffs with heavier bass lines and darker, more twisted tones on ‘My Celebrity’ and ‘A Phantom Menace’.
Their last excursion saw Uncut praising them for their “unchanged, more ecstatic musings on love and science fiction” that continues to resonate here.

Half Japanese deliver another well-wrought album with their usual DIY ethos and art punk spirit at its core (‘Undisputed Champions’), all whilst wearing Jad’s heart firmly on its sleeve (‘Crazy Hearts’).
Recorded across various studios in Spain, France and the US, Jad Fair is accompanied by his longstanding band members John Sluggett, Giles Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett. Mastered by Brian Pyle and mixed by Jason Willett of the band. Album includes artwork from American illustrator and cartoonist, Gary Panter and David Fair.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Beast Master
2. Wondrous Wonder
3. Dark World
4. And It Is
5. My Celebrity
6. Late At Night
7. Undisputed Champions
8. Crazy Hearts
9. As Best You Can
10. A Phantom Menace
11. A Job Well Done
12. Let It Show

‘Sun Racket’ is the brand new album from legendary Boston trio Throwing Muses, consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. The follow up to 2013’s ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristin Hersh’s well-thumbed notebook of storylines. A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that’s at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos. When Throwing Muses wrote their last album, they were shattered. Pieces were coming and going, elements repeating and charging the whole. “It sounded beautiful jumping around like that”. Two-minute songs reappearing as twisted instrumentals or another song’s bridge. They mimicked the effect live which kept them on their toes. Whatever was happening was already over in other words. ‘Sun Racket’ is the opposite. It refused to do anything but sit still. It says, “sit here and deal”. “All it asked of us was to comingle two completely disparate sonic vocabularies: one heavy noise, the other delicate music box. Turns out we didn’t have to do much. Sun Racket knew what it was doing and pushed us aside, which is always best. After thirty years of playing together, we trust each other implicitly but we trust the music more” - Kristin Hersh And so, they continue. Business unusual.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Dark Blue
2. Bywater
3. Maria Laguna
4. Bo Diddley Bridge
5. Milk At Mcdonald’s

Side B
6. Upstairs Dan
7. St Charles
8. Frosting
9. Kay Catherine
10. Sue's

Brand new album from Colorado’s freewheelin’ melodist Josephine Foster.

Revolving between her adopted Spain and her native American West, Josephine was stationed this spring in Nashville with maverick guitarist and comrade-in-arms Matthew Schneider. The result: ‘No Harm Done’, a spacious and enveloping love letter of an album.

Eight new slow-burning songs branch forth from idiosyncratic country folk blues, sung with sibylline wit and a hint of the absurd, awash in sensually anachronic lyricism.

“The Wheel of Fortune”, nearly a title track by virtue of its refrain: 'No harm will come/if there's no harm done', are words of a homebound wanderer finding refuge in healing stillness with her beloved, having 'time to kill' in the midst of 'hard times to feel at home'. All delivered with calm sagacity upon the pedestal of Mr. Schneider's pedal steel and underscored by a knowing trebled chorus in Foster's lower register. Going nowhere never felt like so righteous of a destination before.

Devotion in all its permutations, spiritual to carnal, are seamlessly explored.

In 'Conjugal Bliss', overtones of the 12-string and autoharp gently interplay, sounding like some unearthed Carter family wedding hymn (it bears the subversive subtitle '69' ) while 'How come, Honeycomb?' bounces low in the hips like a sultry old music hall number à la Harry Nilsson. The obliquely sapphic 'Leonine', it's unquiet harp scaling right out of ancient Lesbos, dreams of a kingless land; in 'Sure Am Devilish', a stargazer humbly confesses to a lowercase lord. 'Old Saw', the mesmeric album closer, is a medium's petition to cross the threshold and merge with the holy spirit.

Josephine's enigmatic voice captured once more by frequent co-producer Andrija Tokic in his analog Bomb Shelter studio, where layers of her guitar, piano, organ entwine with Schneider's 12-string, pedal steel and electric bass to rouse a spectral yet full blooded band. The ensuing cycle of songs pulse and glow within the ruins and deep fundamental roots of American song.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Freemason Drag
2 The Wheel Of Fortune
3 Conjugal Bliss
4 Love Letter

Side B
5 Sure Am Devilish
6 Leonine
7 How Come, Honeycomb?
8 Old Saw

Pulp’s 1992 album ‘Separations’ is part of the Fire Embers reissue series with unreleased bonus material. Their third and last album on Fire, Pulp had already transformed from their debut ‘It’ through the dark electronic phase of Freaks and were garnering significant momentum. Now critically acclaimed and with a live reputation matched by only a few, most of the songs on Separations sound fully-realised in that undeniably Pulp manner that was soon to be experienced everywhere. And, for the first time, there was an inescapable disco pulse. This is the transition album where Pulp, caught between a doomed romantic outsider past and an acid-bright future, made an album that brilliantly reflects both. Remastered and repackaged. Liner notes by Everett True. Featuring 4 bonus tracks ‘Death Goes To The Disco’ and ‘Is This House’, as well as an extended version of the single ‘Countdown’ and the previously unreleased ‘Death Comes To Town’. Separations spawned two of Pulps most successful singles to date in ‘Countdown and ‘My Legendary Girlfriend’ with the latter being placed on many top singles of 1991 lists by major music publications. Pulp’s ‘It’ and ‘Freaks’ will be reissued at the same time for the complete Pulp on Fire collection. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Love Is Blind
2. Don't You Want Me Anymore?
3. She's Dead
4. Separations
5. Down By The River
6. Countdown
7. My Legendary Girlfriend
8. Death II
9. This House Is Condemned
10. Death Goes To The Disco (BONUS)
11. Is This House? (BONUS)
12. Countdown (BONUS Extended Version)
13. Death Comes To Town (Bonus)

The sixth album by Bardo Pond, a critically revered space rock masterpiece, lovingly reissued on double purple vinyl for the first time since 2003.

TRACK LISTING

Jd
Every Man
Dom’s Lament
Walking Clouds
Test
Night Of Frog

Recorded in Gold Dust Studios with a new sense of optimism and a fuller sound down to lots of extra energy (Nick believed it might be their last ever record) and the addition of piano and keyboards brings an instrumental direction.

Released on double LP with gate-fold sleeve for Record Store Day.

Originally released in 2002, two years after Valedictory Songs, The Bevis Frond returned with a more progressive sound with complex structures and instrumentation.Bursting with their trademark guitar licks, impeccable songwriting and a more upbeat sound.

Out on double LP with gatefold sleeve for Record Store Day.

Ltd edition BOOKBACK CD companion to the Deluxe vinyl reissue of The Lemonheads ‘Lovey’ for Record Store Day 2020, housed in a bookback sleeve with expanded liner notes and unseen photos – this is the definitive document of Dando’s first steps towards the mainstream. The lovingly repackaged CD is accompanied by a second disc, ‘Triple J Live at the Wireless’, an unearthed radio session taken from their 1991 trip to Australia.

The major label debut for Evan Dando’s Lemonheads from 1990, following three “ramshackle punk” (©Select magazine) albums for Taang! Pivoted on a more approachable set of sweet melodies still rife with punky spirit. A light and dark album, polished in the arrangements, nodding to the excess of American culture (Manson and Gummi Bears), hectoring Reagan’s drug laws (‘Lil’ Seed’), riffing on everyday life.

Remastered with a freshly-dusted off second album featuring a full radio session recorded during their trip to Australia to promote the album and their gorgeous cover of Gram Parsons’ ‘Brass Buttons’.

“Like Hüsker Dü when they were at their most ferocious or REM when they were at their most Byrdsian hypnotic.” NME

TRACK LISTING

Disc One
The Lemonheads - Lovey
1 Ballarat
2 Half The Time
3 Year Of The Cat
4 Ride With Me
5 Lil Seed
6 Stove
7 Come Downstairs
8 Left For Dead
9 Brass Buttons
10 (The) Door
11 Untitled

Disc Two
The Lemonheads - Live At The Wireless
1 Come Back D.A.
2 Stove
3 A Song For You
4 Come Downstairs
5 Nighttime (Big Star Cover)
6 Year Of The Cat
7 Ride With Me
8 Die Right Now

Back in the 80s Dons Savage of Dead Famous People joined her first band Freudian Slips which soon ended so she along with fellow Freudian Slip refugee Biddy Leyland could pursue their own talents. A chance encounter with Flying Nun's spiritual guru, Chris Knox, led to a one-off deal with the label that resulted in a five-song EP, ‘Lost Persons Area’. Moving to London in 1986 the fabled "Flying Nun sound" began making an impact outside New Zealand. The release of near-perfect compilations by The Clean and The Chills except Dead Famous People were a little early for that buzz. Stumbling into a deal with Utility Records, Billy Bragg and legendary manager Pete Jenner. Dons later started singing with new combo, Saint Etienne, her vocals feature on the original version of their cover version hit, ‘Kiss And Make Up’, as well as a cover of Gil Scott-Heron's ‘Winter In America’. Around this same time, Martin Phillipps of The Chills asked Dons requested she sing on ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’. Dons soon returned home to Auckland without an outlet for her music, three decades later Fire tracked her down and the rest is history. Now set to release her new album ‘Harry’, it’s more philosophical than her earlier work. It feels like the right one for a world of apocalyptic pandemic, uncertainty and quarantine. Dons' power over melody and knack for profundity remains unchanged since Dead Famous People's original incarnation. A rare record in a time of musical factionalism and a world divided into camps of willful obscurity and grotesque mockeries of stardom and art, it’s a document of unadorned perfection.

"Bob bought a DFP single which we both really liked, we were drawn to the mystery of the band's name and the melancholy tone of Dons' voice." Pete Wiggs - Saint Etienne.

“There was a sense of excitement that something special was happening." Martin Phillipps – The Chills.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Looking At Girls
A2 Goddess Of Chill
A3 Safe And Sound
A4 Turn On The Light
A5 Dead Birds Eye

Side B
B6 Groovy Girl
B7 The Great Unknown
B8 Dog
B9 To Be Divine
B10 Harry

Part of Fire’s ongoing series of re-imagined soundtracks. Following on from Fenella, Jane Weaver’s score for Marcell Jankovics’ ‘Feherlofia’, and Death and Vanilla’s reworking of ‘The Tenant’ and ‘Vampyr’. A specially recorded soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary Ripper-based drama by multi-award-winning composer Graham Reynolds (Where Do You Go, Bernadette/A Scanner Darkly). ‘The Lodger’ – based on Marie Belloc Lowndes’ 1913 novel with a nod to the infamous Jack The Ripper case – set many hearts racing when visiting the East End of London and an unexpected fog descended.

The drama was afoot, and the tension has been further escalated with a re-imagined score by multi award-winning composer, bandleader, and innovative improvisor, Graham Reynolds. This tale of murder and suspense set on the streets of terrorised London is eerily completed as Reynolds’ sweeps from light to dark; it’s playful in places, haunting, a tease – like Hitchcock at his best. Nowhere is safe, even the seemingly innocuous ‘Police Station’ which is accompanied by a brooding piece of maniacal piano that underpins a gloriously evocative theme; a haunting and suggestive muse that stutters with tension. It’s another Reynolds’ master stroke on the heels of his score for Richard Linklater’s ‘Where Do You Go, Bernadette’, his work on Ballet Austin’s ‘Grimm Tales’ and his contribution to ‘The Sound Of Science’, a multimedia collaboration with Kronos Quartet’s former cellist Jeffery Zeigler.

TRACK LISTING

Side A

A1 - The Lodger
A2 - When He Sits At The Table
A3 - Golden Curls
A4 - Tempting Providence
A5 - You Will Not Rest

Side B

B1 - The Satchel
B2 - Keep Your Handcuffs Hidden
B3 - Police Station
B4 - A Kiss On The Hand
B5 - The Chase

Artist, illustrator, writer and lo-fi innovator, Tobin Sprout was the super-productive partner of Robert Pollard in the legendary Guided By Voices. The gifted songwriter returns with a pensive, expansive part autobiographical new album ‘Empty Horses’. Here he’s part Townes Van Zandt, part John Prine, part Robbie Robertson at his retrospective best.

The album is a meticulously observed study of America and Americana (not the music, but the state of mind). An alternative American Songbook, if you will, a collection of laments to simpler times and the struggle for what’s right, peppered with an examination of faith and the search for a sense of justice. Close up and personal, ‘Empty Horses’ is a poignant carefully etched experience, a rolling journey in modern times, nodding back to tradition, a personal snapshot filled with honesty.

‘Empty Horses’ is released on vinyl LP and also a deluxe bookback CD, beautifully packed with 24 pages of paintings and lyrics by Tobin Sprout, a true collectors piece for fans of Tobin’s music and art.

“The perfect aural encapsulation of melancholy: in turns somnambulant, romantic and all-consuming” Rolling Stone.



“Raw, honest and often revelatory” Consequence Of Sound

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Wings Prelude
2 The Return
3 Breaking Down
4 On Golden Rivers
5 The Man I Used To Know

Side B
6 Every Sweet Soul
7 Empty Horses
8 Antietam
9 All In My Sleep
10 No Shame

‘Sun Racket’ is the brand new album from legendary Boston trio Throwing Muses, consisting of Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo and Bernard Georges. The follow up to 2013’s ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ is an outpouring of modal guitars, reverbed shapes, echoey drums and driving bass set behind Kristen Hersh’s well-thumbed notebook of storylines. A ten-song opus of suitably wrought tales set against a wall of sound that’s at once calm and ethereal before building into glorious cacophonous crescendos. When Throwing Muses wrote their last album, they were shattered. Pieces were coming and going, elements repeating and charging the whole. “It sounded beautiful jumping around like that”.

Two-minute songs reappearing as twisted instrumentals or another song’s bridge. They mimicked the effect live which kept them on their toes. Whatever was happening was already over in other words. ‘Sun Racket’ is the opposite. It refused to do anything but sit still. It says, “sit here and deal”. “All it asked of us was to comingle two completely disparate sonic vocabularies: one heavy noise, the other delicate music box. Turns out we didn’t have to do much. Sun Racket knew what it was doing and pushed us aside, which is always best. After thirty years of playing together, we trust each other implicitly but we trust the music more” - Kristin Hersh And so, they continue. Business unusual.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Throwing Muses bring us their newest selection of gritty, fuzzed-out rock and / or roll, classic rock tinged melodies and deep, bluesy grooves. It's an intoxicating and exciting mix, and one that hasn't tempered any over time.

TRACK LISTING

1 Dark Blue
2 Bywater
3 Maria Laguna
4 Bo Diddley Bridge
5 Milk At Mcdonald’s
6 Upstairs Dan
7 St Charles
8 Frosting
9 Kay Catherine
10 Sue's

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AS PART OF THE AUGUST 29TH DROP DAY AT 6PM.
LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Black Vinyl.Essential reissue of Josephine Foster's crucially revered classic 'This Coming Gladness' ñ for the first time on vinyl since 2008.Comes with brand new artwork and housed in a reverse board sleeve with a download card.

A Deluxe remastered edition of Giant Sand’s 1991 album ‘Ramp’ with a second disc featuring the Mad Dog sessions from earlier that same year. “Convertino's brush-work and Burns' upright bass provide the perfect foundation for Gelb's parched voice and chaotic guitar, and guests include Rainer, Victoria Williams and country veteran Pappy Allen. It’s one of Giant Sand's strongest and most complete albums.” The Quietus // Featuring piano lounge music for an off-world colony interrupted by an onslaught of guitar when needed, it’s light and dark and the better for it, a musical journey on a road less travelled. With Gelb’s lyrical invention to the fore: “His thoughts unfold in long, rolling sentences that don't always follow conventional rules of grammar or syntax.” The Quietus // The Tucson sound at it very best.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1

1 Warm Storm
2 Romance Of Falling
3 Wonder
4 Welcome To My World
5 AntiShadow
6 Neon Filler
7 Jazzer Snipe
8 Z.Z. Quicker Foot
9 Seldom Matters
10 Resolver
11 Nowhere
12 Always Horses Coming
13 Patsy's Blues

Disc 2 - Live At Mad Dog Studios – 30th January 1991:

1 Back To The Black And Grey
2 Trickle Down System
3 Bible Black, Book II
4 Still Too Far
5 Romance Of Falling
6 Can’t Find Love
7 Shadow To You

New album from kosmiche folk-rock quartet Modern Studies. A glorious compendium of haunted disco hallelujahs, mercurial krautrock chorales, cosmic pop adagios and euphoric, resilient, anthems. ‘The Weight of the Sun’ sees principal songwriters Emily Scott and Rob St John further their warm, esoteric field studies with Pete Harvey and Joe Smillie, as previously reconnoitred on ‘Swell To Great’ (2016) and ‘Welcome Strangers’ (2018).

“The exact point where Fairport Convention meet Jim O’Rourke at a remote Scottish railway station.” Tim Burgess.

“Melancholic magic… recalls Johnny Marr’s hazier reveries and the febrile, electrified folk of Polly Harvey’s Let England Shake.” UNCUT

There is a strange familiarity, and a welcome strangeness, in the quiet alchemy of Modern Studies.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Photograph
2. Run For Cover
3. Heavy Water
4. She
5. Corridors
6. Signs Of Use

Side B
7. Brother
8. The Blue Of Distance
9. Back To The City
10. Jacqueline
11. Spaces
12. Shape Of Light

Popping up unassumingly in the second season of the popular series ‘End Of The F**cking World’ on Netflix and Amazon. This new release is sided with exclusive B-side ‘All Glow Now’. Taken from her 2013 album of the same name, ‘I’m A Dreamer’ beckons with a gentle hand, each note clear and crisp. ”Another stellar effort” (NME) the album “collects together a set of early country-esque songs” (The Quietus) and is produced by Andrija Tokic. The song sits comfortably at home in salon or saloon with its delicately arranged piano, woozy harmonica and soul-searching lyrics. “A masterclass in songwriting that perfectly invokes old Americana” Time Out // The North American Colorado based singersongwriter breathes new life into archaic forms, embodying the cultural archelogy of Harry Smith’s old weird America. She has lent her warbling mezzo-soprano and interpretive wit to nearly two decades of self-produced recordings. Her songs are rooted in American folkblues as well as classical art song and Tin Pan Alley. (E. Gades)

Argentinian grrl group Las Kellies return with new album ‘Suck This Tangerine’ out 27th March on Fire Records and will be touring Europe in Spring 2020. Sucking you in, Las Kellies takes us straight back to the party reminding us of what we’ve been missing with their libidinous mix of garage, punk and dub. Thrashing it out on the dancefloor, ‘Suck This Tangerine’ deals with the difficulties of a society in never ending crisis (‘Funny Money’) to the highs and lows in relationships (‘He’s Who’, ‘Let You Go’) and there’s a guest appearance from ex-Kellie Julia Worley on ‘Close Talker’. Recorded at home in Buenos Aires, the chemistry of the duo’s formative years remains as does their febrile new wave post-punk sound soaked in fiery dance beats and dub-pop. Their first release since 2016’s ‘Friends & Lovers’ was “impressively varied” (The Vinyl District) whilst “seamlessly melding psych/fuzz pop, post-punk attitude and dance beats” (Louder Than War). Las Kellies are Cecilia Kelly (bass, guitars, vocals) and Silvina Costa (drums, percussion and vocals). "Absolutely love 'em" Lauren Laverne

TRACK LISTING

1. Closer
2. Funny Money
3. Baby
4. He's Who's
5. Matrixland
6. Despite.
7. Charade
8. Rid Of You 
9. Weekdays
10. Let You Go 
11. White Paradise
12. Close Talker

Critical praise from Pitchfork, Clash, The Wire, Q Magazine and more upon release. New inverted LTD edition artwork. Fire re-issue Bardo Pond’s eponymous eighth studio album from 2010, their debut for Fire from way back when. A lysergic brain wrestler in which the Pennsylvanian drone outfit perfect their modal sound. Teasing the artistry of LaMonte Young and Terry Riley into a guitar shaped cauldron, the album’s compulsive reverbed guitar shapes slowly simmer behind Isobel Sollenberger’s esoteric vocals “Like hearing a tannoy at a station in the voice of Jesus.” The Quietus. A claustrophobic stuttering raga interlocks with their psychedelic leanings best exemplified on ‘Cracker Wrist’ which sounds like something that’s intentionally always just about to happen/and/or spin back in time. Featuring lengthy fully nurtured play offs between the quintet ‘Bardo Pond’ is a heady statement that’s like the most wholesome kind of vegan-friendly mushroom trips. Pitchfork reckons they’re “playing fuzzed out stoner dreams.” Vice’s musical brother Noisey likens them to “Fugazi On Acid.” Allmusic intervenes with: “These are epic, soaring psychedelic ambient power-drone rock noise melodies where partially buried, distant female vocals are laced throughout a roaring, murky/sludge guitar soundscape

TRACK LISTING

1 Just Once
2 Don’t Know About You
3 Sleeping
4 Undone
5 Cracker Wrist
6 The Stars Behind
7 Wayne’s Tune

A Powys trio whose free-spirited invention and exuberant intensity flows through experimental pop: hypnotic, exhilarating and defiantly unique. The Welsh band Islet return with the release of their long-awaited new album.

Eyelet was recorded at home tucked away in the hills of rural Mid Wales. It took form the months following the birth of band members Emma and Mark Daman Thomas’ second child and the death of fellow band member Alex Williams’ mother. Alex came to live with Emma and Mark, and the band enlisted Rob Jones (Pictish Trail, Charles Watson) to produce.

‘Caterpillar’ described by Emma as “a song for my unborn child”. It's followed by syncopated lullaby ‘Good Grief’ with its haunting keyboard hook and icy percussion thawed by Emma’s yearning vocals about the quiet strength of generations of women. With nods towards Arthur Russell and Jenny Hval, ‘Geese’ is a mini symphony of driven electronica inspired by Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ novel People Of The Black Mountains.

Young Fathers inflected rhythm can be heard on ‘Radel 10’ that accompanies the multi-tracked variations of Emma and defiant lyrics that were inspired in part by The Good Immigrant - the landmark anthology of essays on race and immigration by BAME writers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Islet were one of the first bands I saw play when I moved to Wales, and remained a mainstay on my shelves since that day. Whilst their groove has morphed, and the frenetic energy has both waxed and waned, the output has remained undeniably brilliant. 'Eyelet' is on the more relaxing side, but absolutely glimmers with astoundingly written pop songs and immersive, soaring heft. Their greatest work to date, in a catalogue of gold.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Caterpillar
A2 Good Grief
A3 Treasure
A4 Geese
A5 Sgwylfa Rock

Side B
B1 Radel 10
B2 Clouds
B3 Florist
B4 Moon
B5 No Host
B6 Gyratory Circus

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'.” 

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 

Bold, weird, wild, wired, sonically luxurious yet never losing touch with its DIY-‘til-I-die roots, Thumb World is a voyage to the outer rings of Pictish Trail’s mind at its darkest, funniest and most inventive – a plugged-in, fuzzed-out, fucked-up contemplation on, as he puts it, “life repeating and gradually degrading, the inevitable cyclical nature of things, and the sense of their ultimately being no escape.”

Expect alien abductions, thumping beats, Trump-haired pigs, paternal panic, astronaut sex, bad acid trips, worse hangovers, lashings of distortion and a lot of anthropomorphic thumbs. “Our opposable thumbs are the things that separate us from most other animals on Earth,” Pictish explains, of the fat digit symbolism, “they are also the things that we use to swipe on screens, to separate ourselves from our normal lives, but which in turn trap us within an artificial reality.”

Produced and mixed by Rob Jones, featuring string arrangements from Kim Moore and drumming from Alex Thomas (Squarepusher, Anna Calvi, Air), Thumb World is Pictish Trail’s most collaborative album to date.

An audio-visual dialogue with Swatpaz, AKA Scottish artist Davey Ferguson – the man behind the Turbo Fantasy series and an entire episode of cult TV phenomenon Adventure Time – furnished Johnny with not just a graphic aesthetic for the album, but even helped him to shape the sound of the finished record. “I sent Davey a work-in-progress mix of the album,” Johnny says, “he came back with sketches in which he had reimagined Thumb World as an 80’s arcade game. Some of the songs are centered around specific visual images, inspired by Davey’s sketches.”

Due for release on Fire Records on February 21, 2020. Four years in the making, Thumb World is the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed Scottish Album of the Year Award public vote winner Future Echoes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This definitely falls solidly within my realm of interests,

videogame aesthetic [x]
superb production [x]
brilliantly written tunes [x]

It's got it all, and only goes to show how the super talented Johnny Lynch keeps smashing it out of the park. Ace stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Repeat Neverending
2 Double Sided
3 Pig Nice
4 Lead Balloon
5 Fear Anchor

Side B
6 Slow Memories
7 Bad Algebra
8 Heart Eyes
9 Turning Back
10 Thumb World

“What Black Lips do so well is tease the horror out of wholesomeness and recast golden-age rock’n’roll in a strange, discomforting light” Pitchfork.

“Cosmic country that comes strutting off a dusty back porch with gritted teeth” Consequence Of Sound.

It’s country music but not as we know it which begs the question: Have these Bad Kids of 21st Century rock ’n’ roll finally grown up on their ninth studio album? Are they at peace with themselves? Have they made a record their parents could listen to? The Black Lips new album ‘Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart’ continues to flick the middle finger to one and all. This ain’t another gaggle of bearded southern sons fleeing their collective suburban upbringings and collegiate music education. There aren’t the usual clichés about drinking, honkytonks, and heartbreak. These are, after all, the same Black Lips who rescued the waning garage punk subgenre by not sounding or dressing their musical predecessors. They also dug contemporary hip-hop and punk and actualized themselves Like so many dramatic moments in the Black Lips career, ‘Sing In A World That’s Falling Apart’ was born out of crisis. The band’s stylistic evolution through decades of prolific touring and recording took them where no garage punk band had gone before - huge venues, network television shows, and major music festivals. Here Black Lips are at their grimiest, most dangerous and equipped with the best collection of songs since the aughts. Skidding onto the asphalt in a shower of sparks, they roll on with an unapologetic southern-fried twang, pacing the beast, every now and then dropping a psycho howl into the rubber room madness lurking underneath the truckstop fireworks. This ain’t your granny’s country album. And conversely this ain’t your mama’s Black Lips.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Just as the thigh-slapping hoedown starts, it fades away into rich psychy rock and swinging blues riffage. Black lips have always been one of the most distinctive bands that start with 'Black___' (of which there are A LOT), and 'In A World That's Falling Apart' provides a feelgood alternative to that exact scenario. Turn it up and don't stress. Black Lips got this.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hooker Jon
2. Chainsaw
3. Rumbler
4. Holding Me Holding You
5. Gentleman
6. Get It On Time
7. Angola Rodeo
8. Georgia
9. Odelia
10. Dishonest Man
11. Locust
12. Live Fast Die Slow

Could it be that the world is finally ready for the tempestuous folk-rock opera that is "All the Leaves are Gone?" In 2004, only the truly informed and forward-thinking heads "got" this mini masterpiece. Critics scratched their heads and usually resorted to comparisons of past artists, like ol Grace Slick and her Great Jefferson Society, Fairport Convention (but which era? SURELY Judy Dyble's early reign?), and at best, Shirley Collins. A few fans attempted to connect the record to even more obscure "freak folk/rock" like Mellow Candle, Fear Itself, or Trees. "All the Leaves are Gone" was made by unique personalities not concerned with influences or copying any bygone era. Surely, some things are in our DNA or even early childhood, as Josephine Foster's roots in opera manifest themselves as much as any other influence in this organic song cycle. Sure, guitarist Brian Goodman may have heard Richard Thompson before, but his alchemical and molten guitar spray is purely his own, in tunings and intervals still not meant for normal humans to understand, mostly because his 2004 guts were poured into every sublime note (I think even Brian himself never even understood how good he was). That fiery emotion is also in every nuance of Foster's songs--like life, there's disquieting, jagged moments of unease, and there's calm both before and after the storm. There are moments of utter gentleness along the journey---because yes, every concept album should be a voyage, and this is one everyone should take. - Steve Krakow

TRACK LISTING

Well-Heeled Men
The Most Loved One
All The Leaves Are Gone
Nana, Deathknell
Silly Song
Jailbird (Hero Of The Sorrow)
Worried And Sorry
Who Will Feel Bitter At The Days End?
John Ave
Seen From The Gray Train
Don't Wait Mary Jane
(You Are Worth) A Million Dollars

This unique package successfully archives the key elements of Jane’s ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour. Housed in a concise limited-edition pocket-compendium the new CD version brings Jane’s fully realised ‘Loops Variations’ and sonic installations into your own environment with new illustrations based on the songs by Andy Votel and DVD featuring the experimental film installation featured on the tour by Nick Farrimond. When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful.

No-one told Jane Weaver that. Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound. That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name. Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver all under surveillance. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Element (Loops Variation)
2 Milk Loop
3 Arrows (Loops Variation)
4 Found Birds
5 H>A>K (Loops Variation)
6 Did You See Butterflies (Loops Variation)
7 Sun House
8 I Wish (Loops Variation)
9 Mission Desire (Loops Variation)
10 Battle Ropes
11 Found Birds
12 Slow Motion (Loops Variation)
13 Margins
14 Cells (Loops Variation)
15 Code (Loops Variation)
16 Signs Are Rising
17 Ravenspoint (Loops Variation)
18 Sous Le Même Soleil, Vie Disparu Dans Le Ciel (Loops Variation)
19 Majic Milk (Loops Variation)
20 Conduit
21 Ivana Vessel
22 Battle Ropes

A conceptual masterpiece, complete with a second disc capturing a classic KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic session just prior to the original album’s release in 1994, plus five bonus tracks available for digital download. An epic windswept desert dry encounter with one of America’s greatest bands that traverses genres and styles to create a complete masterpiece. “While the guitars still squall and roar, they're used more sparingly, erupting to devastating effect in gloomy, low-key songs.” The Quietus // Emotional and uplifting, and always thought provoking, the band’s line up of Howe Gelb, latter day Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino are joined by Victoria Williams, Pete Holsapple, Chris Cacavas, Pappy Allen and Lisa Germano, the whole shebang produced by Daniel Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn. “Giant Sand move to the darker side of their emotional stew. Within is jazz, country, folk, blues even Glam, we’re led to believe the mainstay is downbeat but the result is monumental

TRACK LISTING

A1 Glum
A2 Yer Ropes
A3 Happenstance
A4 Frontage Road
A5 Painted Bird

B1 1 Helvakowboy Song
B2 Spun
B3 Left
B4 Faithful
B5 Bird Song
B6 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

C1 World Stands Still – KCRW SESSION
C2 I Wish You Love - KCRW SESSION
C3 Interview - KCRW SESSION
C4 Lester Lampshade - KCRW SESSION

D1 Get To Leave - KCRW SESSION
D2 Left - KCRW SESSION
D3 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - KCRW SESSION
D4 Interview - KCRW SESSION
D5 Instrumental - KCRW SESSION

‘Fenella’ is the latest project from Jane Weaver - musical polymath and one of the most respected electronic composers of recent times - and her long-term bandmates Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah.

Having already released three critically-acclaimed LP’s within the last five years Weaver’s creativity continues to expand ever further into the (modern) kosmos with this reimagined soundtrack to Marcell Jankovics’ cult animation Fehérlófia.

Released in 1981, Fehérlófia is a remarkable animation based in ancient folklore with a narrative culled from mythical tales of the Scythans, Huns and Avars.

Weaver’s richly emotional and psychedelic music offers a perfect contemporary dialogue with Jankovics’ astonishing visual aesthetic.

A mixture of ambient textures, menacing drones and spine-tingling vocals combine to create a lavish soundscape saturated with hypnotic moods and cinematic atmosphere.

Fenella’s self-titled LP is a continuation of Fire Records re-imagined score series.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: F'in-ell-a, this is good. As you'd expect, a project from Raz, Jane and Peter being anything but wonderful would be a rare day indeed, but this woozy slab of arpy psychedelia is pushing the boundaries. Intricate but easily digested, this rich tapestry of fizzing oscillators and analogue saturation is a gift straight from the white mare's mouth. AT LEAST 250ug of pure joy.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Slow Swoop
Three Heads Rising
Bright Curse
Occurring In Waves
Triangular Journey
The Seed
Pendulum
Shard Of Glass
Truly Seduced

Side B
The Spectacle
Battle
Echo Chamber Of Your Heart
Strength In Air
Rotation Wells
Gilded Griffin
Transfiguration Into One

“Her significant solo output has been remarkable” Drowned In Sound. Following a special vinyl release for this year’s Record Store Day celebrating its tenth anniversary, ‘Crooked’ will be reissued on black vinyl and CD on 27th September.

‘A figurehead for feminist indie rock’ (Classic Rock), Kristin Hersh achieved a music and publishing first when her eighth solo album was initially released as a multi-media book in 2009. Hersh’s “poetic, provocative and puzzling songcraft” (The Washington Post) makes ‘Crooked’ a stunning record. The resplendent, melancholic ‘Flooding’ came to Hersh in the form of song but was also a premonition of the imminent death of close friend and musician Vic Chesnutt. Mainstay in her recent live shows, ‘Mississippi Kite’ is snarly and unsettling whilst the spectral psychedelic tones of ‘Rubidoux’ stem from a 50foot Wave car ride and a late-night recording session. The songs still lead the way hitting Hersh fully formed but it’s her beguiling raspy vocals paired with guitar, and any other instrument that she chose to play on this album, that has a beautiful intensity that’s jarring, unpredictable and inherent in her music. “She's still as powerful a presence as she ever was.” Pitchfork… 

TRACK LISTING

1. Moan
2. Sand
3. Glass
4. Mississippi Kite
5. Fortune
6. Coals
7. Crooked
8. Krait
9. Flooding
10. Rubidoux 

HTRK’s seminal debut gets a new cut to white vinyl with white sleeve and gloss cover. An abrasive record shrouded in sonorous pulses, deafening feedback and tension-soaked reverb that immerses you deep into their world. HTRK’s lo-fi post-punk, post-industrial noise-electronica echoes Suicide, Throbbing Gristle and Joy Division. "Nostalgia" took inspiration from the sound and imagery of David Lynch, The Birthday Party and electronic artist Pita. Rowland S Howard’s ‘Teenage Snuff Film’ was also cited as a big influence, HTRK notably caught the post-punk legend’s attention with their live gigs which saw him endorse the band and go on to co-produce their next release "Marry Me Tonight". A compelling introductory statement that delves into their guilty nostalgia for the nihilistic energies rampant in the 80s underground. 'An agitated haze of addictive ambivalence instead of the swagger and violence of their influences, the overall feeling is of beautiful disharmony'.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Hate Rock Trio
A2 - Look What’s Been Done
A3 - Look Down The Line

B1 - Look At That Girl
B2 - Look At Her
B3 - You Injured Me
B4 - I’m All Broke Up 

It’s 33 and a third years since the seminal Giant Sand and its country cousin The Band Of… Blacky Ranchette entered the studio to lay down their second albums. Yes. Both bands had recorded their second albums each. Two sides of the multi-faceted hyper-productive Howe Gelb. “I was turning 28,” he recalls, “and had been wanting to make and release albums since my early 20s, but only recently had figured out how. It was time to make up for lost time.”

Time was of the essence. That thin line between then and now has seen journeymen Giant Sand release 27-ish albums, their latest, ‘Recounting The Ballad Of The Thin Line Men’ turning the clock back to 1986’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Line Man’, picking over the bones and making a whole new soup. All these years on, the latest incarnation of Giant Sand: Howe Gelb (guitars, piano) Tommy Larkins (drums) and Thøger Lund (bass), have dusted off the old vinyl and re-imagined those heady days – they’ve polished these buried gems, reignited some truculent tirades and rekindled an ageless angst. The revamp re-orders the tracks, drops a couple and adds ‘Reptillian’, a previously lost song hailing from their album’s 25th anniversary re-issue, a tune that opens proceedings and basks in all its crinkly glory. There’s also two takes of ‘Tantamount’. The unique thing about Giant Sand’ is they make it all their own, they sound like no-one else. The songs remain the same, but somehow completely different. Howe: “We were a fine storm. The greatest storm in terms of tumultuous velocity and pelting bluster. It proved unstoppable... for a minute”.

TRACK LISTING

1 Reptillian
2 Hard Man To Get To Know
3 Desperate Man
4 You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory
5 Tantamount
6 Who Am I
7 Body Of Water
8 Graveyard
9 The Chill Outside
10 Thin Line Man
11 Tantamount Blast (Bonus Track)

“Swoony Swedish indie-pop.” Record Collector. Two new tracks from Malmo’s much-praised Hater. “One of the best bands in the world” Gorilla Vs Bear. Hot on the heels of last year’s ‘Siesta’, their second studio album and first for Fire Records. It’s a compelling slice of angular pop music; dysfunctional, dreamy, tempting, and teasing. ‘Four Tries Down’ presents an acute hand-tooled angular rasp, with its chiming guitar chopped out against a disengaged rhythm, topped with the dreamy ambience of Caroline Landahl’s whispered confessional that cuts through the mesmerising hum. ‘It’s A Mess’ is more subtle, with a teenage Nico admitting to inevitable boyfriend trouble. Drums rattle before cutting down to the basics to let Landahls pontificate as it all goes wrong – it’s a beautiful mess. Beautiful. “Nostalgic for ‘90s indie pop innocence.” MOJO Set for release this Autumn, 7" 'Four Tries Down' coincides with Hater’s first US tour. “Too noisy to be indie pop, too sweet to be post punk.” Clash.

Modern Studies’ much praised ‘Welcome Strangers’ album from 2018 re-imagined by designer / musician Tommy Perman. “A heady compendium of haunted disco lullabies for foggy urban woodland raves and psychotropic campfire sing-alongs,” said The Quietus of the original Perman (Random Audio Therapy Unit, Cybraphon) re-invents it as a series of modern electronic compositions, like Brian Eno, John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream’s offspring hanging out with Aphex Twin’s twin. “My solo work follows an analytical documentary style and much of it has taken the urban environment as inspiration.” On their previous work together as Water Of Life, The Vinyl Factory claimed Perman and Rob St John’s music as "a fascinating and ambitious project that tests the boundaries of what we perceive as music in the environments we live in". A Frankenstein moment? A monster of ambient ardour, ‘Emergent Slow Arcs’ is something else. An electronic homage, a mystical re-telling that sounds so askew from the sum of its parts it has a life all of its own, traversing an arc previously unchartered. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 Ephemeris Mist
A2 Faraway Hills
A3 Celestial Dance
A4 Moonshot

B1 Ghost Skies
B2 Spectral Cannon
B3 Edgeland Duet
B4 Sunup Shutdown

A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the Peel-approved ‘14th Floor’ through to the effervescent ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’ EP. Includes the super rare Creation flexi, the TVPs as The Gifted Children, and the even rarer Caff 45 where the band tackle Stock, Aitken And Waterman. Purists will also find two shelved 45s for the Dreamworld label plus their take on Syd Barrett’s ‘Apples And Oranges’ from the ‘Beyond The Wildwood’ tribute album. Features the seminal ‘Where’s Bill Grundy Now’ and the self-effacing ‘Part Time Punks’ alongside a host of pop culture-bating gems. A celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy

TRACK LISTING

Disc One -

01 - 14th Floor
02 - Oxford St., W.1
03 - Part Time Punks
04 - Where's Bill Grundy Now?
05 - Happy Families
06 - Posing At The Roundhouse
07 - The Prettiest Girl In The World
08 - If That's What Love Is
09 – Miracles Take Longer
10 – Apples And Oranges
11 - Smashing Time
12 - King And Country
13 - I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives
14 - Arthur The Gardener
15 – Painting By Numbers
16 – Lichtenstein Girl
17 - Three Wishes
18 - Geoffrey Ingram
19 - And Don't The Kids Just Love It!
20 - Biff, Bang, Pow!
21 - A Picture Of Dorian Gray (Live)

Disc Two -

01 - A Sense Of Belonging
02 - Paradise Estate
03 - How I Learned To Love The Bomb
04 - Then God Snaps His Fingers
05 - Now You're Just Being Ridiculous
06 - She's Only The Grocer's Daughter
07 - A Girl Called Charity
08 - Salvador Dali's Garden Party
09 - The Room At The Top Of The Stairs
10 -This Time There's No Happy Ending
11 - Part One: Fulfilling The Contractual Obligations
12 - I Still Believe In Magic
13 – Respectable
14 – Privilege
15 – Me And My Desire
16 - My Imaginary Friend
17 - I Remember Bridget Riley

“Television Personalities have been England's great forgotten band for too long.” Melody Maker // A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the evocative ‘Strangely Beautiful’ EP through to the dark introspective terrain of ‘Far Away And Lost In Joy’. Includes the super rare ‘Favourite Films’ 12-inch (only previously available on12-inch vinyl) plus the exquisite ‘Goodnight Mr Spaceman’ and ‘You, Me And Lou Reed’ EPs. Sequenced in chronological release order including every track and remix, embracing a host of pop culture threads from art, music and writing with all the ironic wit and wisdom of a master tunesmith – a veritable L-shaped room of pop desire. A further celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy. 

TRACK LISTING

CD1 -

1. Strangely Beautiful (7" Mix)
2. Reaching For The Stars
3. Not Even A Maybe
4. Strangely Beautiful (Chill Out Reprise)
5. She's Never Read My Poems (7"mix)
6. The Day The Dolphins Leave The Sea
7. Christ Knows I Have Tried
8. She's Never Read My Poems (12" Mix)
9 - Favourite Films
10 - The Dream Inspires
11 - Happy All The Time (Ten Years Ahead Of Its Time Version)
12. We Will Be Your Gurus (7” Mix)
13. An Exhibition By Joan Miro
14. Love Is Better Than War…

CD2 -

01. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (12” Mix)
02. If I Was Your Girlfriend
03. She Loves It When He Sings Like Elvis
04. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (Lost In Space Mix)
05. You, Me And Lou Reed.
06. My Imaginary Friend
07. I Remember Bridget Riley
08. I Wish You Could Love Me For What I Am
09. I Don’t Want To Live This Life
10. Far Away And Lost In Joy
11. Do You Know What They’re Saying About Me Now?
12. I Get Frightened

When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful. No-one told Jane Weaver that.

Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound.

That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones ; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name.

Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver – all under surveillance.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Beautiful reinterperations of tracks from Jane's last two albums, interspersed with new ambient style pieces to make a brand new album in its own right. Gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

1 Element (Loops Variation)
2 Milk Loop
3 Arrows (Loops Variation)
4 Found Birds
5 H>A>K (Loops Variation)
6 Did You See Butterflies (Loops Variation)
7 Sun House
8 I Wish (Loops Variation)
9 Mission Desire (Loops Variation)
10 Battle Ropes
11 Found Birds
12 Slow Motion (Loops Variation)
13 Margins
14 Cells (Loops Variation)
15 Code (Loops Variation)
16 Signs Are Rising
17 Ravenspoint (Loops Variation)
18 Sous Le Même Soleil, Vie Disparu Dans Le Ciel (Loops Variation)
19 Majic Milk (Loops Variation)
20 Conduit
21 Ivana Vessel
22 Battle Ropes

The Lemonheads bring together two unique takes on The Eagles’ ode to romance and the road, ‘Take It Easy’. From their ‘Varshons II’ album that brought together intriguing takes on everyone from Nick Cave and The Bevis Frond through to John Prine, Yo La Tengo, Lucinda Williams and Paul Westerberg. Version One is a piece of itchy white line fever, switching gears as the eight-track spirals on, a singalong variation with a right arm tan – all alt-country and joyous, with an undertone of pain and remorse. Evan: “‘Take It Easy’ is kinda rough. It was my girlfriend's idea, but it was my idea to make it sound anaemic and bloodless... enjoy!” Version two is a Matthew Cullen production – a suicide mix, with Schneider and Hutter sharing the wheel, as the road map heads right into the soundtrack of Tron – that’s Satnavs for you… 

'Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages. Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. ‘KRK (At Home In Strange Places)’ summons up the spirit of Sun Ra’s Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk. The magical Morricone-esque lounge of ‘You Are Not an Island’, the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of ‘Invisible World’ and burbling sci fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, ‘Planète Sauvage’, were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury.

The only two outsiders to work on the recording were ‘6th member’ and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three). Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017. The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

STAFF COMMENTS

Emily says: Vanishing Twin have returned this year with a second album of transcendent psychedelic pop. Drawing on far reaching influences in a similar manner to Stereolab, they incorporate elements of krautrock, tropicália and lounge into their expansive soundworld. The comparisons which can be drawn between the two bands are abundant - you can even hear echoes of Lætitia Sadier in Cathy Lucas’ pure, unaffected lead vocals. But the output of Vanishing Twin is not simply derivative. Its members are unique artists in their own right, and their collective sound already bears its own significance.
Listening to ‘The Age Of Immunology’ feels like drifting off to a strange, mythological world somewhere in the unknown depths of space. Each track glides effortlessly into the next and is steeped in dreamlike imagery. In “KRK (At Home In Strange Places)” Lucas’ vocals weave around a loose, polyrhythmic groove and soaring string arrangements. The acoustic guitar steadily sets the pulse in “You Are Not An Island”, suspended above gently glowing electronics and hints of Reichian minimalism. And “Planète Sauvage” is an ode to the cult animated sci-fi film of the same name, featuring a french spoken word monologue which gives way to cinematic strings and a curious synth-organ solo.
It seems Vanishing Twin are a group intent on creating music that defies borders and dissolves genre into genre. Perhaps they fit into an alternative definition of “World Music”, with their influences which reach as far around the globe as their combined nationalities - Belgian, Japanese, Italian, French and American. Who knows where their psychedelic voyage will take them next? For now, let’s delight in their twinkling, cosmic splendour.

TRACK LISTING

1 KRK (At Home In Strange Places)
2 Wise Children
3 Cryonic Suspension May Save Your Life
4 You Are Not An Island
5 The Age Of Immunology
6 Magician’s Success
7 Planète Sauvage
8 Backstroke
9 Invisible World
10 Language Is A City (Let Me Out!)

The inventors of lo-fi indie rock return with a 15-track blast of melodic melancholy, all delivered by the smudged middle finger of Dinosaur Jr original Lou Barlow - 'The auteur of the subterranean lovesick blues.' (Houston Press).

Their first studio album since 2013’s "Defend Yourself" and their first release with Fire Records, Lou Barlow and team return with a smorgasbord of beautifully dysfunctional tunes harking back to their finest college rock anthems.

It’s Barlow at his introverted songwriting best; matter-of-factly delivering a stream of self-questioning stories, punctuated by detuned guitars, spine-tingling time changes and throwaway one liners. A grainy post grunge postcard wrapped in bittersweet melodies with an aftertaste that’s pure heartbreak.

More songs about growing up wrong for those who continue to act surprised at life itself - all illegibly handwritten and lovingly submitted to vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

1. Phantom
2. Celebrate The Void
3. Follow The Breath
4. Medicate
5. See-Saw
6. Vacation
7. Stunned
8. Fool
9. Raging River
10. Sunshine
11. Act Surprised
12. Battery
13. Belief
14. Leap Year
15. Reykjavik

New album from the Malmo-based trio of Marleen Nilsson, Anders Hansson and Magners Bodin.

Following the critically-acclaimed ‘To Where The Wild Things Are’ from 2015 and their haunting collection of soundtracks in between.

“Lush and enveloping, reminiscent of Curt Boettcher and Margo Guryan.” The Wire. 

“Fantastically eerie.” Clash.

Exposing the trio’s love of all things retro with a nod to everything from Fun Boy Three to Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Contonou, while still roaming somewhere between an ambient Eno and Cocteau Twins at a late-night soiree. A unique, individual sound: Longer, more plush and pampered; more hypnotic and haunting, mixing mellotron and affected guitar with a refined rhythm. Electronic melancholy at its most evocative, riddled with super-memorable motifs and melodies that nestle in reflective echo.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Death and Vanilla have eschewed their classic sound slightly for a more open and airy offering, channelling the vibes of 70's soundtracks, hazy psychedelia and tie-dyed synthplay as well as their more direct offerings mixed in for good measure. Definitely the soundtrack to the summer. Stunning stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Flaw In The Iris
2. Let's Never Leave Here
3. Mercier
4. Eye Bath
5. The Hum
6. Nothing Is Real
7. Vespertine
8. Wallpaper Pattern

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 only. “A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance, Howe Gelb is an enigma.” The Quietus // Long out of print, Howe Gelb’s debut solo album ‘Dreaded Brown Recluse’ is re-imagined on for Record Store Day on brown vinyl. Back then, circa 1991 Howe’s main squeeze Giant Sand were nothing short of prolific, songs were oozing from every pore, their creative id was effervescing, overflowing. With Giant Sand’s colossal new album of ’91 ‘Ramp’ imminent what to do with those further outpourings? An idea: Disguise the band as Howe Gelb solo and produce a song cycle that, on repeat, melds into an eclectic stew that’s easy to dip in and out of but still remains potent several hours in the oven. It’s music as soundtrack to your day, a playful, anarchic piece of situationism that unfolds like all the best dramatic prose. ‘Dreaded Brown Recluse’ includes a rethunk ‘Warm Storm’ with strings (it also appeared on ‘Ramp’). It also features songs about faxing (how quaint), blankets and the insect world, as it straddles territory lost somewhere between psychotic ramshackle punk and slimmed down acoustic reverie. Track List A1 Spirit Lie A2 Picture Shows A3 Loretta and the Insect World A4 Actually Faxing Sophia A5 Cello of the City A6 Still too Far B1 Warm Stone B2 Always Horses Coming B3 Vigdis B4 Vienna Two-Step Throw Away B5 Bible Black Book II B6 Brown Recluse B7 Blanket for Tina

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 only. Special art edition with extra LP of unheard material on Blue Vinyl. 30 years on Half Japanese’s ‘Charmed Life’ is reissued for Record Store Day. Less love and more monster, Half Japanese sound more realised and fully formed on their sixth studio album. Jad Fair had “become increasingly adept at funnelling his obsessions into songs charming, frank, comical and weird.” Marc Masters, Pitchfork. “As accessible as Half Japanese get” The Quietus // Track List 1 Said And Done 2 Penny In The Fountain 3 Evidence 4 Vietnam 5 Roman Candles 6 Love At First Sight 7 Snake Line 8 Bright Lights, Big City 9 Face Rake 10 Later In A Magazine 11 Red Dress 12 Trouble In The Water 13 Charmed Life 14 Day And Night 15 One Million Kisses 16 Miracles Happen Every Day 17 Terminator 18 I'll Change My Style 19 Fortunate 20 Real Cool Time 21 Poetic License

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

1000 only - soundtrack from much loved cult episode of ‘black mirror’.

first time on vinyl, bespoke artwork from butcher billy, includes ltd edition poster art print. 2lp red vinyl. “a brilliant take on star trek homages, gaming and toxic geekery” the guardian // the emmy nominated soundtrack from the much-loved emmy winning episode of black mirror. daniel pemberton’s score for black mirror’s ‘uss callister’ is available for the first time on vinyl with bespoke artwork from butcher billy and limited-edition poster art print. taken from the first show of the show’s fourth season, it’s the ‘star trek’ episode when a gifted programmer becomes frustrated with his job and creates digital clones of his co-workers for his own dark adventures in space. the ivor novello award winning, golden globe award and multi bafta nominated and acclaimed composer shifts effortlessly between symphonic and electronic instrumentation. “a brutal star trek scenario that’s half comedy, half indictment of silicon valley leadership” the verge // “one of hollywood’s most sought-after composers” screen daily.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 13th 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 12.01AM SATURDAY APRIL 20th.

1000 only. Purple vinyl edition. First time on vinyl since initial press in 1995. ‘Big Laughing Jym’ follows 1994’s ‘Bufo Alvarius’ and between 1996’s ‘Amanita’, inducing tenebral states with their sludgy yet beguiling psychedelic rock. On “"Dispersion" and "Clearhead" whirlpools of bass, feedback-clogged flute, and John and Michael Gibbons' high-dosage, irradiated guitars, are definitive Pond.” (AllMusic). The record also includes ‘Hummingbird Mountain II (A Return Trip’) and ‘Dragonfly’. “Playing fuzzed out stuff of stoner dreams since the mid ‘90s.” Pitchfork // “Today they stand as an elder statesman at the epicentre of an international underground of psychedelic extremists” Sunday Times // “They’re still making jaw-droppingly visceral spine-tingling music” Shindig // Track List 1 - Dispersion 2 - Respite 3 - Clearhead 4 - Champ 5 - Soaked 6 - Hummingbird Mountain II 7 - BLJ

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

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 13th 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 12.01AM SATURDAY APRIL 20th.

2000 only. Gatefold Sleeve, Double LP + Bonus DL tracks. Singles collection. “Television Personalities have been England's great forgotten band for too long.” Melody Maker // A comprehensive remastered collection of all of the Television Personalities’ ground-breaking single releases from the evocative ‘Strangely Beautiful’ EP through to the dark introspective terrain of ‘Far Away And Lost In Joy’. Includes the super rare ‘Favourite Films’ 12-inch (only previously available on12-inch vinyl) plus the exquisite ‘Goodnight Mr Spaceman’ and ‘You, Me And Lou Reed’ EPs. Sequenced in chronological release order including every track and remix, embracing a host of pop culture threads from art, music and writing with all the ironic wit and wisdom of a master tunesmith – a veritable L-shaped room of pop desire. A further celebration of the songwriting of Dan Treacy. Track List Side One 1. Strangely Beautiful (7" mix) 2. Reaching For The Stars 3. Not Even A Maybe 6. The Day The Dolphins Leave The Sea 7. Christ Knows I Have Tried Side Two 8. She's Never Read My Poems (12" mix) 9 - Favourite Films 10 - The Dream Inspires 11 - Happy All The Time (Ten Years Ahead Of Its Time Version) 12. We Will Be Your Gurus (7” mix) 13. An Exhibition By Joan Miro 14. Love Is Better Than War Side Three 15. Goodnight Mr Spaceman (12” mix) 16. If I Was Your Girlfriend 17. She Loves It When He Sings Like Elvis 19. You, Me And Lou Reed.

A wandering troubadour in search of treasured happenstance.” Quietus / The 24th solo studio album from Giant Sand mainman Howe Gelb. Following two much-praised jazz-tinged ‘Future Standards’ collections, a wider bet captures Gelb’s discordant phrasings and clever romantic lyricism. Joined by a host of collaborators from all over the world, including M. War, Gabriel Naim Amor, Fernando Vacas, Juan Panki, The Lost Brothers, Anna Karina, JB Meijers, Kira Skov and Gelb’s own daughter Talula.

Focussing on Gelb’s celebrated song-writing style, filled with emotive tunes and heart-warming arrangements invariably offset by gorgeous discordant moments. A chance meeting of the indie/alt country Sinatra annotated by clever wordplay, teased by tongue twisters and an earthy ramble. “Gelb’s long-held fascination with words, particularly the way certain ones rub up against one another or encourage an allusive phrase, usually stretched over an odd meter, is a joy.” Uncut… Previous press coverage from Pitchfork, Mojo, Q, Clash, Uncut, NPR and more. 

TRACK LISTING

1 On The Fence
2 A Thousand Kisses Deep Feat. M. Ward
3 Not The End Of The World Feat Anna Karina
4 Anna
5 Give It Up
6 The Open Road
7 Moon River Feat. Talula Gelb
8 Flyin’ Off The Rails
9 Gathered Feat. Pieta Brown
10 All You Need To Know
11 The Park At Dark
12 My Little World
13 Presumptuous Feat. Kira Skov
14 Storyteller
15 Steadfast (CD And Download Card Only) 

“Still creating some of the most engaging recordings of their lives, and that's truly something to believe in.” AllMusic… New studio album from Michigan’s greatest outsider combo. An inspiration to Kurt Cobain, post grunge deep thinkers and veterans of the “Can’t Play/Will play” fraternity. Pop music for those outside of pop music. Songs for those still bedevilled by one liners and abrasive melodies. Thematically succinct tales of puppet people, vampires and the walking dead juxtaposed with discerning love songs and eternal affection.

“Half-Japanese are a respected institution. They've been making noise since the late '70s.” Pop Matters “Innocent abandon is still at the heart of the band” Pitchfork. An off-kilter classic that shouldn’t sound right but ultimately does, in the best tradition of The Residents, Richman, Johnston, Brain Wilson at his most bamboozled and any number of out there talents. Uncategorizable, joyous, detuned, quizzical, alluring, childlike, charming, innocent, questioning – invincible. New album from Half Japanese, an inspiration on Kurt Cobain. Jad Fair of Half Japanese has previously collaborated with Teenage Fanclub, Moe Tucker (Velvet Underground) and Daniel Johnston. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Swept Away
2 Love Explosion
3 The Puppet People
4 Return Of The Vampire
5 Or Ever Will
6 No More
7 All At Once
8 The Walking Dead
9 Forever In My Heart
10 What Are You Gonna Do?
11 It's Here
12 Invincible
13 No Wonder
14 It Has Me
15 Indestructible

The Lemonheads follow up the critically acclaimed ‘Varshons’ from nearly ten years ago with another eclectic collection of covers.

Produced by director Matthew Cullen and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Beastie Boys, Nirvana, The Ramones), their tenth studio album brims with the slowly-matured vocal of Evan Dando as he lures a host of personal faves to his melodic lair. He really has become one of the great expressive singers of our time.

‘Varshons 2’ is a hokey jukebox filled with unique versions of Yo La Tengo, Nick Cave, The Bevis Frond, NRBQ, The Eagles, Paul Westerberg, The Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams and John Prine.

Like Hank Williams slumped in his car between gigs, strumming and hollering, reasoning and weeping, humming it on over, Evan and his Lemonheads make every tune their own.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Though it's been ten years in the making, the second iteration of their 'Varshons' series sees The Lemonheads covering a host of excellent originals with style and grace. Where else could you get a masterful combo of John Prine and Nick cave on the same LP? Not many places i'd wager. A superb second outing, and yet more proof of the Lemonheads' continuing relevance.

TRACK LISTING

1 – Can’t Forget
2 – Settled Down Like Rain
3 – Old Man Blank
4 – Things
5 – Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness
6 – Abandoned
7 – Now And Then
8 – Magnet
9 – Round Here
10 – TAQN
11 – Unfamiliar
12 – Straight To You
13 – Take It Easy

New version with updated packaging / digipack format. Spacemen 3’s debut album "Sound Of Confusion", released in 1986, was a blistering affair - establishing their love of the two-chord song and also expressing their admiration for the likes of MC5, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Stooges. Sound of Confusion was 7 tracks of overdriven assault, with a strange bleakness and despair creeping through the hypnotic sprawl. R Hunter Gibson would later say: "It boosts the value of unlit rooms, unpaid debts and unfeigned terror and it would rather tackle the gradients than settle for level best. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Loosing Touch With Your Mind
2 2.35,
3 Little Doll,
4 MaryAnne,
5 Roller Coaster,
6 Hey Man,
7 OD Catastophe.

New version with updated packaging / digipack format. Spacemen 3's second album is a remarkable departure from the band's 1986 debut, "Sound Of Confusion". Reduced to a trio (guitarists / keyboardists Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, Jason "Spaceman" Pierce, and bassist Pete Bassman) following the departure of the first album's drummer, Spacemen 3 makes an asset out of the newfound lack of percussion, giving "The Perfect Prescription" a considerably less rock-oriented sound with much more open space in its varied, subtle arrangements. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Take Me To The Other Side
2 Walkin' With Jesus
3 Ode To Street Hassle
4 Ecstasy Symphony
5 Feel So Good
6 Things'll Never Be The Same
7 Come Down Easy
8 Call The Doctor
9 Soul 4
10 That’s Just Fine 

The self titled album Bardo Pond is the first new release from Philadelphia's psychedelic rock unit to be released on Fire.

'The first time I saw Bardo Pond, I was, as probably most people are when they first encounter this batch of beatific weirdos, horribly unprepared. To describe the experience as "psychedelic" is an understatement on the order of saying that whacking oneself in the nuts with a ball-peen hammer is "mildly irritating." Needless to say, priorities were rearranged, etc.

Fast-forward 15 yrs, and Bardo Pond have put out many LPs, most of them named after hallucinogens that make you throw up all night and see things - which was kind of them, I always thought. Let ya know what you were in for. All of this recorded output is pretty staggering to me, because, without exception, they seemed able to toss a lasso around some sort of ineffable hoodoo that felt like it was a million yrs old. If Carl Sagan would have 1.) smoked a little more weed and 2.) not croaked, I'm hoping he would have cut a BP track onto that gold LP that they put on the Voyager units. Would've been a way better representation of the best parts of the human spirit than Chuck Berry, I say.

Anyhoo. One night not long ago in the Bardo Compound in Philly, Michael says in a kinda offhanded way, "Hey man, you wanna hear this? ..." And there I was, being bathed in the songs you've got in yr grubby little mitts right now.

I was, once again, unprepared.

This cauldron is a bit of a different brew. It made total sense to me (as it will to you) when he later told me the name of the LP is just "Bardo Pond." Why? It's a distillation. Two decades of playing together have sandblasted away everything unessential and left us with what we have here. It was like no one else before them had ever gotten near the plagal cadence, not Lou Reed or the Stooges or 2,000 yrs of church music. They invented it all over again, independent of any of that, after gawd knows how many yrs of flailing away and burning themselves up.

I fucking love these songs. And while I hate writing almost as much as I hate third-degree burns, I have to say it is a joy to be able to tell you about this record. I feel like Neil Fucking Armstrong.

It took years for them to get here, but this record is the most goddamned beautiful thing they've ever done. Sorry for the superlatives. But really, the only thing left for them to do at this point is explode'. - Fire Records.

John Gibbons: Guitars
Michael Gibbons: Guitars
Isobel Sollenberger: Voice, flute
Clint Takeda: Bass, next-level comedy
Aaron Igler: Electronics
Jason Kourkounis: Drums

with
Jeremiah Misfeldt: Farfisa
Dan Baltzer: Harp

A highly personalised sociopathic gem delivered as a futuristic rewriting of how music works, a melodious breeze with a tail wind of venomous din. A ten-track album, her tenth studio set.

Enveloping the juxtaposition of the concept of ‘dark sunshine’, a brooding solo record creating with friends to expand her off-kilter sonic vision; a squally, squeaky mix of discordant beauty.

Feedback and phasing gyrate from simply strummed normality, imagine Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine cranking up a Dylan couplet. Messing with both extremes of the sonic spectrum: atonal and arrhythmic, a unique sound and a glorious return to form for one of alternative rock’s true innovators.

“Sometimes the most subversive thing I can do musically is adhere to standard song structure, sometimes the creepiest chords are the ones we’ve heard before, twisted into different shapes, and sometimes a story is lived a thousand times before we can ride it like a roller coaster. Nothing wholly unfamiliar is gonna make you look twice. When you can describe a record as being “deceptively” anything, you’re hinting at the sociopathic nature of music. Something I love. Imagine truly buying your own sunshine and charm, but also your darkness and violence; the two sides of your psychology showing each other off in relief. Songs can do that...we can’t, really. Darkness we’ve seen.” Kristin Hersh, July 2018.

“She's still as powerful a presence as she ever was.” Pitchfork

“The prodigious output and commitment to quality is pretty staggering, but then Kristin Hersh is a very, very special musician.” The Quietus.

TRACK LISTING

1. LAX
2. No Shade In Shadow
3. Halfway Home
4. Fox Point
5. Lethe
6. Loudmouth
7. Gin
8. Tulum
9. Breathe In
10. Lady Godiva

Hater’s powerful vulnerability and charm has seen them rise quickly through the ranks earning kudos from NPR (Austin 100), Stereogum (Best New Bands Of 2017), The Fader, BBC6 Music, BBC Radio 1 and more. Effortless and assured, the Scandi quartet drift eloquently into well-structured and stunning melodies. Resolute in their sound, ‘Siesta’ is the perfect soundtrack for that summer romance and the inevitable break up. Heartbreak has never sounded so sweet!.

Produced by Joakim Lindberg (Yast and Hey Elbow) at Studio Sickan within old railway sheds outside of Malmö Sweden. Hater tackle their personal experiences of life, love and relationships yet through their shared songwriting there's a togetherness. Synth pop earworm ‘It’s So Easy’ contrasts the slower paced 'I Wish I Gave You More Time Because I Love You' that blends beautiful sweeping sax from Inge Petersson Lindbäck. Hater “boast Marr-esque guitars and vocals reminiscent of fellow Swedes and The Concretes” (Norman Records) whilst having the pop sensibilities of The Chills, Alvvays, Snail Mail and Makthaverskan.

TRACK LISTING

1. From The Bottom Of Your Heart
2. It's So Easy
3. I Wish I Gave You More Time Because I Love You
4. Closer
5. Fall Off
6. I Sure Want To
7. Things To Keep Up With
8. Your Head Your Mind
9. Why It Works Out Fine
10. The Mornings
11. Cut Me Loose
12. All That Your Dreams Taught Me
13. Seems So Hard
14. Weekend

‘A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’ (2006) is an unusual album, first because it does things with classical music that aren’t usually done. The songs Josephine Foster sings here are classical pieces, written (the texts are German poems) by some of the greatest German composers of the 19th century, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. “Foster has found perhaps the most appropriate vehicle yet for her singular and affecting talents – 19th century German art-songs, wholly reconstructed here via Foster’s skeletal arrangements of voice and guitar” Pitchfork. Remastered and repackaged with new artwork

TRACK LISTING

1. An Die Musik
2. Der König In Thule
3. Verschwiehene Liebe
4. Die Schwestern
5. Wehmut
6. Auf Einer Burg
7. Nähe Des Geliebten

Their favourite records are the perfect counterbalance of the considered and the superficial. Whether it’s Madonna, Talking Heads or Holger Czukay - we enjoy these artists in the background with friends or profoundly and alone. Virginia Wing both understand and embrace this concept fully as they return with Ecstatic Arrow, an album which finds them in a place of renewed strength, optimism and clarity.

Recorded in Switzerland, in the family home of longtime friend and collaborator Misha Hering within the domesticity and gentle routine of communal life, the album represents a world as predisposed to solemn introspection as it is to blithe conviviality. Ecstatic Arrow borrows from the heterogeneous terrain of The Flying Lizard’s Fourth Wall, the exuberant technology assisted pop of Yellow Magic Orchestra and the playful sophistication of Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s Press Colour, arriving at the evergreen intersection of pop music and conceptual art.

The resolute opener of Be Released and album centre point The Female Genius pair resonant Fourth World instrumentation with sonorous, loping drum patterns. Elsewhere, the sentimental march of single The Second Shift plays out like an after-hours ballad re-imagined by Wally Badarou and For Every Window There’s a Curtain is coloured by the blue-lit haze of an Eventide warped tenor saxophone. Three albums in, the voice of Alice Merida Richards is more compelling and expressive than ever. The glacial deadpan of previous records has given way to a more candid, self-possessed delivery, showing an appreciation for the humour and tragedy innate in the downtown Arcadia of Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley or even Lynn Goldsmith’s Will Powers. It’s with this voice that Richards outlines a simple ideality that fortifies the entirety of Ecstatic Arrow - inequality pervades, destructive behaviours are inherited and each subsequent generation has to reconcile the debts of its precursor - yet a space exists within ourselves and each other that houses a fact we must be reminded of - we have the ability to choose. Even in moments of frustration; the ascerbic eye-roll toward male entitlement, Glorious Idea or the world-weary Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, there persists a joy for living that refuses to be confined. A depiction of a group finally at ease with itself, Ecstatic Arrow is a tribute to the internal momentum that quietly guides us toward our destination. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Dreamy, floating melodies and drums with reverb for days, Virginia wing manage to craft a delicately airy sound without sacrificing any of the inherent melodic content. A cleverly balanced and thoroughly beautiful journey.

TRACK LISTING

1 Be Released
2 The Second Shift
3 Glorious Idea
4 Relativity
5 For Every Window There's A Curtain
6 The Female Genius
7 Eight Hours Don't Make A Day
8 A Sister
9 Pale Burnt Lake
10 Seasons Reversed

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2018 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

‘Closer To God’, as with all TVP albums, is mightily personal. Dan Treacy provides the antidote to the opening of the ill-fated Disneyland Paris and the first McDonald’s in China – it’s a white knuckle ride through his innermost hopes and fears with off stage giggling, half heard dialogue and feedback that sounds like an opera is expiring in an adjoining L-shaped room. ‘Closer To God’ is a spiritual rollercoaster that sounds as poignant and pressing as ever. Remastered double LP on limited edition on marbled black and white vinyl. 1500 copies.

Half Japanese have returned to peel further layers from their onion. They have a new album that's a square further on in their unpredictable musical snakes and ladders board. ‘Why Not?’ is a magical thing – it’s Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ recorded in a cupboard, it’s an ode to love, it’s a Wire song with two duelling guitarists being Zappa on helium, it’s Parquet Courts in a tantrum, it’s The Crickets contorted into? and The Mysterians, it’s everywhere and nowhere, baby, it’s where it’s at. On ‘Why Not?’ nuances are mused, situations explained, questions asked.

Outside, zombies and demons roam and everyday aliens emerge from spaceships: it’s a technicolor film transcribed by Jad Fair and friends John Sluggett, Gilles-Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett, their faces at the cracked window of their subterranean habitat looking out at the real world. They’re on a high from their last release: “After all these years, his wiry voice still hits every song with a shock that’s equal parts joy buzzer and defibrillator, each barely in-key bleat alternating between laughable and life-affirming,” said Pitchfork of their last opus ‘Hear The Lion Roar’.

To which All Music added that “after nearly 40 years of music-making, they're still creating some of the most engaging recordings of their lives, and that's truly something to believe in.” ‘Why Not?’ goes further. It’s an even more intense concoction, it’s further out there. It contains pieces of fluffy thought-provoking music, a bag of sentiments delivered with a real sense of wonderment at how the normal world revolves; all powered with heart and soul, some crunchy guitars, a cello and reverb set-to-kill infiltrating their storytelling. ‘Why’d They Do It?’ quizzes track 11. Because they can. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Why not indeed?

TRACK LISTING

1. The Future Is Ours
2. The Face
3. Why Not?
4. Amazing
5. Demons Of Doom
6. A Word To The Wise
7. Bring On The Night
8. Zombie Island Massacre
9. Better Days
10. Spaceship To Mars
11. Why'd They Do It?
12. Magic
13. Falling