Released in 2020, 'I Feel Alive' marks a shimmering return for Montreal indie-pop band TOPS, blending their signature soft-focus synths, bright guitar lines, and Jane Penny’s emotionally direct vocals into their most vibrant work yet. The album balances glossy pop warmth with introspective lyricism, exploring themes of desire, transformation, and self-realization. With a sound that feels both nostalgic and refreshingly modern, 'I Feel Alive' captures the band at a new creative peak—lush, intimate, and effortlessly cool, reaffirming TOPS as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary dream-pop.

TRACK LISTING

1. Direct Sunlight
2. I Feel Alive
3. Pirouette
4. Ballads & Sad Movies
5. Colder & Closer
6. Witching Hour
7. Take Down
8. Drowning In Paradise
9. OK Fine Whatever
10. Looking To Remember
11. Too Much

Rough Trade Records are excited to announce a new stand-alone single by Lankum. Originally created for an Oona Doherty dance show ‘Specky Clark’ at Sadler’s Well earlier this year, the single is a devastatingly powerful and otherworldly interpretation of The Specials’ 1981 number one ‘Ghost Town’.

Lankum explain how the track came about; “Ghost Town came to us through some curious circumstances. Oona Doherty, who we were familiar with through her phenomenal dance work on the video for Gilla Band’s ‘Shoulderblades’, contacted us and told us about a new show she was putting together. It was about her great-great-grandfather being sent to Belfast as a child to live with his aunts and work in an abattoir. She wanted a new piece of music for the show, for a party scene set on Halloween night, and told us she wanted it to start out indistinguishable and woozy, before developing into the very recognisable track by The Specials. At first we were slightly reticent, since a cover of a ska tune wasn’t something we’d usually ever consider, but after a bit of deliberation we decided we’d give it a shot, and the result took us on an incredibly enjoyable journey that had us gleefully playing with synthesisers and drum machines in Hellfire Studios, trying to come up with the scaldiest 90s sounding techno for the outro section of the track.


"We’re very excited with the end product and delighted that Oona approached us and challenged us to step out of our comfort zone. It’s an honour to be releasing a version of this iconic tune, and it feels eerily relevant to be referencing yet again themes of urban decay, economic hardship and working class frustration."

TRACK LISTING

1. Ghost Town

Sour Soul is the collaborative album from Toronto jazz/hip-hop band BADBADNOTGOOD and Staten Island rap champ Ghostface Killah. Inspired by 1960s and 70s music - taking inspiration from the recording techniques and production of that era, and eschewing sampling in favour of live instrumentation, BBNG with producer Frank Dukes have created a dramatic, cinematic musical staging for Ghostface’s vivid storytelling. Sour Soul also features guest spots from MF DOOM, Elzhi (Slum Village / J Dilla), Danny Brown and prodigal new rapper Tree (Project Mayhem).

TRACK LISTING

1. Mono
2. Sour Soul
3. Six Degrees (feat. Danny Brown)
4. Gunshowers (feat. Elzhi)
5. Stark's Reality
6. Tone's Rap
7. Mind Playing Tricks
8. Street Knowledge (feat. Tree)
9. Ray Gun (feat. DOOM)
10. Nuggets Of Wisdom
11. Food
12. Experience

Australian duo Party Dozen — a feral blast of noise-funk chaos championed by Nick Cave and Amyl & The Sniffers — return with “Mad Rooter”. Built without a click track, it lurches and struts with wild, off-grid swagger, featuring a sax solo that channels late-night TV energy. Gritty samples from a battered, half-broken guitar add raw texture to a track that’s ten feet tall and gives zero f*cks. And that’s only the first hit: it’s followed by an insanely good cover of the Suicide classic “Ghost Rider.” It’s the cherry on top of this double-whammy.

TRACK LISTING

A1: Mad Rooter
A2: Ghost Rider (Suicide Cover)

Mj Lenderman is the project of Asheville native, Jake Lenderman, whose 'Boat Songs' was released to wide acclaim on Dear Life Records in 2022. Now Dear Life is proud to offer a vinyl reissue of MJ's 2021 label debut, 'Ghost of Your Guitar Solo,' a collection of nine songs recorded and performed entirely by Lenderman, and one live band track. The record was written and recorded quickly, songs often being fully constructed and recorded within frenzied single day sessions. Songs were born out of freewheeling jam sessions with his roommates, with Lenderman often freestyling lyrics that would later become the foundations of the finished songs. Lenderman would write 20 disconnected lines a day, scrapping most of them but preserving a few to be used later. This process aided in what became an extremely prolific writing period for the artist in the spring of 2020. The record sounds like country music being played by a noisy punk band, unkempt and imperfect like the characters in his songs. Here, Lenderman broadened his lyrical scope beyond solemn introspection, adding humor to scenes larger than his own life. He points to authors Harry Crews and Larry Brown as inspirations, both of whom were southern, self-taught writers who balanced empathy, humor, and darkness. This leads to the erosion of the line that separates humor and sadness. The resulting songs are about over-indulgence and drug/alcohol abuse, full of self-loathing and pity while celebrating the absurdity of it all.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Ghost Of Your Guitar Solo
A2 I Ate Too Much At The Fair
A3 Someone Get The Grill Out Of The Rain
A4 Inappropriate
A5 Gentleman’s Jack
B1 Another Place
B2 Infinity Pool
B3 Catholic Priest
B4 Ghost Of Your Guitar Solo 2
B5 Live Jack

'Psychic 9-5 Club' marks the beginning of a new chapter for HTRK. It's an album that looks back on a time of sadness and struggle, and within that struggle they find hope and humour and love. It's Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang's first album recorded entirely as a duo— former band member Sean Stewart died halfway through the recording of their last LP, 2011's 'Work (Work, Work)'.

Though the record is instantly recognisable as HTRK—Standish's vocal delivery remains central to the band's sound, while the productions are typically lean and dubby—they've found ample room for exploration within this framework. Gone are the reverb-soaked guitar explorations of 2009's 'Marry Me Tonight' and the fuzzy growls that ran through 'Work (Work Work)'. They've been replaced with something tender, velvety and polished. This is HTRK, but the flesh has been stripped from their sound, throwing the focus on naked arrangements and minimalist sound design.

The album was recorded at Blazer Sound Studios in New Mexico with Excepter's Nathan Corbin, who had previously directed the video clip for 'Work (Work Work)' cut 'Bendin'. Inviting a third party into their world was no easy decision, but in Corbin they found a kindred spirit. The LP was then refined and reworked in Australia at the turn of 2013, before the finishing touches were applied in New York during the summer.

Of all the themes that run through 'Psychic 9-5 Club', love is the most central. The word is laced throughout the album in lyrics and titles— love as a distraction, loving yourself, loving others. Standish's lyrics explore the complexities of sexuality and the body's reaction to personal loss, though there's room for wry humour—a constant through much of the best experimental Australian music of the past few decades.

Standish explores her vocal range fully—her husky spoken-word drawl remains, but we also hear her laugh and sing. Equally, Yang's exploratory production techniques—particularly his well-documented love of dub—are given room to shine. They dip headlong into some of the things that make humans tick—love, loss and desire—with the kind of integrity that has marked the band out from day one. 'Psychic 9-5 Club' is truly an album for the body and for the soul.

TRACK LISTING

1. Give It Up
2. Blue Sunshine
3. Feels Like Love
4. Soul Sleep
5. Wet Dream
6. Love Is Distraction
7. Chinatown Style
8. The Body You Deserve

When Chuck D proclaimed "Bass, how low can you go?" on Public Enemy's anthemic 'Bring the Noise,' maybe he was pre-empting or inciting the 10,000 fathoms-deep, spine-bending basslines and sub-quake tremors of 'Implosion.'

Implosion is a crushing split album, appropriately released on The Bug's own PRESSURE label. Mapping out a new form of spectral dub, the sound is deliberately immersive, introverted, and yes, definitely implosive. In pursuit of heavy lids, blurred vision, and merciless bass bin punishment, it’s one part meditation, two parts low-end theory, and essentially a confession of devoted sound system addiction.

As expected from a tag team featuring British soundlab explorer and 'London Zoo' composer Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, and Michael Fiedler, aka Jah Schulz—a long-time graduate of Germany's new school of sound system reggae culture—the duo approaches their target differently yet share the goal of keeping their sound "raw" (Fiedler) and "brutally minimal" (Martin). This proves that opposites can attract, even if their tools are different and their methods sometimes diverge.

From such a disparate combo, hailing from different geographical and aesthetic backgrounds, contrasts are certainly on display, even within each artist's own contributions. From the melancholia and transcendence of 'Alien Virus (West Indian Centre, Leeds),' to the duality of ascension and descension on 'Hope,' or the Sunn 0))) in dub, visceral drone of 'Dread (The End, London),' to the tripped-out repetitions of 'Midnight,' which reinvents Chain Reaction for post-millennials, the result is both sacred and narcotic. Each track illuminates the emotional impact and atmospheric pressure being explored across this deceptively sparse album—a mastery of tone and texture.

This collection might be as reduced, minimal, and deep as The Bug has ever gone, perhaps echoing the solemnity of his recent Kevin Richard Martin Black release and invoking the futurist steppas self-pioneered on his previous Pressure album. Alternatively, Fiedler‘s Ghost Dubs project ventures into his most heavyweight direction yet, which is no mean feat considering his previous, the critically acclaimed album Damaged, was a monstrously massive triumph of analogue weight and enviable sound design.

Implosion is ice-cool, a stark contrast to the warmth and sociability of traditional Jamaican roots and the current trends in digi-dub. Instead, the mood is soaked in tension and intense dread, finding an unexpected melting point where classic dub's stark rhythm attack, isolationist ambience's eerie drift, dub techno's floatation strategies, and even the relentless riffs of doom metal collide. As the bass-obsessed pair drop what is arguably the heaviest ambient dub album to emerge from any electronic sector—a moody counterpoint to The Orb's fluffy clouds, etc, Martin has cited The Roots Radics, Black Jade, and On U Sound's Pounding System as heavily influencing his approach to the album, while Fiedler has expressed his admiration for Adrian Sherwood's productions and Rhythm & Sound's enchanting soundscape. Yet, the super heavyweight pulsations, emotive resonances, and bone-rattling vibrations detonated here effortlessly go far beyond these influences.

Shadowy and elusive, there’s a mysteriousness at this record's core. A haunting moodiness oscillating between nostalgia and future shock. Despite the deadly fixation with SLOW and HEAVY, the album maintains a totally hypnotic swing throughout. Implosion and its lead single 'Imploded Versions' are testaments to being enveloped in bass, seduced by bass, submerged in bass, and utterly crushed by bass, as The Bug and Ghost Dubs seek to craft a new form of dub for zonal headz and Babylon seekers.

Mastered by Stefan Betke (a.k.a. POLE) at Scape Mastering studio, this record is heavy as f-ck without resorting to continuous distortion. It’s low-end worship taken to an absolute extreme, yet remains highly listenable and definitely danceable, albeit at the slowest of paces. Sacred and narcotic, this is low-end worship amplified to the max. Dive in if you dare. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Living in a small block of flats, and being the considerate neighbour I am; I rarely get to fire up my separates subwoofer. This weekend however I will make an exception - as I simply cannot envisage listening to this mighty slice of tectonic bass meditation without detailed profiling of the 20hz - 150hz range. I suggest you do the same! An absolute beast for bass heads, and a real development of sound system dynamics.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 THE BUG – Hooked (Hyams Gym, Leytonstone)
A2 GHOST DUBS - In The Zone
A3 THE BUG – Believers (Imperial Gardens, Camberwell)
Side B
B1 GHOST DUBS – Hope
B2 THE BUG – Burial Skank (Mass, Brixton)
B3 GHOST DUBS – Dub Remote
Side C
C1 THE BUG - Alien Virus (West Indian Centre, Leeds)
C2 GHOST DUBS – Down
C3 THE BUG - Militants (The Rocket, Holloway
Side D
D1 GHOST DUBS – Into The Mystic
D2 THE BUG - Dread (Mass Brixton)
D3 GHOST DUBS – Midnight

DINKED BONUS DINKED EDITION 12” / CD
A1. THE BUG - Spectres (Plastic People, Shoreditch)
A2. GHOST DUBS – Waterhouse
B1. THE BUG - Duppied (Brixton Rec)
B2. Ghost Dubs – No Words

Ghostly International has celebrated over 25 years as both a record label and art company, culminating in a unique marriage of sound and image. What does Ghostly sound like? “Genre-less” was a term thrown around in the early days, and that idea still holds true. Ghostly’s music — as with all of its artistic pursuits — straddles stylistic divisions, carving out space where sounds and ideas can cavort without inhibition or category.

This ethos comes to life in the first book dedicated to Ghostly, created with Hat & Beard Press. The immense volume delves into the label’s archives and history, featuring essays by critics Michaelangelo Matos and Philip Sherburne, alongside original interviews and oral histories with both musical and visual artists from across the roster.

Marking the five year anniversary from its original vinyl release and following a mammoth Minecraft year, that saw the release of the global box-office-topping ‘A Minecraft Movie’ starring Jack Black and Jason Mamoa, Ghostly International are making an ultra-rare ‘Warp Speed’ vinyl variant of C418’s legendary video game soundtrack available for the first time at UK retail.

Originally self-released in 2013, 'Minecraft Volume Beta' was C418’s longest batch of music to date at nearly 140 minutes. The collection features tracks that were “silently” added to Minecraft during its music updates and a few that never officially entered the game. The run time is now adapted to fit the double LP format, while digital downloads include the full set. Rosenfeld’s unmistakable abilities are on display; he creates a sweeping variety of musical ideas that mirror the limitless universe of Minecraft. Ghostly International is thrilled to give this unique collaboration its due treatment and hopes to see the creative inspiration which drives Minecraft and Rosenfeld continue to disperse by virtue of this unexpectedly universal music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ki
2. Alpha
3. Blind Spots
4. Mutation
5. Biome Fest
6. Aria Math
7. Taswell
8. Beginning 2
9. Moog City 2
10. The End
11. Kyoto
12. Chirp
13. Mellohi
14. Stal
15. Eleven
16. Far
17. Intro

Devils Ghosts and Firearms is Mike Badger’s first studio album in almost a decade. The album reflects Mike’s love of homespun & RnR roots music; Americana, Rockabilly, Pop and Country Blues, created with his raw DIY Punk ethos. Feat. guest performances from members of Lightning Seeds, The Christians, Furious, The La’s, The Shakers, Nashville’s Barflies, Mojave Collective, Jazzophonists, and Seprona.

RIYL: Alt-Country, Michael Head, Jay Farrar, John Martyn, Steve Earle, Chuck Prophet.

TRACK LISTING

(A1) Ghost In This Machine
(A2) Growing Older So Gracefully
(A3) Wolfman
(A4) Shoot Me In The Head (If I Ever Become One Of Them)
(A5) Beach Buggies On The Moon!
(A6) How The Hell It Come To This?
(A7) Sunset On Levant
(B8) Keep ‘Em Busy (So They Don’t Look Up)
(B9) Dark Side Of The Mountain
(B10) Sci Fi Hot Rod Messiah
(B11) Cudda Wudda Shudda
(B12) Half Bottle O’ Whisky
(B13) Who Am I Now?
(B14) Devils Ghosts And Firearms

A founding member of the legendary Wu-TangClan, Ghostface Killah is Hip Hop’s masked poet — known for his cinematic storytelling, gritty slang, and razor-sharp delivery. With classic albums like Supreme Clientele and Fishscale, Ghostface carved his name into rap history as one of the most original and consistent voices in the game. The Wait is Over. Supreme Clientele 2 is FINALLY here. The highly anticipated album is a vivid- late-night noir where every bar brought Ghost’s inner thoughts to life. From Staten Island to sold out stages worldwide.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1

SIDE A
1. Intro By Redman
2. Iron Man
3. Sample 420
4. Curtis May
5. 4th Disciple
6. Windows

SIDE B
1. Pause (Skit)
2. Georgy Porgy
3. Force MD (Skit)
4. Break Beat
5. Beat Box
6. Rap Kingpin

DISC 2

SIDE A
1. Sale Of The Century (Skit)
2. The Trial
3. Love Me Anymore
4. Soul Thang
5. Metaphysics

SIDE B
1. Candyland
2. Lenny Green (Skit)
3. The Zoom
4. You Ma Friend
5. Knuckles (Skit)

Originally a cover of track by iconic New York duo Suicide, ‘Ghost Rider’ has been recorded for the first time with brand new vocals from Marc, guest vocals from Jim Thirlwell from Foetus and saxophone from long term Soft Cell collaborator Gary Barnacle. Previously ‘Ghost Rider only existed live as part of the setlist of the band’s live shows during ‘The Art of Falling Apart’ era in 1983. It was performed for the first time in nearly 40 years at Soft Cell’s show at New York’s legendary Beacon Theatre in 2022, with Jim Thirwell duetting with Marc once again. This exclusive 12″ features bonus mixes not featured on The Art of Falling Apart re-issue via Universal.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ghost Rider (with JG Thirlwell & Gary Barnacle)
2. Ghost Rider (Marc’s Version)
3. Ghost Rider (Dubbed Out Version)
4. Ghost Rider (Original 1983 Backing Track)

Pingipung proudly introduces Iko Chérie, the experimental pop project of French multi-instrumentalist Marie Merlet. The 7" single "Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G" offers a first glimpse into her forthcoming LP, Soft Centre (Nov 2025) - a hypnotic blend of dub-infused songwriting and blissful noise. On the flipside, French electro-dub visionaries Froid Dub unravel the track into a shadowy, slow-motion version, with a solid sub-bass. Beyond Iko Chérie, Marie Merlet tours globally and records with Gina Birch (The Raincoats) and is the guitarist in psychedelic cumbia outfit Malphino.

Flirty Ghost is an evocative LP by Rachel Kitchlew, a jazz and contemporary harpist known for pushing the boundaries of her instrument. A blend of jazz, ambient, and experimental sounds, the album was crafted in a spontaneous, deeply personal atmosphere, recorded late at night in the cozy, smoky setting of SFJ headquarters.

Inspired by everything from Henry Mancini to Dorothy Ashby, this LP captures an eerie, playful essence, like a ‘flirty ghost’, while celebrating exploration and self-expression. The album holds emotional depth, particularly in tracks like ‘Truncate’ and ‘Cyclical’, which were recorded shortly after the passing of Rachel's grandmother, Sheila Horton, whose work is featured on the back cover.

With the collaboration of close friends and talented musicians, ‘Flirty Ghost’ represents a new chapter for Rachel, marking a joyful departure from her solo harp work into a collective, experimental musical journey.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mammone - 4’00
A2. Panther Jam - 4’56
A3. Heady - 5’02
A4. Truncate - 3’54
B1. Cyclical - 4’02
B2. Opium Lounge - 6’14
B3. Leopard Slug - 4’25
B4. Heady Reprise - 1’42

On their new album 'The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation', Montreal’s The Besnard Lakes return with their post-rock psych; but this time around, with a lightness and optimism at play.

Unique among their furrowed brow peers, The Besnard Lakes are unafraid to marry textured, questing headphone sonics to the honeyed pleasure of radio hits past: the rapture of My Bloody Valentine entwined with the romance of Fleetwood Mac. Imagine dreamy Beach House riding Led Zeppelin dynamics, with unabashedly androgynous vocal harmonies; a melodic yet mountainous sound world.

In a crowded leaderboard of their own making, 'The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation' might just be their best album yet; a strive for hope when it is needed most.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Like fellow Montrealers GYBE, The Besnard Lakes revel in the sort of slowly blooming wall-of-sound chaos we hear on their stunning new LP, but unlike GYBE there's a levity and melodic anchor in a soaring, haunting shoegazey vocal performance. A beautifully rich, endlessly growing wonder that draws on their established sound but pulls the peripheries out even further into rippling ambient and even in parts, noisy rock.

Andy says: This is a really beautiful album which combines post-rock with a touch of psych and even gently pulsing shoegaze. The band have created a warm and enveloping sound world studded with gorgeous twinkling songs.

TRACK LISTING

1. Calling Ghostly Nations
2. Chemin De La Baie
3. Carried It All Around
4. In Hollywood
5. Pontiac Spirits
6. Battle Lines
7. The Clouds Are Casting Shadows From The Sunlight
8. Give Us Our Dominion

Initially "Dracula Prince Of Darkness" was a cult 1966 horror movie starring Cristopher Lee. Released in 1969, Dracula Prince Of Darkness was produced by Joe Mansano on the Duke label DU034 (but featuring the blue Joe label) with the great instrumental Honky by the Joe's All Stars on the flip. It was the very first title in the King Horror series and one of the very best tracks. It is widely believed that it is Laurel Aitken who is performing on it!

This irresistible track "Ghost Horror" was the last in the King Horror series and was only released as a B-side on a white label that never got released. This was in 1970 on the Reggae label. Reggae was a subsidiary of UK label Doctor Bird and only released around ten singles between 1969 and 1970, all highly collectibles including tracks by King Horror, The Message, Pama Dice and the Skinhead Reggae instrumental classic "Tea House" by The Opening. Ghost Hours is not the most famous King Horror track but it is the rarest and is, in our humble opinion, one of King Horror's very best tracks and a fantastic companion of the Prince of Darkness on the flip...

TRACK LISTING

Dracula Prince Of Darkness
Ghost Hour

Swarming hymns of second generation psychedelic pop mastery. Main man Robyn Hitchcock, along with demon guitarist Kimberley Rew, bassist Matthew Seligman and drummer Morris Windsor manage to bottle 60s guitar pop, shake it up with caged teenage fury and cut it all with a healthy dose of lyrical levity.

"Underwater Moonlight" - seen as fatally un-hip when originally released – would go on to be seen as a seminal album and become a catalyst for 80s jangle pop and college rock, directly inspiring bands like R.E.M. and The Decemberists.

The Soft Boys mystified many in their day, but would now be categorized as psych-punk-meets-art-rock. Underwater Moonlight has long been considered a classic record: "Big Star and us were the rickety bridge between the Byrds and REM", says former SB's mainman Robyn Hitchcock.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Wanna Destroy You
2. Kingdom Of Love
3. Positive Vibrations
4. I Got The Hots
5. Insanely Jealous
6. Tonight
7. You'll Have To Go Sideways
8. Old Pervert
9. The Queen Of Eyes
10. Underwater Moonlight

Joviale makes music that feels like a show; drama lies in the tension between pop impulse and something more cerebral and sensorial. A multidisciplinary artist from North London, they came up as a theater kid and now harness their prismatic creative expression across mediums, fusing components of visual art, performance, and recording into a singular world.

In 2021, following their 'Hurricane Belle' EP, which caught the attention of Pitchfork and Crack Magazine, they quietly receded from view in an effort to learn and evolve. In 2025, out from behind the curtains comes 'Mount Crystal', their full-length debut on Ghostly International, an ascendent conceptual album that reintroduces Joviale’s point of view. Songs are electric and soulful, dashed with jazzy experimentation, rhythmic rock, and vibrant sound design, all realized alongside co-producers John Carroll Kirby and Jkarri and a cast of collaborators, including Sam Wilkes, Carter Lang, and Will Miller, among others.

Initially imagined as a play, 'Mount Crystal' brims and bursts with life — peril, humor, and the buzz of the human spirit — conjuring a metaphysical climb that transcends the audio format. With plans to further manifest the vision as a live set and more, Joviale sets the course: “'Mount Crystal's lore is driven by the embodiment of desire, danger, and desperation. A mirrored dimension in a distant reality where nothing is left unsaid. These chapters crave to tear apart the illusion of pleasure by alchemising the unrelenting pain I’ve experienced in my efforts to love, deny, and embrace the sweetest melodies with the sweetest friends.”

TRACK LISTING

1. The Mountain (intro)
2. Snow
3. Heavy
4. Crush
5. HARK!
6. Foul Play
7. Let Me Down
8. Moonshine
9. Both Ways
10. MC (intermission)
11. Beam
12. Blu
13. Disappear
14. Wishing

Stephen Murray, for fans of CAAMP, Jason Isbell, & Tom Petty. Stephen is well known as the frontman for MOVES and Holy Ghost Tent Revival. Having opened up for the likes of Lake Street Dive, Old 97’s, and Dr. Dog, Stephen has honed his talents over the years writing and performing. These are Stephen’s first songs stepping into the spotlight of his emerging solo career. Driving and pulsing Americana tracks that have a touch of Indie guitar fuzz and flourishes of Cosmic Country. Putting this record on, you can close your eyes and imagine driving fast down a country road with your windows down.

TRACK LISTING

Side A - Takes One
Side B - Tryin Tryin

On their 4th LP, 'Welcome to the Civilized World', Ghostwoman are a sharper beast than ever. Hypnotic spells of psych-grunge, decaying Americana and ragged blues instrumental make up the intuitive tracklist; Evan Uschenko’s filthy guitars and snarling, livewire vocals and Ille van Dessel’s caustic drum beats consolidating the album’s essence. Recorded on old instruments and tape machine, the force and feeling of the record is potent - reckless, illogical and free.

TRACK LISTING

1. Welcome To The Civilized World
2. Alive
3. That Jesus
4. 5 Gold Pieces
5. Levon
6. Dime A Dozen
7. When You All Were Young
8. Song For Sunny
9. From Now On
10. Anhedonia
11. Who Are You?

The third time’s the charm! Or perhaps — the third time’s another charming excursion into the seemingly infinite universe of rhythm spontaneously created whenever guitarist Oren Ambarchi, bassist Johan Berthling, and percussionist Andreas Werliin plug in together. However you choose to look at it, several years into their collaborative endeavour, and a little more than a year on from 'Ghosted II', Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin are back with a new finding, constituting fresh developments of their sound — if not their album-titling ambition (in other words, if you can’t guess it’s called 'Ghosted III', you’re just not paying enough attention!).

In actuality, the sound of this trio has been all about new developments since they first started playing together. That’s something to be simply expected when dropping the tonearm on any of their records, which is a very nice thing. There’s also something to be said for constancy, especially when it produces such stimulating variations of tone and mood within the trio format. So, all good — since there wasn’t anything broke, there was no need to fix it. Instead, just do it again. With that credo, Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin returned to Stockholm’s Studio Rymden to continue the incredible standard of capture that distinguished both 'Ghosted' and 'Ghosted II'.

Although they took more studio time than ever before (three whole days!), 'Ghosted III’s new development is an increased immediacy in their performances, something a little looser and wilder than than their first two albums — and something, no doubt, that’s been developed by their encounters during the several dozen-plus gigs played since their debut. Thus, their ability to lock in and focus, hanging on to the smallest of details, is here enhanced by an expansive lightness of being. Such potentially polar skill sets could well make for uneven chemistry — but in the hands of these three, a sparkling variety of new jams occurs. They seem to be available to try anything these days, at times playing with the exuberance of prog-rockers or new-wave popsters, alongside the eternal energies of their established styles: ambient neo-jazz, post-kraut, minimal funk. In the end, their shared instinct shapes the varied emissions into structure reaching ever further into the ether — giving 'Ghosted III' a singular quality belonging only to the trio that is Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yek
2. Do
3. She
4. Chahar
5. Panj
6. Shesh

TOPS — musicians David Carriere, Jane Penny,Marta Cikojevic, and Riley Fleck — write timeless music that reliably threads immediacy and depth. 'Bury the Key', their first full-length since 2020 and with new label home Ghostly International, is a captivating reintroduction for the Montréal band:ever refined, undoubtedly masters of their melodic craft yet unafraid of evolving and testing themselves against different, at times darker tones.The album faces feelings once locked away,engaging the give-and-take between happiness,hedonism, and self-destruction. While often inhabited by fictional figures, their glowing,grooving, self-produced songs draw from personal observations: intimacy (both inside and outside theband), toxic behavior, drug use, and apocalyptic dread. When recording started, they noticed a shift and leaned in, jokingly dubbed "evil TOPS," says Penny. "We're always kind of seen as a soft band orlike naive or friendly in a Canadian way, but we made it a challenge to really channel the world around us." Through the lens of a looming epoch and the clarity that comes with age, TOPS dip into amore sinister disco realm with 'Bury the Key', giving their soft-focus sophisti-pop a sharpened edge.

TRACK LISTING

1. Stars Come After You
2. Wheels At Night
3. ICU2
4. Outstanding In The Rain
5. Annihilation
6. Falling On My Sword
7. Call You Back
8. Chlorine
9. Mean Streak
10. Your Ride
11. Standing At The Edge Of Fire
12. Paper House

Edinburgh’s Hobbes Music label returns with a second EP of dream pop from husband-and-wife duo Sarah/Shaun (pronounced simply Sarah Shaun), alias Sarah and Shaun McLachlan (pronounced McLochlun), who wooed hearts and wowed critics with debut EP ‘It’s True What They Say?’ last year.

‘It’s True What They Say?’ attracted fans across the board: Artist Of The Week in The Scotsman, rapturous reviews from The Skinny and Tokyo's Ban Ban Ton Ton blog, BBC 6Music airplay courtesy of Nemone (Mary Anne Hobbs' Morning Show), more radio play from Radio Scotland's Roddy Hart & Vic Galloway, plus Simone Butler (Primal Scream) and Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds) via their respective Soho Radio shows, not forgetting ringing endorsements from the likes of David Holmes, Youth, Kevin Bales (Spiritualized), Brent Rademaker (Beachwood Sparks) and Julian Corrie (Franz Ferdinand).

They played gigs supporting Glasgow's huge Glasvegas, at festivals (Kendall Calling, Dunbar Music, Hidden Door), plus a slew of venues across the Scottish capital, ending the year with a trio of shows supporting Glaswegian 80s pop legends The Bluebells at Aberdeen’s Tunnels, Dunfermline’s PJ Molloys and Edinburgh’s Liquid Rooms, while The List magazine tipped them among their Ones To Watch For 2025, with journalist Fiona Shepherd suggesting they were “blending the starry-eyed pop of Sonny & Cher with the electronic experimentation of Chris & Cosey.”

Very much the companion piece to the debut EP but arriving a full twelve months later, 'Someone’s Ghost' is emblematic of the duo’s desire not to rush things or release anything half-baked.

“I’ve always wanted to create the perfect pop record and I do really feel that we’ve achieved that with this one,” says Shaun. And he’s clearly not the only person who thinks so.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Exquisite dream pop with plenty of flair a la Italians Do It Better / Chromatics etc. Should also appeal to fans of Thief Of Time and David Holmes.

TRACK LISTING

1. Anhedonia 04:19
2. Debbie Harry 04:49
3. Filter Of Love 05:36
4. The Sound Which Stresses The Sound Of My Ears 06:03

The undisputed king of Disco House Purple Disco Machine returns to his club roots with retro-inspired release ‘Ghost Town’ ft. Rertosonix. Fresh off reworking the Hurts classic ‘Wonderful Life’ and delivering a huge remix for ‘Born Again’ (Lisa ft. Doja Cat & RAYE), the Dresden-born producer is once again ready to conquer the dancefloor with his signature sound. Tailor-made for that insatiable desire to dance, it’s a release engineered for movement, locking straight into the pulse of late-night energy and crowd euphoria. As such, the track is unsurprisingly becoming a favourite in Purple Disco Machine’s sets already, where dates in Mexico, the USA, and Spain have left the dancefloors anything but a ‘Ghost Town’. Armed with a dancefloor weapon, Purple Disco Machine drops the release early for DJs on Beatport.

A master of channelling the nostalgia of dance music’s beginnings and blending it with a modern-day flair, Purple Disco Machine has expertly crafted a record reminiscent of throwback disco cuts. The soulful vocals come courtesy of Retrosonix, successful songwriters who have come together to specialise in retro disco vocals that ingeniously feel straight from the archives. You’ll be sonically transported back to a time when disco was heard on every corner. Tactfully letting the powerful hooks and provocative lyricism lead the rhythm for the tune, Purple Disco Machine’s iconic groove-driven beats and mesmerising synths lay the foundation for a dancefloor classic. Crafting breakdowns dripping with funk, the disco maestro builds to a crescendo that will undoubtedly be a crowd pleaser for his many shows in 2025.

On the release, Purple Disco Machine said: “While a number of my recent records have referenced the more electronic 80s disco sound, I never lost the love for the classic funky disco of the 70s - which in many ways was the original blueprint - and so it has been equally inspiring and enjoyable to work with this palette again. I'm hoping that the listeners are as haunted (in a good way…) by Ghost Town as I am !”

TRACK LISTING

A1. Extended Mix
B1. Instrumental Mix

New Album from Venturing, a side project from Jane Remover. With a 7.9 review from Pitchfork and acclaim from The Fader and Stereogum, 'Ghostholding' is full of sprawling, fearsome beauty, both compositionally tighter and texturally coarser than their past forays into rock.

TRACK LISTING

1. Play My Guitar
2. No Sleep
3. Believe
4. Guesthouse
5. Spider
6. Recoil
7. Something Has To Change
8. Dead Forever
9. We Don't Exist
10. Sick / Relapse
11. Famous Girl
12. Halloween
13. Sister

Experience the critically acclaimed album on a black double LP in a gatefold sleeve. 'Supreme Clientele' features iconic tracks like 'One', 'Ghost Deini', 'Mighty Healthy', and 'Cherchez LaGhost'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Nutmeg (feat. RZA)
3. One
4. Saturday Nite - US Album Edit
5. Ghost Deini (feat. Superb)
6. Apollo Kids (feat. Raekwon)
7. The Grain (featuring The RZA) (feat. RZA)
8. Buck 50 (feat. Cappadonna, Method Man & Redman)
9. Mighty Healthy
10. Woodrow The Base Head
11. Stay True (feat. 60 Second Assassin)
12.  We Made It (feat. Superb)
13. Stroke Of Death
14. Iron's Theme (Intermission)
15. Malcolm
16. Who Would You Fuck
17. Child's Play
18. Cherchez LaGhost (feat. U-God)
19. Wu Banga 101 (feat. GZA, Cappadonna, Masta Killa & Raekwon)
20. Clyde Smith
21. Iron's Theme (Conclusion)

When three of the most forward-thinking minds in electronic and alternative music collide, the result is bound to be expansive. Demise Of Love is the thrilling new project from Daniel Avery, James Greenwood's Ghost Culture, and Working Men’s Club—a studio collaboration forged from mutual admiration and an unrelenting drive to break new ground. Born from a shared desire to create something raw, boundary-pushing and deeply emotive, the trio entered the studio with no expectations, only a love for each other’s work and a fearless approach to sound. The result is a heady fusion of industrial dreamscapes, acid house intensity, and starkly beautiful melodies. Shaped by the combined creative forces of the trio’s masterful production and brooding presence, Demise Of Love carves out its own uncompromising space in electronic music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Strange Little Consequence
2. Carry The Blame
3. Be A Man
4. Like I Loved You

Originally released in October 1981, the fourth studio album by The Police was no. 1 in the UK album chart and a multi-platinum best seller. It features three hit singles – Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Invisible Sun and Spirits in the Material World. Their jazz influences became more pronounced, but the album had a very strong, sophisticated pop appeal, in the song-writing talents of Sting. Highlights also include the vicious jazz-rocker Demolition Man (later covered by Grace Jones) the frantic Rehumanize Yourself, and a pair of album-closing ballads – Secret Journey and Darkness.

Four years after his rock juggernaut 'Puritan', Chris Brokaw delivers 'Ghost Ship', a landscape meditation (at sea) for vocals and electric guitars. "I set out to make an 8 song statement like 'Desert Shore' or 'Raw Power', but it became a 9 song... something else. I've described it to friends as Twin Peaks-ish but that feels only part right. The songs were written on a 60's Teisco Del Rey electric guitar, set up by the Belgian luthier Flip Scipio with heavy gauge flat wound strings and an .80 gauge low E string tuned down to a low A, which reframes how you play the instrument. I wrote them all quickly in a kind of fever."—Brokaw

TRACK LISTING

1. Over My Body
2. Ghost Ship
3. Anything Anymore
4. Palatine Light
5. Vampire Of Rathmines
6. Paloma
7. 8 Or 9 Things
8. Profile
9. Away From Me

Underground Resistance's truly iconic Red Planet series is a collection of Mars-indebted techno records that no lover of Detroit techno should be without. Composed by the illusive The Martian alias - supposedly credited to Will Thomas but often referring to a number of producers working together - the series was described by one Discogs user as: 'Sounds like some brothers from Detroit and a bunch of Native Americans got together and decided they had enough of this world and went off to Mars to form a musical tribe that would beam back their creations to earth in the hopes of enlightening humanity'. It's certainly striking music with a strong audio fingerprint throughout and, considering its origins in 1992, has remained considerably ahead of its time even now.

Originally a double 12", RP6 is now reissued as a single disc release with four tracks taken from the original seven (maybe we'll get the other three on another reissue, we don't know yet). "Medicine Man" is a stripped back, tribal joint that recalls some of the minimal voodoo of fellow Detroiters, Octave One. "The Vanishing Race" pairs drums swung so hard they tumble with flailing synth tones and rising strings. It's a track that could only really emanate from the Red Planet axis. 

"Windwalker" sees The Martian nod to Galaxy 2 Galaxy with a spiritual hi-tech jazz number straight from the Detroit techno songbook! Probably the crowning glory of this particular release and one of the more anthemic tracks from the Red Planet cannon - worth the entrance fee alone this one folks! 

"The Talking Rocks Of Mars" concludes the 12" with a suitably wigged out exercise in mainframe obliteration. Pummelling kicks, morse code acid, uncomprehensible synth murmurings... it's like your trapped inside the CPU of an alien reactor being chased by those robotic flying drones off Black Mirror.... In a good way of course! :P 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Another key release from the Red Planet - light years ahead of the pack and responsible for creating truly timeless techno artefacts for our record bags.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Medicine Man
A2. The Vanishing Race
B1. Windwalker
B2. The Talking Rocks Of Mars

Rialto release their first new album in 24 years, 'Neon & Ghost Signs' via Fierce Panda Records. In this sordid clubland mode, 'Neon & Ghost Signs' opens with ‘No One Leaves This Discoteque Alive’. Eliot casting himself as “the hound of London town, where the sheets are stained with gold” in a lascivious Brel growl, out to “lose my head” and find love “in a perfect storm”. It’s a nocturnal party prowl that the album pursues with a passion.

Theirs is a reunion spurred on not so much by a longing for the past as an urgency to grab the best of life while they can. Six years ago, while holidaying in Spain, singer and song-writer Louis Eliot was rushed to hospital for extreme emergency surgery, mere hours from death. His full recovery was an epiphany. “What you might think is if you have a very close to death experience you want to start looking after yourself,” he says. “I just went chasing full speed after my youth. I was just like, fuck it, I might not be here next week, I'm just going to dive in.”

Part of Eliot’s rebirth involved leaving behind a long-term relationship to immerse himself once more in London’s late-night party scene. Part of it was the romance and anguish he found there. And part of it was realising that the songs that were emerging from this period – songs of love and loss, hedonism and regret, set in wistful witching hours – were a call from the past. 

TRACK LISTING

1. No One Leaves This Discotheque Alive
2. I Want You
3. Neon And Ghost Signs
4. Taking The Edge Off Me
5. Remembering To Forget
6. Car That Never Comes
7. Sandpaper Kisses
8. Cherry
9. Put You On Hold
10. Gone

Coming off a last few years defined by an American Music Award and iHeart Radio Award-winning international #1 album, an RIAA-certified platinum & UK certified gold single, and a massive world tour immortalized in a box office record-breaking feature film, 2025 is poised to be GHOST’s busiest, most ambitious and outright biggest year to date.

Having revealed the existence of 'SKELETÀ', the forthcoming sixth album from the GRAMMY-winning Swedish theatrical rock icons, and its insidiously melodic lead single 'Satanized', GHOST has only begun the next phase of its inevitable path to world domination. With hundreds of thousands of tickets already sold for the first leg of a worldwide arena tour featuring the band’s first-ever headline date at Madison Square Garden, GHOST is poised to bring the most introspective and inward-focused material of the band’s career to vivid life—and in suitably grandiose style: The tour supporting 'SKELETÀ' will feature the debut of the newly anti-christened Papa V Perpetua, as he presides over a phantasmagoric new production that promises to elevate the live rituals that propelled the band's debut feature film 'RITE HERE RITE NOW' to become the highest grossing hard rock cinema event in North American history. 'SKELETÀ' and its accompanying tour stand to radically grow the always burgeoning, uniquely impassioned and unflaggingly loyal legions who eat, sleep and dress GHOST. From longtime devoted disciples to the curious uninitiated, all will be welcomed to find communion, salvation and escape in 'SKELETÀ' and the ever-expanding world of GHOST.

TRACK LISTING

1. Peacefield
2. Lachryma
3. Satanized
4. Guiding Lights
5. De Profundis Borealis
6. Cenotaph
7. Missilia Amori
8. Marks Of The Evil One
9. Umbra
10. Excelsis

In his label debut on Ghostly International, Brooklyn-born, South London-based artist Goya Gumbani redefines his recording project with rich, full-band arrangements, crossing London's new jazz generation with New York City's hip-hop storytelling legacy. Warlord of the Weejuns is a triumph of taste, heritage, and pride from one of rap music's most dexterous talents. Guests include Fatima, lojii, Seafood Sam, and Yaya Bey. London-based Swedish soul singer Fatima appears in two singles; first, there's "Firefly," a cosmic R&B groove that captures the rawness of a recent breakup. "Fatima came and just laid the hook, and I was like, damn, you're embodying how I'm feeling," says Goya, who built it out with contributions from Swarvy, Omari Jazz, Les Lockheart, and his Ghostly labelmate quickly, quickly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Weejuns (intro) Ft. Will Stowe
2. Beautiful BLACK
3. One Hand Washes The Other Ft. Lojii
4. Crossroad(s)
5. Negroni (Skit)
6. FireFly Ft. Fatima
7. Nothin’ To Say
8. UPtown Mami (Skit)
9. Manuva(s) Ft. Joe Armon-Jones
10. Driftin’ Interlude Ft. Pearl De Luna
11. Chase The Sunrise Ft. Yaya Bey, Lojii, Fatima
12. First Dates
13. Quiz Interlude Ft. Salimata
14. Lizards / Dancin' With The Devil Ft. Jaydon Clover & The Hotel
15. Mind, Body, Spirit Ft. Seafood Sam
16. FOREVER POOH

Dark Entries calls on Philadelphia experimental duo The Ghostwriters to resurrect their 1981 LP of minimalist mayhem, "Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear". The late Buchla maestro Charles Cohen and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Cain joined up in 1971 to craft electroacoustic chaos as Anomali, later renaming themselves The Ghostwriters. Their collaborations with choreographers and visual media artists led to their singular style, straddling improvisation and composition, the oneiric and the immediate. 1981 saw the release of their debut album, "Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear", a whirling, messy, telepathic slipstream cascading across an imaginary landscape. Recorded in Don Buchla’s childhood home, "Objects..." offers 8 cuts of minimalist electronic bliss, equal parts icy and quirky, with standout cuts including the grooving havoc of “Fix it in the Mix” and the otherworldly hymn “Moon Chant.” These angular pearls will be cherished by fans of John Bender, Ceramic Hello, and all strains of outsider 80s electronics. Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear has been freshly remastered and includes an insert with photos and liner notes. Proceeds from the album will be donated to SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), a nonprofit that combats online child sex abuse and trafficking.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sleedermauseman / Reference To Rota 
2. Emotional Momentum 
3. Swizzle 
4. Fix It In The Mix 
5. Moon Chant 
6. Quirks Of Quails
7. ON/OFF 
8. Tarpit 

Across a remarkable run of releases in barely half a decade, London’s Loraine James has established her identity through a blend of refined composition, gritty experimentation, and unpredictable, intricate electronic programming. While titles released under her given name on Hyperdub tend toward IDM-influenced, vocal-heavy collaborations, James reserves her Ghostly International-signed alias, Whatever The Weather, for an inward gaze that explores innate “emotional temperature” and environment (shown in degree-based track titling).

Her second full-length is a markedly warmer outing compared to its predecessor, as signaled by the shift from LP1’s arctic cover photo to LP2’s desert climes. Common to both albums is the mastering work of friend and collaborator Josh Eustis(aka Telefon Tel Aviv), who lends his keen ear to James’ complexities to craft a strikingly three-dimensional sonic experience. Flowing from hypnotic atmospheres to mottled rhythms to processed collages of diaristic field recordings, 'Whatever The Weather II' is a compelling union of organic and human elements from one of electronic music’s most imaginative talents.

The lead single and closing track to Whatever The Weather’s(Loraine James) new LP, '12°C', drifts from bustling human spaces into a concrete groove, weaving melody and texture into a truly unusual, soul-stirring fullness. In its final moments, a languid acoustic guitar and gentle, finger-tapped beat join her pitch-shifted voice. 'Whatever The Weather II' is full of such passages, where formal composition appears like a film in negative, and conventions are upturned with wit, intelligence, and skill.

TRACK LISTING

1. 1°C
2. 3°C
3. 18°C
4. 20°C
5. 23°C (Intermittent Sunshine)
6. 5°C
7. 8°C
8. 26°C
9. 11°C (Intermittent Rain)
10. 9°C
11. 15°C
12. 12°C

This reissue celebrates the 10th anniversary of Gazelle Twin’s second album, Unflesh. Featuring new artwork by Grammy award-winning design agency Barnbrook, and on limited edition blue vinyl for the first time.

The Quietus’ Album of the Year in 2014.
“A rich, dark and gorgeous album, bristling with sonic challenge and literary depth” 8/10 - UNCUT
"Strange and beautiful" 4/5 - Q Magazine
"This album, with its pristine interiors, captures the intimacy of her trauma perfectly. It’s an immaculate as a hotel in a JG Ballard novel, and just as bloody scary." 9/10 - Pop Matters
"Unflesh is at times a disturbing and upsetting listen, but it is also a triumph of will over circumstance.” 8/10 - Music OMH
“Unflesh is a truly brilliant piece of work, and the sound of an artist trailblazing through as yet uninhabited territory.” 8/10 - Drowned in Sound
“Weird and wonderful and quite literally the sound of pure fear” 4/5 - Artrocker (Album Of The Month)

"Funny, sardonic, and literate... it's impossible not to be swayed by these acerbically funny story songs " - Mojo Magazine.

The Burning Hell have been writing party anthems about the apocalypse since before the apocalypse arrived at the party. With "Ghost Palace," the band presents their most joyful collection of songs about death to date, always finding something to smile about in the decay. Mathias Kom's maximalist lyrics are underlined with fluorescent highlighter, with surprising twists and turns through pop culture, animal life, history, architecture, and science fiction.

Followers of Self’s work will still find familiar sonic forms on 'r∞L4nGc', from galvanizing electronic experimentations to Self’s lofty, soaring voice, undiminished after years of relative silence. 'Busy Walks Into the Memory Palace' is assthrowing dance music for corporeal forms that don’t yet exist, making Self a different kind of time traveller, the track primed to be played thousands of years hence. On 'Dissumlato', it sounds as if Self has been sealed into a wayward spacecraft, a synthesizer and their voice their only company, performing for themselves and whomever else in the beyond might be listening to them. Attending to more earthly concerns, and the fraying queer communities that Self has nourished for many years, 'Gajo' deploys a 2-step beat, interweaving chamber orchestral manoeuvres and electronic vocal modulation. As they sing, “Something calling out to me from the other side/It’s my own choice to make within this life,” you hear Self contemplate the ecstatic terror of reaching into the unknown in one another, no space to shapeshift without letting down the barriers separating ourselves from one another in the first place.

'∞', the album’s closing track, a nearly 11-minute suite (also released as lemniscate, a four-track EP to introduce Colin’s new music), is central to the album’s thematic core. The lemniscate, the formal name for the mathematical sign most of us know as the infinity symbol, has guided Self backwards and forwards through the endless quest to carry meaning from one realm to another. It’s a looping journey that requires immense humility and a willingness to shed the stability of the bounded self, instead opening to voices that cry out from a darkened corner, still too vulnerable to emerge in daylight.

“The lemniscate begins with a prayer and darkness being pulled into a portal in which I have to sort of face death, or face loss and grief and sadness, to then kind of come out on the other side with some clarity,” Self says. “Instead of thinking of the darkness being this place of fear, it’s often in the shadows where the important things are happening. We can’t know [these spirits], or we can’t see them, but we have to believe that they exist.” Many spirits present themselves on the album, and while Self’s rapturous singing ability is the medium for these transmissions, listen closely and you might meet someone you never knew existed.

TRACK LISTING

1. Respite For The Tulpamancer
2. Gajo
3. Doll Park Doll Park
4. Dissimulato
5. Losing Faith
6. {Canting}
7. Busy Walks Into The Memory Palace
8. Paraphrase Of A Shadow
9. Riddlecraft
10. Gaolbreaker’s Dream
11. Tip The Ivy
12. ∞

Fresh from beasting the end-of-year charts with her ‘I Miss Your Love’ remix project, Ghost Assembly, aka Manchester DJ and writer Abigail Ward, is back with a double A-side: "RESIST! / I Keep on Making the Same Mistake".

Laid down quickly and angrily after attending a demo in Manchester city centre, "RESIST!" aims to capture the galvanising spirit of protest and put it on wax. A 111bpm acid chugger that will leave dancefloors of an ALFOS or Optimo persuasion begging for more, this is uncompromising machine funk at its crudest.

Duelling 303s twist around each other whilst a taut, snaking 707 groove underpins unexpected blasts of Arabic rhythm, almost as if DJ Pierre had remixed ‘Get UR Freak On’, relocating it to the Middle East. As a stuttering Harper Hay vocal sample urges us to RESIST!, the track climaxes with an ice cold acid house string coda banged out on a disobedient synth. Please note: the sub on this record may trouble your duodenum.

The "Utter Kunt Mix" is a sparse and daring Sleng Teng-inspired avant-dub affair strictly for discerning dancefloors only. Improbably combining hints of the Mission Impossible theme, Les Négresses Vertes’ ‘Zobi La Mouche’ and the rough-hewn sampling of ‘Duck Rock’, this is a radiant obstacle in the path of the obvious. Warning: collectors of On-U, EBM and New Beat could experience a spate of nocturnal emissions upon purchasing this record.

The A-side closes with a Bonus Beats version of the Utter Kunt Mix: a must-have DJ tool.

Picking up the pace to 120, B-side cut, "I Keep on Making the Same Mistake" sees Ghost Assembly returning to her string-drenched sad banger comfort zone, pairing a chilly breakbeat with a bass riff reminiscent of Joey Beltram having a gutwrenching cry wank. Keening vocals supplied by Hazel Grove are chopped up, tormented and eventually hurled down a K-hole as the strings build and the drama escalates. When the credits roll on this cinematic masterpiece we hear a wistful French lesbian talking about 'borrowed bliss'. A future comedown classic; also sounds good slowed down to 33rpm.

The E.P. signs off with a stunning string-a-pella that will linger long after the needle hits the run-out groove.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of Manchester's favourite new producers returns with a follow up to the superb 'I Miss Your Love' on Ruf Kutz alll the way back in 2023. This time we get the thumping, resonant synth stabs and skittering drum machines of classic acid, chugging percussion and floating pads. Another heavy hitter, like you'd expect anything less.

TRACK LISTING

A. RESIST ! (Extended 12" Mix)
A. RESIST ! (Utter Kunt Mix)
A. RESIST ! (U.K Bonus Beats)
AA. I KEEP ON MAKING THE SAME MISTAKE
AA. STRING REPRISE

'A Ghost Is Born' was originally released on June 22, 2004, debuting at No. 8 on the Billboard chart. The album, which Mehr calls ‘an eclectic array of dark ballads, upbeat pop songs, Krautrock chug, noise rock freakouts, and roots rock abandon,’ was widely acclaimed as one of 2004’s best, appearing in year-end lists of Mojo, NPR, NME, the Associated Press, The Wire, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, and Uncut, among many others. The album earned the band its first Grammy, for Best Alternative Music Album. The album also won a Grammy for Best Recording Package.

For the 'A Ghost Is Born' recording, Wilco was Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, and Mikael Jorgensen; Jim O’Rourke, who mixed the band’s previous release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, co-produced the album with Wilco. Leroy Bach left Wilco at the completion of the sessions and the band announced the addition of two new members: Pat Sansone and Nels Cline. Sansone and Cline toured with Wilco to promote A Ghost Is Born and that lineup has remained unchanged since 2004. As Tweedy said to Mehr for his new liner note, “Making that record, and then finding this lineup, that was the start of something – of having a band that can play anything. That’s why, 20 years later, we’re still here and still going.”

Wilco first began sessions for what would become 'A Ghost Is Born' in early 2002 at Chicago’s Soma E.M.S., where they had mixed 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'. Much of the album was tracked live in the studio with O’Rourke and engineer Chris Shaw. They also reunited there with engineer and soon-to-be-bandmate Mikael Jorgensen.

At Soma, the band began sketching out music using Tweedy’s notebooks of lyrics, poetry, and prose. Mehr notes: ‘In between more traditional song tracking, the group would engage in a series of conceptual improvisations in the studio. These musical experiments, broadly known as ‘Fundamentals’… were part of what Kotche said was ‘an attempt to search for a new group identity. To see what we could make this band into.’’

In the fall of 2003, the band relocated to New York to finish recording at Sear Sound. “It seemed like the band needed to get out of Chicago, get out of the working mode they’d been in, and only be thinking about making a record,” O’Rourke told Mehr. There, playing together in the corner of a large studio, the album began to take its final shape.

Emerging from a period of addiction and rehab, Tweedy discussed how he feels about 'A Ghost Is Born' in retrospect. As he told Mehr, “I was worried the album was going to feel like something dark and not me anymore. But the album was ahead of me as a person. It was the part of me that I was trying to preserve – enthusiastic and furious about the world, as well as open and loving. I reached that in the music, before I could get there emotionally on my own.”

TRACK LISTING

9LP & 4CD Box Set/9CD Box Set Tracklist:
A Ghost Is Born
1. At Least That’s What You Said
2. Hell Is Chrome
3. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4. Muzzle Of Bees
5. Hummingbird
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Wishful Thinking
8. Company In My Back
9. I’m A Wheel
10. Theologians
11. Less Than You Think
12. The Late Greats

dBpm: Outtakes/Alternates 1
13. At Least That’s What You Said (8/13/02 SOMA-Chicago)
14. Hell Is Chrome (10/5/03 SOMA-Chicago)
15. Spiders (Kidsmoke) (9/28/03 SOMA-Chicago)
16. Muzzle Of Bees (7/15/03 SOMA-Chicago)
17. Hummingbird (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago)
18. Handshake Drugs (11/13/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
19. Wishful Thinking (11/1/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
20. Company In My Back (2/8/03 Hothouse-St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia)
21. I’m A Wheel (August 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
22. Theologians (3/19/03 SOMA-Chicago)
23. Less Than You Think (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
24. The Late Greats (7/19/03 SOMA-Chicago)
25. Kicking Television (3/18/03 SOMA-Chicago)
26. The High Heat (2/5/02 SOMA-Chicago)
27. Panthers (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
28. Diamond Claw (3/21/03 SOMA-Chicago)
29. Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard (June 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
30. More Like The Moon (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago)
31. Improbable Germany (10/7/03 SOMA-Chicago)

Unstitched: Outtakes/Alternates 2
32. Handshake Drugs (First Version) (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
33. Hummingbird (February 2002 Recorded Live During Tracking At SOMA-Chicago)
34. The High Heat (2/4/02 SOMA-Chicago)
35. Spiders (Kidsmoke) (February 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
36. Diamond Claw (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
37. Muzzle Of Bees (October 2003 Sear Sound-NYC)
38. Like A Stone (11/10/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
39. Leave Me (Like You Found Me) (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
40. Losing Interest (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
41. Old Maid (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
42. Spiders (Kidsmoke) (August 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
43. Panthers (October 2003 Sear Sound-NYC)
44. Muzzle Of Bees (7/16/03 SOMA-Chicago)
45. Diamond Claw (10/9/03 SOMA-Chicago)
46. Losing Interest (7/20/03 SOMA-Chicago)
47. Spiders (Kidsmoke) (October 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
48. The Thanks I Get (6/26/02 SOMA-Chicago)
49. Two Hat Blues (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
50. Improbable Germany (January 2002 Pre-Production Loft Session-Chicago)

The Hook At The Wang (Live October 1, 2004 At The Wang Center-Boston, MA)
51. Muzzle Of Bees
52. Company In My Back
53. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
54. A Shot In The Arm
55. Hell Is Chrome
56. Handshake Drugs
57. Jesus, Etc.
58. Hummingbird
59. I’m Always In Love
60. At Least That’s What You Said
61. Ashes Of American Flags
62. Theologians
63. I’m The Man Who Loves You
64. Poor Places
65. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
66. She’s A Jar
67. A Magazine Called Sunset
68. Kingpin
69. The Late Greats
70. I’m A Wheel
71. Via Chicago
72. California Stars
73. Christ For President

Fundamentals (On CD In The LP Boxset)
74. Fundamental 1
75. Fundamental 2
76. Fundamental 3
77. Fundamental 4
78. Fundamental 5
79. Fundamental 6
80. Fundamental 7


2CD Tracklist:
CD1 - A Ghost Is Born
1. At Least That’s What You Said
2. Hell Is Chrome
3. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4. Muzzle Of Bees
5. Hummingbird
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Wishful Thinking
8. Company In My Back
9. I’m A Wheel
10. Theologians
11. Less Than You Think
12. The Late Greats

CD2 - DBpm: Outtakes/Alternates
13. At Least That’s What You Said (8/13/02 SOMA-Chicago)
14. Hell Is Chrome (10/5/03 SOMA-Chicago)
15. Spiders (Kidsmoke) (9/28/03 SOMA-Chicago)
16. Muzzle Of Bees (7/15/03 SOMA-Chicago)
17. Hummingbird (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago)
18. Handshake Drugs (11/13/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
19. Wishful Thinking (11/1/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
20. Company In My Back (2/8/03 Hothouse-St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia)
21. I’m A Wheel (August 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
22. Theologians (3/19/03 SOMA-Chicago)
23. Less Than You Think (11/11/03 Sear Sound-NYC)
24. The Late Greats (7/19/03 SOMA-Chicago)
25. Kicking Television (3/18/03 SOMA-Chicago)
26. The High Heat (2/5/02 SOMA-Chicago)
27. Panthers (March 2003 SOMA-Chicago)
28. Diamond Claw (3/21/03 SOMA-Chicago)
29. Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard (June 2002 SOMA-Chicago)
30. More Like The Moon (2/8/02 SOMA-Chicago)
31. Improbable Germany (10/7/03 SOMA-Chicago)


2LP Tracklist:
1. At Least That’s What You Said
2. Hell Is Chrome
3. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4. Muzzle Of Bees
5. Hummingbird
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Wishful Thinking
8. Company In My Back
9. I’m A Wheel
10. Theologians
11. Less Than You Think
12. The Late Greats

Some called Studio, the project of Swedish musicians Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, “the missing link between The Cure and Lindstrøm,” Pitchfork heard Durutti Column and Can, as the duo’s story became swept up in a loosely developing scene — adjacent first to the label Service (Jens Lekman, The Whitest Boy Alive) and later Sincerely Yours (The Tough Alliance, jj) — and a precursor to the 2010s boom at the axis of electronic and psychedelic music guided by indie greats like Caribou, Four Tet, and Darkside.

'West Coast', their seminal 2006 debut, captured a faraway romanticism of Balearic brushed up against Krautrock, disco, dub, and afrobeat, with pop lyricism lifted from new wave, all made modern by two art school grads in Gothenburg. First pressed in a small vinyl-only run via their own Information label, the album has been notably absent from most streaming services, and the internet’s record of its initial impact is all but fossilized from a bygone blog era, while its sound is simply untraceable to any one moment in music.

Outside of three 7” releases, they’d keep the music to themselves for several more years. In 2005, Hägg remembers, “We got our degrees and were kicked out of our studio spaces so all these recordings were just piled up. A year later we dusted them off and started to deconstruct and assemble them in a more drawn-out fashion.” In the same breadth, they cite DJ Screw, J Dilla, and Joy Division, along with early ‘80s European live DJ sets from the likes of Beppe Loda, Dj Mozart, and Baldelli as reference points. “The anything-goes mentality was very encouraging and was a big cornerstone to the Studio sound,” says Hägg. “But there’s so much more to the picture, we were not that young then and had lots of musical baggage in our suitcases, the new thing was that we finally let it all come through, not bound by any borders that was often the case with music identity in Sweden during the 90s.”

In the afterglow of the record’s 2007 reception, Studio receded from view, clouded behind a mountain of remix requests (including one for Kylie Minogue that saw release) and label bureaucracy. “It’s easy to wish we would have done some proper recordings of our own instead,” Hägg reflects. But both artists, now well into respective careers beyond Studio, have come to peace with West Coast as their most enduring effort together. Lissvik adds, “It serves as a good reminder for me to keep to that decision and promise and to continue exploring and growing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Out There
2. West Coast
3.Origin
4. Life’s A Beach!
5. Self Service
6. Indo

Ghost mechanic Nine is the ninth Studio album by Inca babies, it comprises 9 tracks. The incas are back with a powerful new collection of tunes taking their listeners back to a sound that is rawer and spikier, and reminiscent of their early days in the 80s.

‘Ghost Mechanic 9’, is the title track and second single, it is a surging highway groove, that drives us on with a rumbling bass line into the night. Driving for the sake of it driving to escape. Headlights in the dark: red and blue dash lights; wondering why anyone but you is driving this late. The ghost on the highway, the grease-ball mechanic who says you’ll keep going for miles and miles. It’s number 9, the ninth Inca’s album the first of nine songs on the album.

The rush of energy from the first track sets the tone for the rest of the Album which continues their explosive exploration of Goth punk and death rock jazz/blues.

Singer and Guitarist Harry Stafford has written an album that explores the essence of the 80s deathrock vibe, with a tribute to the strong riffing and cool, deadpan delivery of the dark wave scene at the time.

Aided again by the wise head of Simon ‘Ding’ Archer (The Fall, PJ Harvey) as Producer at 6Db Studios, in Salford the power and depth of sound this time around is a truly wonderful thing.

‘Insect Symphony’ is a Stooges lead riff tribute to all those bands that are no longer with us.

‘Spacewalk’: is the first single from the Album and is a rockabilly Sci-fi laser beam about the wonders of the Space age. From Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 to the mega cities of Blade Runner and the fact that when I was a kid, in the far-off future, 2024 was supposed to be a silver suited, hover car space age with a completely automated world on the moon. Clearly this was rubbish so instead it’s time to reintroduce Rockabilly to the world’s consciousness.

The inclusion of a longer and remixed version of fan’s favourite ‘Opium Den’ now called ‘Opium Dub’ is a masterful example of the sonic dexterity of Simon ‘Ding’ Archer at the dub controls.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ghost Mechanic 9 04:08
2. Insect Symphony 04:00
3. Augustus Tympan 04:11
4. I'm Stayin' Put 03:26
5. The Exhaust Of Broken Dreams 04:58
6. Spacewalk 04:04
7. Mercury Is Down 04:04
8. Deck 04:05
9. Opium Dub 06:47

Two-Headed Doctor is a forensic investigation into a single LP: Dr. John, the night tripper's Gris-gris. Though released in 1968 to poor sales and a minimum of critical attention, Gris-gris has accumulated legendary status over subsequent decades for its strangeness, hybridity, and innovative production. It formed the launch pad for Dr. John's image and lengthy career and the ghostly presence of its so-called voodoo atmosphere hovers over numerous cover versions, samples, and re-invocations. Despite the respect given to the record, its making is shrouded in mystery, misunderstandings, and false conclusions. The persona of Dr. John, loosely based on dubious literary accounts of a notorious voodooist and freed slave, a nineteenth-century New Orleans resident known as Doctor John, provided Malcolm Mac Rebennack with a lifelong mask through which to transform himself from session musician in order to construct a solo career.

Somewhere between puzzle, experimental rhythm, blues disguised as rock, and elaborate hoax, Gris-gris was a collaborative project between Rebennack and producer/arranger Harold Battiste (at the time musical director for Sonny & Cher). A few brief sessions held at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles brought together many of New Orleans' finest musicians, including Shirley Goodman, John Boudreaux, Plas Johnson, Jessie Hill, Ernest McLean, and Tami Lynn. Along with their complex histories, the cast of characters implicated in the story includes Ornette Coleman, Lafcadio Hearn, Zora Neale Hurston, Cher, Sonny Bono, Sam Cooke, Ishmael Reed, Black Herman, Prince La La, and many others. The story details in discursive style the historical context of the music, how it came together, its literary sources, production and arrangements, and the nature of the recording studio as dream state, but also examines as a disturbing undercurrent the volatile issue of race in twentieth-century music, the way in which it doomed relationships and ambitious projects, exploited great talents, and distorted the cultural landscape.

Released in 2010, nearly a decade into his craft, Black City was a watershed moment for Matthew Dear. A steely noir set that straddled electronic dance and indie rock classification, earning him Best New Music from Pitchfork and a worldwide tour with a besuited band, the album unlocked Dear's darkest and most engrossing ideas to date. The love-obsessed songwriter of 2007's Asa Breed had given way to a more existentially paranoid entity. Creeping disco tempos, cavernous atmospherics, and strange distortions brought his signature avant-pop sound to a moodier place. Black City wasn't to be found on any map. It was a composite, an imaginary metropolis peopled by desperate cases, lovelorn souls, and amoral motives, with flashes of sweetness and hope.

In Black City, nothing is at it seems: leadoff single "Little People (Black City)" is a nine-and-a-half minute disco odyssey, subverting its gleaming electronic lead with eerily giddy backing vocals and cryptic, ominous lyrics ("a frozen wasted heart / has died", "love me like a clown"); "You Put a Smell on Me" is a sordid sex romp set to hysterically chattering percussion and a serrated synth line that will set your teeth on edge; "More Surgery" at first recalls the barely-there Krautrock of Harmonia in its burbling minimalism, until Dear's chanted chorus of "Alter genetics / to make my body glow / I need more surgery / there's so much more to know" sends the track hurtling into a dystopian future.

And yet, for all the foreboding moods on Black City, it's the album's sweeter moments that illustrate Matthew Dear's growing maturity as a songwriter. "Slowdance" is a futuristic lullaby in which Dear articulates a lover's helplessness ("I can't be the one to tell you everything's wrong") over breathy, Arthur Russell-esque cello swishes; the album-closing "Gem" is an achingly simple, reverb-drenched piano ballad that ends with a long, slow fade.
"...it's not too surprising when Dear takes Reznor's ‘Closer’ pulse out for a moonless 4 a.m. test drive on ‘You Put a Smell on Me.’ With Black City, Dear offers a precisely thought-out guide to losing your mind.”
- in Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2010

Matthew Dear toured Black City worldwide with a full band, presenting a unique crossover between electronic and indie circles, landing support tours with Depeche Mode, Hot Chip, Interpol, and later, MGMT.

Matthew Dear's work traverses myriad musical worlds while belonging to none; he also helped shape the sound of Ghostly's dancefloor offshoot, Spectral Sound, with several releases under his techno alias Audion and DJ Mixes for DJ-Kicks, Fabric, and more.

Dear has collaborated with Tegan and Sara, The Drums, Protomartyr, and Ricardo Villalobos and released remix projects with Spoon, Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Postal Service, and MGMT.

TRACK LISTING

1. Honey
2. I Can’t Feel
3. Little People (Black City)
4. Slowdance
5. Soil To Seed
6. You Put A Spell On Me
7. Shortwave
8. Monkey
9. More Surgery
10. Gem

New on Outta Sight, an official reissue of the Gloria Jones classic “Tainted Love”. The song originates from 1964, then made a household favourite from 1981 when made a hit by Soft Cell. Gloria’s 1965 release in the USA was originally a B-side to a non-hit, and it took ten years for it to be discovered in the UK where it was played on the Northern Soul scene. It’s the Motown-like rhythms and arrangements that made it relevant. Gloria re-recorded it herself in 1976, and while still not a hit, the song in NME’s Top 500 greatest of all time and Gloria dubbted ‘The Queen Of Northern Soul’. She was in a relationship with Marc Bolan at the time of his fatal accident.

This single is coupled with another northern soul favourite, the Holland/Dozier/Holland song “There’s A Ghost In My House” by Motown artist R. Dean Taylor. It was originally recorded in 1966 and reached No.3 in the UK Charts (1974). It was covered in their own inimitable style by The Fall in 1987.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Two absolute killers here. I'm buying this for when I (in my dreams) buy a jukebox - a definite double A-side gem this.

TRACK LISTING

Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
R Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House

With her proper full-length debut, Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind, Virginia-born, LA-based songwriter Kate Bollinger redefines and refines her craft with intention. Inspired by pop, rock, and folk songs of the 1960s, Bollinger and her band — including collaborators Jacob Grissom, Adam Brisbin, Matthew E. White, and Sam Evian — favor the eclectic, melodic, and majestic, supporting intimate, stream-of-consciousness lyricism with classic instrumentation. It's a collection of pop songs, polished yet scrappy with an underlying punk spirit, navigating life, relationships, and growing up. The release follows a run of singles since her 2022 record on Ghostly International, lauded by the likes of NPR and The Fader, contributions to friend's projects (Drugdealer, Paul Cherry), and tours with Faye Webster, Liz Phair, Devendra Banhart, and others.

TRACK LISTING

01. What’s This About (La La La La)
02. To Your Own Devices
03. Any Day Now
04. God Interlude
05. Lonely
06. Running
07. In A Smile
08. Postcard From A Cloud
09. I See It Now
10. Sweet Devil
11. All This Time

Ghost on Ghost is Iron & Wine’s fifth full-length record and was originally released in 2013. The album found Sam Beam, the band’s principle member, working once again with longtime associate Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Califone). The record marks the last time the two would work together on a journey that began with the bands second record, Endless Numbered Days. It also marked a shift for the two from working in Chicago to setting up in New York City. The idea behind the move was to tap into the creative musical community New York had to offer.

The line-up that helped bring Beam’s vision for Ghost on Ghost to life included a who’s who from the jazz community as well as the deep wells of outside art including Steve Bernstein (Sex Mob/Levon Helm Band), Rob Burger (Tin Hat Trio), Brian Blade, Curtis Fowlkes (The Jazz Passengers), Tony Garnier (Bob Dylan Band), Marika Hughes, Briggan Kraus, Maxim Moston, Tony Scherr (The Lounge Lizards), Doug Wieselman, Kenny Wolleson (Tom Watis/John Zorn) and Anja Wood. The level of talent on Ghost on Ghost far surpassed anything Beam ever imagined when he first began writing songs as Iron and Wine on his four-track.

Upon completing the Ghost on Ghost , Beam jokingly referred to the recording process as “a reward to myself” after years of chasing sounds by himself. Being able have the finest in musicians in New York City perform on the record, elevating these songs into places he never imagined Beam stated, “it was an honor -- really inspiring.”

Beam stated at the time that Ghost on Ghost takes it’s inspiration from records like Nilsson Schmilsson, Ram, Mingus Moves and What’s Going On. The record they all crafted is warm and inviting and was unlike anything up to that point in the Iron & Wine catalog.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Caught In The Briars
The Desert Babbler
Joy
Low Light Buddy Of Mine
Grace For Saints And Ramblers
Grass Windows
Singers And The Endless Song

Side B
Sundown (Back In The Briars)
Winters Prayers
New Mexico’s No Breeze
Lovers’ Revolution
Baby Center Stage

New album from hip-hop legend Ghostface Killah, featuring guest appearances by Nas, Remy Ma, Kanye West and more.

TRACK LISTING

1. 6 Minutes (ft. Jim Jones, Sheek Louch, & HARL3Y)
2. Pair Of Hammers (ft. Method Man)
3. Skate Odyssey (ft. Raekwon & October London)
4. Scar Tissue (ft. Nas)
5. Kilo In The Safe (ft. Iceman)
6. Skit 1
7. No Face (ft. Kanye West)
8. Champion Sound (ft. Beniton)
9. Cape Fear (ft. Fat Joe & HARL3Y)
10. Skit 2
11. Plan B (ft. HARL3Y)
12. Bad Bitch (ft. Ja Rule & Trevor Jackson)
13. Locked In (ft. AZ & Bee-B)
14. Skit 3
15. Touch You (ft. Shaun Wiah)
16. Shots (ft. Busta Rhymes, Serani, & HARL3Y)
17. Trap Phone (ft. Chucky HollyWood)
18. Outro Skit
19. YUPP! (ft. Remy Ma)

Adored alt-pop duo Cults announce their fifth studio album TO THE GHOSTS out July 26 via IMPERIAL. The NY-based duo compromised of multi-instrumentalists Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion, confidently and clearly perfect their vision with the cinematic new album.

To the Ghosts was meticulously crafted; the earliest ideas dated back to the pandemic when they wrote music on weekdays from 10am-5pm with no deadlines or distractions. The album was written and recorded in Brian’s apartment; in 2022 they traveled to Los Angeles to collaborate with longtime producer and trusted creative confidant Shane Stoneback, because “nobody can read our minds like he can,” jests Madeline. To the Ghosts was co-produced by Cults & Shane Stoneback, mixed by John Congleton, and mastered by Heba Kadry NYC.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hazy emotional pop pieces, swimming with soul and bolstered with tastefully applied modern production techniques, Cults' fifth LP is their most dynamically rich yet. Wistful, hook-laiden and brimming with melodic beauty.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
A1. Crybaby
A2. Left My Keys
A3. Onions
A4. Crystal
A5. Leave Home
A6. Eat It Cold

SIDE B
B1. Honey
B2. Knots
B3. Behave
B4. Open Water
B5. Cells
B6. You're In Love With Yourself
B7. Hung The Moon

In the last decade, Daniel Davies has become a lauded composer of atmospheric, synth-heavy instrumental music—for film and TV scores, alongside John Carpenter on the director’s Lost Themes albums, and on solo releases like Signals and Spies. But in his previous musical life, Davies was a rocker, touring all over the world with heavy bands like Year Long Disaster and Karma to Burn. After setting rock music aside to focus on his soundtrack and instrumental work, the multi-instrumentalist has found himself falling back in love with loud guitars over the past couple of years.

Ghost of the Heart, the first full-length alt-rock album Davies has ever released under his own name, captures the excitement of that rediscovered love. After a decade of making music that either had to match a filmed image or create a mental one, he sounds liberated by the concrete, reliable logic of verse/chorus/ verse. The songs on Ghost of the Heart don’t fit neatly into any one subgenre: they’re moody, heavy, and a little proggy, but with a strong pop sensibility and lots of melody. The album divulges Davies’ affinity for hooky, forward-thinking bands like Radiohead and Blur, but more than anything, Ghost of the Heart feels natural, like he’s tapping back into something fundamental about himself as a musician. “My first love is writing rock songs,” Davies says. “It just felt like the right time to get back to it.”

Ghost of the Heart is a special album for Davies. It sees him returning to his origins in rock music, but it also couldn’t have been made without the lessons of his time in the film world. In the truest sense, it’s a career-defining work, one that showcases everything he’s learned in his decades as a musician. It reveals a door that, now opened, can take Davies anywhere he wants to go.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Know Why
2. Presence On The Hill
3. In To You
4. It Takes A Lot
5. Ghost Of The Heart
6. Still The Servant
7. Big Crush
8. Wait
9. Those Eyes 

"Remembering is not the opposite of forgetting," Casey MQ sings at the start of Later that day, the day before, or the day before that, his new LP and Ghostly International debut. It's a phrase fittingly misremembered from something the LA-based, Canadian-born composer came upon as he spiraled into unconscious and subconscious-led writing sessions at the piano. Casey’s known for his 2020 breakthrough release babycasey, which gave voice to songs seen through the lens of childhood, various film score work and collaborations with artists such as Oklou (who returns here), Eartheater, and Vagabon. His gifts as a producer and songwriter are rooted in textural world-building and the excavation of personal truth. With Later that day... he questions what is true entirely, understanding our mind's tendency to bend and project onto pictures of the past. Across vivid, baroque pop balladry, Casey MQ reorients his recording project and point of view under the notion that memories are malleable. All the joy, pain, love, and loss housed within remembrance is open to interpretation and deconstruction, which he does deftly, with curiosity and complete artistic freedom.

"It's a memory album," Casey puts it simply, winding up for the deeper unpacking, "and it might be a breakup album, too...there are more questions than answers." Engaging his dreams and sitting with sheet music at his newly acquired piano, he looked to new and old inspirations including the works of Claude Debussy, Joni Mitchell, and Joe Hisaishi's beloved Studio Ghibli film scores. "Since I was young, I always wanted to write a piano album." babycasey's studied electronic sound isn't wholly abandoned on Later that day... instead, it comes through like an atmosphere, giving Casey's more spacious, minimal arrangements a distinct luster and sheen. The textures and tones shift from song to song as if mirroring the way our minds constantly recontextualize, remember, and forget.

Cathartic opener "Grey Gardens" — its title derived from a dream abstractly related to the Toronto restaurant, but not the 1975 film, which he cites as another coincidental false memory — presents the record's plaintive, haunted feeling. "Even if not reading into lyrics, sonically I wanted it to feel like you're being pulled into a universe. Not fantasy or otherworldly per se, something more tangible, of the body and mind,” Casey says. “Hearing it back, I realized this track was the key to unlocking it." His tender falsetto hovers above ambient washes and echoed keys, each word falling carefully in the crevices. "Asleep At The Wheel" unfolds on arpeggiated synth before a burst of symphonic color; the synth returns inverted to harmonize with the outro, "I love a car crash, I love a story, I love a memory, I swear it's real..."

Casey leans into digital imagination on the warm, introspective "Me I Think I Found It." Subdued, stuttered percussion underscores the singer as he cycles through pixelated imagery — screenshots, smiles, streetlights — searching for higher meaning through love. Built on ascendent chord distortions, "Dying Til I'm Born" gives the record one of its boldest pulses of emotion. The back half stretches out; "Is This Only Water" is sparse and foggy, "Baby Voice" is intimate and desperate for something to remain. "Words For Love" grooves on guitar, and "Tennisman9" aches in heartbreak. French musician Marylou Mayniel, aka Oklou, appears as the collection’s only guest for the closing duet, "The Make Believe," a bright and buoyant send-off that gives Later that day... both a sense of resolve and cyclical-motion. "We are young, under the sun," they sing together, a parting image brimming with lightness.

TRACK LISTING

01. Grey Gardens
02. Asleep At The Wheel
03. Me, I Think I Found It
04. Dying 'Til I'm Born
05. Is This Only Water
06. See You Later
07. Baby Voice
08. Words For Love
09 Tennisman9
10. The Make Believe (feat. Oklou)

Dream-pop sensation Ghostly Kisses continue to build to their highly-anticipated second album Darkroom. Co-produced alongside Oli Bayston (Rachel Chinouriri, Olivia Dean) single "Keep It Real" showcases a deeper, darker and more mature side to their electronic alt-pop. Ghostly Kisses are building their own ethereal world of highly-engaged international followers.

TRACK LISTING

1. There's No More Space
2. Keep It Real
3. Golden Eyes
4. Lonesome Hero
5. Ocean
6. Calm Down
7. On & Off
8. Silver Screen
9. Crimson
10. Within
11. Beneath The Clouds
12. Carousel 

When Bob Vylan won the first MOBO award for Best Alternative Music Act in 2022, the punk-grime duo took to the stage and used the platform to speak about how they managed to achieve the impossible as independent artists in a genre-defying space. “We released an album this year that we produced entirely, mixed entirely, recorded entirely, all from my bedroom…so everybody that’s here, bigging up Atlantic and bigging up Warner, fuck that, us man did it ourselves”.

It was an acceptance speech that rattled the room and built anticipation for their next projects.

Humble as the Sun, the forthcoming album from Bob Vylan continues with much of the rage and urgency that they have come to be known and loved for, but this latest project shows that they are now stronger and wiser, bolstered by the wins and learnings that they have fought hard for along the way. The resulting tracklist aims to leave the listener feeling power alongside their anger, and brings a fresh and compelling blend of punk, rock, grime and rap together in an experimental way.

Following on from the last album, Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life, the message woven throughout Humble as the Sun remains dark in places but is high-energy, defiant and unapologetic in its critique of a broken social and political system that so many have fallen victim to, but feel powerless against.

This album is for the underdogs, the ones who come out swinging and those who refuse to be defeated in the face of injustice, and aims to remind listeners that anger is a fire that can be harnessed and put to use. The album creation started from a conversation with the sun, which is, after all, a big ball of fire that sustains life.

From masculinity to myths about the G Spot, the themes and topics explored on Humble As The Sun make for an often humorously empowering celebration of the people’s ability to endure, overcome and bring about change.

The lyricism on this album is even more layered than their previous projects, still darkly humorous, anti-establishment and unforgiving but at times pauses to deliver much-needed words of affirmation to listeners, “You are loved. You are not alone. You are going through hell but keep going.” Bobby assures the listener, offering an antidote to the state of the world, aiming to give some power and agency to those who hear it. At a time when so little trust or faith exists between the people and the powers that be, Bob Vylan offers out a hand in the despondent darkness that has overwhelmed so many in the shadow of a burning planet. They guides the listener to a place where they can see some light and feel empowered to do something, to fight back, to continue pushing forwards despite the challenges faced along the way.

Mixing all of the best quintessentially British - and Jamaican - musical elements from punk to drum and bass, grime and rock, Bob Vylan creates a sound that reflects the state of the nation, at once voicing the frustrations that normal people have, while also highlighting one’s ability to persevere, overcome hardship and to change.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Humble As the Sun is almost certain to bring Bob Vylan to the wider public consciousness. It's a momentum-filled, chaos embracing collection of grime-adjacent, punky rock pieces. Brilliantly propulsive and more than a little reminiscent of rap-rock superstars RATM.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Humble As The Sun
A2. Reign
A3. GYAG
A4. Dream Big
A5. Hunger Games
B1. Right Here
B2. Makes Me Violent
B3. He's A Man
B4. Ring The Alarm
B5. I'm Still Here 

Following-up their acclaimed 2023 ‘Absolute Reality’, Holiday Ghosts announce their fifth album, ‘Coat Of Arms’. The group’s latest material signals a new phase in their development and arrives alongside news of their biggest UK headline tour to date, including a date at London’s Moth Club lined up this April, which follows their debut trip stateside for SXSW.

Lead single ‘Sublime Disconnect’ is a perfect distillation of the sound Holiday Ghosts have perfected over their career. Co-vocalist Kat Rackin’s driving drumming style and staccato vocal delivery propels a rousing guitar melody and breakneck bassline, until a catchy chorus of ‘ba ba bas’ erupts over the entire endeavour.

However, beneath the buoyant demeanour belies a deeper lyrical meaning. “I’m Iranian, my parents were both born there and moved to Sweden after the Iranian revolution in the 80s,” explains Kat. “I was born in Malmö and moved to England when I was eight. I grew up as a child with little attachment to Iran as I tried my hardest to blend in with the people around me, but the older I got the more different I felt the more blurred my sense of self got.”

‘Sublime Disconnect’’s lyrics speak to this dissonance of identity, with lines like: “And now they ask who am I and where am I from / Will I find peace when I belong?” “In hindsight I can pinpoint a few incidents of racism that planted this seed that I didn’t-fully belong here, that Sweden or England, weren’t really my home,” says Kat, “nor is Iran as I have never been there as my parents aren’t allowed back. The song is partly putting this question out there: what does it mean to belong?”

‘Sublime Disconnect’ can be seen at the album’s political crux, the track anchors the band’s activist identity. “I think this question of belonging is kind of rhetorical though, because I don’t think there is peace for anyone except for those that make the rules,” says Kat. “I think living under governments where the immigration policies are getting more and more dystopian has also hugely contributed to this song and the notion of belonging. The line: ‘Does your future burn bright? And what about me? A free pass, favour, till I’m back on my feet,’ is a reference to privilege versus having to start from scratch, about the obliviousness that some people have towards the struggle of others.”

TRACK LISTING

Western Daylight
Big Congratulations
Dead Streets
Energy
Sublime Disconnect
Coat Of Arms
Tired Eyes
Today’s Headlines
I’m Still Here
Shoot For Peace

Ghost Pop Tape is a 23-song mixtape from the Baltimore-based renowned artist JPEGMAFIA. Originally released on Bandcamp under JPEG's birth name, Devon Hendryx, in 2013, the rapper finally brought it to streaming under the same moniker in 2023. The tape is a slightly more lofi hip-hop, alt-r&b record that we are used to seeing from JPEGMAFIA and showcases his strengths as a multi-versed rapper and producer.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stellar mixtape from the incomparable JPEGMAFIA, originally released over a decade ago. Expect off-piste beats, crackling shortwave hiss and swooning lo-fi soul beneath JPEG's instantly recognisable vox.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ballad Of A Poor Man
2. <3
3. HBK
4. Violent Fighting To Come Again
5. Behold! A Pale Horse
6. M.U.G.E.N
7. Porn For Percussion
8. Untitled1
9. God Bless My Homegirls
10. Untitled2
11. Call Me Maybe
12. Pu$$y #3
13. Bubblgum Crisis
14. Liara
15. O Superman
16. Untitled3
17. Sakura
18. Call Me Maybe (Original)
19. Pizzicato Five
20. ODB
21. PIANO BABY
22. Pardon Me Michael
23. Porn For Percussion (Betamax Version)

Coming off the heels of 2022's A New Kind of Love, A Trip To The Moon sees Ghost Funk Orchestra diving even deeper in the worlds of film music, exotica, and psychedelic surf rock. The aim is to create a layered and collaged listening experience with more elements than you could possibly pick out in a single listen.

The guitars are fuzzy and flooded with spring reverb, and the horns are arranged in a studio big band fashion. It's full of big compositions with garage rock attitude.

Influences range everywhere from Eddie Palmieri and Esquivel to The Lively Ones, Dusty Springfield, and War. The tracks are tied together by real recorded transmissions from the Apollo moon missions. The concept for the album is a story about a woman stranded on earth by her cosmonaut partner, left to ponder his whereabouts and whether or not he'll make it back from the cosmos alive.

TRACK LISTING

Opening
Eyes Of Love
Where To?
To The Moon!
Achluo
Nova
Helios
Into The Abyss
Again
A Solar Wind
Space Walk
Casadastra
A Rare View
Totality
Infinite Dar

Pieced together with musty samples from children’s exercise records, vintage drama, clunky British jazz and library records, this is an archaeology of emotion, an exploration of the power of not only childhood memories, but of the collective unconscious.

Julian House’s own The Focus Group; oddly assembled sampledelic collages, stitched together from fragments of library cues and forgotten soundtracks. A beautiful, unhinged stream of consciousness that seems to prod at buried memories

REVIEWS

Julian Houses's Focus Group should appeal to anyone who grew up in Britain in the '70s: its a condensed memory of that decade's daytime and after hours television. These 19 soundbites ape the incidental music for The Tomorrow People, The Clangers and Follyfoot, jazz drums, bass flutes, continuity men and grubby science-lab electronica. Like Boards of Canada minus beats, the feeling of smothered innocence evokes powerful intimations of the uncanny.

TRACK LISTING

1. Icicle Wheel
2. You Do Not See Me
3. Clockbell
4. Echo Release
5. Xylophone Signal
6. Modern Harp
7. Inside The Rubber Box
8. Lifting Away
9. Today’s Rhythm People
10. Hey Let Loose Your Love
11. String Sine Romance
12. The Moon Ladder
13. Planning For Urban Green
14. Swinging Phantom
15. The Thre
16. Jam-jar Carnival
17. Baroque Face
18. The Leaving
19. Reflected Message

Ghosts is the sound of an ever-evolving artist and, just as the album’s title suggests she passes repeatedly and gracefully between musical worlds: as composer, singer, songwriter, and producer. This album builds on Rani’s earlier successes Esja and Home with an expanded yet still minimal setup of piano, keyboards, synths (most importantly her Prophet) and features more of her mysterious, bewitching voice. Its spirit is warm, beckoning one into an ambitious double album that unfolds at an exquisite pace, informed by her revelatory, exploratory live performances.

Ghosts is also an album of collaborations as Rani is joined by Patrick Watson, who breathes unearthly life into the ethereal ‘Dancing with Ghosts’. ‘Whispering House’is written and recorded with her friend, Ólafur Arnalds and casts a peaceful, ineluctable spell; and Portico Quartet’s Duncan Bellamy contributes vital loops to ‘Don’t Break My Heart’ and ‘Thin Line’.

Rani’s lyrics are partially inspired by a two-month residency in a small studio in Switzerland’s mountains, where Rani was working on the soundtrack On Giacometti for a documentary about the renowned Swiss artist. “Where I stayed was once an old sanatorium in an area which used to be very popular, but now there are huge abandoned hotels where the locals say ghosts live. I mean, it's kind of a local belief system – these ghosts even have names! – but once you're deep into nature or some abandoned place, your imagination starts working on a different level.”

“The edge of life and death,” Rani summarises, “and what actually happens in between: this was what really interested me. Even singing the word ‘death’ was quite a shock. It’s such a weird word to say out loud, and people are afraid of it, which I found extremely interesting. Most of the songs probably still talk about love and things like that, but Ghosts is more me thinking about having to face some kind of end.”

If Rani’s debut Esja was about exploiting her principal instrument, and Home saw her take steps towards a fuller expression of her art, Ghosts is where she unites her varied interests on what might even be considered her first ‘real’ album. Drawing upon a fondness for diverse artists like Enya, The Smile, James Blake and Pink Floyd – not to mention her admiration for her guests – and evoking Stina Nordenstam’s delicacy, Keith Jarrett’s flair, Kate Bush’s artistry and Pink Floyd’s probing inclinations, it combines a lifetime’s musical experience in one miraculous, cosmic world. Say hello, then, to something quite unlike anything you’ve ever heard. It’s the sound of HANIA RANI.

For fans of Nils Frahm, Melanie de Basio, Björk, Kate Bush, Ólafur Arnalds and Portico Quartet

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hania Rani's music has up until this point been very much in the ambient / modern classical vein, with beautiful instrumental textures and Rani's voice perfectly merging together into a blissful bath. It's on 'Ghosts' however that we really hear how dynamic and inventive her sound is, with synthesised textures and beautifully produced turns.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Oltre Terra
A2. Hello
A3. Don’t Break My Heart Feat. Duncan Bellamy
A4. 24.03
B1. Dancing With Ghosts Feat. Patrick Watson
B2. A Day In Never
B3. Whispering House Feat. Olafur Arnalds
C1. The Boat
C2. Moans
C3. Thin Line Feat. Duncan Bellamy
D1. Komeda
D2. Utrata
D3. Nostalgia

Following previous albums exploring British coastal quicksands, shorelines, caves and forests, Dave Clarkson takes his recorder into faded seaside towns and fairgrounds (including Rhyl, New Brighton, Blackpool, Porthcawl, Northumberland, Margate and Hastings) and applies his production technique to the results. Some tracks are melodic and rhythmic while others are more desolate, capturing the unique fading atmosphere for the locations. Music was generated from the source sounds he recorded of penny falls, onboard rides, fairground organs, demolition noise, electrics and location ambience. One track (Spectral Pier Ballroom) is a spliced and stripped composite of three separate old musical recordings from his family archive, featuring his late father, grandmother and grandfather.

Contains natural source sound ingredients, some left pure, some processed, some mangled, some untangled. Field recordings at funfairs and coastal ghost towns, plus voices, instrumentation and electronics.

Location recordings plus composition, production, mastering, photography, sleeve design, packaging and coordination by Dave Clarkson at Cavendish House studios between December 2021 and September 2022.

TRACK LISTING

1. Organ Donor 00:48
2. Rollercoaster Ghost 04:54
3. Illuminations (Dirty Electricity) 05:54
4. Sizzling Hot Dogs And Burnt Onions 02:54
5. Spectral Pier Ballroom 05:34
6. Penny Arcade In The Rain 05:18
7. Tiny Lights (Magic In A Child's Eyes) 03:12
8. Coastal Ghost Towns 04:06
9. Memories And Loss 06:04
10. Organ Transplant 02:44

Raving Ghost is an album populated by mysterious characters in various states of danger – cursed lovers, doomed souls, women deliriously haunted by unseen forces. Over the course of its 11 spellbinding tracks, Olivia Jean amplifies that drama with her wildly melodic take on garage rock, handling each riff with the power and precision she’s previously shown as a member of the Black Belles and as an in-demand session/touring musician who has played with legends like Wanda Jackson.

Featuring backing from such top musicians as My Morning Jacket keyboardist Bo Koster, Jellyfish co-founder Roger Joseph Manning Jr, and drummers Carla Azar (T-Bone Burnett, Nikki Lane) and Patrick Keeler (The Raconteurs, The Afghan Whigs), the album is a feverish collision of goth- punk, power-pop, and classic garage, charged with an energy so intense that the speakers to several of Valentine Recording Studios’ vintage amps ended up blowing out during the sessions. A stunning evolution of the retro-surf sound featured on Olivia Jean’s critically acclaimed past solo work, Raving Ghost ultimately proves the most magnificently heavy and mesmerizing output yet from an endlessly fascinating artist. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Olivia Jean presents a sleek, enjoyable mid-point between lo-fi garage rock and melodic goth-pop, all topped with Jean's psychedelic vocals. Brilliantly produced and presented too, classic Third Man.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
1. Raving Ghost
2. Too Late
3. Spider
4. Trouble
5. I Need You
SIDE 2
1. Ditch
2. Fun
3. Fate
4. Orinoco Flow
5. Godmother
6. Don't Leave

Arriving hot on the heels of acclaimed 2022 EP ‘Credit Note’, ‘Absolute Reality’ tackles different themes of social commentary, with fiery lyrics and hard picked guitars, holding both honest confessions and tall tales, lived stories and movie-like landscapes. Showcasing the noise and texture that Holiday Ghosts love from the New York punk scene and New Wave era, ‘Vulture’ cements their flourishing status within the alt-rock scene and lays down a real marker ahead of their spring LP release.

TRACK LISTING

01 Rocket
02 Lunch
03 Again And Again
04 Limbo
05 Vulture
06 Lose The Game
07 Blue
08 Fight Or Flight
09 Absolute Reality
10 B Truck
11 Big Cold River

The (second) single compilation 2015 – 2021. Here is the second compilation of the wizard of rhythm - full-packed with his 7" output (all limited and sold out by now) from 2015 until 2021 and some unreleased songs and muscial themes for theatreplays among others.

The vinyl comes in a gatefold cover with lots of infos and photos and with an extra bonus 7" of unreleased material inc a cover of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand.

Ghost Car, the London-based international punk quartet, have announced their debut album ‘Truly Trash’ following their signing to One Little Independent Records. A riotous, quick-witted collection of 11 garage-rock bangers.

The album provides Ghost Car with a platform to rage against political injustices, as their unified battle cries attack patriarchal inequality, homophobia, racism and toxic relationships. ‘Truly Trash’ is a call to reclaim autonomy and to revolt against the powers that uphold an archaic nationalist system.

Right out the gate ‘Truly Trash’ makes its intentions clear. Riff-heavy ballad ‘Terrible Feelings’ rises in raw intensity as group harmonies build toward a shoegaze noise-out, while follow-up ‘Selfish, Spoiled’ uses frenzied synth to drag the sound in a 60’s psych direction. Call-and-response gang vocals permeate the entire record as back-to-back choruses keep energy levels at maximum, evident on ‘Mechanical Soul’ which boasts huge glam guitars and caustic drums of pure fury.

Of the eruptive ‘Basta’ singer/guitarist Maeve Henry tells us “It was written from the perspective of someone commenting on being a queer woman being happy with her sexuality. We’ve had a lot of men at our gigs in the past sexualising or infantilising us, so this is a massive f*ck you to them”. Singer/bassist Cece Corapi expands “It felt important to reiterate the fact that your sexuality doesn’t define the type of person you are. There is still a lot of biphobia around, even in certain queer scenes, and a perception that it’s not a valid sexual identity. It’s important to call this out”.

The LP continues with the punchy Riot grrrl of ‘Embleton Road’ and ‘Clown Town’ which show the band at their sarcastic best, oozing B52s and Delta 5 swagger with jaunty B-movie melodies. The latter of which makes comment on the circus of errors by the Conservative government, with particular focus on Boris Johnson, following Brexit. With band members hailing from England, Ireland, Italy and Spain, Ghost Car are keen advocators for freedom of movement, a belief only strengthened following the events in Ukraine. Cece explains that this “opened our eyes to the consequences of borders even more, when considering a country caught between two opposing powers (Russia and the EU/Nato) and the devastation this leads to. I think it’s important that we become more aware of these issues, but we need to make sure that we don’t stop there and always look at it from a more internationalist point of view. And to consider what that means for everyone.”

Grungy pop-punk anthem and lead single ‘Sex’ channels the likes of Stiff Little Fingers and The Undertones, mixing with the bands amalgamated influences from 60's girl groups like The Ronettes and The Shangri Las to the explosive rock n’ roll of The Runaways. ‘Conch Pearl’ and ‘Sushi Addict’ deal in distorted, jumped-up chaos, and ‘No History’ is about our reliance on digital technology and a reminder to try to live life spontaneously. Album finale ‘Truly Trash’ is a defiant message seeped in ethereal, doomy layers of ferocity. Singer/keyboardist/thereminist Clara Bleda’s closing comment; “F*ck Trump, f*ck Boris, f*ck the right wing”, while Maeve adds; “F*ck the DUP too”.

“This album is our way to express what bothers us, from personal interactions to international politics. We wanted to explore different themes in a simple way so that they could be accessible to everyone.”

Originally the album was due to be released by Burger Records, however as accounts of sexual assault and exploitation of women by associates of the label came to light the band pulled out of the planned release. As activists for feminism and members of the LGBTQ+ community, Ghost Car practice what they preach, and aim to spread their mantra of inclusivity and equal rights as loud as possible.

Ghost Car aim to utilize their diversity to explore different writing styles, while expressing themes of openness and empowerment. They’ve been championed by the likes of Mickey Bradley (Undertones), Skin and Du Blonde, and were deeply inspired by the late Lyndell Mansfield. They’ve also grown as performers supporting the likes of Shonen Knife, Amyl and The Sniffers and Beth Ditto, while remaining a London headline mainstay. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Terrible Feelings
2. Selfish, Spoiled
3. Mechanical Soul
4. Basta
5. Embleton Road
6. Clown Town
7. Sex
8. Conch Pearl
9. Sushi Addict
10. No History
11. Truly Trash 

RIYL: The Microphones, Bon Iver, Lomelda, Vegyn, Hovvdy, Dijon.

Follow up to 2019’s critically acclaimed ‘bunny’

Sam Hall’s new album as ghost orchard, ‘rainbow music’, is a collage of patience and meditation. It’s filled with nuances as quietly imperceptible as the seasons, or the profound movement of time, where one day looking back you realize your whole spirit has shifted. Where 2019’s critically revered ‘bunny’ was a love letter to a romantic relationship, ‘rainbow music’ documents the culmination of Hall’s first personal experience with loss in several forms. At the end of 2020, his longterm childhood pet passed away, and with it the last continuing threads of familiarity between being a kid and adulthood. Still based in the Grand Rapids, Michigan town he’d grown up in, the static ease of familiar living seemed to be coming apart at the seams, as friends moved on to bigger cities, relationships shapeshifted and in a short period of time, another kitten he’d adopted passed away prematurely, leaving Hall to question the trajectory in which he himself was headed.

Like “songs in the key of life,” the title ‘rainbow music’ refers to the myriad of colors and qualities within Hall that are refracted throughout. It’s a symbolization of hope and the aftermath, the flickering light at the end of the tunnel (or “when a rainbow shows up after a big storm”). “Wish I could have fun anymore,” Hall ruminates on “dancing”, as well as confessing he “wish he made more upbeat bangers.” But reality packs more of a punch, and this collection of songs sees him finally be at peace with the current state of affairs. Relatable to anyone who has contemplated what it means to settle down, or even just catch your breath in an era where anguish is commonplace, the release of ‘rainbow music’ is a happy ending in its own right, a marker of survival that remains close to the bone.

TRACK LISTING

01. Rest
02. Jessamine
03. Cursive
04. Maisy
05. Cut
06. Soot
07. Memory Storage
08. Dancing
09. Bruise
10. Sweet Song
11. Comfort (Rainbow)

For Fans Of Temples, Allah-Las, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Khruangbin, David Axelrod. Each song on Ghost Funk Orchestra's 3rd album, A New Kind of Love, due to be released on Colemine Records … 2022, resonates like the soundtrack to a scene from an imaginary movie. The music could score a romantic drama, an action thriller, or a modern twist on a classic film noir. The spare, cascading vocals accentuate the lush instrumental orchestrations composed, performed, arranged and produced by multi-instrumentalist Seth Applebaum, whose latest brainchild was conceived and conceptualized during The Great Pause of 2020, a time of tension, bewilderment and isolation.

Evoking the grooviness of an era which preceded his arrival on earth, Applebaum draws upon sonic devices of mid-century exotica and the succinct but dense arranging style of the leaders of the pop orchestras which dominated the hit parades of the 60s and early 70s. He blends impressions of this bygone era with an expression of his actual experiences as a young filmmaker coming of age in the 21st century, citing influences such as Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Antibalas. A New Kind of Love encompasses a reverence for the past without attempting to recreate it. In the tradition of the "production forward" discographies of such record makers as David Axelrod and the Mizell Brothers, it's easy to visualize Applebaum as a "mad doctor" figure, hunkered down in a studio channeling this musical representation of his inner world into the 12 compositions which make up A New Kind of Love.

His writing stretches his psyche to explore a terrain in which to capture emotional notes of love going well, love gone sour, manifesting love songs based in ghostly affairs. While the studio is obviously a wondrous happy place of experimentation and creativity for Applebaum, he's a band guy too (having actually fronted punk outfit The Mad Doctors). Applebaum has the wherewithal to bring his dreamy material to the 10 piece all star Ghost Funk Orchestra, leading them to breathe life into this sophisticated body of work which heralds the celebration of a new era for the group. Ghost Funk Orchestra will be touring in concert this summer and fall to celebrate the release of A New Kind of Love, an album which is sure to stand the test of time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Introduction
2. Your Man's No Good
3. Scatter
4. Prism
5. Quiet Places
6. A New Kind Of Love (pt. 1)
7. Why?
8. Blockhead
9. A Song For Pearl
10. Bluebell
11. Rooted
12. A New Kind Of Love (pt. 2)

Heavenly Recordings release a vinyl repressing of Cherry Ghost’s classic debut Thirst For Romance. This is the first time this album has been pressed on vinyl since its release fifteen years ago when a very small number of double vinyl sets were manufactured.

When Thirst For Romance (Simon Aldred’s debut album as Cherry Ghost) arrived in July 2007, it sounded out of step with so much of its musical surroundings - a world of X Factor winners and Favourite Worst Nightmares; Umbrellas and In Rainbows.

Simon’s album came from a different place to everything else - it was a soul record, in so much as it was from the soul, and about the human soul. And it was a proudly Northern record - a fact celebrated in the sound of Simon’s voice and the people and places that populated his songs. While the music might have evoked glorious vistas and wide open spaces, the view here was very much the post-industrial North. Fifteen years after its release, Thirst For Romance musically sounds out of time, while Simon’s lyrics resonate more deeply now more than ever.

Thirst For Romance was co-produced by Simon Aldred and Dan Austin. The album’s glorious breakout track People Help The People - a prescient call for hope and empathy - gained a second life when covered by the artist Birdy. Doves frontman Jimi Goodwin plays drums on Mathematics and People Help The People.

Jeff Barrett on Cherry Ghost: “I saw Simon playing live and I loved it. I really loved it. It pushed all my Southern Soul buttons but it was coming via Bolton. He was singing blue collar love songs really in a similar way to how someone like Dan Penn sang them about the south. He was just singing about the north of England and painting these great pictures of Northern working class life and delivering them with this brilliant voice. After the show I hogged him, I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.”

Simon Aldred on Thirst For Romance: When I was writing the songs that became Thirst For Romance, I was very introspective, and finding Manchester claustrophobic. The light, the slate grey skies… it felt like there was a lid on it. And on me. The scope of the music I was writing made it easier for me to breathe. It allowed me to stretch my imagination and reach for something more.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Thirst For Romance
A2 4am
A3 Mountain Bird
B1 People Help The People
B2 Roses
B3 Dead Man’s Suit
C1 Alfred The Great
C2 Here Come The Romans
C3 False Alarm
D1 Mary On The Mend
D2 Mathematics

For Fans Of: Temples, Allah-Las, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Khruangbin, David Axelrod. Back in 2016, producer Seth Applebaum released two EPs that marked the inauguration of the band Ghost Funk Orchestra. ‘Night Walker’ and ‘Death Waltz’ were conceived as one-man-band, reel-to-reel tape recorded experiments that would bring together elements of all the sounds that Seth most adored at the time: tape-saturated drums, gratuitous spring reverb, surfy guitar, Latin-style percussion, odd time signatures, and Spanish-language female vocals. Initially released only in the digital domain and on a short run of cassette tapes, these two EPs that defined the early era of GFO are now finally available together on a single LP via Colemine Records. The tracks have been lovingly remastered by Doug Krebs. We invite you to take a dive into the humble beginnings of a project that has continued to grow, shape shift, and accrue new and exciting sounds for its sonic palette.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Brownout
3. Dark Passage
4. Night Walker
5. Demon Demon
6. Blood Moon
7. Interlude
8. Franklin Ave
9. A Moment Of Clarity
10. The Death Waltz
11. Brain Fog
12. Spirit Dance
13. The Haunt Pt. 2
14. Lost Soul
15. Boneyard Baile 

Jacob Long’s third Earthen Sea outing for Kranky, Ghost Poems, further refines his fragile, fractured palette into fluttering arrhythmias of dust, percussion, and yearning.

Composed during the first wave of lockdowns in New York, the pieces took shape patiently from samples of piano, texture, and domestic sounds (sink splashing, room tone, clinking objects), filtered through live FX to imbue them with an intuitive, immaterial feel. Wisps of melody splinter, shimmer, and refract, like light on water; pulses accrue and dissipate, as if mapping shifting sands. Throughout, there’s a sense of matter made animate, of absences felt.

Long cites notions of “the studio as a dub instrument” and the melancholy of “7th chords on a fake Rhodes patch” as central elements in his process, transforming raw materials into rare thresholds of symbiosis and hypnosis. This is music for night skies in hollowed out cities, for views across rivers towards unknown shores: restless, placeless, and profound.

TRACK LISTING

1. Shiny Nowhere
2. Stolen Time
3. Felt Absence
4. Oblique Ruins
5. Snowy Water
6. Rough Air
7. Slate Horizon
8. Ochre Sky
9. Fossil Painting
10. Deep Sky

Attia Taylor is a NYC based musician, writer, and content producer. She is the founder of Womanly Magazine, The Dorothy and a member of The Art Dept Collective. Her work is rooted in social justice, art, and design, to bring inclusive and culturally relevant content to sound, print and digital realms. She is passionate about building and cultivating communities through journalism, music, storytelling, and research. “Space Ghost” is her debut solo album, recorded with Jeff Ziegler (Kurt Vile, The War on Drugs) in Philadelphia.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Seventy
A2. Mildest Winner
A3. Basic Economics
A4. Space Ghost
A5. Broad And Cherry
B1. Dog And Pony Show
B2. Baby Ain’t Nobody
B3. Wanna Go
B4.Wanderer
B5. Alone

"A Ragged Ghost" is the eighth full-length album from electronic producer Jonas Reinhardt. Following albums on Kranky, Not Not Fun, Constellation Tatsu, and more, his debut release for Trouble In Mind brings together 11 new pieces that explore themes of life & death, netherworlds, and the liminal spaces in between. Taken together as a single narrative, the album offers a stirring exploration of mortality and immortality in what Reinhardt describes as 'a dance of religious syncretism, navigating spaces between the living and the dead'. "A Ragged Ghost" finds him synthesizing influences organically from familiar teutonic strains to the intense austerity of early 21st century electronic pioneers such as Biosphere and Susumu Yokota.

A whisper of the Italo-disco-esque romps of Jonas' 2012's "Foam Fangs" EP & 2013's "Mask of The Maker" LP merge with his more kosmische leanings into a sinister, slightly funky, but also studious suite that at times feels like a lost sound library record from the KPM archives. Openers "Ape & The Universal Axis" and "In Lotto Commodore" decidedly sound like a selection from a lost film score while others like the bubbling "Sly Tomb" recall the works of Roedelius or Vangelis' serene soundscapes. Meanwhile, fans of the electro-ambience of Manuel Göttsching's strobe-light, proto-house (on his seminal "E2-E4") or the pulsing insistence of John Carpenter's visceral non-horror scores (i.e. "Escape From New York" or "Assault on Precinct 13") will find a lot to love about songs like "Tumb Tumb" and "Wretched Orchestra of Armistice".

TRACK LISTING

1. Ape & The Universal Axis
2. In Lotto Commodore
3. Earthshaking Patsy
4. Oxus
5. Wretched Orchestra Of Armistice
6. Utter Phoenix Rampo
7. Quest Or Go Fanatic
8. Sly Tomb
9. An Alleged Jeremiad
10. Tumb Tumb
11. The Five Paper Tell 

In 2011 Gazelle Twin self-released ‘The Entire City’, a debut album that gathered rapid acclaim and sparked a decade of creativity during which its creator, Elizabeth Bernholz has built big upon her foundation of dark, cinematic energy. The album is now set to be reissued on deluxe CD, together with ‘The Wastelands’, a mini “twin” album of material made around the same period, though never released commercially. Where 'The Entire City’ remains intact with its original master and tracklisting, ‘The Wastelands’ expands on this shadowy, futurescape, featuring foreboding, percussive songwriting, with euphoric choral swells. The release features the captivating photo collage artwork of British artist, Suzanne Moxhay

TRACK LISTING

1 The Entire City
2 Concrete Mother
3 Men Like Gods
4 I Am Shell I Am Bone
5 Far From Home
6 Changelings
7 Bell Tower
8 When I Was Otherwise
9 Obelisk
10 Nest
11 Fight-or-Flight
12 View Of A Mountain

CD Version - CD 2 The Wastelands

1 Wastelands
2 Adrenalin
3 Hole In My Heart
4 Ascent
5 The Future
6 I Hear You Call

'The Wastelands' is an album of material made around the same period as 'The Entire City' though never released commercially. The album expands on 'The Entire City's shadowy, futurescape, featuring foreboding, percussive songwriting, with euphoric choral swells. 'The Wastelands' also features the captivating photo collage artwork of British artist, Suzanne Moxhay.

TRACK LISTING

1/Wastelands
2/Adrenalin
3/Hole In My Heart
4/Ascent
5/The Future
6/I Hear You Call

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

10-year anniversary of POLICA 's classic debut album Give You The Ghost, repressed on limited edition white opaque vinyl and limited to 1,500 worldwide. Give You The Ghost was one of 2012's standout debut albums, marrying as it did post-rock and R&B to stunning effect, leading Bon Iver's Justin Vernon to describe them then as "the best band he'd ever heard".

Give You The Ghost's influence on sonics and production can still being felt to this day. Lead singer Channy Leaneagh's delicate yet visceral vocals, occasionally and subtly manipulated by a Helicon 5, formed a sweet harmonic partnership with Chris Bierden's bass riffs. This, matched with the twin attack of drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu and the anti-production techniques of fifth member Ryan Olson, made POLICA a unique proposition, as demonstrated on singles Lay Your Cards Out, Dark Star and Wandering Star. A break out performance at 2012's SXSW saw them booked for TV slots on Jimmy Fallon and Later with Jools Holland, plus a plethora of festivals including Coachella and Glastonbury. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 Amongster
A2 I See My Mother
A3 Violent Games
A4 Dark Star
A5 Form
B1 The Maker
B2 Lay Your Cards Out
B3 Fist, Teeth, Money
B4 Happy Be Fine
B5 Wandering Star
B6 Leading To Death

Ghost Power are Jeremy Novak [Dymaxion] and Timothy Gane [Stereolab, Cavern of Anti-Matter and Turn On].

Duophonic Super 45s have previously released music by both artists - Novak via a Dymaxion compilation album and 7", Gane via various Stereolab, Cavern of Anti-Matter and Turn On releases.

Having previously released a limited edition 7" in 2020, Ghost Power by Ghost Power brings the two musicians together for a full length album.

The tracks were recorded in Berlin and New York, both remotely and with Novak and Gane working together in each city.

TRACK LISTING

1. Asteroid Witch
2. Panic In The Isles Of Splendor
3. Lithic Fragment
4. Inchwork
5. Zome Primer
6. Grimalkin
7. Heavy Bubbles
8. Vertical Section
9. Opsimath
10. Astral Melancholy Suite

Large Plants started as a solo project for Jack Sharp, the singer and guitarist for Wolf People. It was spurred on by a writing frenzy during the lockdown of 2020 when Sharp played and recorded all the parts for what would become the debut single, La Isla Bonita and the first album The Carrier. In summer of 2021 the tracks were mixed by songwriter Chris Cohen (formerly of Deerhoof & Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti).

Large Plants’ songs are immediate, heavy psychedelic rock belters filtered through a haze of analogue tape flutter. Sharp’s voice has an eerily distant and delicate tone that lends a strong folk sensibility to the album; like the scent of winter mornings and fresh soil mixed with the whiff of petrol. Though the songs are generally three-minute gems, they are lyrically more like ancient ballads; peopled with tragic youths, witches, lovelorn troubadours and femmes fatales. Sharp is now touring Large Plants as a four piece along with Ed Taylor on drums, Ollie Taylor on bass and Joe Wooley on guitar with dates booked so far at OSLO, Hackney -17th April and The Betsy Trotwood, Clerkenwell 5th May

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Swooning, progressive psychedelia from Jack Sharp bringing to mind the loose garage wooze of BJM or heady echoic psych a-la Jefferson Airplane all tinged with Ghost Box's distinctive and almost ever-present tape-distressed aesthetic. A beautiful addition to the label and a wonderful full-length for the Large Plants. A superb addition to any collection.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Carrier
2. No Difference
3. Don't Let Me Let You Down
4. Never Seen
5. How Far
6. Wreckers
7. Hold Onto
8. I Lie Awake
9. Marceline
10. The Witch

Zero 7’s 4th album Yeah Ghost from 2009, spans everything from dance pop to acoustic folk and everything in between it's an idea-splattered work of genius that even includes a quartet of instrumental tracks derived from their experimental side projects and sampled, overdubbed and rebuilt from scratch. From the evocative intro 'Count Me Out' to the album's shuffling, twitchy closer 'All Of Us' - via the haunting 'Solastalgia' and 'Ghost sYMbOL' avant-garde electronic and distorted vocals - it's Zero 7 as you've never heard them before. 'Destiny' this aint. One thing that remains consistent though is the roll call of up-and-coming talent on vocal duties, including singer ESKA Mtungwazi. The Londoner, whose collaboration credits include Matthew Herbert and Bugs In The Attic, appears on 'Mr McGee', 'Medicine Man', 'Sleeper' and 'The Road' & folk singer songwriter/ painter / filmmaker Martha Tilson for Pop Art Blue.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracks:
Disc 1
1. Count Me Out
2. Mr McGee
3. Swing
1. Everything Up (Zizou)
2. Pop Art Blue
3. Medicine Man

Disc 2
1. Ghost SYMbOL
2. Sleeper
3. Solastalgia
1. The Road
2. All Of Us

CD Tracks:
1. Count Me Out
2. Mr McGee
3. Swing
4. Everything Up [Zizou]
5. Pop Art Blue
6. Medicine Man
7. Ghost SYMbOL
8. Sleeper
9. Solastalgia
10. The Road
11. All Of Us
12. E Sgwers (demo Version)
13. Methods
14. Ghost SYMbOL (Klang Version)

THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY RELEASE AVAILABLE INSTORE OVER THE COUNTER FROM 10AM ON NOVEMBER 26TH.

ANY REMAINING ITEMS WILL BE AVAILABLE ONLINE ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 8AM.

LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Limited edition vinyl re-issue of Ghostpoet’s fourth album – ‘Dark Days + Canapes’.

Out of print for a few years – now re-released on clear vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day Black Friday 2021.

A stunning and stimulating return, Dark Days and Canapes is a record that captures the sense of unease felt by so many in recent times. After receiving recognition for the beat-driven arrangements of his first two albums, third album Shedding Skin initiated a more alt-rock sound that saw Ghostpoet Mercury nominated for a second time. Dark Days and Canapés, produced by Leo Abrahams, best known for his work with Brian Eno and Jon Hopkins, delves even further into a fuller, guitar driven sound.

Limited to 500 copies for the UK and Ireland.

TRACK LISTING

One More Sip
Many Moods At
Midnight
Trouble + Me
(We’re) Dominoes
Freakshow
Dopamine If I Do
Live>Leave
Karoshi
Blind As A Bat…
Immigrant Boogie
Woe Is Meee
End Times

Ghostly Kisses is the work of French-Canadian singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Margaux Sauvé. Playing the violin since the age of 5, it was almost 20 years later that she began to write and sing her first songs. Now working with Louis-Étienne Santais - composer, producer, and pianist - together they create Ghostly Kisses’ haunting yet ultimately soothing sound; beautiful compositions wrapped around Margaux’s delicate vocal.

Ghostly Kisses has spent the last year working on her first full-length album, due for release in February 2022 via Akira Records. A powerful accumulation of all that's come before, Heaven, Wait is an intricate, moving body of work.

TRACK LISTING

Heartbeat
Heaven, Wait
Don't Know Why
Blackbirds
A Different Kind Of Love
Clay
Carry Me
Play Dead
Green Book
Your Heart Is Gold

After years spent living on opposite sides of the Atlantic world events threw Laura Mary Carter and Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes back together into what has become the must fruitful era of their 17 years together.

“It’s been a loooong time since we both lived in the same city”, explains Steven. “I mean we actually wrote this album in LA at Laura’s place, then came to the UK to record it…and then everything went nuts”.

Realising very quickly that they wouldn’t be able to release the album or tour until the world returned to some kind of normality, the band found their energies quickly spilled over into other projects. Laura-Mary started a podcast, Never Meet Your Idols, with her best friend in LA, interviewing everyone from Zack Snyder to Mark Lanegan to CHVRCHES. It is now about to start its third season. Steven started applying his love of electronic music by writing and producing other alternative artists like Circe, ARXX, Aiko and XCerts, racking up millions of streams in the process.

Having worked together on Laura–Mary’s forthcoming solo mini album Town Called Nothing and restless from the lack of touring, the duo started jamming out in rehearsal rooms, which led to the light-speed writing, recording and release of the impossibly-titled Ø EP in the summer of 2021. Which concludes what the band call an “off year”.


And that brings us back to GHOST ON TAPE. It appears that like David Lynch’s The Lost Highway, nothing is linear in the world of Blood Red Shoes. Written and recorded before their most recent EP, GHOSTS ON TAPE is a huge jump into new terrain for the band. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves.

“We’ve always been outsiders right from the very beginning” says Steven. “This album is really about us asserting ourselves as our own little island”, he adds. “We have made an entire career out of being told what we are “not”, of being rejected, of not fitting in, and this album is us deliberately pushing into all of our strangeness, emphasising all of the things that make us different”. Obsessed by true crime and murder podcasts, many songs on the record are told in character and explore the dark psyche of those at the pinnacle of outsiderdom: serial killers. "Ghosts On Tape" paints a picture of a dark and unsettling world. It is the sound of a unified and confident duo who know exactly who they are, even if the wider world doesn’t really get it. The sound of two people who have spent their entire adult lives making music together and who, more than ever, are finding new pathways for their creativity.

“Ultimately this album is an invitation”, explains Steven. “It’s us saying, this is our world, these are our darkest thoughts and feelings - our ghosts - caught on tape. You are welcome to join us. Come and embrace the strange”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Comply
2. Morbid Fascination
3. Murder Me
4. (I've Been Watching You)
5. Give Up
6. Sucker
7. Begging
8. (You Claim To Understand)
9. I Am Not You
10. Dig A Hole
11. I Lose Whatever I Own
12. (What Have You Been Waiting For?)
13. Four Two Seven 

Haiku Salut, the acclaimed electronica trio from the Derbyshire Dales release their fifth album, ‘The Hill, The Light, The Ghost’ on Secret Name records.

A beautiful study of ghosts and memory, the gestation of the record began when Haiku Salut’s Sophie Barkerwood was given a Tascam field recorder. “I carried it around with me in case anything interesting happened. I guess I wanted to capture little pieces of the world in the same way we all take photographs,” explains Sophie. “It wasn’t immediately apparent that we would begin to use these sounds as the architecture for an album but as our writing process evolved the textures of these memories became a bank of inspiration.”

“We then began actively searching for ghosts in the world and framing the songs around their qualities,” Sophie continues. “Gathering recordings, removing them from their context and building worlds around them. Capturing and preserving personal experiences, and evoking vivid spaces. You could say the record is a miniature exploration of sound in relation to memory. Each piece is intimately connected to a place in time.”

Musically, the album marries the expansive vision of their third album, ‘There Is No Elsewhere’, which celebrated identity and community, with the darker, more contemplative feel of their fourth album, the trio’s original soundtrack for Buster Keaton’s ‘The General’. Building on the lessons learned working on ‘The General’, ‘The Hill, The Light, The Ghost’ is a cohesive suite, nine songs that combine to tell a larger story – that of experience and memory, of precious moments and echoes of past lives.

TRACK LISTING

(1) Wide Awake
(2) Entering
(3) We Need These Beams
(4) I Dreamed I Was Awake For A Very Long Time
(5) How The Day Starts
(6) All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
(7) Try Again And Again And Again
(8) Trespass
(9) All Clear

Entangled Routes is the fourth Pye Corner Audio album for Ghost Box Records. It’s the third part of a loose trilogy of albums starting with Stasis in 2016 and followed by Hollow Earth in 2019. Each album is a kind of high concept sci-fi epic, the latest instalment of which plays with the idea of mycorrhizal networks and attempts by humans to listen in and communicate.

As always with Pye Corner Audio and Ghost Box Records generally, narrative is not spelled out. It's only implied in the drama and mood of the music, with the help of careful attention to track titles and sequence and of course Julian House's consistently evocative artwork.

Martin Jenkins builds up tension with his minimalistic synth sequences and dance floor abstractions. His masterful sound design creates a sense of awe and vast space as he takes us on a fantastic and exciting voyage from peril to redemption.

Pye Corner Audio specialise in majestic, cinematic electronica that evokes sci-fi soundtracks, dystopian futures and the sound of haunted dance floors. The discography to date includes ten full length albums and many more singles and EPs across several labels. There are also remixes for John Foxx, Mogwai, Ride’s Andy Bell, Mark Lanegan, Alice Hubble, Stealing Sheep, Knightstown and Dolphin Midwives.

TRACK LISTING

New Roots
Synaptic
Paleolith
Earthwork
The Creeper
Hive Mind
The Clearing
Growth Potential
The Long Now
Phantom Orchid
Leaf Mould
Buried Network
Symbiosis

BArTc is a London based experimental electronic one-man project (Jason Barton). Out in September is the project’s debut full length “Insubstantial As Ghosts” containing 14 dark atmospheric soundscapes. ICR owner Colin Potter, himself a well known figure in the electronic and experimental music genre as a member of Nurse With Wound and sound engineer, heard some of Barton’s work and offered to release it. He has handpicked several of the pieces included on “Insubstantial As Ghosts” and also mastered the album.

Initially inspired by instrumental electronic records in his father’s record collection by titans such as Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, Barton soon gravitated towards underground industrial icons such as Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, Chris & Cosey and Skinny Puppy, as well as digging deeper into the work of early German electronicists such as Cluster, Musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, plus the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Barton has cited sound recordist (and Cabaret Voltaire co-founder) Chris Watson as another influence, adding: “I have always loved environmental sounds and often carry a field recorder on my travels which I use to create texture in my pieces. I build layers to create something abstract yet strangely beautiful, mixing source material, organic and experimental sounds plus field recordings that are heavily distorted with various effects. For me, creating music is a form of meditation, and to lose oneself in an improvisation is a wonderful experience. I just need to remember to hit record!”

TRACK LISTING

Francium
Floods
Malleus Incuss Tapes
Boron
A Strange Glow Awaits Us All
Energy Field
The Seraph
The Isotopes Of Yttrium
Looking Into The Abyss
Some Observations On Technetium
Ultra Panavision 70
Skookum
Oiseaumouche
The Organism

‘GHOSTS OF ROCK N ROLL’ is the fifth solo album from Men They Couldn’t Hang frontman Phil Odgers and is preceded by the digital single ‘The Serpent, The Maiden and The Bear’ (30th July). Beginning as a collection of ukulele led demos, ‘GHOSTS OF ROCK N ROLL’ has endured a stormy birth and its final emergence represents the triumph of resilience over adversity. Originally launched as a Pledge Music crowdfunded campaign, the album was nearly strangled at birth by the collapse of Pledge Music in 2018 and the loss of the majority of fan investment.

Despite this setback, all fan pledges were still fulfilled and the project relocated to Bandcamp just in time for the pandemic lockdown to prevent any further recording sessions with producer Jim Knight. Finally, the album inched forward over the summer of 2020 only to crash into the second lockdown and then the tragic loss of fellow TMTCH frontman Stefan Cush in February 2021. With such checkered history, ‘GHOSTS OF ROCK N ROLL’ seems an appropriate title and its combination of folky pop and melancholic twang, combined with an ethos of survival, memory and experience create a testament to a life spent sailing the sometimes treacherous waters of Rock and Roll. The album features guest appearances by Sid Griffin and Bobby Valentino.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Serpent, The Maiden And The Bear
2. Flower Lady
3. Brooklyn Bridge
4. The Last Thing On My Mind (Is Regret)
5. Ghost Of Rock 'n' Roll
6. Early Morning Rain
7.The Desert Has A Thousand Eyes
8. Empty Streets And Lovers In The Rain
9. Uke Town
10. Rage Against The Machine

“The Black Angels bring the aura of mid-1966 the drilling guitars of early Velvet Underground shows, the raga inflections of late-show Fillmore jams, the acid-prayer stomp of Austin avatars the 13th Floor Elevators everywhere they go, including the levitations on their second album, Directions to See a Ghost. Mid-Eighties echoes of Spacemen 3 and the Jesus and Mary Chain also roll through the scoured-guitar sustain and Alex Maas’ rocker-monk incantations. But he knows what time it is. ’You say the Beatles stopped the war,” Maas sings in ‘Never/Ever.’ ‘They might’ve helped to find a cure/But it’s still not over.’ Even so, this medicine works wonders." – David Fricke, Rolling Stone

Last time we met The Black Angels, they were staring into the desert sun somewhere outside of Austin, Texas. Two years later, night has fallen and the spirits have come out. It’s time for The Black Angels to provide Directions On How To See A Ghost.

If you’re familiar with Passover, the band’s 2006 debut, you’ll know that The Black Angels’s music alone is enough to invoke spirits. There’s a name for the band’s sound; they call it ‘hypno-drone ’n roll’. It’s the sound of long nights on peyote, of dreams of a new world order, and of half-invented memories of the seamy side of ’60s psychedelia.

While the Iraq war is still a major influence on the band’s lyrics, there are new forces at work here, including Eugene Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We and in Christian Bland’s words “psychic information from the past and future.” See, The Black Angels really are in contact with ghosts.
“Civil War battlefields are prime spots for seeing ghosts,” says Bland. “One time at Kennesaw mountain in Georgia, I was climbing the mountain in the middle of June and it must have been close to 100 degrees, but in this one particular spot it was very cold. The hairs on my neck stood up and I knew something strange was happening. Then the wind whispered something like ‘retreat,’ and I did. I later learned that the spot where I was on the battlefield was known as ‘the dead angle’, the place where the fiercest fighting took place. The confederates ended up retreating from the mountain towards Peachtree Creek.”

The Black Angels formed in Austin, Texas, in 2004, comprising from six people (now five) from very different backgrounds. Singer/vocalist Christian Bland is the son of a Presbyterian Pastor and was raised in a devoutly religious household. Bassist / guitarist Nate Ryan was born on a cult compound and drummer Stephanie Bailey claims she’s a descendent of Davy Crocket. She and Alex Maas (vocals/guitar) believe a little girl in a red linen dress haunts the group’s home.

The band released Passover in 2006 to critical acclaim for both the album and the song “The First Vietnamese War”. Most of all, Passover established The Black Angels as a band with brains, balls and a strong message. And this time around, the message is there to read in a 16-page booklet that comes with the album.

“Our central theme is that people need to open up their minds and let everything come through, and to learn from past mistakes,” says Christian. “Only then will we understand the reality of this world and progress beyond where we are now as humans. We’ve built upon that theme with Directions to See a Ghost. We want people to study the booklet we are providing with the album in hopes that they will be able to relate each song to something in their life.”
_"War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Keep Music Evil."_

TRACK LISTING

You On The Run
Doves
Science Killer
Mission District
18 Years
Deer-ree-shee
Never/ever
Vikings
You In Color
The Return
Snake In The Grass

Twenty-plus years into his career, producer / vocalist / songwriter / DJ Matthew Dear remains artistically unpredictable in pursuit of his prescient strain of electronically-formed, organically-delivered indie pop. His work traverses myriad musical worlds, belonging to none. But these fluid moves have not been without a few forks in the road, decisive turns, and what-ifs. Most notable is the pivot-point following Dear’s acclaimed 2007 avant-pop LP, “Asa Breed”, in which he broke away from the 4/4 grid of his techno / house debut “Leave Luck To Heaven” and into something much more wild and idiosyncratic. Traveling between his adopted Detroit and his home state of Texas throughout 2008 and 2009, Dear amassed a set of personal, playful, looping guitar-centric recordings he’d consider for his next album. Given the new momentum of the hybrid electronic pop of “Asa Breed” which led to an opening slot for Hot Chip and remixes for ‘00 heroes like Spoon and Postal Service, Dear decided to shelf the material. He moved ahead to work on his watershed 2010 album, “Black City”, a steely noir set which earned him a Best New Music on Pitchfork and a worldwide tour with a besuited band. This lost album had a sound, a spirited country romp in the techno barn, and it had a rough title, a scribble on one of the CD-Rs passed to Ghostly label founder Sam Valenti IV, Preacher’s Sigh & Potion. He never fully walked away from it, and merely kept moving down the road, waiting for the audience to catch up. Over a decade later, that time is now.

“Preacher’s Sigh & Potion” finds Dear unknowingly at an intersection in his young run, a burgeoning songwriter at his most freewheeling and unaffected. In hindsight, there were hints of Preacher’s sound on “Asa Breed”, but the set still registers endearingly out of step with his eventual direction. This was the first time Dear tapped so directly into his late father’s influence as a fingerpicking guitar player in the 1960s and ‘70s and a gateway to the music of John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and Emmylou Harris.

From the twang and tambourine stomp of album opener “Muscle Beach,” to the metronome-like pulse of “Hikers Y” complete with an unmistakable Matthew Dear dryly dismissive mantra, to the gloomy carnival-leaving-town pomp of “Gutters and Beyond”, “Preacher’s Sigh & Potion” is filled with the reckless notions of an artist dashing the history of pop and rock, the twang of country, the build and release of techno. Dear is an auteur, and in retrospect, so many of his signatures crop up in these relics from his former self. Dear remembers him well: ‘It’s crazy how music memory exists in a very deep and indescribable tangibility. I know the person who made all these, and remember glimpses of the desk, or studio set up for each recording. I know who wrote these lyrics, and where they were mentally during that process.’ Revisiting this material now also has Dear thinking about his father’s legacy.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A cosmic-acid, hillbilly-'tronica album anyone? It sounds pretty batshit, but I can't help thinking this was everything Moby was trying to achieve in 1999.

TRACK LISTING

01. Muscle Beach
02. Sow Down
03. Hikers Y
04. Never Divide
05. All Her Fits
06. Supper Times
07. Crash And Burn
08. Heart To Sing
09. Eye
10. Head
11. Gutters And Beyond

THE SPECIALS are one of the defining bands of the late 70’s/early 80’s along with Jerry Dammers iconic label Two Tone Records. They combined Jamaican ska and Rocksteady mixed with the energy of punk and launched a whole Ska Revival which paved the way for fellow likeminded bands Madness, The Beat and The Selecter to release their first singles.

Having had seven top 10 singles and two Gold albums over the course of two years, the band released Jerry Dammers’ Ghost Town in June 1981, backed by Lynval Goldings’ Why? and the Terry Hall penned Friday Night Saturday Morning. The beginnings of the song were written around the closure of the Larcano dancehall in Coventry, but also reflecting what was happening in other towns and cities with urban decay, unemployment and ongoing racial tensions of the period. Themes which are still relevant today.

The single, which was recently voted the second greatest UK single of all time by Alexis Petridis in the Guardian, reached Number One in the UK singles charts and stayed there for a further 3 weeks, becoming one of the biggest selling singles of 1981 and has remained one of the classic UK singles of all.

This 40th Anniversary Edition has been mastered and cut at half-speed by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios using the original production tapes for optimum audio quality.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's no denying that 'Ghost Town' is one of the most well known singles from one of the greatest Ska bands of all time, and what better way to hear it than on this brand new half-speed mastered definitive pressing? Essential purchase.

TRACK LISTING

7" TRACK LISTING
Side A
1. Ghost Town (Single Version)
Side B
1. Why? (Edit)
2. Friday Night, Saturday Morning

12" TRACK LISTING
Side A
1. Ghost Town (Extended Version)
2. Why? (Extended Version)
Side B
1. Friday Night, Saturday Morning

UK South coasters, relocating from West to East: Katja Rackin and Sam Stacpoole have been grafting and honing alone, away from the expertise of music producers and other governors since 2016. The result is unadulterated and unclean, unabashed and un-compromised. Through their love of artists such as The Kinks, Alex Chilton and The Nerves or any other artist who spends less time with the polishing cloth and more time with the power shower, Holiday Ghosts make music with a lean and primitive rock n roll spirit. Drums are stripped naked to the point of metronome status and no stomp boxes, nor cahons or didgeridoos are found to obscure the energy of guitars at their rawest.

In stories of landlords, steady jobs, wrong turns, short straws, sunny moods and city life, Kat and Sam share lead vocals alongside returning band-mate and song writer, Charlie Murphy, and a host of other musicians from Falmouth, Cornwall where the band began. Two albums in with Punk Slime Records and a casual Bandcamp EP, Holiday Ghosts are back with their 3rd full length - North Street Air on FatCat Records - 12 songs of love, hate and everything in between.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mr. Herandi
2. Off Grid
3. Blood Orange
4. North Street Air
5. Bathing Suit
6. 3rd Dream
7. Makin A Fool
8. Total Crisis
9. Leaving Today
10. Told My Baby
11. Glue
12. Wallpaper

Following a two year hiatus, the Ivor Novello award winning songwriters Cherry Ghost have regrouped and with the help of Dan Austin (Doves, Massive Attack) they have recorded one of the most hopeful, beguiling, theatrical, and ultimately captivating albums of the year. With an eclectic repertoire of songs that go way beyond simplistic melodies and rousing choruses, Cherry Ghost create a musical world of their own that’s as strong and as all-encompassing as a fictional voice. Songs are sung about and from the perspective of a variety of characters (young and old / male and female / rich and poor), while themes such as loss, revenge, regret, blasphemy and disillusionment wrestle with romance, hope, optimism all wrapped within a wickedly dark humour; "Beneath This Burning Shoreline" unravels like a fine southern gothic novel. The album opens with "We Sleep On Stones". The malevolent locomotive rhythm of the track signals a move away from the idea of Cherry Ghost as a solo project, showcasing a more refined and assured sounding band. With Krautrock flourishes this murderous ballad illustrates both lyrically and sonically the Cherry Ghost sound in 2010.

Running the gamut of human emotion, the album moves quixotically from track to track, exploring new narratives in each one, take "The Night They Buried Sadie Clay", a funeral march that celebrates the life of a dying woman that never gave in or gave up hope, or "Only A Mother", a tale of domestic abuse and promises unrealised that’s straight out of Morrissey book of poetic social commentary. Meanwhile, recorded live and in one take, the blasphemous ballad "My God Betrays" sees Cherry Ghost collectively bestow one of the most sorrowful and contemplative tracks in annals of contemporary music.

Euphoria is never far away and with new lead single, "Kissing Strangers" it is there in abundance. The dusty crooned vocals of Simon Aldred are wrapped around psychedelic lullabies, Glen Campbell guitars and stately drumming. It’s an ode to wayward souls trawling the night skies "Kissing Strangers" is a 21st century song for swinging lovers: young hearts on the chase and well groomed weekend brutes. Further jubilation comes in the form of "BlackFang", a 4 minute romp that revives the spirit of The Velvet Underground and "Luddite" eschews progress in favour of a skiffle-beat lament to the emotionally stunted.

TRACK LISTING

1. We Sleep On Stones
2. A Month Of Mornings
3. Kissing Strangers
4. Conquered Part 1
5. Only A Mother
6. The Night The Buried Sadie Clay
7. My God Betrays
8. Barberini Square
9. Conquered Part 2
10. BlackFang
11. Luddite
12. Diamond In The Grind
13. Strays

For Fans Of…Temples, Allah-Las, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Khruangbin, David Axelrod. Where will you hide when the world around you is closing in? On their latest LP, GFO invites you to close your eyes and take a dive into your subconscious. Strings and horns float around from ear to ear while their three sirens explore themes of isolation, fear of the unknown, and the fabrication of self-image. It's a soulful psychedelic journey that picks up sonically where "A Song For Paul" left off. The drums are heavier, the arrangements are more intricate, and the vocal harmonies soar over a bed of odd time signature grooves. This is an album that's meant to be listened to in the dark. So won't you join them? You're not scared.....are you? 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Swirling psychedelic guitars and snappey percussion work their way around the dreamlike reverbs and jazzy snare drums before launching into a lysergic, organ-led breakdown. It's a woozy but euphoric cocktail.

TRACK LISTING

1. Introduction
2. Overture
3. Little Bird
4. Stoop Talk
5. Step Back (Wild Child)
6. Fuzzy Logic
7. Pause I
8. Quiet Soul
9. Mourning
10. Drop Me A Line
11. Pause II
12. Queen Bee
13. Korban Olah
14. Toujours
15. Pause III
16. King Of Misdirection
17. Cost Of Living

As the final act before their hiatus ñ coming after three critically praised albums in a decade - 'Live at the Trades Club Hebden Bridge' is Cherry Ghost performing an intimate, starkly arranged set at the 2015 Heavenly Weekender.Released now for the first time ñ on double vinyl and download ñ this is perhaps the best realised collection of songs from Cherry Ghost, the alias of the Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter Simon Aldred. The instrumentation ñ Aldred is joined on keyboards and light percussion by Christian Madden and Grenville Harrop ñ brings to the fore Aldred's peerless songwriting, his oak-aged, prematurely wisened baritone.'History' wrote the Quietus in 2014, 'will be kind to Aldred', and this collection proves exactly that ñ with a bit of time and distance, the songs presented here show a highly singular, highly accomplished songwriter, aspiring to the pop classicism of Glen Campbell or Bill Callahan. All of human life is here ñ tracking a drizzly Northern gothic of last bus loneliness, late-night Spars, solitary drinkers, factory floors and Gods that betray.And yet, there's more than meets the eye.There's magnetic renderings of his best known songs - '4AM', 'People Help the People', the soaring 'Mathematics' - but surprises reveal themselves.'All I Want' and 'Herd Runners' candidly examine Aldred's sexuality, whilst the seldom heard b-side 'Bad Crowd' reveals Aldred to be a much funnier songwriter than remembered. What runs right through Aldred's work, however, is a yearning ñ a much tested faith in romance ñ so no wonder that the album ends on its most optimistic notes, at the darkest point of winter nestled in the West Yorkshire valleys, promising clear skies ever closer.

There's an obvious chemistry emanating throughout Ohmme's music that's so tangible it can only come from a decades-spanning friendship. Songwriters Sima Cunnningham and Macie Stewart formed their unbreakable bond performing throughout the fringes of Chicago's many interlocking communities, collaborating with titans from the city's indie rock, hiphop, and improvised worlds. But together, along with drummer Matt Carroll, they've stretched the boundaries of what guitar music can do starting with the band's experimental 2016 self-titled EP and their adventurous debut 2018 LP Parts. Now their longstanding partnership culminates with the stunning and muscular follow-up Fantasize Your Ghost. Ohmme formed in 2014 as an outlet for Cunningham and Stewart to explore an unconventional approach to their instruments.


"That's the whole genesis of the band: us walking up to our guitars and saying, 'how can we make this noisemaker do something different?'" says Cunningham. But as their musical collaboration strengthened, bringing Parts and intensive tours with acts like Wilco, Iron & Wine, Twin Peaks, and more, the band's scope and focus has also broadened. "Grinding on tour last year for so long, it can alter your mental state where you have to think about your life in a different way than you would if you're home. A lot of the songs stemmed from just thinking about all of the possibilities that life could be and could take," says Stewart. The commanding single "3 2 4 3" tackles the terrifying realization of needing to make a change. Their deft scene-setting and the way their disparate voices blend together heightens the song's inherent anxiety. These moments of emotional clarity fill Fantasize Your Ghost.


Written across 2019, early sketches of the album's tracklist were demoed at Sam Evian's Flying Cloud Studios in upstate New York. "That's where we really started to see the record come together," says Cunningham. The sessions were intensely collaborative and open, the product of long, existential conversations between Stewart and Cunningham in the van about their lives and how to channel the anger they were feeling about the state of the world. Tracks like the driving opener "Flood Your Gut" underwent several revisions with Ohmme uncovering several new directions the song could go before finishing it. Fantasize Your Ghost was recorded over a six day session in with indie rock journeyman producer Chris Cohen and captures the astounding magnetism and ferocity of their live show.


Fantasize Your Ghost encapsulates the thrilling and sometimes terrifying joy of moving forward even if you don't know where you're going. It's an album that asks necessary questions: When life demands a crossroads, what version of yourself are you going to pursue? What part of yourself will you feed and let flourish and what do you have to let go of? This is a record of strength, of best friends believing in each other. Unapologetic and brave, Ohmme are ready to figure it all out together.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Over the few years they've been recording, Ohmme have clearly perfected their brand of rhythmic indie rock into the perfectly hypnotic distillation we hear today. Elements of Americana, White Stripes-esque blues rock and hypntoic synthy kosmische. It's a melting pot indeed, but one that works flawlessly. That groove!

TRACK LISTING

1. Flood Your Gut
2. Selling Candy
3. Ghost
4. The Limit
5. Spell It Out
6. Twitch
7. 3 2 4 3
8. Some Kind Of Calm
9. Sturgeon Moon
10. After All

The two-time Mercury Prize nominee Ghostpoet (aka Obaro Ejimiwe) follows up 2017’s acclaimed 'Dark Days + Canapés’ with a record which couldn’t feel more prescient, a dystopian snapshot of the universal unease and anxiety we feel as we enter into this new decade, an uncertain future distilled across these 10 vital tracks.

The bluesy, gritty ‘Concrete Pony’ is the perfect entry point to the record – in Obaro’s own words; “It’s a snapshot of where we’re at as a society I feel, we seem to have everything and nothing at all. Infinite possibilities and choices galore but we seem set in stone, frozen in place, oblivious to the storm clouds in the distance…”

Recorded in London and written, arranged and produced by Ghostpoet, ‘I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep’ incorporates a myriad of sounds and styles but is anchored by the more alt-rock sonics presented across his last two records. It features guest vocals from an eclectic mix of artists; Art School Girlfriend, Skinny Girl Diet’s Delilah Holiday, SaraSara and Katie Dove Dixon. Obaro has always had a keen ear for collaboration, having worked with the likes of Massive Attack, Nadine Shah, Melanie Di Biasio, Maximo Park’s Paul Smith and Damon Albarn’s Africa Express amongst others across his distinguished career.

TRACK LISTING

Breaking Cover
Concrete Pony
Humana Second Hand
Black Dog Got Silver Eyes
Rats In A Sack
This Trainwreck Of A Life
Nowhere To Hide Now
When Mouths Collide
I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep
Social Lacerations

DJs, producers and unrivaled selectors, Danny McLewin and Tom Coveney have shared the next taste of their debut album ‘I Feel How This Night Should Look’ via their stunning next track, ‘Ghost Particle’.

Recorded at Canterbury’s Cosmic Forest Studios, ‘Ghost Particle’ features English psychedelic-rock Syd Arthur frontman Liam Magill. A gorgeously emotive and glistening space prog infused moment track for the album, Ghost Particle glides along at cruising altitude.

Released last year on their own imprint Psychemagik Recordings. ‘I Feel How This Night Should Look’ is an album with a phenomenal backstory spanning back over a decade. ‘I Feel How This Night Should Look’ is testament to the duo’s deep understanding and love of their craft, an LP which hones a layered intelligence that only long-term dedication to the art and craft of the DJ can deliver.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ghost Particle (Feat. Liam Magill)
A2. Ghost Particle (Instrumental)
B1. Ghost Particle (Feat. Liam Magill) (Cable Toy Club Mix)

It’s a strange betweenworld, bookended by sleep and the jolt of being wide awake in a place where you wonder how you got there. You know the feeling… It seems familiar but the colours are, well, unreal. In a high-ceilinged room, a grand piano plays lush melodies as, meanwhile, somewhere, an Alice In Wonderland clock ticks, cellos are bowed, a swarm of something vibrates and the hallucinatory crowd around Rosemary’s Baby babble. An echoey electronic hum builds and falls like a 50s refrigerator passed through and effects board, things run backwards, staccato strings are plucked… and that’s not the half of it. “I’ve never been happy staying in one particular school of musical thought. The fun has been turning things on their heads, to try something you were not supposed to do.” We’re on an immersive and adventurous travelogue with the former member of the legendary Tangerine Dream, Paul Haslinger - this is a man who knows how to build tension, hold moods, illustrate contempt, lies, passion and pleasure; He can create fear, loathing and love - he’s been unlocking the nuances of such emotions in a hugely successful career as a TV and film soundtrack composer (Halt And Catch Fire, Underworld and the Golden Globe-nominated Sleeper Cell). ‘Exit Ghost’ is his long thought out opus, a moment caught in time, flicking through reference points, taking an ethereal excursion that permeates musical genres as it becomes awash with intricate sounds and cross-pollinating rhythms. Built originally from the warmth of his grand piano ‘Exit Ghost’ resonates with purity and power, from an eerie and evocative betweenworld, that’s at once expansive and rolling, then intoxicating and suffocating in equal measures; modern composition at its most uplifting; cerebral, celebratory, intense and beautiful. “The soul searching in connection with this record was extensive. Finding places of resonance, giving a colour to your memories. It was more challenging because it’s not somebody else’s narrative. Finding the core of your own story can be the most difficult task of all.” Created over the span of eight years and filled with literal and personal references, the album itself is a testament to the search - a quest filled with hints, particles and suggestions. 

TRACK LISTING

A1 The Faltering Sky
A2 Intrinsic
A3 Room 3
A4 Exit Ghost
A5 Valse I
A6 August 2-22
B1 Berlin 86-11
B2 White Sun
B3 Mayerling
B4 FernDell

Ghosteen is the seventeenth studio album from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, following 2016’s Skeleton Tree, and will be released via Ghosteen Ltd. The album was recorded in 2018 and early 2019 at Woodshed in Malibu, Nightbird in Los Angeles, Retreat in Brighton and Candybomber in Berlin. It was mixed by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lance Powell and Andrew Dominik at Conway in Los Angeles.

"The songs on the first album are the children. The songs on the second album are their parents. Ghosteen is migrating spirit." - Nick Cave.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Spread across two albums, "The songs on the first album are the children. The songs on the second album are their parents. Ghosteen is migrating spirit." Nick Cave, ‘Ghosteen is a deeply introspective and at times an emotionally devastating listen exploring his personal grief following the death of his son. A melancholic yet beautiful masterpiece.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1:
1. The Spinning Song
2. Bright Horses
3. Waiting For You
4. Night Raid
5. Sun Forest
6. Galleon Ship
7. Ghosteen Speaks
8. Leviathan

Disc 2:
1. Ghosteen
2. Fireflies
3. Hollywood

Whilst touring during 2018 in support of Broken Stay Open Sky, their 4th album, Red River Dialect uncovered a new depth of communication in their playing, and the follow-up bears the fruit. Abundance Welcoming Ghosts finds the British folk-rock band relaxing into a natural, playful confidence. It was recorded at Mwnci Studios (Southwest Wales), during 4 days in 2018, just a month before the band’s songwriter David Morris left the UK for a 9 month meditation retreat at a remote Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia. By the time the band reached the studios, the imminent hiatus lent a poignant and celebratory atmosphere to the sessions. The compositions had not been fully formed prior to recording, but any pressure was transmuted into invigoration, resulting in the jubilant energy that adorns even the most turbulent songs. This expansiveness bears testament to the skill of long-term collaborator and guide Jimmy Robertson (Michael Chapman), who engineered and mixed the songs. Guest musicians Joan Shelley, who sings the hidden spaces on “Snowdon” and “Piano,” and Tara Jane O’Neil (Rodan, the Sonora Pine), who plays sweet aching slide guitar on “My Friend,” complement the core sextet. Ed Sanders’ violin alternates between soaring with crisp highland sadness on “BV Kistvaen” and burying jaws into the flesh of songs like “Salvation.”


Coral Kindred-Boothby’s bass swings the anchor in deep blue fathoms, but frequently dances up to the clouds; she sings heart-swelling, radiant harmonies on “My Friend.” Lead guitarist Simon Drinkwater weaves spry and subtle lines just under the surface of the ocean, breaking for gasps of air and bicycle kicks, slicing the air on “Snowdon” and “Blue Sparks.” Kiran Bhatt rides the drums out to all the cardinal points, tapping high bright stars on “Piano” and pulsing with the circular tide on “Two White Carp.” Robin Stratton has one hand rummaging in the swamp around “Red River” and the other under a waterfall on “Slow Rush”; his piano and organ playing flow like water into both rhythm and lead roles.The thread of mourning that has long held sway in Morris’ songwriting, particularly on 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue, is not fully unravelled. There are familiar questions about allegiances to caution and pensiveness, but the songs edge ever closer to abandoning restraints, including the desire to achieve coherence in meaning as some form of salvation. Regarding the title, he points to a quote attributed to the eleventh century Tibetan spiritual master Machig Labdrön, 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Blue Sparks 4:04
A2. Two White Carp 4:26
A3. Snowdon 5:33
A4. Slow Rush 4:24
A5. Salvation 4:42

B1. Red River 5:32
B2. Piano 6:27
B3. My Friend 5:44
B4. BV Kistvaen 4:21

“Bunny” is the brand-new album from Ghost Orchard, aka 21-year-old Sam Hall, following on from his 2016 album “Bliss”, which received great praise from The Fader and Tiny Mix Tapes. Ghost Orchard channels the experimental pop of Aphex Twin, Frank Ocean, and King Krule. “Bunny” is a celebration of love and everything in between. Written and recorded entirely by Sam in his bedroom over three years, it showcases a turbulent and beautiful time in his life and attempts to capture a glimpse into coming of age, the urgency of falling in love, and what comes after.

TRACK LISTING

Witness
Swan
Bunny
Guess
Only
Carousel
Sheesh
First Time
Balloon
Station
Puppy
Frog
Ride
Honeymoon

A. Swayze & The Ghosts are an exhilarating new garage punk band from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. They are comprised of lead singer Andrew Swayze, alongside high school friends Hendrik Wipprecht (guitar), Zackary Blain (drums) and Ben Simms (bass). ‘Suddenly’ is backed with the epic, 10 minute jamfest known as ‘Reciprocation’.

Tasmania is known around the world as The Island of Inspiration and it’s no secret that the albums that have inspired A.Swayze & The Ghosts came from classic artists such as Iggy & The Stooges, Television, Fugazi, The Ramones and Australia’s kings of punk The Saints. Elements of these masterful artists from an early era can be found in the band’s DNA and have allowed them to grow into their own world, to create their own scene, on an island that also has much deep and meaningful history with potential to have some new rock & roll history too.

TRACK LISTING

Suddenly
Reciprocation