This collaboration between Spanish producer Nueen and Manc vocalist / rapper Iceboy Violet - who has previously sprinkled their magic dust across Hyperdub releases from aya and Loraine James - traces the arc of a four year relationship, memorialising its highs and documenting its lows, processing, reflecting, and then ending with the ecstatic spark of new love. It’s a magical, intimate and heartfelt album, sometimes anguished but often enchanting. Nueen's music responds with foggy, but richly detailed, production. Smudgy drill-laced beats contrast with curdled, spiralling chords, at times drawing out a malevolent ambience. ‘You Said You'd Hold My Hand Through The Fire’ is an immensely affecting and lucid album, powerfully wrought, ultimately hopeful.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Heartbreak Of A Broken Stitch (ft Harriet Morley)
A2. SM_FID
A3. Everything Ends With An Inhale
A4. Cement Skin
A5. Pixel Petals
A6. Slammd (Interlude)
A7. Closer
B1. Terrence’s Time Bomb
B2. Fragmentary (Eraser)
B3. Inside My Head (Interlude)
B4. Still (ft Dawuna)
B5. Fawning (Interlude)
B6. Kiss Me Again (6am In Helsinki) (ft Bennettiscoming)

‘Willson Williams’ witnesses the meeting of two likeminded musicians who’ve built their successful, independent careers on inventive folk instrumentation, reflective and sincere lyricism, and not a small amount of self-deprecation. Their modest confessionals, written poetically and over nostalgic and atmospheric melodies, are as relatable as ever, and together they find new ways to unpack their feelings.  

One overarching theme on the album is that of grief, when the writing process saw them both, tragically, in mourning for separate loved ones; Dan for his brother Karl and his friend Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit, and Kathryn for her friend, comedian and BBC Radio 4 presenter Jeremy Hardy. They explain that “the initial premise and starting point for us was discussions and open conversations on bereavement. We’d both recently lost friends who were also in the public eye, and we talked about the strange place between personal loss and the communal grieving of a public figure”. Contrastingly, the music on ‘Willson Williams’ is warm, heartfelt and even cheerful, an opposing nature that is completely in keeping with both their humour and candidness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Arrow
2. Grace
3. R U 4 Real
4. Our Best
5. Shelf
6. Wish
7. Sweetest Wine
8. Weekend
9. Sing Out
10. Elvis
11. Big Nothing

If the setting is right, magic will happen - And so, this record came into being - Sunburned Hand of the Man, three decades into their one of a kind run, still possess the ability to amaze, stupefy and astound - even themselves - Recorded over a week at Big Blue, Adam Langellotti's (Kurt Vile & The Violators) studio/house, "Nimbus" sees the band's amorphous lineup produce results such as high-test workouts, cryptic readings & a choice cover (Sun City Girls)

A record that this band could only produce in 2024 and the required next step for the devoted fan base and or those interested in doing some self- work in an unconventional setting.

TRACK LISTING

Legendary international DJ, Keb Darge, fell under the spell of this music when his Japanese girlfriend forced him to go down to a ‘Rockabilly’ night back in 1989. As soon as the DJ dropped the needle on Johnny Burnette’s ‘Rockabilly Boogie’ Keb was mesmerized. He was soon hunting down the hideously rare top tunes and slipping thousands of pounds into specialist collectors like Boz Boorer’s back pocket, when the legendary guitarist was not recording or touring with Morrissey. Of course, Keb was then taking these records and introducing them to new audiences in his DJ sets worldwide.

Although it has taken an age to persuade him, Keb has now applied his perfectionist compiling skills to pick 14 killers to grace this fantastic collection. Ranging from the bopping Glen Glenn’s ‘Blue Jeans and A Boy’s Shirt’ to the almost hillbilly Jimmy Johnson’s ‘All Dressed Up’. This is a must-have compilation not only for those who have been oiling their quiffs for decades, but also those wondering what this “rockabilly” is all about. Keb drops you in at the deep end with no easy-going fillers, and you’ll be glad he did.

Keb has written the sleeve notes and with cover art by the legendary Robin Banks – this album looks as good as it sounds. 

TRACK LISTING

Side One
1. Blue Jeans And A Boy's Shirt - Glen Glenn
2. The Woman I Love - Gene Terry & His Kool Kats
3. Sweet Love - Orangie Ray Hubbard
4. Jello Sal - Benny Ingram
5. Lonesome Baby Blues - David Ray
6. Do Me No Wrong - Pat Cupp & The Flying Saucers
7. Cool Off Baby - Billy Barrix
Side Two
1. Let's Go Bopping Tonight –
Al Ferrier & His Bopping Billies
2. Jitterbop Baby - Hal Harris
3. Raw Deal - Junior Thompson With The Meteors
4. Nuthin' But A Nuthin' –
Jimmy Stewart & His Nighthawks
5. I'm Doing All Right - Jerry Hanson
6. Where There's A Will (There's A Way) –
Carl Trantham & The Rhythm All Stars
7. All Dressed Up – Jimmy Johnson 

RIYL: Amyl & the Sniffers, Black Flag, Thee Oh Sees, Bad Brains, MC5

Channeling the speed of youth and the heaviness of a fleshy, lived life in equal proportion, Upchuck’s second LP, Bite the Hand That Feeds, is a Trojan Horse par excellence, craftily smuggling in waves of sentimental emotion and clever pop songwriting under a veil of pulsing rhythms and scorching riffs. What binds Upchuck together is a purity of intention, an organic loyalty to a thick knot of uncalculated friendships, struggles, and desires. These are songs about the joy of continuing to live, songs that find each other in the rush of a crushing reality, propelling the listener onward towards a collective release, however brief it may last. Themes of surviving through the night, youth-blinded love, cheap champagne soaked back-alley parties, and chaotic street protests are subsumed under a single unifying thread: the needs we have for one another, our shared hunger for connection. In a world saturated with arbitrary rules and paper-thin moralism, Upchuck offer free­dom through sensation, a type of unserious transcendence found through the swirl of bodies melting into one another in the passion of dance. With Bite the Hand That Feeds, Upchuck isn’t trying to tell anyone how to live. Rather, they are simply trying to find a way to make life more worth living for both themselves and their friends—if the music compels you to move, you might as well consider yourself their friend too.

Shortly after the release of their debut album Sense Yourself, Upchuck absconded to Southern California to record Bite the Hand That Feeds, enlisting the production talents of Ty Segall and the airy reprieve of his secluded Topanga Canyon home studio. Upchuck credits Segall, who recorded the entire record live to tape over the span of five days, with helping to elevate the arrangements of their second record to bold new heights—fans of Segall’s extensive catalog will undoubtedly recognize the shadow of his creative touch in Bite the Hand That Feeds’ commanding, layered drum polyrhythms, tasteful use of oddball effects, and fuzzed out, every-guitar-pushed-into-the-red ethos.

All the same, final credit for Upchuck’s evolution from Sense Yourself to Bite the Hand That Feeds must be paid to the band itself. Following the release of their debut LP, Upchuck embarked upon a break-neck string of live shows, touring alongside the likes of Segall’s Fuzz, Amyl and the Sniffers, Negative Approach, OFF!, and Sub­humans. The razor tight focus of Bite the Hand That Feeds was forged in the fire of these live shows, speaking directly to the power of their in-person presence—these are songs meant to be heard pressed up against a barricade, blasted through dimed guitar amps placed so close to your ears that you can practically reach out and touch them.

In its totality, Bite the Hand That Feeds offers a sonic portrait of what it feels like to be young and caught up in the thrill of it all, coursing between ripping dance grooves and thundering dirges, anti-self-serious crowd anthems and charming pop hooks.

TRACK LISTING

1. Freaky
2. Hush Toy
3. Shaken
4. Reaper
5. Crashing
6. Freedoom
7. Toothless
8. Hierba Mala
9. NYAG
10. Scrugg
11. Long Gone
12. Crossfire
13. It Comes

Since moving to Nashville to start their music career in 2012, Becca Mancari has been lauded for their dextrous songwriting and prodigious guitar playing. Their sophomore album The Greatest Part, released in 2020, was an indie rock opus that garnered acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, and more. After its release, however, Mancari was despairing. An illness in their family, coupled with a realization that their alcohol dependency had become untenable, led Mancari to begin the hard work of taking ownership of their existence by mending broken relationships and investing in their mental health. “I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I was a passenger in my own life,” Mancari says.

The transformative period of self-reckoning was the catalyst that ultimately steered Mancari to write and produce their triumphant new album, Left Hand. After a disheartening studio session with an outside producer, Becca became convinced that they were capable of rendering their vision independently. Close friend and musical ally Juan Solorzano, who has played on all of Mancari’s albums since the debut of Good Woman in 2017, joined them in the studio to co-produce the majority of the record. In addition, Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Demi Lovato) co-wrote and co-produced the song “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” encouraging Mancari to track every instrument on the initial demos.

As much as self-producing this album was an act of resilience and growth in one’s own craft, Mancari brought trusted friends like Brittany Howard, who they play with in Bermuda Triangle, Julien Baker and Zac Farro into the process. Insecurities that had dogged Mancari since childhood couldn’t weather the force of energy in that studio, where they executed decisions with newfound certainty. The title track, “Left Hand,” is named for the Mancari family crest. After a lifetime spent feeling like they didn’t belong, Mancari unlocked a perfect metaphor in the crest: “In many cultures children born with a dominant left hand were taught not to use that hand, and were told that using the right hand was ‘normal’ and ‘correct.’

Similarly, queer children are often times told that it’s not ‘normal’ for them to love who they love and that they need to ‘change.’” On Left Hand, Mancari offers the listener a collection of songs that should be played in moments when we are in need of reassurance and encouragement. No song exemplifies this better than the ebullient track “Over and Over,” which is a reminder to friends that happiness doesn’t need to be fleeting. “I wanted to write a queer pop song that has meat on its bones,” they say. Inspired by one of many reckless and joyful hangs with dear friends in Nashville, the enlivening pop song makes a promise to them, and to the greater community Mancari embraces on this album.

“There is something to the feeling/ Head hanging out of the window/ Being ok that we don’t know,” sung on the chorus over a beat replete with congas and shakers. What follows is a promise to anyone who ever feels like the greatest moments of their life are disappearing in the rearview: “We can have it like we used to, over and over and over and over again.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t Even Worry
2. Homesick Honeybee
3. Over And Over
4. Don’t Close Your Eyes
5. Mexican Queen
6. Left Hand
7. It’s Too Late
8. Eternity
9. I Had A Dream
10. I Needed You
11. You Don’t Scare Me
12. To Love The Earth

Hand Habits, the project of Los Angeles-based musician Meg Duffy (they/them),presents a new collection of songs titled Sugar The Bruise.

Inspired by month-long songwriting class Duffy taught in the summer of 2021, they re-discovered, with newfound clarity, the generative capacity of embracing the unknown, and how essential collaboration and improvisation are for accessing the indescribable.

Working with Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic, Art Feynman) and Philip Weinrobe (Adrienne Lenker, Cass McCombs), Duffy surrendered to the present moment, trusting that whatever sounds and words emerged were meant to emerge. With additional production, engineering and arranging from Jeremy Harris, Duffy created something which, in their words, “turned out nothing like I’d imagined it would.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Something Wrong
2. The Gift Of The Human Curse
3. Andy In Stereo
4. Private Life
5. The Book On How To Change Part 3
6. The Bust Of Nefertiti

A genuinely sprawling collection of high-fidelity mutation music that suits the compact disc format perfectly, Hypnotape is the third consecutive Sunburned Hand Of Man album of studio assemblages following 2019’s Headless and 2021’s Pick A Day To Die. Recorded throughout 2021 and 2022, it’s an album possessed with a peculiar runaway locomotion which jump cuts feverishly between unusual atmospheres yet maintains a beguiling consistency—throbbing, twisting, undulating rhythmic blast-offs suddenly kick the door down into serene realms of nuanced acoustic privacy which are unexpectedly plunged back, face first into a miasma of shirtless, raging thuggery, ad infinitum. The album is notable in the group’s monstrous catalog for a few reasons: first, it showcases founding member Conrad Capistran stepping out from behind the keyboards and electronics to spread his smooth, buttery baritone atop the majority of the tracks.

From his velvet cooing above the pulsing whirlwind of opener “People Person” to his vivid and febrile musings as a trip reporter on the frontlines of the meltdown zone on “Roger” his honeyed vocals guide the listener Virgil-like through the inferno all the way to the album’s finale where he duets with Ron Schneiderman on the old Dino Valenti / Quicksilver chestnut “What About Me”. Secondly, it features the recorded debut of Sunburned’s longtime friend and collaborator Mark Perretta after years of touring with the group. Some may remember Perretta from his days stomping across the primordial Boston underground of the late ’80s / early ’90s with the mighty Subskin Cables or his solo career as Deluxx but most, no doubt, will be familiar with his stint with Lou Barlow, John Davis and Bob Fay as Deluxx Folk Implosion, most notably when Perretta’s whimsical ode to fatherhood “Daddy Never Understood” was used in the opening sequence to Larry Clark’s beloved coming of age tale Kids in 1996. Finally, with Hypnotape, Sunburned steps into the hallowed VHF arena after decades of hovering along adjacent corridors!

TRACK LISTING

1. People Person
2. Roger
3. Barefoot On Brush
4. Music
5. Hypnotape
6. The Sun > The Moon > The Stars > The Earth
7. Priest Of The Village
8. Violate The Silence
9. That Which Is
10. Salt Taffy
11. Sweat Ship
12. Dragon Drainer
13. With Zeus
14. Salad Bar
15. Height
16. Edward's Buggy
17. What About Me

More singular, otherworldly, outsider house music from the Dresvn studios. There’s few producers with such an iconic take on leftfield sounds.

Across the new EP (tracks left untitled) we get stuttered, gated bass, a plethora of his unique and strange rhythm boxes (which go a long way to colouring the typical SUED sound…) and ethereal melodies from enchanted gardens and forgotten forests. Almost harnessing the power of nature through electronic devices, there’s a shamanic quality to all of Dresvn’s music - ritualistic and transportive. Perfect for backrooms, after hours or all night mushrooms parties - it’s another hit from the Sued stables and unlikely to hang around long. TIP! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Always got time for Dresvn! Pretty much he invented what we like to call rainforest house music. The Sued label's always been home to his more mellifluous productions - evident here across six gorgeous tracks. Enter his world as you won't be sorry!

TRACK LISTING

A1. 1
A2. 2
A3. 3
B1. 4
B2. 5
B3. 6

The Human Hand live combo comprises Joe Hollick (Wolf People - Jagjaguwar Records, solo), Karl Eden (John Peel favourites tRANSELEMENt) and Jonathan Dickin (MUMS, Honey Spider, Bleak) Joe and Karl met at an Acid Mothers Temple show in 2012 before realising they both lived minutes away from each other in neighbouring sleepy Lancashire Pennine villages. They performed a number of shows together as a wig-out loose improv duo channelling heavy motorik grooves, Anatolian suffused lead lines, a general layer of Northern skuzz tied together with Joe’s signature guitar work. Early HH recordings were juxtaposed by being captured at extremely low volume due to necessity as the only available opportunity was to work on material late at night to avoid waking their young children. Human Hand were augmented and given a live makeover by the addition of Jonny (MUMS, Honey Spider, Bleak) on drums, a former student of Karl’s and all round music and literary geek. The trio recorded their debut LP “Tremor” in a hasty 8 hour session, with a vinyl release on Cardinal Fuzz recordings in the UK, and Feeding Tube in the US, due September 2022. About “Tremor”: Tremor is the debut album from Human Hand: a core-trio and broader collective based in the shadow of Pendle Hill, Lancashire, UK. Recorded during two days of post-lockdown cathartic noise. Tremor was created using instant composition, 4 track tape manipulation and immediate overdubs. 500 copy vinyl release due September 2022 via Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube (US).

When we pick apart the pieces of our past, and turn them over in our hands, they can feel weighted, worn, and weathered with the smog of perspective. And as we try to stitch them together, how do we navigate our own pattern when what we might’ve been taught is too binary, too black and white, a thread woven too tight?

On her new album Meet Me at the Gloaming, A.O. Gerber carefully grapples with the constraints she was taught as a child to reach for the flourishing that comes when we look past the black and white, and into the gray gauze of the in-between. “I was thinking about how damaging it can be to exist in that binary space of good and evil,” Gerber explains. “When we see everything in either/or’s, we lose the nuance and complexity that make life rich enough to be worth living.” By interlocking memory and imagination, Gerber crafts a gleaming future, where the light and the dark don’t just coexist––they create a new color entirely.

Gerber’s debut LP Another Place To Need (2020) garnered critical acclaim for its candid, orchestral ruminations on splintered relationships and the cage of overthinking. While that record took three years to complete, and saw Gerber collaborate with much of her musical community in Los Angeles and the Bay Area – including Sasami, Madeline Kenney, Marina Allen and Noah Weinman (Runnner) – Gerber stripped back the team for Meet Me at the Gloaming. Once again co-producing with Madeline Kenney, Gerber shunned the usual process of seeking constant feedback, and instead leaned into a more isolated process, later producing much of the record at home. “I found a lot of healing while making this record because I had to be the person to call the shots,” she says. “I realized that I can exist as a musician completely outside of other people’s opinions of me.” Recording at Kenney’s home studio on nights and weekends in-between their day jobs, Alex Oñate joined Gerber and Kenney on drums while Gerber also collaborated remotely with Megan Benavente on bass and Lauren Elizabeth Baba on violin and viola.

This somewhat secluded process serves as a mirror to the deeply introspective and thoughtful nature of Meet Me at the Gloaming. Here, Gerber explores her upbringing, much of which took place under the watchful gaze of a spiritual teacher who led her mother to completely uproot their lives, and move the family from Northern California to Southern Oregon. But this isn’t a scathing composition of redemption or revenge; instead, Gerber parses out her own history with care and grace. “It can be difficult to write about your childhood when you have a lot of shame around it,” she explains. “I wanted to approach it from multiple perspectives, to try to hold the complexity of formative experiences and relationships, and resist the temptation to over-simplify them.”

Through unwavering, underwater synths and gentle plucked strings, ethereal opener “Disciple Song” chronicles the hold this spiritual teacher had on Gerber’s sense of self. “Arbiter of my worthiness / Arbiter of truth / Make me into a melody / I can sing when you are through,” she laments over a patient, kaleidoscopic arrangement. It’s a taster of the more avant-garde sonic palette that permeates Meet Me at the Gloaming, where Gerber leans into her curious producer side.

On “Looking for the Right Things,” the production thrives under an electro-pop blanket, as bright percussion and sharp, vivid keys give rise to Gerber’s warm, velvet-smooth vocal. “I just wanna feel clean / I’m missing someone I knew once / Now she doesn’t exist,” she croons,
charting the push-and-pull between wanting to be good, and the seeming impossibility of it. We are always at odds with ourselves, and “Looking for the Right Things,” peels back the desire to attain this idea of goodness while reckoning with the reality of our humanness, and the beauty of our imperfections. “As much as I’d like to make relationships as simple as figuring out how to be ‘good’ and that being enough, it’s always messier than that.”

Later, “Hunger” sees Gerber pick apart the opposing forces of desire and restriction through soft-yet-persistent synths and cloud-reaching riffs. “I’ve spent so much of my life vacillating between these polarities, craving and negating,” she says. “Both states of being are a hunger for something, and I like to think there’s a reality where pleasure and accountability to yourself and others can coexist.” On the guitar-led gentle anthem “For,” Gerber wrestles yet ultimately welcomes the darker parts of her personality. Inspired by her experience with a struggling friend, Gerber admits that while we can recognize and see ourselves in another’s pain, we can also acknowledge our limitations in showing up for them, and how we may not feel able to help them through it.

Closer “Only Mystery,” brings Meet Me at the Gloaming full circle, as Gerber unpacks her complex relationship with her father. Leaning into the eclectic sonic landscape of the album, fluttering strings dance alongside finger-picked guitar, while diaphanous synths coat lyrics of loneliness and betrayal. “Asking where you were / In the years / I called our backyard home” she sings, pointing to her solitary experience as a child. “I’m tenderly trying to meet someone as they are, while carrying the baggage of a life and past disappointments,” she says. “It’s exploring that complexity; of looking at this person who I barely know and who barely knows me, recognizing that there’s still this part of me that just wants to be seen as good, as having done my best, and hoping that’s good enough.”

Meet Me at the Gloaming is certainly an album that pierces grief head-on but it’s not without hope or certainty. Like curtains strong enough to block the view, but thin enough to let in the light, Gerber is reclaiming the meaning of goodness, where the harsh overwhelming brightness is dimmed to a beautiful, iridescent blue. During the gloaming we are between two spaces, two worlds, two selves and it’s here that we can fully embrace everything that we are.

Let us remember how dark the beginning of the day is ~ Maggie Smith

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Disciple Song
2. Walk In The Dark
3. Looking For The Right Things
4. You Got It Right
5. Mount Washington Phone Company
Side B
1. Hunger
2. For
3. Just As A Child
4. Noon Of Love
5. PFS
6. What Are You Reading?
7. Only Mystery

The stunning third album from Wyldest - aka London singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Zoe Mead. Taking cues from the vulnerable and honest songwriting of Elliott Smith to the melodic indie-pop of Soccer Mommy and Hovvdy, Feed The Flowers Nightmares is something of a coming of age moment and with co-production from Luciano Rossi (Idlewild, Dama Scout) the LP is set to further establish Wyldest as a quietly prolific, multi-faceted and increasingly assured talent.

Recorded in a one bedroom flat in the depths of UK lockdowns, the songs on ‘Honeymoon Suite’ are a blend of love, grief, anxiety, resilience, danger, heartbreak and hope. Part pop record, part electronic soundscape, part interior still life, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ will be released on Hand Mirror, the label Harkin founded in 2019 with her wife, the poet Kate Leah Hewett.

Speaking about the video, Harkin said "I was a big fan of Pastel Castle's work and felt like this song would be a perfect fit. I wrote and recorded it during lockdown in a flat with no outdoor space. My brother loaned me a Nintendo Switch and I found solace in games with large maps to explore. Songwriting and gameplay can both have the power to transport and the video Pastel Castle has created takes me on a beautiful and perilous quest."

Adding to this, Pastel Castle commented "The video for 'Body Clock' is a piece of frame-by-frame pixel art animation, which I had the best time making here at my little home studio in Leeds. Many days were focused entirely on tailoring the movement of Katie's Sprite / Avatar to align with the mood of the track. I'm very happy with our collaboration and feel inspired now to go on a bit of an adventure of my own."

The album marks a significant shift for an artist who had previously built a career around collaboration. In addition to her own bands, Harkin has been a touring member of Sleater-Kinney, Wild Beasts, Flock of Dimes, and Kurt Vileand Courtney Barnett’s Sea Lice. She performed backing vocals for Dua Lipa on Saturday Night Live. She dueted with comedian Sarah Silverman on 'Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight'. Her studio work includes contributions to Waxahatchee’s 'Out In The Storm'. Outside of the music world, Harkin has composed for Turner Prize-winning artist Helen Marten and British comedian Josie Long. She even has a Saturday Night Live sketch named after her (Fred Armisen’s 2016 ‘Harkin Brothers Band’).

Where her self-titled first record is infused with the expansiveness which birthed it - written and recorded while touring the globe - ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is an entirely different affair. The album was written in the same room in which Harkin and her wife ate all their meals, held their virtual wedding reception and attended a funeral over zoom. As Harkin describes it, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is “a ship in a bottle of that time”.

The album takes its title from the couple’s affectionate nickname for the flat they found themselves living in after relocating from their then-home in Hudson, New York, where Harkin’s wife was working as a live music promoter until the pandemic was declared. When it became obvious that they would both be out of work indefinitely, they joined many others heeding the call of their home nations to repatriate. In addition to that frenzied move back to the UK, the couple’s planned wedding also took a hard left turn. They had intended to hold a wedding for 150 in September 2020. Instead, they got married in a small, outside ceremony in front of their bubbled parents and siblings. They were married in the Derbyshire village of Eyam, coincidentally famous for quarantining itself during The Bubonic Plague. The flowers in the image on the album’s back cover are their wedding bouquets. “I followed a YouTube tutorial and made our bouquets out of the wedding flowers our friends sent us. We didn’t take a honeymoon and still haven’t. Instead, the flat in Sheffield became our honeymoon suite.”

The album’s DIY ethos continued through its artwork. “Kate took the cover photo and designed the layout. She also designed our original wedding invitations so it felt apt.”

The album also marks Harkin’s first forays into self-producing, a journey she began immediately after her move back to the UK. At that time, her best friend, cinematographer Ashley Connor, asked her to create the soundtrack for an experimental short film she was making for Sam Abbas’ quarantine movie ‘Erēmīta (Anthologies)’. “I’ve worked in all manner of studios and assumed many different roles in music making. I had thousands of flight hours but I had still never been the pilot. Owning the role of producer was more of a mental block than anything else, but circumstance dissolved that intimidation. Working on Ashley’s soundtrack early in the pandemic gave me the confidence to continue producing my own solo work. I won a grant from the PPL Momentum Accelerator Fund which would cover the mixing and mastering if I could be self-sufficient in recording. It felt like the quest I needed to push me into discovering this new direction.”

In terms of instrumentation, ‘Honeymoon Suite’ is more electronic than Harkin’s previous work and this too was for largely practical reasons. “Kate took a remote call centre job when we first got back. This meant we were in the same room, her taking customer service calls and me working on the album. The flat was also above a pub, so I had to record strategically. I’d program drum machines and synths in the day, record guitars in the evenings over the din of the pub-goers, and I’d squeeze vocals into the quiet weekend mornings.”

Indeed, most of the tracks on ‘Honeymoon Suite’ emerged out of synth drones, a refuge for Harkin during the weeks at a time that she didn’t feel like bursting into song. “The album’s glitches and degrading samples reflect the limitations of the digital intimacy we were all relying on during that time as we literally phoned it in.”

Harkin freely admits that the enormity of the task was no walk in the park for the first time producer. “Being my own mirror was ego-crushing at times; I knew these songs deserved extra gusto that I had to outsource.” That’s where the brass by Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes) and Aaron Roche (Lower Dens, Sufjan Stevens, Anohni, Flock of Dimes), slide guitar by J.R. Bohannon (Torres) and backing vocals by Sophie Galpin (Soft Lad, Self Esteem) came in, sent down the wire from their respective homes. It was even mixed and mastered remotely (mixed by Jeff T Smith in Leeds and mastered by Guy Davie in London).

As Harkin puts it, “for me, this album was a rabbit hole and escape hatch. It’s a very vulnerable record. There are no performances - I made it alone. Releasing it into the world feels like an extension of the solitary process and remote collaboration which created it. I hope it travels far and wide.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Body Clock - 3.27
2. A New Day - 3.34
3. Here Again - 3.39
4. Matchless Lighting - 4.33
5. (Give Me) The Streets Of Leeds - 3.16
6. Mt. Merino - 3.07
7. Talk Of The Town - 2.55
8. To Make Her Smile - 3.13
9. Listening Out - 5.17
10. Driving Down A Flight Of Stairs - 11.20

Prince of Queens aka Felipe Quiroz lets loose his blissfully rhythms on a four track EP for NYC’s Second Hand Records. From melodic excursions through the realms of house to tougher, percussive, arp laden cuts and atmospheric techy deepness it’s an intelligent and introspective body of work. Toronto’s Ciel then flips the script on the title track, turning it into a glitched out, club ready weapon – the perfect combination to complete the EP.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Was vvv intrigued by this Prince of Queens 12", nice smooth chuggy house on a label we haven't stocked from before but this is ace.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Sound Of Life
A2. Sound Of Life (Ciel Afterlife Mix)
B1. NYC Repeats
B2. For Mike

To kick off his new label and musical output - Aweh Music, Esa shares with us two exclusive tracks from his most recent soundtrack LP for The Invisible Hand podcast. This limited 7" features a modern street soul track and a collaboration with the legacy duo from the early 1990s, Doval and Robert Roper of Special Touch, which you might be familiar with from their cult classic the "Garden of Life" LP. On the flip side, Esa collaborates with his sister Tasneem based in Cape Town, for the very first time. They present a musical journey that takes influence from soul with Balearic tones and Afro-beat, all brought together nicely by the talented Franck Biyong on organ, guitar, and paying homage to Fela with his introductory vocals & lyrics. Esa recorded these tracks during the pandemic, with many of the studio sessions done remotely. It also features some rising talents based in London - Ayo Salawu on Drums, Raquel Martins on Guitar, Amane Suganami on Synths and Manu Idra on percussion. All tracks were written, produced and arranged by Esa. Limited copies.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Really nice modern soul with rich musicality and expert song writing. Has classic written all over it. Don't sleep.

TRACK LISTING

I See You Feat. Special Touch
Aweh No Wahala Feat. Franck Biyong And Tasneem

one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden is the name of the second album by Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. On one hand, it’s a collection of walking-paced, cathartic pop/folk songs, on the other it’s a book of heart-twisting, rear-view stories of city life. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her debut what we say in private with surprising arrangements and new perspectives. The album is set in Montreal and each song exists as a dot on a personal history map of the city where Levy grew up. Due on September 24th from Saddle Creek and Next Door Records in Canada, the physical record will be released alongside a map of song locations and a songbook with chords and lyrics, inspired by Levy’s love of real book standards.

Levy penned and demoed this batch of songs in an artist residency in Banff, Alberta. After sorting and editing she made her way to Los Angeles to record with producer/engineer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) who had previously worked on 2020’s woman, here E.P. After a long walk to the studio each morning, Levy spent her session days diving into the arrangements, playfully letting everything fall in place with complete trust for her collaborators. She notes “Marshall’s expertise and experience with drumming and songwriting was the perfect blend for what the songs needed. He was able to support me in a harmonic, lyrical, and rhythmic sense.” Other contributors that left a notable fingerprint on the soundscape include drummer Tasy Hudson, guitarist Harrison Whitford (of Phoebe Bridgers band), and mixing engineer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett). Many songs came together with a blend of studio tracks and elements from the pre-recorded demos.

The resulting sounds range from classic, soft-rock beauty to intimate finger-picked folk passages and night-drive art-pop. And the textures are frequently surprising due to the collage of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds that tastefully decorate the album without ever clouding the heart-center of the song. Tracks like “damn” and “oranges” feel timeless with their AM gold groove and 70’s studio sheen, while songs like “my love 4 u is real '', “salt spring” and “can’t stop me from dying” sound completely modern in their use of electronics, sound effects, and pitched vocals. In their subtle, sonic variety, all of the album’s songs flow together with ease into one big, romantic dream for Levy’s silken vocals to float above.

Inspired by personal experience, daydreams, and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, the lyrics of one hand... center storytelling on a bigger scale. The experience and emotions of a year are communicated through Levy’s vignettes of city life. Her prose is centered in its setting of the St Denis area of Montreal as it draws up memories from local haunts like Fameux, La Rockette, and Quai des Brumes in rearview reverie. Levy creates a balance through the album’s year by splitting her songs evenly into four seasons. Opening track “damn”, as a song of winter, kicks off the narrative with the events of a cursed New Year’s Eve party. Immediately this timeline becomes jumbled into a Proustian haziness. The listener is then led through the heat-stricken, brain fog of Summer song, “can’t stop me from dying” and then into the autumnal romanticism of “oranges” before returning back to New Year’s on “partner,” which Levy describes as “a woozy late-night taxi blues reflection on moments when timing can be so right, yet so wrong…”. These collected stories as a whole chart the unavoidable growth that comes with experience. “All is forgiven in time. All is forgotten in time. And when the music stopped, I heard an answer” (from “my love 4 u is real”).

Whether to consider these songs fiction or memoir remains unknown. On one hand, Levy says “Why would I try to write a story that’s not my own? What good would that do?” but on the other hand, she is quick to note the ways that language fails to describe reality, and how difficult this makes it to tell an actually true story. The poetic misuse of the word “sewing” in the album’s title serves as a nod to the limitations words provide. What does it mean to sew the garden? And how can we appreciate its carefully knit blooms when the rearview mirror is so full of car exhaust?

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Ada Lea's new album is a wonderful mix of honest, hearfelt lyricism and psychedelic instrumentation, ranging from subtly swaying indie-pop to jagged punky drive. It's a beguiling and beautiful outing, and one that deserves to be heard.

TRACK LISTING

01. Damn 4:21
02. Can't Stop Me From Dying 3:09
03. Oranges 4:54
04. Partner 3:45
05. Saltspring 4:23
06. And My Newness Spoke To Your Newness And It Was A Thing Of Endless 0:56
07. My Love 4 U Is Real 4:31
08. Backyard 2:56
09. Writer In Ny 3:19
10. Violence 4:26
11. Hurt 3:31

We’re delighted to present Long Tall Shorty's long lost masterpiece A Bird In The Hand. 

The first full length Long Tall Shorty album released originally released in 2001. Lead singer Tony Perfect mixes a Stonesey drawl with then contemporary garage rock stylings, to show that he was always the smartest of the mod revivalists. 

Produced by Danny Corr and originally only released on CD, it is making its vinyl debut in an edition limited to 500 copies.

TRACK LISTING

1. And That Ain't All
2. Shine On Me
3. Out Of Reach
4. Don't Try To Stop Me
5. Taking Time
6. Shake
7. Killing Me Killing You
8. Justice
9. Hey Joe
10. Forever On Your Own
11. Centre Of The Square
12. Tenth Floor
13. I Saw The Light

Written, mixed and produced by Zoe Mead (Wyldest), her new album documents Mead’s empowerment not only as an entirely self-sufficient artist but also as a woman overcoming gender stereotypes and societal constraints. Indeed, the title itself, ‘Monthly Friend’, is a reference to something society taught her to be ashamed of which she now regards as a blessing. Musically speaking, ‘Monthly Friend’ sees Wyldest continue on that evolutionary journey. Taking inspiration from the tender songwriting of Elliot Smith and the precise guitar patchworks of Soccer Mommy and Hovvdy, she has fused together these two elements plus her knowledge of ambient, soundtrack-style textures to produce an intimate indie rock opus. As well as her biggest musical statement to date, ‘Monthly Friend’ is also Wyldest’s biggest political statement to state. An album about womanhood, it explores the physicality of it, the different ideas around it, its limitations and its advantages. “Throughout the album, I visit these feelings through metaphors, largely related to nature. I always found it really ironic that women commonly get compared to fruit Peaches for example get over-ripe and people throw them away, discard them, when in fact they are probably at their most delicious and nutritious. “A lot of the time, women are unfortunately subject to a similar fate. When they are young, they are sexualised and therefore their actual intellectual and creative worth can be overlooked. As they age, they get disregarded almost completely, and for what? Because they aren’t as useful to men anymore? Perhaps. But why does our ability to reproduce have to dictate our worth? It doesn’t and it shouldn’t.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. Beggar
2. Almost Bliss
3. Hollow
4. Glue
5. Buddy
6. Arrows
7. Monthly Friend
8. Burn
9. The Void
10. Heal

Blackaby - aka London songwriter and multi-instrumentalist William Blackaby - offers-up his first two EPs - 'What's On The TV?' and 'Everything's Delicious' - on limited edition, random coloured recycled 12" vinyl, out 21st May 2021. Blackaby’s 2020 debut EP ‘What’s On The TV?’, released via Hand In Hive, served as a look back at the songwriter’s childhood, recounting hazy playground memories and his messy, formative teenage years. His second collection, ‘Everything’s Delicious’, is described by Blackaby as “another brief flirt with memory lane - not walking down it as much as peering from a safe distance”. In a poem written to accompany the new EP, William writes: “All grown up and what now? Let Time-Out decide. Is that a thin patch? Another day done and dinner’s on. What have I done? Left a mark or a stain?”

TRACK LISTING

1. What's On The TV?
2. Stevenson
3. Warm And Sweet
4. Semolina
5. Sweet Lemonade
6. My Paula
7. No Long Grass
8. Bubblegum
9. Lee

The album came to be after the blossoming of a long-term friendship between James Yorkston and Karl-Jonas Winqvist, the Swedish music producer, leader and conductor of The Second Hand Orchestra.

Yorkston says of recording “Struggle” with TSHO: “The band were sat by in the studio by themselves, looping the verses over and over. I was in the control room, drinking sweet tea. I just had to wait for the right moment and jump on board, like when I’m pushing my kids round on a roundabout in the local park. I love that everyone was singing along so freely when we recorded this. There were vocal mics for everyone, and people would just lean in with a harmony, every now and then. It gives it a very communal feeling.”

That communal feeling is apparent across the entire album. Recorded and mixed in Sweden over the course of three days with a selection of musicians Winqvist had brought together, including Peter Morén (Peter, Bjorn & John), Cecilia Österholm (one of Sweden’s best-known nyckelharpa players), Emma Nordenstam (piano & cello) and Ulrika Gyllenberg (violin). The studio approach with The Second Hand Orchestra was entirely improvised around Yorkston’s songs, and the only song they heard in advance was “Ella Mary Leather”; Yorkston didn’t want to direct anyone too much but instead, allowed for a welcoming, instinctive, free-spirited and joyful atmosphere. The Wide, Wide River is a soothing, warm and sublime listen, whilst also highlighting Yorkston’s skills for songwriting, collaboration and as a musical conductor. The record takes in past loves, advancing age and friends, now gone, whilst also containing some of the most sanguine songs Yorkston has ever made.

The Wide, Wide River is James’ tenth album for Domino, not to mention his three albums as part of Yorkston/Thorne/Khan and his two books. A prolific writer, Yorkston has worked with a wealth of talent over his two-decade career including Four Tet, Alexis Taylor, KT Tunstall, Rustin Man, Simon Raymonde, Norma and Mike Waterson, Martin Carthy, Max Cooper, David Wrench and many others.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: James Yorkston makes some of the most endearing melodic indie-folk you're likely to hear and teaming up hear with the Second Hand Orchestra ends up sounding like a joyful, clattering distillation of trad folk and wild exhuberant art-rock. Exactly what we need right now.

TRACK LISTING

Ella Mary Leather
To Soothe Her Wee Bit Sorrows
Choices, Like Wild Rivers
Struggle
There Is No Upside
A Droplet Forms
A Very Old-Fashioned Blues
We Test The Beams

Warp Records will reissue Bibio’s Hand Cranked album on vinyl for the first time. The album was originally released in 2006 by Mush and was one of the releases that caught the ear of the Warp label before signing Bibio for Ambivalence Avenue in 2009. That record will also be restocked on vinyl to coincide with this release. Hand Cranked, his second release, saw him delve further into the sounds he crafted on his debut, Fi, with a focus on saturated guitars, found sound and field recordings and an affinity for the pastoral inspiration of his Northern England surroundings.

Hand Cranked stepped it up a level though, bringing in Bibio's unique take on folk and blending it with electronic loops; a sound that he would continue to help refine throughout his career. This fourteen track collection saw Bibio bring an increased confidence to his music, highlighting his virtuosic guitar playing and shedding light on his more whimsical pop inclinations that he's explored on releases since then. Available on vinyl for the first time since its original release over 10 years ago, Hand Cranked makes for a perfect lazy Sunday listening, a nostalgic drive through the country or simply a peak into an artist beginning to discover the full breadth of his talent.

TRACK LISTING

A1 The Cranking House
A2 Cherry Go Round
A3 Quantock
A4 Black Country Blue
A5 Marram
A6 Aberriw
A7 Zoopraxiphone
A8 Dyfi

B1 Ffwrnais
B2 Woodington
B3 Above The Rooftops
B4 Snowbow
B5 Maroon Lagoon
B6 Overgrown

Following their sublime 2019 collaboration, “Sakla Beni”, production king Kutiman and Turkish songstress Melike Sahin reunite on Anatolian psych anthem, “Elmi Tut (Hold My Hand)”. And a simple revival this is not. The Turkish & Middle Eastern psych sound of Erkin Koray, Baris Manco, Selda Bağcan, Omar Khorshid & Aris San is brought bang up to date with swathes of hallucinatory synths, filtered basslines, hard-as-nail drum breaks and Kutiman’s magic touch. Having met in Istanbul in 2017, Şahin and Kutiman rapidly developed a beautiful chemistry.

Şahin’s striking voice inspired Kutiman to create a genuine yet modern Anatolian psych sound and the resulting 2019 single, “Sakla Beni”, became a global hit, championed by BBC Radio 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne. Meanwhile, the modern Anatolian sounds of bands such as the Netherlands-based Altın Gün and the contemporary Middle Eastern-influenced psych of Khruangbin, have taken the world by storm. Kutiman and Şahin’s follow-up is destined to win even more hearts! About Kutiman & Melike Sahin Israeli-born Ophir Kutiel, aka Kutiman, is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and video-artist, famed for his heavy modern grooves and online, video-based music projects.

Fluent in multiple instruments since childhood, Kutiel’s musical passions evolved from jazz to reggae, afrobeat, funk and psych from all around the world. His 2009 “Thru You” online music video, built entirely from samples of YouTube videos was soon viewed 10 million times, turning Kutiman into a Guggenheimcommissioned, household name. His recent album ‘Wachaga’ was highly lauded by the likes of Uncut, Sunday Times and BBC 6Music. Hailing from Istanbul, Melike Şahin came to prominence as a member of cult Turkish psychedelic band BaBa ZuLa, with whom she toured over 40 countries.

Described as "Turkey’s most beloved alternative music purveyors”, they collaborated with Mad Professor, CAN’s Jaki Liebezeit and Sly & Robbie. Launching her solo career three years ago, she has worked closely with venerated film director, Tony Gatlif, recording songs for ‘Djam’, and performed at the Cannes Film Festival for its world premiere. Şahin has scored a number of national hits with Sony Turkey and is working on her debut album.

TRACK LISTING

A. Elimi Tut
B. Elimi Tut Karaoke

Searching for Dimorphodons is the debut EP from multi-instrumental artist, producer, guitar builder, eccentric and visionary Dimorphodons, who describes his sound as “the fantasy world I’d like to live in”.

Trawling through psychedelic mind palaces and off-piste historical moments, the Searching for Dimorphodons EP presents five varied tracks representing a different time and place. Ranging from the Jurassic to the present day, each one is a kaleidoscopic take on psychedelia, with nods to sunshine pop and swamp rock along the way.

EP opener and title track Searching for Dimorphodons is a searing freakbeat hymn sung from the dual perspectives of palaeontologist Mary Anning and a long extinct proto-bird. An intense exorcism of rattling drums, 12-string electric guitars, a delirious meandering melody, and sunshine pop harmonies, Searching for Dimorphodons is an exploration of a life lived in two concurrent timelines, separated by millennia.

Snodohpromid takes us on a more experimental and ambient trip, a sound painting of an ancient swamp where half-speed birdsong and field recordings of mushrooms squeaking in a pan sonically depict the calls of long departed prehistoric creatures.

Petty Things Are All I Have and Know explores what Dimorphodons describes as “the tension between the life desired and the life attainable” to a backdrop of timeless British chamber pop. The song moves in a fluttering pace, with lush harmonies and hymnic crests, a Wilson-esque mini-symphony to unreachable dreams.

Next, another track indebted to Dimorphodon’s obsession with ’60s pop, this time the imagined narrative of The Factory moves away from the Jurassic and into more introspective realms, a person reflecting on the life lived and unlived, Lowry’s smoggy and short-distance horizons put to song.

And lastly, an untitled track of which the artist himself says: “I don’t know what this is. I like the way it wisps in and out and then goes away.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Searching For Dimorphodons
2. Snodohpromid
3. Petty Things Are All I Have And Know
4. The Factory
5. [untitled]

Kevin Krauter’s newest album, ‘Full Hand,’ determines to be a vulnerable and honest statement from an artist exploring the boundaries of their craft. Following his 2018 debut, Krauter’s second full-length album picks up where ‘Toss Up’ left off but at a noticeably more intentional pace. 

On his sophomore album, Full Hand, Indiana musician Kevin Krauter tackles complicated emotional states and ideas through elliptical songwriting that is at once poetic and truthful. “A lot of the lyrics touch on how I was raised religiously, touch on me understanding my sexuality more and more in recent years,” Krauter says, “just growing up and becoming more confident in myself...that process of looking inward and taking stock of myself.” It’s not especially uncommon for artists to probe deep into their own psyche to uncover what makes them tic, but Krauter’s light touch feels like something all his own.

On the album’s first single, “Pretty Boy,” he sings, “Look ahead, say I see me now / Smiling at what used to stress me out / Cause it won’t be too long, but I’ll take my time with it / It won’t be too long till I come back home.” There’s a palpable sense of joy in Krauter’s acceptance of dire, stressful moments, and a liberation that comes from hearing him realize that the present will eventually be the past, and he’ll be able to look back and find peace. 

TRACK LISTING

01. Intro
02. Opportunity
03. Patience
04. Surprise
05. Kept
06. Intermission
07. Pretty Boy
08. Piper
09. Full Hand
10. Treasure
11. Green Eyes
12. How

Morningside is the debut album from London five-piece Swimming Tapes, who enjoy comparisons with Real Estate and Belle & Sebastian for their dreamy brand of nostalgic indie. The record arrives following long-term worldwide support across press, radio and streaming services from the likes of The Line Of Best Fit, DIY, Huw Stephens, KCRW and Spotify, who have championed the band with numerous editorial playlist additions, culminating in well over 10 million combined streams

TRACK LISTING

1. Passing Ships
2. It Gets Old
3. See It Out
4. Mirador
5. Out Of Line
6. 10.05.17
7. Silhouette
8. Say It Isn't So
9. Pyrenees
10. Keep Her Closer
11. In The New Year

Kalahari Oyster Cult have been thumbing through their back catalogue and return to a past gem for some renewed attention. 2017 saw the release of Erell Ranson’s "Hand in Hand", a quintet of beautifully crafted machine music. Two tracks have been chosen from the EP and remixed with stunning results.

First up is DJ Normal 4’s "Sealife Safari MixX" of "If We Never Try". The sweet, shimmering melody of the original plus the bubbling bass and subtle notes, are transformed in this remake. Silvery chords morph into bold and daring new forms under the tutelage of Tim Schumacher, neon streaked patterns coalescing with broken and cracked percussion for a superbly uplifting piece.

Pariah follows with his rework of “Hand in Hand.” A deep dreamscape intricately woven with heady notes, birdsong and endless possibilities.

The final odyssey comes care of SW (Stefan Wust) of SUED fame. The Berlin based musician delivers his reimagined idea of “If We Never Try” with Ranson’s version being washed over by lapping lines and gentle currents to create a smooth rounded finale. A trio of unique perspectives from three true talents of electronic music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Market leaders in late night voodoo, Kalahari Oyster Cult revisit a past spell book for some new interpretations; closing off what's been a truly shamanic year in fine style.

TRACK LISTING

1. Erell Ranson - If We Never Try (DJ Normal 4 Sealife Safari MixX)
2. Erell Ranson - Hand In Hand (Pariah Remix)
3. Erell Ranson - If We Never Try (SW. Amnesia Interpretation)

Debut album from Glasgow indie rock quartet that channel Kleenex and The Smiths, featuring members of Golden Grrrls (Slumberland / Night School). Following on from the band’s two cassettes of demos on Comfortable On A Tightrope and their sold out and well regarded 7”.

“somewhere between the oblique minimalist pop of Flying Nun and early Rough Trade signings such as The Raincoats.' CLASH.

Playing their first shows in Glasgow in 2015 during a summer that never threatened to show up, Vital Idles’ origins are closely tied with a tireless underground culture, a culture that informs the band’s refusal to take it easy. Matthew Walkerdine, Nick Lynch and Higgins are responsible for Glasgow DIY publishing institution Good Press - an independent volunteer-staffed zine and art book shop - while Guitarist Ruari MacLean’s pedigree stretches back to breakneck-indie-pop group Golden Grrrls and the Rose McDowall band.
Following two self-released demos and a sold out debut 7”, Vital Idles arrive on Upset The Rhythm with ‘Left Hand’, a bare manifesto layered with meaning and non-meaning. The group can conceivably be called artists, or Artists, but in approaching their debut album Vital Idles have stripped away all extraneous ornamentation to sculpt an incredibly life-like, vibrant pop music completely détourned and re-thought.

For a conglomerate of art outsiders and aesthetes, Vital Idles are primitive, whimsically brutal. Sculpting a skeleton from a body already lean, there’s a thrilling minimalism that runs through every beat and strum, a sparseness that feeds Jessica Higgins’s surreal, oblique vocal delivery all the nourishment it needs.

Following practice room and bigger-budget recordings with Glasgow engineer Andy Monaghan, Vital Idles took complete control of their debut album, with Edwin Stevens (aka recording artist Irma Vep) providing an outside perspective on the hermetically sealed group’s music. Engineered by Stevens and MacLean, ‘Left Hand’ crackles with a raw, punk approach to writing warped pop songs that don’t just talk of disorder but often actively demonstrate it. At the heart of ‘Left Hand’, the beating pulse in the tool box, is a conflict never resolved. Higgins manages to create dialogues that she narrates both parts of, Dada-ist songs that seem obfuscated by layers of meaning that, when taken on their own terms as evocative mini-worlds, reveal themselves to be pieces that have an internal melancholy and logic. Like Gertrude Stein growing up on Dunedin pop groups, peel away the deliberate awkwardness and ‘Left Hand’ reveals itself to be a book of complex, literary short stories at pleasing odds with the wired, no-frills melodic thud MacLean, Lynch and Walkerdine serve.

At times a perilous journey into the unknown and at others an immensely enjoyable foray into form deconstruction, lyricist Higgins repeatedly builds narratives out of mis-hearings, peons to doing things wrong, sideways-glances at conventional narrative. The delivery tightrope-walks between deadpan epithets and a Smiths-ian pop singing which gives many of the lyrics bite, pathos, and a surprising amount of surrealistic positivity. With Chains’ Troggs-ist chug stomping, Higgins flips the symbolism of the Chain into something to be tendered, cared for, is it a warped metaphor for the future, is a chain an aspiration? There’s an existential friction at the heart of Cave Raised that sees the narrator attempting escape, perhaps, unsure of themselves, “a poorly appointed project manager who says the best part is bowling around, which is a little like knocking around” that breaks into a melodic reprieve that feels like an unexpectedly romantic pay-off in the middle of “white space,” “Let’s tread the tides of time, to live it down, we’ll stretch these shores of mine to steal away.” Like many of Vital Idles songs, it can be read as a mini treatise on the song itself, or enjoyed as a visceral song that never does what you want it to.

Like fellow Glaswegians Life Without Buildings, Vital Idles make the oblique sound essential. On Like Life, Higgins is at her most precarious with straight-up emotion; MacLean’s melodic bassline seems to duet with the vocal as it seems, for once, to be straightforwardly vulnerable. After telling us “I don’t really care but I could, I should” our narrator begs the listener “Don’t leave me at home with all the people I lost and all the things I forgot. For all the people I lost, I care.” Whether it’s a slip of the artist’s mask of distance or a deliberate trick to fool us into caring, we care. It’s indicative of the tension in Vital Idles: pop songs unwilling to bend to convention, chart hits in the alternative timeline where Messthetics compilations are Now That's What I Call Music, endlessly inventive linguistics that reveal emotional depth, a dry, punk minimalism able to turn on a dime into a mouldy, witty kitchen sink story narrated by Samuel Beckett. It’s a tension that threatens to fall apart into dissonance or resolve into sweetness but thankfully does neither, rather it keeps Vital Idles moving forward, never standing still, never taking it easy.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
01. A Premise
02. Solid States
03. Chains
04. Fall Into Shape
05. Waxes Colder
06. Carve A Bat
07. Cave Raised

SIDE B
08. Blue, Black & White
09. Time Free
10. Rising Damp
11. Geraniums
12. Like Life
13. Now & Again
14. The Scenery

Five years after her acclaimed debut album Sleepyhead (Pitchfork, nominated for the Swedish Grammys etc) the Swedish pop artist Sibille Attar is back with new music, now signed to Stockholm indie label PNKSLM Recordings (ShitKid, HOLY, Sudakistan etc). A prominent artist on the Swedish indie scene for the past 15 years, Sibille Attar's solo debut, released via Universal imprint Stranded Rekords, was one of 2013's biggest Swedish albums and Paloma's Hand carries on the torch, showcasing a slightly darker and more ominous take on her brand of psychedelic pop, with the songwriting and melodies intact.

Hot on the heels of Echoes Of The Dreamtime, Miranda returns with her fourth full-length studio album, Existential Beast, eight songs of 'Psychedelic Chamber Folk Rock' finding the diamonds in the dust of everyday life and the relationships within.

Miranda is an American singer-songwriter from San Francisco. She is the daughter of Ted and Teresa Richards, stars of the underground comics revolution and the goddaughter of legendary cartoonist Robert "R." Crumb. Kirk Hammett of Metallica taught Richards a few songs on guitar and then she went on to work with Joe Firstman, Suzanne Vega, Tim Burgess, Tricky, Good Listeners and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Miranda was a member of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and she sang the hit Anemone on their debut album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Miranda made one of Piccadilly's albums of the year, last year, and this follow-up is cut from a similar cloth. She has a stunning voice, is a great song-writer, and the sound is a perfect blend of folk, baroque pop and psych. The dream unfurls....

Hand Of Glory records asked twelve artists for an original Christmas song.

Here are twelve tracks that sum up the many experiences of Christmas, from lush widescreen pop (Webb Brothers), to sparkly Saturnalian disco (Mary Epworth) to dystopian Fall-esque horror (Extradition Order).

Other standout tracks include Young Knives’ dark medieval-esque ‘Low Carol’, Kiran Leonard’s sprawling proggy epic ‘Huygens probe’ and Papernut Cambridge’s charming and magical ‘93 Million And One’.

TRACK LISTING

Mary Epworth - The Wolf And The Woods
Young Knives - Low Carol
Extradition Order - Be A Ghost
The Count Of Chateau Noir - Awake Awake
Papernut Cambridge - 93 Million And One 
Citizen Helene - On Christmas Day
The Webb Brothers - Are You Coming Home For Christmas?
Kiran Leonard - Huygens Probe
Aliens Pat - Santa Fell Down The Chimney
Jon Epworth - Atheist
The Outdoor Types - The Unwritten Christmas Card
Richard Holley - Old Year’s Night

‘This Is My Hand’ is a bold chapter in the unfurling My Brightest Diamond story. The album’s exploration of music and its rhythmic urgency escort Shara Worden’s chamber music aesthetic out of the chamber and back into the dance hall and rock bar.

Produced by Shara and Zac Rae, ‘This Is My Hand’ is the moment where the music achieves the brilliance of her huge ambition.

Sounding not quite like anything else but hugely accessible, ‘This Is My Hand’ will be the moment that My Brightest Diamond sparkles worldwide.

Lauded by Rolling Stone, MOJO and Jarvis Cocker, Withered Hand (aka Dan Willson) releases this new limited 4 track 10"

‘Sometimes it takes one spellbinding live performance before an artist’s seemingly obvious-to-everyone-else talent really sinks in. I’ve always appreciated Dan Willson’s songcraft in a rather passive way, but I walked away from this Withered Hand solo show a fully subscribed fan – and I wasn’t the only one’ – The Scotsman

‘Beautifully constructed lyrical frameworks’ – MOJO

Singer-songwriter seems too common a term to apply to Sarah June, however accurate it may be. Singer-songwriter she is, but the songs she writes and sings are both more beautiful and more haunting than the average fare. There is an uncommon ghostly aire to her album. Like the smell of flowers in a empty and abandoned house where sunlight comes shining through dusty window panes. Perfectly sparse and lonesome, these songs come from the edges of dreamland. 10 original compositions accompanied by two well-chosen covers (Prince's "When Doves Cry" and a stunning version of Elvis "I Cant Help Falling In Love With You"). For fans of: PJ Harvey, Kristin Hersh, Mazzy Star.

Hands On Heads' debut release proper is this split 10" with their friends The Sticks. It's a meeting of messed up minds that documents a shared surpise at the expressive freedom pop music can yield, when it's adventurous and playful, and creating it's own thinking party sound. The spooked lyricism and frantic spontaneity of Hands On Heads' music perfectly complements the heartfelt gooey blues of The Sticks, which leaks from the brake cables of this clattering runaway train of a record. These are two bands writing their own future in their awkward, instinctual yet ever-involving compositions, and that daring bridge of kinship is the rationale for them to share these two sides of wax.

Heavy, as steel tank and spiced with ever changing tones and atmospheres. This is a document of the true power in sound and noise. In the hands of Mats Gustafsson, Dror Feiler and Lasse Marhaug, sound and noise is getting vital again. Three true masters of the unknown territories of their acoustic and electronic equipment. A modern power trio. This is the debut album by this new band.

Another fine single on the excellent Jonson Family Records. This time, from this Scottish band who sound like Tom Waits mixed with Black Heart Procession. Limited to 300 copies in hand stamped sleeves. These are gonna be big! So don't miss out.