Sheffield uber-legends Parrot and Jarvis Cocker take the title track off Baxter Dury's hugely acclaimed album Allbarone and take it on a nighttime walk through the industrial heartlands of the city, adding a mercury heavy bassline and a pair of sliced up vocals that bubble up together into something resembling liquid acid.

TRACK LISTING

A. Allbarone 04:29
B. Allbarone - Allbarone (Meal Deal Mix by Parrot and Cocker Too) 04:00

B.E.D is the new collaboration from Baxter Dury, French Dance music pioneer Etienne De Crécy & Delilah Holiday of London punks Skinny Girl Diet. Although they seem strange bed fellows at first, this project provides the perfect fusion of their disparate skill sets. Etienne De Crécy fires up the hardware and lays down tough electro-pop instrumentals, combining the best bits of italo, vintage synth pop and the DFA/John Grant school of digi-cool. Meanwhile in the vocal booth, Baxter Dury is typically engaging, itriguing and disarming with a string of half spoken / half sung confessionals, while Delilah Holiday adds a touch of emotion via kitchen sink balladry, the odd delicate chorus and at least one journey into the classic synthpop deadpan. Recorded between 2017 & the start of 2018 and produced by Etienne De Crécy & Baxter Dury in France, "B.E.D." is another must have release on the mighty Heavenly. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Tais Toi
2. Walk Away
3. How Do You Make Me Feel
4. Fly Away
5. White Coats
6. Only My Honesty Matters
7. Centipedes
8. But I Think
9. Eurostars

Pan Amsterdam blends experimental hip-hop, jazz, funk, and electronic influences, resulting in shapeshifting, genre-defying tracks. His forthcoming album 'Confines' exemplifies his improvisational style, mixing calculated ideas with spontaneous creativity. He describes his approach as organic, reflecting life’s unpredictable nature, and likens his sound to a fusion of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins.

'Confines' explores diverse themes, from racial politics and identity to pop culture references. With a stream-of-consciousness style, Pan Amsterdam raps about everything from cultural observations to food. This mix of humour, social commentary, and introspection is an exploration of the world through a childlike, almost alien perspective and his background in gospel, jazz, hip hop, and even the Grateful Dead shapes this eclectic sound.

The album title reflects Pan Amsterdam’s refusal to be confined by genre. The music channels influences from hip hop’s golden age, alongside nods to artists like Kool Keith, Busta Rhymes, and MF Doom.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Skittering, syncopated percussion and woozy synth stabs forge their way through churns of bass and reverb, providing the perfect backdrop for those trademark avant hip-hop vocals. Wonderfully weird, endlessly inventive and enjoyable.

TRACK LISTING

1. Day Out
2. Evening Drive
3. NYC Town
4. White Ninja
5. Venus Fly Trap
6. Plus One (ft Iggy Pop)
7. Meeshy J
8. Fashion Week
9. Pai Mei
10. Sure
11. Children Of Bear Creek
12. Confines 

"OneDa's story is so clearly mirrored in her music: a sprightly flow preaching a message of empowerment, enveloped in a dark, raucous soundscape…interlacing vibrant, punchy lyrics with that classic drum & bass sound has given OneDa a new lease of life."

"An artist who refuses to be boxed in, OneDa’s music speaks for itself. Always beginning with her own intrepid demeanour and dexterous wordplay, her tracks incorporate elements from the hip-hop and drum and bass scenes of her home city of Manchester before adding an eclectic mix of afro-trap and tinges of afrobeats that lean into her Nigerian heritage.Oneda's expertise transcends mere lyrical skill; it involves effortlessly merging her chicaning poetic verses with the ever-changing rhythm of shifting beats. Her boundless linguistic talent distinguishes her as a unique force of nature and a master craftswoman. Named by The Face as one of the key MC’s at the forefront of the eh renaissance, OneDa is a multihyphenate who has long focused on empowering others. Now, she is speeding off the starting grid on her own with her self-produced debut album, ‘Formula OneDa’, released on Heavenly Recordings." - DJ Magazine

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A blistering debut from Heavenly's newest signing, Manchester's OneDa. Perfectly toeing the line between super modern glitchy trap and classic drum & bass, with OneDa's athletic vocals over the top. Instantly addictive beats, and great wordplay to boot.

TRACK LISTING

Let Me In
Major Pay
The Formula
Raised
Over My Dead Body
Pull Up
Sometimes
The Plug
Leader
The Western Way
Superwoman
Set It Off 

Heavenly Remixes 7 & 8 sees the label going back into the archive as well as picking off some more recent remixes and both albums primarily feature either previously unreleased versions or re-workings available for the first time on vinyl & CD.

Heavenly Remixes Volume 7 heads to Belfast, where David Holmes - a producer who first appeared on Heavenly in 1994 amping up the acid on Saint Etienne’s Like A Motorway - appears as solo artist and as one third of Unloved, who get a lift right to the heart of a Vauxhall sweatbox by Horse Meat Disco. It draws a line between Amsterdam and Frankfurt as Ludwig A.F. amps up the electronics on Pip Blom’s Keep It Together. It stops off in a south London studio where super producer Dan Carey plays the desk with Toy, then relocates L.A. psych rock band Fever The Ghost to an Ibizan shoreline as the sun sets on the horizon. It cements Sheffield’s reputation as the home of modern British techno with the return of true originators Forgemasters. And it pitches up in front of a renegade soundsystem late night at Glastonbury as Erol Alkan’s mighty rework of Con Man gets its third rewind of the night.

TRACK LISTING

1. DAVID HOLMES & RAVEN VIOLET – It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At The SSL Dub) *
2. UNLOVED – Mother’s Been A Bad Girl (Horse Meat Disco Remix) *
3. PIP BLOM – Keep It Together (Ludwig A.F. Under Pressure Mix) *
4. CONFIDENCE MAN – Holiday (Erol Alkan OOO Remix) *
5. TOY – You Won’t Be The Same (Dan Carey Dub)
6. AUDIOBOOKS – The Doll (Bruise Remix) *
7. THE ORIELLES – The Room (Shy One Remix) *
8. EYES OF OTHERS – Once Twice Thrice (The Orielles Remix) *
9. FEVER THE GHOST – Source (Leo Zero Dub) %
10. WORKING MEN’S CLUB – The Last One (Foregmasters Remix)

* First Time On Vinyl
% Previously Unreleased

Heavenly Remixes 7 & 8 sees the label going back into the archive as well as picking off some more recent remixes and both albums primarily feature either previously unreleased versions or re-workings available for the first time on vinyl & CD.

Heavenly Remixes Volume 7 heads to Belfast, where David Holmes - a producer who first appeared on Heavenly in 1994 amping up the acid on Saint Etienne’s Like A Motorway - appears as solo artist and as one third of Unloved, who get a lift right to the heart of a Vauxhall sweatbox by Horse Meat Disco. It draws a line between Amsterdam and Frankfurt as Ludwig A.F. amps up the electronics on Pip Blom’s Keep It Together. It stops off in a south London studio where super producer Dan Carey plays the desk with Toy, then relocates L.A. psych rock band Fever The Ghost to an Ibizan shoreline as the sun sets on the horizon. It cements Sheffield’s reputation as the home of modern British techno with the return of true originators Forgemasters. And it pitches up in front of a renegade soundsystem late night at Glastonbury as Erol Alkan’s mighty rework of Con Man gets its third rewind of the night.

Heavenly Remixes Volume 8 opens with Space Afrika’s lush, ambient reimagining of the Orielles’ BEAM/S before Justin Robertson stretches Amber Arcades’ Turning Light into eight minutes of electronic dub. Elsewhere, Baxter Dury’s peerless Miami becomes a string-laden electro skank in the hands of French producer Pilooski; Edinburgh’s bedroom techno genius Eyes of Others’ Safehouse turns into an East End bathhouse courtesy of disco deviants Decius; Ashley Beedle’s Black Science Orchestra turns Unloved’s heart worn torch song into seven minutes of glimmering dreamlike percussive house and Katy J. Pearson’s freak flag is flown high thanks to The Umlauts’ throbbing filtered electro mix. It ends similarly to how it began as TONE takes Fran Lobo’s All I Want on a gorgeous slow motion spacewalk. 

TRACK LISTING

VOLUME 7
1. DAVID HOLMES & RAVEN VIOLET – It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At The SSL Dub) *
2. UNLOVED – Mother’s Been A Bad Girl (Horse Meat Disco Remix) *
3. PIP BLOM – Keep It Together (Ludwig A.F. Under Pressure Mix) *
4. CONFIDENCE MAN – Holiday (Erol Alkan OOO Remix) *
5. TOY – You Won’t Be The Same (Dan Carey Dub)
6. AUDIOBOOKS – The Doll (Bruise Remix) *
7. THE ORIELLES – The Room (Shy One Remix) *
8. EYES OF OTHERS – Once Twice Thrice (The Orielles Remix) *
9. FEVER THE GHOST – Source (Leo Zero Dub) %
10. WORKING MEN’S CLUB – The Last One (Foregmasters Remix)

VOLUME 8
1. THE ORIELLES – Beam/s (Space Afrika Remix) *
2. AMBER ARCADES – Turning Light (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33’s Meditation) %
3. UNLOVED – Number In My Phone (Black Science Orchestra Dub) *
4. CONFIDENCE MAN – Toy Boy (Raw Silk Instrumental Remix) *
5. DAVID HOLMES & RAVEN VIOLET – It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love (Lovefingers & Heidi Lawden Low Tide Mix) *
6. BAXTER DURY – Miami (Pilooski Instrumental Dub) %
7. OUT COLD – Loving Arms (Hardway Brothers Remix) *
8. WORKING MEN’S CLUB – Cut (Mella Dee Spangled On The Terrace Dub) %
9. EYES OF OTHERS – Safehouse (Decius Remix) *
10. KATY J PEARSON – Howl (Umlauts Remix) %
11. FRAN LOBO – All I Want (Tone Remix) *


* First Time On Vinyl
% Previously Unreleased

Heavenly Remixes 7 & 8 sees the label going back into the archive as well as picking off some more recent remixes and both albums primarily feature either previously unreleased versions or re-workings available for the first time on vinyl & CD.

Heavenly Remixes Volume 8 opens with Space Afrika’s lush, ambient reimagining of the Orielles’ BEAM/S before Justin Robertson stretches Amber Arcades’ Turning Light into eight minutes of electronic dub. Elsewhere, Baxter Dury’s peerless Miami becomes a string-laden electro skank in the hands of French producer Pilooski; Edinburgh’s bedroom techno genius Eyes of Others’ Safehouse turns into an East End bathhouse courtesy of disco deviants Decius; Ashley Beedle’s Black Science Orchestra turns Unloved’s heart worn torch song into seven minutes of glimmering dreamlike percussive house and Katy J. Pearson’s freak flag is flown high thanks to The Umlauts’ throbbing filtered electro mix. It ends similarly to how it began as TONE takes Fran Lobo’s All I Want on a gorgeous slow motion spacewalk. 

TRACK LISTING

1. THE ORIELLES – Beam/s (Space Afrika Remix) *
2. AMBER ARCADES – Turning Light (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33’s Meditation) %
3. UNLOVED – Number In My Phone (Black Science Orchestra Dub) *
4. CONFIDENCE MAN – Toy Boy (Raw Silk Instrumental Remix) *
5. DAVID HOLMES & RAVEN VIOLET – It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love (Lovefingers & Heidi Lawden Low Tide Mix) *
6. BAXTER DURY – Miami (Pilooski Instrumental Dub) %
7. OUT COLD – Loving Arms (Hardway Brothers Remix) *
8. WORKING MEN’S CLUB – Cut (Mella Dee Spangled On The Terrace Dub) %
9. EYES OF OTHERS – Safehouse (Decius Remix) *
10. KATY J PEARSON – Howl (Umlauts Remix) %
11. FRAN LOBO – All I Want (Tone Remix) *


* First Time On Vinyl
% Previously Unreleased

North-East London singer, songwriter and producer Fran Lobo presents her long-awaited debut album Burning It Feels Like. The record was written and produced by Lobo, engineered by Andy Ramsay of Stereolab and mixing was completed by regular studio partner Jimmy Robertson.

Of Goan and Maharashtrian descent, Fran spent a lot of her childhood absorbing the sounds around her: her mum’s pop, Bollywood and R&B obsessions, her dad’s love of rock and country, her brother’s metal and nu-metal, alongside her own adoration for Spice Girls and TV shows like Girls Aloud-spawning Popstars: The Rivals. The result is that Fran’s own work is collagist and kaleidoscopic in nature, often taking unexpected twists into unfamiliar places, with songs sometimes imploding in on themselves. “Within every track, it became a theme of turning everything on its head; having an outro you wouldn’t expect, flipping the words a bit – this cut-paste collage where nothing is safe,” she explains. In part, this is rooted in a desire to convey the feelings of being deep in someone’s mind, jumping around unpredictably in feelings and overthinking and anxiety.

This style is enhanced by Fran’s collaborative approach to her work; she is part of Deep Throat Choir, has worked as a choral conductor, and many of her good friends like Lucinda Chua, Sam Beste, CJ Calderwood, Jemma Freeman, Laura Misch and Coby Sey appear on the album, building up an array of sounds with them.

Visceral, beguiling and dense with yearning, sometimes she glimmers like flames and sometimes she lets us fester in the ashes with her. An unflinching debut, Fran Lobo will have you feeling that burning too.

TRACK LISTING

1 Burning It Feels Like
2 Armour
3 See Again
4 Slowly
5 Acid Dream.
1 Push And Pull
2 All I Want
3 The Arp Song
4 Why You Came
5 Tricks

‘Minsky Rock Megamix II’ takes its own fearless journey through the heart of the ‘Fear Fear’ album; on its way, it samples snatches from each of the album’s tracks and places them into glimmering new musical surroundings, all pinned to a constant metronomic beat that turns the whole thing inside out to create one streamlined, super-heavy whole.

Over twenty-three (cosmic) minutes, the track finds the pulse of ‘Fear Fear’ and follows it onto the dancefloor. Within this new mix, fragments of familiar tracks are twisted out of shape before being reborn with pounding Nu Beat basslines, Blackburn rave stabs and tweaking acid riffs that curl around minimal electro rhythms in a seamless mix.

Vocals are taken out of their original context and cut & pasted into a new stream of consciousness, forming their own manic hallucinations.

The result is an utterly mesmerising trip that feels like stumbling across a 21st century Detroit pirate radio station in full joyous flow.

‘Minsky Rock’ is the brainchild of Working Men’s Club frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant and producer Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys / M.I.A.). They previously remixed the band’s self-titled debut album.

12” vinyl with etching on Side B.

TRACK LISTING

Minsky Rock Megamix II

In this world, nothing is certain except taxes, death and Confidence Man. They are unstoppable, unquenchable, undeniable, and if you get in their way, you’re gonna get hurt. Not even a global pandemic could stop Janet, Sugar, Reggie and Clarence from producing an album so fierce, flirty and full of anthems that you might need to sit down before you hit play. Welcome to Tilt, Confidence Man’s second album released on Friday April 1st 2022 on Heavenly Recordings.

Holiday, the first track to be lifted from the album and today premiered with an as you’d expect technicolour video, was an epiphany. All of a sudden it was there and somehow complete from the get go. Conceived in just a 6 hour session and born from a warped mashup of Underworld and MIA, it’s a child so wrong it’s simply perfect. If life gives you lemonade, drink it.

Confidence Man’s debut, Confident Music For Confident People, was one of the joys of 2018, laced with savage lyrics and rapturous melodies; a north star of euphoria in an increasingly joyless world. Since then they’ve teased us with the occasional dance-floor snack, but with their follow up album Tilt they are finally serving us the main meal.

“We’ve been trying for the most epic, hands up, euphoric anthem for a while and this is the first time we’ve come close… Turns out it’s pretty difficult, but nothing’s too hard for con man.” Sugar Bones circa 2021

“No one tells Confidence Man what to do. Who said a Holiday can’t last forever? Spend big and live free, that’s our motto. And it can be yours too. A vacation is just sunburn at premium prices but a holiday is a state of mind.” Janet Planet circa 2021

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As we see from Confidence Man's newest outing, they've not calmed down any and are still bringing the same level of unfettered optimism and inimitable party spirit. Swimming with influence from dance music over the ages but coming together like a seamless entity in it's own right this is a rightful follow up to one of the best LP's of '18.

TRACK LISTING

1. Woman
2. Feels Like A Different Thing
3. What I Like
4. Toy Boy
5. Luvin U Is Easy
6. Holiday
7. Trumpet Song
8. Angry Girl
9. Push It Up
10. Kiss N Tell
11. Break It Bought It
12. Relieve The Pressure

Musician, writer and Renaissance man Baxter Dury returns with a brand new album, 'I Thought I Was Better Than You,' his seventh studio album.

I Thought I Was Better Than You marks a new era for Baxter, and with this new era comes a new character. “Faux-confrontational,” Baxter calls him. Here, not only is he recounting his childhood, but he’s also reckoning with it. Instead of just swinging at his past blindfolded with a baseball bat, he talks openly about the toxic cocktail of being born into unfortunately fortunate circumstances, with a persuasive surname but no structure or sense of responsibility with which reap the rewards of it. “Really, it’s about being trapped in an awkward place between something you’re actually quite good at, and somebody else’s success.” That ‘somebody else’ being his dad, Ian Dury. As one of the album centrepieces – Shadow – agonisingly puts it: “But no one will get over that you’re someone’s son/Even though you want to be like Frank Ocean/But you don’t sound like him, you sound just like Ian.”

The record also serves as a kind of extension to Baxter’s 2021 book, Chaise Lounge, in which he winningly recounted the story of his unique childhood. Not only does he expand the language of the book, using words to paint disconnected images rather than to string sentences (a kind of cockney hieroglyphics), but he often revisits moments within the book. Characters like ‘Tricksy’ re-appear in ‘Aylesbury Boy’ and ‘Pale White Nissan’, for example, but mainly it’s the abstracted tales of a young Baxter, troubled and in trouble, a victim of circumstance, straddling between a world of ‘Fuck you Leon…/ You stole the sunglasses and I got busted’ and a desire for ‘Porridge in the morning and be normal’.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Baxter Dury, and 'I Thought I Was Better Than You' is a perfect illustration of the off-kilter slam poetry vocals / hazy swimming electronica combo that Dury does so well. Brilliantly inventive and constantly moving forwards, Dury is at the peak of his creativity.

TRACK LISTING

1 So Much Money
2 Aylesbury Boy
3 Celebrate Me
4 Leon
5 Crashes
6 Sincere
7 Pale White Nissan
8 Shadow
9 Crowded Rooms
10 Glows

Eyes of Others is the studio alias of Edinburgh based John Bryden, a self-christened ‘post-pub couldn’t get in the club’ producer.

Having announced their signing to Heavenly Recordings last November with the release of a 10” vinyl-only 6-track EP, Bewitched By The Flames, which sold out immediately through independent shops and mail order, Eyes Of Others is now set to present their debut, self-titled album.

Marrying the anything-goes, freestyle magpie tendencies of Beck and The Beta Band to the electronic stylings of primetime 80s New Order by way of the spacious moods conjured by King Tubby, Eyes of Others debut’s whimsical demeanour is the perfect sonic balm to the utter confusion of the outside world. As is its sense of almost Balearic musical freedom. Such a mindset is fundamental to the music according to Bryden.

“I was thinking where’s my spot?” Bryden reflects about the pick & mix quality of the album. “The music is later than a gig but it’s not full-on early morning club fare. It’s the in-between space where I was imagining where my music works.”

But his beguiling tunes are perfect for the music soundtracking the afters too. As the dawn breaks and the sun begins to rise. “Maybe there aren’t enough venues opening at 7am!” he laughs, before quickly adding: “I don’t think it will catch on unfortunately.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Eyes of Others is, basically, the musical alias for Edinburgh based artist, John Bryden. Even though it’s on the mighty Heavenly Records, this summer release has remained pretty much under the radar. But, not in our shop it hasn’t! This is a dreamy whimsical, electronic pop record that floats around and drifts all over the musical landscape. Heavenly describe it themselves as “Pure musical freedom” and if you could imagine a sound palette which includes dub, synth, techno and folk then you’d be halfway there. It’s delightfully elusive but Bryden depicts his sound as kind of “later than a gig, but not full-on early morning club fare. It’s the inbetween space.” I’m gonna say, it sounds like the Beta Band jamming with Peaking Lights over The Stone Roses’ “Something’s Burning” around at Arthur Russell’s flat. Have some of that!

TRACK LISTING

Once, Twice, Thrice
Safehouse
Escalation
At Home I Am A Leader
New Hair New Me
Ego Hit
Mother Father
Jargon Jones And Jones
Come Inside
Big Companies, Large Tentacles 

Working Men’s Club present their Steel City EP, a 5-track release featuring remixes of tracks from their second album, Fear Fear by some of Sheffield’s most innovative producers: Toddla T, Charla Green, Ross Orton, Diessa and Warp originals, Forgemasters.

Fear Fear was released in July 2022 on Heavenly Recordings, reached #11 in the UK album chart upon release, and saw glowing reviews across Europe and the U.S.

The EP was previously only available on CD which came exclusively with purchases of the album via Bear Tree record shop in Sheffield. Before the end of 2022, these remixes were made available digitally as part of a deluxe edition of Fear Fear and now, this will be the first time the remixed tracks will be widely available on LP. 

TRACK LISTING

Side 1:
1. Money Is Mine (Toddla T Home Sick Remix)
2. Fear Fear (Charla Green Remix)
3. Ploys (Ross Orton Remix)
Side 2:
1. Rapture (Diessa Remix)
2. The Last One (Forgemasters Remix) 

Following the 2017 album I Romanticize and 2015's In The Pink of Condition, the album was produced and features musical contributions from long-time collaborator and celebrated solo artist Cate Le Bon. Artwork is designed by H.Hawkline.

Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, the album features a host of musical collaborators – Davey Newington [Boy Azooga] on drums, Paul Jones [Group Listening] on piano, Tim Presley [White Fence, DRINKS, The Fall] on guitar, Stephen Black [Sweet Baboo] and Euan Hinshelwood [Younghusband, Cate Le Bon] on sax, Harry Bohay [Aldous Harding] on pedal steel and John Parish [PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding] on infrequent bongo. The record was then engineered by Joe Jones [Aldous Harding, Parquet Courts] and mixed, after an unlikely and fortuitous crossing of paths, by the Grammy-nominated Patrik Berger [Charli XCX, Robyn, Lana Del Rey], and mastered by Heba Kadry [Deerhunter, Cass McCombs, Cate Le Bon].

Milk for Flowers is at once visceral and enlightened, its soundscapes verdant yet delicately rendered, and with this latest, most intimate work, H. Hawkline beautifully bares his blood, bones and soul. And quietly, along with the entrails and rubble held in Milk For Flowers’ reliquary, there hides a small, green kernel of life; hope, perhaps, that today’s decay might nourish tomorrow’s blooms.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I lived in Cardiff for some time, and there's something intangible there that makes people *really* good at writing this sort of 60's psych influenced athletic indie-pop, and Huw really makes some of the best out there. It shines with influence from classic rock to lounge and garage and psychedelia influences oozing out of every pore. Loads of melody and groove, but with an indescribable wooze and syncopation to the songwriting, without ever feeling strained. A triumph once again from H. Hawkline.

TRACK LISTING

Milk For Flowers
Plastic Man
Suppression Street
I Need Him
Denver
Athens At Night
Like You Do
It's A Living
Mostly
Empty Room

Following the release of The Pink Album last Autumn, Unloved return with Polychrome (The Pink Album Postlude). The record starts with a murmur of percussion and a metallic grind, as if the in-house band on a space station were warming up for the last show of the night. As phased vocals zoom through the heart of the track, Polychrome builds and builds to create a swooning hypnosis that’s part Tropicalia, part BBC Radiophonic Workshop and part psilocybin swoosh. Disorientating, strange, compelling, Polychrome is the opener and title track of Unloved’s first album of 2023.

Over the last few years, Unloved have developed their own uniquely cine literate sound that draws a straight line from the moody, doom obsessed girl group records of the early 1960s to the sonic experiments of electronic pioneers like Delia Derbyshire and Silver Apples via the darkest corners of David Lynch films and the crisp, mono beauty of the French New Wave. Polychrome sees the band take a deeper dive into their world, with eight new tracks recorded at the same time at the band’s recently released third long player, The Pink Album, along with a welcome reappearance of Far From Here, a glorious widescreen tower of sound originally recorded and released as part of the band’s first EP, 2015’s Guilty of Love. 

TRACK LISTING

Polychrome
Thrill Me.
I Did It.
Thank You For Being That Friend, You Know, The One You Never Want To Say Goodbye To.
I Just Stop
It's Hard To Hold You Close When The World Keeps Turning.
Only For You.
Far From Here
Rain On My Parade 

Marking the 25th Anniversary of ‘Good Humor’, Saint Etienne present a special splatter vinyl reissue edition of the eleven-track collection.

TRACK LISTING

Wood Cabin
Sylvie
Split Screen
Mr. Donut
Goodnight Jack
Lose That Girl
The Bad Photographer
Been So Long
Postman
Erica America
Dutch TV

This compilation follows ‘Heavenly remixes 1 & 2’ and ‘Heavenly remixes 3 & 4 - Andrew Weatherall volume 1&2’.

There’s been a lot written about how the Heavenly office is almost a living thing. Time and legend have anthropomorphised it into a towering character in the label’s rich history. Although the five-days-a-week workspace is ostensibly just four sturdy walls, a bunch of furniture, a vivid explosion of framed artwork charting a unique and particular journey through the history of music, multiple stacks of records, a bulging fridge and an overworked stereo, the Heavenly office has ended up becoming less a someplace and almost a someone.

The spirit of the office is a restless beast, yet it’s been loyal enough to have faithfully moved (almost) every time the label has relocated. And it’s a spirit that’s been emboldened whenever it has been based in Soho. Whatever the ley lines are that run under that square mile of central London, they seem to electrify the Heavenly office like a National Grid of vibes and volume; strange attractors to the ghosts of Soho’s rock & rollers, ravers, reprobates and roués alike who add a spectral joie de vivre to proceedings.

While the Heavenly office itself might be notorious, it’s the music that fills it up in the afterhours that truly gives the place life. While the open door has long offered something akin to a welcoming hug for both regular and first time visitors, it’s the always cranked up sound system that’s the equivalent of a mate leaning into you, guiding you through the peaks and troughs of the music.

As with any good party, the office soundtrack evolves track by track like selections from an overheating rebellious jukebox. Any average Monday night (the weekend always starts on Monday, right?) might take in music from the label’s artists that’s just pinged the inbox, freshly minted demos that have piqued curiosity, dusty old 7”s by long gone heroes or white label 12”s with minimal info scratched onto them in felt tip pen. And playing between those tracks, a bunch of secret sounds from the Heavenly vaults; remixes that write a rich, alternate history of Heavenly Recordings.

Since the first Heavenly recording, there have been striking remixes that reframe the original track. These remakes offer a parallel reading of the last four decades of releases; they take the music to places where genres can be pulled inside out before being reassembled for different dancefloors, or for a different state of mind.

It’s a selection of those secret sounds that make up the latest in this series of flawless compilations. Each presents a parallel reading of the Heavenly Recordings story, a version that’s best heard as the light fades and the furniture gets shoved to one side of the room in decent work places the world over.

TRACK LISTING

Heavenly Remixes 5
Holiday (Bruise Remix) - Confidence Man
Bobbi’s Second World (Confidence Man Remix) - The Orielles
All I Want (Ewan Pearson Dub Remix) - Out Cold
Iron Warrior (Raf Rundell Dubwise) - Revival Season
The Doll (LCY Remix) - Audiobooks
You Don't Get Me (Urban Takeover Remix) - Espiritu 
Automatic (Psychemagik Dub Mix) - Mildlife
Luxury (Trevor Jackson Reproduction Instrumental) - Raf Rundell Feat. Man & The Echo
Teeth (Anthony Naples Remix) - Working Men's Club
Chilli (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito Edit) - 77:78
Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Daniel Avery Remix) - David Holmes Feat. Raven Violet
Like A Motorway (Chemical Brothers Chekhov Warp Vocal Mix) - Saint Etienne
It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love (Darren Emerson Huffa Remix) - David Holmes Feat. Raven Violet

Heavenly Remixes 6
It’s Too Late To Go To Bed (Confidence Man Remix) - The Parrots
Ploys (Erol Alkan Rework) - Working Men’s Club
Blow The Whole Joint Up (Let’s Slash The Beats Mix) - Monkey Mafia
Cultural Criminal (Raf Rundell’s Salty Man Dub) - Mattiel Feat. Raf Rundell
Baby I Wanna Live (Monkey Mafia’s Terminal Mix) - Espiritu
LaLaLa It's The Good Life (Herbert’s Vaccine Dub) - audiobooks
Luvin U Is Easy (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Remix) - Confidence Man
Weatherall’s Weekender (Audrey Is A Little Bit Partial Mix) - Flowered Up

There’s been a lot written about how the Heavenly office is almost a living thing. Time and legend have anthropomorphised it into a towering character in the label’s rich history. Although the five-days-a-week workspace is ostensibly just four sturdy walls, a bunch of furniture, a vivid explosion of framed artwork charting a unique and particular journey through the history of music, multiple stacks of records, a bulging fridge and an overworked stereo, the Heavenly office has ended up becoming less a someplace and almost a someone.

The spirit of the office is a restless beast, yet it’s been loyal enough to have faithfully moved (almost) every time the label has relocated. And it’s a spirit that’s been emboldened whenever it has been based in Soho. Whatever the ley lines are that run under that square mile of central London, they seem to electrify the Heavenly office like a National Grid of vibes and volume; strange attractors to the ghosts of Soho’s rock & rollers, ravers, reprobates and roués alike who add a spectral joie de vivre to proceedings.

While the Heavenly office itself might be notorious, it’s the music that fills it up in the afterhours that truly gives the place life. While the open door has long offered something akin to a welcoming hug for both regular and first time visitors, it’s the always cranked up sound system that’s the equivalent of a mate leaning into you, guiding you through the peaks and troughs of the music.

As with any good party, the office soundtrack evolves track by track like selections from an overheating rebellious jukebox. Any average Monday night (the weekend always starts on Monday, right?) might take in music from the label’s artists that’s just pinged the inbox, freshly minted demos that have piqued curiosity, dusty old 7”s by long gone heroes or white label 12”s with minimal info scratched onto them in felt tip pen. And playing between those tracks, a bunch of secret sounds from the Heavenly vaults; remixes that write a rich, alternate history of Heavenly Recordings.

Since the first Heavenly recording, there have been striking remixes that reframe the original track. These remakes offer a parallel reading of the last four decades of releases; they take the music to places where genres can be pulled inside out before being reassembled for different dancefloors, or for a different state of mind.

It’s a selection of those secret sounds that make up the latest in this series of flawless compilations. Each presents a parallel reading of the Heavenly Recordings story, a version that’s best heard as the light fades and the furniture gets shoved to one side of the room in decent work places the world over.

TRACK LISTING

It’s Too Late To Go To Bed (Confidence Man Remix) - The Parrots
Ploys (Erol Alkan Rework) - Working Men’s Club
Blow The Whole Joint Up (Let’s Slash The Beats Mix) - Monkey Mafia
Cultural Criminal (Raf Rundell’s Salty Man Dub) - Mattiel Feat. Raf Rundell
Baby I Wanna Live (Monkey Mafia’s Terminal Mix) - Espiritu
LaLaLa It's The Good Life (Herbert’s Vaccine Dub) - Audiobooks
Luvin U Is Easy (Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Remix) - Confidence Man
Weatherall’s Weekender (Audrey Is A Little Bit Partial Mix) - Flowered Up

There’s been a lot written about how the Heavenly office is almost a living thing. Time and legend have anthropomorphised it into a towering character in the label’s rich history. Although the five-days-a-week workspace is ostensibly just four sturdy walls, a bunch of furniture, a vivid explosion of framed artwork charting a unique and particular journey through the history of music, multiple stacks of records, a bulging fridge and an overworked stereo, the Heavenly office has ended up becoming less a someplace and almost a someone.

The spirit of the office is a restless beast, yet it’s been loyal enough to have faithfully moved (almost) every time the label has relocated. And it’s a spirit that’s been emboldened whenever it has been based in Soho. Whatever the ley lines are that run under that square mile of central London, they seem to electrify the Heavenly office like a National Grid of vibes and volume; strange attractors to the ghosts of Soho’s rock & rollers, ravers, reprobates and roués alike who add a spectral joie de vivre to proceedings.

While the Heavenly office itself might be notorious, it’s the music that fills it up in the afterhours that truly gives the place life. While the open door has long offered something akin to a welcoming hug for both regular and first time visitors, it’s the always cranked up sound system that’s the equivalent of a mate leaning into you, guiding you through the peaks and troughs of the music.

As with any good party, the office soundtrack evolves track by track like selections from an overheating rebellious jukebox. Any average Monday night (the weekend always starts on Monday, right?) might take in music from the label’s artists that’s just pinged the inbox, freshly minted demos that have piqued curiosity, dusty old 7”s by long gone heroes or white label 12”s with minimal info scratched onto them in felt tip pen. And playing between those tracks, a bunch of secret sounds from the Heavenly vaults; remixes that write a rich, alternate history of Heavenly Recordings.

Since the first Heavenly recording, there have been striking remixes that reframe the original track. These remakes offer a parallel reading of the last four decades of releases; they take the music to places where genres can be pulled inside out before being reassembled for different dancefloors, or for a different state of mind.

It’s a selection of those secret sounds that make up the latest in this series of flawless compilations. Each presents a parallel reading of the Heavenly Recordings story, a version that’s best heard as the light fades and the furniture gets shoved to one side of the room in decent work places the world over.

TRACK LISTING

Holiday (Bruise Remix) - Confidence Man
Bobbi’s Second World (Confidence Man Remix) - The Orielles
All I Want (Ewan Pearson Dub Remix) - Out Cold
Iron Warrior (Raf Rundell Dubwise) - Revival Season 
The Doll (LCY Remix) - Audiobooks
You Don't Get Me (Urban Takeover Remix) - Espiritu
Automatic (Psychemagik Dub Mix) - Mildlife
Luxury (Trevor Jackson Reproduction Instrumental) - Raf Rundell Feat. Man & The Echo
Teeth (Anthony Naples Remix) - Working Men's Club
Chilli (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito Edit) - 77:78
Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Daniel Avery Remix) - David Holmes Feat. Raven Violet
Like A Motorway (Chemical Brothers Chekhov Warp Vocal Mix) - Saint Etienne
It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love (Darren Emerson Huffa Remix) - David Holmes Feat. Raven Violet

The Orielles have created their first genuinely contemporary record – an experimental double album self-produced in collaboration with producer Joel Anthony Patchett (King Krule, Tim Burgess). In doing so, the Orielles have utilised holistic jazz practices, oblique 21st century electronica, experimental 1960s tape loop methods, otherworldly AutoTuned vocal sounds, the downer dub of Burial, Sonic Youth’s focus on improvisation and feedback, and Brian Eno’s legendary Oblique Strategy cards.

TRACK LISTING

Chromo I
Chromo II
Airtight
The Instrument
The Improvisation 001
Television
Some Day Later
Darkened Corners
Honfleur Remembered
Beam/s
To Offer, To Erase
The Room
By Its Light
Transmission
Drawn And Defined
Stones

"The Pink Album", is dawn and dusk, the epic and the intimate. This 22-track double album, its title inspired by the artwork of Julian House, features collaborations with Jarvis Cocker, Étienne Daho, Raven Violet and Jon Spencer. It has its modulations: shocking at times but signifying also tenderness, intimacy, the carnal. It knows the shades of love, its nuances, and how it can be delicious - and frightening. Marvellous - and aching. Rather than be the silver lining to the cloud, "The Pink Album" mines deeper, to a precious ore, dark and glittering.

Unloved: Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia, David Holmes. In Los Angeles, Ciancia - producer, keyboardist & creator of soundtracks - met David Holmes, the innovative, inquisitive and ingenious Belfast DJ who recast himself as master of song and image for film and television. Ciancia invited Holmes to the Rotary Room in Los Feliz, where the extraordinary Jade Vincent was singing.

Tuesday nights in the Rotary Room in Los Feliz: a place of thrilling sonic alchemy, where musicians could experiment and collaborate at Ciancia and Vincent’s long-running salon. Holmes was asked to DJ and then to curate another night – and then another.

Nights bled into later nights. Conversation spun into collaboration. These three artists, kindred spirits, sonic familiars, spoke the same language, one whose lexicon included Jack Nitzsche, Morricone, Nino Rota, the electronic sounds of Raymond Scott, the vocabulary of vocal instrumentalists and fearless raconteurs, Edda Dell’Orso, Ruth White, Françoise Hardy, Connie Francis, Brigitte Fontaine, Jacques Brel, Elvis and Lee Hazlewood. Finding sound and programmed beats, Keefus and David excavated and innovated, experimented and re-interpreted, creating a landscape for Jade’s melodies and lyrics, for sublime songs of lament and confession. The legendary Hollywood Vox Studios was where the Unloved trio formally came together as a band, in a studio almost original to its 1936 incarnation.

Unloved’s immersive power and playful menace has fitted the slippery thriller series Killing Eve like a velvet glove, the thread to the needle. The music and sound of Unloved plays an integral role as their music is the soundtrack, the score, one of the core characters unseen.

And now, in 2022, it’s the magnificent, metaphysical "The Pink Album". Be seduced by the whispered, languorous, bluesy, not so sweet nothings of “Love Experiment” and the lippy insouciance of “Turn Of The Screw”. Thrill to the infinite variety: “Mother’s Been A Bad Girl” is brazen, and “I Don’t Like You Anymore” gloriously sultry. “Foolin’”, where languid, world-weary jazz sounds are skewed by a phantasmagoric organ from a funfair hallucinated, and there’s the sparkling fury and celestial chorus of “Rainbrose”, as though some flower-festooned goddess is emerging.

Go from the jaunty keyboards and hey! hey! hey! of “WTC” to the melancholic poise of “Ever”, the jittery electropop of “Girl Can’t Help It”, to the spacious Morricone-tinged “Lucky”. Be reminded that the past is a snare, the future doesn’t care. All we have is Now. There is psychedelic world-warping sound, but also times when reality is acutely, achingly, present. “Number In My Phone” is a beautiful, wistful paean to those no longer here. Jade’s remarkable voice - whispering, icy, lush, wounded, smoky - unifies the album with its striking diversity.

Unvarnished, unabashed, unbridled, uncensored: rising from the ashes, this is raw emotion transmogrified. This is experimental free-flow form, from instrumental arrangement to voice. It’s Man, Woman, Human, Love and Death.

TRACK LISTING

01. Rainbrose
02. Waiting For Tomorrow
03. Now
04. Girl Can't Help It
05. I Don’t Like You Anymore
06. Foolin'
07. Mother’s Been A Bad Girl
08. Boowaah
09. Lucky
10. WTC
11. Sorry, Baby
12. Number In My Phone
13. Call Me When You Have A Clue
14. No Substance
15. Love Experiment
16. Turn Of The Screw
17. To The Day I Die
18. Walk On, Yeah
19. Accountable
20. There’s No Way
21. Ever
22. Thinkin' About Her

Eyes of Others - have been described as making ‘post-pub couldn’t get in the club music’. Really though, you’ll recognise it as the sound of the small hours.

It’s The Blue Nile lost on the dancefloor at an Optimo night; John Martyn working magic with drum loops and Logic; a copy of the first Suicide LP washed up on the shores of Portobello Beach. It’s drawn curtains and an overheating stereo in your friend’s living room after the rest of town has called it a night, it’s hours spent watching the windows before sunrise in a slumbering city.

Bewitched by the Flames is a very limited vinyl only EP of home recordings. The songs are intimate, compelling and strange - electronic yet completely human, stories of everyday life set to woozy, lolloping rhythm tracks.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Dreamy hypnotic grooves - like a slow-mo Beta Band or early Panda Bear - perfect late night / early hours listening. We really love this here at Piccadilly!

TRACK LISTING

1. Once, Twice, Thrice
2. Escalation
3. Well-thumbed Letters
4. Jargon Jones And Jones
5. Granny
6. Mother Father

Heavenly Recordings release a 20th anniversary vinyl of Nada Surf’s classic album Let Go. This is the first time Let Go has appeared on Heavenly vinyl.

Let Go was the third album by the New York trio Nada Surf (Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, Ira Eliot). By the time it was released on Heavenly in the summer of 2002, the band had already witnessed a good deal of the highs and lows of the music industry, having had a breakout MTV hit before being dropped by their US label and having to go back to 9 to 5 jobs. Sessions were entirely self-funded, with the band paying the producers in dollar bills earned from the merch table at their shows.

When a cassette of the album initially arrived at Heavenly, it was with no preconceptions, just a “you’ll like this” nod from a mutual friend. And they were right. Let Go is a power pop masterpiece - all soaring melody and closing time melancholy. It quickly became the soundtrack to day and night in the office and on release picked up glowing reviews from Q (“melodic… mature… intelligent… wistful” 4*), Rolling Stone ("Nada Surf show enough smarts and panache to leave most of their Nineties-rock peers eating hot dust” 4*) and Entertainment Weekly (“a comeback effort that grows more popular with each spin”).

Twenty years on, Let Go is getting its first ever vinyl release on Heavenly. This new cut reinstates the UK tracklisting over four sides of vinyl (previous pressings were over three sides with one side left blank - us neither).

TRACK LISTING

A1 Blizzard Of ’77
A2 The Way You Wear Your Head
A3 Fruit Fly
B1 Blonde On Blonde
B2 Inside Of Love
B3 Hi-Speed Soul
C1 No Quick Fix
C2 Killian’s Red
C3 Là Pour Ça
D1 Happy Kid
D2 Treading Water
D3 Paper Boats 

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

Songs created in the shadow of terror and loss, but that crackle and pop with defiance Fear Fear is a record made for agitating and dancing, for heart and soul, for here, now and tomorrow. It’s a record that explores juxtaposition; that of life and death, acceptance and isolation, environment and humanity, hope and despair, the real world and the digital world. That top to bottom rigour, the complete vision is what makes the second album from Working Men’s Club such a stunning and unique achievement.

Their critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, released in summer 2020, was the sound of singer and songwriter Syd Minsky-Sargeant processing a teenage life in Todmorden in the Upper Calder Valley. He was 16 when he wrote some of those songs, now 20, he had to get up and out of the Valley. “The first album was mostly a personal documentation lyrically, this is a blur between personal and a third-person perspective of what was going on.” Fear Fear documents the last two years. Yes, there is bleakness – but there is also hope and empathy. “I like the contrast of it being happy, uplifting music and really dark lyrics. It’s not a minimal record, certainly compared to the first one. That’s because there’s been a lot more going on that needed to be said.”

Making the busy feel finessed and the dreadful feel magical – Fear Fear manages those feats, and then some. Or, as Syd Minksy-Sargeant puts it: “We just set out to make the best-sounding album we could.”

Fear Fear was produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, MIA, Tricky) and recorded at Orton’s studio in Sheffield.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Working Men's Club return for one of the most anticipated follow-up LP's around. This time sees them treading similar ground to the post-punk indebted debut debut, but imbued with a more dancefloor friendly groove. It's a heady mix, and one that stands as the perfect follow-up for a band at the peak of their game.

TRACK LISTING

1 19
2 Fear Fear
3 Widow
4 Ploys
5 Cut
6 Rapture
7 Circumference
8 Heart Attack
9 Money Is Mine
10 The Last One

Tresor (Treasure) is Gwenno Saunders’ third full length solo album and the second almost entirely in Cornish (Kernewek). Written in St. Ives, Cornwall, just prior to the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and completed at home in Cardiff during the pandemic along with her co-producer and musical collaborator, Rhys Edwards, Tresor reveals an introspective focus on home and self, a prescient work echoing the isolation and retreat that has been a central, global shared experience over the past two years.

Tresor diverges from the stark themes of technological alienation in Y Dydd Olaf (The Final Day) and the meditations on the idea of the homeland on the slyly infectious Le Kov (The Place of Memory). Accessible and international in outlook, peppered with moments of offbeat humour, Le Kov presented Cornish to the world. The impact of Le Kov was resounding, providing for the Cornish language an unprecedented international platform that saw Gwenno touring and headlining in Europe and Australia, and supporting acts such as Suede and the Manic Street Preachers. Her performance of ‘Tir ha Mor’ on Later with Jools Hollandwas a triumph, and the album prompted wider conversations on the state of the Cornish language with Michael Portillo, Jon Snow, and Nina Nannar. After Le Kov, interest in learning Cornish hit an all-time high, and the cultural role of the language was firmly in the spotlight.

On Tresor, Gwenno shifts focus from the external to the internal, and onto the journey of rediscovering oneself after the life-changing experience of becoming a mother. It is an exploration of desire, of reclaiming one's body after childbirth, of working out how to exist as yourself as well as caring first and foremost for somebody else. Inspired by powerful woman writers and artists such as Ithell Colquhoun, the Cornish language poet Phoebe Proctor, Maya Deren and Monica Sjöö, Tresor is an intimate view of the feminine interior experience, of domesticity and desire, a rare glimmer of life lived in and expressed through Cornish. Tresor evokes the waters that shape the Cornish experience, whilst being musically far reaching with influences spanning from Ryuichi Sakamoto to Eden Ahbez and William Basinski. As psychedelically tinged as her previous work, Tresor embeds found sounds ranging from Venice to Vienna, layering cultural and historical atmospheres, decoupling the use of Cornish from any geographic determinism, allowing for an expression of imaginative spaces that are truly free.

It recalls the waters of the unconscious, the undulating elemental tides suggesting emotion, intuition, those features long associated with the archetypal anima. In “Anima” Gwenno asks how do we fully inhabit different parts of the self, acknowledging convergent cultural and personal histories, embracing the shadow. She explores how the power of the feminine voice inspired by the Cornish landscape asserts itself in presenting a richly melodic counterpoint to a place and people known for rugged survival and jagged edges. The title track “Tresor” (Treasure) confronts the contradictions that come with visibility as a woman and the challenges of wielding women’s power. “Tonnow” (Waves) shows the watery depths of woman’s desire and knowing, an invitation to liberation. The Welsh language track, “NY.C.A.W.” (Nid yw Cymru ar Werth - Wales is not for Sale) widens the frame outward from the personal to the collective, condemning our neoliberalist thinking and our growing passiveness to late capitalism. The album also includes the track “Kan Me” (May Song), written for “Bait” director Mark Jenkin’s new film “Enys Men”, which is scheduled for release this summer.

Tresor the film, is inspired by surrealist filmmakers such as Sergei Parajanov, Agnes Varda, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, and reflects Gwenno’s growing interest in film and the intersection of music with visual components. Filmed in Wales and Cornwall, Tresor evokes a dreamworld from another time, surreal, and sensual, saturated with light and colour.

Although Tresor is a project birthed from introspection and intimacy, the implications of the messages are much broader. Ultimately Gwenno is asking what are other ways of understanding and being in relation to one's self and to one another? What are our roles in both shaping and being shaped by the cultures we move in, in a world that is ever changing, and where we all have a place? Tresor does not provide easy answers, for Gwenno shows us that we exist in paradox, our threads of place and story entwined like knotwork, our many selves shining as beautiful entanglements.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Gwenno's third album and second sung entirely in Cornish is her most mesmerising and hypnotic offering yet. Almost glacial and thoroughly other-worldly, this LP casts its magic spell from the first track to the last. It's so beautiful.

TRACK LISTING

1. An Stevel Nowydh
2. Anima
3. Tresor
4. N.Y.C.A.W
5. Men An Toll
6. Ardamm
7. Kan Me
8. Keltek
9. Tonnow
10. Porth La

Rolling in on an unbreakable motorik groove, The Parrots second album - Dos - starts very much on the front foot. You Work All Day And Then You Die is a bold statement of intent, a signpost at the side of the road that tells you straight about the futility of our modern lives spent chained to the work station. As the chant-along chorus goes, “It’s hard to find some peace of mind” - a line that feels like a reaction to the last year and half on planet Earth.

From You Work All Day And Then You Die’s relentless pulse to closer Romance’s end of the night celebration of friendship and survival, Dos is an all consuming, life-affirming joyous noise. Where The Parrots debut - Los Niños Sin Miedo - howled and rattled like the garage bands that had inspired them in their formative years in Madrid, Dos was conceived by Diego Garcia (guitar, vocals) and Alex de Lucas (bass) as a chance to showcase their wider ambitions. That desire to expand the band’s sound led them to working with producer Tom Furse from The Horrors.

Fans of The Parrots previous records and their life-enhancing live shows needn’t worry that things have changed too much. Dos is still very much a garage rock record, only one now painted in brighter, bolder, more psychedelic colours. Just Hold On is a summery late ’60s West Coast stomp while Nadie Dijo Que Fuera Fácil (translation - Nobody Said It Would Be Easy) and Amigos recall modern psychedelic voyagers such as Spacemen 3 and Super Furry Animals - bands who effortlessly combined drones with celestial melody. Elsewhere, It’s Too Late To Go To Bed sounds like something released on Ze Records in the early ’80s. When you spend some time with Dos - the riotous and addictive second Parrots album - you’ll realise it’d be wise not to wear your best clothes the next time they roll in to town as you’ll invariably be going home drenched, ecstatic and covered in footprints. Bring it on.

The Parrots talk about the new record by saying: “Most of the album was recorded in Wilton Way Studios in Hackney in periods between summer 2019 and the start of 2020. Because of lockdown, it ended up getting finished in Madrid with Harto Rodriguez. Recording at home was really nice because it meant we could call on some of our very talented friends to join us in the studio. Most of the record was written before the lockdown but that unexpected pause in all of our lives made us rethink some of it and finish bits off in a different way. Also, when we knew we couldn’t go back to London to finish it, we decided to invite a lot of our friends back home to the studio. That made recording feel almost like a celebration. Everyone we knew was fine; even with the global pause we could still find the bright spots and stay together.”

“Even though garage rock is kind of the core of all our influences, in the last few years we’ve been listening to lots of stuff that we’d kind of relegated to a second position. We rediscovered a lot of artists that we listened back when we first fell in love with music - bands like LCD Soundsystem and Gang of Four, lots of mutant disco. Tom really helped us there, he made sense out of the chaotic mashup of influences that we brought into the studio. And because we’ve always loved hip hop, we followed a different approach to putting songs together, using samples and sampling ourselves a lot. Beastie Boys, ESG, Devo, Los Zombies (the Spanish band) were all a very big influence on the tone of the record. Also the Spanish music scene has been changing a lot in the last years and listening to a lot of new Spanish artists has helped us break down some walls and made us create music in a more free way.”

‘Dos’ is the follow up to the Madrid duo’s (Diego García & Alex de Lucas) acclaimed 2016 debut ‘Los Niños Sin Miedo’ and shows the band taking an evolutionary step that finds them sounding stronger and more realized than ever before, from their original characteristics of stripped-down melodic garage rock to a fresh sonic perspective. Produced by Tom Furse (The Horrors) and mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (Parquet Courts, Weezer, Panic! At The Disco, Temples), the Parrots find themselves experimenting with more modern production soundscapes and electronic grooves.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Undeniably a garage record, but imbued with the spirit of myriad influences including synth, disco and good ol' psych The Parrots' new record is both wonderfully effervescent and surprisingly jubilant. Lurching from droning, muddy groove to razor-sharp melodicism in the blink of an eye.

TRACK LISTING

1. You Work All Day And Then You Die
2. Just Hold On
3. Maldito (feat C. Tangana)
4. Lo Dejaría Todo
5. Don’t Cry
6. It's Too Late To Go To Bed
7. Nadie Dijo Que Fuera Fácil
8. Fuego
9. Amigos
10. How Not To Be Seen
11. Romance (feat Los Nastys)

Mr Maserati showcases two decades of Baxter Dury’s idiosyncratically louche music, a universe of late-night London meet-ups, shuffling basslines and comedown disco tunes, all run through with a wry bleakness and sweet love of humanity. Mr Maserati collects tracks from across Dury’s six albums, plus a new song D.O.A.

Baxter Dury on new track: “It’s a kind of provincial nod to the music I got into during lockdown because my son Kosmo was playing it – Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator and Kendrick Lamar. I became obsessed. They’re embracing everything – sexuality, politics, all of it – and I find that inspiring”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Not a week goes by where we don't get asked for a Baxter Dury record so it's with some relief that I see this collection is finally hitting the shelves. Some of the greatest riffs, most distinctive vocals and beautifully rich songwriting make Dury and this collection in particular a no-brainer.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1 Miami
2 I'm Not Your Dog
3 Leak At The Disco
4 Cocaine Man
5 Palm Trees
6 Oi
Side B:
1 Oscar Brown
2 Claire
3 Other Men's Girls
4 Carla's Got A Boyfriend
5 Prince Of Tears
6 D.O.A.

Georgia Gothic, a magic third in Mattiel’s run of full-length albums, was shaped in the quiet seclusion of a woodland cabin in the north of the Atlanta duo’s mother-state; “Some faraway place that just Jonah and I could go where there would be no distractions, nothing else going on, and we could turn everything off and only focus on writing songs”, reflects Brown. Where 2017’s self-titled debut and its 2019 follow-up Satis Factory were written with what Swilley refers to as a “hands-off” approach — he arranging the music and Brown the lyrics and vocals, the two working largely separately — the making of Georgia Gothic was, for the first time, a truly collaborative undertaking. “This was the first time we made a point to just be together and work out ideas in the same room. That was the initial intention ... it was about learning what each other wanted to accomplish on a sonic level, and then just trying different things out” Swilley continues. “Everything happened backwards. Normally, you’d have friends that make a band ... with us, we started making music from the jump, and then became homies.”

Cultivated by time spent together on the road touring the first two albums, it is this newfound sense of intimacy between Mattiel’s members that enabled the writing of Georgia Gothic not as two separate musicians, but rather as one creative entity. The album remained within the four walls of Brown and Swilley’s private world for much of its evolution — with recording taking place in a simple studio set up by the pair in the borrowed room of a dialysis centre, Swilley in the producer’s seat — until, nearing completion, it was transferred into the trusted hands of the Grammy-award-winning John Congleton (whose extensive list of credits includes artists as diverse as Angel Olsen, Earl Sweatshirt, Erykah Badu and Sleater Kinney) for mixing.

Not only does the affinity between its creators translate into an electric synergy between Georgia Gothic’s words and music — the brine-shock of Brown’s taut lyricism cut against the bourbon-smoothness of Swilley’s instrumentation — but here too are the palpable spoils of experimentation, each party trustful enough of the other to trial and error their practices into new geometries. Swilley puts this wide palate, in part, down to the place they call home. “I definitely feel like being from Georgia allows us to have a certain way of approaching music”. Brown chimes in: “We haven’t really highlighted where we’re from in the past two records, even though those were also written in Georgia. There’s so much great art and great music that’s come from Georgia, from all different types of genres and all over the state — but take R. E. M. and OutKast: there’s this weirdness that I can’t really put my finger on.” Swilley concurs: “It’s the same with the B-52s, the Black Lips ... it doesn’t feel like L.A., it doesn’t feel like New York, it feels like another planet. We’re not really in a ‘scene’ here in the same way. You have to make your own sound, create your own identity.”

And it is precisely the forging of Mattiel’s distinct musical identity that Georgia Gothic signals; its members guiding each other ever-homewards not just in a geographical or sonic sense, but spiritually, too.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hefty fuzz, wonderfully harmonised vocals and unbeatable groove are the cornerstones of the Mattiel sound, but it's on 'Georgia Gothic' we really get to see this sound honed perfectly. Possibly due to their more intimate working conditions or through the benefits of a more intuitive working relationship, the music shines through as a lot clearer resulting in their most concise and rewarding offering to date.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jeff Goldblum
2. On The Run
3. Lighthouse
4. Wheels Fall Off
5. Subterranean Shut In Blues
6. Blood In The Yolk
7. Cultural Criminal
8. You Can Have It All
9. Other Plans
10. Boomerang
11. How It Ends

Andrew Weatherall was Heavenly’s first true friend. By the time the label was born in the spring of 1990, he was already an inspirational sounding board, as well as a fellow traveller on the bright new road that stretched out ahead thanks to the massive cultural liberation of acid house. Back then, every energised meeting could be turned into a fortuitous opportunity in this burgeoning new underground economy. Bored of your job? Start playing records out! Start a club night! Get in the studio! Start a label! Just don’t stand still. Andrew would follow two of those commandments for the rest of his life, and he’d have a hand in the others at various points as well.

At the start of things, Andrew was a regular visitor to Capersville — the pre-Heavenly press office run by friend and label founder Jeff Barrett (soon to become Andrew’s manager). It was there that he famously picked up a copy of Primal Scream’s unloved second album and singled out a track that would later become Loaded, after being given an instruction to ‘fucking destroy’ it by the band’s Andrew Innes; it was there too that the idea to remix the first Heavenly release came about.

Andrew’s mix of that first Heavenly record is very much a product of its time. The World According To Sly and Lovechild is a swirling bass punch topped with a hypnotic marimba line and the kind of ecstatic diva vocal that you’d hear coming out of the speakers all night at post-Shoom clubs like Yellow Book. His take on the label’s next release — Saint Etienne’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix of Two Halves) — would set the template for his next three decades of audio exploration. A drawn-out imperial dub, the track builds and builds with a moody intensity (partly down to the melodica played by Weather Prophets legend Pete Astor) that’s far more Kingston JA at dusk than Kingston-upon-Thames at kicking out time. It’s both a dancefloor record to get lost in and headphone psychedelia of the highest order — a perfect example of what he did better than anyone else.

Between 1990 and his untimely death in 2020, Andrew fed more Heavenly bands through the mixing desk than those of any other label. Consistently, he returned visionary music to the office, often in person for (at least) one ceremonial playback — a ritual that would involve the volume cranked up high and Andrew rocking back on his heels, eyes closed, lost in the alchemy of it all.

Each time, he would warp and twist originals into beautiful new shapes — elasticated club records that might evoke Detroit techno one second and Throbbing Gristle the next, before wheel-spinning into something akin to The Fall produced by King Tubby.

Andrew’s studio adventures would always be guided by that early advice to fucking destroy the source material. It’s why he was the first name that came up when remixes were discussed; the first number on the speed dial. Listening back to these remixes now — to thirty years of glorious outsider sounds — it’s more obvious than ever that Heavenly was blessed to have a friend like Andrew Weatherall. 

TRACK LISTING

Sly & Lovechild - The World According To Sly & Lovechild (Soul Of Europe Mix)
Mark Lanegan - Beehive (Andrew Weatherall Dub)
Flowered Up - Weekender (Audrey Is A Little Bit More Partial Mix)
Gwenno - Chwyldro (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves)
Confidence Man - Bubblegum (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Espiritu - Conquistador (Sabres Of Paradise No. 3 Mix)
The Orielles - Sugar Tastes Like Salt (Andrew Weatherall Tastes Like Dub Mix Pt.1 - Live Bass)
Audiobooks Feat. Andrew Weatherall - Dance Your Life Away (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Saint Etienne - Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Dub)
Doves - Compulsion (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
TOY - Dead & Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Confidence Man & Andrew Weatherall - Out The Window (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
LCMDF - Gandhi (Andy Weatherall Remix II)
Espiritu - Bonita Mañana (Sabres Of Paradise Remix)
Unloved - Devils Angels (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Heavenly was all but founded on the art of the remix; the label’s sadly departed friend Andrew Weatherall remixed the first ever release, and the label has built up an immense catalogue in the intervening years that demonstrates all that is good about the art form and on Friday 10th December 2021 the label release Heavenly Remixes Vol 1 & 2, a brace of albums documenting this long history.

A label forged in the white-hot heat of post-acid house Britain, these Heavenly remixes are perfectly weighted with respect and irreverence, the remixer in each case carefully chosen to add heft to the song - the tracks across the 2 albums are curated, remixed and delivered with love (and a teensy bit of impertinence) and are a glimpse into the catalogue of one the UK’s finest independent labels.

There may well be no rhyme, nor reason, to how these compilations have been put together, beyond the fact that they are assembled with love, an innate understanding of the power of great pop music, and a skilled marriage of song and remixer.

Though not purposely themed, beyond being judiciously chosen as the catalogue’s finest gems, there’s a tiny hint of psychedelia about Volume 2 that is hard to ignore. Firstly, there are the acid contributions from Gabe Gurnsey, who knows his way around a coruscating bassline, and from Graham Massey, whose impeccable credentials in 808 State are brought to bear on ‘Valleys’, by young turks Working Men’s Club (acid house being modern psychedelia, whether the rock press approves or not).

Jono Ma, meanwhile, flips Night Beats’ amazing ‘Sunday Mourning’ into ‘Warm Leatherette’ on benzos, creating a disorienting glimpse of a dystopian Sunday that most definitely doesn’t include a genteel read of the papers and a nice cup of tea. On the other side of the miasma is Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve’s redemptive re-interpretation of M. Craft’s ‘Chemical Trails’, which, alongside Boy Azooga’s ‘Face Behind Her Cigarette’ (Mikey Young remix), Gwenno’s ‘Chwlydro’ (R. Seiliog remix) and and Katy J. Pearson’s ‘Take Back The Radio’ (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito Dub), is issued on vinyl for the very first time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Halo Maud – Des Bras (Andy Votel Remix)
2. Boy Azooga – Face Behind Her Cigarette (Mikey Young Remix)
3. Doves – Jetstream (Lindstrom Remix)
4. The Orielles – It Makes You Forget (Dicky Trisco & Pete Herbert Remix)
5. Katy J Pearson – Take Back The Radio (Flying Mojito Bros Mojito Refrito)
6. Confidence Man – First Class Bitch (Raf Rundell’s Party Nails Remix)
7. Audiobooks – Friends In The Bubble Bath (Gabe Gurnsey Gamma Ray Remix)
8. Gwenno – Chwlydro (R.Seilog Remix)
9. Working Men’s Club – Valleys (Graham Massey Acid Mix)
10. Saint Etienne – Filthy (Monkey Mafia Mix)
11. Night Beats – Sunday Morning (Jono Ma Remix)
12. M Craft – Chemical Trails (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-animation)

Talking about the single, Bob Stanley said:

We love Christmas, as you probably know, and it feels like it's been a while since our last really Christmassy Christmas record. But I think Pete has done a properly beautiful, icy, frosted, festive job on 'Her Winter Coat’. Alasdair's film for it is the icing on the yule log. I hope you love it as much as I do. We're really looking forward to playing it live!

Pete Wiggs added:

To complement 'Her Winter Coat', Sarah and Gus Bousfield have come up with the incredibly catchy 'A Kiss Like This', laden with swirling hibernal synths, and for a touch of Cold War frost we have the brooding melancholy instrumental 'Lillehammer' to complete the package. Hope you love 'em all!

TRACK LISTING

1. Her Winter Coat (edit)
2. Lillehammer
3. A Kiss Like This
4. Her Winter Coat 

Heavenly was all but founded on the art of the remix; the label’s sadly departed friend Andrew Weatherall remixed the first ever release, and the label has built up an immense catalogue in the intervening years that demonstrates all that is good about the art form and on Friday 10th December 2021 the label release Heavenly Remixes Vol 1 & 2, a brace of albums documenting this long history.

A label forged in the white-hot heat of post-acid house Britain, these Heavenly remixes are perfectly weighted with respect and irreverence, the remixer in each case carefully chosen to add heft to the song - the tracks across the 2 albums are curated, remixed and delivered with love (and a teensy bit of impertinence) and are a glimpse into the catalogue of one the UK’s finest independent labels.

There may well be no rhyme, nor reason, to how these compilations have been put together, beyond the fact that they are assembled with love, an innate understanding of the power of great pop music, and a skilled marriage of song and remixer.

There is no sense of order to Volume 1. You’ll find a smattering of older tracks: album openers Saint Etienne are taken on a Poseidon Adventure with Underworld, who inject ‘Cool Kids of Death’ with typically manic energy. Elsewhere, ’90s Brum duo Mother add dancefloor pzazz to Espiritu’s innate glamour on an all-funked-up reworking of ‘Los Americanos’, and Mark Lusardi’s remix of Moonflowers’ ‘Get Higher’ is an early Heavenly classic.

On ‘Terracotta Warrior’, a perfect, psyched-out, Mancunian union is created betwixt Jimi Goodwin and Andy Votel, whilst Goodwin cohort Simon Aldred, in his Cherry Ghost guise, receives a proper Tamla-Motowning from Richard Norris (aka Time & Space Machine) on an inspired cover of Cece Peniston’s glam-house hit, ‘Finally’.

There are several of Heavenly’s current darlings there too. One of the most exciting young British prospects, Yorkshire’s Working Men’s Club, effectively remix themselves, as Minsky Rock — WMC’s Syd Minsky-Sargeant and producer Ross Orton — cleave ‘X’ into a riotous industrial racket. Jagwar Ma’s Jono Ma takes the Kraftwerkian leitmotif on ‘Automatic’ and drives the Australian jazz-funkers Mildlife down an electro-convulsive psychedelic tunnel (thankfully no-one was harmed during the making of this remix); Sheffield’s DJ Parrot and Jarvis Cocker deliver one of the outstanding remixes of 2018, turning Baxter Dury’s ‘Miami’ into a lovelorn minor opera; and, making its first appearance on vinyl, David Holmes’ Unloved project is taken on a panoramic Welsh waltz thanks to Gwenno.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The first volume of the wonderful Heavenly Remixes selection, featuring a number of classics like Baxter Dury's 'Miami' and Mattiel's brilliant 'Guns Of Brixton' getting the rework treatment from some of the dance community's hottest talent.

TRACK LISTING

1. Saint Etienne – Cool Kids Of Death (Underworld Mix)
2. Unloved – Why Not (Gwenno Remix)
3. Nots – Reactor (Mikey Remix)
4. Mildlife – Automatic (Jono Ma Ascend Mix)
5. Espiritu – Los Americanos (Mother Mix)
6. Confidence Man – Out The Window (Greg & Che Wilson Mix)
7. Mattiel – Guns Of Brixton (Rub-A-Dub Style Pt.2)
8. Baxter Dury – Miami (Parrot And Cocker Too Remix)
9. Jimi Goodwin – Terracotta Warrior (Andy Votel’s Spazio 1975 De-mix)
10. Working Mens Club – X (Minsky Rock Remix)
11. Moonflowers – Get Higher (Get Dubber Mix)
12. Raf Rundell – Monsterpiece (Harvey Sutherland Remix)
13. Cherry Ghost – Finally (Time & Space Machine Edit)

Heavenly Recordings announce ‘Heavenly remixes Vol 1 & 2’, a pair of albums documenting some of the label’s finest remixes over their 30+ year history.

Heavenly was all but founded on the art of the remix; the label’s sadly departed friend Andrew Weatherall remixed the first ever release, and the label has built up an immense catalogue in the intervening years that demonstrates all that is good about the art form. ‘Heavenly remixes 1 & 2’ document this long history.

A label forged in the white-hot heat of post-acid house Britain, these Heavenly remixes are perfectly weighted with respect and irreverence, the remixer in each case carefully chosen to add heft to the song - the tracks across the two albums are curated, remixed and delivered with love (and a teensy bit of impertinence) and are a glimpse into the catalogue of one the UK’s finest independent labels.

There may well be no rhyme, nor reason, to how these compilations have been put together, beyond the fact that they are assembled with love, an innate understanding of the power of great pop music, and a skilled marriage of song and remixer.

There is no sense of order to volume 1. You’ll find a smattering of older tracks: album openers Saint Etienne are taken on a Poseidon Adventure with Underworld, who inject ‘Cool Kids of Death’ with typically manic energy. Elsewhere, 1990s Brum duo Mother add dancefloor pzazz to Espiritu’s innate glamour on an allfunked- up reworking of ‘Los Americanos’, and Mark Lusardi’s remix of Moonflowers’ ‘Get Higher’ is an early Heavenly classic.

On ‘Terracotta Warrior’, a perfect, psyched-out, Mancunian union is created betwixt Jimi Goodwin and Andy Votel, whilst Goodwin cohort Simon Aldred, in his Cherry Ghost guise, receives a proper Tamla-Motowning from Richard Norris (aka Time & Space Machine) on an inspired cover of Cece Peniston’s glam-house hit, ‘Finally’.

There are several of Heavenly’s current darlings there too. One of the most exciting young British prospects, Yorkshire’s Working Men’s Club, effectively remix themselves, as Minsky Rock - WMC’s Syd Minsky- Sargeant and producer Ross Orton - cleave ‘X’ into a riotous industrial racket. Jagwar Ma’s Jono Ma takes the Kraftwerkian leitmotif on ‘Automatic’ and drives the Australian jazz-funkers Mildlife down an electroconvulsive psychedelic tunnel; Sheffield’s DJ Parrot and Jarvis Cocker deliver one of the outstanding remixes of 2018, turning Baxter Dury’s ‘Miami’ into a lovelorn minor opera; and, making its first appearance on vinyl, David Holmes’ Unloved project is taken on a panoramic Welsh waltz thanks to Gwenno.

Though not purposely themed, beyond being judiciously chosen as the catalogue’s finest gems, there’s a tiny hint of psychedelia about volume 2 that is hard to ignore. Firstly, there are the acid contributions from Gabe Gurnsey, who knows his way around a coruscating bassline, and from Graham Massey, whose impeccable credentials in 808 State are brought to bear on ‘Valleys’, by Working Men’s Club (acid house being modern psychedelia, whether the rock press approves or not).

Jono Ma, meanwhile, flips Night Beats’ amazing ‘Sunday Mourning’ into ‘Warm Leatherette’ on benzos, creating a disorienting glimpse of a dystopian Sunday that most definitely doesn’t include a genteel read of the papers and a nice cup of tea. On the other side of the miasma is Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve’s redemptive re-interpretation of M. Craft’s ‘Chemical Trails’, which, alongside Boy Azooga’s ‘Face Behind Her Cigarette’ (Mikey Young remix), Gwenno’s ‘Chwlydro’ (R. Seiliog remix) and and Katy J. Pearson’s ‘Take Back The Radio’ (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito Dub), is issued on vinyl for the very first time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: this CD version of Heavenly's remixes includes both volumes of this stylistically diverse and brilliantly inventive selection of remixes from talented folk inc. Gwenno, Votel, Lindstrom and Gabe Gurnsey. What a collection.

TRACK LISTING

Heavenly Remixes 1
Saint Etienne - Cool Kids Of Death (Underworld Mix)
Unloved - Why Not (Gwenno Remix)
Nots - Reactor (Mikey Remix)
Mildlife - Automatic (Jono Ma Ascend Mix)
Espiritu - Los Americanos (Mother Mix)
Confidence Man - Out The Window (Greg & Che Wilson Mix)
Mattiel - Guns Of Brixton (Rub-A-Dub Style Pt.2)
Baxter Dury - Miami (Parrot And Cocker Too Remix)
Jimi Goodwin - Terracotta Warrior (Andy Votel’s Spazio 1975 De-mix)
Working Mens Club - X (Minsky Rock Remix)
Moonflowers - Get Higher (Get Dubber Mix)
Raf Rundell - Monsterpiece (Harvey Sutherland Remix)
Cherry Ghost - Finally (Time & Space Machine Edit)

Heavenly Remixes 2
Halo Maud - Des Bras (Andy Votel Remix)
Boy Azooga - Face Behind Her Cigarette (Mikey Young Remix)
Doves - Jetstream (Lindstrom Remix)
The Orielles - It Makes You Forget (Dicky Trisco & Pete Herbert Remix)
Katy J Pearson - Take Back The Radio (Flying Mojito Bros Mojito Refrito)
Confidence Man - First Class Bitch (Raf Rundell’s Party Nails Remix)
Audiobooks - Friends In The Bubble Bath (Gabe Gurnsey Gamma Ray Remix)
Gwenno - Chwlydro (R.Seilog Remix)
Working Men’s Club - Valleys (Graham Massey Acid Mix)
Saint Etienne - Filthy (Monkey Mafia Mix)
Night Beats - Sunday Morning (Jono Ma Remix)
M Craft - Chemical Trails (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-animation)

As audiobooks were making the final adjustments to their new record, the world around them was getting grimmer by the day. As a result, a darker side to their sound began to bubble to the surface – a newfound heaviness that’s apparent on the eery and driving ‘He Called Me Bambi’, for example, or the whirling ‘Trouble In Business Class’. “We would have got there anyway,” Wrench points out; this is not a ‘lockdown record’, “but being in that frame of mind did make it easier to see how we needed to tweak things. There are light moments of this record, but in general the lyrics are definitely darker.”

On Astro Tough audiobooks are completely sincere. They’re also completely joyous, wild, angry, powerful, hilarious, vicious, vulnerable and intense, and most of all completely brilliant. It’s the sound of David Wrench and Evangeline Ling reaching new peaks of creativity, more confident than ever before in their abilities to forge something focussed, singular and unique out of the explosive combination of their talents.

Endlessly forward-thinking, it says a lot that they’re already fixated on what’s next. “The conversation never stops,” says Wrench. “Even earlier today we were talking about ideas, a whole list of new things to try in the creative process. We’ve already got more songs that aren’t quite finished, but are really strong.”

“I’m just dying to get back into the studio,” adds Ling

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Along a similar stylistic thread to the bonkers neon synthopo of the International Teachers Of Pop, Audiobooks mix bouncing throbby synths with off-piste lyrics and wildly inventive electro/disco backdrop. It's a heady and intoxicating combo, and all great fun.

TRACK LISTING

01. The Doll
02. LaLaLa It's The Good Life
03. The English Manipulator
04. He Called Me Bambi
05. Blue Tits
06. First Move
07. Driven By Beef
08. Trouble In Business Class
09. Black Lipstick
10. Farmer

On La Vita Olistica (their second-and-a-half album!?), The Orielles take last year’s stellar Disco Volador and bring it back down to earth, reimagining it as a soundtrack which draws as much from la nouvelle vague as New York’s new wave music scene. Full of instrumental detours, maverick synth-led twists, and more pop hooks than you can shake a disco stick at, it’s a less “produced” affair than its shimmering predecessor - those virtuosic guitars, drums à la Can school of jazz-punk-groove, dream-laden vocals, and understated bass gymnastics are all still here though, just clearer and tighter than ever before. There’s something so classic and charismatic about the way they write songs too, calling to mind - but never imitating - the greats of indie songwriting: Edwyn Collins, Laetitia Sadier, Bradford Cox, et al. La Vita Olistica shows the mighty O’s at their most inspired yet - and it’s a beautiful thing to watch.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Eschewing the more dancefloor-ready elements of last years' 'Disco Volador', the Orielles return with the lysergic smudged atmospheres and hazy psychedelic groove of 'La Vita Olistica'. A brilliantly immersive and impeccably performed outing from a band showing their wide range of influence, as well as their deftness crafting those influences into something new and exciting.

One of the most highly-regarded modern Brazilian jazz trios, Caixa Cubo have announced details of the release of Angela, their latest album, and first to be licensed for European release by Heavenly Recordings.

Recorded in December 2018, the album features the singer Zé Leônidas on Palavras, and includes arrangements of songs like Baião Malandro by Egberto Gismonti and Dark Prince by Geri Allen, in addition to the group's original compositions.

Made up of Henrique Gomide (keys), João Fideles (drums) and Noa Stroeter (bass) the trio have split their time between Brazil and Europe in recent years, having been awarded scholarships to study at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Netherlands.

They have performed at many respected European venues and festivals including Jazz à Vienne Festival (France), Anton Philip Hall (The Hague), A-Trane (Berlin), Riverboat Festival (Denmark) and others in Paris, Brussels, London, Birmingham, Lisbon, Rotterdam. They also performed in Maputo, Mozambique, as well as renowned venues in Brazil, mainly in Sao Paulo (Auditório Ibirapuera, SESC Consolação, Museu da Casa Brasileira).

Talking about Caixa Cubo and the album, the British DJ, broadcaster, producer, writer and jazz lover, Patrick Forge said:

It used to be the case that young Brazilians were either oblivious to or disdainful of their musical heritage, such was the omnipotence of “baile funk” and the influence of foreign music. (Heavy Metal acts that could barely get a booking in the U.K. selling out stadiums?!). A perplexing conundrum for those like myself who’ve found so much to treasure in those traditions, particularly from the 60s and 70s when Brazilian music culture reached an apotheosis of creativity.

It’s been so gratifying in recent years to witness a renaissance of those musical values, as a young generation of players more connected to worldwide trends have also sought to reconnect with their own lineage. Brazilian musicians have a unique feel, perhaps samba has literally infused their DNA, no matter what style or approach they take there is always that indigenous quality to the music.

Caixa Cubo are a jazz-fusion trio who plug in to a current of Brazilian music that was exemplified by Azymuth in the 70s; though these three players have their own twist. A touch darker and less obviously Brazilian, there is something so fundamental and pure about their sound, the interaction sounds fresh and spontaneous, intimate and real.

This is a record that will continue to delight with repeated listening such is the quality and grace of the playing. The sole vocal track Palavras (featuring Ze Leonidas) is a beguiling beauty evocative of Milton Nascimento and the best of Brazil’s melodic and harmonic traditions. Their version of Egbert Gismonti’s Baiao Malandro spins the off the wall funk of one of Brazil’s greatest composers into a more digestible contemporary form without losing any of its madcap brilliance. A triumph that will translate as well to fans of Yussef Kamaal and the younger generation of jazz converts as to seasoned old heads like myself.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Laid back, rich jazz beaming with Brazilian elegance, a true feast for the ears whilst hammocking in the sunshine.

TRACK LISTING

1 Angela
2 Khanimambo
3 Palavras
4 Lua Nova
5 Dark Prince
6 Acalanto
7 Baião Malandro

A rumble on the horizon. Gritted teeth, nuclear fizz and fissured rock. A dab of pill dust from a linty pocket before it hits: the atom split, pool table overturned, pint glass smashed — valley fever breaking with the clouds as the inertia of small town life is well and truly disrupted. Here to bust out of Doledrum, clad in a t-shirt that screams SOCIALISM and armed with drum machine, synth, pedal and icy stare are Working Men’s Club, and their self-titled debut album.

It’s hard to believe that the three fresh-faced music college kids who bounced out of nowhere and onto the 6 Music playlist with the sweet-but-potent, twangy guitar-led ‘Bad Blood’ (Melodic Records) in 2019 are the same band who clattered back there with maddening techno-cowbellpuncher ‘Teeth’ less than half a year later — and that’s because for the most part, they’re not. Having signed to Heavenly and with the hype around them building, underlying tensions came to a boil a mere five days before the band’s all-important first London headline show, and wunderkind frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant was left high and dry; guitarist Giulia Bonometti had decided to focus on her blossoming solo career, and drummer Jake Bogacki was against the new electronic direction Minsky-Sargeant saw Working Men’s Club taking. (“I guess WMC started off as a bit more guitar-based, tryna copy stuff in our own way, like the Velvets and stuff like that, but I didn’t want it to be that anymore. It became dancier and dancier as I tried to experiment”, he explains.) All that remained of the outfit was Minsky-Sargeant himself, recently recruited bassist Liam Ogburn, and — given the band’s indebtment to wood panelled, community-run venues for an early leg-up — a rather pertinent name. But with staunch determination burning in his belly, Minsky-Sargeant quickly assembled a lineup consisting of himself, Ogburn, and Mairead O'Connor (The Moonlandingz) and Rob Graham (Drenge, Baba Naga) — both of whom he had met at the Sheffield studio of producer Ross Orton (The Fall, M.I.A., Arctic Monkeys) — replaced the live drums with a drum machine, and rush-rehearsed the new setup before going ahead with the show. “If it wasn’t for Sheffield then we probably wouldn’t have played that gig” he says. “I was shitting myself, because I didn’t know what would work or not.” Luckily, something stuck: “After about three gigs with that lineup it was already way better than what we’d had before.” Two original members lighter and three new ones the richer, Working Men’s Club took on a new hard-edge permutation, their shows becoming ever more sweaty, pulsating and rammed to the rafters; their energy raw; their vigour renewed; their interplay as musicians growing ever-more intuitive and elastic. Their eponymous collection of songs is equal parts Calder Valley restlessness and raw Sheffield steel; guitars locking horns with floor-filling beats, synths masquerading as drums and Minsky-Sargeant’s scratchy, electrifying bedroom demos brought to their full potential by Orton’s blade-sharp yet sensitive production.

It was at home in the town of Todmorden in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, feeling hemmed in, that 18-year-old Syd Minsky-Sargeant first began assembling these 10 songs. “There’s not much going on, not much stuff to do as a teenager” he says. “It’s quite isolated. And it can get quite depressing being in a town where in the winter it gets light at nine in the morning and dark at four”. It is this sense of cabin fever, of “thinking that you will never escape a small town in the middle of nowhere” on which the album opens, with the boredom-lamenting and rave-reminiscent ‘Valleys’. In a post-punk talk-sing over an old-skool beat, Minsky-Sargeant begins:

Trapped, inside a town, inside my mind

Stuck with no ideas, I’m running out of time

There’s no quick escape, so many mistakes, I’ll play the long game

This winter is a curse

And the valley is my hearse, when will it take me to the grave?

Fortunately for Syd and a thousand other bored-shitless, dark-dwelling teenagers, the Calder Valley boasts a burgeoning grassroots music scene, chiefly centred around The Golden Lion in Todmorden, and the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge — both of which were instrumental in the early life of the band. “Without those venues we probably wouldn’t have been able to get into playing live music”, Minsky-Sargeant reflects. Working Men’s Club’s first ever gig, at The Golden Lion, was self-booked and self-promoted, landlord Waka having allowed the band to use the 100-capacity room above the pub for free. Even before booking himself onto the stage though, Minsky-Sargeant regularly snuck into the venue to watch the internationally renowned DJs, like Justin Robertson and Luke Unabomber, who passed through its doors. This, combined with the discovery of 808 State, his stepdad’s extensive afrobeat record collection, YouTube videos of Jeff Mills making beats on a Roland TR-909, and a chance festival encounter with Soulwax, provided sustenance and inspiration for Working Men’s Club’s developing sound. Though it is songs almost entirely written and sung by Minsky-Sargeant that appear on the record, he is quick to point out the influence of the other members of his band on the record too; that “everyone that’s been involved in this band, from the old lineup to the new lineup, played on the record, contributed and shaped it in some way, through the phases”, wheedling in and around Minsky-Sargeant’s songs, embellishing them with their own bass, guitar, key or backing vocal parts. And without Orton, “it wouldn’t have been half as good a record.” Working with the producer radically changed MinskySargeant’s songwriting practice — “I tried to replicate what he was doing in his studio in my bedroom, and think more about drum sounds and making them more complicated and messing around with synths and stuff like that. It made me think about more components than just a guitar.”

The songs following ‘Valleys’ come fast and relentless — momentum ever increasing, mission well and truly stated as the frenetic, pew-pewing ‘A.A.A.A’ speeds through to nonchalant existential groove ‘John Cooper Clarke’ — centred around the realisation that yes, even the luckiest guy alive, the Bard of Salford himself, will someday die.

Hard holds hands with soft, and rough with smooth. On washily-vocalled, Orange Juicily-guitared ‘White Rooms and People’, there are simultaneously beautifully blooming flowers and ‘people talking shit about you’, and the hazy, ricocheting ‘Outside’, the gentlest track on the album, flips straight into the tough-as-shit, industrially-geared ‘Be My Guest’, which opens the second half of the record with markedly E. Smithian brio. The opening bars of ‘Cook A Coffee’ are momentarily reminiscent of ‘Bad Blood’, but spiral into direct and uncomfortable eye contact in song-form; a lost Joy Division number from an alternate universe, about taking a dump live on the telly. ‘Tomorrow’ glitches and glimmers, whilst outro track ‘Angel’ moves between psychedelic languidity and hardcore thrash, the album playing itself out on a 12-and-a-half-minute noodle.

It is with war, free-fall, and re-birth already behind them that Working Men’s Club emerge, resilient; inspiration from across breadth of eras, genres and tour-mates merely strata in their very own indie-cum-dance-cum-techno niche in the crag.

Diva Harris, February 2020

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: It's perhaps unsurprising that a band from the Calder Valley on the edge of the Pennines draws on influences from both sides of the hills. Todmorden’s WMC have done just that, splicing the synth led sounds of 80s Sheffield with doomy Mancunian post punk stylings to create a forward thinking monster of a debut album. The acidic synths and pulsing beat of album opener “Valleys” encapsulate the claustrophobia of growing up in a small town and the smothering intensity is maintained through the industrial clatter of “A.A.A.A.”. With its funk fuelled grooves, nonchalant vocals and bitter sweet chorus, “John Cooper Clarke” could easily be an undiscovered classic from early Factory days. As side one draws to a close, the mood is lifted with the choppy guitar groove of “White Rooms and People”, and on “Outside”, it feels like they’ve escaped the town for sun kissed wide open spaces. Side two reverts to pounding industrial grooves and distorted guitars on “Be My Guest”. “Tomorrow” marries monotone vocals with a super catchy chorus while “Cook a Coffee” takes a cheeky snipe at a certain TV presenter. “Teeth” is aimed squarely at the dancefloor with its relentless synth stabs interwoven with doomy guitar riffs and “Angel” brings the album to a triumphant close: Jangling guitars and crashing cymbals over a driving rhythm that morphs into a sprawling psychedelic wig-out.

They set out to make a dance record that wouldn’t be pigeonholed as a dance record. I think they’ve nailed it.

TRACK LISTING

1 Valleys
2 A.A.A.A.
3 John Cooper Clarke
4 White Rooms And People
5 Outside
6 Be My Guest
7 Tomorrow
8 Cook A Coffee
9 Teeth
10 Angel

Written entirely in Cornish, Le Kov is exploration of the individual and collective subconscious, the myths and drolls of Cornwall, and the survival of Britain’s lesser known Brythonic language. As one of the language’s few fluent speakers, Gwenno felt a duty to make her second album entirely in Cornish: to create a document of a living language, explore her identity and the endless creative possibilities of a tongue that has a very small surviving artistic output, despite having been around for at least 15 centuries.
She dove deep into research, learning about attempts to protect and progress the language and the role of women throughout Cornish history. When Gwenno considered the legends of sunken Brythonic cities Cantre’r Gwaelod, Kêr-Is, Langarrow and Lyonesse, she knew she had her starting point. These cities evoked her idea of language as its own form of psychological territory, a concept perfectly distilled by the Cornish title for the album, Le Kov – the place of memory.

But Le Kov isn’t really a concept album—the city doesn’t loom that large through these 10 songs, and you don’t need the translation sheet to appreciate the gorgeous, sea-warped psychedelia that Gwenno has created alongside long-term collaborator and producer Rhys Edwards. Evoking the music of her childhood – Brenda Wootton, Alan Stivell, BUCCA – along with Broadcast, The United States of America, White Noise and Serge Gainsbourg, Le Kov is shimmering and tarnished, rust mingled with barnacles, moss entwined with weathered rope. It’s a huge step up from her debut album, Y Dydd Olaf, featuring forlorn piano, crisp drums, and searching synth lines that seem to reach across the horizon. The sounds of the language are similarly gorgeous: “Dha wolow jy yw splann” (“your light is bright”), Gwenno marvels on Hi A Skoellyas Liv A Dhagrow (She Shed A Flood Of Tears).

Sharp-eyed observers will note that that’s also a song from Aphex Twin’s 2001 album Drukqs. “I imagined Richard D. James coming across this ‘long lost Cornish 70s folk rock song’ on vinyl in a charity shop in the city of Le Kov, and stealing the title,” says Gwenno. It’s one of just two songs where she references the city directly. The next is Herdhya (Pushing), a hypnotic song “about the feeling of isolation after the Brexit vote, and realising that you’re stuck on an island—Britain—with perhaps many people who are trying to push society back to a regressive idea of the middle ages that has never existed, and imposing that on everyone else,” says Gwenno. By contrast, Le Kov is “dhyn ni oll” (for us all), a sanctuary city and analogue for the importance of understanding that diverse identities are the foundation of any place.
There’s darkness on Le Kov, but beauty, too. Tir Ha Mor (Land And Sea) is a tribute to Peter Lanyon, the St. Ives school painter who learned to fly a glider plane in order to “get a more complete knowledge of the landscape” where he lived, and died after crashing his aircraft in August 1964. “Marghek an Gwyns was his Bardic name,” says Gwenno. “Rider of the Winds.”
And Gwenno’s playful side shines through, too. Daromres Y’n Howl (Traffic In The Sun) is a low, groovy tribute to Cornwall’s clogged roads in the summertime, featuring Gruff Rhys rapping amid dissonant brass that evoke the angry horns of tourists on the A30. And Gwenno’s favourite song is Eus Keus? (Is There Cheese?). It comes from one of the oldest surviving Cornish phrases: “Is there cheese? Is there or isn’t there? If there’s cheese, bring cheese, and if there isn’t cheese, bring what there is!”

Over the course of making Le Kov, Gwenno reconciled her anxiety over her right to make a Cornish-language pop record, and realised that, in the age of Brexit, isolationism and hostility towards the rich cultures that make modern Britain, it had a wider resonance, too. “This album is a combination of accepting the culture which your parents have valued enough to want to pass on to you, regardless how small, and utilising it in a positive way to try and make sense of the world around you, it’s also about having to accept and respect the nuances that make us all different and discovering that all of our stories share the same truth.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Never one to shy away from walking the roads-less-travelled when it comes to language use (being fluent in both Welsh and Cornish), Gwenno is flying the flag for regional language pride, as well as dominating players around the globe when she puts out a new one. 'Le Kov' is no different, perfectly produced and brilliantly enjoyable.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hi A Skoellyas Liv A Dhagrow
2. Tir Ha Mor
3. Herdhya
4. Eus Keus?
5. Jynn-amontya
6. Den Heb Taves
7. Daromres Y'n Howl
8. Aremorika
9. Hunros
10. Koweth Ker

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

When Mildlife’s debut album, Phase, was released in 2018 it didn’t so much explode on to the scene as ooze. Their mellifluous mix of jazz, krautrock and, perhaps more pertinently, demon grooves, was the word of mouth sensation of that year among open-minded DJs and diggers searching for the perfect beat.

Their emergence was backed up by European tours that demonstrated a riotously loose-limbed ap-proach to performance that was every bit as thrilling as Phase’s tantalising promise. What was more impressive was how lightly they wore influences that took in Can, Patrick Adams and Jan Hammer Group, while primarily sounding precisely like Mildlife.

By the end of 2018 they’d been nominees for Best Album at the Worldwide FM Awards (World-wide’s Gilles Peterson was a notable champion) and won Best Electronic Act at The Age Music Victoria Awards back home in Melbourne. Their progress post-Phase was cemented with a UK deal with Jeff Barrett’s Heavenly, who released How Long Does It Take? replete with Cosmic doyen Baldelli and Dionigi remixes, while last year they were officially anointed by DJ Harvey when he included The Magnificent Moon on his Pikes compilation Mercury Rising Vol II.

With Automatic, the band have made a step-change from their debut. It’s more disciplined, direc-tional and arguably more danceable. As on Phase, they are unafraid to let a track luxuriate in length without ever succumbing to self-indulgence. The arrangements, tightly structured thanks to Tom Shanahan (bass) and Jim Rindfleish’s fatback drumming, permit space for the others to add spice to the stew, topped off with Kevin McDowell’s ethereal vocals as Mildlife effortlessly glide between live performance and studio songwriting. “The recorded songs kind of become the new reference point for playing the songs live,’ says Kevin. “They both have different outcomes and we make our decisions for each based on that, but they’re symbiotic and they both influence each other. It’s usually a fairly natural flow from live to recorded back to live.”

With the current climate as it is, opportunities to take this album out into the live arena where the band truly come alive, might well be scant, but they are working on ways around this. “We were hoping to visit new places with this album but that’s required a bit of rethink. We have a lot more videos planned for this year and we’ll be doing shows in Australia when things re-open but it’s still all just wait and see for now.” One thing’s for sure, post-lockdown will be one hell of a party.

The centrepiece of Automatic is the title track where the band sound like Kraftwerk and Herbie Hancock on quarantined lockdown in Bob Moog’s Trumansburg workshop. It’s both a departure and quintessentially Mildlife. This is music you can dance to rather than ‘dance music’ and it’s all the better for it.

- Bill Brewster

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Mildlife's first LP 'Phase' wowed us all at Picc HQ and their subsequent live shows sent all and sundry into utter rapture. Their second LP takes a little side step away from the more cosmic moments of their debut, leaning into a more sleek and streamlined discoid style which could elicit a wiggle from even the most ardent wallflower.

TRACK LISTING

1 Rare Air
2 Vapour
3 Downstream
4 Citations
5 Memory Palace
6 Automatic

‘Not Real’ is the second album by Stealing Sheep, written, recorded and produced by band members Becky Hawley, Emily Lansley and Lucy Mercer at their studio in Liverpool.

The unifying theme of ‘Not Real’ is an interplay of fact and fiction; the edge of dreams and limits of reality.

TRACK LISTING

Sequence
Apparition
Not Real
This Time
Greed
Deadlock
Evolve & Expand
Sunk
Love
She

Defiant in the face of existential dread, The Orielles were always going to approach their second album with nothing but stellar levels of intent. Disco Volador sees the 4-piece push their sonic horizon to its outer limits as astral travellers, hitching a ride on the melodic skyway to evade the space-time continuum through a sharp collection of progressive strato-pop symphonies.

“Its literal interpretation from Spanish means flying disc but everyone experiences things differently. Disco Volador could be a frisbee, a UFO, an alien nightclub or how you feel when you fly; what happens to your body physically or that euphoric buzz from a great party,” suggests bassist and singer, Esme. “But it is an album of escape; if I went to space, I might not come back.”

Voyaging through cinematic samba, 70s disco, deep funk boogies, danceable grooves and even tripping on 90s acid house, Disco Volador is set to propel The Orielles spinning into a higher zero-gravity orbit. Written and recorded in just 12 months, it captures the warp-speed momentum of their post-Silver Dollar Moment debut album success; an unforgettable summer touring, playing festivals like Green Man and bluedot, and deepening their bond whilst witnessing the sets of their heroes Stereolab, Mogwai, and Four Tet. Disco Volador’s library catalogue vibes stem from a band lapping up and widening their pool of musical discovery whether nodding to Italian film score maestros Sandro Brugnolini and Piero Umiliani, or the Middle Eastern tones of Khruangbin and Altin Gün. “All the influences we had when writing this record were present when we recorded it, so we completely understood what we wanted this album to feel like and could bring that to fruition,” tells drummer, Sid. “This is the sound of where we are at, right now.”

Returning to Stockport’s Eve studios where the band cooked together, went swimming, took walks, and relaxed in the soundwaves of an occasional gong bath, Henry, Sid and Esme called a family reunion under the watchful whisker-twitching of studio cat, Adam (“He was probably a producer in a past life,” they say). With keysman Alex now adding texture through his classically trained know-how, they re-joined engineer Joel, and producer Marta Salogni (Liars, Björk, The Moonlandingz) whose vast expertise of drones, delays and mad effects were so intrinsic to their Disco Volador vision – sketched out by the band in Sharpie doodles on the studio wall. “Marta is so positive, she has a great way of getting the best out of us,” guitarist, Henry tells. “Marta is the 5th Orielle,” affirms Sid. “Because we’d worked together before, we were even tighter; it’s a shared mind-set.” For Marta, the feeling is mutual; “It’s sonic tidying really, the band just do their thing and I work with that.”

Built from instrumentals around the concept of “boogie to space, space to boogie,” Disco Volador’s energy comes from the melodic fission of tension and release. Recurring motifs explore space, not only of earth’s celestial atmosphere, but also what happens within the gaps and how sound manipulation has the power to carry, or displace, its listener. “We like throwing in wide curveballs by taking the music somewhere different then figuring our way back… like jumping off,” says Henry. “Jez from ACR taught us about pauses and that’s massive on this record; space can be the most beautiful part of a song.” In fact, by unleashing the tension with their own smattering of esoteric noise through delay pedal fuckery, the layered poetics on ‘Whilst The Flowers Look’ and ‘Memoirs of Miso’s saxophone stylistics (loaned by Glasgow band Lylo’s Iain McCall), filling voids is exactly what gives the album its magic. “Those unplanned moments are great,” Sid says, “mistakes can become something special. For these next shows we’ll have to change our tech spec up so much!”

At times haunting and unsettling, Disco Volador’s film-like structure flows from fact to fiction. Its tales are culled from waking life as easily as they become a soundtrack for lucid dream sequences. Watching Foley-inspired 70s thriller Berberian Sound Studio whilst recording may account for the album’s dynamic sound effects – created with Eve’s array of instruments plus Henry’s flexatone - a Secret Santa gift from Esme. Lynchian outros capture the album’s thematic dread as they spiral into infinity and pave the way for potential loops, imitating the fades between the songs of the band’s summer DJ sets. Brian Eno-inspired dreams about a rocket-fuelled mission may or may not have inspired ‘Rapid’ or ‘Come Down On Jupiter’ after ideas sunk deeper into their subconscious. “I’d been reading about phenomenology and Czechoslovakian writer Milan Kundera’s ideas about existence; the weight of your own body, what you feel and how that interacts with your surroundings,” hints Esme, at possible inspiration behind the lyrics.

Whilst the future of the world and its current cosmic wasteland might be up in the air, The Orielles’ new album has its feet beating out a much-needed four to the dancefloor. Welcome to Disco Volador; time really does fly when you’re having this much fun.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Wow, no second album worries whatsoever for The Orielles, then! Crashing into our hearts with their supernaturally energised blend of psych, post-punk, dream pop, disco, Tropicalia and good old fashioned indie-pop, this record absolutely does it all. Some of the baggy grooves on their debut have been whipped up to speed; this is a taught, funky, crisp and punchy sound. I’d say it's also a more experimental record, definitely more challenging, but that doesn’t mean the tune count is any lower: these are massive, dead catchy pop songs, designed for the dancefloor but especially the live experience; what a shame that’s been denied them (and us!) in this annus horribilis.

Opening track “Come Down On Jupiter” is a heavily phased and flanged waltz before its driving middle section and grooving outro, whilst elsewhere there’s saxophone, congas, handclaps galore, and an ever burgeoning love affair with Manchester’s very own A Certain Ratio. Lead singer Esme has such a sweet, unaffected voice in which a tiny sense of longing can be detected, though not in any navel gazing way, she’s probably pining to meet somebody out on the astral plain or she’s dreaming of space travel, cosmic connectivity or just another dimension altogether! This is music to get you off your arse alright, the drums and percussion are just incredible throughout, as is the overall production, so tasty, so nuanced, so many flavours. I really think they’re one of our best bands right now.

TRACK LISTING

1 Come Down On Jupiter
2 Rapid
3 Memoirs Of Miso
4 Bobbi's Second World
5 Whilst The Flowers Look
6 The Square Eyed Pack
7 7th Dynamic Goo
8 A Material Mistake
9 Euro Borealis
10 Space Samba (Disco Volador Theme)

As post-episode surges towards song-seeking app Shazam testify, Holmes and music supervisor Catherine Grieves left no box unmarked with their BAFTA-winning music for Seasons 1 and 2 of BBC America’s Killing Eve. Adapted from Luke Jennings’ Codename Villanelle novellas by lead-writers Phoebe Waller-Bridge (S1) and Emerald Fennell (S2), the Emmy-winning spy series has established itself as a swaggering, slippery, playful and punchy thriller of cat/mouse obsession like no other. And it comes with killer soundtracks to match, modern classics of pick’n’mix curation cut from the cloth of cinematic style but tailored with a moody, mischievous vivacity of their own

As Grieves tells the tale, it became clear during early talks that strong female voices, multiple artists and a great composer would be crucial ingredients of the show’s music. A music supervisor whose work has ranged from The Inbetweeners Movie to Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here via various TV hits (Wolf Hall, Collateral, The Casual Vacancy and beyond), Grieves already knew of the Belfast-born Holmes’ formidable CV. In between his work as a DJ, rock’n’soul remix artist and band-leader, Holmes’ screen output has ranged from music movies (Good Vibrations) and sundry retro-cool Steven Soderbergh pics (Out of Sight, the Ocean’s Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen trilogy and more) to various stylish TV dramas, among them London Spy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Unloved - It's Not You, It's Me
2. Fabienne Delsol - I'm Gonna Haunt You
3. Unloved - Damned
4. Poppy Family - Where Evil Grows
5. Unloved - Remember
6. Fireflies - She's My Witch (Edit)
7. Unloved - Tell Mama (Killing Eve)
8. Le Volume Courbe - Born To Lie
9. Unloved - I Could Tell You But I'd Have To Kill
10. Unloved - Her (Killing Eve)
11. Unloved - Lee
12. Jane Weaver - Modern Kosmology
13. Dalida - Vai Tu Sei Libero
14. The Delmonas - Dangerous Charms
15. Ramases - Screw You
16. Jacqueline Taieb - La Plus Belle Chanson
17. Willeke Alberti - Vlinder Van Een Zomer (Angel Of The Morning)
18. Bertrand Belin - Comment ça Se Danse
19. Cigarettes After Sex - Opera House

For the making of ‘Keepsake’, the Brisbane-bred musician otherwise known as Harriette Pilbeam recorded in a home studio in Melbourne and worked again with John Castle - the producer behind ‘Sugar & Spice’, a 2018 release that prompted Pitchfork to dub Hatchie the “dream-pop idol of tomorrow.” And while the album begins and ends with two massively catchy pop tracks - the brightly defiant ‘Not That Kind’ and the euphoric and epic ‘Keep’ - many songs drift into more emotionally tangled terrain, shedding light on experiences both ephemeral and life-changing.

Throughout ‘Keepsake’, Hatchie’s kaleidoscopic sonic palette draws out distinct moods and tones, continually revealing her depth and imagination as a musician and songwriter. On lead track ‘Without A Blush’, jagged guitar riffs and woozy rhythms meet in a sprawling piece of industrial pop, with Hatchie’s gorgeously airy voice channelling loss and longing, regret and self-doubt.

Another industrial-leaning track, ‘Unwanted Guest’, unfolds in wobbly synth lines and fantastically icy spoken-word vocals, along with lyrics about “being dragged to a party I don’t want to be at, then getting at a fight at the party, and kind of hating myself for it but hating everybody else too.” Meanwhile, on ‘Her Own Heart’, Hatchie presents a radiant jangle-pop gem that puts a singular twist on the post-breakup narrative. “I’d seen people in my life go through breakups and end up with no idea what to do with themselves,” she says. “I wrote that song from the point of view of a girl who winds up on her own and embraces having to figure out who she is, who doesn’t let her life get turned upside-down like that”.

On ‘Stay With Me’, Hatchie offers up ‘Keepsake’s most utterly rhapsodic track, all incandescent synth and unstoppable rhythm. “At first I thought I could never put that on my album - it felt too dancey and pop, and I figured it could really shine on someone else’s record,” she says. “But then I realized: I’m the one dictating what my sound is; what I put on my album is up to me.”

That self-possessed spirit infuses all of ‘Keepsake’, which ultimately serves as a document of a particularly kinetic moment in Hatchie’s life. “I’m not much of a nostalgic person when it comes to memories, but I do have a tendency to hold on to certain things, like tickets from the first time I went someplace on holiday,” says Hatchie in reflecting on the album’s title. “It made sense to me to call the record that, at a time when I’m going to probably end up with a lot of keepsakes - and in a way, this whole album is almost like a keepsake in itself.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Shoegaze goes pop and it's a total joy. Great songs.

TRACK LISTING

Not That Kind
Without A Blush
Her Own Heart
Obsessed
Unwanted Guest
Secret
Kiss The Stars
Stay With Me
When I Get Out
Keep

Having initially met in 2014, the process of recording Satis Factory was built upon the success of Swilley and Mattiel Brown’s time working together on their debut album. It’s a team that just works. “Jonah is a great songwriter and he’ll put a structure together and send it to me through an email, and then I’ll listen to it pretty much right away,” Mattiel explains. “And then we’ll restructure it if we need to and I’ll write a melody and lyrics to it and eventually record it.”

Where the first record was confident, this second release is even more so. This is probably down to the chemistry between them; they seem in awe of each other. “Some of Mattiel’s best lyrical writing is effortless,” Jonah says. “She’s thoughtful with what she wants to say as an artist, but also understands pop sensibilities.”

Despite Satis Factory being recorded in exactly the same way, with exactly the same team behind Mattiel’s debut, the sound is noticeably different. Jonah explained that he “had a musical objective to try new sounds and ways of recording” to Mattiel’s first record but still “keeping lo-fi elements” to the new one. “We started working on Mattiel’s first record with a dusty, cinematic, and garage rock feel to the music,” he explains. “Satis Factory has more stylistic diversity with the musical compositions and an increased level of intensity.” 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mattiel is an artist that we particularly love here at Piccadilly. I remember all of us being floored not only at the quality of her writing, stunning production and ear for a tune but thoroughly impressed at the way she rides a horse (see cover for debut album). 'Satis Factory' is every bit the incredible follow-up, and as deserving of your attention as ever. Absolutely brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1 Til The Moment Of Death
2 Rescue You
3 Je Ne Me Connais Pas
4 Food For Thought
5 Keep The Change
6 Millionaire
7 Populonia
8 Blisters
9 Athlete
10 Berlin Weekend
11 Heck Fire
12 Long Division

Something special happened to Pip Blom at the tail end of last year. It was a busy twelve months that saw the release of her frenetic EP ‘Paycheck’, two A-Listed singles at 6 Music and support slots to the likes of The Breeders, Franz Ferdinand and Garbage. Capping that off, though, moments before stepping onstage at a sold out Lexington – the London stop-off on her debut UK headline tour – the band put pen to paper and signed to Heavenly Recordings.

Now, Pip announces her first release for the label – her debut album ‘Boat’, out 31st May 2019.

Signing to Heavenly was another item crossed off Pip’s to-do list, fulfilment of one of the things she dreamed of since first picking up a guitar and the culmination of a storming 2018 that propelled Pip Blom as one of the year’s most exciting rising guitar bands.

Growing up intensely shy, it was an uncharacteristic plunge into the limelight during her teens that first kicked off Pip Blom’s musical passage: in the form of answering an advertisement for a songwriting competition.

Pip earnestly set about writing songs on a Loog guitar, a three-stringed children’s line of the instrument that aids learning, cultivating a 20-minute set and performing for the first time in front of an audience - eventually reaching the semi-finals of said competition. As you have gathered, the story didn’t end there and failing to win was anything but a deterrent.

Neither was struggling to find band members post-competition. Pip simply ploughed on as she always has, finding a way to make things work with the resources around her. Programming drums on a computer and writing and recording both bass and guitar parts, Pip decided to start self-releasing songs on the internet and it didn’t take long for people to start taking notice.

Today, that same plucky, head-on attitude characterises everything she does and it’s an absolute joy to behold - whether that’s witnessing her band’s powerfully impressive live show or listening to her honest, heart-on-sleeve approach to writing songs on record.

And ‘Boat’ is emblematic of that – an open book of Pip Blom, delivered via her undeniable knack for writing a hook-laden, 3-4 minute song; planting it in your head and making it stay there looping days after first hearing it.

There’s the kinetic combination of guitars from herself and brother Tender Blom, the effortlessly captivating vocal range which can be authoritative and intent like in the driving album opener ‘Daddy Issues’, or soothing and warm as heard in melodic middle track ‘Bedhead’. Then there are the choruses that seem to stop songs in their tracks and lift them into a different stratosphere.

The album’s earworm quality is something that has been connecting across the waters from her home country of the Netherlands, aside from the aforementioned 6 Music playlists, landing an impressive amount of spins across US college radio and a spot on the coveted Triple J playlist in Australia.

Listening through, it’s not hard to understand why. The album is wrapped up in a certain energy that, while evident the band put everything into recording it, would indicate they had a blast doing so – its infectious and, most importantly, wholeheartedly believable.

Dave McCracken bottled up that energy while overseeing the recording at Big Jelly studios in Margate, with the album then mixed by Dillip Harris in a shipping container on the banks of the Thames in East London. Its result is ten songs that, alluding to the album’s title, ferry you through Pip’s headspace via expertly crafted songs gelled together through their unassuming depth.

Pip Blom are: Pip Blom (vocals, guitar), Tender Blom (vocals, guitar), Darek Mercks (bass), Gini Cameron (drums)

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Pip has the knack of writing such immediate, hook filled pop songs that they seem immediately familiar, and not just the odd one, a whole album full! If you're a fan of classic 3 minute indie pop then this is an absolute peach!

TRACK LISTING

1 Daddy Issues
2 Don't Make It Difficult
3 Say It
4 Tired
5 Bedhead
6 Tinfoil
7 Ruby
8 Set Of Stairs
9 Sorry
10 Aha

Andy Votel says: "Working with Halo Maud's song came extremely naturally to me, and I thank Jeff [Barrett, of Heavenly] for recognising this connection. The contrast of her strong melodic songwriting combined with the fragility of her vocals is a real secret weapon and much more than just a breathy pastiche. I think Maud effortlessly captures many unique subtleties in French language music which so many contemporary bands seem to forget, and it's ingredients like these which gave me the confidence to take a more minimal route with this mix, which I appreciate.

"In the past I could only dream of finding a singer that comes close to Léonie Lousseau or Ann Sorel so working with Maud's vocals was an enjoyable experience and I already regard this short track as one of my personal favourite production achievements.... which I can't wait to play on the radio... off 7" vinyl naturally."

Maud says of the track, "I wrote the basis of the song in a few minutes, the day before a show. It was just the guitar and the voice, very simple. The rest of the track is a mix between a band jam, improvisations, ambient sounds, happy studio accidents, and all this material has been re-cut and tinkered with, until I felt it made sense. "It’s an amazing feeling to discover another vision of your own song, and Andy Votel’s version really overwhelmed me, in a good way. This is another song, but it’s still me. Thank you for this huge present.”

The original song features on Halo Maud's debut album, Je Suis Une île (which translates as "I Am An Island"), released on Heavenly Recordings last May.

Japanese four-piece CHAI may worship at the altar of kawaii - their homeland’s culture of cute– but they’re not about to be pushed around by the idle bosses and the ignorant patriarchy. The ultra-concise garage-pop race of their debut LP PINK is about to be overhauled on their new album. CHAI are ready to light the fuse; CHAI are PUNK.

“’PUNK’ for us, of course, is not the genre of music,” say the band. “‘PUNK’ to us is to overturn the worn-out values associated with ‘kawaii’ or ‘cute’ created up until this point. ‘PUNK’ is a word that expresses a strong sense of self. To be yourself more, to become the person you truly want to be, to believe in yourself in every instance!”

First single ‘Fashionista’ is a rebellious demand for self-acceptance in the face of society’s pressures: “Even if you don’t dress or do your makeup like how society expects you too, you’re still a “Fashionista” by expressing yourself how you want to. You decide what you want to wear, how you want to look, what you don’t want to wear, and that is what makes you a Fashionista!”

At the core of CHAI’s music is the concept of "Neo-Kawaii." They outlined to concept in several interviews in 2018. In Pitchfork's Rising interview, it's described as "a move towards the embrace and celebration of human imperfection. 'Neo-Kawaii' is properly summarized on the single 'N.E.O.' from PINK, which directly comments on oppressive beauty standards, offering a list of supposed imperfections that translate to 'Small eyes/Flat nose/No shape/Fat legs!' CHAI seek to reclaim them as perfect."

On ‘GREAT JOB’ CHAI compare house work to ridding yourself from all negativity. “Some people look at house work as a negative duty but it’s actually a positive duty that represents a refreshed, new you.” Yuuki picks up on this: “Of course we want to continue show our style of positivity-meets-pop but in life there’s definitely times of sadness, times of frustration and even irritating moments that with ‘PUNK’, we want everyone to know can be used as energy to fuel the positivity from the negativity”.

Lead singer and keyboardist Mana reflects this mood, this search for something heavier, but still retaining their ultra-pop framework. Maybe it’s the huge success in their native Japan, or even their cult status in the UK, touring alongside Superorganism last year – whatever the reason, there’s a silent change. She adds: “We feel a stronger sense of self… we want to create music with deeper meaning, we want to release more of our individuality”.

This inner strength comes out in the music. If PINK was a plastic, hyper-bright introduction then PUNK is a deeper, less blinding but more impactful graduation. It’s the movement from vivid orange to slow-burning red. Drummer Yuna adds: “Compared with our first album, PUNK represents a more concentrated version of all of our individualities”. Or as guitarist Kana puts it: “Everything has a PUNCH!”

Yuuki crafted the irrepressible album sleeve, with a laughing girl bursting through a shell. The message, they say, is clear: “Hello, New Me!” You under-estimate CHAI at your peril.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Chai is a fascinating middleground between clashing snarling punk (a-la Lovely Eggs etc), and the ever-increasing wave of synthy J-Pop. Brilliantly nuanced at points but swimming with the kind of carefree frivolity and funky grooves that make this an essential soundtrack to the summer.

TRACK LISTING

1 CHOOSE GO!
2 GREAT JOB
3 I'm Me
4 Wintime
5 THIS IS CHAI
6 Fashionista
7 FAMILY MEMBER
8 Curly Adventure
9 Feel The BEAT
10 Future

“Sometimes it’s hard to say how you feel,” says Jade Vincent. “These songs are vulnerable stories for me to tell — they’re things I couldn’t say out loud. But I found that I could sing them. And then I closed my eyes when they would listen.”

Listening to Vincent’s songs were her partner, the producer/composer Keefus Ciancia, and the DJ and producer/composer David Holmes. Together, Vincent, Ciancia and Holmes make up Unloved, the musical project that evolved out of a late-night Hollywood bar in 2015, released a stunning debut album the following spring, and this year crafted the soundtrack to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s acclaimed new series Killing Eve.

Now Unloved bring us their second full length record Heartbreak, a record emboldened by its predecessor to be more emotionally exposed, more musically, lyrically, and vocally audacious. In the words of Holmes: “We just get together, had a load of ideas, and Jade went off and wrote and wrote. She got deep and deep. She has an amazing story. They are amazing songs. She excelled herself.”

To enter the world of Unloved is to surrender oneself to a great musical immersion, one that seems to occupy the space somewhere between past and present, where thoughts soften and ideas mingle with twisted mancini-esque orchestrations, where music binds the dawn and dark.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Killing Eve, and it's tense atmospheres but dark humour flecked throughout wouldn't have been the same without Unloved's perfect soundtrack. Heartbreak may seem mildly chaotic at first, but brilliantly evocative orchestration and swooning, loungey vibes soon make you foret the chaos before flinging you once again into the fire. A beautifully produced and perfectly balanced filmic masterpiece. And who would have expected any less from this talented bunch?

TRACK LISTING

1 Heartbreak
2 Remember
3 Love
4 (Sigh)
5 Bill
6 Devils Angels
7 Lee
8 Danger
9 Fail We May Sail We Must
10 Love Lost
11 Crash Boom Bang
12 Boy And Girl
13 If

Fronted by Texan native Danny Lee Backwell, Myth Of A Man is Night Beats' fourth studio album, and their second for Heavenly Recordings following the release of Who Sold My Generation in 2016.

While Blackwell has always fed off the musical legacy of his Texas roots—Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Red Krayola, The Black Angels and more paving the way for the the napalm-coated psych-rock headtrip of past albums—Myth Of A Man has him pulling from the surrogate wellspring of Nashville, Tennessee.

It was there that he worked with the eminent Dan Auerbach, and a murderer’s row of battle-worn session musicians—the combined weight of experience that comes from working with every legend from Aretha Franklin to Elvis not lost on Blackwell. “I was just humbled by being accepted,” he explains, “Big hearts all around.”

In short, it’s an album that holds its own next to the classics, less of the bloodshot acid trip of Sonic Bloom (2013) and Who Sold My Generation (2016) here, Blackwell has recalibrated them, slowed them down just enough and allowed them the space to breathe and exist as something new. It’s the same book, just a different chapter. The moody organ comps and slow stroll of the 12-string on “Her Cold Cold Heart” evoke the noxious feeling and hypnotic state of toxic love, the spirit of Bill Withers is flowing through the acoustic guitar and sun-soaked shuffle of “I Wonder,” and string-trimmed ballads like “Footprints” and “Too Young To Pray” evoke the imaginative, cowboy psychedelia of fellow Texan, Lee Hazlewood. “Let Me Guess” with its searing riff and Elevators-esque organ assures us that the scuzzy sound we know and love is alive and well, while “One Thing,” a song about being used and abused—or as Blackwell sharply puts it, “being rolled up and smoked”—has plenty of fuzzed-out guitars to let us know he might just be happy about it.

Written during a particularly destructive period of the band, the album is populated by fallen angels, blood-sucking wanderers, and vindictive lovers—sketches of people the band has surely come across during their cosmic roving through the underground—but the character most present is Blackwell, himself. “Myth Of A Man can be summed up as a personal display of vulnerability and guilty conscience,” he explains, “Destroying the mythos of what it means to live and function in society.” With its bold steps forward, Myth Of A Man serves as both a takedown and reintroduction of the band as we know it—the strongest evidence that you’ll never be able to pin Night Beats down. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Her Cold Cold Heart
2. One Thing
3. Stand With Me
4. There She Goes
5. (Am I Just) Wasting My Time
6. Eyes On Me
7. Let Me Guess
8. Footprints
9. I Wonder
10. Too Young To Pray

If you’re going to call your band audiobooks, you’d better have some good stories to tell. Stories that should move you and ones to make you move. Stories about real life and surreal life and all that weirdness that you just glimpsed out of the corner of your eye.

Luckily for you, audiobooks really do. The London based duo have developed a unique ability to conjure up magical aural snapshots that wallop you like bong hits. Each of their discombobulating observations comes stretched out over a series of discomfiting oscillations, like messages from the spirit world or pulp fictions found in a box at the end of your road or a crackling pop broadcast from a far away galaxy;

Out there, across the wavelengths or in the musty pages of their books, there’s a girl who’s lost in lust, sat eating mussels on a South Wales beach; there’s an alcohol-fuelled vision of Hell as a family melts down in an airport departure lounge and there’s a carsick dog in the back of your Grandma Jimmy’s car. There’s womanly blood flowing and there’s friends in your bubble bath and there’s some very large pinches of hot salt.

So who’s telling these stories? Who are the people writing these audiobooks?

On the face of it, Evangeline Ling - a 21 year old art student and musician from Wimbledon - and David Wrench - one of the most in demand mixers and producers in modern music, a sometime cohort of Julian Cope and former denizen of North Wales – might seem an unlikely pairing. Yet a chance encounter at a mutual friend’s party just one week after David had moved south to the capital very quickly led to an experimental studio session that’s been going on ever since.

Evangeline: “I’d found myself writing these odd stories as text messages on my phone. They were too short to be proper stories… they were fragments. I’d told David about them when we met and he said, ‘Come into the studio and let’s put them to music.’” David: “It was so perfect – this incredible text message…” Evangeline: “The next day, we started making music. We realised pretty much immediately that what we were doing might just connect. I’m not a technically minded person, musically – David is – but we kind of synced in because we bonded as human beings. We just met and connected; I immediately trusted David. We didn’t really chat about who we are…” David: “Neither of us are any good at small talk so we just got working and it was crazily fast, everything about it. We’ve never spent more than an hour on a track. We go in, we improvise and we either keep it or we don’t. There might be a bit of editing the next day but the creation is done incredibly quickly.” Evangeline: “We’d work on a track and then we’d just sit and do nothing. He’d work on a mix for someone or play some records, I’d have a nap or paint or draw…” David: “The second time Evangeline turned up at the studio she arrived in her pyjamas. She’d come all the way from Wimbledon to east London in a pair of Batman pyjamas.” Evangeline: “I hadn’t slept all night, I’d just had this crazy adrenaline. I knew we were doing something really special and I couldn’t wait to get there. I didn’t have any clean clothes so I just thought, ‘Sod this, I’ve got to go’.”

Stories about audiobooks are as fantastical as the ones they’ve set to music, whether it’s crossing London in bed wear, misheard lyrics accidentally creating perma-tanned Welsh women (Swansea’s “Orange Gina” was once innocently a can of the famous French fizzy pop) or the fact they bonded over a mutual frustration with people who hoard as much as they did shared taste in music.

From their first meeting, Evangeline and David’s friendship has been influenced by the records they flipped through in his newly set up studio in Old Street. Very quickly, the pair found inspiration in music by artists as diverse as Bauhaus, Aphrodite’s Child, Marilyn Manson, Michael Jackson, Flower Traveling Band, the Fall, Faust, Tropicalia and Dory Previn.

Evangeline: “Dory frickin Previn, man.” David: “Her record Mythical Kings and Iguanas is an incredible piece of work; she really was a genius. Lyrically, that’s maybe the closest link to audiobooks.”

If the bracingly honest and often troubled words of Previn helped influence Evangeline’s stories, the music they’re set to comes from an entirely different place. Having developed a kind of psychic musical response to Evangeline’s surrealist texts, David set about soundtracking the weird worlds she was delivering on a daily basis. Much of the resulting music – at times odd, beautiful, unique, hilarious, disquieting, pensive, hypnotic, open, free – is collected together on Now, in a minute! – the mind-bending follow up to the head-turning four track Gothenburg EP and the duo’s first full length album.

Like the band themselves, Now, in a minute! doesn’t do the things that you’d expect. While opener Mother Hen might be a modernist nursery rhyme sat atop skittering proggy electronics, the dual vocals on the tracks Hot Salt and Friends in the Bubble Bath perfectly channel the conflict and contradiction of Don’t You Want Me into something ultra-modern and almost ludicrously addictive. Elsewhere, the primal, gothic drone of Womanly Blood sits like a brooding weather condition until it rips apart thanks to some heavy percussive artillery from Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa (the only other contributor to the record) and Dance Your Life Away sounds like the soundtrack to the kind of inhibition free moonlight voodoo party that you wish your mates had invited you at Glastonbury last year.

David: “With that track particularly, we wanted to emulate that thing Michael Jackson did where he uses sounds really rhythmically to inject an incredible energy into his music… I love it when vocals become their own thing that can’t really be written down.” Evangeline: “And we were listening to a lot of Marilyn Manson in the studio. I find the way he sings very rhythmically really inspiring.”

A band that takes its cues from the King of Pop and the Antichrist Superstar, creates music in daily automatic writing sessions and rides the neon ley lines that connect of the North Wales coast to the psycho-bustle of after hours London are clearly on a very singular path to greatness – a path they’re already someway down, having taken their first footsteps out of the studio and onto the stage for a handful of truly mesmerizing live shows.

Time, then, to welcome these strange superheroes - this inhuman league - into your life. You might not know it yet but the story is already written. It says audiobooks are your new favourite band.

TRACK LISTING

1 Mother Hen
2 Hot Salt
3 It Get Be So Swansea
4 Friends In The Bubble Bath
5 Womanly Blood
6 Grandma Jimmy
7 Dance Your Life Away
8 Call Of Duty Free
9 Period Talk
10 Spooky Algorithms
11 Dealing With Hoarders
12 Car Sick
13 Pebbles

Japanese culture has long since developed a fascination with the cute, the innocent, the throwaway; it’s termed ‘kawaii’, more of a cult than a concept, and it runs through the veins of incoming hyper-animated four-piece Chai.

Hailing from Japan’s Nagoya region, the band formed around identical twins Mana and Kana, before close friends Yuna and Yuuki completed the line up.

Imagine a world dominated by bright colours and squeaky clean plastic, where endless cartoons and guilt-free meal times combine to offer hymns to empowerment, and a rejection of the mundane. Imagine Chai’s electrifying, hallucinatory, but wonderfully real debut mini-album ‘Pink’.

Plugged in to pop culture on a 24/7 basis, Chai practically have modems for stomachs and phone lines for veins. Just the first glitter-strewn belch to eminate from Chai, ‘Pink’ is the kind of guilt-free hyper-pop overdose you’ve waited your entire life to hear. It’s cute, but beneath the surface there’s a whole new world to explore.

TRACK LISTING

Hi Hi Baby
N.E.O
Boyz Seco Men
Horechatta
Fried
She Is Kitty

"It’s about the concepts and stories we invent to understand our experienced reality and feel like we matter somehow, and about the fluid and sometimes contradictory nature of these stories. Like the concept of romantic love, for example. Is this actually a thing? Sometimes it seems so tangible it becomes my whole world, other times I’m convinced it’s just a scam I keep falling for. Both of these sentiments feel equally true at different times. The same with politics and identity. When I’m in the Netherlands I don’t really pay much attention to being “Dutch” or “European”, and I think politicians who focus on a shared Dutch culture are lame at best and dangerous at worst. Then when I’m in the US being Dutch all of a sudden seems to be a huge part of my identity. I guess the point is, whatever idea I have about myself or about love, politics, morality, and anything at all, is so fluid and relative that I’m finding it hard to say that I trust any of my own views, ideas or perceptions anymore. Which sucks, because I really want to find meaning to this life, and it’s hard to find that when you don’t trust any of your own experiences. For example, happiness: I have this Calvinistic idea that in order to achieve happiness, I have to struggle, I have to earn it by overcoming challenges, developing myself, etc. But the end-result will just be the same as if I did nothing: you die and then nothing you’ve done or achieved matters anymore. So does a human life move upwards towards a certain goal, or is it just a chain of random events? And what about our collective history, does it move towards a goal, is there progress, or is it just a random collection of events? I think most people like to think there is progress, both in their personal life as well as in the world at large, that we are working towards being a better more developed person and also towards collectively building a better world. At the same time, we tend to romanticize the past and think everything was better “back in the days”. Something I’ve always wondered is whether these concepts and experiences can be translated from the individual to the masses, and from the psychological to the physical. For example this last sentiment: that the past somehow always feels like it was better in some way than the present. I’m definitely guilty of this on a personal level. When I think about being a kid and growing up, all those memories are kind of covered in a warm and golden haze. You remember the good stuff very clearly, and all those moments when you were just bored sitting in front of the TV or staring at the clock in school waiting for the bell to ring kind of fade away, even though that was probably about 50% of your time being a kid. This same process seems to happen in whole nations, too, where we collectively decide that the past was better than the present and we feel the need to “take back control” or “make something great again” and all that jazz. And the same with romantic love. The minute you’ve broken up with someone and you’ve walked out the door, you start to idealize and romanticize what it was like being in that relationship and forget about all the fucked up thing that came with it. In a way it makes sense to romanticize the past. Maybe it’s one way to feel like the time we’ve spent in this mortal life was worth something, that it wasn’t all bad. We need to be able to tell a story about it, if we encounter a challenge we want to feel like it meant something, it made us grow. Just accepting that some bad shit happened to us for no good reason is hard. It’s pretty impressive how positive and hopeful we are as a species. Just like most of the movies we make always have a happy ending. It wouldn’t feel right if they didn’t. And even in these times, when we’re apparently on the brink of a sixth wave of extinction, climate scientists who say that they are certain the human species doesn’t have much of a future still also say they are sure something will happen or be invented to save us, even if they have no idea what or how. In a way being a tourist is like a condensed version of all these hopes and dreams and disappointments. We went on a road trip in California right after we finished recording in LA and it was pretty fascinating. Like, why do people even go on vacation? I guess for a lot of people it’s a way to escape fixed patterns, to go out and have “real experiences”, to “feel alive”. But then you’re on this road trip and internally you’re still the same old human, who is still plagued by the same insecurities and boredom and is wondering where the nearest bathroom is and are we there yet because it’s so hot in the car and the AC sucks.

And voila, I guess the record is about my personal, mundane, relative and subjective experience of the human condition so far in this life." - Amber Arcades

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It sounds amazing, beautiful nuanced journeys through acoustic balladry and heavier, driven sections, bolstered with those unmistakeable vox.

Now that that's out of the way, how many yellow suits does De Graaf have? Having seen them play, and seen her sporting the exact same costume, it made me wonder how i've never seen one in the wild but would assume that being on tour, she must have a few? You should buy this anyway, it's dead good.

TRACK LISTING

1 Simple Song
2 Hardly Knew
3 Oh My Love (What Have We Done)
4 Goodnight Europe
5 Alpine Town
6 I've Done The Best
7 Self-Portrait In A Car At Night
8 Something's Gonna Take Your Love Away
9 Antoine
10 Where Did You Go
11 Baby, Eternity

Over the last decade, Lanegan and Garwood have worked in tangent on 2013’s Black Pudding as well as on Lanegan’s solo records (Garwood contributed to 2012’s Blues Funeral and 2017’s Gargoyle after which he toured as part of Lanegan’s band). Writing and recording was split between studio collaboration and sharing music between Garwood’s home in London and Lanegan’s in Los Angeles. Elsewhere, technology helped make the duo’s transatlantic working relationships relatively easy.

“Over the years, we’ve recorded together and apart. This time, I started this record alone, with many animals as company,” says Garwood. “It flowed, I set to work and out it came. Our music is instinct, there is not much talking about it, just creating. I think that if you are at peace with your work, and feeling it right, it flows, and can feel ‘easy’. Music isn't meant to be hard. Though sometimes it can burn you to ashes. Making music for a singer, so they can inhabit it with a song means hitting the right soul buttons. There is no hit without a miss. It is a healing record, for us the makers, and for the listeners. It grows natural. We are gardeners of sonic feelings.”

While Black Pudding put Garwood’s mercurial guitar centre stage, With Animals is constructed from a different set of tools. Analogue and dust flecked, it sounds like Lanegan and Garwood have been holed up in a ’60s recording studio while the apocalypse rages outside. Tracks sit on loops that sounds like they’re straight out of There’s A Riot Goin’ On while sparse melodies nod in the direction of British electronic producers like Burial or Boards of Canada. Which is not to say it sounds like any of those things – this is a weird world all of their own design.

The record’s 12 songs are spectral and sinewy, often defined by the spaces in between the sounds. A ghost’s whistle weaves itself around a pulsing single note on Lonesome Infidel; Feast to Famine’s hard luck story floats above a guitar part so strung out and washed with distortion it’s become barely recognisable. It’s soul music for anyone who’s long since left the crossroads.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brimming with morose energy and perfectly measured songwriting, an album from these two veterans was never going to be anything but mindblowing, and here we have it. Lanegan and Garwood have managed to meet perfectly in the dark ether between their two styles and 'With Animals' is every bit the perfect fusion.

TRACK LISTING

1 Save Me
2 Feast To Famine
3 My Shadow Life
4 Upon Doing Something Wrong
5 L.A Blue
6 Scarlett
7 Lonesome Infidel
8 With Animals
9 Ghost Stories
10 Spaceman
11 One Way Glass
12 Desert Song

It’s a familiar story: fledgling singer does soul-sucking day job in order to fund their real passion during the nocturnal hours. Except Mattiel Brown, Atlanta’s rising star, is a rare exception to this time-honoured tradition: a fulfilled creative by day and night, albeit in different contexts. “It’s like I have two full-time jobs: designer and musician,” she says, humbly hip to her good fortune.

During office hours, Brown works as an ad designer and illustrator at MailChimp, a position she’s enjoyed for four years. “I work with a great video production team, in a great studio. Luckily, they’re a company that encourage side gigs.” Out of office hours, Brown swaps the design studio for the stage, a softly-spoken, chilled-out design nerd turned rock & roll belter, performing bold, vintage soul as Mattiel (pronounced ‘maa-TEEL’).

Brown grew up on a five-acre farm in rural Brooks, Georgia, the only child of a Detroit native. “My mom bought the farm in the early ‘90s. She had – still has – horses, so I learned to ride western-style when I was 6, 7 years-old,” (a skill Brown nods to in her cover art). “We had a vegetable garden and chickens. My mom would sell sheep’s wool and eggs. Before that, she’d been a professional set decorator working on films. She’s a really driven, creative person. I definitely inherited my work ethic from her.”

As an adolescent, Brown delighted in the ‘60s folk and pop of her mother’s limited vinyl collection: Donovan, Peter Paul and Mary, and Joan Baez. As an adult, relocated in neighbouring Atlanta, she’d sing along to the radio on the long drives to work: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Andre 3000, Dylan, Marc Bolan, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Jack White.

When Brown first began jamming with InCrowd, the Atlanta-based song-writing and production team behind her dynamite eponymous debut, she had no real designs on making a whole album and no game plan beyond the fun of “creating something out of nothing.” She said, “That process is always pretty astounding to me, and doing it with other people is even better.” But her producers, Randy Michael and Jonah Swilley, knew a good thing when they heard it: Brown and InCrowd had chemistry.

InCrowd’s founders, both skilled multi-instrumentalists, met in 2014, as session musicians touring with soul man Curtis Harding. Michael – an experienced player who’d co-written with Harding and racked up impressive session spots with the likes of Bruno Mars, and The Next Day-era Bowie – played guitar, while Swilley ¬(producer, writer and performer since age 9 and younger brother of Black Lips bassist Jared) played drums. On the road, they bonded over a mutual love of vintage R&R and ‘90s rap. “We discovered we both loved The Beatles as much as Jay-Z, Dylan as much as the Arctic Monkeys,” remembers Swilley. Back in Atlanta, once the Harding tour had wrapped, the pair formed a band, Black Linen, writing reverb-washed guitar music inspired by Tarantino soundtracks, by way of ‘60s Cambodian psych. Brown knew Michael from his days in The Booze, a popular local act who’d tour with OK Go before their demise. She’d kept track of him, aware that they shared a musical kinship. “[Randy] was the only person I knew who was into the music I was into.” When she reached out, asking to cut a Donovon cover record at Michael’s garage-turned-studio, Toco Electric, he was dubious. “I thought she'd have this little, whispery voice, you know? But she blew me away! She sounded like ‘60s-era Cher doing Dylan or something. I just knew she’d be perfect for the Black Linen stuff.” “We knew immediately that we wanted to work with her,” Swilley concurs. By then, around 2014, InCrowd were deep on a ’50s Leiber and Stoller bend, says Michael: “The Coasters, The Drifters, all that good stuff.” Bored with Atlanta’s “ultra cool” enclaves, they’d built their own scene, says Michael. They’d put on and promote reviews-style gigs, a 12-man strong house band (“our very own Wrecking Crew”) backing various InCrowd vocalists. “We were just making it happen, doing it ourselves.”

In the studio, Michael cut InCrowd records live, no overdubs, feeding everything through a rare analogue Peavey soundboard. “That’s how InCrowd rolls. What you hear on our records is everyone playing and singing together, in the same room, at the same time. We cut it right there, as it happens, and its either magic or its not.”

Mattiel’s process was just so: InCrowd supplied the instrumental compositions – raucous, swinging medleys frilled with organs and brass – while Brown provided vocals and lyrics, the latter often written freestyle, in situ. “That’s where the parallels between music and design really happen,” says Brown. “Your limitations – time, space, expense – push you to be as creative as you can with what you have.”

The resulting collection of songs is a dynamite salvo of retro-inspired rock & soul, from the gun-slinging stomp of “Whites Of Their Eyes,” to the string-laden self-affirmation of “Count Your Blessings,” penned by Brown after a spate of the blues brought on by a period of ill health. “Its a song I wrote for myself to myself, like 'you’re gonna get through this, you’re gonna be okay.'”

Mattiel’s sound might borrow from the past, but their art direction – Brown’s inspiring handiwork, of course – is decidedly forward-thinking, all colour block aesthetics (á la the White Stripes) and artful, design-savvy music videos. “I don’t wanna hit people over the head with like, bell bottoms and long hair and a Jimmy Hendrix outfit,” Brown laughs. “People have seen all that before.”

Mattiel is a “fresh mesh of retro and contemporary,” says Swilley, the latter thanks in large part to Brown’s vision, voice and on-stage energy. “She's very exciting to watch. She doesn't rehearse it or try to emulate anyone; she's just doing own her thing. And she's not fazed by the crowds [as evidenced during their shows to date: a recent, three-date support slot for Portugal The Man]. It’s kind of incredible really, because in person she's pretty chilled and softly spoken, but when she gets on stage...in the last six months, she's really been killing it.”

With a European festival circuit tour scheduled for this summer, Mattiel is no longer Atlanta’s best kept secret. Look out, world.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: This ace debut is an explosion of 60's....ooh: EVERYTHING! Classic, warm, garage riffing, soully melodies but with a huskily honeyed folky voice. And the songwriting is superb!

TRACK LISTING

1. Whites Of Their Eyes
2. Send It On Over
3. Baby Brother
4. Not Today
5. Cass Tech
6. Bye Bye
7. Five And Tens
8. Silver Pillbox
9. Just A Name
10. Count Your Blessings
11. Salty Words
12. Ready To Think

Boy Azooga, the shape-shifting musical mystery tour piloted by Cardiff’s Davey Newington have announced details of the release of their debut album, 1,2 Kung Fu!, on Heavenly Recordings.

A prodigous musical talent, Davey Newington is a young man with a rich musical heritage. One of his granddads was a jazzer who played drums for the Royal Marines. Davey’s dad (violin) and his mum (clarinet) both played, and met, in the BBC National Orchestra Of Wales. Davey himself took up drums at the age of six and also enjoyed orchestral engagement, playing in various Welsh Orchestra’s and Jazz bands as a teenager as well at latterly finding gainful employment playing drums as part of Charlotte Church’s Late Night Pop Dungeon.

Inspired by his art teacher at school who sent him off to town to buy Can’s Ege Bamyasi, taking musical cues from the likes of Sly & The Family Stone, Caribou, Black Sabbath, Outkast, Van McCoy, Ty Segall and The Beastie Boys and with arrangements which carry the wonky tunefulness of The Super Furry Animals they nabbed their name from the 1994 film The Little Rascals.

With a Davey recruiting friends Daf Davies, Dylan Morgan and Sam Barnes to form the Boy Azooga live quartet, an ensemble that swings smoothly from filmic instrumentals to a churning, rave-tinged rock that hints at both Can and their progeny, the Happy Mondays, the band played a number of headline and support shows across the U.K. at the end of last year, including a manic sold-out hometown show in Cardiff at Clwb Ifor Bach almost a year to the day they made their debut in the city at the same venue.

They take their loose-limbed live show on the road later this year and the dates include their own headline shows, support slots with The Magic Gang & Rolling Blackouts and Coastal Fever and an appearance at this year’s Heavenly Weekender at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Brilliant work here from Cardiff's newest prodigal talent, Boy Azooga. I have it on good opinion that Davey is a 'Lovely. happy chap' (Graf, 2018), but I can tell you that he is indeed a venerable talent, and deserving of every bit of praise this soaring psychedelic-indie-synthy wonder garners. Fully brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Breakfast Epiphany
2. Loner Boogie
3. Face Behind Her Cigarette
4. Walking Thompson's Park
5. Jerry
6. Breakfast Epiphany II
7. Taxi To Your Head
8. Losers In The Tomb
9. Hangover Square
10. Waitin'
11. Sitting On The First Rock From The Sun

Halo Maud’s first release on Heavenly is a recap of the story so far ahead of an album release later this year – three tracks of this EP originally came out on a Canadian label last year, with the difference that ‘Du Pouvoir’ now features some English lyrics, and ‘À La Fin’ and ‘Dans La Nuit’ cropped up on a La Souterraine compilations in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Maud Nadal has been a member of both Moodoïd and Melody’s Echo Chamber’s live bands, and of course at times there are comparisons to be drawn with MEC, with both teetering on a crystalline peak where extreme joy and despair meet. But if anything Nadal’s own melodies are even more indelible, and her voice turns them into vapour trails.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hazy harmonies, rolling grooves and insistent percussive workouts form the backbone to Nadal's often haunting vocal flourishes, sometimes falling behind to give the vocals their own space. Perfectly measured and beautifully written immersive indie anthems.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wherever
2. Du Pouvoir/Power
3. Chanceuse
4. Surprise
5. Tu Sais Comme Je Suis
6. De Retour
7. Baptism
8. Fred
9. Je Suis Une Île
10. Proche Proche Proche
11. Dans La Nuit
12. Des Bras

If you’re going to call your band audiobooks, you’d better get your stories straight. Evangeline Ling and David Wrench have great stories. Their songs are full of them - discombobulating observations over discomfiting oscillations. There are woozy fly-on-the-wall accounts of boozy art gallery openings and out of body journeys through the capital at night, all stretched out over stuttering, glitchy glam electronics. Managing to be spontaneous and playful yet fully focused, as if driven by some pagan design, audiobooks ride the sharp neon ley-lines that run between the north Wales coast and the grubby heart of after hours London. These songs are Pulp fictions by an inhuman league. They’re our new favourite band. Start following the story now.

Sidonie Hand Halford is a Christmas temp at the Post Office in Liverpool, her younger sister Esme is studying English literature at Manchester, and their friend Henry Wade is preparing to sit his A-levels in Halifax next summer. 

From the first jangling sunshine chords on opening track ‘Mango’, Silver Dollar Moments announces itself as a proper piece of indie pop goodness. Then, across 45 minutes, it takes all kinds of turns, into ESG-ish yips and funk, dreamy-arch harmonies, disco synth-pows and stoner bongos, unsettling submerged voices - with all that and more it still flows like a fountain of indie pop, fresh and catchy and altogether.

Maybe one reason it all coheres so beautifully is that The Orielles are a close-knit unit: two sisters and their best mate. “We met Henry at a house party a few years ago,” says Sid. “I mean, it’s a bit lamer than that sounds. It was a friend of our parents, she was having a 40th birthday party, and we went along, and Henry was there too, with his parents.” They’ve been writing songs together ever since, Esme singing and on bass, Sidonie on drums, Henry on guitar. They’ve played live all over the UK as well as Europe and North America, and this year they signed to Heavenly Recordings and headed into Eve Studios in Stockport.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mango
2. Old Stuff New Stuff
3. Sunflower Seeds
4. Let Your Dog Tooth Grow
5. Liminal Spaces
6. The Sound Of Liminal Spaces (edit)
7. I Only Bought It For The Bottle
8. Henry’s Pocket
9. 48 Percent
10. Borrachero Tree
11. Snaps
12. Blue Suitcase (Disco Wrist)

‘Sound Of Water’ was first released in 2000 and was developed as Saint Etienne’s ambient and trip hop statement.

The album’s lead single was the sprawling, multi-movement ‘How We Used To Live’, which was not edited down from its 9-minute running length for single release.

Their previous US release ‘Places To Visit’ was clearly the beginning of this new direction. Many of the artists with whom they collaborated on that EP are present on ‘Sound Of Water’.

Finally available on LP since original release. Includes postcard digital download card and printed inner sleeve.

‘Finisterre’ is Saint Etienne’s sixth studio album, first released in 2002.

‘Finisterre’ contains a wide mixture of sounds and styles. The album returned to the inclusion of vocal interludes between songs as last heard on their album ’So Tough’ and a more angular, electronic sound, particularly on tracks such as ‘Action’, ‘Shower Scene’ and ‘New Thing’.

‘Language Lab’ and ‘Summerisle’ recall the ambient style of ’Sound Of Water’, while ‘Stop And Think It Over’ would not have been out of place on ’Good Humor’ or its predecessor ‘Tiger Bay’.

The album sleeve features a photograph of the East London tower block Ronan Point shortly after it collapsed in 1968 with the loss of four lives.

LP with postcard, digital download card, printed inner sleeve. Never before reissued on vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Action
Amateur
Language Lab
Soft Like Me
Summerisle
Stop And Think It Over
Shower Scene
The Way We Live Now
New Thing
B92
The More You Know
Finisterre

‘Continental’ (1997) was originally released in Japan only, later made available on CD outside of Japan in 2009. This is the first time it has been reissued on vinyl.

It is a compilation that includes previously released material such as the UK hit ‘He's On The Phone’ as well as curios like their cover of the Paul Gardiner/Gary Numan song ‘Stormtrooper In Drag’.

Many of the tracks were recorded during the 'wilderness' years of 1996/97 when the band members worked on their separate projects.

TRACK LISTING

Shad Thames
Burnt Out Car
Sometimes In Winter
Winter Melody
Public Information Film
The Process
He's On The Phone
Stormtrooper In Drag
Star
Down By The Sea
The Sea
Lonesome
Angel

Well, this is rather nice! A super-limited 12" in a hand stamped and numbered screen printed sleeve.

Artwork by H. Hawkline.

Last Thing On Your Mind and unreleased b side "More Salt".

Recorded in Los Angeles with Samur Khouja, who worked with Huw on his last album, In The Pink Of Condition, the track features Cate Le Bon and Josiah Steinbrick.

Talking about the track, Huw said:

'It waits like the cat who knows it'll eventually get cream. Sits, makes eyes and then sips, always watching, one eye on the washer, the warm smell of fresh china'

The Home Counties are an embarrassing place to come from. The name itself suggests that somehow the rest of Britain isn’t ‘home’, not even London. Saint Etienne grew up in the Home Counties. Here are sixteen new songs they have written about a day in the life of this doughnut of shires that ring the capital, punctuated by bursts of BBC radio to remind you what time it is and all connected by train journeys - main lines, branch lines, commutes, escapes.

The love / hate relationship people have with ‘home’ is particularly acute in the Home Counties. Yet Saint Etienne understand that if you squint, it could be almost utopian.

The album was produced by Shawn Lee of Young Gun Silver Fox, with support from Augustus (Kero Kero Bonito), Carwyn Ellis (Colorama, Edwyn Collins), Robin Bennett (The Dreaming Spires), Richard X (Girls On Top / Black Melody) and long-time collaborator Gerard Johnson (Denim, Yes). It was recorded in Central London. Sarah, Bob and Pete commuted to the studio every day for six weeks.

TRACK LISTING

The Reunion
Something New
Magpie Eyes
Whyteleafe
Dive
Church Pew Furniture Restorer
Take It All In
Popmaster
Underneath The Apple Tree
Out Of My Mind
After Hebden
Breakneck Hill
Heather
Sports Report
Train Drivers In Eyeliner
Unopened Fan Mail
What Kind Of World
Sweet Arcadia
Angel Of Woodhatch

There’s a singer with a voice 50 fathoms deep and the consistency of vitrified teak, who has been known to go to extremes in search of a song. Across continents, over oceans, through multiple time zones. From West Hollywood to... Tunbridge Wells. A long way – but Mark Lanegan knows the directions.

Early in 2016, Mark was at home in Los Angeles, working on some ideas for what might turn into his next album. He wasn’t too thrilled by what he was coming up with. Then he got an email from a friend, an English musician named Rob Marshall, thanking Mark for contributing to a new project he was putting together, Humanist. The pair first met in 2008, when Marshall’s former band Exit Calm supported Soulsavers, who Mark was singing with at the time. Now Rob was offering to write Mark some music to return the favour.

“I was like, Hey man, I’m getting ready to make a record, if you’ve got anything?’” Mark recalls. “Three days later he sent me *10 things… !”

In the meantime, Mark had written Blue Blue Sea, a rippling mood piece that he thought might be a more fruitful direction for his new record, and had the idea for a song called First Day Of Winter that felt like an apt closer. “It’s almost always how my records start,” he explains. “I let the first couple of songs tell me what the next couple should sound like, and it’s really the same process when I’m writing words. Whatever my first couple of lines are tell me what the next couple should be. I’ve always built things like that, sort of like making a sculpture I guess. Start with the raw material and let that point me in the direction I want to go. So, once I was pointed in that direction, the music that came from other sources, from Rob, I just went for the ones that helped me build this narrative that I had started already.”

Within an hour, Mark had written words and vocal lines for two of the pieces Rob had cooked up at Mount Sion Studios in Kent and pinged through the virtual clouds to California. Rob's music fitted perfectly with the direction Mark had been pondering: in essence, a more expansive progression from the moody Krautrock-influenced electronica textures of his two previous albums, Blues Funeral and Phantom Radio. Eventually, Rob Marshall would co-write six of the songs on the new Mark Lanegan Band album. “I was very thankful to become reacquainted with him,” Mark deadpans.

The remainder of the album was written, recorded and produced by Lanegan's longtime musical amanuensis Alain Johannes at his 11 AD base in West Hollywood. Everything was done and dusted within a month, unusually fast by Lanegan’s recent standards. Both Blues Funeral and Phantom Radio unfurled at leisurely pace over several months. But this time Johannes had only a fixed window of opportunity due to his ongoing touring commitments as a member of P.J. Harvey’s band. But Mark was sufficiently happy with the material to move swiftly, a reflection of contentment with his abilities as a singer and writer, which have now produced a huge body of work spanning a period of more than 30 years: whether it be his own solo records, or collaborative recordings with others, or going back to his legendary first band, the Screaming Trees.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lanegan and band do it once again with this, the brilliant 'Gargoyle'. A more upbeat outlook than previous iterations, channelling the spirit of 60's psychedelia, stadium rock, downbeat folky moments and good ol fashioned songwriting talent. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

Death’s Head Tattoo
Nocturne
Blue Blue Sea
Beehive
Sister
Emperpor
Goodbye To Beauty
Drunk On Destruction
First Day Of Winter
Old Swan

It doesn’t take too long with Volcano to realise that, while all the things that made the band special the first time around remain intact, a noticeable evolution has taken place. It’s there from the outset: the beefed-up beats of Certainty reveal an expanded sonic firmament, one in which bright synth hooks and insistent choruses circle around each other over chord sequences that strike just the right balance between nice and queasy. “If there’s a sense of scale,” says lead singer James Bagshaw, “It was really just a result of implementing a load of things that we didn’t know about the first time around.” Co-founding member and bassist Thomas Walmsley describes a record in which “we discovered a lot as we went along, and the excitement at having done so radiates

One thing you do notice is that it’s harder to spot the influences this time around. It would be disingenuous to evade the psych-pop tag, for sure, but mystical language has been supplanted by something a more direct – and while those influences are still there, it’s no longer possible to pick them out. They’ve been broken down and blended together – fossilised into a single source of creative fuel, so that what you can hear this time around, sounds like nothing so much as Temples. This is the sound of a band squaring up to their potential.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: More synthy than their debut but crucially just as hyper-melodic, Temples bring the magic of a bygone era right into the present with huge aplomb. It's a beautiful thing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Certainty
2. All Join In
3. (I Wanna Be Your) Mirror
4. Oh The Saviour
5. Born Into The Sunset
6. How Would You Like To Go
7. Open Air
8. In My Pocket
9. Celebration
10. Mystery Of Pop
11. Roman God-Like Man
12. Strange Or Be Forgotten

Recorded with Keith Cooper and Andrew McCalla in the band’s home-town of Memphis, the album features artwork by lead vocalist / guitarist Natalie Hoffman.

Nots are still a wild guitar band, but above and below the guitar, bass and drum pound, Alexandra Eastburn's analog synth blurps melodies and nonsense, teasing squiggles of freedom which defy the false grid of modern life.

With Hoffmann on guitar & vocals, Eastburn on synth, Charlotte Watson beating drums, and Meredith Lones steering a solid path through the chaos on bass, Nots are neither content with the smug "stare at your shoes" approach of bands from both coasts, nor an Earth-hugging "we need to get back to nature" hippie copout. There might not be any answers here. That might be the point. Nots have arrived at the next level of their attack with a confidence and a music that lays waste to the wasteland without romantic attachment to a thing.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Channeling the spirit of early punk (distorted backline, shouty singer, 2 minute songs etc) Nots have presented us with a scathing collection of dynamic and vitriolic bursts of noise. Single-string melody lines and broken-speaker distortion back up the hollered vox. Clanging and concise, this is punk-rock for a new generation.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blank Reflection
2. Rat King
3. Cold Line
4. New Structures
5. Cosmetic
6. No Novelty
7. Inherently Low
8. Flourescent Sunset
9. Entertain Me

‘Blood Moon’, M. Craft’s third full length album, is very much a score for seclusion. Inspired by witnessing the titular lunar event twice during his time as a desert resident, ‘Blood Moon’ began life in a studio in nearby Los Angeles as a series of unstructured, experimental piano pieces.

Constructed from those piano recordings with additional percussion from another temporary desert dweller, Seb Rochford (Polar Bear) and occasional orchestration, ‘Blood Moon’ is a stunning fusion of freeform instrumental explorations and properly pure songs.

TRACK LISTING

New Horizons
Blood Moon
Chemical Trails
Afterglow
Midnight
Love Is The Devil
Me And My Shadow
Morphic Fields
Where Go The Dreams
Love Is All

Ultra limited one sided white label 12".

Remix by Mikey Young of Total Control!

Night Beats release their new album ‘Who Sold My Generation’ on Heavenly Recordings. Their third album and first for Heavenly, it follows the release of their self-titled debut in 2011 and ‘Sonic Bloom’ in 2013.

Recorded on old two-inch tape in Echo Park, Los Angeles at the home of producer Nic Jodoin and featuring co-production and guest bass playing from Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, new album ‘Who Sold My Generation’ goes beyond merely being a retreading of well-worn garage / R&B path. Instead it offers a contemporary take on the psychedelic experience, a heady set of hoodoo voodoo songs.

Very much a record in the great Texan musical tradition of acid-drenched outlaw music, ‘Who Sold My Generation’ picks up where the likes of The Elevators or The Red Krayola left off.

In a period of governmental and cultural revolution, former Pipettes front-woman, Gwenno, releases a political concept album inspired by an obscure 1970s Welsh language sci-fi novel, subtly disguised as a blissful kraut-pop record.

Taking its cue, and title, from Owain Owain’s 1976 novel about a dystopian future where the robots have taken over and are busily turning the human race into clones through the use of medication, 'Y Dydd Olaf' blends big themes (including patriarchal society, government-funded media propaganda, cultural control, technology, isolation and the importance of, and threat to minority languages), great tunes, and a real sense of revolution to produce a powerful, politically-charged concept album.

'Y Dydd Olaf' is a political, feminist, brilliantly executed record; and although this particular revolution might not be televised, it certainly will have a great soundtrack.

TRACK LISTING

01. Chwyldro 5:18
02. Patriarchaeth 3:29
03. Calon Peiriant 5:08
04. Sisial Y Môr 5:41
05. Dawns Y Blaned Dirion 1:30
06. Golau Arall 3:31
07. Stwff 4:59
08. Y Dydd Olaf 4:15
09. Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki 4:39
10. Amser 4:45

The Voyeurs (formerly Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs) return with a brand new single.

Featuring the B-side Orgy # 2, the single was produced by Oli Bayston (Boxed In) and recorded at the Flesh & Bone and The Premises studios in east-London.

Released on 7” and download, the track features on their forthcoming 2nd album, Rhubarb Rhubarb, which is released the following week.

TRACK LISTING

Stunners
Orgy #2

Album standout "We Sleep On Stones" is given the rework treatment by San Fran label Stones Throw affiliate Mr Chop & features Heliocentrics Malcolm Catto on drums and Jake Ferguson on bass. Comes backed with a once-in-a lifetime cover of Ce Ce Peniston’s uber-hit "Finally".

The Head and the Heart came together in the summer of 2009, during frequent visits to the open mic night at Conor Byrne in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood.

Californian Josiah Johnson and Virginia-native Jonathan Russell formed the core songwriting partnership, before adding keyboardist Kenny Hensle. Kenny, then 21, had packed up his piano and moved up to Seattle from California to pursue musical score-writing. Charity Rose Thielen, violin and vocals, had just returned from a year of studying and playing music in Paris. Drummer Tyler Williams moved from Virginia after Jon sent him the demo of Down in the Valley, relocating across states to be a part of this. Finally, Chris Zasche, was bartending at Conor Byrne and mentioned one day that he'd be happy to play bass for the nascent band. It all felt right: The Head and the Heart was born.

The band entered Seattle's Studio Litho in early 2010 to record these songs that had been kicking and twisting in the catalytic development of their live show. Recorded by Shawn Simmons at Studio Litho and Steven Aguilar at Bearhead Studio, the band was selling burned copies in handmade denim sleeves at local shows within a few weeks. Self-released in June 2010, the debut album helped build an impressive head-of-steam for the band through the second 1/2 of the year, gaining fans at influential Seattle station KEXP, local record shops (a consistent top 10 seller for Easy Street and the #1 album of 2010 at Sonic Boom), and venues up and down the west coast.

For the 2011 re-release of the album, Sounds Like Hallelujah has been re-recorded, live favorite Rivers and Roads has been added, and the album has been re-mastered.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cats And Dogs
2. Coeur D’Alene
3. Ghosts
4. Down In The Valley
5. Rivers And Roads
6. Honey Come Home
7. Lost In My Mind
8. Winter Song
9. Sounds Like Hallelujah
10. Heaven Go Easy On Me

Bonus Tracks:
11. Chasing A Ghost (Live)
12. Josh McBride (Live)
13. River’s And Roads (Live)