After an epic licensing odyssey that's taken us almost 20 years, we're finally able to announce the 5LP boxset release of the first ever official re-issue of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet.
The five albums; Shades Of Blues (1965), Dusk Fire (1966), Phase III (1968), Change Is (1969) and Live (1969), have reached almost mythical status in the collector's world. Regarded as holy grail artefacts for even the seasoned aficionado, the collective second hand market value comes to an astonishing £6000.
Many have tried - and failed - to reissue these albums by legitimate means. However, two decades since our initial approach, Universal Music has gone to great lengths to research their vast archives, and we have finally managed to succeed.
The complete Don Rendell & Ian Carr Lansdowne recording sessions have now undergone a full and unprecedented boxset reissue. We located and acquired the original analogue master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180g pressings replete with replica artwork - shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labour of love to the highest possible standard! The enclosed booklet contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton.
The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest, and the quality of our box set pays testament to that.

TRACK LISTING

1 Blue Mosque
2 Latin Blue
3 Just Blue
4 Sailin'
5 Garrison '64
6 Blue Doom
7 Shades Of Blue
8 Big City Strut
9 Ruth
10 Tan Samfu
11 Jubal
12 Spooks
13 Prayer
14 Hot Rod
15 Dusk Fire
16 Crazy Jane
17 On! [clip]
18 Les Neiges D'Antan (Snows Of Yesteryear)
19 Bath Sheba
20 Black Marigolds
21 Elastic Dream
22 One Green Eye
23 Boy, Dog And Carrot
24 Cold Mountain
25 Black Hair
26 Mirage
27 On Track
28 Vignette
29 Pavanne
30 Nimjam
31 Voices
32 You've Said It 

First released in 2000, 'Caged' united two giants of experimental electronic music - Throbbing Gristle’s Chris Carter, a pioneering force in industrial and electronic music for over four decades, and Ian Boddy, composer, sound designer, analogue synth aficionado, and founder of the ambient/electronic label DiN. Having known each other casually for years, Boddy invited Carter to collaborate for his then-new label; Carter immediately agreed, and together they produced a work of startling muscularity and textural depth. Across its shifting soundscapes, Caged plays with chance and paradox, where a whisper swells into a crescendo, a beat dissolves into a tone, and nothing remains still for long.

The album now returns for its 25th anniversary via The Grey Area of Mute in a newly remastered edition, expanded with two brand-new compositions reimagined from the original audio files: ‘Claustrophobia’, reworked by Carter, and ‘Uncaged’, reworked by Boddy. Together, these new versions revisit 'Caged’s DNA from opposite ends of the spectrum, one tightening its grip, the other breaking free. They say expectation is a prison. Here, being 'Caged' is being free.

TRACK LISTING

1. Concussed
2. Coriolis
3. Slab
4. Sub-Aura
5. Disembodied
6. Caged
7. Under-Dub
8. Claustrophobia
9. Uncaged

IAN (the band) are refreshing newcomers in the UK's heavy underground. The East London based quintet will be releasing their stirring debut album 'Come On Everybody, Let's Do Nothing!' via independent label Human Worth – a labour of love between five old friends and ex-bandmates from Exeter’s fertile early '00s DIY punk scene.

Self-described as "a band that appreciates the peaks and troughs of post-rock as much as the crunch of the riff," IAN's striking debut delivers five dirges that merge earth swallowing riffs with the atmospheres and dynamics of their post-rock heroes, such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, with the bite and visceral heft of Cult Of Luna and Amenra. Thoughtfully captured by Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Big Lad) at his London based Bear Bites Horse studio, IAN craft slowly mounting riffs, with anguished screams, woven with elegant cello playing, field recordings and earthy timbres. 'Come On Everybody Let’s Do Nothing!', and the band IAN as a whole, is the culmination of 25 years of musical comradeship and the need to find inspiration in films, noise and the drudgery of middle-aged life.

TRACK LISTING

1. Manuel
2. Building Pyramids
3. Fennel
4. Selma
5. Not Erotic / Cop Fil

Ian F Ball presents a beautiful selection of drifting folky guitar, athletic accordion and mandolin, recalling traditional English folksong and echoing the Morris / brass band tradition of the area (which I *think* is depicted on the front cover of the album - Mossley train station). 

There are quieter pieces on show like the slow, thoughtful balladry of 'pour Mon Ami' or the flicking campfire drift of 'Resting Place', but the album generally flows beautifully from uplifting bucolic woodwind to snappy acoustic guitar all topped with Ball's evocative, perfectly pitched gravelly vocal.  

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful collection of richly traditional folk ballads and more experimental, off-kilter psychedelic instrumentals, beautifully written and (when they are in situ) beautifully sung vocals.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2025 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

A majestic biography of two young geniuses who merged their talents to create one of the greatest bodies of music in history. John & Paul begins in 1957, when two teenagers in suburban Liverpool meet and decide to play rock n'roll together.

It ends twenty-three years later, when one of them is murdered. In between, we see them become global stars, create countless indelible songs, and play a central role in shaping the modern world. Lennon and McCartney were more than friends, rivals or collaborators.

They were intimates who both had the fabric of their world ruptured at a young age, and who longed to make emotional connections; with each other, and with audiences. The pop song was a vessel into which they poured feelings of grief and euphoria and everything in between. When they couldn't speak what they felt, they sang it.

After the break-up of their group, they maintained a musical dialogue at a distance, in songs full of recrimination, regret, and affection. Ian Leslie traces the twists and turns of their relationship through the music it produced and offers rich insights into the nature of creativity, collaboration and human connection. Drawing on recently released footage and recordings, this is a startlingly fresh take on two of the greatest icons in music history.

Leslie's majestic and wildly enjoyable biography will make us see and hear Lennon and McCartney anew.

Rough Trade Shops presents Behind the Counter with Ian Rankin, the second instalment in a compilation series inviting artists to curate mixes of the music that has most influenced them, sourced from records sold on the Rough Trade shop floor.

This compilation mix from Scottish writer and music obsessive Ian Rankin follows the first Behind The Counter mix from much-loved British composer Max Richter, released in 2017.

As a longtime vinyl enthusiast who has always dreamed of working in record shops, Rankin’s curation is inspired by some of the first singles he ever bought and songs which have inspired titles of his best-selling novels – Jackie Leven’s ‘Another Man’s Rain’ (which became ‘Another Man’s Grave’) and The Cure’s ‘The Hanging Garden’.

“I still haunt record shops and play vinyl and I still compose playlists, just in case the chance of working behind the counter arrives." Rankin says. “Here’s some of what you’d be hearing if you pushed open the door and walked into my emporium, tunes I never tire of listening to.”

TRACK LISTING

1. John Barry - Theme From The Persuaders
2. Passions - I’m In Love With A German Film Star
3. Brian Eno - Fat Lady Of Limbourg
4. Limananas - El Beach
5. Carmel - Bad Day
6. Magazine - The Light Pours Out Of Me
7. Joy Division - Atmosphere
8. King Creosote - Ankle Shackles (Edit)
9. Saints - No Time
10. Swansway - Soul Train
11. The Cure - The Hanging Garden
12. Julie Fowlis – Blackbird
13. Throbbing Gristle - United
14. Isobel Campbell - Willow’s Song
15. Kath Williams - Electric
16. Roy Budd - Get Carter (Main Theme)
17. Jackie Leven - Another Man’s Rain
18. Scritti Politti - The Sweetest Girl
19. Simple Minds - I Travel
20. Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells - The Copper Top
21. Anchoress, Featuring James Dean Bradfield - The Exchange
22. Python Lee Jackson Featuring Rod Stewart - In A Broken Dream
23. Isaac Hayes - Theme From Shaft

In 1991, a loose-knit collective released a record called Blue Lines under the name Massive Attack, splicing together American hip-hop and soul with the sounds of the British underground. With its marauding bass lines, angular guitars, and psychedelic effects, Blue Lines built on the Caribbean soundsystems and nascent rave scene of the 1980s while also looking ahead to the group’s signature blend of epic cinematics and lush downtempo. In the process, Blue Lines invented an entirely new genre called trip hop and launched the career of a rapper named Tricky.

Ultimately, Blue Lines created the sonic playbook for an emerging future: hybrid, digital, cosmopolitan, and rooted in the black and immigrant communities who animated the urban wreckage of the postindustrial city. Massive Attack envisioned an alternate future in sharp counterpoint to the glossy triumphalism of Brit Pop. And while the group would go on to bigger things, this record was both a warning shot and a definitive statement that sounds as otherworldy today as on the day of its release.

As Blue Lines’s iconic flame logo spun on turntables the world over, Massive Attack and their spaced-out urban blues reimagined music for the 1990s and beyond.

'One of the greatest rock 'n' roll stories of the past 50 years recounted with warmth and wisdom' - Hot PressFew musicians have lived a musical life as rich as the songwriter and producer Ian Broudie. From recording the glorious uplifting psychedelic pop of his band The Lightning Seeds to producing bands like Echo & The Bunnymen and The Fall, Ian has journeyed from the energy and potential of the 1970s punk scene to the madness of '90s indie - and out the other side. Throughout nearly fifty years of making music, he has had a front-row seat working with generations of fantastic musicians in the creation of countless groundbreaking records. In Tomorrow's Here Today, he reveals what he has learnt about creativity, how to work with musicians touched by genius and what it is like to stumble through an exploding industry without losing sight of your dreams. Along the way, Ian shares how he wrote the million-selling album Jollification and how - along with the comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner - he wrote and recorded the only single in chart history to reach number one in the UK on four separate occasions. 'Three Lions' has since become the undisputed unofficial anthem of English football, soundtracking heartbreaking defeats as well as the wondrous victories of the Lionesses. Following 2022's long-awaited Lightning Seeds comeback, Ian reflects on a life of cosmic adventures spent in thrall to the power of music.

In 1984, pop came out of the closet - even if not all of the artists felt that they could - and, in the process, charted the course of the rest of the decade. In 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, writer and musician Ian Wade charts where these artists, including Queen, George Michael, David Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Madonna - who all enjoyed chart success in 1984 - were during that epoch-making year. It studies the impact these groundbreaking musicians had before, during and after on the gay community and popular culture, and it demonstrates how they were able to break down barriers, raise consciousness and set in motion the first nascent ripples in a pond that are still being felt today. As a backdrop, it explores the strides made in the name of the cause and how the wider surrounding culture reacted with equal parts glee, bafflement and disgust.

Son of Todd Osborn (Soundmurderer/Ghostly) Kaito Ian makes a hugely impressing first outing on the Galaxy Sound Co label with a series of lo-fi hip-hop beat-strumentals that cannot fail to get your head nodding. He is a dedicated music lover and skater with a deep knowledge of his craft and that shows here with some refined sounds starting with the soul drenched 'Revert', then on to the warped angelic vocal samples of 'Sequoia' and the percussive jumbled and scratching of 'Trek'. 'Wait Up' is another excellently blissed out joint and 'Sloan' is a sunny, laid back, lazy vibe to close down a superb EP.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Phwoooar 'ave some of THAT! Todd Osborn's son (!!) drops a tidy package of hip-hop instrumentals which lands somewhere between DJ Dez (Andres), Madlib and some of the beat tapes we've had through Fat Beats. You'll be clambering after a whole LP once you've digested this 7"!

TRACK LISTING

Revert
Sequoia
Trek
Wait Up
Sloan

As a self-described sponge for club music, London-based Bristol transplant Ian DPM has cut a singular figure in both the West Country and the capital in just a handful of years. Already situated as the tastemaker behind music curation platform Definite Party Material, co-owner of Scuffed Recordings, and Noods Radio and Rinse FM resident, Ian DPM’s emergence as a producer has marked him as an expansively curious, bass-forward figure at the bleeding edge of genre boundaries.

After retreating to his hometown of Portsmouth during lockdown to absorb the blueprints of ‘90s techno, Ian emerged with a new phase of experimentation: techno-inspired and indebted, yet eschewing loops and grids for a loose-limbed, open minded engagement of the form.

Taking inspiration from the iconic carnival rides that are inseparable from their high-octane happy hardcore soundtrack, “One For The Waltzers” begins with a distant rumble of muffled breakbeats that inch ever closer. But rather than dizzying lights and in-the-red maximalism, “One For The Waltzers” gradually reveals its knowingly deep shimmy and groove. It is a drum-heavy and rhythmic production, masterfully using negative space to showcase every contour of its slowed-down rave horns and acid house synth lines.

“KE01” inhabits the flipside of the same sonic world. Here, feverish percussive energy contrasts against pensive melodic synth chords. It’s a heady warehouse affair, familiar and complex, referential yet contemporary, and only adds to the momentum that Ian DPM is gathering.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Big n wobbly fairground tackle for rushing sonic nostalgia and dizzying, amyl-huffing greatness. Mega.

TRACK LISTING

A. One For The Waltzers
B. KE01

Originally released on the Vertigo label, complete with collectable 'swirl' record centre design, this sought-after jazz-rock-fusion rarity features some of the cream of the UK jazz musicians of the 70's. Comprised from groups such as Nucleus, Brian Auger's band, Soft Machine, Stan Tracy group, the players included Brian Smith (tenor and soprano s axophones, alto and bamboo flutes), legendary guitarist Allan Holdsworth, Dave MacRae (Fender electric piano), and bassist Roy Babbington, to name but a few. Seen as a benchmark point in Ian Carr's career, 'Belladonna' is awash with atmospheric excursions and ethereal qualities, as well as a darker fusion aesthetic and prog-rock sensibility from Holdsworth's exceptional guitar playing. The moody, yet funky, vibe of the album has echoes of Miles Davis' electronic era à la 'In A Silent Way'.

The album is best enjoyed played in its entirety. There are ebbs and flows with certain tracks shining along the way. Standouts include the beautiful down-tempo track 'Summer Rain', which has a soundtrack / library style brilliance and emotional electric piano soloing. Though recorded in the 70's, the track has a timeless sound, a melancholic funk so often used in hip-hop and beat tape productions to this day. 'Mayday's Shaft-like long extended intro builds the drama until the percussive release when the drums drop at over three minutes in. To give a record of such quality the treatment it deserves, we have once again been lucky to enlist the service of mastering and lacquer cutting engineering don Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, to cut a brand-new half-speed master and let the music speak for itself.

TRACK LISTING

1. Belladonna
2. Summer Rain
3. Remadione
4. Mayday
5. Suspension
6. Hector’s House

The twenty-fourth - and final - issue in FatCat’s long-running and much-loved Split Series arrives on the 25th Anniversary of the Brighton-based label.

‘Split Series #24’ features acclaimed Canadian singer / composer Ian William Craig alongside the brilliant but little-known Estonian Kago - two artists each using their voice as a central element of their craft, mediated through technology to conjure startlingly singular soundworlds.

Neither side here will sound quite like anything you’ve previously heard. Ian William Craig provides a 19-minute-long immersive tape piece, with Kago delivering a warped, acid-tinged slice of Eastern European freak-folk to round off a killer release that fits the free-wheeling aesthetic of the Split Series perfectly.

Last ever release in FatCat’s long-running and much-hyped Split Series, described by NME as “a virtual academy of the abstract... [where] the shock troops of post-everything music gather” and by The 405 as having “left an indelible mark on the face of modern electronica.”

Hand-drilled and hand-numbered sleeves with full printed inner sleeve in a one-off vinyl pressing.

For fans of Tim Hecker, William Basinski, Ben Frost, The Caretaker, Maarja Nuut, Mari Kalkun.

TRACK LISTING

Ian William Craig
Because It Speaks

Kago
Kröösnomi
Avovang
Suure Reede Lapsed
Leontiine Kirotosk
Tetermats 2
Käed Lahti On Ulga Kergem
Sõita
Uued Vigikad

Official half-speed mastered re-issue of British trumpeter and bandleader Ian Carr's iconic jazz-fusion-rock hybrid ‘Belladonna’ from 1972.

Originally released on the Vertigo label, complete with collectable ‘swirl' record centre design, this sought-after jazz-rock-fusion rarity features some of the cream of the UK jazz musicians of the 70’s. Comprised from groups such as Nucleus, Brian Auger's band, Soft Machine, Stan Tracy group, the players included Brian Smith (tenor and soprano saxophones, alto and bamboo flutes), legendary guitarist Allan Holdsworth, Dave MacRae (Fender electric piano), and bassist Roy Babbington, to name but a few.

Seen as a benchmark point in Ian Carr's career, 'Belladonna’ is awash with atmospheric excursions and ethereal qualities, as well as a darker fusion aesthetic and prog-rock sensibility from Holdsworth's exceptional guitar playing. The moody, yet funky, vibe of the album has echoes of Miles Davis' electronic era à la 'In A Silent Way'.

The album is best enjoyed played in its entirety. There are ebbs and flows with certain tracks shining along the way. Standouts include the beautiful down-tempo track 'Summer Rain’, which has a soundtrack / library style brilliance and emotional electric piano soloing. Though recorded in the 70’s, the track has a timeless sound, a melancholic funk so often used in hip-hop and beat tape productions to this day. ‘Mayday's Shaft-like long extended intro builds the drama until the percussive release when the drums drop at over three minutes in.

To give a record of such quality the treatment it deserves, we have once again been lucky to enlist the service of mastering and lacquer cutting engineering don Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, to cut a brand-new half-speed master and let the music speak for itself.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Belladonna
A2. Summer Rain
B1. Remadione
B2. Mayday
B3. Suspension
B4. Hector’s House

Mesmeric and kaleidoscopic, shimmering with electrified unease, Show Me How You Disappear is both an exercise in self-forgiveness and an eventual understanding of unresolved trauma. Jilian Medford’s third record as IAN SWEET unfolds at an acute juncture in her life, charting from a mental health crisis to an intensive healing process and what comes after. How do you control the thoughts that control you? What does it mean to get better? What does it mean to have a relationship with yourself? Recorded with Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Empress Of) and Andy Seltzer (Maggie Rogers), among others, Medford approached this album as a curator. She handpicked the producers that fit each song, which explains the range and experimentation showcased. Medford then recruited Chris Coady to mix and tie everything together into one cohesive piece. Dizzying and enthralling, Show Me How You Disappear is the sound of someone coming apart and putting themselves back together — the moment an old mantra, repeated into the mirror time and time again, finally clicks. To look at your reflection, and finally feel seen.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Favorite Cloud
2. Drink The Lake
3. Sword
4. Dirt
5. Sing Till I Cry
6. Dumb Driver
7. Get Better
8. Power
9. Show Me How You Disappear
10. I See Everything

In a Word, the sixteenth installment of the intergenerational collaboration series FRKWYS, brings together composer Daniel Lentz and vocalist and sound artist Ian William Craig for an album that embraces erosion and the potential of its loam left behind. A major figure in American composition, Daniel Lentz has worked at the middle and margins of postminimalism for more than four decades. A pioneer of “live multitrack recording” with the Daniel Lentz Group, he frequently writes for ensembles of similar instruments, from choirs to string orchestras to glass harmonicas. Like his west coast colleagues Harold Budd and Ingram Marshall, Lentz composes music of slow changes, built on fundamental harmonies and rhythms that evoke vast spaces and deep, ancient stone.

Canadian artist Ian William Craig combines his classically trained voice with precarious technologies: homemade analog synths, altered reel-to-reel machines, and faulty tape decks. His solo albums, including the acclaimed Centres (2016) and, more recently, Red Sun Through Smoke (2020), document a haunted nostalgia. In contrast to Lentz’s (sometimes) radical expansiveness, Craig’s music is fragile and self-consciously created alone, using his customized machination to create warped nocturnes of melody and dissonance. The sessions for In a Word took place in the Santa Barbara home studio of engineer Dick Dunlap. For both musicians the experience was an exploration toward each other. Craig with his rickety tape decks, Lentz sat at a grand piano. Lentz was immediately enchanted by Craig’s voice and equipment: “With the first note he sang, I was hooked. The beauty of his voice and his unique analog looping setup, all compacted into a small suitcase, were both remarkable and always surprising in what they could do. The music emerged spontaneously from simple, even cautious beginnings.

For Craig, who rarely works with other musicians, the sessions encouraged him to shed selfconsciousness and attune himself to his cocreator. Previously, he had regarded his tape decks and synths as bandmates, providing the creative energy he could get from other people. Recording with Lentz pushed him to find a new, more collaborative perspective. “I tried my best to control what was going on at first, and failed spectacularly. Once I let this aspect go and began to listen to Daniel, to my surroundings, and to the engineers, something finally clicked.” In a Word documents a coming together of two distinct musical personalities, and also a transformation. Lentz’s toiling, echoing piano, recalling his work on 1984’s Point Conception or the 1992 collaboration Music for 3 Pianos with Budd and Ruben Garcia, are churned into lush earth by Craig’s faltering machines. Craig’s folk-like tenor is realigned with Lentz’s crisp, minimalist repetitions; the combination is warm yet deeply layered, like the Californian sunset that would acknowledge the two composers at the end of each session day. Together, Craig and Lentz unearth deep forms of sonic expression from a common ground and newly seeded camaraderie. Lentz’s unmistakable piano sound is clearly relished by Craig’s tape decks, which add ghostly counterpoints of distortion and disintegration to its acoustic resonances. To this hall of haunted mirrors, Craig’s voice adds a yearning, human quality that is sometimes caught up in the same machinery, and is sometimes allowed to spirit above it. 

An accompanying documentary of the collaboration directed by Eli Welbourne will be released in tandem. A portion of the proceeds from this release will benefit Wolfstone Ranch, a spiritually-based, activist community dedicated to making the rural Midwest a more compassionate place for all the animals who live there.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Tasteful Gloss
A2. Joyce
A3. Aphrodite
A4. Erebus
A5. Up Up Up Stay
B1. A Pair Of Pears
B2. Fragrance
B3. Stöltzle
B4. Poire

Vancouver-based singer/composer Ian William Craig returns with a brilliant and powerfully emotive new album. His first for a long while to be centred around the piano - and also one of his most pared back - the record was made through an intense period of personal loss and environmental catastrophe.

‘Red Sun Through Smoke’ was recorded over two cataclysmic weeks in August 2018 in Kelowna, whilst the city was encircled by the forest fires which, under a warming climate, now regularly rage through British Columbia in summertime. With smoke engulfing the landscape, it was recorded from start to finish in the living room of a small house owned by his grandfather, who was moved into palliative care and tragically died halfway through the recording, his lungs filled with fluid as a result of the smoke.

Forged in trauma and an intense, bewildering slew of mixed emotions, Ian William Craig has created an album of incredible beauty, sadness and depth. ‘Red Sun Through Smoke’ is a profoundly moving album, a standout record in a prolific body of work that shows no sign of faltering.

TRACK LISTING

Random
The Smokefallen
Weight
Comma
Condx QRN
Mountains Astray
Take
Last Of The Lantern Oil
Supper
Far And Then Farther
Open Like A Loss
Stories

Ian Broudie’s beautiful solo debut Tales Told becomes available for the first time ever on vinyl and vinyl replica CD. The album was recorded in Liverpool during a series of sessions with members of The Coral and The Zutons.

On its original release in 2004, Tales Told marked a departure from Ian’s previous work with The Lightning Seeds. Instead, Ian stripped his songwriting to its bare fundaments, drawing on personal events in his life to create an album of tender, lovelorn ruminations. Ian is best known for his work with The Lightning Seeds, whose debut single Pure heralded a run of well-loved hits which included Sense, The Life of Riley, Marvellous, Lucky You, Change and You Showed Me.

With The Lightning Seeds, Ian was also responsible for the multi-platinum single Three Lions, which in 2018 made chart history when it enjoyed its fourth spell at number one – the most enjoyed by the same artist. Ian’s role in the history of Liverpool’s music scene over the last 40 years is impossible to overestimate. Since joining the founding line-up of Big In Japan, alongside Holly Johnson, Bill Drummond, Jayne Casey and Budgie, Ian went on to work on the first three Echo & The Bunnymen albums, collaborated with The Wild Swans’ Paul Simpson in Care, produced albums by The Pale Fountains and Shack and also the first three albums by The Coral.

TRACK LISTING

1. Song For No One
2. Whenever I Do
3. He Sails Tonight
4. Smoke Rings
5. Got No Plans
6. Always Knocking
7. Tales Told
8. Lipstick
9. Super Cinema
10. Home From Home
11. Something Street
12. Broudie's Blues
13. Home From Home (Band Version)
14. Song For No One (Demo)
15. Shifting Sands
16. Something Street (Early Version)

“Travelling Bright is a quietly exceptional album, dreamy and intimate, but borne up on rich elaborate arrangements... [David writes] Deeply introspective songs and renders them in rich orchestrated widescreen…Dreamlike soliloquies, steeped in mythology and the natural landscape, and presented with an airy spaciousness that carves out avenues for the mind to wander” - UNCUT MAGAZINE

‘Travelling Bright’ is the very pretty new album from David Ian Roberts, released on Welsh label Cambrian Records. The album feels like a real artistic statement, a double LP, full of ambition from the Cardiff based songwriter. David’s lyrical imagery find parallels between our emotional landscapes and the natural world.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Million Winds
2. Sending Out Fires
3. Lulling A Greener Man
4. Amber
5. Travelling Bright
6. John Says
7. The Holloway
8. Carillon
9. Grail
10. Winter Sun
11. Glass Bead Game
12. The Old King Of Sunsets

Ian Brown's comeback record is everything you'd want from the funky monkey. Care-free, breezy, uplifting vibes with words that mix the cosmic with a conscience, this record was made almost totally independently. Just Ian, his sons and his old engineer provide that unique blend of the groovy, quirky, and endlessly catchy that we've all come to love and expect.

There's mellow, soulful, bluesy funkers, a rock reggae cover, a reggae reggae cover, a couple of slinky, bouncy, elastic shufflers, some massive, psych-tinged slowies (Syd meets Lennon!) and his most Roses sounding tune so far: evidently a ballad ABOUT The Roses (insert broken-hearted emoji here!?)

Soundwise this is Ian's most beautifully produced record by a mile. Warm, fat and analogue, with killer basslines and a big bottom end, there's a sparseness in the textures but a depth and width in the mix that's more akin to late 70's reggae than any old 'indie' rock. Ripples is all about the SPACE. Ian's voice and words, as charismatic and enigmatic as ever, are central to it all. And he's never sounded better. Self produced, self written (bar 3 co-writes with his sons. What could be more natural?) and with zero session musicians in sight, this feels like Unfinished Monkey Business, the Second Chapter. But with way better songs, way lusher production; a glorious combo of Tunes, space and sound. The dream belongs to the dreamers!

TRACK LISTING

First World Problems
Black Roses
Breathe And Breathe Easy (the Everness Of Now)
The Dream And The Dreamer
From Chaos To Harmony
It’s Raining Diamonds
Ripples
Blue Sky Day
Soul Satisfaction
Break Down The Walls (warm Up Jam)

In writing Crush Crusher, Julia Medford, aka Ian Sweet, committed herself to exploring her own issues with self-image, self-respect/worth, and the responsibility she has felt to others. Album opener “Hiding” was one of the first songs she wrote for the record while living in a frigid Brooklyn apartment during a winter break amidst her gruelling tour schedule. In the song, Medford reflects on an interpersonal relationship that fell apart because of an inability to feel supreme comfort in sharing all the pieces of herself with someone. Nevertheless, a hopeful demeanour shines through on “Hiding” and in her writing across the album, with lyrics that embrace life’s hurdles and make them feel a little less scary. Much of Crush Crusher’s songs deal with Medford’s internalized pressure to become a caretaker in many of her close friends’ lives. As a defence mechanism for her own insecurities, Medford projects a sense of invincibility and benevolence to feel more deserving of the love received from others; we hear this on “Holographic Jesus” when she repeats the phrase “the sun built me to shade everybody,” characterizing the sacrifice and responsibility she feels in ways that could easily go unnoticed. “Holographic Jesus” ultimately represents a façade of strength that Medford has clung onto and, in true Taurus fashion, is stubborn to let go of. Musically, Crush Crusher is full of dissonant open chords and abnormal progressions, finding beauty in a level of conflict not seen on Shapeshifter.

To help achieve this expansive-but-focused sound, Medford enlisted the help of someone who was just as ambitiously experimental in their approach, producer and engineer Gabe Wax (Deerhunter, The War on Drugs, Soccer Mommy). Medford and Wax set up shop at Rare Book Room studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and completed the basic tracking with musicians Simon Hanes on bass and Max Almario on drums. “Coming into a space where some of my biggest inspirations like Bjork, Dirty Projectors, and Deerhunter had all once also recorded, I felt determined to push myself and test every boundary that I may have subconsciously created along the way. Gabe made me feel comfortable with attempting anything,” Medford says. By the end of the recording process, IAN SWEET wound up with an unconventional assortment of songs featuring disparate elements of psych-rock, trip-hop, and shoegaze that together forged a sound uniquely her own.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hiding
2. Spit
3. Holographic Jesus
4. Bug Museum
5. Question It
6. Crush Crusher
7. Falling Fruit
8. Borrowed Body
9. Ugly/Bored
10. Your Arms Are Water

In The Kingdom Of Dreams is the debut solo album from Ian Felice of The Felice Brothers. The album was recorded in his childhood home of Palenville NY, with his brother Simone Felice on production duties. Simone produced and co-wrote recent hit albums from The Lumineers and Bat For Lashes. On the album, Ian was joined by fellow Felice Brothers James Felice on keys, Simone Felice on drums and Josh Rawson on bass. The Felice Brothers was conceived in 2006 after the recording of Iantown, a 10 song album of Ian’s first songs recorded in one night in January of 2006. In The Kingdom of Dreams is a collection of songs Ian wrote in 2016 and recorded over the course of 4 days in February of 2017, with his brother Simone at the helm.

“IAN SWEET’s indie pop packs the personality that [Hardly Art] is known for, spinning conventional rock band setups into output that is unconventional.” - Consequence of Sound.

“They’ve relocated across the USA, gone on three tours, eaten a lot of donuts, climbed rocks and worn crocs.” - Noisey. 

"The unmistakable voice of singer Jillian Medford is a force that stands all on its own." - Boston Hassle

“I have a way of loving too many things to take on just one shape,” Jilian Medford sings over and over again on the title track of the Brooklyn-based band IAN SWEET’s debut album, Shapeshifter, repeating it like a mantra. This is Medford’s thesis statement, a narrator to carry us through Shapeshifter, which is above all else a meditation on loneliness and displacement. It’s about losing love and your sense of self in the process, about grabbing at the little things in life that bring joy when nothing else is going according to plan. It’s also an ode to the bandmates, and the friends, that see you through. IAN SWEET started in 2014 with a string of text messages. Medford was a few days away from embarking on her first tour when the driver and drummer she recruited cancelled. Medford sent IAN SWEET drummer Tim Cheney -- whom she barely knew -- a series of desperate messages, asking if he knew how to drum and whether or not he would be willing to take two weeks off of life to go on tour. Cheney responded soon after with a simple: “Yes.” Accompanied by Cheney and bassist Damien Scalise’s playful instrumentation, Shapeshifter becomes a celebratory purging, an album that finds humor in self-deprecation and vice.

IAN SWEET’s debut interrogates capital-e Existence through a candy-coated lens, their mathy precision scaffolding the chaos of Medford’s personal neurosis and turning those anxieties into something hook-laden and relatable. And though the narrative of Shapeshifter clings to an ex-lover, the yearning felt on this album isn’t directed at a particular individual so much as it’s turned inward. “You know the feeling. When you really like someone, you forget to do anything for yourself, you forget all of the things that gave you your shape,” Medford says. “The things that form your absolute.”

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2013 EXCLUSIVE.

Limited to 750

Celebrating the release of Ian McCulloch’s new album ‘Pro Patria Mori’ this rare coloured 7” features two tracks from bonus live album in the package paying homage to the original Killing Moon 7” sleeve

TRACK LISTING

Killing Moon Pro Patria Mori

Cheeky title, but what do you expect? This collects all his singles plus his two excellent collaborations with UNKLE. There's also three re-recorded, and far superior takes on a couple of B-sides and the gorgeous "Forever And A Day." As a romantic lover of the old '45' this is probably Ian's favourite LP that he's done. The photos and artwork are lush and the songs themselves are super-vibrant, catchy and groovy. If you only get one IB album then you better make it this. If you're a fan you'll be made-up with the new versions, and you can finally get to offload that dodgy second UNKLE LP!

2005 debut album from the Sheffield born alternative singer songwriter. Written by one man and his guitar and produced by a duo more used to putting together breaks and beats this album has a lavish, transatlantic and timeless feel to it. The songs themselves, although based in a traditional songwriter approach, have a strong sense of individuality and self; a diverse and eclectic air about the sound, not least because it was almost three years in the making. Strong and soulful vocals and tasty guitar work interspersed with interesting, dramatic arrangements.