Layered with orchestral arrangements, jazz improvisation and Hip- Hop production, 'Liberation' is an accomplished record of courage, musical conviction, and growth.

Known for his sophisticated compositions, Sylvester Uzoma Onyejiaka II AKA Sly5thAve's first experiences with large-scale arranging were with the Club Casa Chamber Orchestra and recording instrumental covers of popular modern songs. Notably, his orchestral tribute to Dr. Dre, 'The Invisible Man,' garnered widespread praise and attention, even earning the admiration of Dr. Dre himself. Through these recordings Sly5thAve felt he had found a way to make people connect with orchestral music; "I've long felt orchestras around the world are inaccessible to  most people – whether it be the programming or the cost, or the location".

This LP is Sly5thAve's first full album of original orchestral arrangements and features the musicianship of Sly5thAve's collaborators and Ghost Note bandmates - headed by Snarky Puppy's multi-Grammy–winning percussion duo Robert "Sput" Searight and Nate Werth, alongside previous collaborator Roberto Verástegui. Sly5thAve's passion for collaboration is expressed on singles from 'Liberation', as he revitalises the beloved Destiny's Child classic 'No, No, No Pt. 2' with help from Jonathan Mones; through the MonoNeon bassline of 'Monoxide' featuring MacKenzie on vocals and guitar from Peter Knudsen; and on closing track 'Big Brother' feat. Daniel Wytanis, a track that features and pays tribute to both Robert "Sput" Searight and Nate Werth, alongside Ghost Note member and mixing engineer Ben Burget.

TRACK LISTING

1. Water Suite (Thirst)
2. Water Suite (Drown)
3. Water Suite (Renewal) Feat. Michael Jelani Brooks
4. Liberation
5. No No No Pt. 2 Feat. Jonathan Mones
6. Actin' Whyte Feat. Kyle Rapps
7. Exodus
8. Proverbs
9. Monoxide Feat. MonoNeon MacKenzie & Peter Knudsen
10. Big Brother Feat. Daniel Wytanis
11. No No No Pt. 2 Feat. Jonathan Mones (Instrumental)
12. Actin' Whyte (Instrumental)
13. Monoxide Feat. MonoNeon MacKenzie & Peter Knudsen (Instrumental)

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2023 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 22ND ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.



IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 24TH).





This vinyl debut captures one of the biggest names in jazz, at the peak of his powers, live in concert



This 180-gram double set features 18 selections from Charlie Parker, one of jazz's greatest saxophonists. All the recordings were captured in the late 1940s and early '50s at such storied venues as Carnegie Hall and Birdland in New York, The Jubilee in Los Angeles, and the Portland Civic Auditorium. Focused on experiments in Afro-Cuban fusion, Parker is joined by a dazzling array of jazz legends including Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, Art Blakey, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Red Rodney, and others. The track listing matches the cast of musicians; classics 'Cherokee' and 'A Night in Tunisia' are captured in pristine form, while maintaining the intimate jazz spontaneity of Parker's best recordings. The package includes an essay by rock keyboardist Keith Emerson. While these tracks have previously appeared on other albums, this is the first time they have been gathered in this package on double 180-gram vinyl.

Originally released on CD in 2012, Chapter’s landmark compilation of 70s gay musical pioneers gets a vinyl release for the first time ever – and on pink vinyl to boot! Strong Love explores the first wave of openly gay songwriting that emerged after New York's Stonewall Riots kickstarted the modern gay rights movement in 1969. It took just a few years for the defiant chanting and interlocked arms of early 70s pride marches to reverberate onto record, and Strong Love begins with one of the earliest known recordings of openly gay songwriting, 1972's A Gay Song by London hippie collective Everyone Involved.

Across 15 tracks, the compilation takes in disarmingly personal folk, uplifting soul, outsider country and dark synth-rock. Eccentric one man band Chris Robison played with the New York Dolls and Elephant's Memory, while LA glam seducer Smokey saw members of the Stooges and Quiet Riot pass through his backing band. Steven Grossman was covered by Twiggy and Scrumbly & Martin are justifiably infamous for their work with San Francisco drag hippies the Cockettes. The songs on Strong Love illustrate the vision, talent and raw courage that drove 1970s songwriters to sacrifice popular careers for the sake of honesty and self-expression. Compiled by Chapter Music's Guy Blackman, with an evocative introduction from drummer Richard Dworkin (who played with Blackberri and Buena Vista and is one of the few to have witnessed many Strong Love artists first hand), the album is a powerful tribute to pioneering artists whose music has been neglected for too long

STAFF COMMENTS

Javi says: Tender folk, proto-synth weirdness, and some good ol' political stompers to boot - an important compilation worth buying for the track titles alone!

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1. Everyone Involved - A Gay Song
2. Charlie Murphy - Gay Spirit 
3. Blackberri - It’s Okay
4. Smokey - Strong Love
5. Robert Campbell - Dreamboy
6. Mike Cohen - Evil & Lusty

Side B:
7. Lavender Country – Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears
8. Chris Robison - Big Strong Man In  My Life
9. Steven Grossman – Out
10. Tom Robinson - Good To Be Gay
11. Buena Vista - Hot Magazine
12. International Gay Society – Stand Up For Your Rights
13. Scrumbly & Martin - Hots For A Hustler
14. Paul Wagner - The One

Digital Only (via Download Card)
15 Conan - Tell OI’ Anita

In 1990 Neil Hannon started recording and releasing under the name The Divine Comedy. Thirty years and twelve great albums later, Hannon is rightly adjudged one of the finest singer songwriters of his generation. To celebrate, Divine Comedy Records are remastering and reissuing nine of the band's classic albums. The reissues will be released by Neil’s own label Divine Comedy Records.

Liberation was the band’s first full album. Released in 1993 it achieved few sales but plenty of critical acclaim. The NME described it as “an array of seductive yarns.. glorious, gleeful tunesmanship."  Dave Cavanagh, writing in Select said "..one of the bountiful, overflowing joys of the year. Any year." Melody Maker described it as "An album that could make any listener want to stumble up to him and proclaim ‘Neil, you’re a genius’". Tracks such as Your Daddy's Car, Europop, and Lucy are fan favourites still performed live by the band to this day while Pop Singers Fear Of The Pollen Count was released as a single from the 1999 "Best Of.“

TRACK LISTING

CD 1/LP:
Festive Road
Death Of A Supernaturalist
Bernice Bobs Her Hair
I Was Born Yesterday
Your Daddy's Car
Europop
Timewatching
The Pop Singer's Fear Of The Pollen Count
Queen Of The South
Victoria Falls
Three Sisters
Europe By Train
Lucy

CD 2:
Untitled Melody
Your Daddy's Car (demo)
Queen Of The South (demo)
Europop (live)
Little Darlin'
Bernice Bobs Her Hair (early Idea)
Bontempi Beats 1
The Pop Singers Fear Of The Pollen Count (demo)
Europe By Train (live)
I Can Think (But I Can't Feel)
Lucy (early Version)
Festive Road (demo)
Three Sisters (live)
I Was Born Yesterday (alternate Version)
Bontempi Beats 2
Christmas With The Hannons
Victoria Falls (demo)
Timewatching (demo)
Bontempi Beats 3
Suzanne (live)

London-based psychedelic stalwarts Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation are proud to reveal their third album 'Sacred Dreams' for Rocket Recordings. Continuing to dive into the deeper waters of experimentation, ‘Sacred Dreams’ is both a musically hefty amalgamation of reverb drenched space-rock and retro centric electronics, as well as an emotionally cathartic release for the band, marking a new direction and fresh approach.

Since their critically acclaimed album 'Mirage' was released, Josefin and writing partner Fredrik have relocated from Stockholm to London and have created a new Liberation around them - this new band consists of the powerful and intuitive assemblage of musicians; Maki (Go Team), Patrick C Smith (Eskimo Chain), Matt Loft (Lola Colt) and Ben Ellis, who’s worked with both Iggy Pop and Swervedriver. ‘Sacred Dreams’ was largely recorded at Press Play Studios (King Krule, Fat White Family, Yves Tumor, Stereolab, High Llamas and many others) run by Andy Ramsay of Stereolab, who also produced and even programmed his non synced drum machines adding a lot of inspiration to the album.

‘Scared Dreams’ invites you into the bands own dimensional soundscape, a world built with transcendental guitars, driving grooves and otherworldly, enchanting vocals, altogether seeped in layers of blissfully produced synths. Opener and lead single ‘Feel The Sun’ encapsulates this new direction perfectly before the anthemic ‘I Can Feel It’ makes the bands intentions known. Elsewhere playful 80s electronics sit alongside a shoegaze sensibility effortlessly and amongst the textured flow of the LP emerge pop hooks like the infectiously bluesy ‘Baby Come On’.

Josefin tells us “This album comes out of a period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution, but also of deep love, warmth and beauty unveiled in the middle of it. A sacred dream, the way we see it, is not necessarily a golden fluffy cloud river, but instead also contains all the shadows that need to be seen and felt in order to drop what has to go in order to truly live. And the dissonance of such a dream may not be immediately apparent, let alone the meaning of it. In a way all of these tracks seem to emanate from that place where we have almost reached a new shore, or maybe we missed it and are headed somewhere else entirely, but there’s no way of telling until afterwards.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: After the experimental krautrock LP ‘Horse Dance’ (2015) and the pulsing psychedelia on shop-favourite ‘Mirage’ (2016), London-based Swedes Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation return with their most diverse album to date, showcasing a variation of sounds, including, but not limited to, 80s synths, trippy, reverb-laden guitars and dreamy, 60s inspired pop. ‘Sacred Dreams’, which was written during a ”period of heartbreak, loss and dissolution”, is less of a sonic journey than its predecessors and instead seems to show that Josefin and her band don’t want to be confined to a particular genre. After opening with the electronic and motorik dance tracks “Feel The Sun”; “I Can Feel It” and “Desire” the Spiritualized-esque “Hey Little Boy”, the transcendental “Only Lovers” and the blues stomper “Baby Come On” lead the album into a hazier, mellower and more psychedelic direction.

TRACK LISTING

01/ Feel The Sun
02/ Honey Slumber
03/ I Can Feel It
04/ Desire
05/ Hey Little Boy
06/ Only Lovers
07/ Baby Come On
08/ New Horizons
09/ Caramel Head
10/ Let It Come
11/ Whatever You Want
12/ Floating Away

Liberation is the latest evolution by David West, a dedicated underground dweller and traveler with his groups Rat Columns and Rank/Xerox and previously spotted in Lace Curtain and Total Control. Many familiar elements of West’s songwriting creep out from the speakers this time around, albeit in a sonically more adventurous and personal manner. Swathed in analogue and FM synths, pinned down by near-funk drum machines, and with a vision expanded into the past and future. While in previous incarnations, West’s alienated and fragile vocal has battled with jangling guitars and distortion, Liberation sets free his woes and ruminations into space.

Taking inspiration from the heyday of Mute Records, the beginnings of electronic dance music’s rudimentary sampling, broken R’n’B and sound art, Liberation’s debut LP is 10 songs of the road, about the nameless ghosts on the highway, accidental lovers, the alienation of the stranger in a strange land, the unbearable weight of freedom. Beginning with a curveball, Liberation’s first vocal sets out the position of the forever-cuckold, the sad lover hanging on: Looking For A Lover combines a Roland 707’s loping mid-tempo with creeped-out synth lines as West intones his intentions close to the ear. Continuing in a more baroque manner, Move Me makes astounding use of string samples and space, with esteemed engineer Mikey Young’s (Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring) production prowess making for a distilled yet inviting loneliness. Forget is the night-drive centerpiece of the album, a 7 minute that erupts into a nihilistic sub-disco darkness.

A constant theme of Liberation is the friction between West’s characters: a frustrated love in victim-status paired with a menacing intent. The adorable, fragile stalker in the moonlight, illuminated by Whatever You Want, a subjugated protagonist offering they have while the city burns. The brightest pop moment of the album has this in abundance: Cold And Blue, a classic synth pop jam to be played on repeat til the end of time, like New Order played by one man in his bedroom, with no drugs for a cushion: “She’s coming down the stairs, she looks like a perfect fear and I’m a monument to your existence.” But West has moments of touching sincerity that speak direct to the listener, as in album highlight Leaves Falling; a sparse string arrangement frames his vocal, “why do I keep falling for you? I must just really like to be alone.” Liberation is the freedom from attachments, about how sometimes they’re what you want most.

Fat Wreck Chords head honch Fat Mike met up with the PETA activists on the 2002 Warped Tour. The result is this massive and inexpensive compilation, meant to bring awareness (CD-ROM animal rights info) to PETAs youth voice and to raise cash for the cause of animal rights. Featuring bands such as Anti Flag, Hot Water Music, International Noise Conspiracy, Goldfinger, Propagandhi, NOFX, Good Riddance, Midtown, The Faint, Good Charlotte, Frenzal Rhomb, Desparecidos and more.

Cracking emotionally driven punk rock from this Cincinnati four piece! Featuring the ex-drummer from By The Grace Of God this band can share bills with pop punk / emo or even hardcore bands! Fans of The Alkaline Trio, New Found Glory and Saves The Day will absolutely lap this up!

A wide spectrum of punk rock and skacore featuring tracks from Screeching Weasel, Avail, Vindictives, The Casualties, Grimple, Frenzal Rhomb, Discount, Ink And Dagger, The Icarus Line and many more! All for a low, low price as well.