Mysticisms' Dubplate series is back once again, this time with Nick Barber aka Doof at the helm. He was a 90s trance icon who here serves up some tunes that have previously only been available digitally. They were all recorded to tape and remixed and live dubbed on the desk so have an authentic feel to the melon twisting sounds. There are plenty of psychedelic twists and turns to the wispy synth leads and snaking hits here, all with heavy and cavernous low ends and plenty of future facing ideas. Each one is sure to set the dancefloor alight when dropped at the right moment.

TRACK LISTING

Baba, We Love Dub So
Mantra
Skunked On Planet Dub
Sticks & Stone

Hounds Of Love was Kate's fifth studio album, and her second no. 1.

Featuring "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)", it has since been certified Double Platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Running Up That Hill
A2. Hounds Of Love
A3. The Big Sky
A4. Mother Stands For Comfort
A5. Cloudbusting

Side Two: The Ninth Wave

B1. And Dream Of Sheep
B2. Under Ice
B3. Waking The Witch
B4. Watching You Without Me
B5. Jig Of Life
B6. Hello Earth
B7. The Morning Fog

O.Genesis present a super Limited 12" Pressing, exclusive to Piccadilly Records, of remixes from Tim Burgess' recent, critically acclaimed, album "Oh No, I Love You".

Seahawks delivers a stunning 11 minute remix of "A Gain//Stoned Alone Again Or (Seahawks Remix)", exclusive to 12", whilst on the flip Tandy Love aka Andy Votel brings his remix skills to "Hours".

TRACK LISTING

A – A Gain // Stone Alone Again Or (Seahawks Remix)
B – Hours // Tandy Love (Andy Votel Remix)

TRACK LISTING

A1. Love Me Tonight (moplen Edit)
A2. Love Me Tonight (original)
B1. I'm Ready For Your Love
B2. Baby Let Me Kiss You

Detroit mainstay Andrés returns to MotorCity Wine Recordings with an anthemic 4 tracker entitled Sunday Kinda Love. For those that know, MotorCity Wine is the spot for Sunday parties, so we only thought it appropriate to have one of Detroit’s most seminal producers highlight the vibe with this EP. On the A side is Andrés’s dusty house sound that we’ve all come to love, complete with bouncing basslines, slick vocal chops, and drums to turn out any dance floor. On the flip side Andrés slows the tempo just a touch to highlight his chunky midtempo beatdown sounds, with “Rubin Samba” bringing a Latin flair and “Sunday Kinda Love” driving it all home. Essential Detroit music manufactured in Detroit and housed in a gorgeous vinyl package, TIP!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Don't Make Me Wait
A2. Sinners
B1. Rubin Samba
B2. Sunday Kinda Love

In their decade-plus together, the four-piece Julia Shapiro (guitar, vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar, vocals), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals), and Annie Truscott (bass, vocals)—have created a resonant body of work. Live Laugh Love is a natural continuation. Against the bizarre backdrop of the past few years, Chastity Belt remained a supportive space for the members to grow and experiment, drawing on the ingredients most essential to their process since the beginning: authenticity and levity. Recorded over three sessions in as many years (January 2020, November 2021 and 2022), the focus became more about enjoying their time together in the studio than making it feel like work. Their ease and familiarity with engineer Samur Khouja in LA, who also recorded their last album, made for a particularly enjoyable process. Once completed, they returned to renowned engineer Heba Kadry who mastered the album.

Album opener “Hollow” sets the tone with a gently driving rhythm while guitar layers stream like sun rays through an open car window. A warmth radiates through Shapiro’s voice, even while grappling with feeling lost and stuck. “The older I get,” Shapiro says of the lyrics, “the more I realize that I might just always feel this way, and it’s more about sitting with the feeling and accepting it, rather than trying to fight it.” That wisdom seems to anchor Live Laugh Love. Chastity Belt has never shied from navigating the spectrum of difficult emotions, and an existential thread weaves throughout the subject matter. And yet the songs feel more grounded than ever; there’s a sense of quiet confidence and self-assurance that comes with being less numb and more present. Facing discomfort takes more fortitude, after all.

Live Laugh Love finds the members in their prime as musicians. Their parts trace intricate patterns over one another, but there’s room to breathe between the layers. Everyone contributes to the writing, sometimes switching instruments, and for the first time, all four members sing a song. It’s never been more apparent that they are creative siblings, cut from the same belt. “We’ve been playing music with each other for over a decade,” says Shapiro, “so it really does feel like we’re all fluent in the same language, and a lot of it just happens naturally.”

“Laugh” seeks in the balm of friendship, aware of the anticipatory nostalgia that hits during a good time that you’re already missing before it’s gone; the heavier guitar tones on “Chemtrails” streak ominous chord progressions over Grimm’s precision timekeeping, lamenting memories that won’t fade easily. During a transitional time, Truscott came across a note in their phone that read, “it's not hard all day, just sometimes,” which inspired a poignant line in the chorus of “Kool-Aid,” their first song as lead vocalist on a Chastity Belt recording. Another standout, “I-90 Bridge” shines with a silvery melody that soars as Lund belts one of the most resounding moments on the album: “Tell your girlfriend she’s got nothing to fear/I’m set in my head/My body’s a different story.” The track “Blue” saunters nonchalantly with a wink; you can almost hear Shapiro’s smile as she sings “Faking it big time/So I can hit my stride/Man, it feels good to be alive,” channeling early Chastity Belt channeling early ’90s before channeling the late Elliott Smith in a spiral of distortion and insight: “Don’t get upset about it/It’s gonna pass/Tell all your friends about it/They’re gonna laugh.” “We have such a strong sense of each other’s musical inclinations” says Lund. “I think this allows for a lot of playfulness…we can kinda surprise each other, like a good punchline would.”

TRACK LISTING

Hollow
Funny
Clumsy
It’s Cool
Kool-Aid
Chemtrails
Blue
Tethered
1-90 Bridge
Laugh
Like That

DJ and producer Gratts returns to his own imprint with the third instalment of the "Balearic but bumpin'" trilogy. Here, the Belgian puts forward a captivating piece of organic, Body & Soul NY inspired deep house, assisted by Cata Mansikka-aho on vocals. As always, an instrumental is provided for maximum nightclub daydreaming. On the flipside, British duo Faze Action up the energy levels with an equally musical disco version that hits in all the right spots. Artwork once again by Mads Cooke.

TRACK LISTING

Rhythm Of Love
Rhythm Of Love (Daydreamin' Instrumental)
Rhythm Of Love (Faze Action Remix)

Over the course of her career, spanning three-plus decades, Laetitia Sadier has never shied away from the hard topics, or stopped advocating for the possibility of self determination and emancipation in the face of the powers that be, conscious or unconscious. This is an essential part of the foundation she co-built with Stereolab, showcasing her spiritual, scientific and sociopolitical inquiries. She’s continued this process with Monade and under her own name and as a writer/singer/and musician whose every album acts as a report on her journey of the self through time, space and the collective.

On Rooting For Love, the report is set alight by the heat of a turbulent world, collapsing institutions and Laetitia’s fully engaged process of expression as well as orchestration. The opening number, “Who + What” elucidates the central issue of the album: a call for a collective striving for Gnosis – an inquisitive outlook that will lend clues to the traumatized civilizations of Earth, allowing us to evolve away from millennia of alienation and suffering and towards the achievability of healing. The musical arrangements help to embody the layers of the issue, as with “Who + What”’s combination of organ, synths, guitar, bass, trombone, drum programming, vibraphone and zither, all working along intricate paths of chord and tempo changes. Leading from the inside is the implacable presence of Laetitia Sadier, herself interacting with a vocal assembly of men and women billed as The Choir. The regular reappearance of The Choir throughout Rooting For Love is a reminder of this music being one of a people in critical mass, in addition to an evolution that continues to deepen the rich harmonic fields in which Laetitia plays.

Past wounds are addressed again and again in the libretto, as the music provides a transformational balm to aid the healing process. The melodic funk of bassist Xavi Muñoz leads a Chic-adjacent slink to the occasional dance floor vibes and no-wave rockouts, while Hannes Plattemier and Emma Mario take turns in mixing the tracks and informing the far reaches of the material, with vibes, additional drum programming and synths alongside a talented cast of players and singers from Laetita’s Source Ensemble and beyond.

Whether drawing inspiration from Zen Shiastu training, or the lyrics of Véronique Vincent, (lyricist and singer for Aksak Maboul, and once upon a time, lead singer of the Honeymoon Killers), Laetitia faces the truth without flinching. The shadows, whatever stuff they are made of - individual and collective, present and ancestral - need to be recognized and acknowledged, because the more we heal within ourselves, the more undivided we become in the face of looming Neo-fascist/Neoliberal narratives polluting the inner and outer landscapes. As with the cover image of the winter tree mirrored by the word patterns of Rooting For Love, Laetitia maintains that how we heal the world that’s coming, and what we make of it, will be a co-creation. The quality of our imagination, the orientation we give our thoughts and the capacity to bring love to ourselves and the world are a first step.

Alongside of her collaboration with Modern Cosmology, last year’s incredible What Will You Grow Now?, as well as her continued tours with a reformed Stereolab, Rooting For Love finds Laetitia back in the world, once again urging all our grounded inner alignment and heart power to make us better equipped for creating what’s to come.

TRACK LISTING

01 Who + What
02 Proteiformunite
03 Une Autre Attente
04 The Dash
05 Don’t Forget You’re Mine
06 Panser L’inacceptable
07 The Inner Smile
08 La Nageuse Nue
09 New Moon
10 Cloud 6

“I'd always been on the side of making up scenarios rather than being really honest about my life within my music,” says Jack Kenworthy of Colouring about his second album Love To You, Mate. “This is the first time I've been able to be more honest and direct. I've not been scared of it because it's not my story. It’s a shared one.”

The Nottingham-based songwriter and producer’s life was upended in February 2021, months before release of his debut album Wake, when his brother-in-law Greg Baker was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer. What followed was the most “unbelievable” year of togetherness when life seemed set on fracturing the life of a young man.

Colouring has been a solo project since Wake, an album influenced by the 00s post-Britpop greats (early Coldplay, Elbow, Keane) but taking electronic and rhythmic cues from Radiohead and James Blake. Kenworthy’s debut marked a renaissance. “Truthfully, there were a lot of times when I didn't feel completely at home in the music I was making before then,” the Leicestershire native says.

The EPs Symmetry (2016), Heathen (2017) and Bn (2018) were released via Interscope Records while Colouring was a poppier affair backed by three other musicians. The records led to tour support with The 1975, mainstream radio airplay, an extensive headline tour of North America, and Bn’s lead single ‘Time’ featuring on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack.

Despite being called Love To You, Mate the album isn’t concerned about Kenworthy’s relationship with Greg. “Obviously he's the heart of it and certainly those last two songs are definitely to him, but it would've been disingenuous to make a record just about my relationship with him.”

“My goal and intention with it was a message of love to [the family] and for what they did,” Kenworthy continues. “We were this tight-knit, inseparable group of friends for a whole year… a year that was both horrible and great, in a weird way. I really feel we've made this music together. Our favourite conversation is talking about Greg and this album.”Kenworthy determines: “I've just taken the photograph.”

TRACK LISTING

1. For You
2. I Don't Want To See You Like That
3. How'd It Get So Real
4. Lune
5. A Wish
6. The Light
7. Love To You, Mate
8. Coda
9. 'small Miracles'
10. For Life
11. Big Boots

On 7" for the first time ever, one of the most important rap records ever.

It's timeless, it's genius, it's just pure beautiful brilliance. It's Common's masterpiece.

One of the best songs in all hip-hop history, “I Used To Love H.E.R.” was the first single from Common's eternal 1994 LP, Resurrection. He personifies hip-hop as an ode to the art form he once loved, lamenting how the genre became too commercialised and, due to a mass influx of mainstream rap in the 90s, some of the purity and freshness of the culture was being lost.

Common uses a first-person romance narrative to detail the history of hip-hop, resulting in an extended metaphor that's sophisticated, clever, and delivers a moral message that touched millions of people and still absolutely blows minds at the song's conclusion: "'Cause who we're talkin' about, y'all, is hip-hop"

Perfectly produced by No ID and incorporating a gorgeous, melancholic sample of George Benson’s “The Changing World”, the plaintive sonic landscape provided the ideal foundation for Common’s innovative storytelling. Almost 30 years later, “I Used To Love H.E.R.” remains one the most significant moments in hip-hop: a classic in every sense of the word.

Common did discuss the true meaning of the track in a 1995 interview on “Yo! MTV Raps”, stating: “H.E.R. stands for Hip-Hop in its Essence is Real. And all I’m talking about his how I first came into contact with hip-hop music and how it evolved into where it is now. And it’s like all these gimmicks going on, all the phoniness, ain’t nobody being real with it. Everybody’s stressing that it’s real but ain’t nobody being true to it. I think that came about because — once it started becoming a business, then people started losing their soul and they started looking at it, taking it more as a business than an artform.”

On the flip, we've stayed faithful to the track used for the original 12" release. And what a track it is. Destined to be overshadowed by the behemoth on the A-Side, the frenetic neck-snapping jazz-rap "Communism" has it all - those horns at the start, the lyrical dexterity, the beat. Oh my.

So, one of the greatest pieces of music ever, in any genre. This is not merely music. It's high art. Speaking of which, we've recreated the striking original artwork from the 12" and shrunk it down to the 7" format. It looks and sounds stunning. The most important song in rap history, if you really think about it. We all miss her. We all miss hip-hop...

TRACK LISTING

A I Used To Love H.E.R.
B Communism

Serving up art-pop for the anthropocene, Springs Eternal is the Mercury-nominated, critically acclaimed artist William Doyle’s most ambitious and most playful creation to date. Taking a panoramic view of the ecstasies and agonies of life in the 2020s, the record asks how we exist as fragile flesh and blood – our hearts beating and our minds racing – in an unprecedented, almost unimaginable time of runaway climate destruction and technological expansion.

Springs Eternal presents a strange and thrilling cast of characters – from cowboys to castaways – who just might be Doyle, once or twice removed. “Most of the songs are in the first-person, but rather than being autobiographical, I was trying to imagine hyperreality versions of myself,” Doyle says. “What if decisions I made in my life had resulted in the self of each particular song? How many degrees of separation am I from those realities? It’s a frightening thought, and frightening thoughts often make for good songs.”

Across 11 tracks, we hear from narrators teetering on the precipice of global disaster, heartbreak, addiction, indoctrination and mental illness, until they pass into the great unknown. The lyrics, by turns earnest and ironic, upfront and allegorical, are paired with infectious melodies and often outright swagger. Co-produced by indie superproducer Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) at his MESS studio in Margate, we hear the siren song of the sea washing around pulsating electronics and stirring instrumentation, featuring contributions from musicians Alexander Painter, Genevieve Dawson and Brian Eno.

A recurring theme of water and flooding runs through the record, alluding simultaneously to the global climate crisis and the deluge of overwhelm these parallel-universe Williams are experiencing. “It wasn’t until we were mixing the record that I realised how many water references there are,” Doyle says. “I guess there’s a fluid border between our inner selves and the outside world that allows things to flood in, in unstoppable or perhaps irresistible ways.”

Springs Eternal is the next chapter in the William Doyle sonic odyssey that began with his incarnation as East India Youth (Total Strife Forever, 2014; Culture of Volume, 2015) and developed under his own name, producing the critically acclaimed records Your Wilderness Revisited (2019) and Great Spans of Muddy Time (2021). Alongside his own output, Doyle recently produced Anna B Savage’s celebrated debut album A Common Turn (2021) and plays in Orlando Weeks’ band both live and on his upcoming record.

TRACK LISTING

Garden Of The Morning
Now In Motion
Relentless Melt
Soft To The Touch
Eternal Spring
Cannot Unsee
Castawayed
Surrender Yourself
A Short Illness
A Long Life
Because Of A Dream

As one of the most traditional guitar bands to emerge during the Brit-pop era of the mid-'90s, Cast have carved out a sound that was heavily indebted to the British Invasion of the early '60s, yet it was infused with a mystical, pseudo-hippie lyrical sensibility, which lead singer John Power expanded upon. What really made Cast into a success was Power's gift for simple, classic pop hooks, as demonstrated on the hit singles "Fine Time," "Alright," and "Walkaway." With seven Top 10 singles, three Top 10 albums and a rich catalogue of timeless songs, Cast were one of the big success stories of the Britpop era. Power’s gift for sparkling melodies and instantly additive hooks remains as strong as ever. Power has hinted that the new album Love is The Call feels like a missing link between his time with The La’s and Cast’s first breakthrough with their debut album ‘All Change’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bluebird
2. Forever And A Day
3. Rain That Falls
4. Far Away
5. Starry Eyes
6. Love You Like I Do
7. Love Is The Call
8. I Have Been Waiting
9. Look Around
10. Time Is Like A River
11. Tomorrow Calls My Name

Tel Aviv's Elado has put out a fine run of eight releases in just two years on the likes of GAMM, Barefoot Beats and Bonfido Disques, but for his next move, he branches out with his own reissue label. Its aim is to "focus on uncovering lost gems" with the original paired with his own remixes. The first one is a 1983 private press from the Canadian pair OUI. 'Circle Of Love' is a big disco banger with flashy synth work and rugged arps, with a pair of Elado's mixes making it even more dancefloor ready. 'You Make Me High' is a more sentimental 80s pop sound. A fine start to life for this new label.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Circle Of Love (Elado's Freestyle Remix)
2. Circle Of Love

Side 2
1. Circle Of Love" (Elado's Freestyle Dub)
2. You Make Me High

RIYL: Orange Juice, Sarah Records, early Creation, Mary Chain, C86, Lush.

The Umbrellas are four renegade romantics crafting irresistible indie pop hymns. The band’s self-titled 2021 debut album became a breakout moment, winning critical praise and sparking an international tour. Follow-up LP ‘Fairweather Friend’ goes a step further – absorbing the sonic attack of their live shows, it balances this with studio finesse, allowing the San Francisco four-piece to become the band they’ve always aspired to be.

It's a record overflowing with highlights. The candyfloss melodies of introductory track ‘Three Cheers!’ are matched to an impactful percussive punch; ‘Say What You Mean’ finds The Umbrellas working with total confidence, letting the song ride out to its chiming conclusion, four voices working in precision. ‘When You Find Out’ offers rotating notes of guitar punctuated by a vocal that pushes past angst to accept a world full of hope. A lean 10 track affair, it grasps towards beatific pop while fuelled by a sense of risk, and the precision that comes from long months on the road.

The Umbrellas coalesced around a group of musicians who would frequent legendary San Francisco record emporium Amoeba Music. Singer and guitarist Matt Ferrera links with bassist Nick Oka, while Keith Frerichs is the powerhouse drummer. A chance encounter with Morgan Stanley singing karaoke at a Fourth of July party cemented the line-up around an avowed thirst for melody. “All of us love really earnest pop songs,” Nick points out. “I guess we got to a point in our lives where we wanted to be genuine.”

Playing shows at San Francisco’s vital DIY redoubt Hit Gallery, The Umbrellas would share line-ups with local heroes such as April Magazine and Cindy. Recording their debut album across a two-day spell at Matt’s parents’ house, the results won a devoted cult following. Yet the experience of touring bonded them tightly and allowed the volume to tick up a little higher, and higher, and higher. “I think we got tired of people saying, oh you’re so much louder than I thought you’d be!” laughs Matt. “Our early recordings are sweet and earnest… and we wanted it to be louder.”

Kicking off sessions in November 2022, the band used an ad hoc space Matt created in his basement, working across a four-month period. Sessions were a little more relaxed in terms of timescale than their debut, but The Umbrellas were incredibly focussed on the project. “We gave ourselves more space for this album,” says Keith. “We wanted time to sit on the songs, and really work on them.”

Allowing their live dynamic to bleed out on tape, The Umbrellas are at once more physical and yet also more controlled on their new album. Take opening track ‘Three Cheers!’ – the peppy, sun-soaked rush masks a barbed lyric, courtesy of Nick Oka. “It’s a pseudo-political song about power struggles that occur in a job situation, or a friend group. It’s an observational song.”

‘Toe The Line’ has an unkempt, rollicking sense of energy, the playful relationship analogy of the lyric pushed to the speed of light by Keith’s ultra-fast punk drumming. ‘When You Find Out’ meanwhile epitomises their unified, egalitarian way of making music – with The Umbrellas, each voice counts. “It sounds different from any song we’ve ever written together,” says Morgan. “It shows how much we’ve grown. Trust helps us to build the songs. It’s definitely a team effort.”

It's also a record of ambition. ‘Say What You Mean’ stretches past the four-minute mark, the viola performance informed by Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt. ‘Gone’ was the first song attempted for the new album, and the last they actually finished, endless re-writes transforming it into a manifesto of control and release. Taken as a whole ‘Fairweather Friend’ is a bold indie pop triumph, crafted with purpose and attention. Taking their time over each note, the four-piece have strengthened their songwriting, adding depth and assurance while unlocking their potential. Some bonds last a lifetime – The Umbrellas are ready to capture your heart.

TRACK LISTING

Three Cheers
Goodbye
Toe The Line
Echoes
Say What You Mean
Games
Gone
When You Find Out
Blue
PM

A modern, mid-tempo masterpiece whose lush arrangement and laser-sharp groove provide the perfect foundation for Jalen’s profoundly soulful vocals. The track exudes charm and manifests positivity in a way rarely captured on today’s soul scene.

On the flip is the moody, previously unreleased beat-ballad, “What is Left to Do”, whose gorgeous strings, plaintive, call and response chorus and tasteful delay create the kind of subdued psychedelic that was coming out of Motown in the early 70’s. But contrary to the trends of that era, both sides of this disc are presented in glorious mono.

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Come Around And Love Me
Side B – What Is Left To Do

Double LP

This expanded edition features the complete album in it's original running order on LP 1 - including the band's biggest chart hit 'The Only Living Boy In New Cross' which reached No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart plus Top 40 singles 'Do Re Me, So Far So Good' and 'The Impossible Dream' (a cover of the Man of La Mancha standard).

LP 2 features '1992 - The Other Love Songs', the complete collection of B-sides from the period plus the non-album Top 20 A-side 'After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)'.

Newly remastered by Phil Kinrade at AIR Mastering and pressed on 180g blue (LP1) and yellow (LP2) translucent vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve with poly-lined inner bags.

CD Box

This new edition features the complete album newly remastered on CD 1- including the band's biggest chart hit 'The Only Living Boy In New Cross' which hit No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, plus Top 40 singles 'Do Re Me, So Far So Good' and 'The Impossible Dream' (a cover of the Man of La Mancha standard).

CD 2 features rarities, B-sides, and the non-album Top 20 single 'After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)', plus BBC 'Live In Norwich' recordings, and a previously unreleased mix of 'Skywest And Crooked'.

CD 3 includes the complete 1992 Glastonbury headlining performance from the legendary Pyramid stage - available in its entirety for the very first time.

Rounding off the set is a DVD with the 55 minute 'What Do You Think Of The Programme So Far?' feature, plus three Top Of The Pops performances, all appearing on DVD for the first time and accompanied by exclusive new commentary by Jim Bob and Fruitbat.

'Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?' is the debut album by Chicago-based Poet Laureate & singer-songwriter Kara Jackson.

'Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?', is a sonic invitation to process our grief. The title is a question the author is always answering. How do we give ourselves permission to yearn for the people we miss? How do we find the courage to let go of what begs to be released? How do we have the audacity to love in spite of everything invented to deter us from it?

Kara wrote and recorded the original demos in her childhood bedroom during the early days of the pandemic, drafting lyrics in bed and singing into a mic propped up on her dresser. From there she brought in Nnamdi, Kaina and Sen Morimoto to re-record the demos and help shape the production.

Wielding her voice like a honey-coated blade, Kara Jackson crafts a blend of emotional folk music and poetic alt-country. With the radical honesty of Nina Simone, the intricate lyricism of Fiona Apple and Joanna Newsom, and the straightforward, no-frills delivery of artists like Kimya Dawson, Kara’s writing blurs the line between poetry and song, demanding an attentive ear and a repeat listen.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jackson's music is both intensely powerful and wildly understated, often relying upon an unadorned guitar and single vocal, before flourishing into orchestral swells and beautifully harmonised melodies. An arresting, cohesive debut LP with a singular sound.

Previously issued as a 12” only single on Creation records. It appears here for the first time on 7” and includes all three tracks from the original .

‘Ushered in by deceptively innocent vocal trilligs and sha-las. The House of Love suddenly rip off the mask of Doctor Jekyll to become Mr. Hyde and burst out of the speakers like shrapnel”
NME

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Real Animal
Side B
Plastic
Nothing To Me

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

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

REVIEWS

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Glaswegian musician, producer, DJ and curator Rebecca Vasmant announces her debut LP ‘With Love, From Glasgow’, showcasing the breadth of the incredible jazz talent the city has to offer. Having made a name for herself with a residency at Sub Club, Rebecca took the lead in curating the first live jazz showcases at the venue, also running a popular record fair with the venerable venue and a spot on BBC Radio Scotland and Worldwide FM. Rebecca also airs this facet of her irrepressible musical passion at key events like Worldwide Festival Sete, Glasgow Jazz Festival, EFG London Jazz Festival, Jazz Cafe London, Kasheme Zurich, Brilliant Corners, Casper Montenegro and the Baltic Soul Weekender, and a new residency at Ronnie Scott's as part of the Panro collective.

While promoting and touring in over 22 countries constantly over the last five years, Rebecca has honed her craft on production projects which feature world class musicians from The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and more, her talents are not only in spinning records, but in composing, producing and performing. Though known for its rich musical heritage, Glasgow is not a city perhaps synonymous with jazz. However, on ‘With Love, From Glasgow’ this is all about to change, as Rebecca and her cohort of hand picked musicians set out to change people’s opinions. Rebecca explains: “There is such crazy wealth of talent in this city of Glasgow and I wanted to make an album that helped to demonstrate this and which captures my own love and passion for deep and spiritual music. This album highlights just some of the exciting things that are happening here in Scotland and it's been a real honour and pleasure working with the hugely talented musicians who came together to collaborate in such a free and beautiful way. During the time spent working on this music an amazing family formed, something for which I am so grateful.”

TRACK LISTING

A1. Start Of Time
A2. Timing'S End
A3. Freefall (Ft. Nadya Albertsson)
A4. Jewels Of Thought (Ft. Harry Weir)
B1. Autumn Leaves (Ft. Emilie Boyd)
B2. Morning (Mourning)
B3. Pride Of Winter
B4. Internal Dispute (Ft. Paix)
B5. Idealists (Outro)

We love to just try things at Athens of the North and when Clara and Theo (our lovely PR friends) were chilling with us at Pikes one evening it came up in conversation that Theo has a lovely singing voice and fancied having a spin in the studio.

Roll on a month later, and they were home in Edinburgh, and we threw ourselves into a couple of days of experimenting, this is a little electro floater we were all super pleased with that came out of the session. 'Tonight' is a super late night mashy CR78 drum work out with Theo's floaty falsetto smashing out the park, we flipped the OG with a brilliant dubbed out mix that's not to be slept on either.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tonight (feat. Theo)
2. Tonight (Dub) [feat. Theo]

Freestyle drop a much needed and fully licensed 12" repro from 1984, in the form of Midnight Energy's Front Line b/w Saving All My Love originally released on Wal-Brooks Records. Two slamming sides of spenny electro-boogiefunk from out of New Jersey, written and produced by Tony McLachlan of the Fresh Band (of 'Come Back Lover' fame) - dig in!

TRACK LISTING

1. Front Line
2. Saving All My Love (Long Version)
3. Saving All My Love (Edited Version)

Glasgow's finest Austin Ato is first out of the blocks off this mysterious new series “I Love Your Edits” with a 4 track EP of Disco Edits & Reworks following on from his work on Classic Music Company, Percolate, Phonica White, Defected, Me Me Me, Futureboogie, Delusions Of Grandeur and our very own Pantai People. Two tracks on the funkier edge, whilst two are full on face-melters, both will tear the floors up.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Bertha
A2. Been So Good
B1. Love Explosion
B2. Cleo

London based singer and producer George Riley releases her ‘Un/Limited Love’ EP via Ninja Tune. Through a progressive sound that encapsulates soul, forward thinking electronics, ambience and so much more, Riley has, over the space of two critically acclaimed projects in ‘interest rates, a tape’ and ‘Running In Waves’, carved an abstract yet wholly relatable niche within London’s thriving music scene.

The EP explores themes of agency and feeling in control, as well as Space, female archetypes, surrendering to something you can’t control, love and voyeurism.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lust
2. Skin
3. Elixir
4. Star
5. S E X (Feat. Hudson Mohawke)
6. Satisfy You 

Hidden Spheres supplying the fruits once again. More tried and tested club material from the Fruit Merchant main man. Love Hate EP is a tale of two sides.

On Side A Hidden Spheres proves there’s no messin’ with ‘Step to me’ & ‘Don’t Front. Flipping over to the B we see that he’s really just a lover at heart, not a hatter, with the swung out sounds of ‘LUVR MAN’ and the deep sleaze of ‘SO SXY’..

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Shop favourite and all-round good egg 'Spheres presents another deep suite of jagged dancefloor melodies and rich, syncopated FM hits. Tom's instantly recognisable style and angular swagger shine through on these tracks, but with a step towards the more wonky side of house. Another classic and impeccable sonic fusion from Hidden Spheres.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Step To Me
A2. Don’t Front
B1. LUVR MAN
B2. SO SXY

East Coast Love Affair is back with a 9-minute epic late-night mid-tempo deep disco chugger featuring Shetland-born and Edinburgh-based R&B Singer and songwriter Philomenah. Hanna (Philomenah) has done some great backing vocals for ECLA in the past but takes front-and-center Vocal and lyric writing duty on this Epic 12". It's Like a modern-day Onda with a sprinkle of pop.

On the flip two percussive house dub workouts with maybe a little hint of MAW 90s major label work (we have been revisiting these in the club recently) with our own Athens of the North studio special sauce.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Can't Wait (feat. Philomenah)
2. I Can't Wait (House Dub) [feat. Philomenah]
3. I Can't Wait (Bonus Beats) [feat. Philomenah]

A previously unreleased remix of Gabriels' seminal track ‘Love & Hate In A Different Time’ lands from Greg Wilson and Ché Wilson.

Perfectly encapsulating the Wilson’s revered fusion of nu-disco and 80s electro, the duo gives new life to a somewhat untouchable classic; recontextualizing the lauded original into an authentic, funk-driven builder suited for any dancefloor. A mastery in respectable yet individual remixing.

Highly anticipated release - better get those orders in quick! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: It was only a matter of time before Greg Wilson got his grubby mitts on what is arguably one of the biggest modern soul tracks of recent times. Thankfully he does the track plenty of justice with a transparent, well-mannered brush up that extends the fun long enough for maximum 'floor enjoyment, plus just enough time for the DJ to grab a 'cig / toilet break - winner!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Greg Wilson & Che Remix (Full Length)
B1. Greg Wilson & Che Original Extended Mix
B2. Acapella

Alongside an absolutely crucial reissue of Moodymann's remix of "Another Night", Larry Heard's Alleviated Records come through with a brand new release courtesy of Piccolo JT & Rio Love.

Piccolo Jt gets things underway with "1969", a beautifully airy deep house stroller with a spoken word sample reminiscing about early black music parties and delicate conga patterns a la the Alleviated standard. "Juke Joints Liquor Houses" follows suit with equally sumptuous, open air deep house vibrations narrated by another commentary on black music and society from back in the day.

Rio Love takes over the reins on side B, "My Country" pairing mechanized electronics and a stripped back rhythm to a politically charged speech on power struggles and economic / race divisions in society. Finally, "I'm Not Tough But Im Tired" sees a weighty house throb decorated with melodica and gentle piano chords for a moment of deep house, plasma pool bliss - the likes of which is almost synonymous with Larry Heard's Alleviated imprint.

These two new signings ensure Alleviated is still at the top of the deep house pyramid after over 30 years! Don't sleep... 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Amazing new vibes from Larry Heard's Alleviated camp. Piccolo JT delivering pure deepness, up there with some of the best on the label. The spoken word snippets really elevate it - a feast for the mind and body. Can't get enough of this...

TRACK LISTING

Piccolo Jt - 1969
Piccolo Jt - Juke Joints Liqour Houses
Rio Love - My Country
Rio Love - Im Not Tough But Im Tired

Big Love label boss Seamus Haji commits four of the label’s pristine releases to wax for the fourth edition of ‘A Touch Of Love’, opening up the compilation himself with ‘Wish’, made with Full Intention’s Michael Gray and featuring vocals from current Chic singer-songwriter Audrey Martells. This collaboration of legends is followed by another from Mark Lower & Fleur De Mur, this time with the fiery nu-disco track ‘Burn For Love’ before one half of NiCe7, FrescoEdits continues to develop his uplifting, loop-based sound with the disco-inspired ‘Get Free’. Closing out this eclectic release of Big Love favourites, London-based duo Saison and their motivational collaboration with Kameelah Waheed, ‘Be Yourself’.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Fast becoming one of the hottest compilations for soulful and funky house, Big Love's V/A series continues with a plethora of stars ready to soundtrack your Saturday night under the disco ball.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Seamus Haji & Michael Gray - Wish Ft. Audrey Martells 
A2. Mark Lower & Fleur De Mur - Burn For Love 
AA1. FrescoEdits - Get Free 
AA2. Saison - Be Yourself Ft. Kameelah Waheed 

"Without Your Love" is a wonderful, uplifting modern soul tune which was recently comped on "Praise Poems Vol. 9". The original 45 RPM single is ultra-rare and extremely hard to find, so this reissue is here to please a lot of music lovers.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Tramp continue to deliver the goods this week, offering up rare-as-hen's-teeth tracks on tasty 7". An original of this smoochy and fiery double header would set you back a cool two ton.

TRACK LISTING

1. Without Your Love
2. The Real Deal

The Love Movement" stands as A Tribe Called Quest's fifth studio album. It was initially launched on September 29, 1998, under the Jive Records label. This album is a concept masterpiece delving into the theme of love through its 15 album tracks and 6 bonus tracks, spread across 3 LPs. Notable singles from the album include "Find A Way" and "Hot Sex".

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1 - LP - Side A
Start It Up
Find Away
Da Booty
DISC 2 - LP - Side B
Steppin’ It Up
Like It Like That
Common Ground
4 Moms
His Name Is Mutty Ranks
DISC 2 - LP - Side A
Give Me
Pad & Pen
Busta’s Lament
Hot 4 U
DISC 2 - LP - Side B
Against The World
The Love
Rock Rock Ya’ll
DISC 3 - LP - Side A
Scenario (Remix)
Money Maker
Hot Sex
DISC 3 - LP - Side B
Oh My God
Jazzy (We’ve Got) (Re-recording)
One Two Sh*t

A command across genres has distinguished Yasushi Ide’s work as a DJ and producer since emerging from the multiscene spawning big bang that was Tokyo’s highly influential club milieu of the 1980s. His productions draw variously from hip-hop, dub, house, punk, jazz dance, exotica and electronic music - and at their most expressive, synthesize sensibilities within a single track. The respect Ide’s earned is well evident in the impressive roll call of collaborators he’s accrued over the years - Masters At Work, Tom Verlaine, Don Letts, James Chance, DJ Krush, Pharaoh Sanders, U-ROY, and Bongo Herman, just to name a legendary few.

Now available for worldwide distribution from Love Injection Records in both digital and 7-inch 45 vinyl formats, the Yasushi Ide “A Place In the Sun (Kaoru Inoue Remix)” is paired with the equally gorgeous “A Place In the Sun (Dub).” On the former, Inoue’s treatment largely strips away the track’s beats, anchoring it to a subtle percussion pulse that emphasizes the composition’s irresistible melodic qualities. The latter finds Yoko Ota at the controls restoring and pushing reverb-soaked drums to the forefront of the mix, accentuating Ide’s affection for the sound system aesthetic while exercising just the right amount of spacial arrangement flourishes to inject some brawn amidst the beauty.

These serendipitously rediscovered renditions of a back catalog deep cut are just the latest examples of Yasushi Ide’s artistic reach. In addition to recording such acclaimed albums as 2020’s Cosmic Suite and its 2022 sequel (for which Love Injection has remixed a track), his work has spanned music supervision of some 200+ compilations for major labels, artist management, his Grand Gallery shop/gallery proprietorship, and books showcasing the depth of his archival sensibilities, including vintage t-shirt and ephemera curation. Perhaps most inspiring, however, is that Ide is still winning new appreciators and collaborators in unexpected ways four decades into a revered career that continues to evolve and expand.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Place In The Sun (Kaoru Inoue Remix 45 Edit)
2. A Place In The Sun (Dub) 

An elusive Soul/Funk masterpiece from mid-70s Lakeland, Florida. The Riley siblings; Carrie, Horace & James laid the foundation for the two songs they would bring to Auburndale's custom recording studio, Central Sound to be released on the Nashville/Florida label, 'Music City'. Jerome McNeil, William Freeman, Bruce Bolden & Sam Graham would complete the outfit and be collectively known as 'Carrie Riley & The Soul Fascinations'

'During the early 70's The Riley family members who formed the Fascinations (originally the Soul Fascinations), James, Horace and Carrie along with a few friends, were destined to develop and perform musically as music flowed through our veins. Our father was a musician who played piano and sang the blues. As children we gathered around an old upright piano after dinner to hear our father play and sang. By the time I was 14 and my brothers, James and Horace were 16 and 17, we had all learned to plan an instrument. My focus was on vocals with many role models to learn from in the music industry such as; Dianna Ross, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and Mable Staple. My brothers loved the Commodores, Kool and the Gang, Rick James and Earth Wind and Fire. The Isleys's were a favorite of ours also. James was the driver of our success in recording as he made sure we practiced for hours on end. Sometimes we would practice popular songs until 2 in the morning. James began to write songs and develop melodies that he would share with Horace and I. We would make suggestions for revisions such as arrangements and melodies. Before long we traveled to Miami where we recorded, Super Cool which was our title song, 'Living in A Lonesome House' and a few other tracks. 'Super Cool' is a song that is personal to me. It is a song about relationships and trust, while the Lonesome house song was about love affairs and breakups. So much great music came out of the 70's. I am grateful that our music contributed to the industry during a time when great music was about love and relationships.

Lovingly
Carrie'

TRACK LISTING

1. Living In A Lonesome House Without You
2. Super Cool

Rounding up 2023 Emm Gryner releases her version of Bobby Caldwell's classic "What You Won't Do For Love" on 7inch vinyl and digital formats. "A jazzy throwback to Bobby Caldwell's biggest hit," Emm Gryner says. "I've loved so many versions of this song and now, thrilled to release my own version."

The 7inch version is backed by "Valencia", one of the favourites from her latest album "Business & Pleasure". Emm Gryner is an award winning singer, songwriter, actor and best-selling author. "Business & Pleasure" is a celebration of the Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac and Doobie Brothers softrock era, infused with the sunshine soul and stellar playing of the late 70s and early 80s.

TRACK LISTING

1. What You Won't Do For Love
2. Valencia

The Galaxy Sound Co's latest 7" kicks off with a remastered edit of 'Passion Play' by The Sugarhill Gang. It's a tune that was originally on their self-titled 1980 album and comes with background vocals from the superb funk and soul band Positive Force. Somehow the tune didn't make the charts at the time though it has been heavily referenced and sampled since, including by the likes of Kerri Chandler. The B-side is 'Who Is She (And What Is She to You)', a soul-jazz cover of a Bill Withers classic taken from Madelaine's only album, Who Is She, in 1978. It has a serious Chicago pedigree and great arrangements from Johnny Pate.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Galaxy Sound Co. continue to dish out the high grade edits. Now on 7" for extra effectiveness in the field (less weight for the real vinyl DJ!) they continue to mine sources of enjoyment for all with these two crowd pleasers sure to satiate even the rowdiest Christmas crowd...

TRACK LISTING

Love Play (Edit)
Who?

Chicago’s Magic Touch label gets the Numero treatment. Legendary rare groove selector & DJ Red Greg’s edit of Disco Holy-Grail “Why Do I Love You” is now available on 7” for the first time and housed in official Magic Touch Double Disco Smash 7” Company Sleeve. This tune has been making waves in the DJ community for years only after Red Greg introduced his crucial edit eliminating the studio fluff and dialing in the raw disco meat. Certified Floor Filler with a groove guaranteed to answer all questions on love.

TRACK LISTING

A. Why Do I Love You (Red Greg Edit)

B. Why Do I Love You (Instrumental)

Pioneering new music from members of the iconic and legendary funk band Parliament Funkadelic. Detroit Rising is an exciting artist collective created by 10 groove masters including the current and original members of P-funk, Prince, Public Enemy and Mary J Blige. Taking a break from relentless touring, the musicians step out in a whole new direction, creating a hybrid sound of funk-jazz with injections of soul and hip hop. The album, “A Cosmic Jazz Funk Adventure” was recorded live at the world famous Motown affiliated United Sound Studios in Detroit and studios in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Baltimore and Florida.

For this remix release a handpicked selection of some of the top DJ producers in the UK have been brought together to create a soulful house and nu-jazz hybrid record: Jimpster, Kaidi Tatham, Sean McCabe with Z records (Dave Lee) and EVM128 – with mastering by UK wizard AtJazz.

First up, Jimpster remixes the Detroit Rising space opera, ‘Rocket Love’ – showcasing two funk-fused house tracks with guitar licks from Duminie Deporres (Public Enemy) and bass lines courtesy of Kern Brantley (Mary J Blige, Beyonce, Aretha Franklin). The vocal remix is expertly laced with parts of the original P-funk instrumental and hip-hop vocals, with the dreamy Dub version letting that infectious hook and melody hit hard.

Next up, Sean McCabe was brought in by Dave Lee of Z records to remix the original Detroit hit ‘Little Bit of Love’ into a fast-paced dance heater. King of the keys Kaidi Tatham is then welcomed to remix two different Detroit Rising tracks, creating a double dose of signature, broken beat infused cuts. ‘Our world’ stars P-funk vocalist and keyboard wizard Danny Bedrosian, alongside granddaughter of George Clinton, Tonysha Nelson.

The emotive, soulful broken brilliance of ‘Peace & Harmony’ also gets the Kaidi treatment starring Sue Ann Carwell and Steve Boyd, vocalists for Prince and Kool & The Gang respectively.

EVM128 of Coop rounds off the package presenting a fast futuristic Bruk beat from the romantic Detroit Rising song called ‘Gorgeous’.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Rocket Love (Jimpster Dub)
A2. Little Bit (Sean McCabe Remix)
A3. Our World (Kaidi Tatham Remix)
B1. Rocket Love (Jimpster Remix)
B2. Gorgeous (EVM128 Remix)
B3. Peace & Harmony (Kaidi Tatham Remix)

With both tracks now coming out for the first time on vinyl, the Liquid Love and What's The T? 7” single is a must get for all Roy Ayers fans and serious music collectors, not least as 2023 witnesses Roy's final ever tour of live dates. This release is a fitting tribute to the career of one of the most influential musicians in global Black music history and each track represents his virtuosity as a vibesman and his versatility across genres. Liquid Love is taken from the digital version of the 2015 BBE released compilation of Roy's unreleased material, Virgin Ubiquity II, and is a wicked mid-tempo track where Roy's vibraphone complements an amazing female vocal arrangement to create harmonies and melody over a tough as you like breakbeat, bass line and keyboard riff. Coming from the 2004 initial release in the Virgin Ubiquity series of unreleased Roy Ayer's tracks, What's The T? is a more uptempo, bassline driven slab of dance floor funk. Augmented by a horn section and a huge female vocal from Merry Clayton over a hi-hat drumbeat, What's The T? is Roy Ayers and his musicians playing Roy's arrangements to perfection. Releasing on BBE Music's ALIM imprint, Liquid Love/What's The T? vinyl single issue is two musical moments in time now presented as a moment in history in the year we celebrate the excellent career and legacy of Roy Ayers as a touring musician. This is Roy at his best as musician, arranger and artist, grab this now.

TRACK LISTING

1. What's The T?
2. Liquid Love

Re-issue of this obscure Bay Area, mid-80s Disco/Soul single produced by the late Harvey Scales & Cedrick Rupert

TRACK LISTING

1. (We Are The) Stars
2. Best Friend

This modern soul masterpiece, originally released in July of 1978 at a cabaret club in downtown Detroit has been revived and re-released via Fantasy Love.

TRACK LISTING

1. Everybody Needs Lovin, Now's The Time
2. Hey Look At Me

No band smoulders quite like The Slow Show.

The Manchester four-piece have built a reputation for soaring crescendos and deep emotional canyons, making music for romantic souls and wounded hearts.

Subtle Love not only distils The Slow Show’s sumptuous indie pop formula, but it casts the group’s net into exciting fresh waters, incorporating winsome folk (Royal Blue) and anthemic, widescreen rock (One Shot) too. Across ten songs, the listener is taken on an amble through the band’s past and into a tantalising future. It is a highly melodic and moving affair, made by kindred spirits and lifelong friends.

The band decamped to Cave Hill in Belfast, where Joel Byrne-McCullough grew up. “I hadn’t been there for 15 years,” marvels the guitarist. While there, the band stuck side by side and bonded afresh. “It was a great time of togetherness,” reveals Rob. “We lived in the same house, we ate together, we went to the local pub, we talked about life.”

Across a five-day period, all ten songs that make up the album had taken shape and been committed to tape by their producer, Joel’s brother, Dan Byrne-McCullough. Dan’s presence enabled an intimacy and familiarity that made everyone feel comfortable, and this brought out the best in the band.

One Shot is the first taster from the album and is arguably the band’s most anthemic and sing-a-long song of their career to date.

Joel reminisces “I remember when we had the music of One Shot. It was the evening, and we were sat in the sitting room [in Belfast’, the fire was on, and we were having our dinner watching the news: me, Rob, and Fred [Kindt – band keyboardist]. After dinner, Rob was singing a few things over those chords.

As soon as he sung, ‘We’ve got one shot’, I said, 'That's it'.”

TRACK LISTING

Roulette
Tides
Learning To Dance
Subtle Love
Royal Blue
One Shot
Lament
Builder Boy
Trainride
Pale

LOVE + POP is a snapshot of a moment in not-so-far-away time; something fast, loud, moody and a little dangerous. It is, in some ways, classic Current Joys: full of wild ambition, sneaky hooks, and songs that move from concept to completion with prolific speed. But LOVE + POP also explodes myriad expectations with aggressive, deconstructed production, house music influence, and a guest appearance from Lil Yachty. It is not so much a twist as it is a unique multiverse identity for Current Joys, as Nick Rattigan’s set out to “capture this sonic moment and harken back to the way I first released music.”

The story of LOVE + POP begins with one of those house parties: the kind that bulldozes your home and, in its aftermath, leaves a wreckage that finds you flattened but also ready to be new. In that mess and mayhem, Rattigan watched Everybody’s Everything, the documentary of Lil Peep, and recorded a cover of “walk away as the door slams”. But the itch wasn’t scratched, and what began as a moment of homage morphed into something bigger, deeper and more fundamental, a point where the seemingly haphazard – in his home, in Peep’s process – opened Rattigan up to an entire creative space and a new approach to bending or even detonating genre.

Crucially, all of this was recorded at home, in what Rattigan calls a “tribute to the process of creating” in a DIY space. And what began as a singular passion project unexpectedly grew into a uniquely collaborative record for Current Joys. “I’ve set out to make collaborative records before,” Rattigan explains, “but they often end up totally me, with just a couple exceptions. But then this record gave me the opportunity to be extremely collaborative, to let other people write instrumental tracks, sending links around for people to mess with and weigh in on. I sat down to do credits and realized here were all these people and styles and they all came together and worked.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Walk Away As The Door Slams (feat. Your Angel)
2. LOVE + POP (feat. Your Angel)
3. Gatsby (feat. Lil Yachty)
4. My Shadow Life (feat. Oddbody)
5. CIGARETTES
6. Bb Put On Deftones
7. Dr Satan
8. Moon Sickness
9. Rock N Roll Dreams (feat. Brutus VIII)
10. I Feel Truth Inside Of U
11. 3lefant (feat. Slow Hollows)
12. U R THE REASON

RIYL: Silver Jews, Pixies, Husker Du, Wilco, Pavement, Superchunk, Modest Mouse.

As the front person of celebrated indie band Cymbals Eat Guitars, guitarist and singer Joseph D’Agostino spent over a decade setting autobiographical, emotionally vivid lyrics against a backdrop of soaring and compositionally ambitious rock. After four critically acclaimed LPs that solidified D’Agostino’s reputation as a gifted songwriter, he chose to break from his long-term band and debut a new project: Empty Country. On 2020’s self-titled debut, D’Agostino’s storytelling lens shifted away from personal narrative and toward fiction; psychopaths, apparitions and deplorables populated a bleak and uncanny parallel version of American dystopia. Empty Country’s sprawling and sonically adventurous arrangements—filled out by collaborating musicians including Rachel and Zoë Browne (Field Mouse), Kyle Gillbride (Swearin’), Zena Kay (Angel Olsen), and former CEG drummer Charlotte Anne Dole—ranged from luminous jangle-pop to scorching emo-punk to narcotized Americana. Though the pandemic curtailed planned touring, a seven-piece iteration of the band played one packed Brooklyn show in May 2022, supported by Charles Bissell (The Wrens) and Field Mouse; Empty Country also backed Bissell on several classics from The Meadowlands. “It was a wonderful return to live music for all of us,” says D’Agostino. “So many folks reached out to me and told me how Empty Country offered them comfort during those first several months of being stuck inside. I’m happy that it came out and connected with some people and that I was able to establish this universe I could continue to build on.”

Empty Country II, the project’s second full-length, is a thrilling expansion of that world. D’Agostino pushed himself to new places as a songwriter, crafting a collection of short stories set to music that grapple with the biggest questions now hanging over America—gun violence, the addiction epidemic, and generational hopelessness among them. In 2020, he’d moved from Philadelphia to small-town New England to be closer to family, and his new locale, coupled with the dread of lockdown, inspired him to return to the haunted world from the first LP. “It’s pretty jarring to leave a city—where you can safely assume you’re aligned with your neighbors on many political and social issues—for somewhere more rural and conservative,” says D’Agostino, noting the Trump flags and Blue Lives Matter hood wraps that dot his new dirt road residence. Across the new album’s nine tracks, D’Agostino introduces us to a bevy of characters: three generations of West Virginia clairvoyants, crushed by the weight of their secret knowledge; a group of drag queens and misfits in early ‘80s New York City; a pill mill doctor’s daughter who dabbles in necromancy; a convicted killer; a bullied kid injured and alone in the forest as night falls. Through the stories of these characters, Empty Country II delivers an engaging and deeply moving rumination on time, family, and the disintegration of America.

Despite the stoicism of its storytelling, Empty Country II cuts the darkness with beauty, humor, and an earnest belief in the transcendent power of rock music. It was recorded over two weeks at Fidelitorium, the renowned studio in Kernersville, NC, belonging to R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter. Legendary recording engineer John Agnello, whose previous collaborations with Cymbals Eat Guitars resulted in their 2014 high-water mark, LOSE, brought his trademark clarity and nuance to the process, helping Empty Country II crackle with a vital energy that imbues these stories with genuine lifeforce. Dole returned on drums for the record, her virtuosic performances lending raw power and immediacy; her twin brother Patrick joined on bass, his decades of experience uplifting the songs with subtle melodicism and formidable technicality. The group's chemistry and deep personal history are palpable, allowing them to approach the record’s complex story with subtlety and dynamism. “Mitch has collected an astounding array of weird mics, amplifiers, and oddball orchestral instruments: organs, Buddhist temple bells, bar chimes, tubular bells,” enthuses D’Agostino about the studio. “FLA,” a gripping portrait of a queer tour boat pilot in the Florida Keys pining for their absent lover, was arranged from the ground so the group could incorporate Easter’s timpani. D’Agostino considers it a high point of his lengthy discography and lauds that song’s harmonica solo as “my favorite 30 seconds of music that I’ve ever been a part of.”

Empty Country II also features some of D’Agostino’s most danceable songs—like “David,” a tribute to D’Agostino’s late friend David Berman. Featuring a lyrical tapestry of Silver Jews references and surreally beautiful images, head-nodding Philly soul grooves collapse into cosmic freeform jazz-inspired sections, ornamented with inventive hand percussion, marimba flourishes, and toe-tapping piano chords. “Recite a poem as the day vibrates,” D’Agostino sings. “I finally wrote this song for you / But I don’t know who I’d show it to.” It’s a paraphrase of W.S. Merwin’s famed short poem “Elegy”, written after the passing of his own mentor, John Berryman. On “Bootsie,” a runaway girl from West Virginia explores the crumbling, glorious 1980s New York City of Paris is Burning, finding community in a scene of drag queens who offer her a new way of thinking about what makes America—and rock music—great. Based on his own mother’s experiences at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the song has deep personal meaning to D’Agostino. “The men you thought were brave / are arrogant and depraved,” he sings against the damaged disco beats of the Dole siblings’ rhythm section. Inverting the chorus of the Talking Heads’ “Heaven,” the lyrics of “Bootsie” celebrate the underdogs and misfits: “Hell is the place where everything happens / The band’s playing all the songs ever written at once / Shape the chaos, make your little story / Baby, this life’s perfect purgatory.”

Though Empty Country II is a record about the forces that drive Americans apart, it’s also imbued with empathic love and an understanding of what binds people to family and country—in spite of the darknesses we encounter. The concept of a Great American Rock Album might scan as outdated in 2023, but with this sprawling and uncompromising epic, D’Agostino and Empty Country shatter ambivalence and confront the horrors with a community-minded sense of cautious optimism. “We may be staring into an abyss,” says D’Agostino. “But we’re all staring together.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Pearl
2. Erlking
3. David
4. Dustine
5. Syd
6. Bootsie
7. FLA
8. Lamb
9. Cool S

RIYL: the Dead C, Birchville Cat Motel, Skullflower, heat exhaustion, feeling of confusion and self-recrimination et al. …aka A Bunker Intimation Vol. 1. And what have they built down there? A remodel in 40 minutes at half-time, the group temporarily slimmed and tuned to a different gait, a shifting of pulses, delay, moving air; the sound of the room and the body, of the body in the room; a room fogged as emphysemic lungs where indistinct translucent ooze lines its walls, possibly of paranormal origin, possibly of nocturnal transgression alone. The reality - as it ought - is occluded from view. Not necessarily the IFWM unit you might assume, but most certainly one of the many versions they've always been. And not so much a new beginning as an alternative diversion through the abyss. Indexe'e: aka Index For Working Musik. Onwards, inwards.

TRACK LISTING

1. Church Normal
2. Half Leib II
3. W1 Sprokla
4. Frucht Keller

The Beatles’ double-A-side single for “Now And Then” and “Love Me Do” pairs the last Beatles song with the band’s first UK single. Powerful musical bookends to The Beatles’ recorded canon, both songs are also featured in the expanded Anniversary Editions for 1962-1966 (‘The Red Album’) and 1967-1970 (‘The Blue Album’).

“Now And Then”
“Now And Then” is the last Beatles song, written and demoed by John Lennon in the mid/late 1970s. With John’s voice now pristine in the mix, “Now And Then” features elements from the 1995 sessions including George Harrison’s guitar parts, and vocal and instrumental parts recorded by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in 2022, along with a new arrangement for strings. Produced by Paul and Giles Martin, “Now And Then” is the last song recorded by all four Beatles, a powerful and fitting finale for the band’s timeless recordings.

“Love Me Do”
The song that started it all, “Love Me Do” was The Beatles’ first UK single in 1962. For the first time, the iconic song has been de-mixed using machine aided learning and remixed in true stereo. “Love Me Do” launched The Beatles’ journey to unparalleled worldwide success and acclaim that continues to this day.

Re-release of this obscure 80s Disco/Funk track with remixes from Tom Noble (Superior Elevation/PPU) & Fredfades (Mutual Intentions)

TRACK LISTING

1. I Need It (Tom Noble Remix)
2. I Need It (Fredfades Remix)
3. I Need It

18 classic songs from the Velvet Underground catalog performed by The Feelies at White Eagle Hall/ Jersey City, NJ - October 13, 2018. The Feelies have spent their entire career covering songs by the Velvet Underground and are masters of the VU sound. They toured Europe opening for Lou Reed in the 1980s, sharing meals, hanging out backstage, even joining him to perform some of his classic material. On October 13, 2018 the Feelies were invited to perform Velvet Underground songs at Jersey City, NJ’s White Eagle Hall as part of a traveling museum show of VU memorabilia.

This double vinyl album of 18 classic Lou Reed songs includes VU standards like “Sweet Jane,” “Rock & Roll” and “I’m Waiting for the Man” as well as rarely covered gems like “I Heard Her Call My Name” and “That’s the Story of My Life.” The Feelies are one of the most influential bands to emerge from the NY post punk scene of the late 1970s and have continued to perform together and make records for 4 decades. Includes guest performances from Bongos members James Mastro and Richard Barone.

Double LP Includes liner notes by veteran music journalist Howard Wuelfing. 

TRACK LISTING

01. Sunday Morning
02. Who Loves The Sun
03. There She Goes Again
04. What Goes On
05. Sweet Jane
06. Head Held High
07. I’m Waiting For The Man
08. White Light/White Heat
09. I Heard Her Call My Name
10. New Age
11. That’s The Story Of My Life
12. All Tomorrow’s Parties
13. Rock And Roll
14. We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together
15. Run Run Run
16. I Can’t Stand It
17. After Hours
18. Oh! Sweet Nuthin’

ABC perform their classic album "Lexicon Of Love" in it's entirety, plus their other greatest hits.

Sheffield's finest, ABC, were back in their hometown for a very special anniversary show which marked exactly 40 years to the day since the album was released on the 21st June 1982.

ABC were joined by the original orchestral team of Southbank Sinfonia and longtime collaborator and arranger Anne Dudley who conducted the evening.

TRACK LISTING

LP TRACKLISTING
Disc 1
Side 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
Side 2
1. The Night You Murdered Love
2. (How To Be A) Millionaire
3. The Flames Of Desire
4. The Love Inside The Love
Disc 2
Side 1
1. Ten Below Zero
2. One Better World
3. Ocean Blue
4. Be Near Me
Side 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
Disc 3
Side 1
1. Valentine's Day
2. The Look Of Love
3. Date Stamp
Side 2
1. 4 Ever 2 Gether
2. All Of My Heart
3. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
4. The Look Of Love (Encore)

2CD TRACKLIST
Disc 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
4. The Night You Murdered Love
5. (How To Be A) Millionaire
6. The Flames Of Desire
7. The Love Inside The Love
8. Ten Below Zero
9. One Better World
10. Ocean Blue
11. Be Near Me
Disc 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love
7. Date Stamp
8. 4 Ever 2 Gether
9. All Of My Heart
10. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
11. The Look Of Love (Encore)

3CD TRACKLISTING
Disc 1
1. Overture
2. When Smokey Sings
3. Viva Love
4. The Night You Murdered Love
5. (How To Be A) Millionaire
6. The Flames Of Desire
7. The Love Inside The Love
8. Ten Below Zero
9. One Better World
10. Ocean Blue
11. Be Near Me
Disc 2
1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love
7. Date Stamp
8. 4 Ever 2 Gether
9. All Of My Heart
10. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
11. The Look Of Love (Encore)
Disc 3
1. Overture
2. Show Me
3. Poison Arrow
4. Many Happy Returns
5. Tears Are Not Enough
6. Valentine's Day
7. The Look Of Love
8. Date Stamp
9. 4 Ever 2 Gether
10. All Of My Heart
11. The Look Of Love (Part Four)
12. The Look Of Love (Encore)

History has shown that the greatest bands - bands with that certain, ever elusive quality called lasting power - neither conform to nor buck the trends of their time, but rather force the times to catch up to them. Sheer Mag has such lasting power in droves. After almost a decade spent carving out a career that has already become the stuff of modern underground legend, the band’s new stand-alone single, “All Lined Up,” comes alongside the announcement of their signing to Third Man Records - their first partnership with a larger independent label–who will also be physically and digitally re-releasing the entirety of Sheer Mag’s back-catalogue, including their cult-beloved early EPs I (2014), II (2015), and III (2016), as well as their first two breakthrough LPs, Need To Feel Your Love (2017) and A Distant Call (2019). Sheer Mag’s sensibility, as fervently beloved by baseball-tee clad garage rockers and tattoo-less indie kids as it is by leather-and-stud-loyal punks, finds its strength in an unconventional mixture of refined complexity and straight-forward pop prowess. Seamlessly trading between head-turning guitar heroics and a charmingly timeless blend of disco, hard rock, and garage inflected hooks, Sheer Mag’s oft-referenced, never-replicated sound has played an undeniably large role in stoking the current resurgence of interest power-pop forward rock music. While quickly adopted as a fan-favorite amongst the sweat-caked crowds of the early 2010’s underground, time has attested to Sheer Mag’s singular cultural mutability: though never straying too far from their home-town Philadelphian origins

TRACK LISTING

1. Suffer Me
2. Meet Me In The Street
3. Pure Desire
4. Need To Feel Your Love
5. Until You Find The One
6. Just Can't Get Enough
7. Milk And Honey
8. Expect The Bayonet
9. Rank And File
10. Can't Play It Cool
11. Turn It Up
12. (Say Goodbye To) Sophie Scholl

Berlin-based British composer, percussionist, and instrument maker Bex Burch was invited to spend a month in the US by International Anthem in Summer 2022. Burch immersed herself in the label’s creative community and listened to what it gave her, making field recordings and allowing There Is Only Love and Fear to emerge from the collaborations and environments she encountered.

Sessions for the album spanned multiple non-traditional recording spaces including a storefront in Bridgeport, Chicago and a canyon in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, with an eminent cast of creative musicians including Ben LaMar Gay, Macie Stewart, Anna Butterss, Mikel Patrick Avery, and Dan Bitney of Tortoise, all of whom Burch met for the first time in the moments before they played. These moments of instant collaboration were then edited, decomposed, and recontextualized by Burch, resulting in a deeply organic, energetic-yet-patient addition to the canon of modern composition.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful distillation of percussive new age, wandering jazz and heady melodicism from the always reliable International Anthem. Burch has crafted a hugely immersive, transportive piece of work.

TRACK LISTING

1. Dawn Blessings (feat. Macie Stewart)
2. If I Was You, I'd Be Doing Exactly The Same
3. Don't Go Back To Sleep (feat. Dan Bitney)
4. Fruit Smoothie With Peanut Butter
5. Pardieu
6. Start Before You're Ready
7. You Thought You Were Free?
8. "Joy Is Not Meant To Be A Crumb"
9. On Falling (feat. Diego Gaeta)
10. Follow Me, I Make You Happy
11. This Is The Sound Of One Voice
12. When Love Begins 

Betty Davis was a musical maverick with vision. Image, substance, sex, and grit combined with a badass band that could deliver the funk bed backbone to the sultry music between the sheets. After cutting two notorious discs for the Just Sunshine label (Betty Davis and They Say I’m Different), and Nasty Gal for Island Records, Davis went to work on her most personal and expressive record yet. After capturing 10 hard-hitting tracks in 1976 at the remote Studio In The Country (Louisiana), a creative difference with her then label caused the platter to be unexpectedly shelved. Davis would cut one final album and soon retreat from the music business, completely disappearing from the public eye.

Is It Love Or Desire is a little-known gem in the Davis catalog. Mastered from the original tapes, and untouched for over 30 years, this release features detailed liner notes, the originally intended artwork housed in a lavishly packaged digipak, rare photos, archival material, and recent interviews with Davis and her skin-tight band Funk House.

Never bootlegged, never released, never heard until now, the secret story of this lost album will finally enter the history books and cement this bold soul sisters contributions to music and popular culture. Its time to get down…

TRACK LISTING

Is It Love Or Desire
Whorey Angel
It's So Good
Crashin' From Passion
When Romance Says Goodbye
Bottom Of The Barrel
Stars Starve
You Know
Let's Get Personal
Bar Hoppin'
For My Man

The recording project of producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jeffrey Paradise, Poolside shares his new album "Blame It All On Love", bolstering his reputation as a dignified tastemaker, with features from notable artists including Panama, Vansire, Ben Browning of Cut Copy, Slenderbodies, Mazy, Life On Planets, Ora The Molecule, and Munya.

In 2011 Poolside set out to produce appropriately chill music for summer soirees, a light but danceable kind of music with sunny vibes and liquid rhythm that he dubbed Daytime Disco. Since then, Poolside has released three acclaimed albums - "Pacific Standard Time" (2012), "Heat" (2017) and "Low Season" (2020) - remixed countless high-profile acts such as Billy Idol, Jack Johnson & Milky Chance, DRAMA, Miami Horror, L'impératrice, Purple Disco Machine, Big Wild and more. Poolside has also recently collaborated with Todd Edwards, Neil Frances, Brijean and Buscabulla. Poolside’s seven-piece live band has supported Kacey Musgraves and Tycho along with performing at major music festivals including Coachella, Primavera, Outside Lands and Corona Capital, with Jeffrey DJing opening sets for LCD Soundsystem and Earth, Wind & Fire. Poolside’s cover of Neil Young’s classic “Harvest Moon” - which they made a one-of-a-kind 12-inch just for James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and halted the pressing of the album to include it on the debut album "Pacific Standard Time" - has been streamed over 100M times.

"Blame It All On Love" sees him venture even further into rich songwriting, high gloss production and a decidedly relaxed, West Coast aesthetic. Full bodied and multi-layered it brings to mind the poppier sides of Braxe + Falcon with nods to other Californian soft rock legends such as Ned Doheny along the way.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bright, energetic electronic business here from Jeffrey Paradise (what a name too), mixing horizontal Balearic grooves and flickering disco guitars with smooth as silk vox.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ride With You
2. Float Away
3. Back To Life
4. Moonlight
5. Where Is The Thunder?
6. Each Night
7. We Could Be Falling In Love
8. Ventura Highway Blues
9. Hold On To You
10. Sea Of Dreams
11. Lonely Night

Provocative post-punk from Israel’s undercover goth prince. Megira’s lone album with the Modern Dance Club showcased a grimier, more driving vision of his brand of trashy no wave. Spread across 31 tracks and two LPs, Love Police schizophrenically mixes industrial soundscapes, surf ditties, hardcore, swamp pop, bubble grunge, screaming, ecstasy, and enough fuzz to warrant a needle check.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. The Return Of The Russian Frogmen That Died And Came Back To Life As
Strange Looking Radioactive Creatures
2. Sababa One
3. Rhythm Of Hate
4. At The Elvis Inn
5. No Wave Exercise
6. Existence
7. The Wall Of Death
8. U.S.F.

SIDE B
9. And Now I Wanna Drown In Your Dark Dreamy Eyes
10. Boo
11. Beach Bums Must Die
12. The Strange And Bizarre Tale Of The Boy Who Had One Testicle Too Many
13. 333
14. (Used To Be...) Psychic Youth
15. Elvis Is Not Dead
16. Smack Dab

SIDE C
17. Beneath The Underground
18. Valley Of Tears
19. Mao/Mao
20. Here Comes Your Mama
21. Ode To A Cocksucker
22. Homesless Body
23. Sababa?

SIDE D
24. Freak Junior
25. Psychic Youth-2
26. Another No Wave Exercise
27. Street Machine
28. Da Homogreaser Stomp
29. All Tuned Up And Ready To Go
30. Je Ne Parle Pas Francais
31. Dead Girl Blues

Sophie Lloyd returns to Luke Solomon’s imprint alongside the effervescent singer songwriter Amy Douglas for a wax release of ‘Sweet Love’, an anthemic disco release bursting with sensuality. The pair are well known to Classic fans; Sophie for her debut release, ‘Calling Out’ with Detroit trio Dames Brown, and her subsequent release ‘Angels By My Side’ which received a soulful remix package from Floorplan.

Additionally, nostalgic house vocals from Brooklyn’s Amy Douglas have appeared on tracks from Luke Solomon’s ‘Love. Hope. Happiness’ to Horse Meat Disco’s ‘Message To The People’, also featuring the Dames. For the Love Hangover mix of ‘Sweet Love’, a slow, intoxicating intro erupts in a burst of energy as Amy’s vocals and Sophie’s production come together for an ambitious, driving composition.

The vinyl also features a remix from the label boss himself; Luke Solomon’s Always Love Revision of this modern disco anthem ups the ante, adding huge swathes of energy to the previously sensual record. Similarly, the Sweet Lovin’ Mix capitalises on the raucous finale from the original Love Hangover Mix.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Big room house business from Amy Douglas on Classic. Giving me all the thrills and excitement of a Big Night Out at Homoelectric or Hidden. Sure to raise the roof at the larger dancing establishments.

TRACK LISTING

A. Sweet Love (Love Hangover Mix) 
B1. Sweet Love (Luke Solomon's Always Love Revision) 
B2. Sweet Love (Sweet Lovin' Mix) 

††† (Crosses) - Chino Moreno (Deftones) and producer/multi-instrumentalist Shaun Lopez - release their anticipated new album Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. on October 13th with notable features from EL-P and Robert Smith.

The arrival of Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. will follow the band's critically acclaimed EP PERMANENT.RADIANT, which recently received a new spin on the duo's PERMANENT.RADIANT.REMIXED. The reimagined release contained remixes from a noteworthy list of electronic innovators including Hudson Mohawke, suicideyear, AWAY, and Machinedrum.

With new single “Invisible Hand,” Moreno and Lopez embark upon a new chapter filled with merciless creations as they continue making music without compromise.

TRACK LISTING

01 Pleasure
02 Invisible Hand
03 Found
04 Light As A Feather
05 Pulse Plagg
06 Runner
07 Big Youth
08 End Youth
09 Last Rites
10 Ghost Ride
11 Grace
12 Eraser
13 Natural Selection
14 Girls Float † Boys Cry (Feat. Robert Smith)
15 Goodnight, God Bless,
I Love You, Delete.

In the midst of the UK house rave-olution of the early-’90s, London’s V4 Visions imprint documented the confluence of street soul, deep house, swingbeat, and jungle sounds emanating from the clubs and pirate radio signals. Over the course of half a decade, V4’s unparalleled 12” output referenced every significant Black British music scene; from lovers rock to jazz-funk, sound system reggae to hip hop, new jack swing to garage, from artists Ashaye, Julie Stapleton, Maureen Mason, Rohan Delano, The Wades, and Endangered Species. This 18-track double LP is the first critical overview of the label, with extensive notes by Simon Reynolds, era-defining photographs, and fresh remasters, all housed in a glorious foil-stamped gatefold tip-on sleeve. Is this a dream?

TRACK LISTING

1. Maureen Mason I'm Believing (In Love Again)
2. Ashaye What's This World Coming To
3. Julie Stapleton Just Dreaming
4. Ashaye Dreaming (Original Mix)
5. Julie Stapleton (Feat. Ashaye) All The Way (Guitar Mix)
6. Maureen Mason If This Is A Dream
7. The Wades Get Off That (Poison)
8. Ashaye Come Go With Me
9. Julie Stapleton Where's Your Love Gone (Remix)
10. Rohan Delano The Way I Love You
11. Ashaye Dreaming (Jungle Mix)
12. Endangered Species Just A Memory (Vocal Mix)
13. Endangered Species Endangered Species
14. Insight (Feat. Ashaye) Fantasy (Insight Mix)
15. Ashaye Nowhere To Run (Instrumental South Side Mix)
16. Insight Paradise (Para Dub)
17. Jungle Biznizz Joy In The Jungle
18. Rohan Delano Inflight

A sweaty peak time party 12 for the start of nightclub season. We had been playing these tracks at our Athens of the North Disco Club at Sneaky Pete's in Edinburgh for some time. The club was going crazy, so we thought it was the perfect time of year to share these ECLA flips with you. 500 only.

TRACK LISTING

1. I'm So Glad
2. Miracles

Compiling the follow-up to a very successful first album is always a tricky task, but just 12 months since the release of volume one in the 'With Love' series, miche has excelled himself once again with another glorious, deep dive into the world of rare soul0

15 tracks of independently released music, created by magnificent artists with stories to tell and primed for rediscovery.

The ambition to celebrate under-the-radar artists has remained, but instead of a facsimile of volume one, what we have here is a selection shaped by life changes. Volume two is for the dancers; still soulful, still ultra- rare and slept- on records from the USA, Chile, Brazil and beyond, but the dynamics of the collection have shifted slightly. It represents a move from being immersed in a week in week out environment of beautiful, soulful music in a cosy, dimly lit hi- fi bar to playing livelier, more energetic, dancefloor-focused music in nightclubs. This volume will get you on your feet, make you move and unleash whatever it is that makes you get down.

One of the jewels in the crown of this compilation is a joyous, anthemic gospel version of Stevie Wonder's 'As' by The Family Tree (a project produced by the fantastic Julius Brockington). We are also treated to a rare and sought- after Pennsylvanian funk / AOR bomb by Maxwell, a stunning modern soul tune 'High On You' by Freedom, and self-released Brazilian 45s by Banda 22 and Ze Da Lata. P.J. City's 'Straight Forward (Non- Stop)' is gospel- disco perfection, and we also have 'Dame Solamente Amor', a sublime, soul beauty from Chile by Rogers Mitchell. Many of these artists featured in this compilation aren't household names, but they deserve their moment to shine, to be heard, loved and appreciated for their artistry.

As miche says it, "I hope this compilation helps in some way to keep this glorious music alive and play a part in connecting generations of music lovers from the worldwide soul family. As always, it has been made 'With Love'."

A connoisseur's selection of lost and rare modern soul, disco gospel, boogie, jazzy AOR, and Brazilian gems.

TRACK LISTING

Billy Boomer - I Like What She's Doing
P.J. City - Straight Forward (Non-Stop)
Maxwell - Realize
Cecil Lyde - I'll Make It On My Own
Mixed Generation Enterprize - Take To The Sky
Mark Meadows - You And Me
Alice Cohen & Fun City - Save The Best 'Til Last
Banda 22 - A Luz Que Brilha Meu Viver
Ze Da Lata - Misterio Brilhante
Rogers Mitchell - Dame Solamente Amor
The Eleventh Commandment - Then I Reach Satisfaction
Billy Boomer - You Can't Hide
Freedom - High On You
The Lost Family - Blow My Mind
The Family Tree - As 

Mother I’d Like To Funk are back with another sizzling hot re-issue, this time straight from Denmark. Danish pop group Boulevard released an obscure LP back in 1981, called “American Dream”.

This official re-issue features the street funk anthem “Ready For Your Love” on the A Side, with a special “Synthphonic Dub" version on the B Side (previously only available on the album)

Guaranteed to light up any boogie-leaning dance spot, Mother I'd Like To Funk deliver a trunk of funk on their imperative second release!

TRACK LISTING

Ready For Your Love
Still Ready (Synthfonic Dub)

Amy Dabbs puts her heart and soul in the breaks anthem ‘Everything Alright' feat. Aika Mal’ on her Heist debut EP.
Bonus: A tantalizing 140BPM Dam Swindle remix

Berlin based Amy Dabbs has already impressed, with releases on Aus Music, Shall not Fade and her own Dabbs traxx, a monthly residency on Rinse FM and an active tour schedule that's won her fans from dancers and DJs alike; with Special Request, The Blessed Madonna, Jaguar and Cinthie all waving the flag for this up and coming artist.

Right from the start, you know you’ve got an anthem on your hands with ‘Everything alright’. The gorgeous vocals by Aika Mal give you that right amount of emotive, ravey energy and come wrapped in a package of solid breaks and mesmerizing chords. With a hint of acid and a couple of meticulously crafted breakdowns you’ll be fist-pumping along with this track before you know it.

The Dam Swindle remix drops the tempo a little bit, but with its 140BPM, warm broken beat and UK bass flavours, the duo delivers a curveball of a track with a lot of crossover appeal. They went for a more stripped back approach that combines introverted percussion with bouncy keys that complement the vocals perfectly for an altogether irresistible remix.

‘Crush’ is a signature Amy Dabbs tracks, with driving 909 percussion, female vocal chops, ethereal pads and classic strings. It’s a warmhearted affair laced with Amy’s feelgood DNA. On the flip you’ll find ‘Eleven eleven twenty two’; a classic deep house track with subtle hints of UKG in its sampling and bass. The pads and leads are moody and the skippy percussion gives this track the kind of energy you’d welcome when pulling an all-nighter.

Rounding off the EP, we’ve got the EP title track ‘Only Breaks Can Love Your Heart’; another showcase of Amy’s knack to make house aficionados dance to drum and bass. There’s a certain contrast in pace – raging drums versus dreamy chords that makes you feel at ease listening to a fast-paced track like this. The vocals are equally hazy with a subtle 90’s and 00’s RnB feel. Bassface guaranteed on this one!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Anthemic, future-proof bass hybrids from rising star Amy Dabbs. Touching on garage, bassline, DnB and techno styles in her own sugar-coated, hyped-up manner.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Everything Alright Feat. Aika Mal
A2. Everything Alright Feat. Aika Mal (Dam Swindle Remix)
A3. Eleven Eleven Twenty Two
B1. Crush
B2. Only Breaks Can Love Your Heart

Re-issue of this essential Larry Heard album from the early 2000's. Presented in a DJ friendly, triple vinyl package and adding some of the favorites from CD release like "Deja Vu" and "Missing you (Jazz Cafe Mix)" to the vinyl package. There's a bonus track too - "Luminous Energy" from the same sessions but previously unreleased. 

For newcomers: prepare to be swept away on a bliss cloud of deep house pleasure. A dazzling array of instrumentation (and Larry's own vocals), creating a rich and luxureous sound thats fathoms apart from the souless, dial-a-preset version of bastardized EDM-house that, ironically, became the go-to for much of the American public. We were always a bit more discerning over here, which is why this album became such a cult-collected classic - often fetching up to £100 2nd hand. Every house lover needs a copy of this in their collection - don't miss out this time round! 

TRACK LISTING

01 Praise
02 Riverside Drive
03 Deja Vu
04 Dew Drops
05 Another Night
06 When I Think Of You
07 To Try
08 Loves Arrival Dub
09 Missing You (jazz Cafe Mix)
10 Havana
11 Until The Last Goodbye
12 Direct Drive
13 Luminous Energy

The intrepid soul crusaders from Nevada's high desert have emerged from a years-long writing and recording process guided by virtuoso producer Kelly Finnigan (Monophonics) with their latest offering.

Sophisticated, suave, and masterfully composed, the album is a sonic love letter to late 60s and early 70s soul, nodding to the giants of the genre and bowing to its unsung heroes. Drawing from their upbringings steeped in the sound, front man and guitarist Mark Sexton and bassist Alexander Korostinsky knew they wanted an album to highlight their old-school bona fides while leaving room for innovation. They found that balance in marathon recording sessions at Finnigan's Transistor Sound studio in San Rafael, California. Over the course of two years, the producer helped them break down their slate of songs to the bare essentials and add a new layer of sonic maturity. "The ability to be vulnerable when writing your music is an important ingredient for any record," Korostinsky said. "You can tell when an artist is being genuine and for a long time, we felt a little insincere with what we were doing. After working with Kelly, we started noticing that the music we were all making now was truly and finally ourselves."

Kelly Finnigan said: "The Sextones made my job easy as a producer. They fully bought in to my way of thinking and stayed focused throughout the whole process. We took our time crafting the songs and did our best to capture a vibe when tape was rolling. It was a really great time making the album and we put a lot of care and love into each song. I think that comes through in the music and people will feel that."

With inspiration from artists like The Moments, Baby Huey, The Delfonics, and especially the late Curtis Mayfield, the album is drenched in the era-defining tone that can only come from its origins on analog tape. From the first notes of the opening track "Daydreaming", the songs shimmer and glow from one moment to the next like a summer's drive with the windows down, with steady cruise anthems like "Beck & Call" floating by like a cool breeze. Love Can't Be Borrowed is captained by Sexton's smooth falsetto and bolstered by lush guitar work, crunchy drum breaks, and molten basslines that seep into every crack. Beyond the rhythm section, we find a delicate universe of orchestral strings, punchy horns, vibraphones, and reverb-drenched background vocals—reveling in the hallmarks of the genre as only true acolytes can. "I feel like this record is going to speak to people who understand it, and that's who we're making it for," Sexton said. "I think it's going to touch a lot of people emotionally. And, selfishly, we're making it for ourselves because we just love this kind of music." With an authentic sound and historical appreciation, The Sextones' new album sounds like opening a time capsule from the golden era of American soul, assuring crate-diggers and casual fans alike that the legacy of the genre's past 50 years is in capable hands.

Friends since childhood, The Sextones are Mark Sexton (guitar, vocals), Alexander Korostinsky (bass), Daniel Weiss (drums), and Christopher Sexton (piano). Having known each other for so long, their musical chemistry is effortless and forms the foundation of the band's longevity and creative workflow. Despite their bond, each member has been able to channel their creativity into other acclaimed groups—Alexander and Mark with their cinematic-soul project Whatitdo Archive Group, whose acclaimed debut LP The Black Stone Affair was released on Record Kicks in 2021, and Daniel with the soul/jazz group Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio (Colemine Records). Flexing their creative muscle individually has only strengthened The Sextones' collective songwriting ability and heralds their formidable return to the spotlight. With their recent signing to Record Kicks, the self-made heroes of soul begin a new chapter in their sonic journey, ready to scale new heights and plumb deep emotional depths in service of the genre they love.

TRACK LISTING

1. Daydreaming
2. Without You
3. Better Late Than Never
4. Beck & Call
5. This Could Last Forever
6. Trouble On My Mind
7. The Other Side
8. Getaway Driver
9. Your Love Shines Golden
10. Love Can't Be Borrowed

Prisoners Of Love And Hate is an offering to community, to desires that imprison and liberate, to people in all their divinity and ugliness. Apostille - aka Night School Records’ captain Michael Kasparis - presents his third album with a bang, a bursting ball of NRG, empathy and bristling living.

Like its predecessor Choose Life, Prisoners... was recorded in Full Ashram Celestial Garden in Glasgow with Lewis Cook (Free Love) through 2022. A 9 song treatise on Pop music, trauma, ecstasy and the mundanities between the extremes, Kasparis takes on classic 80s Synth Pop, 90s House music, 00’s Trance, wistful balladry, 70’s Power Pop. The thread that runs through the album is a boundless energy, an openness to the moment, to living the pains and joys equally, open armed.

This is a place of no judgement, of possibility, challenge and comfort. The nine songs on Prisoners... can be read as separate ruminations on the feelings and desires that imprison our experience. Through it all the narrator struggles against them, transported and fooled by love and longing, peering through the bars of anguish, flailing in a cell of emotions. Saturday Night, Still Breathing breaks the album open with an invigorating scream and pounds into the night with a nod to Whigfield, Kasparis’ Punk roots and House music. Over a thumping 909 kick and bassline, Kasparis pens a love letter to being with people, the collective energy of hearts in a room, thrumming together, making it through together. Written as private ritual magic, manifesting community during a time of isolation, it’s as if the party is the most important thing in the world. Rely On Me imagines 80s Mute Synth Pop, Erasure fronted by Bruce Springsteen, romance doomed and forever perfect in the mind. Spit Pit completes the opening triptych of fast paced rollercoasters, an ode to childhood forged out of change and discomfort told with a bold, epic production by Lewis Cook, AFX breakbeats, 160BPM kicks and a commanding vocal performance.

On People Make This City, Kasparis eases off the gas, lets the mist blowing in from the Clyde River blow over his version of Glasgow. A wistful ballad about small town gossip and coming through anger to leaving it all behind, it provides some shadow to the bright light of the vibrancy of the album. Natural Angel owes much to 70s and 80s power pop, guitar melodrama, Thin Lizzy and Rick Springfield through the prism of co-dependence in relationships. It’s a theme that’s picked up in slow burner Nothing But Perfect, a hazy synth soul-inflected song about building your own mythology, constructing a dream to hide in, to hold on to. The most surprising track of the album, Summer of ’03 re-imagines the Trance music of early naughties Europe into a lament for an eternal summer or as a fan once put it, “Meat Loaf with a donk on it.” A recognition that all ecstasy has tragedy laced within it, it’s a theme that is sewn through out the LP and continued on the final song Feel Good (You Can Make Me). Referencing Shalamar’s 1982 mega hit by way of N-Trance’s piano riffs, the epic closer is riddled with heartbreak, vulnerability and power. It’s a testament to the new confidence in Kasparis’s songwriting, sure, but also to the enduring power of people to come together in mutual dependence and love. If ecstasy is always laced with tragedy, the Prisoners of Love and Hate can always reach out between the bars to meet in the middle, the eternal now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Saturday Night, Still Breathing
2. Rely On Me
3. Spit Pit
4. People Make This City
5. Natural Angel
6. Disease To Please
7. Nothing But Perfect
8. Summer Of 0’3
9. Feel Good (You Can Make Me)

1968’s Love Cry mixes Albert Ayler’s free jazz with a catchy combination of nursery rhythms and brass band marches, resulting in a peak example of experimental jazz of the period. This was Ayler’s last recording with his brother, Donald, who keeps the pace fiery along with the rhythm section of bassist Alan Silva and drummer Milford Graves, and harpsichordist Call Cobbs.

This Verve By Request title is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Third Man in Detroit.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Love Cry
2. Ghosts
3. Omega
4. Dancing Flowers
5. Bells
6. Love Flower
Side B
7. Zion Hill
8. Universal Indians

The House Of Love – guitarist and vocalist Guy Chadwick, lead guitarist Terry Bickers, bassist Chris Groothuizen and drummer Pete Evans – formed in London in 1986 - Chadwick had been around the music industry for several years, but was energised seeing The Jesus And Mary Chain, inspiring him to form the band - Signing to Creation, The House Of Love were greeted enthusiastically by the music press and their single, Shine On and self-titled debut album became indie disco classics - By 1989, the band were big news and had signed to Fontana, part of the PolyGram group.

The group's debut album for Fontana, also entitled The House Of Love, was released in February 1990. Known often as 'The Butterfly Album' after Trevor Key's distinctive artwork, much was made at the time of its protracted birth and the weight of expectation, and the fact it was produced by five different people. Years later, it sounds assured and confident commercial indie, bursting with invention and melody. The re-recording of their Creation calling card, Shine On, gave them a UK Top 20 hit and Beatles And The Stones points the way to the gentler side of Oasis some years later.

TRACK LISTING

Hannah
Shine On
Beatles And The Stones
Shake And Crawl
Hedonist
I Don't Know Why I Love You
Never
Someone's Got To Love You
In A Room
Blind
32nd Floor
Se Dest

The House Of Love – guitarist and vocalist Guy Chadwick, lead guitarist Terry Bickers, bassist Chris Groothuizen and drummer Pete Evans – formed in London in 1986 - Chadwick had been around the music industry for several years, but was energised seeing The Jesus And Mary Chain, inspiring him to form the band - Signing to Creation, The House Of Love were greeted enthusiastically by the music press and their single, Shine On and self-titled debut album became indie disco classics - By 1989, the band were big news and had signed to Fontana, part of the PolyGram group.

Released in July 1993 Audience Of The Mind makes a claim for being the great lost House Of Love album, slipping into the UK charts for a solitary week, and having no singles taken from it. Self-produced and recorded as a three-piece in under two weeks, Audience Of The Mind feels as fragmentary as 'The Butterfly Album' feels fulsome. There are some great moments – the moody-yet-melodic Haloes, Shining On (featuring a guest appearance from guitarist Sean O'Hagen), the eight- minute Into The Tunnel and the acoustic title track with Chadwick sounding something like an aggrieved indie Nick Drake. It is a work ripe for rediscovery.

TRACK LISTING

Sweet Anatomy
Audience With The Mind
Haloes
Erosion
Call Me
Shining On
Portrait In Atlanta
Corridors
Hollow
All Night Long
Into The Tunnel
You've Got To Feel

The House Of Love – guitarist and vocalist Guy Chadwick, lead guitarist Terry Bickers, bassist Chris Groothuizen and drummer Pete Evans – formed in London in 1986 - Chadwick had been around the music industry for several years, but was energised seeing The Jesus And Mary Chain, inspiring him to form the band - Signing to Creation, The House Of Love were greeted enthusiastically by the music press and their single, Shine On and self-titled debut album became indie disco classics - By 1989, the band were big news and had signed to Fontana, part of the PolyGram group.

The touring and promotion for The House Of Love took its toll on the group with lead guitarist Terry Bickers leaving the group to be replaced with Simon Walker. Taking its name from a Peter Blake painting, Babe Rainbow was released in July 1992. Overseen by The The and Julian Cope producer Warne Livesey, it has a tremendous urgency and greater unity than their previous album. Trailed by the single The Girl With The Loneliest Eyes, Babe Rainbow also contains live favourite Crush Me, the brooding High In Your Face and Top 50 hits Feel and You Don't Understand. Simon Walker left the group and was replaced with Simon Mawby, who himself was to depart by the end of 1992.

TRACK LISTING

You Don't Understand
Crush Me
Cruel
High In Your Face
Fade Away
Feel
The Girl With The Loneliest Eyes
Burn Down The World
Philly Phile
Yer Eyes

Artists like Jalen Ngonda come around once in a lifetime, so it is our privilege and distinct pleasure to announce the release of his debut album ‘Come Around and Love Me’.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing Jalen perform live knows that he is one of the most captivating performers on today's soul scene. His voice, equal parts raw feeling and elegance, exudes confidence and charm—disarming packed rooms of rowdy concert goers, leaving them silent as they hold fast to every syllable sung.

Plans for the album were struck just months before the COVID 19 pandemic shut the world down. Notwithstanding, Jalen eventually made it to Hive Mind Studios in Brooklyn, NY where he began writing and recording with the help of producer/arrangers Mike Buckley and Vincent Chiarito (both members of Charles Bradley's Extraordinaires) and a crack team of a-list musicians from the Daptone family. The team skilfully blends heavy arrangements and introspective lyrics with Motown sophistication, leaving the listener in a blissful wash of wonderment.

Jalen has been writing songs since he was 14, and his compositions are also very much of these times. He explains, “I love music from the 20th century— I listen to it all the time, but I'm in this world and the 21st century. ...to a stranger, I'd describe my music as modern soul and R&B, while trying to ft in the Beach Boys and the Beatles somewhere in between.” ‘Come Around and Love Me’ reveals how he creates a classic approach that is rooted in the sounds of revered pioneers, without falling into imitation–leaving no doubt that Jalen will continue to shine within the superlative, timeless musical tradition that is Daptone's hallmark.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Born and raised on the East Coast of the USA, just outside Washington DC and now resident in Liverpool, Jalen Ngonda’s debut album is released on Daptone, which is reason enough to take note - let’s face it, they rarely put a foot wrong do they? The album kicks off with the title track “Come Around And Love Me”, that brings to mind ‘What’s Going On’ era Marvin, and then runs through a collection of pristine 2-3 minute gems that perfectly capture the golden era of soul, from the mid 60s to mid 70s.

Jalen is the real deal, with a voice that ranges from raw soul power to sweet falsetto, and songwriting skills to match. There isn’t a bad track here, in fact pretty much every song could be a single in its own right. You can pick out a whole host of influences, from the aforementioned Marvin Gaye, to the psychedelic soul of Isaac Hayes, the Motor City sound of The Four Tops and sweet harmonies of The Temptation but there’s a fresh modern feel to the production too, it’s not some tired pastiche. I guess if you’re looking for a contemporary comparison, Michael Kiwanuka springs to mind in the way that he fuses the old and new so seamlessly. So to sum up, if you’re a fan of modern soul, full of romance and heartbreak and infused with classic Motown and Philly Soul ingredients, then this is for you.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Come Around And Love Me
2. If You Donʼt Want My Love
3. Lost
4. Thatʼs All I Wanted From You
5. Please Show Me
Side B
6. Just Like You Used To
7. What A Difference She Made
8. Give Me Another Day
9. So Glad I Found You
10. It Takes A Fool
11. Rapture

Fourth LP from The Courteeners, originally release in 2014.

TRACK LISTING

White Horses
How Good It Was
Small Bones
Has He Told You That He Loves You
Yet
Black & Blue
International
Next Time You Call
Summer
Saboteur
Dreamers
Beautiful Head

Absolute smasher of a two-sider 45 out of Waycross Georgia. The 45 was licenced from original band member Michael George & Tim Gillans with help from DJ MR Big Happy & Daniel Mathes. We flipped the sides for the re-issue, the A side now being the more uptempo. 'What About Love' is a melodic spacey floater (you know I'm a fan already) with a brilliant vocal and top sax break. On the flip, 'Dream of a lady' is an absolute killer downtempo floater, I can't stress enough not to sleep on this side, it's a textural dreamy wonder.

TRACK LISTING

1. What About Love
2. Dream Of A Lady

Storming tribal / tech-house business here from the Satya label. Via "Just Love", YokoO & Bobi Stevkovski have concocted a trusting, powerful late night tech-house epic - with a cinematic and transportive arrangement that should have listeners fully engrossed in its unraveling story. "Who Are You" is a wigged-out and wriggly deep terrace number, perfect for a blacked-out DC-10 or star-lit Adriatic beach club. It's also got that sleek, serpentine aesthetic that DJs like Craig Richards or Jane Fitz like to weave into their longform sets. Mega.

Side B sees remixes by two Romanian producers: Arapu and Nu Zau. The former sees propulsive, kinetic rhythms interplay with staccato arps and punctuated b-line - tech house brilliance in a similar vein to Ted Amber and the Botanical Minds output. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Impeccably crafted, tribal-tech-house that takes me right back to the golden days of Sankeys Soap. A sound that never seems to leave the terraces of Ibiza.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Just Love
A2. Who Are You
B1. Who Are You (Arapu Remix)
B2. Who Are You (Nu Zau Remix) 

Back by popular demand!! A re-jigged, loud-cut 2023 reissue of Roy of The Ravers’ long sold out Acid Waxa classic "2 Late 4 Love" (ft. "Emotinium") with bonus Easter egg tracks, presented in all its original hand-stamped glory. Don’t sleep on this one if you missed it the first (and second) time around!

"Emotinium" might be the biggest acid release of the teenies. The first pressing is feverishly (and quite aggressively) collected (currently fetching up to £350 for a decent copy). There was a second update in 2022 which tweaked the original into two new versions - the 'rave' and 'ambient' versions. Here we get a revised tracklisting with a couple of extra tracks - ensuring the collectability of each release as they're all slightly different - clever!

A celebration of the 303, the three tracks on side A are all on the rough and raw side - warehouse tackle box jams. "Emotinium" however is another beast altogether - a timeless acid lullaby from the upper echelons; sent from the heaven's of rave to heal the minds and bodies of ecstasy casualties throughout the globe. it cements Roland's bassline generator as worthy an instrument as the electric guitar or trumpet. A true instrument of the people!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: It's dreamy to have that 20 minute OG on fresh wax again (I devastatingly dropped my copy on the floor of the POMONA RAVE, 2018 which resulted in a large scrape all the way across side B off all the dirt and gravel on the floor; a fitting death for an unlikely lord). Essential!

TRACK LISTING

A1: 2 Late 4 Love (Part One)
A2: Cwejman Acid (Part Two)
A3: Melchester Acid (Part One)
B1: Emotinium
+ Bonus Track

In partnership with London-based DJ and digger, Miche, the series will feature his latest discoveries, as well as choice cuts, taken from his 'With Love' compilations. For the inaugural offering, we take a trip to hazy San Francisco, California, in 1977. Smoke, Inc. were an emerging band in the Greater San Francisco Bay area and a regular fixture in the buzzing live music scene. They had a strong following and were in rotation in most of the Bay area clubs, as well as opening for numerous prestigious acts such as Sly & The Family Stone, Taj Mahal, The Pointer Sisters and Toots and The Maytals. Members of the group worked with Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, and many others considered the cream of the crop of the music world.

Smoke, Inc. featured Roy Schmall on keyboards and vocals, Stan Terry on lead vocals and harmonica, Michael 'Ollie' Schotka, on bass and vocals, Keith Stafford on drums and vocals, and Archie Williams Jr on guitar. They went on to release one 12" EP and two 7" singles. One of those 7's included 'Waitin' For Love'. It was first released in 1977 and came out on the band's own self-titled imprint. It has gone on to become their rarest and most sought-after recording, now fetching up to an astonishing GBP2,500 on Discogs. It is a breezy, feel- good, modern/ crossover soul beauty, with an infectious sing-along chorus, floaty flute solo, and packed with pure, uplifting dancefloor energy. The B-side features a cover version of the Holland Dozier & Holland- penned classic 'It's the Same Old Song', made famous by the Four Tops.

Miche enthuses, "I included this gem on my first 'With Love' compilation and knew that it deserved its own dedicated reissue complete with original artwork. I'm delighted to get the chance to make that happen for this incredible, soulful AOR glide from a band that is well due another round of appreciation. It's very rare, and consequently very expensive, so here it is for you all to spin and add to your record collections."

46 years since its original release, it is our privilege to help Roy and the gang's light shine once again and let a whole new audience relish the beautiful sounds of 'Waitin' For Love'.

TRACK LISTING

Waitin' For Love
It's The Same Old Song

“Life is nothing without love. Love is the force that drives our journey in life. Life is love and love is life.”

UK jazz master Chip Wickham follows last year’s brilliant soulful long-player Cloud 10 with a deftly crafted, reflective EP of beautiful spiritual jazz sounds influenced by the soulful sounds of Yusef Lateef. Chip’s music has always drawn from a broad world of influences from hip-hop to Roland Kirk and from classic funk to the classic ‘60s Brit-Jazz sound of Tubby Hayes. But Love & Life finds him foregrounding his wonderful flute playing and producing a perfect fourtracker of reflective, peaceful jazz that elevates and inspires as well as a trademark slice of boppish soul jazz – the jaunty Space Walk.

Elsewhere lead single Love & Life is a joyous jazz waltz with an uplifting, bouncing groove and Slow Down Look Around is introspective and intimate, featuring Chip’s signature flute with a beautiful solo from UK trumpeter Malcolm Strachan. Chip explains that the track presents “a big lesson for us to learn as the world changes around us with such speed. The technology changes but our human needs remain the same: peace, tranquillity and time to think.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm not historically a big Jazz fan, but one of the labels that changed my ideas of what a Jazz record was, was Gondwana. It turns out that while I wasn't super keen on 'mad jazz' (Free) it turns out that I was really quite into 'Chill Jazz' (spiritual), and Chip Wickham's warmly evocative, beautifully paced 'Love & Life' epitomises everything I discovered I like in a jazz record.

TRACK LISTING

1. Space Walk
2. Love & Life
3. Seven Worlds
4. Slow Down Look Around

David Byrne & Fatboy Slim’s acclaimed 2010 album Here Lies Love receives its first-ever vinyl release to coincide with a new production opening on Broadway this summer. Here Lies Love is a double-disc song cycle – improbably poignant, decidedly surreal, surprisingly thought provoking – about the rise and fall of the Philippines' notorious Imelda Marcos. It was conceived by David Byrne; composed by Byrne and DJ/recording artist Fatboy Slim, AKA Norman Cook; and performed by a dream cast drawn from the worlds of indie rock, alt country, R&B and pop. Byrne's taste in collaborators is as imaginative as it is impeccable, including Cyndi Lauper (who recounts, to lighthearted disco beats, Imelda's courtship with Ferdinand Marcos), Steve Earle (as the power-hungry Ferdinand), Dap-Kings vocalist Sharon Jones (recalling Imelda's introduction into New York society) and Natalie Merchant (as spurned Imelda confidante Estrella, anticipating the onset of martial law). Along with vocals turns from such stars as Tori Amos and the B-52's Kate Pierson, Byrne works with rising indie rockers St. Vincent and My Brightest Diamond; New York chanteuses Nellie McKay and Martha Wainwright; and dance-music divas Róisín Murphy and Santigold. Byrne himself appears as the voice of imperialistic America on ‘American Troglodyte’, a send-up that wouldn't have seemed out of places in Talking Heads' True Stories.

Byrne originally envisioned this as a musical theatre piece, to be mounted in disco and nightclub settings, reflecting the globe-trotting Marcos' taste for such velvet-roped spots as Studio 54 and Regine's. In 2006, he performed work-in-progress versions to enthusiastic audiences at New York City's Carnegie Hall and the Adelaide Festival in Australia. While plans for a US theatrical production continued to evolve, he delivered this unique recording. The award-winning theatrical production eventually premiered at The Public Theater in New York in 2013, travelled to London’s National Theater for a sold-out run (2014–15), and was remounted at the Seattle Repertory Theater (2017).

Here Lies Love has an effervescent disco feel, redolent of Fatboy Slim's own dance-floor anthems, with warm undercurrents of the Latin rhythms that have percolated through Byrne's recent solo work. The sunny arrangements act in counterpoint to the reality of the Marcos' increasingly repressive regime, reflecting the imagined inner life of the glamour-obsessed Imelda. Explains Byrne, "For me, the darker side of the excesses are, for the most part, a matter of record. A lot of the audience is going to come with that knowledge already. What's more of a challenge is to get inside the head of the person who was behind all of that, and understand what made them tick." Byrne offers no judgment and avoids the obvious – there is no mention of Imelda's infamous shoe collection.

Many of Byrne's lyrics are, astonishingly enough, constructed from actual Imelda quotes, including the project's title, the words that Imelda, now returned to the Philippines from US-assisted exile in Hawaii, would like to have inscribed on her gravestone. In addition to his new liner note, Byrne illustrates the story with archival photos. In a detailed preface, he reveals what drew him to this subject and the bumpy route he took to launch the project and, ultimately, record this album. The booklet is indeed a page-turner, just as Here Lies Love is a wonderfully old-school album that rewards start-to-finish listening. Once again, Byrne – beloved as musician, thinker and bicyclist-about-town – reveals the breadth and singularity of his vision.

The new production of Here Lies Love will premiere at the Broadway Theatre in New York City. Performances begin June 17, ahead of an official opening night on July 20. Tony Award winner Alex Timbers (direction) and Olivier Award nominee Annie-B Parson (choreography) reunite with Byrne (concept, music, and lyrics) and Fatboy Slim (music) to bring Here Lies Love to Broadway, continuing a ten-plus year collaboration on the project. Tom Gandey and J Pardo contribute additional music. Here Lies Love is produced on Broadway by Hal Luftig, Patrick Catullo, Diana DiMenna for Plate Spinner Productions, Clint Ramos, and Jose Antonio Vargas. The staging at the Broadway Theatre will transform the venue’s traditional proscenium floor space into a dance club environment, where audiences will stand and move with the actors. A wide variety of standing and seating options will be available throughout the theatre’s reconstructed space. The producers of Here Lies Love said, “As a team of binational American producers – Filipinos among us – we are thrilled to bring Here Lies Love to Broadway! We welcome everyone to experience this singularly exuberant piece of theatre. The history of the Philippines is inseparable from the history of the United States, and as both evolve, we cannot think of a more appropriate time to stage this show. See you on the dance floor!”

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1: Side A
1. Here Lies Love – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Florence Welch (Florence & The Machine)
2. Every Drop Of Rain – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Candie Payne & St. Vincent
3. You'll Be Taken Care Of – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Tori Amos
4. The Rose Of Tacloban – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Martha Wainwright
5. A Perfect Hand – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Steve Earle
Disc 1: Side B
1. Eleven Days – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Cyndi Lauper
2. When She Passed By – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Allison Moorer
3. Walk Like A Woman – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Charmaine Clamor
4. Don't You Agree? – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Róisín Murphy
5. Pretty Face – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Camille
6. Ladies In Blue – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Theresa Andersson
Disc 2: Side A
1. Dancing Together – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Sharon Jones
2. How Are You? – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Nellie McKay
3. Men Will Do Anything – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Alice Russell
4. The Whole Man – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Kate Pierson
5. Never So Big – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Sia
6. Please Don't – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Santi White [Santigold]
Disc 2: Side B
1. American Troglodyte – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim
2. Solano Avenue – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Nicole Atkins
3. Order 1081 – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Natalie Merchant
4. Seven Years – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond)
5. Why Don't You Love Me? – David Byrne & Fatboy Slim Feat. Tori Amos & Cyndi Lauper

Few albums define a particular era as does The Lexicon Of Love. It’s embedded deep in the fabric of popular culture. Namechecked, referenced and, now, frequently in “best of all time” polls, the album opened up the 80s wide, in full, glorious Technicolor. In 1982, ABC became the toast of the world with this album. It also launched the production career of Trevor Horn. Like the greatest landmark albums, it has transcended its origins and is simply there, an ever-evolving testament to its marriage of youth, wit, creativity, technology, emotion, masterplan and happy accident.

1LP Half Speed Master
A commemoration of the album that kickstarted the 80s. Half-speed mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell. In new gatefold sleeve with Abbey Road obi strip and certificate of authenticity

TRACK LISTING

Side A: 
Show Me
Poison Arrow
Many Happy Returns
Tears Are Not Enough
Valentine’s Day
Side B: 
The Look Of Love
Date Stamp
All Of My Heart
4 Ever 2 Gether
The Look Of Love (Part Four)

On 'Love Hallucination' Jessy Lanza is in control as a songwriter and producer, flexing her skills in the studio and rebuilding her sound, taking chances with production and energy in all directions, from club-ready, to downbeat and sultry, with the theme of trusting yourself in the moment and using intuition as a compass driving the record forward. ‘Love Hallucination’ is the sound of an artist in bloom, an album of big emotions and big songs, with direct, personal lyrics, such as the upbeat but panicked opener 'Don't Leave Me Now' and the 2-step drama of 'Midnight Ontario', or 'Limbo', an ear worm disco stomper about produced with Marco 'Tensnake' Niermeski. Also featured as co-producers are David Kennedy (Pearson Sound), adding slick arrangements for the club, long-time collaborator Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys), and Paul White. ‘Love Hallucination’ is a bold and immediate record from Jessy Lanza, her most clear, authentic and best to date.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Jessy Lanza brings us her most flamboyant, widescreen release yet, with soaring synths and scattered percussion beautifully brought together into a startlingly modern soundclash of R&B, synth-pop and driven dancefloor electronica. A big stylistic leap forwards for Lanza, and another banger for one of the best labels in the alt 'tronica business.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Don’t Leave Me Now
A2. Midnight Ontario
A3. Limbo
A4. Casino Niagara
A5. Don’t Cry On My Pillow
B1. Big Pink Rose
B2. Drive
B3. I Hate Myself
B4. Gossamer
B5. Marathon
B6. Double Time

This is Love & Resistance by Crooked Man. His first single on Vicious Charm and now available on vinyl.

Love & Resistance is 9:59 of beautiful electronic soul music. The dreamy vocals come courtesy of Carmen Squire. A perfect combination.

While the A-side oozes class & sophistication - the B-side is a different beast entirely. Nemesis is a dirty, sweaty mid tempo club track that is hard to resist. Nemesister is the more dubbier sibling.

Released digitally in January the record was loved & admired across the DJ spectrum. Honey Dijon, The Blessed Madonna, Luke Unabomber, Tim Sweeney, Luke Solomon, Gilles Peterson, Roisin Murphy, Nick Fanciulli, Fred Everything, Colleen Cosmo Murphy, Andreas Baumecker & Bill Brewster all showed it some love…

But our favourite reaction was from Fatboy Slim… “classy and beautiful (obviously too classy and beautiful for my DJ sets i'm afraid) but i do love this. welcome to Vicious Charm!!”

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Who let the Parrot out of the cage again?! Our favourite Sheffield dance music veteran returns with three more killer and upfront tracks that recall his remixes of Roisin Murphy and the tracks released on Bitter End. Full fat, mid tempo, electro-disco bangers with a sophisticated level of synthesis and production prowess.

TRACK LISTING

Love & Resistance
Nemesis
Nemesister

‘Jump Into Love’ is the new album from Half Japanese, true DIY noise-rock royalty, led by the ever-effervescent Jad Fair. It’s a meeting of minds, a coming together from the world’s favourite indie-alt-rock outsiders. Atypically out there and off-kilter, the album wears its heart on its sleeve through a cascade of new, dark and brooding songs from the band who would be king. Loved by Kurt Cobain, Daniel Johnston, Penn Jillette and outsiders everywhere, Half Japanese continue their quest for answers; creating a soundscape for a post-zombie land where bells chime and it’s OK to say “Yes”.

It’s another adventure; series 20 from an introspective parallel world where the super prolific Jad Fair cogitates on life, love, giants, the possessed and even bigger issues that simply swell the brain. Musing on the writing process, Jad explains “I feel a need to do music and do song writing. It's something I really miss when I'm not doing it. There's a certain amount of tranquillity that's obtained from the fact that you can be working on songs each day. I think you use that certain portion of your brain that is otherwise not used.

I kind of kind of prefer using it than not using it.” Half Japanese currently includes Jad with John Sluggett, Gilles-Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett, a veritable who’s who of DIY indie culture. ‘Jump Into Love’ was recorded at Tempo House, Baltimore, Russian Recording, Bloomington Indiana, Studio de la Trappe, Donneville France and la Casamurada, Tarragona Spain. The album was mixed by long time Half Japanese sparring partner Jason Willett at his home in Baltimore, Maryland.

TRACK LISTING

A1 It's OK
A2 We Are Giants
A3 True Love Will Save The Day
A4 Listen To The Bells Chime
A5 Jump Into Love
A6 The Answer Is Yes
B1 Shining Sun
B2 This Isn't Funny
B3 Step Inside
B4 Here She Comes
B5 Shining Stars
B6 Zombie World

TRACK LISTING

A1 Forbidden Fruit
A2 Where Can I Go Without You
A3 Rags And Old Iron
A4 I Love To Love
A5 He's Got The Whole World In His Hands
A6 For All We Know
A7 African Mailman
B1 My Baby Just Cares For Me
B2 He Needs Me
B3 Little Girl Blue
B4 I Loves You Porgy
B5 Love Me Or Leave Me
B6 Don't Smoke In Bed
B7 Good Bait

“I’ve always been chagrined that no one understood that our songs were love songs,” says Oxbow vocalist and lyricist Eugene Robinson, while reflecting on the band’s output from the last 35 years. Love may not have been the most obvious muse in their earlier work, but the subject has never been more apparent than on their eighth studio album, and first new music in six years, ‘Love’s Holiday’. “But now listening to a record of exclusively love songs I can see how no one saw that,” Robinson admits. “My problem is how I think about love as this affects how I feel about it, instead of the other way around.”

The band again worked with Grammy-winning engineer and co-producer Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes, My Morning Jacket). ‘Love’s Holiday’ is the third Oxbow album recorded with Chiccarelli, and the band members uniformly state that their trust in him allowed the album to venture into even more inviting directions, featuring guest appearances from Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish), Lingua Ignota, a choir and a string quartet.

Artwork by Aaron Turner (Isis, Sumac).

For fans of Mark Lanegan, Soundgarden, Nick Cave, The Jesus Lizard.

TRACK LISTING

Ahead
Icy White & Crystalline
Lovely Murk (ft. Lingua Ignota)
1000 Hours (ft. Roger Joseph Manning Jr.)
All Gone
The Night The Room
Started Burning
" "
Million Dollar Weekend
The Second Talk
Gunwale

Veteran DJ and co-founder of Manchester Digital Music Archive (and previous Piccadilly Records staffer!), Abigail Ward, launches her new Ghost Assembly identity with 'I Miss Your Love', a raw and emotional homage to late 80's Chicago house.

A locked-on Fingers-esque melody bassline, pounding pianos, Italian organs and widescreen minor-key Solina strings will yank even the shyest onto the dancefloor early doors, but it's the mysterious, yearning, female 80s soul acapella that elevates the track to future classic status and has already seen the scene's most clued-up scratching their bonces for an ID.

'I Miss Your Love' was expertly mixed by PBR Streetgang's Bonar Bradberry through his Bozak mixer (the same model it is believed Larry Levan favoured), which imparts its own special magic, ramping up the hiss and Garagey authenticity.

It's no wonder that when Abigail sent the track to Ruf Dug, Manchester's much-loved tropical cyberpunk, he leapt at the chance to unleash it via his revered Ruf Kutz imprint, and a promising creative partnership began.

Abigail says of her debut:
"I love house music that creates a sense of euphoric melancholy on the dancefloor. This is my attempt to evoke a certain kind of queer longing: going to a club, holding your secrets, knowing that you will leave alone. So you turn to the music for transcendence and companionship. Ultimately it's just you and the music. It's all you need.. Growing up in the 80's, the first record I ever bought was a Shep Pettibone remix. I wanted to nod to his slamming style of drum programming. And I knew my first ever track would have to feature orchestra hit!"

'I Miss Your Love' is a paean to the broken-hearted and will possess the hearts and minds of those who see the dancefloor as a place of healing and solidarity.
Fire up the dry ice, phone your connection and get ready to fall in love...

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A musical triumph as DJ and curator Abigail Ward launches her new production alias - Ghost Assembly. Rightfully snaffled by Ruf Dug's label and recently debuting on Radio 6 - this one's set for big things people!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ghost Assembly - I Miss Your Love (Original)
A2. Ghost Assembly - I Miss Your Love (Radio Edit)
B. Ghost Assembly - I Miss Your Love (Club Mix)

Japanese born but nowadays NYC resident, DJ Monchan is a long-time purveyor of disco edits and early house music, something you'll clearly hear on his debut release on GAMM.

The first track "What Is Your Love Worth" is a total dancefloor head turner and feet mover. Beginning with a vintage acid loop a la Adonis, before erupting into a high energy disco flavoured number, without missing a step! 
  
The B-side offers a bumpety, disco-house take on First Choice's 1979 disco hit - "Double Cross"; looping up the b-line and keyboard patterns, adding the gilded Stratocaster and teasing in the vox at will - this should appeal to anyone with a penchant for the Lumberjacks In Hell stuff as well as early Nervous and Moodymann joints. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Cerebrum tweaking acid-disco madness on side A. While on side B we get a tasty re-rub of First Choice's "Double Cross".

TRACK LISTING

A. What Is Your Love Worth
B. W Wheeling

To call Current Affairs a Glasgow band may initially seem misdirection. Though Joan Sweeney (ex-Rose McDowall’s Band, Aggi Doom, The Royal We) is a lifer, Sebastian Ymai (Comidillo Tapes, Pissy, Anxiety) came from Chile via York, recently relocating to Berlin in 2021, and new member Gemma Fleet (The Wharves, Order of the Toad, Dancer) alongside Andrew Milk (Shopping, Pink Pound) were persuaded to leave London for the ‘second city’ after touring through with previous bands. However, Glasgow is the heart and hub of the band’s music, musical life and the place where Off the Tongue was solidified and produced.

Their current line up formed in 2020, but the four have been circling each other for years, touring and playing with their previous bands within the close UK network of DIY music. Stalwarts of their respective scenes they finally began working together through the creation of the Spitehouse collective – a project designed to promote Queer and female-fronted music through events mainly held at Transmission Gallery and Glasgow Autonomous Space, putting on many local and international acts (Sneaks, Sacred Paws, Still House Plants and Comfort amongst others). When an opening for a new bassist arrived, Gemma was the obvious compliment, the slogan of Spitehouse being the language of Current Affairs – “Everyone’s welcome, but don’t get it twisted.”

Following on from 2019’s singles collection, Object & Subject, the wait for their debut full-length may belie the urgency of its sound. Songs that were written in pieces over a long time and distance, but fully formed in the instant of the recording room across just a few days by producer Ross McGowan at Chime Studio. Current Affairs’ song-writing process has always been collaborative. Songs are developed responsively, with each of the band’s members sending/bringing elements or hooks to each other, but practices being the place where the songs flesh out, structure and are fully realised. These new songs feel a little brighter than their previous offerings, yet still hold true to their propulsive and caterwauling sound. Still embryonic in the most exciting way that that can be. Current Affairs’ music straddles new-wave pop and gothic post-punk in the way that you should expect a Glasgow-Berlin band to do so: with grit and panache.

Written from within the world of crumbling services, broken bonds and wounded spirits, Off the Tongue rolls off an ecstatic rage, filled with hope for you, them and everyone else. It’s a rallying cry away from hopelessness, forgiving your fears and laying them to waste. Their album holds a place for you to be angry and to be focussed. In lieu of having anything else, we’ve always got each other, and an uncertain future is open game for us too.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Fuss
2. Reactor
3. Right Time
4. Riled
5. Get Wrecked
6. Regardless
7. Cahoots
8. Casual Radicals
9. Big Limit
10. Her Own Private Multiverse

The latest dose of firepower to land on Jamie 3:26’s label sees the main man himself team up with the legend Mr Scruff and Rotterdam rising star Danou P. Kicking off the A side, Jamie and Danou collaborate on ‘Love Not’ - a deep, musical journey that bridges Midwest house, funk and electro creating the perfect vibe that makes ya want to speed off into the sunset and drift away.

On the B side another Jamie / Danou collab in the form of ‘Earl Montana’ - a tribute to the Philly sound legends Earl Young and Vince Montana. Plenty of vibe solos, 70s Rhodes piano provided by Danou P and a groove with live bass provided by Rotterdam’s own Bram T'hart and Philly style backing vocals.

Finally, Jamie joins forces with the mighty Mr Scruff for ‘Scrubb It’ delivering a taste of pure jack, with acid washes and killer keys.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Jamie 3:26 & Danou P - Love Not
B1. Jamie 3:26 & Danou P - Earl Montana
B2. Jamie 3:26 & Mr Scruff - Scrubb It

For the very first 7’’ of the label, La Freak reissue this very sought after disco gem recorded in Quebec by the one and only Nina Dunn. With her riotous voice (she was vocalist for legends like Zachary Richards), "If You Want Me Love (Do It)" has a serious fire in its belly, as orchestral strings and frenetic bass work beautifully in tandem with the in-the-pocket drummer; who keeps it tidy throughout. 

"Stay and Dance" is a clavinet, strings and horns guided masterclass, that has soul oozing out of every orifice and an arrangement to die for.

TRACK LISTING

A. If You Want My Love (Do It)
B. Stay And Dance

Absolutely essential. Deluxe 2LP edition of this impeccable album from 1988. The spot glossed Gatefold jacket features artwork including archival photos & drawings from Woo’s archives as well as liner notes by Clive Ives (one half of the band). Issued for the first time in its entirety on vinyl, spread over two LPs, and remastered from newly discovered hi-quality DAT sources, we’re thrilled to present the definitive version of Woo’s most fully-formed album. A cosmic testament to the healing power of love, utilizing vocoded clarinets, pastoral guitars, homespun folk lullabies, and lilting electronics, coalescing into a an hour plus long journey through their otherworldly soundscapes. A prime entry point to Woo’s sound, containing some of their most beloved songs, such as ‘Make Me Tea,’ ‘It’s Love,’ ‘Hopi’ and many others, and also including a never-before heard bonus track – the vocal version of ‘It’s Love.’

Into The Heart Of Love was originally self-released on cassette in 1988, with a wider cassette release in 1990. Compiled from home recordings from the preceding years, and released during a transitional point for the band, the Ives brothers see this album as their most complete work, offering space to the listener to stretch out and immerse themselves into the warmth of their sound.

Woo is the uncategorizable project of Clive and Mark Ives from Brighton, UK. Since the 1970s, the duo have been recording a plethora of eclectic sounds, most falling under the blanket genre of new age, but spiraling out toward notions of ambient sounds, jazz, and other spiritual takes on modern music. They received some acclaim for their early releases, including 1982's Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong and 1989's It's Cosy Inside, but their work began to receive renewed appreciation during the 2010s, when labels such as Drag City and Palto Flats reissued the band's albums. The brothers remained active all the while, digitally self-issuing material.

TRACK LISTING

Hopi
Taizee
Make Me Tea
A Little Long Way
Frogs Of Fandango
When You Find Your Love
Complex Art
Trishas Return
Into The Heart Of Love
Love On Other Planets
Dont Delay
Woo Woo
The Subtle Shadow
Sarah
Are You Falling
Its Love
Mountains
Gentle Actions
The Return Journey
The Heart Of Love Lullabye
The Heart Sleeps
Spaces We Breath
It's Love (Vocal)

The latest darlings of the Manchester underground are DJ / producer Joey T and singer-songwriter Lady Lady, whose infectious blend of house, disco, sincerity and charm seem to be winning fans and turning heads the world over.

Released on Levi Love's labour of love, Mas O Menos; this is their first EP - four tracks announcing their arrival with a heartfelt resonance. Conceived after a long lockdown, Joey got in touch with Lady Lady (real name Sally) after seeing her post some songs online and the wheels were put in motion to recording a full EP; fast garnering the attention of the MOM head honcho who just happens to be one of the most charismatic players in the northwest music biz!

Possessing melancholy, yearning and contemplation in equal measure, Sally's vocals rub up against Joey's fizzy beats and squelchy b-line beautifully on EP opener "It's Just Me" - a ode to time spent alone and desiring the company of another.

"Like You" sees thicker house beats swung nicely and wrapped around a subby, woody b-line; whilst Sal turns her lyrical direction to deeper levels of intimacy and understanding between two possible lovers with differing levels of confidence and outlook. It really highlights the depth of skill of this burgeoning songwriter and Joey's symbiotic, sympathetic alignment via some tasteful production chops. Style and class by the bucketload.

Onto side B and "Maybe" sees the songstress rap about desiring someone as yet out of reach, but she's working on changing that! Again, Joey's instrumentals leave me feeling giddy; juxtaposing naivety and sophistication with each element he introduces - for his relative inexperience, here we have a producer in an effortless, confident stride. Something I pray he takes with him into further releases.

Finally, the title track - "Love Language" - a late night, red lit fishing net of deepness and togetherness. Drawing everyone into its warm bosom with a variety of tantalizing and sensual themes; with another arresting vocal performance by Sally who, by this point of the EP, I presume you've fallen as much in love with as the rest of us.

Did I mention that the two people involved (and, infact, everyone at Mas O Menao) are some of the nicest humans I've had the privilege of coming across recently?

This is the start of something very special. Don't sleep on this.

TRACK LISTING

1. It's Just Me
2. Like You
3. Maybe 
4. Love Language

A pianist, songwriter, producer, and vocalist from New York he is a mystical figure for record collectors, one of those artists where if you found an old dusty record with Don's name on it, you'd buy it on sight. He is best known for his 1982 magnum-opus, the eponymous album that featured the all-time classics 'Heart's Desire' and 'Holding You, Loving You'. He also collaborated with other greats such as Bernard Wright, Weldon Irvine, Roy Ayers, and Lenny White.

We couldn't believe it when Chicago DJ/ digger/ producer, Marc Davis, told us there was a vault of unreleased Don Blackman material. Marc had reached out to Don's children, Irene and Kyle, in 2019, building a relationship with Kyle with whom he shared a musical affinity. To Marc's delight, Kyle confirmed that there was indeed a treasure trove. As Kyle described it, "In 2013, shortly after my dad's passing, my sister and I collected all of his possessions and put them in a storage unit. I came across forty years' worth of music history. Hundreds of cassettes, CDs, Disks, reel- to- reels, paperwork, photos and VHS tapes. It took about ten years to organise and digitise everything. All of this magic was almost thrown away in the trash, never to be seen, never to be heard forever."

Two tracks were selected, 'Your Love Makes Me Crazy' and 'Say You'll Be Mine'. 'Your Love Makes Me Crazy' is as funky as it gets, with infectiously catchy vocal hooks, and a serious jam, whereas 'Say You'll Be Mine' is a classy, soulful boogie, instrumental number, that shows off Don's masterful piano playing. Both tracks warrant full attention and capture a master at work. He was also a one-man show when it came to production, playing all of the instruments when recording these tunes in his home studio in South Jamaica, Queens.

On first hearing the tracks, Marc knew he wanted to extend the songs and enlisted fellow Chicago legend, Tone B. Nimble, to work on the project with him. Their extension/ edit of the songs was conducted in a way that was respectful and true to how the tracks were originally recorded by Don. They extended and resequenced the groovy parts of the songs organically for the DJs and dancers.

The final words on this release are best coming from Kyle, "We are very excited and thrilled to continue to share all of this unreleased magic with the world. We hope that this music will help, heal, and inspire a new generation of artists to never give up, and to strive for what their hearts desire."

TRACK LISTING

Say You'll Be Mine
Your Love Makes Me Crazy

The iconic Swedish 4-piece Little Dragon – spearheaded by vocalist Yukimi Nagano – return with a new and utterly beguiling blend of avant pop on their album “Slugs of Love” on Ninja Tune, inviting outright legend Damon Albarn (Gorillaz, Blur) and rapper JID (J Cole / Dreamville) for collabs. The universally loved (and Grammy-nominated) band paved the way for the likes of Billie Eilish, Steve Lacy, Solange and Kaytranada, setting the benchmark for electronic pop and inspiring the new generation to push boundaries and explore new sonic territories.

Recommended if you like… Tame Impala, SAULT, Toro Y Moi, Gorillaz, Roisin Murphy

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Funky and off-kilter return from avant-pop maestros Little Dragon, 'Slugs Of Love' is a proper infectious blend of chewy indie dance grooves and electro-pop - earworms (or should I say earslugs) galore!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Amöban
A2. Frisco
A3. Slugs Of Love
A4. Disco Dangerous
A5. Lily’s Call
A6. Stay (feat. JID)
B1. Gold
B2. Kenneth
B3. Glow (feat. Damon Albarn)
B4. Tumbling Dice
B5. Easy Falling

"The Withered Hand comeback is a thing of triumph and feel-good wonder"
(Folk Radio UK).

"Nothing less than a shimmering masterpiece, a superb blend of the intimate and the epic"
(The Big Takeover).

"a deeply personal record, and yet while it deals with dark themes, the mood you are left with is ultimately of hope and possibility"
(God Is In The TV).

"How To Love resonates with a yearning Celtic soul expressed and embellished through full band arrangements for brass, strings and his own WH Salvation choir, plus backing vocals from talented supporters Kathryn Williams and King Creosote"
(The Scotsman).

"Songs that elevate the creator to membership of a small and rarefied group of artists. Songs that are both timeless and perfect for the here and now"
(The Swindonian).

TRACK LISTING

1. Feelings 03:55
2. Crippled Love 06:52
3. Waking Up 03:56
4. How To Love 06:46
5. Serenity Prayer 06:16
6. Misery & Company 04:13
7. Give Myself Away 04:49
8. Still Quiet Voice 04:48
9. Comedown 04:34

James Curd joins forces with vocalist Jonasclean on his latest PRONTO instalment, once again inviting a sublime remix cast to offer interpretations of the EP's title track, ‘Mullen It Over’.

‘Mullen It Over’ features sensual synth motifs entwined over thumping house rhythms, the evocative melodies gorgeously complimenting Jonasclean’s searing vocal as throbbing bass adds boundless weight to the groove. The arrangement brims with nocturnal charge, effortlessly ebbing and flowing to maintain dancefloor magnetism.

NYC resident and master of the deep Fred P rides in with a typically affecting take. Regenerating the signature bass line amidst soul-soothing pads and mystical overdubs, he reframes the music as a spiritually-charged meditation. Hypnotic percussion undulates over heartfelt chords as the distant vocal adds texture as off-world melodies elevate the emotion.

Next, Lumberjacks In Hell frontman Marcel Vogel steps in with a kaleidoscopic rework, emphasising the harmonics and adding abundant soul to the mix as agile motifs glide though summery chords, the distinctive vocal piercing through the mood-lifting mist before full-bodied synth lines envelop the rhythm.

The loose-limbed ‘Original Sketch Version’ offers a floor-focused instrumental take, with propulsive chords standing in for the vocal lead as the spaced-out orchestration meanders over crunching drums and rich synth bass, before house legend Robert Owens rides in to add a trademark vocal to the ‘Original Sketch Version’ on the newly named ‘Tried For Love’. Here, Owens’ soul-drenched vocal provides an irresistible alternative to the dubbed-out instrumental, lending itself brilliantly to the Chi-town bump of the composition.

TRACK LISTING

A1 James Curd & Jonasclean - Mullen It Over
A2 James Curd & Jonasclean - Mullen It Over (Fred P Reinterpretation)
B1 James Curd & Jonasclean - Mullen It Over (Marcel Vogal Remix)
B2 James Curd - Mullen It Over (Original)
B3 James Curd Feat. Robert Owens - Tried For Love

On June 23, 2023, Madonna will release a new rainbow-vinyl version of her sold-out 6-LP collection, Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones. Like the original, FINALLY ENOUGH LOVE: THE RAINBOW EDITION spans Madonna’s entire dance club chart reign with dozens of remixes by the world’s top producers. Along with fan favourites, the set also features several rare remix recordings that debuted commercially last year. Boasting more than 220 minutes of remixes, FINALLY ENOUGH LOVE: THE RAINBOW EDITION flows in mostly chronological order.

It showcases the many musical reinventions that made Madonna an international icon, from 1983’s “Holiday” to 2019’s “I Don’t Search I Find,” with remixes by some of the biggest and most influential DJs of all time, including Peter Rauhofer, William Orbit, Honey Dijon, and Avicii.

Madonna is the first and only recording artist to have 50 #1 hits on any single Billboard chart. To celebrate this historic milestone, Madonna curated a 50-track collection titled FINALLY ENOUGH LOVE: 50 NUMBER ONES which includes her favourite remixes of those chart-topping dance hits that have filled clubs worldwide for four decades as well as an abridged 16-track version, titled FINALLY ENOUGH LOVE.

This collection of tracks came about during a period of transition for me, from changing the way I wanted to make music to a method that was more intuitive and free-flowing. I spent a lot of time experimenting with sequencing and different bits of hardware I'd acquired. I was also playing around with an old four track cassette recorder, which was loads of fun. I think the end result feels a little broader in sound and composition as all but one of these tracks were the result of recording a live jam down to a stereo mix. I recorded dozens of these until I'd found 'the one'.

That way of capturing a performance really excites me, it's like a crystallised moment in time when the planets have aligned. When you're really absorbed into the flow of it and there's something extra guiding you.

Thematically, it all reflects this ongoing interest I have in consciousnesses, spiritual enlightenment, truth realisation, whatever you want to call it. At the time I'd been reading a lot about advaita, which is Sanskrit for 'not two', or what western spiritual teachers call non-duality, where it's seen there is no separation between anything, no individual self, no subject and object, just this infinite eternal consciousness. I read a few of the classic teachings from gurus such as Ramaana Maharishi, Jiddu Krishnamurti and Nisargadatta Maharaj, which reflect modern accounts of contemporary teachers like Richard Rose, Jan, Frazier and Rupert Spira.

There seems to be this slow reconciliation between ancient eastern spiritual teachings and western psychology and neuroscience. That really fascinates me and seems to filter through to whatever I'm working on."

Neil Grant, Liverpool, May 2023. 

Orpheu the Wizard has a magic touch at finding records that fall between the gaps in music - oddities, curios, the weird, the wonderful. But that's just half the trick. It takes a sensitive and selective ear to construct a coherent, accessible narrative from them. So you get DJs who can play for the crowd and selectors adept at mining the black gold. In Orpheu, you've got yourself someone who can do both. On a festival main stage, he can keep it weird enough for the heads. In an audiophile setting, he'll keep the flow.

These skill sets come into play on the fifth The Sound of Love International compilation. Jumping between genres, decades, continents, the truly rare, and many B-side cuts that passed you by. But never eclecticism for its own sake; this collection makes sense. Orpheu never loses sight of the listener - he's a friendly and knowledgeable guide to the cosmic outer reaches.

He opens his account with the warm, psychedelic electronics of Drawing Future Life, with "1969". Tucked away on the B-side of an LP of ambient/trance hailing from Fukuoka, this is a very pretty piece of music on a truly rare piece of wax. Then, leapfrogging a couple of decades and timezones, we have Rutuu Poiss' "IHATSIN." Off-kilter, experimental sounds with an endearing melodic hook, followed up by the with lethargic ambient breakbeat of Digital Distortion's "Mellow Bug".

On the B-side, things start to get lively. French Audacity featuring Valerie's "That Fine One" is Gallic garage that has simultaneously got it hugely wrong and mas­sively right. Owing as much to new wave as New York house, this is propulsive and quirky dance music at its finest. Next, we're on a ferry over the channel for DJ Spike and "Gaps In Space." Up-tempo electro with a fondness for sampled vocal cut-ups, like its predecessor.

lnterdance's "Kurz" (another B-side) is the perfect segway - house from 1990 with that sweet, slightly goofy naivete. Things move toward the gnarly with Bad Behaviour and "Living on Smoke," a lesser-known cut on the legendary Atmosphere records. The tempo edges upward on "Systematic Input" by Frequency, hectic hardcore techno that still retains a lightness of touch.

"Lushes" by Diffusion spins us off into space, filigree techno with an emotive trance edge. The chiming intro of "Blue to Be Happy" by MFA lulls us into a sense of false security before massively putting the boot in with a pounding kick drum, bassline, and arpeggiation. From there, it's a sharp left turn into the urban psychedelic dub of R.I.P's "E.O Pan" on cult label Digi Dub.

Sticking with UK sound system music but taking it down a notch, Orpheu closes proceedings with a leftfield reggae excursion from the master of the mixing desk, Mad Professor’s"Oh Hell".

It's a compilation as varied as the many moods and grooves of Love International itself - from sun-dappled olive groves to moments deep in the strobes. This is serious music for party freaks or party music for serious freaks. Tisno is calling.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Wonderfully off radar collection from Orpheu The Wizard who has been scouted by the Love International crew for this latest compilation ahead of the much loved festival in a couple of weeks. I don't know any of these tracks so really enjoying being schooled by this real deal talent.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Drawing Future Life - 1969 
A2. Ruutu Poiss - Ihatsin 
A3. Digital Distortion - Mellow Bug 
B1. French Audacity - The Final One (feat. Valerie) 
B2. DJ Spike - Gaps In Space 
B3. Interdance - Kurz 
C1. Bad Behaviour - Living On Smoke (Edgware Mix) 
C2. Frequency - Systematic Input 
C3. Diffusion - Lushes 
D1. M.F.A. - Blue To Be Happy 
D2. R.I.P. - E.O.Pan 
D3. Mad Professor - Oh Hell 

Love Drop is a frequent player on GAMM and returns with a classy two track EP.

Lead track "Journey Into You" is a bright disco-house re-interpretation of Leon Ware's classic modern soul jam. Emphasizing the bright strings and summery vibe, LD does an excellent job of buffing up this exceptional tune.

Flip the disc and Love Drop does a nice number on a classic and highly infectious Roy Ayers' number; looping up the relentlessly funking groove and sugary sweet female vox. Absolute gold. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Strictly GAMM business from Love Drop who tastefully dices up Roy Ayers and and Leon Ware for a double hit of jazz-disco-dance danger.

TRACK LISTING

A. Journey Into You
B. Boogie Down

Well known for his kaleidoscopic approach both in the DJ booth and in the studio, Ruf Dug has touched on genres as diverse as street soul, vaporwave, and acid house over the years. He has released material on labels such as Rhythm Section, Klasse Wrecks, and his own Moodymann approved Ruf Kutz.

For his Pinchy & friends’ debut (there's a 6-song EP in the works as well) the NTS radio host distils some of these aforementioned influences and presents a two-track 12" that explores dub techno, Chicago acid, and atmospheric balearica.

Built around a solid, techy thud, "Thru The Night!" rides seismic bass waves and reverb-laden stabs to more tropical climes, thanks to gusts of echoed flutes and a catchy, 8-bit vocal hook.

On the flip, "I Love You" takes a minor-key synth riff and sends it off to music school for some late-night nasty dance floor bliss.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: People's champion and now esteemed radio jock, Ruf Dug takes some time out from his busy touring schedule to drop a cheeky two tracker of dubbed out acid delight on Pinchy & Friends.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Thru The Night
B1. I Love You

A compilation to celebrate 30 years of Helen Love! Featuring the best singles, album tracks, rarities, and fan favourites!

“Almost all the songs on here were recorded on an 8-track second-hand tape machine. We recorded everything ourselves, we mixed them ourselves in the attic, we made all our sleeves on the back of cornflake boxes, Pritt-sticked, cut-outs from The Face and Nintendo magazine covers and a sheet of Letraset. We couldn't play, we used auto accompaniment pre-sets off old Casio keyboards, and an old Woolworth electric guitar. There was only going to be one single. No plan... we still haven't got a plan… we are still here though 30 years later. Punk Rock forever! Xxx” HELEN LOVE 2022

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A stunning collection of the life and times of Helen Love. Featuring 33 of their most well beloved punk smashers from 30 years in the business, INCLUDING the version of Punk Boy featuring none other than Joey Ramone. Essential collection.

TRACK LISTING

1. Yeah Yeah We’re Helen Love
2. Punk Boy 1
3. Beat Him Up
4. King Of Kung Fu
5. Girl About Town
6. Sunburst Super Kay
7. So In Love With You
8. Leader Of The Pack
9. Long Live The UK Music Scene
10. So Hot
11. Ahead Of The Race
12. Joey Ramoney
13. Jump Up And Down
14. Shifty Disco Girl
15. Atomic Beat Boy
16. Let’s Go
17. We Love You
18. Put Your Foot On The Fuzzbox Baby
19. Bubblegum
20. Rockaway Beach For Me, Heartbreak Hotel For You
21. Great In Formula One
22. Long Hot Summer
23. Happyhardcore
24. MC5
25. Does Your Heart Go Boom?
26. Love, Kiss, Run, Sing, Shout, Jump!
27. Debbie Loves Joey
28. Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight)
29. Diet Coke Girl
30. Wig Wam Bam
31. Punk Boy (Feat. Joey Ramone)
32. Golden Summer
33. Summer Pop Radio

Another much-needed repress from Surfin In Kansas. This one hanged ten just under three years ago and has since become one bodacious and highly sought after slice of beach grooving joy.

"I Love You" samples The Gap Band's "Big Fun", extending the percussive breaks, doing away with all the smoochy vocal bits and upping the tempo jussst a tad before adding smatterings of extra piano goodness.

On side B, Johnny Bristol 's "Love No Longer Has A Hold On Me" is reduced to a dubbed out vox and hefty raregroove lick; the Strat part chiming away over a foundation shaking b-line and manly horns. A hefty slab of soul which is perfectly snipped and tucked by A Good Christian.

This repress won't hang around long - you have been warned! 

TRACK LISTING

A. I Love You
B. Free To Be Me

Christine and the Queens return with new album PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE, released on 9 June via Because Music.

The record’s first single, ‘To be honest’ is an ethereal, synth-driven first glimpse into the French phenomenon’s most personal and ambitious album to date. PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE is written, performed and produced by Christine and the Queens, with co-production by Mike Dean (Lana Del Rey, Beyonce) and guest appearances from 070 Shake and Madonna.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The wonderful Christine And The Queens make a very welcome return for the spellbinding new LP, 'PARANOiA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE'. With hefty synths, gorgeous cinematic intensity and a flawless ear for melody, Chris has continues the legacy he laid out so perfectly in the previous slices of emotional synth-pop genius. It's rich, deep and infinitely rewarding.

TRACK LISTING

TRIPLE 180 GRAMS VINYL EDITION
VINYL 1 :
A1 Overture
A2 Tears Can Be So Soft
A3 Marvin Descending
A4 A Day In The Water
B1 Full Of Life
B2 Angels Crying In My Bed (Feat. Madonna)
B3 Track 10
VINYL 2 :
C1 Overture (Feat.Mike Dean)
C2 He’s Been Shining For Ever, Your Son
C3 Flowery Days
C4 I Met An Angel (Feat. Madonna)
D1 True Love (Feat. 070 Shake)
D2 Let Me Touch You Once (Feat. 070 Shake)
D3 Aimer, Puis Vivre
VINYL 3
E1 Shine
E2 We Have To Be Friends
E3 Lick The Light Out (Feat. Madonna)
F1 To Be Honest
F2 I Feel Like An Angel
F3 Big Eye

TRIPLE CD EDITION
CD 1:
1 Overture
2 Tears Can Be So Soft
3 Marvin Descending
4 A Day In The Water
5 Full Of Life
6 Angels Crying In My Bed (Feat. Madonna)
7 Track 10
CD 2:
1 Overture (Feat.Mike Dean)
2 He’s Been Shining For Ever, Your Son
3 Flowery Days
4 I Met An Angel (Feat. Madonna)
5 True Love (Feat. 070 Shake)
6 Let Me Touch You Once (Feat. 070 Shake)
7 Aimer, Puis Vivre
CD3:
1 Shine
2 We Have To Be Friends
3 Lick The Light Out (Feat. Madonna)
4 To Be Honest
5 I Feel Like An Angel
6 Big Eye