Lucinda Williams reissues her critically acclaimed 1988 Rough Trade album, out-of-print for 10 years and 25 years since its original release it has been newly remastered.

This 2CD release includes never-before-released album, Eindhoven Live + Bonus Tracks, featuring a live recording from Effenhaar in Eindoven, Neon May 19th, 1989 in addition to previously released bonus tracks.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1
1. I Just Wanted To See You So Bad
2. The Night's Too Long
3. Abandoned
4. Big Red Sun Blues
5. Like A Rose
6. Changed The Locks
7. Passionate Kisses
8. Am I Too Blue
9. Crescent City
10. Side Of The Road
11. Price To Pay
12. I Asked For Water (He Gave Me Gasoline)

Disc 2
1. I Just Wanted To See You So Bad
2. Big Red Sun Blues
3. Am I Too Blue
4. Crescent City
5. The Night's Too Long
6. Something About What Happens When We Talk
7. Factory Blues
8. Happy Woman Blues
9. Abandoned
10. Wild And Blue
11. Passionate Kisses
12. Changed The Locks
13. Nothing In Rambling
14. Sundays
15. Nothing In Rambling (Live)
16. Disgusted (Live)
17. Side Of The Road (Live)
18. Goin' Back Home (Live)
19. Something About What Happens When We Talk (Live)
20. Sundays (Live)

Lucinda Williams reissues her critically acclaimed 1988 Rough Trade album, out-of-print for 10 years and 25 years since its original release it has been newly remastered.

Luciano Cilio was born in Naples, Italy, in 1950. He studied music and architecture and, in the late ’60s, collaborated with local artist Alan Sorrenti, American expat Shawn Phillips and various avant-garde theater groups. A virtuoso guitarist and self-taught composer, Cilio released only one LP before his untimely death at the age of 33.

'Dialoghi Del Presente' (1977) is a work like no other, one that sounds both ancient and ahead of its time. Produced by Renato Marengo, it features a series of muted tableaux for strings, woodwinds, guitar, chorus, piano and percussion. Cilio carves out a space where subtle, repetitive phrases yield—almost imperceptibly—to breathtaking silence.

As Jim O’Rourke writes, “These recordings sound as if they were to please no one but himself; they feel self-contained, introspective, and determined ... You can feel in the music a sort of necessity that can be rarely found, like in
This Heat’s debut or Nick Drake’s 'Pink Moon'.”

While each subsequent “quadro” grows more abstract, Cilio draws the listener into an expansive, pastoral soundscape. The closing piece, 'Interludio', begins with a plaintive guitar, which is joined by haunting strings and woodwinds before concluding, poignantly, as the album began, with Cilio and his guitar, alone once more.

Recommended for fans of Johann Johannsson, Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, Arvo Part and Popol Vuh.

TRACK LISTING

1. Primo Quadro - Della Conoscenza
2. Secondo Quadro
3. Terzo Quadro
4. Quarto Quadro - Dell’Universo Assente
5. Interludio

Throughout her long career, Lucinda Williams has never shied away from writing about difficult but real things. If you think about it, you could call 'Change The Locks' a topical song ahead of its time. There were several biting and brave songs on her 'Good Souls Better Angels' album, as well as the post-Covid masterpiece 'Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart'. With 'World’s Gone Wrong', Lucinda ups the ante on topical songs. It is a pure reflection of our very turbulent times, intense and musically powerful.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lucinda's not happy. In fact, i'd go so far as to say she's livid. She wars it well though, channelling her righteous anger into a canonically brilliant mix of classic rock, melodic country and modern pop music. A timeless artist, and a brilliant listen too. Stay mad Lucinda.

TRACK LISTING

1. The World's Gone Wrong (feat. Brittney Spencer)
2. Something's Gotta Give (feat. Brittney Spencer)
3. Low Life
4. How Much Did You Get For Your Soul
5. So Much Trouble In The World (feat. Mavis Staples)
6. Sing Unburied Sing
7. Black Tears
8. Punchline
9. Freedom Speaks
10. We've Come Too Far To Turn Around (feat. Norah Jones)

Remastered from the original tapes by The Bricoleur at Bladud Flies!, and with the original artwork refreshed and reborn by Rob Hopeye, this 12” vinyl picture-disc comes in a full-colour die-cut sleeve, which is printed on both the outside and inside.

TRACK LISTING

1.Lucifer Over London
2. Sad Go Round
3. The Seven Seals Are Revealed At The End Of Time As Seven Bows: The Bloodbow, The Pissbow, The Painbow, The Faminebow, The Deathbow, The Angerbow, The Hohohobow

An F-bomb saturated hip-hop call & response club cut...from Sun Ra?! While the most renown track in this omniversal opus is the atomic expletive-filled repartee 'Nuclear War', there is so much more to this dark mysterious journey through the mind of Sun Ra. The sprawling, suite-like 20-minute title track sustains a lyrical edge in spite of an open framework and textures, which encourage sonorities to surface and emerge from the band as if there was no human intention behind them. In opposition to 'Nuclear War', Ra's organ playing here was built less on bombast and sonic terror than it is on whispers, stutters, shivers, and swells. Fireside Chat offers a wide stylistic array, as was the artist’s intent, reflecting his eclectic, seemingly irreconcilable approach to compositional extremes. With Sun Ra you get everything... except predictability.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nuclear War
2. Retrospect
3. Makeup
4. A Fireside Chat With Lucifer

“Our fourth studio album is the four of us, just as we first started recording together as a band. It’s raw and honest and feels like coming home; something that resonates deeply in this moment of our lives. We are home in so many senses of the word; in the last couple of years we’ve started setting roots, finding life partners, building families, growing gardens. We got dogs, (you can hear them in the background if you listen close). We wrote songs about life and relationships. We recorded them in our home studios. We saw the beginnings and endings of life cycles while making this record, the beauty and fragility of the human experience. So it’s only fitting that this album is self-titled, it’s our story, who we are now and how we got here. Welcome to our living room.”

- Lucius

TRACK LISTING

1. Final Days
2. Gold Rush
3. Do It All For You
4. Mad Love
5. Stranger Danger
6. Hallways
7. Old Tape (feat. Adam Granduciel)
8. Impressions (feat. Madison Cunningham)
10. Orange Blossoms
11. At The End Of The Day 

'Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road' features 12 Beatles songs that include classic hits such as 'Can’t Buy Me Love,' 'With A Little Help From My Friends' and 'Something.' Williams and her band also take on beloved deeper tracks such as 'I’m So Tired,' 'I’ve Got A Feeling,' and 'Yer Blues.' Being raised on the blues in the South, the latter is a song Williams was clearly meant to sing. Recorded at The Beatles' legendary studio in London, the new collection serves as Vol. 7 of her celebrated Lu’s Jukebox series and is the first new volume in almost four years.

While many great artists have recorded in the hallowed Abbey Road Studios, as it turns out, Williams is the first major artist to actually record Beatles’ songs there aside from the Fab Four themselves.

As an acclaimed, award-winning singer/songwriter for more than four decades, Williams’ music has been highly influential and covered by a multitude of artists. Williams is also an extraordinary interpreter who, like all great interpreters, has the ability to inhabit a song and make it her own. She does just that throughout this selection of Beatles tracks, as she has done on each Lu’s Jukebox volume.

TRACK LISTING

1 Don't Let Me Down
2 I'm Looking Through You
3 Can't Buy Me Love
4 Rain
5 While My Guitar Gently Weeps
6 Let It Be
7 Yer Blues
8 I've Got A Feeling
9 I'm So Tired
10 Something
11 With A Little Help From My Friends
12 The Long And Winding Road

After 2 years of relentless touring in support of their critically acclaimed debut album, Thee Sacred Souls return with "Lucid Girl", the lead single from their forthcoming sophomore album, Got a Story to Tell.

Backed by a heavy beat and lavish arrangement, singer Josh Lane–displaying a soulfulness beyond his years–sings an empowering tale of a girl who has the clarity to put her needs before prospective suitors. B-side features "Losing Side of Love."

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Lucid Girl
Side B – Losing Side Of Love

Flow Critical Lucidity is his ninth solo recording. Some of the songs were written & arranged in Europe and The United Kingdom and include lyrical references to their environments and inspired by nature, lucid dreaming, modern dance and Isadora Duncan. The album was arranged at La Becque in Switzerland and recorded at Total Refreshment Studios in London in 2022, and mixed at Hermitage Studios in London with Margo Broom in 2023.

Flow Critical Lucidity comes from a lyric in the single ‘Sans Limites’ and the album sleeve cover art features Jamie Nares’ ‘Samurai Walkman’ — a helmet befitted with tuning forks. Jamie Nares (born in Great Britain) is a life long friend of Thurston Moore from his New York No Wave days and the two have often collaborated in art & music.

The Players:
Vocals, Guitar: Thurston Moore
Bass: Deb Googe
Electronics: Jon Leidecker
Piano, organ, guitar, glockenspiel: James Sedwards
Percussion: Jem Doulton
Backing vocals: Laetitia Sadier on ‘Sans Limites’
Lyrics: Radieux Radio, except ‘Shadow’
Recorded in London at Total Refreshment Centre and mixed by Margo Broom

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A beautiful, musically mature collection of pieces from one of the members of the biggest band in rock history. Moore's latest is a beautifully balanced suite of slow-paced minimalist guitars and flickering piano, slowly morphing crescendos and heartfelt sonic tales. It's a wonderful new chapter for one of the legends of alt-rock.

TRACK LISTING

1. New In Town
2. Sans Limites
3. Shadow
4. Hypnogram
5. We Get High
6. Rewilding
7. The Diver
(Bonus Track Included On A Clear Flexi Disc.) – “Isadora (Bedazzled Mix)”

Charlotte-born and raised artist LUCI has always sought music as a refuge. The Don’t Sleep signee’s catalogue, buoyed by 2022’s debut EP, ‘Juvenilia’, showcases a blend of R&B, hiphop, trip-hop, and whatever else she has the whim to explore.

After graduating from Charlotte’s Northwest School of The Arts in 2014, she moved to nearby Asheville and immersed herself in the local music scene. She made her way to upstate New York in 2019, where she learned how to produce on Ableton music production software and filled multiple notebooks with songs. Some of those ended up on 2022’s ‘Juvenilia’, including her formal debut, the ‘Ash & Dust’ single, which music outlet Consequence called, “a wildly original statement that points towards the future of hip-hop."

The future is now for LUCI, who’s set to release her upcoming album. ‘They Say They Love You’ was recorded in Ambridge, Pennsylvania as well as LA, and explores themes of love, loneliness, perseverance amid uncertainty, self-care, and coming of age.

The album includes production from William J Sullivan (Kid Cudi, Ye, 070shake, Paris Texas), Louallday (Doja Cat, Tylor, the Creator, Outkast, Khelani, Dckwrth), Elias Abid and Edmund Irwinsinger (Glass Animals), and others. She says she wants ‘They Say They Love You’, like all of her music, to “touch all the senses. My inspiration comes from the fact that great art exists in the world. And if I can touch people, move people, and it makes people want to do things for the better. I want to be the example of doing what you love, and being relentless about it.”

TRACK LISTING

Martyr
11:11
Lips
Rockwichu
Thunder Calling
Inside
Spins
Call Jane
Stay Steady
Morning Wine

Compilation of scattered early works by Erin Hopes. 160bpm+, ultra-emotional dream-tekno>neo-trance>space tracks. Romantic/relentless, up/down, weary/wired. Fed on gabber, dressed by Juicy Couture, watched over by Paris Hilton (mk1).

Erin Hopes is a producer from Glasgow and operates the label Manic BB.

At once utterly compelling, sublime and arresting - this is higher plan spiritual / cosmic techno that sounds completely out of this world and unbearably delicious. Rousing ultra-human feels for engaged individuals! 

Highly recommended! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Stopped me dead in my tracks this. Arresting, turbo-charged amalgamation of trance, gabba (!) and romantic electronics. Don't let the face pace put you off - this is some seriously emotional music and a template that's yet to be fully explored. Brilliant introduction to this Scottish artist. TIP!

TRACK LISTING

Lucidity
Aquarius Rising
Elect-Romance
Escape - Ist
I Dont Want To Feel
The Little Mermaid
Time Robot
Dare To Dream

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams’ classic 1998 album 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road' is now on vinyl for the first time. The album won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album and features the songs 'Can’t Let Go' and 'Car Wheels on a Gravel Road'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Right In Time
2. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
3. 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
4. Drunken Angel
5. Concrete And Barbed Wire
6. Lake Charles
7. Can't Let Go
8. I Lost It
9. Metal Firecracker
10. Greenville
11. Still I Long For Your Kiss
12. Joy
13. Jackson

If Chua’s 2022 release "Golden," written from the perspective of her younger self, was the meditative prelude to the world of YIAN, then her new single “Echo” places us firmly in its first chapter. A pop song about ancestral trauma, “Echo” is the antihero’s journey, walking the line between respect for the past and the freedom to carve out a new future. (“I won’t carry your shame / Won’t be your echo again… I couldn’t be anyone else / I look to you, I see myself”). Chua delivers with her uniquely intimate, yet otherworldly sound in this self-produced and engineered song, capturing sensuous echoing harmonies and delicate soul-infused piano.

Following intensive studies in Chinese dance forms, Chua joined forces with film director Jade Ang Jackman and movement director Chantel Foo to create the visual for “Echo”; Chua’s take on a choreographed pop MV. The short film is a moving and innovative homage to Chinese fan dance and martial arts; an internal journey through the shifting seasons of emotional weather. Grounded by a stone circle, Chua dances with her handmade Chinese silk fans as the mood shifts from thorny rose garden to blizzard. “Sometimes I think we are all just footprints in the snow,” Chua says.

“YIAN” (燕), means swallow in Chinese, and is part of “Siew Yian,” the name given to Chua by her parents to preserve her connection with her Chinese heritage. Just as the migratory songbird lives between places, so did Chua, the artist living in the in-between of the English, Malaysian and Chinese cultures that make up her heritage. In the absence of Mandarin as a mother tongue, music became a way to express the parts of herself that couldn’t be described in words; “YIAN” emerged as a way to heal.

A deeply introspective and fully realized vessel of creative expression (Chua self-produced and engineered eight of the ten tracks), “YIAN” emerges as less an album than a worldview, a commitment to learning and uncovering one’s own selfhood honed over Chua’s lifelong reconciliation with her own personal history and identity.

Through this process she found new language through which to express her experiences, language which lay in the practices she developed and the creative community with whom she built solidarity along the process: co-authoring visual identities with main collaborators Tash Tung, Jade Ang Jackman and Nhu Xuan Hua and set designers Lydia Chan, Jonquil Lawrence and Erin Tse. Chua also constructed the album’s physical language through dance with movement directors Chantel Foo and Duane Nasis, this expression shown most vividly through the short film made for “Echo,” out today.

TRACK LISTING

1. Golden
2. Meditations On A Place
3. I Promise
4. You
5. An Ocean
6. Autumn Leaves Don't Come
7. Echo
8. Do You Know You Know
9. Grief Piece
10. Something Other Than Years

Lucifer on the Moon is the anti-gravity companion to Spoon’s Lucifer on the Sofa. A top-to-bottom rework of the Austin band's tenth album, it was created by On-U Sound founder and UK dub icon, Adrian Sherwood.

Moon first took shape as a few heady remixes for the singles from Lucifer on the Sofa. Frontman Britt Daniel offered Sherwood two suggestions: “Avoid things that would not be possible on tape” and “Add whatever you want to add, the less modern the better.” The collaboration shouldn't come as a surprise: dub-inspired production is wound through Spoon’s classic tracks, from "Finer Feelings" to "Inside Out." Sherwood is a proven collaborator whose resume includes partnerships with seminal artists like The Fall, Jah Wobble, and Mark Stewart. The initial results pleased both parties and Sherwood was invited to work on additional songs. And then a few more. “I got into the melody and the thoughts it evoked in me,” the producer explains. “It just evolved and we eventually found ourselves with a whole album.”

Moon flips Lucifer on the Sofa’s rhythm tracks inside-out, and often rebuilds them wholesale. Sherwood supplied extensive additional instrumentation via On-U’s extended family of session players, including bassist Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc (both of whom performed in Sugarhill Records’ early ’80s in-house rhythm section). He dug deep into the album’s multi-tracks, surfacing forgotten details and elements not present in the final album mixes.

The result airlifts Spoon’s trademark melodies into lush alien terrain, replete with vibrant echo and rumbling low-end. “It wasn’t just a thing where you pick apart this and that and you stay on the grid and you add a delay,” explains Daniel. “He added so much more instrumentation to the tracks that they became completely different versions of the songs. Not just remixes, but companion pieces. A ‘Part II.’”

Released in February, Lucifer on the Sofa is Spoon’s purest rock ’n roll record to date. Texas-made, it is the first set of songs that the quintet has put to tape in its hometown of Austin in more than a decade. Written and recorded over the last two years – both in and out of lockdown – the songs mark a shift toward something louder, wilder, and more full-color. "It’s the best thing they’ve ever done,” wrote Rolling Stone. “More than exceeding their usual quotient of fire guitars, killer choruses, and crafty rock-history updates.” The band has hit the road hard this year and recently wrapped a coast-to-coast co-headline US tour with Interpol. NJ.com called Spoon’s Asbury Park performance a “70-minute foil of raw emotion and bounding humanity.”

TRACK LISTING

1.  My Babe
2.  On The Radio
3.  Held
4.  The Devile & Mister Jones
5.  Lucifer On The Sofa
6.  Astral Jacket
7.  Feels Alright
8.  Wild
9.  The Hardest Cut
10.  Satellite

Since their debut in 2017 and the highly acclaimed latest album ‘No God? No Problem’ (released in 2019,’ Detroit freak rockers The Lucid Furs have performed over 100 out of state shows, invading music venues to wash minds with their heavy blues rock concoctions.

The band‘s live performances build up with a big, head bang energy, winding down to sultry blues, then blasting back into hard rock with a dash of funk you can’t help but dance to.

Their new album - now available on white vinyl - won’t make any exception. The band’s heavily grooving talent and soul of the blues is immediately evident, driven by a vibrant 70’s vintage vibe.

Their songs embody a culmination of each member’s early influences, ranging from rock classics like Alice Cooper and Heart, to Chicago blues like Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy, to the era of alternative rock groups like Soundgarden and Queens Of The Stone Age.

For fans of All Them Witches, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Rival Sons, Cream, Queens Of The Stone Age, Jefferson Airplane, Blues Pills.

TRACK LISTING

Right On My Level
Five Finger Disco
Lying Again
Pull The String
Conscience
Another Page
Straight To My Head
Follow Me
A One Time Investment

Lucius returns with their highly-anticipated new album Second Nature, produced by Dave Cobb and Brandi Carlile, the album features ten new songs, with writing contributions from BRIT Award and Mercury Prize nominated Jenn Decilveo, amongst others.

Widely acclaimed since their debut album, The New York Times declares, “Luscious, luminous, lilting lullabies,” while NPR Music asserts, “gorgeous, joyful songs” and Pitchfork praises, “powerful voices and a keen sense of melody.” In addition to their work in the band, Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe have recorded with Sheryl Crow, Harry Styles, The War on Drugs, Ozzy Osborne and John Legend and toured extensively alongside Roger Waters.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Second Nature
2. Next To Normal
3. 24
4. Heartbursts
5. Dance Around It (feat. Brandi Carlile & Sheryl Crow)

SIDE B
6. The Man I’ll Never Find
7. Promises
8. LSD
9. Tears In Reverse
10. White Lies

Spoon’s tenth album, Lucifer on the Sofa, is the band’s purest rock ’n roll record to date. Texas-made, it is the first set of songs that the quintet has put to tape in its hometown of Austin in more than a decade. Written and recorded over the last two years – both in and out of lockdown – these songs mark a shift toward something louder, wilder, and more full-colour.

From the detuned guitars anchoring “The Hardest Cut,” to the urgency of “Wild," to the band’s blown-out cover of the Smog classic “Held,” Lucifer on the Sofa bottles the physical thrill of a band tearing up a packed room. It’s an album of intensity and intimacy, where the music’s harshest edges feel as vivid as the directions quietly murmured into the mic on the first-take. According to frontman Britt Daniel, “It’s the sound of classic rock as written by a guy who never did get Eric Clapton.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Held
The Hardest Cut
The Devil & Mister Jones
Wild
My Babe
Side B
Feels Alright
On The Radio
Astral Jacket
Satellite
Lucifer On The Sofa

Lu's Jukebox is a six-volume series of mostly full-band performances recorded live at Ray Kennedy's Room & Board Studio in Nashville, TN. Each volume features a themed set of songs by other artists curated by the multi-Grammy award winner, Lucinda Williams. The series aired as ticketed shows through Mandolin in late 2020 with a portion of ticket sales benefitting independent music venues struggling to get by through the pandemic. Like thousands of artists, Williams cut her teeth and developed her craft by playing in small, medium and large clubs throughout the country, and the world. These venues are vital to the development of artists and their music. Williams has never forgotten her roots, and often performs special shows in some of her favorite halls. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Street Fighting Man
2. The Last Time
3. Get Off My Cloud
4. Paint It Black
5. Play With Fire
6. No Expectations
7. Dead Flowers
8. Salt Of The Earth
9. You Gotta Move
10. Moonlight Mile
11. Time Waits For No One
12. Sway
13. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
14. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
15. Sympathy For The Devil
16. You Can't Always Get What You Want

Lucinda Chua is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist based in South London. Primarily using her voice, a cello, and an array of effects units, Chua writes ambient pop songs that are intimate, atmospheric, and totally enchanting.

Whilst studying photography at university in Nottingham, Chua took an elective course in music production and the resulting experimental tracks she created and uploaded online caught the attention of US label kranky. Before long she was touring with Stars of the Lid as a cellist and string arranger and went on to release two albums with her first band Felix – all while barely into her 20s. After Felix broke up, Chua spent a few years in London exploring the city’s creative scene and began experimenting with the cello. Those explorations became her 2019 debut EP Antidotes 1 which flitted between hushed songwriting and expansive textural soundscapes and was released shortly before she joined FKA twigs’ live band for her Magdalene tour. Earning praise from Pitchfork, The Guardian, Dazed and gal-dem, Antidotes 1 led to Chua participating in NTS Radio’s Work In Progress scheme as well as performing one-person shows across the UK and Europe including Red Bull Music Festival London, MUTEK Barcelona, Tate Modern and Somerset House.

A sister release to Antidotes 1, Antidotes 2 expands Chua’s unique sonic vocabulary, with subliminal textures that bleed into each other before fading away. If Antidotes 1 was Chua building the landscape and scenery for her music, then Antidotes 2 is her living within it. Some of the songs were written during the same period whilst others, like EP opener ‘Until I Fall’, are brand new.

The vinyl edition of Antidotes will include both EPs.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having played with ambient luminaries Stars Of The Lid as a cellist, it's no surprise that Chua's work is very much in the slow-moving ambient vein, but on 'Antidotes' we see her wonderful ear for production and singularly unique ambient talent come shining through. It's beguiling and emotive avant-classical with subtle elements of slow-moving synth, and is a sound all of her own.

TRACK LISTING

Feel Something
Whatever It Takes
Semitones
Somebody Who
Until I Fall
An Avalanche
Torch Song
Before

Lu's Jukebox is a six-volume series of mostly full-band performances recorded live at Ray Kennedy's Room & Board Studio in Nashville, TN. Each volume features a themed set of songs by other artists curated by the multi-Grammy award winner, Lucinda Williams. The series aired as ticketed shows through Mandolin in late 2020 with a portion of ticket sales benefitting independent music venues struggling to get by through the pandemic. Like thousands of artists, Williams cut her teeth and developed her craft by playing in small, medium and large clubs throughout the country, and the world. These venues are vital to the development of artists and their music. Williams has never forgotten her roots, and often performs special shows in some of her favorite halls.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Games People Play
2. You'll Lose A Good Thing
3. Ode To Billy Joe
4. I Can't Stand The Rain
5. Misty Blue
6. Main Street Mission
7. You Don't Miss Your Water
8. It Tears Me Up
9. Rainy Night In Georgia
10. Take Me To The River
11. Still Long For Your Kiss

Following on from 2018’s acclaimed ‘Actualisation’, ‘The Deep End’ builds upon the acid house influences of the former but ventures into many new paths. Hip hop, techno, drum ‘n’ bass and other ‘genres’ sneak into the creative palette whilst also staying true to the band mantra of throwing the rule book out of the window, as far as ‘genres’ or ‘boundaries’ are concerned.

The album was penned over the Spring of 2019 by Mark Emmerson (vocals/guitar/synths). Again, Roland 303/808 synths, bass and vocals were key tools for writing, whilst the Roland SH01a found its way onto the team sheet, as well as a sampler for the first time.
Recording commenced in March 2019, the ethos being rehearsing and recording a track as soon as it was written with mixing taking place on each track shortly after. By July 2019 85% of the album was completed, the final track laid down in January 2020.

The album was again recorded at Whitewood Studios, Liverpool, with Rob Whiteley, the album produced alongside long-time collaborator Ross Halden (Ghost Town Studios, Leeds) with frontman Mark Emmerson, with mastering via Dean Honer (All Seeing I/I Monster/The Moonlandingz).

Lead track ‘CHI-03’ gives the album its first sucker punch moment. A track born out of listening to late 80s hip hip records on loop before allowing the 303 to take on the co-lead vocal role alongside the addition of the sampler. A beat again designed to make people move, with enough Lucid sonics to stamp the band signature.

‘Leave Me In The Dark’ takes a 7 minute journey that taps into places the band have been before. No mean feat when that is a melting pot of dub, drum ‘n’ bass, jungle and enough raw power to know that this is a Lucid Dream track.

Side 2 kicks off with ‘Fight To Survive’. A beat belonging in 80s New York, keys more suited to the East Coast counterparts of the time, another statement. ‘It’s a campaign of hate, campaign of hate’.

‘Sunrise’ then takes the album on another tangent. The Lucid Dream tapped into acid house on ‘Actualisation’ but this track is acid/Balearic in its purest form. Another track that begs for communal celebration, when the opportunity permits.
‘High and Wild’ closes the album. The 9 minutes within don’t share the optimism and ‘highs’ displayed in the 35 minutes prior but doesn’t suffer any for it either. The most ‘conventional’ and only guitar based song on the album, this track won’t be found near a dance floor. More suited for the days after, when the highest highs bring the real lows. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A bracing and catatonic mix of 80's post-punk, nu-rave and industrial, The Lucid Dream have a sound all of their own. There's little doubt that this would be perfectly at home last thing at night on a festival stage, lights flashing and synapses firing, or turned up loud on the home stereo.

TRACK LISTING

1) Coalescence
2) CHI-03
3) Leave Me In The Dark
4) Fight To Survive
5) Sunrise
6) High And Wild

Award-winning, revered singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams is working to help independent music venues during this time with the announcement of Lu’s Jukebox. Scheduled as a sixepisode series of mostly full-band, HD video performances in-studio, Lu’s Jukebox will feature a themed set of songs by other artists curated by the multi-Grammy award winner. The first episode kicks off on October 22nd with Running Down A Dream: A Tribute To Tom Petty, featuring songs from his celebrated career in advance of his 70th Birthday.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rebels
2. Runnin' Down A Dream
3. Gainesville
4. Louisiana Rain
5. I Won't Back Down
6. A Face In The Crowd
7. Wildflowers
8. You Wreck Me
9. Room At The Top
10. You Don't Know How It Feels
11. Down South
12. Southern Accents
13. Stolen Moments

As long-time fans of this sublime four-track compacto 7” by the illustrious Brazilian duo Luli Lucinha e O Bando, we have floated the idea of re-issuing this beauty for several years now. So finally, the time feels right to release this beloved gem back into the world.

Originally issued on Som Livre Records in Brazil in 1972, this rarity has long been lost to only but the most hardened Brazilian record collectors and those lucky few who own an original copy.

The four genre-defying compositions blend elements of psychedelic rock, MPB and folk, and are glued together by the synergy of Luli and Lucinha’s vocals and the outstanding arrangements by Z Rodrix. Whether it be the lost Brazilianpsych anthem of ‘Flor Lil s’, or the tripped out folk-funk of ‘Dourado Da Manh ‘, the EP oozes magic and brilliance. The record also features the Brazilian percussionist, Alyrio Lima, who later became a member of the iconic Weather Report.

Luli (Heloisa Orosco Borges da Fonseca) and Lucinha’s (Lucia Helena Carvalho e Silva) records have become extremely sought-after in recent years. Their inclusion on John G mez’s superb 2017 ‘Outro Tempo’ compilation helped spread the gospel about their beautiful folky, MPB, private press albums from the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

Prior to their musical partnership back in 1965, Luli released a heavenly Bossa Nova 7” nugget entailed ‘Baleiro’ and a self-titled solo album on Philips Records, which are now also highly-prized by collectors. Here at Mr Bongo we feel Luli and Lucinha’s names should be more widely recognised and break out of their cult artist status.

They should be rated up there amongst some of the progressive, left-field greats of Brazilian music of their era. Sadly Luli passed away in 2018, but left behind an inspiring musical legacy for us all to savour.

TRACK LISTING

Flor Lil S
O Rato Roeu
Floresta Encantada
Dourado Da Manh

On May 8th three-time Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams unabashedly takes on some of the human, social and political issues of our day with her boldest and most direct album to date, Good Souls Better Angels. During the course of her celebrated four-decade, pioneering career Williams has never rested on her laurels as she continues to push herself as a songwriter. On Good Souls Better Angels, she has much she needs to get out. In 2014 and 2015, Williams released two critically acclaimed double albums back to back with Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone and The Ghosts Of Highway 20, respectively.

Both releases found her experimenting with arrangements, vocals, song structure and personal subject matter. On Good Souls Better Angels, Williams changes course and chooses to forgo the personal and narrative-based songcraft that has become synonymous with her name and instead speaks to some of the injustices permeating our society. The new songs cut straight to the core with frank and honest commentary on domestic abuse (“Wakin’ Up”), the constant barrage of news (“Bad News Blues”) the dangerous, quick to judge and convict aspects of social media (“Shadows & Doubts) and the haunting reality of the “Man Without A Soul”.

Williams recorded Good Souls Better Angels backed by her remarkable, long time band, featuring Butch Norton (drums), Stuart Mathis (guitar) and David Sutton (bass). The rock-solid unit propels the music with both fire and finesse, particularly on the raw blues number “You Can’t Rule Me”, which kicks off the album with equal parts attitude and swing. Good Souls Better Angels also features some of Williams’ most intimate and up front vocals on record. She addresses the pain of depression on the achingly beautiful “Big Black Train” and tenderly delivers a poignant song of hope with “When The Way Gets Dark”. She encourages us to push forward on the path of promise and perseverance on the deeply soulful and moving album closer “Good Souls”. Good Souls Better Angels marks the first time Williams’ husband/manager Tom Overby is credited as a co-writer on many of the new songs. The album was co-produced by Williams, Overby and Ray Kennedy, who last worked with Williams on her 1998 landmark album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. 

TRACK LISTING

1. You Can't Rule Me
2. Bad News Blues
3. Man Without A Soul
4. Big Black Train
5. Wakin Up
6. Pray The Devil Back To Hell
7. Shadows And Doubts
8. When The Way Gets Dark
9. Bone Of Contantion
10. Down Past The Bottom
11. Big Rotator
12. Good Souls

Driven by fans raising £10,000 to help replace all equipment robbed after a Paris show in early 2017, a new album became the instant focus in the summer of 2017 for a rejuvenated The Lucid Dream.

‘Actualisation’ is soaked in the influence of acid house, amalgamated with dub and kosmische. It will again see them acknowledged for venturing into pastures new, setting themselves apart from ‘genres’, ‘scenes’ or what any other act are currently doing.

The album was penned over the summer of 2017 by Mark Emmerson (vocals/guitar/synths), using only the classic Roland 303/808 synths, bass and vocals as tools for writing. Inspiration for the writing was formed via continuous listening to the Chicago to UK acid house works of 1986-1992, the focus predominantly on the groove.

Several months on from those writing sessions and The Lucid Dream have completed their 4th album in 5 years. A record made for the dancefloor.

Recorded at Whitewood Studios, Liverpool, with Rob Whiteley, the album is produced alongside long-time collaborator Ross Halden (Ghost Town Studios, Leeds), with mastering via Dean Honer (All Seeing I/I Monster/The Moonlandingz).

The confrontational techno-punk of ‘Alone In Fear’ opens the album, a 9-minute attack fuelled by the frustration and anger spawned by Brexit, government and a realisation of what 2018 Britain currently is.
Recent single ‘SX1000’ (the first work from the album, unveiled via 12' vinyl in April this year) is the band’s first move into pure acid house. The acid house fusion runs throughout the record, represented furthermore by ‘Ardency’, a track already praised by live critics when aired live for the first time earlier this year as ‘even on first hearing, would’ve raised the roof of The Hacienda’.

The 2-part opus of ‘Zenith’ follows, commencing with a space-dub/house instrumental groove before building into a track that will go for your head as much as your hips. Only ‘Breakdown’ harks back to sounds of old for the band, a little reminder of the skull-crushing impact they can make when stripped to the bare bones. ‘No Sunlight Dub’ closes the album, a dark-dub that invites the classic acid-house tool (Roland 808) into the dub. The track makes a stop-off into drum ‘n’ bass/jungle along the way before rounding up in a manner suited to Lee Perry, King Tubby, Augustus Pablo and other Jamaican greats.

The Lucid Dream formed in Carlisle, Cumbria, in 2008. A string of sold-out 7″s was followed by the debut longer player, ‘Songs Of Lies and Deceit‘, in August 2013. The initial vinyl pressing of the debut album (500 copies) sold out within 2 days, and was backed by a main stage slot at Kendal Calling, and supports to Death In Vegas and A Place To Bury Strangers (full UK tour).

The bands 2nd album (‘The Lucid Dream’) was released in March 2015 to further acclaim. This included 2 BBC 6 Music sessions and plays across most shows on the station, as well as plays from BBC Radio 1 (Huw Stephens) and BBC Radio 2. Further press followed from Uncut, The Skinny, Louder Than War, and Drowned In Sound, who named the album #7 UK album of 2015. Supports to Clinic and A Place To Bury Strangers also coincided.

3rd album, ‘Compulsion Songs’ was released in September 2016, on Holy Are You Recordings. The vinyl pressing of the album sold-out within a day, prompting an immediate 2nd press, with pre-sales of the album topping 1,000 before release. The album was backed by a headline UK tour, and a main slot at Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia (for which they were singled out for major plaudits from The Quietus, The Skinny and Drowned In Sound). The album again received acclaim from the likes of Mojo, Uncut, Classic Rock Magazine, BBC Radio 2 (Huey Morgan) and across the board on BBC 6 Music (Lauren Laverne, Marc Riley, Tom Ravenscroft, Gideon Coe, Stuart Maconie).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lucid dream just keep getting better. after 2016's 'Compulsions Songs', they've returned for this distorted, acidic slice of propulsive action. Half way between smooth Factory Floor-y techno and post-punky indie, these Carlisle bunch are making big waves. This one is killer.

TRACK LISTING

1) Alone In Fear
2) Zenith (part 1)
3) Zenith (part 2)
4) SX1000
5) Breakdown
6) Ardency
7) No Sunlight Dub

The Lucid Dream return in April with the release of new single ‘SX1000’, the first taster from the recently completed 4th album.

Driven by fans raising £10,000 to help replace all equipment robbed after a Paris show in early 2017, a new album became the instant focus for The Lucid Dream in the summer of 2017.

The track is a slice of pure acid house, and will again see them acknowledged for venturing into pastures new, setting themselves apart from ‘genres’, ‘scenes’ or what any other band are currently doing.

‘SX1000’, as with the whole album, was penned over the summer by Mark Emmerson (vocals/guitar/synths), using only the classic Roland 303/808 synths, bass and vocals as tools for writing.

Inspiration for the writing was formed via continuous listening to the Chicago to UK acid house works of 1986-1992, the focus predominantly on the groove. 5 months on from those writing sessions and The Lucid Dream have competed their 4th album in 5 years, this track a perfect indicator as to what awaits. A record made for the dancefloor.

Once again, I heard the announcement, got excited and (not so patiently) waited. I guess I should be grateful that the time between announcement and release is exponentially smaller with most of Constellation's releases, this one even more so. Godspeed You! Black Emperor have returned for the first time since 2015's 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' with the monolithic behemoth that is 'Luciferian Towers'. From the very first moments of 'Undoing A Luciferian Towers' we get the richly evocative post-apocalyptic tremolo they've become so well known for, which slowly and purposefully grows, turning and writhing into a twisted mass of spine-tingling euphoria and tentative glimmers of light. I'm not entirely sure how reasonably simple chord changes can become such overwhelming tectonic shifts, but the evidence is plain for all to see, all encompassing darkness takes it's hold before bursting out into a repeated melodic refrain, soaring above the unearthly drone.

 As we move into the spellbinding trio of 'Bosses Hang' (parts 1-3) we start with a shuddering violin double-stop, shortly joined by a powerfully distorted, soaring single-note guitar riff, rising into a cataclysmic chaos that only GYBE can achieve. It is both meditative and overwhelming, and a whole world of contrasting adjectives reserved for bands that deserve them. Part two once again takes this quiet-loud formula but swaps out the reasonably lucid quiet section for a more unwieldy bowed maelstrom, keeping the soaring crescendo constrained within the confines of atonal chaos. Once again, a testament to the balance required to keep up this sort of fine-tuning of musicality and disarray, whilst retaining the spine-tingling highs of which we've become so fond.

 Fam_Famine once again hints at the repeated phrase suggested throughout this whole collection, with swells of string pushing through the fragmented patchwork of simmering drone below, glimmering glimpses of hope in an otherwise damned existence, acting as a superb counterpoint to the resolutely melancholic and stunningly beautiful closer of 'Anthem For No State'. Soaring tremolo weighted by off-kilter melodic bursts remind me in no small way of the (admittedly less frequent) glimpses of sunshine in 'Sings Reign Rebuilder', brought to earth with the static hum of the stunning Hiss Tracts LP, 'Shortwave Nights'.

Comparing GY!BE to anyone else is in essence, fruitless. This is where it came from, and this is a concise and spine-tingling distillation of everything Godspeed ever were, and have recently become. It's a breathtaking and transportative wonder, brimming with melody, but balanced with an unmistakeable experimentation that only GY!BE can pull off. Stunner.

TRACK LISTING

1 Undoing A Luciferian Towera
2 Bosses Hang
3 Fam/Famine
4 Anthem For No State

Of Good Grief, vocalist Jess Wolfe says, “When we started writing for this record, we had been away from home for nearly two years. We had just returned from tour, having gone through such varied emotions—loneliness, sadness and exhaustion alongside excitement, fulfilment and some of the most joyful moments in our lives…Whenever one of us had an idea or a feeling, the other was already a witness to it and could help navigate through it—for the two of us, this usually came in song form.” Vocalist Holly Laessig adds, “…When considering titles, we wanted to be sure to acknowledge any serious subject matter, while simultaneously allowing ourselves a comic sigh of relief from any personal turmoil. Ha! The yin and yang of the record naturally unveiled itself and, so, Good Grief.”

Good Grief was produced by Shawn Everett (Weezer and The Alabama Shakes) and Lucius with Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Kiss and Pink Floyd). The album was mixed by Tom Elmhirst (Adele and Beck). The new music follows the band’s critically acclaimed debut album, Wildewoman, The New York Times praised the record for its “luscious, luminous, lilting lullabies,” and the album was incorporated in various 2013 year end lists including, Rolling Stone, NPR and Paste.

The band is lead by its co-founders and vocalists Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig accompanied by multi-instrumentalists Andrew Burri, Peter Lalish and Dan Molad. Wolfe and Laessig met in 2005 while attending Berklee College of Music. Since forming, Lucius has toured extensively, playing headline shows worldwide, as well as major festival appearances including Reading and Leeds, Bonnaroo, End Of the Road, Lollapalooza, Pukklepop and Rock En Seine.

TRACK LISTING

1 Madness
2 Something About You
3 What We Have (To Change)
4 My Heart Got Caught On Your Sleeve
5 Almost Makes Me Wish For Rain
6 Gone Insane
7 Truce
8 Almighty Gosh
9 Born Again Teen
10 Better Look Back
11 Dusty Trails

Bonus Tracks Available With LP Download Only.
Strangers
You Were On My Mind
My Heart Got Caught On Your Sleeve (Demo)
Dusty Trails (Demo)
Better Look Back (Demo)
Let’s Dance

Lucien Caine is a singer, songwriter and composer based in Manchester. NOW STOP, have no preconceptions do not picture Badly Drawn Boy do not imagine another Stephen Fretwell, get acoustic troubadour out of your head. Lucien Caine is none of the above! His sound is more John Barry than Nick Drake. His songs of love, obsession and excess are more Leonard Cohen than Bob Dylan. The attitude is all Scott Walker and Serge Gainsbourg transported from the sixties to now. In the summer of 2008 a plan was hatched to release four EP's; EP1, EP2, EP3, EP4 in 12 months to showcase Luciens songs. EP2 continues where the first left off. The first track (again mixed by Andy Green producer of Keane, KT Tunstall, to name but a few) is the lushly romantic "The Beat That My Heart Skipped", imagine driving along the winding coastal roads of the French Riviera in a vintage Italian sports car with the top down, this is the soundtrack that would be playing in your head. The second track is the very dark and lustful "Internal Affairs". "Let Us Be The Rumour" is a beautifully crafted and intense lament on a private relationship that becomes public. And finally "She Loves To Lose" a gorgeous seductive and intense duet sang with the Icelandic chanteuse Heidrun Bjornsdottir (formerly of GusGus and Gloss).

Lucien Caine is a singer, songwriter and composer based in Manchester. His songs are dark, lustful, haunting and cinematic and his music is already being compared to artists such as Serge Gainsbourg, John Barry and Elliott Smith. EP1 is the first of four EPs to be released over the next 12 months. It begins with "The Only Man That Matters" mixed by Andy Green who has produced albums for Keane and KT Tunstall. Then the intricate string arrangements and haunting vocals of "Advice From Strangers" a downtempo gem. "Black Widow", track three, is a pounding, noirish elegy of seduction and murder, and the EP closes with the "Those Days Are Gone". 'I wanted to create and develop a sound and a mood... I like it to sound dark and romantic. I want the songs to flirt with the listener, and then deliver!' Lucien Caine