A reclamation of rock'n'roll for the Black artists who tore up and re-wrote its rules, by musician, arts and culture journalist and die-hard alternative music superfan, Stephanie Phillips. We Were Here promises to rip up our received history of rock 'n' roll and alternative music and repopulate it with the extraordinary Black artists and influential figures who truly steered its course from the 1930s to the present day, including vital figures Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Betty Davis, Poly Styrene, Bad Brains and beyond. As well as reflecting on why Black people have continued to be drawn to alternative music despite their ongoing ostracization from it by the white mainstream industry, Phillips argues that there would be no alternative music without Black artists, and that its future lies in the hands of Gen Z Black musicians experimenting with the boundaries of what punk, metal, hardcore and indie could be.

Gary Numan – A People’s History is the story of one of the true pioneers of electronic music as told by over 500 fans. With three No 1 UK albums and the chart-topping singles ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ (with Tubeway Army) and ‘Cars’ (as a solo artist), Gary Numan was one of the biggest pop stars of the early 1980s, bringing the sound of synthesisers to the fore, and is rightly celebrated as a music legend, with a legion of devoted fans. Fully authorised by Gary, this 498-page book charts his career from its very beginnings through to the present day with stories from fans, friends and colleagues.

Packed with memories and over 250 photographs, and with a foreword by Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, this is a book that no Numanoid will want to be without.

After the acclaimed "Bar Mediterraneo", Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina return with "People Of The Moon", expanding their sound into a space of creative freedom. The “People of the Moon” are not fictional, but a dimension within us all: a deeply personal yet universal force, an alternative mindset that emerges when freed from social constraints.

Under moonlight, the album explores anxieties and aspirations through groove and rhythm, expressed in Neapolitan, Arabic, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It moves fluidly from Afro-Cuban influences in “Celavì” to Anatolian textures in “Ma Tu Che Bbuò”, blending highlife guitars with Nu Genea’s signature mandolins-new rhythms filtered through an Italian lens.

The first single “Sciallà” (2025) introduced this direction: dance as catharsis, not escape. The title track reflects a quiet resilience-persistent rather than triumphant. “Onenon”, featuring Tom Misch, channels Mediterranean-Brit-funk, while “Acelera”, with María José Llergo, evokes a flamenco-tinged pursuit of the unattainable.

“Puleza” recalls Nuova Napoli with driving energy and vintage synths, while “Shway Shway”, sung by Celinatique, captures the album’s orbital flow-measured, rich, and rhythmically complex, echoing afrobeat explorations with Tony Allen.

Melody remains central, as in “Carè”. Across ten tracks, falling, flying, and dancing merge in a suspended groove. Gabriel Prado’s “Ondas Do Mar” embodies this pull: a cyclical motion, like the tides—irresistible, transformative, and alive within us.

TRACK LISTING

A1.Acelera (ft. María José Llergo)
A2.Onenon (ft. Tom Misch)
A3.Puleza (ft. Fabiana Martone)
A4.Celavi (ft. María José Llergo)
A5.Carè

B1.People of the Moon
B2.Ma tu che bbuò
B3.Sciallà
B4.Shway shway (ft. Celinatique)
B5.Ondas do mar (ft. Gabriel Prado)

The Mooney Suzuki's landmark debut 'People Get Ready' is getting the deluxe treatment for its 25th anniversary! The full album is completely remastered and includes the rarity 'I'm Not Talkin' along with the band’s 1999 concert at The Cooler in NYC, a blistering, sweat-soaked performance never before released. This seminal 2000s album has never sounded better. Long hailed as one of the ignition sparks of the early-2000s garage-rock revival, 'People Get Ready' helped define the sound and swagger of a scene that would soon reshape rock music. Its explosive energy, razor-wire riffs, and unfiltered urgency were a blueprint for a generation of bands emerging from New York’s downtown clubs. Members of The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and other contemporaries have spoken about the electric atmosphere of the band, and 'People Get Ready' stands as one of the records that proved a new wave of rock was not only possible, but inevitable. The Mooney Suzuki’s raw, soul-infused attack set a tone that their peers absorbed, expanded, and carried into the global spotlight.

TRACK LISTING

1. Singin' a Song About Today
2. Make My Way
3. Half of My Heart
4. I Say I Love You
5. My Dear Persephone
6. Oh No
7. I'm Not Talkin'
8. Right About Now
9. Make You Mine
10. Everything's Gone Wrong
11. Do It
12. Yeah You Can
13. Everytime
14. Make My Way - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
15. I Say I Love You - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
16. Half of My Heart - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
17. I'm Not Talkin' - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
18. Oh No - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
19. My Dear Persephone - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
20. Heart Attack Blackout - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
21. Hot - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
22. Turn My Blue Sky Black / Shit P*rty - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999
23. Yeah You Can - Live at The Cooler, NYC, 1999

Originally released in 1981, 'Give the People What They Want' continued The Kinks’ early 80s run with a direct, guitar-driven sound and pointed, contemporary themes. One of their strongest-performing U.S. releases, the album features standout tracks including 'Destroyer', 'Better Things', and 'Around the Dial'.

This 2026 edition has been newly remastered from the original production sources, offering improved clarity, definition, and overall balance while retaining the character and energy of the original mixes.

TRACK LISTING

1. Around The Dial (2026 Remaster)
2. Give The People What They Want (2026 Remaster)
3. Killer’s Eyes (2026 Remaster)
4. Predictable (2026 Remaster)
5. Add It Up (2026 Remaster)
6. Destroyer (2026 Remaster)
7. Yo-Yo (2026 Remaster)
8. Back To Front (2026 Remaster)
9. Art Lover (2026 Remaster)
10. A little Bit of Abuse (2026 Remaster)
11. Better Things (2026 Remaster)

Castles in Space are thrilled to present this deluxe edition of the second Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan album, "People & Industry".

Originally released in September 2021, this is a beautiful new edition featuring four bonus tracks on a second disc which have never been released on vinyl before. “It’s been amazing to revisit this album”, says Gordon Chapman-Fox. “It’s one that people didn't get chance to hear, and it was overlooked following the success of the debut album, "Interim Report March 1979", but revisiting it has made me fall in love with it all over again. Returning to the album after five years opened up a whole series of delights at some melodic choices, and some really unusual creative decisions I made.”

The original album came with two bonus tracks as a Bandcamp exclusive. These are now presented here on vinyl for the first time. They are joined on the bonus EP with reworked versions of contemporaneous tracks, one from the original album, and a track that was composed for a live online festival during one of our many lockdowns. Gordon continues, “I dug these tracks out when I was looking for tracks to perform live, and Petrochemical just leapt out. As I’ve developed these tracks from performing across the UK and Europe, they’ve become more beat driven, so transforming this from a beautiful arpeggio-filled lullaby into something funkier was a lot of fun, and it’s still in my live set. The other track was written for the FoxFest - you can still see the original video of this on my YouTube page. I’d always meant to do something with the tracks from that set, and the first one in particular.

"The theme is very much to celebrate the workers and industry that was absolutely booming around Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn in the late 70s. From coal mining, to chemicals, to cars, the area was an absolute hive of industry. Some of those businesses are still very much in the area, but a lot has changed since then. This album, much like the first, looks back to look forward. It is is nostalgic but with 40 years of hindsight." This new double vinyl edition has been redisgned by Gordon in a gorgeous gatefold sleeve and pressed on beautiful splatter vinyl by our friends at Dunk in Belgium.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fanfare For the Working Man
2. Built By Robots
3. Petrochemical
4. This is the Age of the Train
5. Man and Manufacturing
6. Part of the Union
7. Polytechnic
8. Eye See Eye
9. Managed Decline
10. Bonus: Aerospace
11. Bonus: Industrial Zone
12. Bonus: Polytechnic (2025 Live Version)
13. Bonus: Standard Industrial Classification (AKA Part One From Werra Foxma Live)

Introducing the very first release on No Static - a brand new vinyl-only label from the Reel People Music Group, home to Reel People Music, Papa Records and Foliage Records, dedicated to timeless soul, deep grooves and future classics.

Pressed on stunning yellow vinyl and limited to just 300 copies worldwide, No Static brings together two incredible cuts making their vinyl debut for the very first time.

On the A-side, Reel People feat. Tony Momrelle's uplifting remake of the Bill Withers classic 'Can We Pretend' receives the sublime Tall Black Guy Samba 7" Mix treatment, blending soulful vocals with warm Brazilian-inspired rhythms. Flip it over for Zo! feat. Dornik's modern soul masterpiece 'Lifelines', reimagined in an exclusive Reel People 7" Mix full of rich musicianship and timeless groove.

A must-have collector's piece for DJs, soul lovers and vinyl heads alike.

TRACK LISTING

Reel People feat. Tony Momrelle - Can We Pretend (Tall Black Guy Samba 7"
Mix)
Zo! feat. Dornik - Lifelines (Reel People 7" Mix)

It's Time The Tale Were Told - A People's History of The Smiths is the story of one of the UK's most influential indie bands in the words of over 500 fans. From memories of their earliest club shows through to the last ever gig at London's Brixton Academy, this is a portrait of The Smiths as painted by the fans. With personal photographs, memorabilia, anecdotes and first-hand accounts of more than 100 gigs, readers will get a front row view of the indie music legends.

Based on the songwriting partnership of Morrissey and Marr, The Smiths' 1985 album Meat Is Murder topped the UK album charts and their other three studio albums reached No 2. The band broke up in 1987 and have resisted invitations to reunite.

Alton Ellis’s sister Hortense delivers the deepest, super-funkiest heavy reggae version ever of this soul anthem originally by The Stylistics. Powered by tight horns, hypnotic, locked in organ guitar. It’s a monster and tuff dubbed out flip. 100% Essential reggae funk bomb tune. 

TRACK LISTING

Hortense Ellis – People Make The World Go Round
Hortense Ellis – People Make The World Go Round Version

Genre Is Death is an uncompromising noise duo made up of Ty V (guitar, vox) and Tayler Lee (bass, vox). Their sound is abrasive yet melodic, using heavy distortion, dissonant riffs, and reverberating vocals to create a wave of boldly hypnotic noise. The duo have been compared to the likes of Sonic Youth and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, yet have managed to create a sound that is distinctly their own, avoiding mimicking the zeitgeist of decades before. Beyond the integrity of their music, Tayler’s intimidating glare, or Ty’s staggering gait, the duo share something truly inimitable— the overwhelming feeling that their music is a byproduct of the high esteem they hold of each other.

The duo moved to NYC in August of 2023 looking for something more than their mundane suburban lifestyle of day drinking and playing doom metal in friends' basements…their move to NYC coupled with their desire to express something, anything, led to the inception of Genre is Death. The pair hit the ground running, playing anywhere and everywhere they could… however, it was only after a chance encounter with 80s noise forerunners Live Skull that the pair was introduced to the strange underbelly of NYC noise and began playing regular gigs with The Art Gray Noizz Quintet and Lydia Lunch. In 2025 the pair played New Colossus Festival, toured with Gogol Bordello, embarked on their first East Coast tour, and played gigs with Cherubs, Bush Tetras, and Jon Spencer. Their upcoming record was recorded with legendary sound engineer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans).

TRACK LISTING

1. Heaven Hits The Wall
2. Safe Songs
3. Attractive People
4. Lust For Now
5. Audience
6. Ashes
7. Repulse
8. I See Red
9. Up, Up
10. Prized Tune
11. Swine / Beyond Good People
12. Talk (Bisi’s version)

Furniture were a British new wave band active between 1979 and 1991, but they were far more eclectic than you'd think, incorporating jazz, blues and post-punk into their sound. They are noted both for their poetic storytelling and high-quality productions as well as for the numerous setbacks they experienced. These setbacks ultimately prevented them from making their big break, making them a big what-if of the burgeoning English new wave scene. Although active since the late 70s, it's their 1986 debut album "The Wrong People" that gave them their commercial breakthrough. It was supported by the single "Brilliant Mind" which eventually reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart. They followed it up with a re-recording of their 1984 single "Love Your Shoes". Although a radio hit, it failed to chart as not enough copies were pressed to match demand. The album ultimately suffered from the same fate which means there are not a lot of copies floating around. In recent years it became a cult classic and is now being reissued on vinyl for the first time since its initial release in 1986.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Shake Like Judy Says
2. Love Your Shoes
3. Brilliant Mind
4. She Gets Out The Scrapbook
5. I Miss You

Side B
1. Make Believe I'm Him
2. Let Me Feel Your Pulse
3. The Sound Of The Bell
4. Escape Into My Arms
5. Answer The Door
6. Pierre's Fight

Not fake news; it’s true! Cult Figures shall return to your hi-fis with their fourth album, 'Reports Of People'. It’s a melody map of the world’s collective madness transporting the listener from pop to punk and back again; visiting every station en route.

Since forming in Birmingham in 1977, Cult Figures have utilised this thing called music to plumb the depths and scale the peaks of the human condition. Over the years, they have at times walked among us here on earth and, at other times, they’ve been … somewhere else (not prison).

Anyway, here they are and they’ve made a record that’s slightly darker, a bit more eclectic; but still indubitably Cult Figures. Zip Nolan would approve. That bloke out of Pink Floyd once said that a band consists of a drummer, a bassist and a collection of novelty acts. Quite right. Alongside the Wrecked Crew of Stuart and Lee, you’re gonna groove with Jon and Steve on guitars and the dulcet tones of Fraser channelling his inner highland chieftain for dear life.

So, what’s it all about? There are eleven tracks in a cardboard sleeve with an enigmatic photograph. Shakespeare might have summed the thing up as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But it’s so much more. 'Music Of Fear' will tickle anyone who has entertained thoughts of killing their boss. 'The Abductee' is a tale of alien abduction, or perhaps it’s about losing an afternoon in a Wetherspoon’s pub. 'Death Of A Thousand Cuts' is when your partner chooses to leave you but wants to tape your albums first.

Scum charts the diverging paths of childhood friends and features a coda straight outta Mott The Hoople. Legacy Hand is that jarring feeling of being left behind by modern life. And the driving beat, cool harmonies and nutty guitar of Walking Disaster do exactly what it says on the tin.

So, raid that piggy bank and buy a copy to reveal the rest of the story. But let it be known that the penultimate punker is Lunatic Friend. Quite appropriate really; we’ve all got one

TRACK LISTING

1. Music Of Fear
2. The Abductee
3. Death Of A Thousand Cuts
4. Legacy Hand
5. Dangerous Boy
6. Walking Disaster
7. Rose Bucket
8. Space Invader
9. Badly In Love
10. Lunatic Friend
11. Scum

The Real People is the 1991 self-titled album from The Real People. It includes the singles "Open Up Your Mind (Let Me In)", "Window Pane" and "The Truth", which feature the band’s distinctive combination of guitar-driven melodies and layered vocals. Recorded during the early 1990s, the album captures the band at a formative stage, offering a snapshot of the UK indie scene just before the Britpop movement emerged. The tracks move between lively, guitar-driven, baggy songs and more introspective moments, giving a sense of the band’s approach to melody and arrangements. "The Real People" offers a clear picture of the band’s formative style and the musical environment they were part of, highlighting their role in shaping the sound that would influence other British bands in the years to come.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Ultra-melodic, semi-baggy, Scouse, psychedelic pop that was a big influence on Oasis. Is right!!

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Window Pane
2. I Can't Wait
3. For You
4. The Truth
5. Everyday's The Same
6. Wonderful

SIDE B
1. Open Up Your Mind (Let Me In)
2. She
3. In Your Hands
4. Looking At You
5. Words
6. Another Day

Considered the most accomplished modern jazz harpist, Dorothy Ashby (1932-1986) established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument. She proved the harp could play bebop as adeptly as the instruments commonly associated with jazz. Presented here is one of her best albums, Dorothy Ashby Plays for Beautiful People (Prestige PR7639 - also issued as In a Minor Groove), a 1958 quartet session featuring venerable players Frank Wess, Herman Wright, and Roy Haynes.

Includes the bonus track track: 'Moonlight In Vermont'.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Rascality
2. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
3. It's A Minor Thing
4. Yesterdays
5. Moonlight In Vermont

Side 2
1. Bohemia After Dark
2. Taboo
3. Autumn In Rome
4. Alone Together

Originally released by EMI’s Pathé Marconi imprint in 1969, 'People in Sorrow' — a 40-minute work by the four-piece lineup of Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie, and Malachi Favors — has long been unavailable on vinyl and CD, and then only in hard-to-find European and Japanese issues. It is arguably the finest and most ambitious of the 14 studio albums recorded by the Art Ensemble during their 23-month sojourn in France, which launched the American group internationally. (In 2023, play loud! reissued 'Les Stances à Sophie', the AEC’s celebrated soundtrack for Moshé Mizrahi’s like-titled film, also recorded in France and first issued by Pathé.)

'People in Sorrow' can be viewed as the culminating event in the Art Ensemble’s inventive and revolutionary approach to collective improvisation, counterpoising clamorous free-blowing intensity with expanses of hushed conversation on the group’s immense arsenal of “little instruments.” Fully licensed from Warner Music, and augmented with new liner notes by veteran U.S. music journalist Chris Morris, this release marks the long-awaited return of the record that Chicago-based writer, curator, and label operator John Corbett calls “one of the most luminous albums of creative music ever made.”

This edition faithfully recreates the first French Pathé-Marconi pressing of 'People in Sorrow' (1969), which originally featured black graphics on a light (white or off-white) background and red Pathé-Marconi labels, rather than the yellow cover seen on later issues. The vinyl LP includes an inlay with detailed liner notes, while the CD Digipak comes with a 12-page booklet containing the same material. The album has been newly remastered from the original tapes by Moritz Illner (duophonic).

TRACK LISTING

1. People In Sorrow (Part 1)
2. People In Sorrow (Part 2)

While self-proclaimed "garage and jackin' house" revivalist Marc Cotterell has developed his Plastik People label into a fine outlet blessed with an ever-growing family of artists, he still maintains a steady release schedule of his own. The British producer is naturally in good form on his latest Plastik People missive. Check first opener 'Take Your Time', where breezy piano stabs and deliciously soulful vocals ride a squelchy bassline and loose-limbed garage-house beats, before admiring the more "trad" soulful house flex of the gorgeous and lightly funky 'Mysterious Ex'. Over on side B, 'Feed The Soul' is a string-laden slab of revivalist New Jersey garage-house goodness which doffs a cap to the early 1990s, while 'This Life Living' re-casts Jill Scott R&B classic 'Golden' as a rolling soulful house delight.

TRACK LISTING

Take Your Time
Mysterious Ex
Feed The Soul
This Life Living

The brand-new album from Hiss Golden Messenger and the first release with Chrysalis Records.

'I'm People' is a vivid, deeply human album born from a period of rupture, renewal, and vast American wandering. Written across Bolinas, the North Carolina Piedmont, and a Santa Fe motel room, the record traces the artist's search for clarity through landscapes both external and internal. These songs move through heartbreak, aging, fatherhood, desire, disillusionment, and the hard-won hope that remains after the spirit has been scraped bare. Produced with Josh Kaufman at Dreamland, a decommissioned church outside Woodstock, the album carries the warmth of musicians playing live in a circle, stained-glass light filtering across guitars, drums, and upright bass. Contributions from Bruce Hornsby, Sam Beam, Marcus King, Sara Watkins, Amy Helm, Eric D. Johnson, and members of Dawes enrich a sound world that feels immediate, vulnerable, and fully alive.

"'I'm People' is an intensely human record, and so one that needed to feel immediate, vulnerable, and fully dancing; something you could touch, sing along to, know about, recognize, relate with. I know what the record is to me and I bet it's not so dissimilar from what it's about to you, at least in the broad strokes: The heartbreak and exhilaration, the absolute black comedy of being a person on this razor's edge that is America circa 2025. What other choice do we have than to be hopeful?" - MC Taylor on 'I'm People'.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: If you don't know Hiss Golden Messenger's music, it's easy to describe it as 'acoustic' and a little less accurate but probably still ok to call it 'country' on the whole, until 'I'm People' that is. This is easily the most straight down the line upbeat country album I've heard from him, and it's a stunner. Proper uplifting slide guitar, big acoustic strings and soaring violins, presenting a finished product that is unequivocally both rootin' and tootin'.

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Middle Of It
2. Who You Gonna Run To?
3. Shaky Eyes
4. Mercy Avenue
5. I'm People
6. Seneca (Time Is A Mother, Baby)
7. Last Orders
8. Gabriel
9. Heavy World
10. Alright And Then Some
11. Spirit Cat
12. Depends On The River

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2026 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 18TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM (BST) ON MONDAY APRIL 20th).

x2 Baby Blue LP Vinyl - Expanded Gatefold 2LP pressing mirroring the digital release - 1st time on (Baby Blue) colour vinyl.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2026 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 18TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM (BST) ON MONDAY APRIL 20th).

Obscure British psych rockers Rupert’s People began in 1967 as Sweet Feelings, fronted by singer-songwriter/guitarist Rod Lynton. A debut single was issued by Colombia and after manager Howard Conder had the Fleur De Lys re-record the B-side as Rupert’s People, Sweet Feelings assumed the name. A handful of intense singles followed but the anticipated breakthrough never quite happened; this crucial compendium gathers the scarce recordings, including the Sweet Feelings tracks and sympathetic covers of the Small Faces’ ‘I Can Show You’ and the Stones’ ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want.’ ESSENTIAL LISTENING FOR PSYCH FANS!

For bands in San Jose, existence itself is a political act. With almost no venues at their disposal, and a culture dictated by billion dollar corporations, passion is the only option. Formed in 2017, Awakebutstillinbed emerge from this environment screaming out for connection and meaning, their music a vivid rendering of a life spent standing on a precipice (Pitchfork). Absibs debut 'What People Call Low Self-Esteem Is Just Seeing Yourself The Way Others See You' is an album about being crushed by expectations, and loaded with other peoples desires. It is untamable, and undeniable. What began as the solo project of singer/guitarist Shannon Taylor, Absib are now a powerful group, part At the Drive-In, part Kim Shattuck, and (at times) part pre-Good News Modest Mouse. Explosive and honest, Taylors lyrics painfully, purposefully tear out the false seams and sutures that shape us in the eyes of others, revealing underneath the beautiful, beating heart if whatever it is we call the self. On paper, it might sound like familiar territory for emo, but don't be fooled: Absib map out whole areas of the soul previously pushed to the shadows. Plus, they fucking rock.

TRACK LISTING

1. Opener
2. Life
3. Safe
4. Stumble
5. Fathers
6. Interlude
7. Saved
8. Floor
9. Closer

Tempa’s resident DJ / A&R returns to the label with three tracks of true-school dubstep. "Plastic People" kicks off with a tribute to London's epochal nightclub. Kicking like a donkey on meth and littered with neck-snapping perc artefacts, the requisite wubs are present and sound slick, whilst quirky synthesized elements hold our attention through the arrangement. 

"Velvet Rooms" continues with a similar drum palette and even deeper wubs, growling away like a pissed off whale as ultra-techy perx and dub echoes add space and dynamics to the mix. 

"3rd Base" introduces mystic lead lines, the sounds of swords being sheathed and a creeping groove structure which conjures up images of Blade Runner meets Prince Of Persia. Possibly the most leftfield track here, it'll scare the begeebus out of even the most ardent bass head.

Recommended low end pressure from the Tempa crew!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Absolutely loving the Tempa resurgence! The original dubstep label continues to innovate and inspire within the realms of bass music and beyond. Youngsta hear with a tribute to arguably the most influential of nightclubs within the dubstep and bass music cannon.

TRACK LISTING

A. Plastic People
B1. Velvet Rooms
B2. 3rd Base 

MF Robots return with a euphoric blend of Afro-soul-funk, delivering a release brimming with optimism, tight vocals, and the inescapable grooves that have become their signature. This album is a celebration of life, love, and musical joy, radiating positivity from start to finish.

Co-founder Jan Kincaid describes the track 'Glide' as “a celebration of the unfolding of a love story.” From its romantic, reflective instrumental introduction to the soulfully upbeat opening bars, the listener is immediately swept into a journey.

True to MF Robots’ style, the track is joyful and celebratory, yet it pushes further—exploring the path love takes over time, and how, when it works, we can glide through life’s challenges with the right person by our side.

The album’s vibe is exuberant and full of energy, paying homage to soulful greats while adding a modern twist. There’s a subtle nod to legends like Earth, Wind & Fire, but what truly shines through is the sense of fun—the feeling that MF Robots are having an absolute ball singing, playing, and creating music that moves both body and soul.

TRACK LISTING

1. That’s The Way
2. Children Of The World
3. The Pressure
4. Glide
5. Lay It Back
6. Hello Sunshine
7. Through The Pain
8. Shows Us The Way 

The latest edition in DJ Soopasoul's 'Soopastole Edits' series looks like it may fly off the shelves, and with good reason. The lead cut is not an edit per se, but rather a crafty, clever and expertly produced mash-up that places selected rap flows from the acapella version of Beastie Boys classic 'Ch-Check It Out' over a tightened up and fattened up rearrangement of MFSB's disco-era jam 'People All Over The World'. Sometimes these kinds of mash-ups can be messy, but this genuinely isn't, with the Beasties' vocals fitting the backing track like a glove. Over on side B Soopasoul shares his tweak of the MFSB track, which is entirely instrumental bar periodic use of the band's female backing vocals.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Check It Out People
B1. People All Over The World (dub)

Kate Bush releases ‘Best of The Other Sides’.

The release is due to demand from those unable to access the original release of ‘The Other Sides’, which was part of the 2018 remastered box sets featuring B sides and extra tracks that had never appeared on an album. ‘The Other Sides’ is no longer available.

3 of the tracks on ‘Best of The Other Sides’ have been remastered.

The release comes at a time when Kate’s song ‘Army Dreamers’ is skyrocketing online, looking set to become her second most streamed track after ‘Running Up That Hill’. Perhaps the popularity of ‘Army Dreamers’ right now is a reflection of the current conflicts around the world, a theme Kate has recently returned to with her award-winning anti -war short film ‘Little Shrew’ - winner of Best Animation at the New York Animation Festival. 

TRACK LISTING

TBA

It's been 10 years since "Pomegranates" - Nicolás Jaar's unofficial/alternative soundtrack to Sergei Parajanov's 1969 film The Color of Pomegranates - was first released, and to highlight this occasion Other People are reissuing the album on vinyl, with the first edition (a collaboration with the label Mana) having long been out of print.

Longer and slower-releasing than his other albums, "Pomegranates" often parallels the cinematic epic on which it’s based, with ideas pursued over long timelines and across dark landscapes, assembling elements and moods from the aesthetic and folkloric landscapes of Armenia. Jaar’s identity is perceived within this, folding in his heritage as Palestinian and Chilean as he attempts to build a musical architecture outwards that frames as much of the mess and sprawl of life as possible; using a language that investigates the movement and fluctuation of his own artistic career and character similarly to the film’s tracing of the coming of age of the young poet, Sayat-Nova.

At times, Pomegranates feels profoundly intimate, as though looking through the archive of a friend’s music and discovering the accent and common currency that lives within each of these tracks. Much of Jaar’s most elegant and touching melodic work is nestled here, its power residing in its simplicity and willingness to speak to the heart and not the mind of the listener.

In the text document included in the first freely distributed version of the album in 2015, Jaar writes that the album was conceived during a moment of change, and that the pomegranate became an icon that heralded that passage of time. The physical publication of Pomegranates closes one door whilst opening another, keeping promises and marking a significant point in the career of an artist who restlessly reinvents himself, with a document that illustrates a common language of lyricism, freedom, and emotional resonance linking his many paths and projects.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Garden Of Eden
A2 - Construction
A3 - Pass The Time
A4 - Survival
B1 - The Fool And His Harem
B2 - Nothingness
B3 - Near Death
B4 - Beasts Of This Earth
C1 - Fall Into Time
C2 - Folie à Deux
C3 - Screams At The Edge Of Dawn
C4 - Divorce
C5 - Three Windows
C6 - Tourists
D1 - Shame
D1 - Shame
D2 - Tower Of Sin
D3 - Club Kapital
D4 - Volver
D5 - Spirit
D6 - Muse

Off the back of a huge 2025 which saw Sam Fender sell out shows at London Stadium, 3 x St James’ Park - Newcastle, alongside a Mercury Music Prize win and the fastest selling British album of the year, Sam Fender has released a deluxe version of 'People Watching'. The deluxe includes 8 additional songs inclusive of 'Rein Me In' (with Olivia Dean) and the new single 'Talk to You' (featuring Elton John).

TRACK LISTING

1. People Watching
2. Nostalgia’s Lie
3. Chin Up
4. Wild Long Lie
5. Arm’s Length
6. Crumbling Empire
7. Little Bit Closer
8. Rein Me In
9. TV Dinner
10. Something Heavy
11. Remember My Name
12. I’m Always On Stage
13. Talk To You (feat. Elton John)
14. Fortuna’s Wheel
15. Rein Me In (with Olivia Dean)
16. Me And The Dog
17. Tyrants
18. The Treadmill
19. Empty Spaces

Billy Bragg - A People's History is an authorised oral history of the British singer-songwriter and political activist in thewords of people who have been moved by his music. Containing over 400 fanmemories of seeing Billy in concert, on a demonstration or on TV, BillyBragg - A People's History is the story of the Bard of Barking as it'snever been told before. Whether singing aboutlove in 'A New England', domestic violence in 'Levi Stubbs Tears' or political activismin 'There is Power in a Union', Billy Bragg has been inspiring fans through hismusic and sparking political debate with his opinions for more than 40 years.

With memorabilia from Billy's personal archive and contributions from the man himself, Billy Bragg- A People's History will span Billy's career in music, from his days withthe punk-inspired Riff Raff through to the present day. The book will includeanecdotes of seeing Billy in concert or encountering him as an activist, aswell as Billy's reflections on his long career.

Desire return with 'Games People Play', an expansive 21-track double album that finds the band pushing deeper into their world of Dancefloor Pop and Film Noir. Recorded between Los Angeles, Paris, and London, the album unfolds like a game of chess—Desire as the queen, fate as the dealer, and love as the ultimate wager. It’s a cinematic labyrinth of passion, power, and deception where every move counts, and every lover risks heartbreak on the razor’s edge.

The record combines big-room club anthems ('Dream Girl', 'Drama Queen'), shadowy noir interludes ('Othello', 'Réflexion Sous La Pluie'), and timeless ballads ('The Judge', 'Cold As Ice'), all framed by Johnny Jewel’s signature cinematic production. With 72 minutes of music, 'Games People Play' is both a mirror and a mask: part dancefloor, part dream sequence, part broken heart. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Darkside
2. Dangerous Drug
3. Human Nature
4. Dream Girl
5. Sometimes
6. Vampire
7. The Judge
8. Drama Queen
9. Russian Roulette
10. Love Races On
11. Cold As Ice
12. Réflexion Sous La Plouie
13. Tell It To My Heart
14. I Know
15. Love Theme
16. I Run To You
17. Demons In The Rain
18. Othello
19. Love On The Air
20. I See Black
21. Games People Play

On August 30, 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with Elephant’s Memory and guests headlined 2 historic One To One concerts at Madison Square Garden, NYC. These benefit shows played to a combined audience of 40K people and helped raise over $1.5 million to support children with disabilities. They were his only full-length concerts after leaving the Beatles and the last shows John and Yoko performed together. Produced by Sean Ono Lennon, both concerts have been completely remixed and re-engineered by Paul Hicks and Sam Gannon, using new HD multitrack transfers by Rob Stevens with mixes mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.

TRACK LISTING

2 X BLACK VINYL
Track Listing:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Born In A Prison
7. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
8. Mother
9. We're All Water
10. Come Together
11. Imagine
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For A Hand In The Snow)
15. Hound Dog
16. Law And Order
17. Give Peace A Chance [with Special Guests]

CD
HYBRID SHOW
THE ONE TO ONE CONCERT
HYBRID ‘BEST OF’ SHOW
Track Listing:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Born In A Prison
7. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
8. Mother
9. We're All Water
10. Come Together
11. Imagine
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For A Hand In The Snow)
15. Hound Dog
16. Law And Order
17. Give Peace A Chance [with Special Guests]

2CD
CD1 - The One To One Concert Afternoon Show
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Special Guests:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Born In A Prison
7. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
8. Mother
9. We're All Water
10. Come Together
11. Imagine
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Don’t Worry Kyoko
15. Hound Dog

CD2 - The One To One Concert Evening Show
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Special Guests:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
7. Mother
8. We're All Water
9. Born In A Prison
10. Come Together
11. Imagine
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Hound Dog
15. Law And Order
16. Give Peace A Chance

BOXSET
CD1 / Blu-Ray1
The One To One Concert Hybrid ‘Best Of’ Show
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Special Guests:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Born In A Prison
7. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
8. Mother
9. We're All Water
10. Come Together
11. Imagine
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Don’t Worry Kyoko
15. Hound Dog
16. Law And Order
17. Give Peace A Chance

CD2 / Blu-Ray1
The One To One Concert Afternoon Show
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Special Guests:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Born In A Prison
7. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
8. Mother
9. We're All Water
10. Come Together
11. Imagine
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Don’t Worry Kyoko
15. Hound Dog

CD3 / Blu-Ray1
The One To One Concert Evening Show
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Special Guests:
1. Power To The People (intro)
2. New York City
3. It's So Hard
4. Move On Fast
5. Well Well Well
6. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
7. Mother
8. We're All Water
9. Born In A Prison
10. Come Together
12. Open Your Box
13. Cold Turkey
14. Hound Dog
15. Law And Order
16. Give Peace A Chance

CD4 / Blu-Ray2
New York City (The Ultimate Mixes)
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Invisible Strings:
1. New York City (Ultimate Mix)
2. Sisters, O Sisters (Ultimate Mix)
3. Attica State (Ultimate Mix)
4. Born In A Prison (Ultimate Mix)
5. Sunday Bloody Sunday (Ultimate Mix, Extended)
6. The Luck Of The Irish (Ultimate Mix)
7. John Sinclair (Ultimate Mix, Extended)
8. Angela (Ultimate Mix)
9. We're All Water (Ultimate Mix)

CD5 / Blu-Ray2
New York City (The Evolution Documentary)
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory Plus Invisible Strings:
1. New York City (Evolution Documentary)
2. Sisters, O Sisters (Evolution Documentary)
3. Attica State (Evolution Documentary)
4. Born In A Prison (Evolution Documentary)
5. Sunday Bloody Sunday (Evolution Documentary)
6. The Luck Of The Irish (Evolution Documentary)
7. John Sinclair (Evolution Documentary)
8. Angela (Evolution Documentary)
9. We're All Water (Evolution Documentary)

CD6 / Blu-Ray2
New York City (Studio Jam)
John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant’s Memory:
1. Jazz Freakout
2. You Can't Sit Down
3. Roll Over Beethoven
4. Honey, Don't
5. Ain't That A Shame
6. My Babe
7. Send Me Some Lovin'
8. Fools Like Me
9. Down In The Caribbean
10. Happy Birthday Yoko Ono
11. That's Right
12. Don't Be Cruel / Hound Dog
13. Yoko's Rhythm
14. Whole Lotta Shakin' / It'll Be Me
15. Yakety Yak
16. Road Runner

CD7 / Blu-Ray3:
Live Jam 1
John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band And A Star Studded Cast Of Thousands
Peace And Love For Christmas, In Aid Of UNICEF, Live At The Lyceum Ballroom, The Strand, London, 15 December 1969:
1. Cold Turkey (live)
2. Don’t Worry Kyoko (live)
John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band With Frank Zappa And The Mothers
Fillmore East, New York
6 June 1971:
3. Well (Baby Please Don't Go) (live)
4. Jamrag [Say Please / King Kong / Aawk] (live)
5. Scumbag (live)
6. Aü (live)

CD8 / BluRay3
Live Jam 2
John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band With David Peel And The Lower East Side
Live At The John Sinclair Freedom Rally, Crisler Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 10 December 1971:
1. Attica State (live)
2. The Luck Of The Irish (live)
3. Sisters, O Sisters (live)
4. John Sinclair (live)
John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band
Live At The Benefit For The Families Of The Victims Of The Riot At Attica State Correctional Facility, Apollo Theater, Harlem, NYC, 17 December 1971:
5. Attica State (live)
6. Sisters, O Sisters (live)
7. Imagine (live)
John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band
Live On The David Frost TV Show, The Little Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, NYC, 16 December 1971:
8. Attica State (live)
9. Sisters, O Sisters (live)
10. John Sinclair (live)
John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Elephant’s Memory Band
Live At The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, Americana Hotel, NYC, 4 September 1972:
11. Imagine (live)
12. Now Or Never (live)
13. Give Peace A Chance (live)

CD9 / Blu-Ray3
Home Jam
John Lennon
Home Recordings At The St. Regis Hotel, New York, 10 September 1971:
1. Shazam
2. Honey, Don’t
3. Glad All Over
4. Lend Me Your Comb
5. Wake Up Little Susie
6. New York City
7. Wake Up Little Susie
8. ‘Hey, Que Pasa?’
9. You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care)
10. Vacation Time
11. Heartbeat
12. Peggy Sue Got Married
13. Peggy Sue
14. ‘Phone Call From Henry Gotsello’
15. Peggy Sue
16. ‘Now We’d Like To Change The Mood A Little...’
17. Maybe Baby
18. Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues
19. Rave On!
20. Twelve Bar Blues
John Lennon
Home Recordings At The St. Regis Hotel, New York
27 October 1971:
21. I Got You
22. Hi-Heel Sneakers
23. Slippin’ And Slidin’
24. Gone From This Place
John Lennon
Home Recordings At Campus Inn, Ann Arbor, Michigan
10 December 1971:
25. Send Me Some Lovin’
26. He Got The Blues
27. When The Teacher
28. Pill
29. It’s Real
John Lennon And Phil Ochs
Home Recordings At Campus Inn, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 10 December 1971:
30. I Ain’t Marching Anymore
31. Joe Hill
32. Chords Of Fame
33. Ringing Of Revolution

Dropkick Murphys’ new album 'For The People' shows courage and confidence, speaking up against the injustices happening in the United States, doing so with the strength and power that harkens back to Dropkick Murphys’ earliest punk rock roots. 'For The People' is more than a title. It’s a heartfelt stance, a declaration of who this band is—and who they’ve always been.

The poignant album cover was created by renowned social/political artist Shepard Fairey's design firm Studio Number One, and the album was produced and mixed by longtime Dropkick Murphys collaborator Ted Hutt.

'For The People' rises to its moment: an expression of humanity at a time of relentless dehumanization, a promise of hope in an era fueled by fear-mongering, a declaration of solidarity in an age of disunion, a defiant rebuttal to the charlatans and demagogues who seek to divide us for their own power.

Dropkick Murphys proudly remain Boston’s rock ‘n’ roll underdogs turned champions. Since 1996, the boys have created the kind of music that’s meant to be chanted at last call, in packed arenas, and during the fourth quarter, third period, or ninth inning of a comeback rally. Their celebrated discography includes four consecutive Billboard top 10 album debuts ('Turn Up That Dial', '11 Short Stories Of Pain & Glory', 'Signed and Sealed in Blood', 'Going Out In Style'), along with 2005’s Certified-Gold album 'The Warrior’s Code' featuring the double platinum classic 'I’m Shipping Up To Boston'.

TRACK LISTING

1. Who’ll Stand With Us?
2. Longshot (feat. The Scratch)
3. The Big Man
4. Chesterfields And Aftershave
5. Bury The Bones (feat. The Mary Wallopers)
6. Kids Games
7. Sooner Kill ‘Em First
8. Fiending For The Lies
9. Streetlights
10.School Days Over (feat. Billy Bragg)
11. The Vultures Circle High (feat. Al Barr)
12.One Last Goodbye “Tribute To Shane” (feat. The Scratch)
13. Dropped On My Head – Bonus Track
14. Take Your Bow – Bonus Track
15. Straight Edge (I Liked You Better) – Bonus Track
16. A Hero Among Many – Bonus Track
17. Sirens – Bonus Track

"Eric Broucek was the ur-engineer of the most fertile era of DFA Studios, from about 2003 to 2008 (no one knows anything precisely about that time, as it’s all lost in the fog of chaos). His hand was on all of the remixes, LPs, dance 12s. He was there in that over-designed gear dungeon almost every day, recording, mixing, struggling to not roll his eyes at Tim and me. And somewhere in that fog, he quietly dropped limited runs of three 12-inch delayed reaction bombs on his own label Stickydisc Recordings—two under the name Babytalk, and one as Watussi with another DFA regular, Morgan Wiley.

"Back in the day, Eric did not want his music released on DFA. He wanted to forge his own identity, which he did, sending out music that wandered from the DFA path with its uniquely wonky, upended and understated power. His music is so unlike everything else of that era, so profoundly singular, that it still sounds completely out of time.

"A few years back, I started DJing the tracks again, and saw how the world was still surprised by what Eric had made, and the idea of this compilation was born.

"So, in the end, Eric, we totally got to release your records anyway. We heart you, man."

-James Murphy

TRACK LISTING

1. Babytalk - Chance (Original Mix)
2. Babytalk - Chance (Hercules & Love Affair Remix)
3. Babytalk - Chance (Babytalk Remix)
4. Watussi - If All We Had Was Love
5. Watussi - Purple Moon
7. Watussi - Purple Moon (Instrumental)
8. Babytalk - Enough

Emerging from the depths of private-press obscurity, The People’s People Present The Spirit of David is a remarkable testament to the ambition and discipline of its creators. This singular album, originally recorded in 1974 and released in 1976, marks the first original work by tenor saxophonist Jeff Jones, who also arranged, wrote, and conceptualised the project. That same year, Jones founded The People’s People collective and The Voice of the People Publishing Company, using music and the arts as a platform to give voice to the voiceless.

Performed in one continuous take, The Spirit of David weaves spiritual jazz with elements of soul, world music, and electric funk, producing a hypnotic, emotive soundscape that resonates with the era’s social unrest and a longing for unity and transcendence. The band—featuring Emmons Porter on bass vocals, Jack Spinovich on drums, Leonard Franklin on guitar, Ray Vega on percussion and congas (not the trumpeter of the same name), and Steve Espanosa on piano—delivers a deeply cohesive and textured performance that transcends its time.

Now reissued by Frederiksberg Records—a label founded in 2013 by Danish video journalist Andreas Vingaard in New York—the album’s elusive history only deepens its mystique, inviting renewed exploration. That mystique is further illuminated in the extensive story found on the album insert, written by guitarist and composer Karl Evangelista, whose detailed liner notes provide essential context and insight into the album’s creation and cultural significance.

From the liner notes by Karl Alfonso Defensor Evangelista:

"(Jeff) Jones had musicians commit to three years of preparation, and he was a harsh taskmaster; music was drilled—“like the army,” as Jones describes it. Participants were more or less forbidden from taking paying gigs in the interim, and the bandleader, saving most of his capital for studio time, could not afford to feed or pay the band. The ensemble was so thoroughly rehearsed by the time of the session that the entire record was performed in one take, and the album’s myriad breaks and deft orchestration changes were accomplished without visual cues."

TRACK LISTING

A1 Monica
A2 Q Street
B1 Fritz
B2 Where Is My Autumn Love

Pressed on heavyweight 180g vinyl and housed in a premium card sleeve with a printed inner lyric sleeve, Some People Have Too Much to Say is the long-awaited return of cult 80s psych/punks Your Heterosexual Violence. Originally formed in 1982 and known for their ferocious live shows and uncompromising sound, Your Heterosexual Violence return with a revitalised lineup and their most ambitious album to date. Fusing post-punk, glam, psych, and existential pop, the record spans radio-friendly anthems, Hammond freakouts, and twisted punk jazz. Lead single "House Outside the World" sets the tone: a punchy, philosophical burner built for both the dancefloor and the end of the world.

Professionally mixed and shaped by decades of underground experience, Some People Have Too Much to Say is defiantly original and joyously unpolished.

“Everything about this band and this song is massively inspirational... a hidden gem that you never knew existed, you will regain that excitement, that joy, that spark.” – Louder Than War

“A group, not a social problem.” – The Guardian

TRACK LISTING

1 House Outside The World
2 The Plan
3 Valentines Day
4 Love Will
5 Wintershowtime
6 The Boy Who Had 10,000 Parents
7 I Could Be With You
8 Changing The Subject
9 Just One Of Those Things
10 Man In Flames (at C&A)
11 Song From The Bottom Of The Heart
12 No Search Results (for Weatherman On Drugs)

Unfiltered, raw and absolutely vital, queercore quartet Problem Patterns are angry.

This is their EP, 'Boring Songs for Boring People', and it's all going rather well. The last single entered the 6 Music C List (for four weeks and counting) while
the first single 'Sad Old Woman' (with Matt Korvette of Pissed Jeans) got everywhere. Double digit 6 Music spins, track of the week on Radio X, playlists galore and stacks of alt press. The EP drops in September on vinyl on ludicrously cool screenprinted vinyl (500 only. Never to be repressed).

Their previous album won Album of the Year at the Northern Irish Music Awards (beating Ash and Kneecap into the bargain) - they're a spectacular live force. Problem Patterns are not limited by age or ability or binary identities. They don't have a front person, they swap instruments and roles to ensure that each member of the group has a voice. They espouse queer punk and they have shared touring schedules with Le Tigre, Queen Zee, JOHN, Pink Suits & Bob Vylan. They are ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Song For Fi
2. Sad Old Woman (ft. Matt Korvette Of Pissed Jeans)
3. Classic Rock Has Become My Prison
4. I'm Fine And I'm Doing Great
5. Bone Idle
6. Boring Songs For Boring People

Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, the Barbie soundtrack. Behind some of the biggest musical moments in the past two decades is one man: Mark Ronson. Now, his memoir Night People captures the music, characters, escapades and energy of his formative DJ days in 90s New York.

Mark Ronson was born a night person. With hedonistic creatives for parents, parties became his playground. Yet, having moved to New York City from London at a young age, he always felt like a bit of an outsider, until discovering himself in the pulsing, unifying joy of the city’s parties and hip-hop scene.

Each night brought a heady mix of music, ambition, danger, delight, and possibilities. Having well and truly caught the DJing bug, he worked to find his place and make his name in the city that never sleeps. Night People conjures the undeniable magic of 90s New York, when clubs were diverse, glamorous, a little lawless.

It evokes the rush of a time and place where fashionistas and rappers on the rise danced alongside club kids and 9-to-5'ers – and invites us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down. A heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Night People is the definitive account of a cultural moment and the making of a musical mastermind.

Long-lost tracks, including the never-before-released 'Vampirella'! Recorded after the band's move from Auckland to the UK and their 12" EP on Billy Bragg's Utility label, these tracks appeared on a couple of very obscure vinyl releases back in the day, to relatively little press or attention . . . quite undeservedly!.

The incredible songwriting from singer Dons Savage should be enough to satisfy the discerning music lover, but her vocals are equally stellar and the band's fantastic on these charmers wonders, with shape-shifting melodies and fascinating lyrics that will weave their way into your mental core . . . in a good way!

TRACK LISTING

1. Vampirella
2. Ghost Girl
3. Wild Young Ways
4. Little Flashes Of Yesterday
5. How To Be Kind
6. Go Home Stay Home
7. All Hail The Daffodil
8. In Praise Of Right Now
9. With Wings We'll Soar The Heavens
10. Gladwrap
11. Life Said To The Boy
12. Clean Hanky
13. Left

Jens Lekman is an accidental wedding singer. But he’s also a wedding singer for a reason. Ever since his 2004 song 'If You Ever Need a Stranger (To Sing at Your Wedding)' he has had a side gig fielding requests from strangers to sing at their weddings. For over twenty years, he’s had a particular vantage point from which to see the role love songs can play in our lives. In 2020, he and novelist David Levithan co-conceived a novel-with-music, Songs from Other People’s Weddings. Originally this album was meant to contain the songs from the weddings in the book, but as the novel came together, Lekman began to imagine what happened between the book’s chapters. The book and the album eventually became intertwined but also found their own paths. The book remained the structure of the story, but the album sometimes snuck behind the scenes. Stories from the songs made their way into the book and vice versa. The result is an exploration of what we sing about when we sing about love -- euphoria, doubt, dislocation, tenderness, conflict, playfulness, gratitude, ingratitude, longing, belonging, questioning, answering. It’s very much about a relationship and how it’s reflected through the relationships and weddings of others, but most of all it’s a lovesong to lovesongs

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Lens Lekman clearly has a nice time, he did a song over 20 years ago called 'If You Ever Need A Stranger (To Sing At Your Wedding)' and then people, obviously asked him to sing at their wedding so he did! Lots of them, and they're here for you to listen to while NOT at a wedding. What fun.

TRACK LISTING

1. The First Lovesong
2. A Tuxedo Sewn For Two
3. Candy From A Stranger
4. Two Little Pigs
5. Speak To Me In Music
6. With You I Can Hear My Own Voice
7. I Want To Want You Again
8. GOT-JFK
9. Wedding In Brooklyn
10. For Skye
11. Increasingly Obsolete
12. On A Pier, On The Hudson
13. Wedding In Leipzig
14. LEJ-GOT
15. You Have One New Message
16. Just For One Moment
17. The Last Lovesong

Broken Social Scene’s breakthrough album 'You Forgot It In People' has cemented its place amongst indie rock’s greatest. 'ANTHEMS: A Celebration of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People' is a front-to-back tribute to the hallowed Toronto band’s 2003 masterpiece. The album reimagines 'You Forgot It In People' with cover versions from today’s indie music icons, including Toro y Moi, The Weather Station, serpentwithfeet, and more

TRACK LISTING

1. Hovvdy - KC Accidental
2. Toro Y Moi - Stars And Sons
3. Miya Folick & Hand Habits - Almost Crimes
4. The Weather Station - Looks Just Like The Sun
5. Mdou Moctar, Mikey Coltun - Pacific Theme
6. Maggie Rogers & Sylvan Esso - Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl
7. Middle Kids - Cause = Time
8. Benny Sings - Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries
9. SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - Shampoo Suicide
10. Serpentwithfeet - Lover's Spit
11. Sessa - Ainda Sou Seu Moleque

With a room fulla fine pickers and a set of Hollywood orchestral cues to kill for, Cory Hanson proclaims 'I Love People'! His 4th solo album drills down (baby) on a dryly parallax worldview, with songs about all those people he loves and all the crazy things they get up to. As ringmaster for a circus show of classic folk and rock tropes, Cory tugs at our heartstrings with expert misdirection, embracing tradition by throwing it out, into the wind.

TRACK LISTING

1. Bird On A Swing
2. Joker
3. I Love People
4. I Don’t Believe You
5. Santa Claus Is Coming Back To Town
6. Lou Reed
7. Final Frontier
8. Texas Weather
9. Bad Miracles
10. Old Policeman
11. On The Rocks

This blazing new 45rpm release unites two heavyweight veterans: Philly's Emynd and San Francisco's DJ B.Cause, who are well established after decades of remixing, producing, and DJing. On this one, the duo deliver a double dose of Baltimore Club heat in which Side A flips a famous funk gem into a high-energy dancefloor shaker, while the B-side reimagines some West Coast 90s hip-hop via a gritty, instrumental party-break twist. Two modern interpretations of some stone-cold oldie gold. It's not hard to imagine them tearing up floors everywhere.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
Emynd - Everyday People

Side 2
DJ B Cause - CabrioletFare
DJ B Cause - CabrioletFare (Bonus Beat)

Hothouse Flowers’ debut album 'People' (1988) was a remarkable fusion of rock, folk, and soulful blues, Anchored by the hit single ‘Don’t Go’, 'People' was the fastest-selling debut in Irish history at the time. It topped the Irish Albums Chart and peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart. People was certified Platinum in the UK and Double Platinum in Ireland.

TRACK LISTING

1. I’m Sorry
2. Don’t Go
3. Forgiven
4. It’ll Be Easier In The Morning
5. Hallelujah Jordan
6. If You Go
7. The Older We Get
8. Yes I Was
9. Love Don’t Work This Way
10. Ballad Of Katie
11. Feet On The Ground

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Noel Gallagher in 1995, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news. This fascinating pop history, exploring the mid-90s moment when British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, Uncommon People takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, Trainspotting was a global hit, fire-starting seemed like a good night out - and it felt as though the revolution was happening.

Initially a music press nickname, Britpop became an unexpected musical movement centred around outsiders and misfits, drop-outs and weirdos who refused to compromise on their ideas, even when they were thrust into the international spotlight. Not just a scene for white guys with guitars, but something wilder and more interesting, with songs that have proved timeless. Exploring the era's key artists - Oasis, Blur, Tricky, Pulp, Underworld, Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy, Suede, Chemical Brothers, Garbage, Supergrass, Radiohead, PJ Harvey and more - through their definitive anthems, Miranda Sawyer transports us back to the beating heart of the nineties.

Uncommon People re-lives the mad exhilaration of what it was like to hear these songs for the very first time - and what it was like to make them. With amazing new interviews, and I-was-there insights, this book offers a backstage pass to all the most interesting bits of Britpop's Greatest Hits. Forget New Labour, forget earnest trend theories, this book is all about the music, the people and being right there, right now.

‘Spring Revisited’ is a collaboration between Ace Records and Acid Jazz, with a series of special vinyl releases throughout 2025. The series will feature 20 top mixers creating exclusive mixes from the storied New York label Spring, which made its name in the 1970s with hits from The Fatback Band, Millie Jackson and Joe Simon. For this, the second vinyl release in the series, Acid Jazz present another special 12” single, with Dave Lee’s inspired version of The Joneses’ ‘Love Contest’, where he brings a fresh, modern energy to this soulful gem while staying true to its timeless groove. On the other side, Coleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy delivers a new spin on Street People’s ‘I Wanna Get Over’. Her mix keeps the heartache of the original but lifts it sky-high with breezy percussion, silky synths, and a laid-back disco groove - perfect for the dancefloor.

TRACK LISTING

The Joneses - Love Contest (Dave Lee’s Extended Disco Mix)
Street People - I Wanna Get Over (Cosmodelica Mix)

Next up on Feral Child (alongside the mighty new Lake Ruth full length) comes an absolute banger of a 45 from The Hologram People.

Following hugely well received and sought after releases on Dreamlord Recordings, Library of the Occult, Up In Her Room and others, the duo of Jonathan Parkes (Korb) and Dom Keen (Studio Kosmische) release 'Bongo Express' as a limited one-off vinyl pressing for Crouch End based label Feral Child.

A heady, psychedelic collision of bongos and analogue synths create a dusty mid 70's groove of masterful krautrock infused funk instrumentation. The duo’s trippy soundtrack and radiophonic leanings are at the fore across both sides of this beauty. It is anticipated that a quick sell out is on the cards, and the single looks wonderful too- dressed in Feral Childs’ new psych company bags designed by label head Dom. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Bongo Express
2. Afternoon Sniper

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2025 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 12TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 14th.

Bag People were Chicagoans who outgrew their home in the maelstrom of the early 80s NYC post-punk/ no-wave scene. They weren’t around long, but their compulsive noise-rock sound, unearthed from tapes lost for 40 years, looms large and stands tall next to the efforts of better-known contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Swans. A righteous puke of art-punk from a time of incredible brokenness in the world – in other words, savage sounds for today!

TRACK LISTING

1. Fire God
2. Dead Meat
3. Parade
4. UPS
5. Blessed Ignorance
6. I Got A Leotard
7. Lark's Vomit
8. Instrumental
9. Sweet Roughness Blues
10. Long Way Back
11. What's What
12. Don't Make Me (Live At CBGB 1983)

Everyone's favourite blackgazers Deafheaven are back with their new album 'Lonely People With Power' via their new label home, Roadrunner Records.

Recorded with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen [St. Vincent, M83], 'Lonely People With Power' follows Deafheaven’s 2021 studio album, 'Infinite Granite', which saw the GRAMMY-nominated band charting new ground and expanding stylistic boundaries. 'On Lonely People With Power', Deafheaven again confound expectations, piling element on element, and towering towards the sky with their most ambitious release yet. Tracked at EastWest Studios, 'Lonely People With Power' includes additional vocal contributions from Jae Matthews of Boy Harsher and Paul Banks of Interpol.

The band return to the UK in June to play Manchester’s acclaimed Outbreak Fest.

STAFF COMMENTS

Fred says: ‘Lonely People With Power’ is a timely return for Deafheaven, bringing back the Blackgaze sound that let them outshine their peers and in my opinion eclipsing their modern classic ‘Sunbather’.

Over its hour-long runtime, the album mixes manic drumming and guitars that bleed noise with moments of respite created by the "Incidentals" that feature guest vocals from the likes of Paul Banks and Jae Matthews.

The final track, "The Marvelous Orange Tree" is a standout, calling back to the final track of their seminal album, ‘The Pecan Tree’, as it bounces around between the almost melodic sound of the intros of previous tracks on the album and the wall of sound that the rest of the album accompanies resulting in a satisfying finale. I do think, with this obsession they seem to have with trees, however they could have been arborists in another life.

TRACK LISTING

1. Incidental I
2. Doberman
3. Magnolia
4. The Garden Route
5. Heathen
6. Amethyst
7. Incidental II (feat. Jae Matthews)
8. Revelator
9. Body Behavior
10. Incidental III (feat. Paul Banks)
11. Winona
12. The Marvelous Orange Tree

Sam Fender’s third studio album, People Watching, released via Polydor Records on 21st February 2025, was written over the last 3 years and recorded in London and L.A. The album was co-produced by Sam alongside Marcus Dravs and The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: For his third album, Sam Fender the production talents of The War On Drugs' Adam Granduciel and the result is a grand, sweeping Springsteeny wash of soaring guitars and rippling Americana, all acoustic guitars and lilting basslines. The title track is a particularly lovely single.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. People Watching
2. Nostalgia’s Lie
3. Chin Up
4. Wild Long Lie
5. Arm’s Length

Side B
6. Crumbling Empire
7. Little Bit Closer
8. Rein Me In
9. TV Dinner
10. Something Heavy
11. Remember My Name

Birmingham born, Herefordshire raised and Worcester based. Upon leaving school, Nick Byng aka Snorkie, worked as a Tape Operator at Rockfield Studios with bands such as The Charlatans, Black Sabbath, XTC, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Paris Angels and The Damned. He later ran Vinyl Vibes records in Gloucester and HeyDj.com records online.

His music has since been sampled by the likes of Fat Boy Slim, with radio stations such as BBC 6 Music playlisting various tracks.

"Woman" was originally produced in 1997 by Nick whilst he was signed to D*Fusion Records (part of Amato Disco Distribution, London). A version was recorded in Paul Weller's East End studio in 1998 but the track was shelved due to an impromptu backpacking trip east to west across Canada, with Eastern Bloc Records Toronto promising to take 20 copies from listening to a demo version on cassette.

Upon returning to England, the DAT tape from Weller's studio session was lost and it was not until 2002 that Nick released "Woman" on 45, with the production help of Sam from Dudley. The B-Side '"How Many MCs" was later used in Manchester United's official "Play Like Champions" Ball Skills Video. "Woman" was once again dusted off, and spruced up for a final release in 2009 on digital and 45 vinyl pressing.

This is the 2009 pressing featuring 'Where Stars Are Born' on the B-Side. 

With a new disco track planned for release for 2025 Nick has decided the time is now to release these archived records to make way for new material - there will be no further pressings of "Woman".

"Woman" was originally playlisted by Tim 'Love' Lee (Tummy Touch), Ursula 1000, Andy Smith (Portishead), Craig Charles and Don Letts to name a few. It was Record Of The Week at Fat City Manchester. "Where Stars Are Born" reached number two in Juno Records' hip-hop charts.

TRACK LISTING

A. Woman 
B. Where Stars Are Born

Collector 15th anniversary Reissue of cult debut album “Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do” by Major Lazer. It will be the first local Vinyl release of the album in Europe (2009 US run came as import).

Original 13 track album on Deluxe packaged Double LP Gatefold : printed inners, collector stickers.

TRACK LISTING

1. HOLD THE LINE Feat. Mr. Lex & Santigold
2. WHEN YOU HEAR THE BASSLINE Feat. Ms. Thing
3. CAN’T STOP NOW Feat. Mr. Vegas & Jovi Rockwell
4. LAZER THEME Feat. Future Trouble
5. ANYTHING GOES Feat. Turbulence
6. CASH FLOW Feat. Blakkamoore
7. MARY JANE Feat. Mr. Evil & Mapei
8. BRUK OUT Feat. T.O.K & Ms. Thing
9. WHAT U LIKE Feat. Amanda Blank & Einstein
10. KEEP IT GOING LOUDER Feat. Nina Sky & Ricky Blaze
11. PON DE FLOOR Feat. Vybz Kartel
12. BABY Feat. Prince Zimboo
13. JUMP UP Feat. Leftside & Supahype

Originally released in 1994, Mother Earth’s ‘The People Tree’ is a gem of an album that encapsulates a love of soul, funk and folktinged ‘70s rock. To mark its 30th Anniversary, it is set for a special edition 2LP reissue that includes the original album, three previously unreleased tracks, and a further six that have neverbefore been on vinyl. It has been remastered from the original analogue recordings.

One of the best-loved albums in Acid Jazz history, it was the product of over a year of sessions, led by label-founder Eddie Piller, and features guest appearances from Paul Weller, Dee C Lee, and Brand New Heavies’ Simon Bartholomew. Bonus tracks include the previously-unreleased alternative ‘Apple Green’ with a distinctive female backing vocal, an alternative version of ‘Illusions’, and the title track.

First-time vinyl cuts include the alternate master of ‘Jesse’, ‘A Trip Down Brian Lane’ and the heavy funk of ‘Slide Sweet Baby’. The album is presented in a beautiful ‘wide-spine’ layout, with two printed inner sleeves, adorned with in-depth notes form Eddie Piller and unseen photos from the original cover shoot by Gerald Mankiewicz.

TRACK LISTING

1. Institution Man
2. Jesse
3. Startdust Bubblegum
4. Mr. Freedom
5. Dragster
6. Find It
7. The People Tree
8. Apple Green
9. Time Of The Future
10. Saturation
11. Illusions
12. A Trip Down Brian Lane
13. Jesse (Alternate)
14. Institution Man (Edit)
15. Warlocks Of The Mind (Pt. 1)
16. Time Of The Future (Alternate EP Mix)
17. Find It (Radio Edit)
18. Almost Grown
19. Apple Green (with Harmony Vocal)
20. Illusions (No Horns Mix)
21. A Trio Down Brian Lane (7” Mix)
22. Slide Sweet Baby
23. The People Tree (No Mellotron)
24. Jesse (Brendan Lynch Radio Mix)

Released by Epic Records on April 6, 2004, Good News For People Who Love Bad News offered a unique blend of existential lyricism and innovative soundscapes which helped Modest Mouse break out of the rock underground after more than a decade of existence. The album, which has been certified double platinum for U.S. shipments of 2 million copies, is hailed as an alternative classic on the strength of songs such as the Modern Rock chart-topping, 5-times platinum single “Float On,” the gold-certified “The World At Large” and “Ocean Breathes Salty.”

Remastered for vinyl in opaque baby pink and opaque spring green, the package includes an alternate album cover, 8-page booklet and five ew remixes. 

Let the sound of the night drums and the cry of the horns empower you! The crate diggers of Jazz Dispensary are proud to present a collection of jams propelled by the spirit of nature, protest, and freedom, featuring songs from pioneering musicians Joe Henderson, Gary Bartz, Ran Blake, Azar Lawrence, A.K. Salim, and The Dungills. 

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Afro-Centric – Joe Henderson
2. Freedom One Day – Gary Bartz Quintet
3. Theme For A New Day – Azar Lawrence
SIDE B:
4. Afrika – A.K. Salim
5. Night Drums – The Dungills
6. Three Seeds (A Suite): I) Regis Debray; II) Che Guevara; III) Malcolm – Ran Blake

Vancouver duo Potatohead People (aka the duo of Nick Wisdom & AstroLogical) make their long awaited return to Bastard Jazz with their 4th album, 'Eat Your Heart Out'. Jumping off on the clean & musical production sensibilities that they have become heavily fetishized for over the last decade, the album finds the duo further stepping out from the shadow of the boards and stepping into the spotlight as vocalists, songwriters, players and musicians standing strong in their own respect.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Breezy funk and bright percussive stabs work away beneath the myriad vocal collaborators that appear on the Potatohead People's 4th LP, resulting in an end product that's both reminiscent of the heyday of disco and house music, but completely separate from it.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Formula
2. Keepin'; It Kool (feat. Kendra Dias)
3. Last Nite (feat. Redman)
4. Angelwings (feat. Shafiq Husayn & Ivan Ave)
5. Distant Luv (feat. Kapok)
6. Follow Your Heart
7. Come Home (feat. Abstract Rude, T3 & Kapok)
8. Paradise (feat. Diamond Cafe)
9. Secret Mission (feat. Frank Nitt & Reggie B)
10. Everything U Need (feat. Kendra Dias)
1.1 For The Soul (feat. Moka Only)

Nick & Astro are reunited as Potatohead People on this sweaty teaser 7" for their latest album 'Eat Your Heart Out'. On "Paradise", the boys have hotly tipped Canadian artist Diamond Café on for vocals. Diamond delivers a stunning vocal performance on this early 80s influenced slice of digital sex funk that comes in somewhere between Sade, El Debarge and Prefab Sprout. The man describes his music as "bathing in a cloud of honey on a very foggy night", and we couldn't agree more.On the flipside, Nick Wisdom dubs out the original, flexing the bassline's muscles with additions of swirling synth work and little bites of keyboard funk.

TRACK LISTING

1. Paradise (feat. Diamond Cafe)
2. Paradise (Nicky's 1 Nite Only Dub) [feat. Diamond Cafe]

Future Islands was never meant to last. After eighteen years and 1,400 live shows, Future Islands show they're not only still here, they're making the most powerful music of their fascinating, but unexpectedly long and storied career.

For Future Islands, albums aren’t a static reflection of a moment in time, they are a fluid chapter in their lives that can change and mutate. People change and pull away. The band is no different, coming up against their future while staring at their past. They’re not the same people they were when Future Islands began nearly two decades ago. They are now spread about, some settled down and some still moving. People Who Aren’t There Anymore reflects the transience of a band’s existence; the rare privilege of travelling all over the world contrasting with the sadness of fleeting moments in and out people’s lives. Being everywhere but also nowhere. Remembering the lives lost and the living they’ll never see again, cherishing the present and being grateful for the past.

Where they’ve pursued ever-higher energy anthems in the past, they’ve turned inward this time, and unlocked a new level of ferocity, delivering some of their most inspiring and most heartbreaking tracks by doing the opposite: taking their time, making each breath, each syllable, each cymbal crash count. The result is a powerful, defining statement from a group of musicians that have made the best album of their career.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I have to say that I never particularly got Future Islands before this album. I obviously acknowledged that they were good musicians, but I found that Herring's delivery was a little overwrought for the comparatively subtle instrumentals. For me, the rich, widescreen instrumentals on 'People Who Aren't There Anymore' are the *perfect* way to frame Herring's strong presence and results in by far their best LP to date.

TRACK LISTING

King Of Sweden
The Tower
Deep In The Night
Say Goodbye
Give Me The Ghost Back
Corner Of My Eye
The Thief
Iris
The Fight
Peach
The Sickness
The Garden Wheel

Director's Cut is Kate's 9th studio album and was released on 16 May 2011 on Kate's own label Fish People.

On Directors Cut Kate revisits a selection of tracks from her albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

Kate has re-recorded some elements whilst keeping the best musical performances of each song - making it something of a director's cut but in sound, not vision.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Flower Of The Mountain
A2. The Song Of Solomon
A3. Lily
B1. Deeper Understanding
B2. The Red Shoes
B3. This Woman’s Work
C1. Moments Of Pleasure
C2. Never Be Mine
D1. Top Of The City
D2. And So Is Love
D3. Rubberband Girl

'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.

The Sensual World is the sixth studio album by Kate Bush. It was released in October 1989 and reached no. 2 in the UK album chart.

It has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in the UK, and Gold by the RIAA in the US.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Sensual World
A2. Love And Anger
A3. The Fog
A4. Reaching Out
A5. Heads We’re Dancing
B1. Deeper Understanding
B2. Between A Man And A Woman
B3. Never Be Mine
B4. Rocket’s Tail
B5. This Woman’s Work

The Red Shoes is Kate's seventh studio album and was released in November 1993.

The album was accompanied by Kate's short film, "The Line, The Cross and The Curve".

The album reached no. 2 in the UK album chart and has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for over 300,000 copies sold.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Rubberband Girl
A2. And So Is Love
A3. Eat The Music

B1. Moments Of Pleasure
B2. The Song Of Solomon
B3. Lily

C1. The Red Shoes
C2. Top Of The City
C3. Constellation Of The Heart

D1. Big Stripey Lie
D2. Why Should I Love You?
D3. You’re The One

‘Elistism For The People 1975-1978’ is a four-disc ‘bookback’ set featuring excerpts from the Pere Ubu scrapbook 75-82, written by David Thomas, including historical photos. It features the seismic debut album ‘Modern Dance’, it’s follow up ‘Dub Housing’ and ‘The Hearpen Singles’ and the incendiary ‘Live At Max’s Kansas City’. The set collects the bracing and brilliant Pere Ubu in their earliest incarnation, with the devasting one-two knockout blow of 1978 studio bookends.

“The Modern Dance is one of the first and greatest art-rock records.” The Guardian

Reinventing rock music from the ground up, Pere Ubu are equally at ease with Sun Ra and The Monkees, Glen Campbell and The MC5, Can and The Raspberries, they are the white Funkadelic.

“Harsh and willfully ugly, yet always mindful of certain rock & roll imperatives: a solid beat, snappy lyrics and engaging themes” Rolling Stone

As vital as ever, no band before or since has ever sounded like Pere Ubu - period.

TRACK LISTING

Disc One - The Modern Dance
1 Non-Alignment Pact
2 Modern Dance
3 Laughing
4 Street Waves
5 Chinese Radiation
6 Life Stinks
7 Real World
8 Over My Head
9 Sentimental Journey
10 Humor Me
Disc Two - Dub Housing
1 Navvy
2 On The Surface
3 Dub Housing
4 Caligari's Mirror
5 Thriller!
6 I, Will Wait
7 Drinking Wine Spodyody
8 (Pa) Ubu Dance Party
9 Blow Daddy-o
10 Codex
Disc Three - The Hearpen Singles
1 30 Seconds Over Tokyo
2 Heart Of Darkness
3 Final Solution
4 Cloud 149
5 Untitled
6 Street Waves
7 My Dark Ages
8 Modern Dance
9 Heaven
Disc Four - Manhattan: Live At Max's Kansas City 1977
1 My Dark Ages
2 Heaven
3 Sentimental Journey
4 Over My Head
5 30 Seconds Over Tokyo
6 Life Stinks

It's the latest set from the indie/alt-rock quartet after three acclaimed albums which include their 2017 debut 'Live For The Moment' and last year's 'World I Understand' - both of which hit the Top 10.

Vocalist/Guitarist Kiaran teases, "The new album is honestly full of really good songs with strong choruses. When we were going in to make this album, we went in there with ideas as opposed to fully fledged songs and I believe that's where the magic lies in this record."

Their biggest, brightest and most expansive record to date with production elements and fresh sonic touches that broaden their guitar/bass/drums foundations. It's a collection filled with personal and quintessential Sherlocks lyrical themes that are informed by the passing of time and the realisation that everyone is stepping into different stages in their lives - touching upon nostalgia, ageing, flawed relationships and escaping the rat race on wild, woozy weekends.

TRACK LISTING

Remember All The Girls
Sirens
No Retreat, No Surrender
Going Nowhere
Don't Let It Out
Louder Than Words
People Like Me & You
On Your Mind
Any Old Iron?
Face The Music
Here & Now
Won't Stop
Watson

Death Is Not The End sub-label 333 drops a huge late-70s UK roots grail in the form of Jasaro People's Suffering 45. Originally pressed up in super limited quantities and self-distributed out of North West London in 1976, this record was rare even when it was new. Now given fresh new life thanks to a license courtesy of Jasaro's Everand Thompson.

TRACK LISTING

1. Suffering
2. Timba Version

One of the things that struck Oberst as he and the band went through twenty-plus years of music is that he may in fact have been writing the same song this whole time. Not sonically, of course, but conceptually. This last wave contains, in Noise Floor, early Bright Eyes songs so raw Oberst never even released them back in the day, as well as, in Cassadaga and The People’s Key, the band’s most polished and sophisticated albums. When Bright Eyes toured Cassadega they performed an epic 7 sold-out nights at NYC’s Town Hall. What’s more grown-up rock- star than that? And yet ...“Thematically those early songs are not that different than the songs I make now,” Oberst says, shaking his head. “There’s something affirming and disheartening about it. It’s like, have I really changed or grown? But maybe it’s just that I knew what I wanted to write about from the beginning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Firewall
2. Shell Games
3. Jejune Stars
4. Approximate Sunlight
5. Haile Sellassie
6. A Machine Spiritual (In The People’s Key)
7. Triple Spiral
8. Beginner’s Mind
9. Ladder Song
10. One For You, One For Me

One of the things that struck Oberst as he and the band went through twenty-plus years of music is that he may in fact have been writing the same song this whole time. Not sonically, of course, but conceptually. This last wave contains, in Noise Floor, early Bright Eyes songs so raw Oberst never even released them back in the day, as well as, in Cassadaga and The People’s Key, the band’s most polished and sophisticated albums. When Bright Eyes toured Cassadega they performed an epic 7 sold-out nights at NYC’s Town Hall. What’s more grown-up rock- star than that? And yet ...“Thematically those early songs are not that different than the songs I make now,” Oberst says, shaking his head. “There’s something affirming and disheartening about it. It’s like, have I really changed or grown? But maybe it’s just that I knew what I wanted to write about from the beginning.

TRACK LISTING

1. Jejune Stars (Companion Version)
2. Firewall (Companion Version)
3. When You Were Mine
4. Approximate Sunlight (Companion Version)
5. A Machine Spiritual (The People’s Key) (Companion Version)
6. Beginner’s Mind (Companion Version)

Potatohead People's classic tune "What It Feels Like'' featuring T3 (Slum Village), Kapok and Illa J gets a remix treatment from in demand bass player and rising star Carrtoons. Switching up the order of the verses, dubbing out the horns and adding in his signature basswork, Carrtoons gets the song into a whole other groove of its own while retaining the original vibe in a unique way. Look out for a 7" coming in Spring of 2022 with the remix and the OG on it!

TRACK LISTING

1. What It Feels Like (Carrtoons Remix) [feat. T3, Illa J & Kapok]
2. What It Feels Like (feat. T3, Illa J & Kapok)

Arp Frique returns with a new album after a string of releases, leaving the cratediggers and dancefloor tastemakers with underground classics like "Nos Magia", "Voyage" and "Nyame Ye". On ''Analog People Digital World' he embraces the digital coldness of Yamaha’s classic DX7 synthesizer to create a refreshing listening experience using only the FM synthesis-based sounds from this machine to find new heat for an analog world, reflecting on the digital revolution we are living through. The album features Ghanaian songstress Mariseya (Omampam, Jah Kingdom, Digital World, Roi Salomon), Cape Verdean OG Americo Brito (Go Now Wetiko) and Surinam funkstar Sumy, who joins the record on the opening track “Spiritual Masseuse”. Arp Frique closes the album with “Duncan Truffle”, a very intense and wobbling instrumental echoing Bootsy and Bernie Worrell on a solo exercise. Expect an analog-digital exploration of lofi funk, highlife, zouk and reggae. Does that DX7 sound hot or cold to you?

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Arp Frique's synth-laden touch turns its hand to a variety of musical genres - zouk, highlife, reggae, disco etc - with quite dazzling results. There's both cohesion and flamboyance in equal measure across the LP. A technicoloured trip into sound!

TRACK LISTING

Spiritual Masseuse Feat. Sumy
Omampam Feat. Mariseya
Jah Kingdom Feat. Mariseya
Digital World Feat. Mariseya
Go Now Wetiko Feat. Americo Brito & Mariseya
Roi Salomon Feat. Mariseya
Duncan Truffle

Mute and Young God Records present the first instalment of the Angels Of Light reissues, starting with remastered editions of The Angels of Light Sing ‘Other People’ and We Are Him.

Michael Gira formed Angels Of Light after the conclusion of Swans in 1997. The Angels Of Light Sing “Other People” was released in 2005, produced by Gira and featured Akron/Family (Dana Janssen, Miles Seaton Cooper, Seth Olinsky and Ryan Vanderhoof).

On the making of the album, Micheal Gira says “This album is different in many ways than what I’ve done in the past. There’s no general band “sound” here. The instrumentation is arranged in each song to fit the subject. Each song is its own world, a place for the people in the songs to live. I intentionally eschewed long instrumental passages, crescendos, that sort of thing – I’ve done enough of that, and I’m tired of it. The songs say what they have to say, then end.”

TRACK LISTING

1 Lena's Song
2 The Kid Is Already Breaking
3 My Friend Thor
4 On The Mountain
5 Destroyer
6 Dawn
7 My Sister Said
8 Michael's White Hands
9 To Live Through Someone
10 Simon Is Stronger Than Us
11 Purple Creek
12 Jackie's Spine

For most of us, life is a series of human interactions; some good, some bad, some happy, some sad. But what would life be without those peripheral characters who plant themselves into our worlds through the sheer force of their presence? Whether we speak to them or not, those vibrant contrasts to the everyday tide of ordinary people are a magical part of the human experience. Oddballs and misfits, flamboyant instigators or low-key game changers, we all clock them on our own hectic journeys, and they make the day a little brighter. Everyone has their favourite people.

Following the runaway success of their first one-shot single in 2020, Favourite People reconvene for a full-length of blues-tinged cuts stemming from sessions at Selva Studios in Brooklyn. The project’s roots predate the studio, from scattered jams and sweaty nights in New York nightspots to impromptu recordings on cruise ships, but the flashpoint of inspiration that truly set the album in motion was the arrival of a blonde 1960s Fender Telecaster. From there, the motley crew of sharp-shooting string slingers and sticks men set about crafting paeans to those striking souls who make the world a more colourful place.

The emphasis here is on the kind of forward-facing, electrically charged mix you felt (whether you realised it or not) hearing early Sabbath or Priest for the first time. With their undeniable bias towards vintage soul, Favourite People are far from heavy metal, but the same lineage of blues and by extension jazz informs the music, while the tonal crunch of that 70s era guides the sound. Feasting on tasteful overdrive and leaning on the unmistakable flavour of tape for much of the recording, the deal was sealed on this purposeful exercise in vibe thanks to the near-mythical texture of Guy Davie’s EMI Nigeria console at Electric Mastering.

Across the album there are mellow shades and bursts of good-time get-down exuberance, but the lead singles capture the essence of the band in no uncertain terms.

‘Promise Of Nibbles’ brings the Favourite People MO into sharp relief with a low-slung, hard swinging blues confection full of overheating organ and duelling guitars in pursuit of Southern-stewed boogie (im)perfection.

‘We’ll Be Late To The Party’ turns up the tempo and dials in the fuzz, striking an anthemic note which lands somewhere between urgent highway escapism and euphoric communal revelation.

‘Mass and Mustiness’ leans in on the funk dimension of the group’s sound with the sweetest licks and chops on that fabled telecaster backed up by an acutely angled beat and the slinkiest of b-lines.

These are but three of the vibrant vignettes laid down by this quietly unassuming collective of heads down jammers, loose groovers and vintage sound freaks –heavy grooving instrumentals pulled from their own moments of pure musical magic and captured on disc for your listening, dancing, living, loving pleasure.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wading Out
2. Click And Advance
3. Mass And Mustiness
4. Mortified Mick
5. We’ll Be Late To The Party!
6. Rural Disinformation
7. Glint Of Quartz
8. Promise Of Nibbles
9. Lunático
10. Cosmic Salami
11. Divine Symmetry

First thought, best thought. Until the next thought: a guiding principle for No Age in the 16ish years they’ve been around. Constantly responding to their own streams of consciousness with reductive flexibility, they’ve taken the basic duo of guitar and drums with vocals WAY farther than anyone listening in halcyon Weirdo Rippers days could have guessed. Expounding on those larval possibilities, they’ve zig-zagged in serpentine precision, in and out of the teeth of the wringer — ranging outside and back in again, as befits the present thought. And now, six albums into it, these principles have led them to make People Helping People. Composed in their studio of ten years in the “pre pandemic” times, then an eviction from said space, and finished deep in the midst at their new basecamp: Randy’s Garage.

It starts with an instrumental, too. First counter-intuition, best counter intuition! Nearly five minutes prelude Dean’s debut vocal interjection — a zoom in from the upper atmosphere, Randy’s guitar clouds pulsing with radiation, paced by spare, percussive accents. When the first song with singing (“Compact Flashes”) bounces in on an insane synthetic beat, the only recognizable sound of No Age is a sputtering of enchanted clicks and creaks — muted guitar strings and drumkit rattlings that cycle for a full minute before voice song and snare fall into place.

This is the sound of People Helping People: No Age, deep in the lab, scraping available nuclii together to see what new compound they find next. Erasing the starting points, reordering the pieces and beginning anew. It’s an everyday mindset — and as the first No Age album recorded entirely by No Age, People Helping People is a broadcast of entirely lived-in proportions.

Side one ricochets expertly back and forth between magisterial instrumentals and sing-song forms cut up on the mixing desk, as with the undeniable hitness of “Plastic (You Want It)”, winningly rewired to MIDI-mangled beat squelches. They don’t really land on a straight up punk-style riff until it’s almost time to flip the side, and even once they’ve got off on a run of rockers on side B, their aesthetic choices continuously reframe the norms, enhancing their inherent power. People Helping People finds their disparate desires operating in perfect sync; prolegomenic weirdness fused immaculately to classic rock propulsion, transforming the energy pouring out from their hands and feet with electronics.

Dean’s lyrics are like pieces taken off the belt at the factory and put together into a John Chamberlin-esque sculpture, meant to sit out in the rain. Randy’s guitars, collaged into arrangements that reflect, again, boundless curiosity and exquisite restraint. This is People Helping People: unpretentious, suspicious, inviting, confident, left field. The most accurate display of the No Age ethos put to record. Yet!

No Age’s ethos sings to us from beyond the clouds, with words and without, a conceptual boost to everyone helping everyone. Ensconced in Randy’s Garage without a clock to spit on ‘em, Dean and Randy composted drums and guitar and life on planet earth into a stream of miniatures, vignettes and reembodied images – an infinity of hits.

TRACK LISTING

You’re Cooked
Compact Flashes
Fruit Bat Blunder
Plastic (You Want It)
Interdependence
Violence
Flutter Freer
Rush To The Pond
Slow Motion Shadow
Blueberry Barefoot
Tripped Out Before Scott
Heavenly
Andy Helping Andy

Talking about the album, Richard said "Whenever we put out a new album it's always a really big deal to us, we put everything we have into it. We know that there's something about what we do that people love, that they just don't get from other bands. It's like a pact, they want us to be intimate and personal and autobiographical, but they also want us to be confident and rousing and anthemic. It sounds like a contradiction, but I think when we're at our best we somehow pull it off. I think in that sense this album is the most Embrace album we've ever made".

Meanwhile the band have announced tour dates in support of the new album, including their biggest London show in over 17 years at Brixton Academy on Friday 9th September, a venue the band last played in 2005. Produced and mixed by Richard McNamara at Magnetic North Studios the new album is the follow-up to the band's 2018 Top 5 album, Love Is A Basic Need.

TRACK LISTING

Death Is Not The End
We Are It / Up 
Remember Me
The Terms Of My Surrender
Run Away With Me
Rubble
How To Be A Person Like Other People
I Miss You
For Kate

A brand-new 7” from Sorry, featuring new single “There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved” backed by b-side “15’4”.

Without a brutal evaluation of their own becoming, TV Priest might have never made their second album. Heralded as the next big thing in post-punk, they were established as a bolshy, sharp-witted outfit, the kind that starts movements with their political ire. There was of course truth in that, but it was a suit that quickly felt heavy on its wearer’s shoulders, leaving little room for true vulnerability. “A lot of it did feel like I was being really careful and a bit at arm's length,” says vocalist Charlie Drinkwater. “I think maybe I was not fully aware of the role I was taking. I had to take a step back and realize that what we were presenting was quite far away from the opinion of myself that I had. Now, I just want to be honest.”

Having made music together since their teenage years, the London four-piece piqued press attention in late 2019 with their first gig as a newly solidified group, a raucous outing in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. Debut single “House of York” followed with a blistering critique of monarchist patriotism, and they were signed to Sub Pop for their debut album. When Uppers arrived in the height of a global pandemic, it reaped praise from critics and fans alike for its “dystopian doublespeak,” but the band — Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, producer, bass and keys player Nic Bueth and drummer Ed Kelland – were at home like the rest of us, drinking cups of tea and marking time via government-sanctioned daily exercise. As such, the personal and professional landmark of its release felt “both colossal and minuscule” dampened by the inability to share it live.

“It was a real gratification and really cathartic, but on the other hand, it was really strange, and not great for my mental health” admits Drinkwater. “I wasn’t prepared, and I hadn't necessarily expected it to reach as many people as it did.” As such, My Other People maintains a strong sense of earth-rooted emotion, taking advantage of the opportunity to physically connect. Using “Saintless” (the closing song from Uppers) as something of a starting point, Drinkwater set about crafting lyrics that allowed him to articulate a deeper sense of personal truth, using music as a vessel to communicate with his bandmates about his depleting mental health. “Speaking very candidly, it was written at a time and a place where I was not, I would say, particularly well,” he says.

“There was a lot of things that had happened to myself and my family that were quite troubling moments.Despite that I do think the record has our most hopeful moments too; a lot of me trying to set myself reminders for living, just everyday sentiments to try and get myself out of the space I was in.” “It was a bit of a moment for all of us where we realised that we can make something that, to us at least, feels truly beautiful,” agrees Bueth. “Brutality and frustration are only a part of that puzzle, and despite a lot of us feeling quite disconnected at the time, overwhelmingly beautiful things were also still happening.”

This tension between existential fear born from the constant uncertainties of life, and an affirmative, cathartic urge to seize the moment, is central to My Other People, a record that heals by providing space for recognition, a ground zero in which you’re welcome to stay awhile but which ultimately only leads up and out. For TV Priest, it is a follow-up that feels truly, properly them; free of bravado, unnecessary bluster or any audience pressure to commit solely to their original sound.

TRACK LISTING

1. One Easy Thing
2. Bury Me In My Shoes
3. Limehouse Cut
4. I Have Learnt Nothing
5. It Was Beautiful
6. The Happiest Place On Earth
7. My Other People
8. The Breakers
9. Unravelling
10. It Was A Gift
11. I Am Safe Here
12. Sunland

Originally released in May 1982, ‘Combat Rock’ is the final album from The Clash of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon. Featuring two of the band’s most well-known songs, ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ and ‘Rock The Casbah’. Now re-released as a 180g 3LP special edition and a 2CD special edition, with an additional 12-tracks compiled by The Clash.

Having returned to London following their pivotal 17-show residency at New York’s Bond’s Casino in 1981, the band rehearsed and recorded at The People’s Hall in the squatted Republic of Frestonia near Latimer Road in London and from there they embarked on a tour of the East and South East Asia, during which the album sleeve image was captured by Pennie Smith in Thailand.

The tracks on ‘The People’s Hall’ chart the period from what was their last single Radio Clash right up to the release of Combat Rock, including unheard, rare and early versions of tracks.

TRACK LISTING

Combat Rock - SIDE A
Know Your Rights
Car Jamming
Should I Stay Or Should I Go
Rock The Casbah
Red Angel Dragnet
Straight To Hell
Combat Rock - SIDE B
Overpowered By Funk
Atom Tan
Sean Flynn
Ghetto Defendant
Inoculated City
Death Is A Star
The People’s Hall - SIDE A
Outside Bonds
Radio Clash
Futura 2000
The People’s Hall - SIDE B
First Night Back In London
Radio One - Mikey Dread
He Who Dares Or Is Tired*
Long Time Jerk
The Fulham Connection [aka The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too]
The People’s Hall - SIDE C
Midnight To Stevens
Sean Flynn
Idle In Kangaroo Court
Know Your Rights*
NB: SIDE D IS BLANK

*Previously Unreleased

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

180g White Vinyl - first time on vinyl. Ex-London Suede guitarist Bernard Butler released his first solo album People Move On in 1998, to great critical acclaim and commercial success. This collection brings together on vinyl for the first time a collection of original and re-vocalled B-Sides from the People Move On project. 

Taken from "Echoes Of Africa" the most requested track from the album, "People All Around The World, Can Make It" is dealt with themes of climate change with their strong afrobeat/funk personality, are intoxicants, choral aphorisms, reminiscent of American funk bands of the '70s. It doesn't take much to change direction, to erase the negative effects caused by the recent years' globalisation …We can Make it!

TRACK LISTING

1. People All Around The World, Can Make It (Album Version)
2. People All Around The World, Can Make It (Studio Live Take)

In 1994 Bernard Butler left Suede at the end of the lengthy recording sessions for the band’s second album, the acknowledged classic that is “Dog Man Star”, which he cowrote. His first project was to join forces with singer David McAlmont record the album “The Sound Of McAlmont & Butler”, which was released in November 1995. It featured the Top 10 single “Yes” and the follow-up “You Do”.

In 1997, Alan McGee signed Bernard up to Creation Records, and he set about recording his first solo album, playing all the instruments himself, except for the drums and strings. Released in April 1998, the album was a critical and commercial success, reaching # 11 in the UK album charts and features the hit singles “Stay”, “Not Alone” and “Change Of Heart”.

When approached about contributing to this reissue in 2021, Bernard decided that he wanted to re-record all the vocals, for both the album and the B-sides. He has also added the occasional guitar overdub. The new vocals can be found on CD2 and 3. CD4 features some gems from Bernard’s own archives: demos, a rehearsal, solo live tracks, and a selection of fascinating outtakes from the string sessions.

The 28 page book is extensively annotated by Bernard himself, and also contains all the lyrics plus photos from Bernard’s own collection plus unpublished recording session photos from photographer Jill Furmanovsky.

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1:
People Move On
1. Woman I Know
2. You Just Know
3. People Move On
4. A Change Of Heart
5. Autograph
6. You Light The Fire
7. Not Alone
8. When You Grow
9. You've Got What It Takes
10. Stay
11. In Vain
12. I'm Tired
Disc 2:
People Move On [2021 Vocals]
1. Woman I Know
2. You Just Know
3. People Move On
4. A Change Of Heart
5. Autograph
6. You Light The Fire
7. Not Alone
8. When You Grow
9. You've Got What It Takes
10. Stay
11. In Vain
12. I'm Tired
Disc 3:
B-Sides
1. Hotel Splendide
2. The Sea
3. Bye Bye
4. It's Alright
5. My Domain
6. More Than I Thought
B-Sides [2021 Vocals]
7. Hotel Splendide
8. The Sea
9. Bye Bye
10. Bye Bye (Marrakesh)
11. It's Alright
12. My Domain
13. More Than I Thought
Disc 4:
Domfront Demos
1. Woman I Know
2. In Vain
3. You've Got What It Takes
4. Bye Bye
5. Friends & Lovers
Benwell Road Rehearsal
6. People Move On
7. You Just Know
8. Autograph
Upstairs At The Garage
9. People Move On
10. Stay
11. I’m Tired
String Sessions
12. Woman I Know
13. When You Grow
14. A Change Of Heart
15. A Change Of Heart (Bollywood)
16. Not Alone
17. Not Alone (Psycho)
18. The Sea 

Dodging Dues is a startlingly expansive record “startling” in part because it’s relatively short (seven songs, all but one hovering around the four minute mark), but also because it traverses so many moods and styles: languid and dreamy one moment, surging and intense the next.

Garcia Peoples (these days a six-person band) “hit their stride” a long time ago, but here they seem to be hitting a different one, working themselves loose of influences (though this tree has roots: traces of Thin Lizzy, of more arcane bits of U.K. folk-prog, of vintage Meat Puppets in some of the softer passages) while at the same time opening themselves up to their own individual strangeness, becoming ever more singular and ever more free.

TRACK LISTING

1. False Company
2. Cold Dice
3. Tough Freaks
4. Stray Cats
5. Here We Are
6. Cassandra
7. Fill Your Cup 

Clear History’s debut mini-album is entitled 'bad advice good people' and will be released by Upset The Rhythm on November 5th. The six songs here cast a huge net across themes of raucous opposition, identity, closeness, gifting and exploding cars. They are a full-hearted call to arms from a stubborn Aries concerned with wasting time and energy. With such rapport for the touchstones of danceable post-punk (ESG, Kleenex, Gang of Four) Clear History are proud hi-hat botherers, bounding along with the plummy bassline, joining the dots whilst thinking to the beat. This debut documents the tantalising first sparks from a band intent on holding up a magnifying glass to the sun.

Their influences include correct grammar, Rihanna & ‘The Waiting Room’ by Fugazi. They make muscular songs about intimacy whilst dreaming of an extravagant breakfast the day after the rapture. What will the dance floors look like over there? What music will ring true and make the people move? Clear History are giving this their full attention!

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Great angular post punk grooves from Berlin. I'm liking this a lot.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Solar Death Ray
2. Song In The Key Of Emo
3. Presents

SIDE B
4. Morsels
5. Bad Advice Good People
6. The Mall

Mujuru was Zimbabwe’s foremost mbira (thumb piano) player who brought Shona music to the world. -Available outside Zimbabwe for the first time. All-acoustic, calming music for these times. Mbira importance grew with the struggle for independence and became a key symbol for the country after colonial period. Audio extracted from LP as master tapes were destroyed. Ephat Mujuru exemplifies a unique generation of traditional musicians in Zimbabwe. Born under an oppressive colonial regime in Southern Rhodesia, his generation witnessed the brutality of the 1970s liberation struggle, and then the dawn of independent Zimbabwe, a time in which African music culture long stigmatized by Rhodesian educators and religious authorities experienced a thrilling renaissance.

Under the tutelage of his grandfather, who was a respected spirit medium and mbira master, Ephat showed an early talent for the rigors of mbira training, playing his first possession ceremony when he was just ten years old. By then, guerilla war was engulfing the country and his grandfather Muchatera tragically became a victim of the violence, a devastating blow to the young musician. In the midst of the liberation struggle, mbira music became political. Eventually, the Rhodesians were defeated, but rather than return to the past, the nation of Zimbabwe was born and a new future unfolded.

Ephat threw himself into the spirit of independence, singing of brotherhood, healing, and unity: crucial themes during a time when the nation’s two dominant ethnic groups, the Shona and the Ndebele, were struggling to reconcile differences. Ephat’s band would eventually follow the popular trend and add electric instruments. But before that, he and Spirit of the People released two all acoustic albums, and they may well be the most exciting and beautiful recordings he made in his career. Mbavaira, the second of these albums, was released in 1983.

As the independence years moved on, there would be fewer and fewer commercial mbira releases. But for the moment, Ephat had the required stature and reputation. Also, with the energy and drive we hear in these recordings, the album could easily rival the pop music of its day. Within a few years after the release of Mbavaira, it and albums like it became harder to find in Zimbabwean record stores. Ephat adapted to the times and formed an electric band. They recorded more albums over the years but none of them have the particularly delicious energy of Spirit of the People in the first years of Zimbabwe’s independence.

TRACK LISTING

01. Mbavaira 05:54
02. Kuenda Mbire 05:48
03. Mudande 05:58
04. Nyama Musango 05:19

Shire T (AKA Chris Davids, one half of celebrated electronic duo Maribou State, who released their latest album ‘Kingdoms In Colour’ to widespread acclaim in 2018) releases his debut solo album ‘Tomorrow’s People’ on Maribou’s own Dama Dama imprint. As Shire T, Davids draws on darker, more club-ready sounds, citing a broad range of influences which manifest in a record he describes as “a celebration of British dance music culture, pulled from all the experiences and memories I’ve had in that world over the years.”

Having originally set out in early 2020 to work on new Maribou State music, the unfolding pandemic and abrupt change in circumstances led Davids to a renewed focus on his solo work. “I started feeling really nostalgic” he explains, “Sometimes you need a purpose to make music, something to work towards, but with this it was very much the opposite. It felt like the future had been erased and I ended up delving back into the past, into all the dance music that inspired me when I was growing up. It became a way to escape the madness that was going on at the time”

Tracks like lead single “Blue Kiss”—built around a TB-303 bassline and some classic drum machines—and album opener “Full Attention” wear their influences on their sleeves, building the pace early on with driving synth-lead rhythms in a nod back to 90’s rave. Elsewhere, tracks like “London. Paris. Berlin.” and “Serve No Tea” show off a gentler side to the record, the main piano refrains the result of a day spent tinkering on his old childhood piano. Regardless of the direction each track takes, Davids’ deft uses of melody and vocal samples keep everything tied together in a way that will feel both new and familiar to fans of his existing work.

Beginning life in 2017 as a way to create more club-ready tools for Maribou State’s DJ sets, Shire T soon became an important creative outlet for Davids, often seeing him carve out extra hours in the studio following Maribou recording sessions to work on the music. The project took on more significance as the pair began preparations for their ‘fabric presents’ release, resulting in two tracks—”Hackney Birdwatch” and “Gentlemens Whistle Club’—used to tie together the dancier-end of the various styles and tempos exhibited on the mix, which included new music from fellow Dama Dama label-mate North Downs, as well as new track “Mother” from Maribou State themselves.

Despite the period in which it was created, the album title ‘Tomorrow’s People’ serves as a more hopeful look towards the future, a time when dance music will once again ring out from club and festival sound-systems to be met by feet on the dance floor.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As one half of Maribou State, it's no surprise that Chris 'Shire T' Davids has a few electronic tricks up his sleeve, but 'Tomorrow's People' is so chock full of nods to classic breakbeat, braindance and electronica that it's hard to believe it pulls together so cohesively, and it's a testament to the skills of Davids' production that it does.

TRACK LISTING

Full Attention
Under The Sun
Blue Kiss
L.D.R.A
Over You
Burnin’ Jungle
London. Paris. Berlin.
Mind Games
Serve No Tea

A ‘satire about satire’, WASTELAND is a wild Burroughsian adventure melding science-fiction, absurdism and magical realism, calling fora revolution against the reductive ‘good versus evil’ narratives of popular satirical music. Arguing that through experimenting with the form of the song lyric (our most widely disseminated form of creative writing) we can build more nuanced popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us, WASTELAND presents complex characters changing their minds–along with their bodies and places in spacetime. Set in an unearthly liminal space populated by shape-shifters, time-travellers, talking genitalia and ectoplasmic spectres, the prose text evolves as the characters do: warping into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays.Created over two years, the album draws from LICE’s rise in ‘the punk world’ (sharing stages with IDLES, The Fall, Squid, Fat White Family, Girl Band etc.) and eventual disillusionment with the limits of its prevailing ideas.

WASTELAND is a concept album structured as an experimental short story, taking cues from Brian Catling, William Burroughs and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Its core argument is that, through reworking the prevailing forms of satirical song lyrics, we can build more nuanced popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us–the song lyric being the most widely disseminated and commonly ‘engaged with’ form of creative writing there is. In this allegory for crises in society and art (from commodification to ideological state apparatuses), the moral, physical and temporal transformations of its characters are paired with the text’s transformation: breaking from prose into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays. In the wild, liminal space of the Wasteland, this story follows The Conveyor as here lates the schemes of the shadowy RDC and flamboyant Dr Coehn to engineer the human race’s self-annihilation:introducing us to a cast of time-travellers, shape-shifters, talking genitalia and ectoplasmic spectres.As well as WASTELAND’s manifesto, this text features notes directing the curious reader to sources, figures or narratives behind the story’s various arguments.

Musically, the album features a ‘noise intoner’ hand-built by LICE, based on the ‘Intonarumori’ of Luigi Russolo and his early 20th century circle of revolutionaries The Italian Futurists (whose vicious writings and manifestos about the art-world formed source material for the album). WASTELAND sees LICE draw influence from Bristol’s vital experimental scene, with the album principally written at community hub The Old England. Having performed with projects such as SCALPING, Giant Swan andEP/64 (HARRGA), LICE’s first album sees them reconcile minimalism, prog and industrial in the band’s post-punk framework.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's almost certain that unless you've had your eyes and ears entirely shut for the past few years, you can't have helped but notice the influx of heavy AF punk indie hitting the shelves. Enter : Lice, as scathing as they come and sitting in the oft-ignored space between indie, psychedelic and thrash. Bizarre and brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Conveyor
A2 Imposter
A3 Espontáneo
A4 R.D.C.
A5 Pariah
A6 Persuader
B1 Arbiter
B2 Serata
B3 Deluge
B4 Folla
B5 Clear

Strut presents one of the most in-demand and significant albums from the archives of Jimmy Gray’s Black Fire Records, ‘Bow To The People’ (1976) by theatre collective Theatre West, based out of Dayton, Ohio.

Founder Clarence Young III was a US Air Force Vietnam Vet who had been part of a theatrical troupe entertaining soldiers in 15 countries during his tour. When he returned home in 1969, he started Theatre West in Dayton, Ohio as an outlet for inner city youth to come together and express themselves. At its height, the company involved around 27 members. “Everybody played everything and did everything,” recalls bassist Sigmond Dillard. “We all had to sing, dance and act all the time. If someone messed up, you came in. It was a tight unit and we were constantly helping each other out.”

“There were so many talented and gifted people in our troupe,” continues Dillard. “Rita Brown went on to New York, starring in the film Disco Godfather during the late ‘70s. Bruce Davis went on to work regularly on Broadway in Chicago, All That Jazz and more. Our Musical Director was Delbert Taylor and he also played with Gil Scott Heron’s Midnight Band and with Slave afterwards in the early ‘80s. Vibes player Ben Wilson and I also played regularly with Gil.”

Recorded at Arrest studios in Washington in ’76, ‘Bow To The People’ brought together songs from several of Theatre West’s best known plays including Bow To The People, The System and Black Love and unflinchingly explored serious issues around drug addiction, mental health and cultural awareness. “The whole idea of Bow To The People was to honour our black forefathers,” explains Dillard. “It was important to do that for the kids that didn’t know.”

Shelved following the original recording, the Bow To The People album eventually surfaced on a limited CD on Black Fire in 1993. Now receiving its first full international release, the album features the previously unreleased tracks ‘Man Of Many Means’ and ‘I Don’t Know Much About Love’.

TRACK LISTING

LP
A1 Searching For Ourselves
A2. Crossroads
A3. Bow To The People
A4. One Little Chance
B1. Children Of Tomorrow's Dreams
B2. Black Love
B3. Big Brother
C1. No More Junk
C2. Della Get Down
C3. I Am A Woman
C4. I Really Like It
D1. Puppet
D2. Man Of Many Means (Previously Unreleased)
D3. Cool Out Your Mind

CD
1. Searching For Ourselves
2. Crossroads
3. Bow To The People
4. Black Love
5. One Little Chance
6. Big Brother
7. Children Of Tomorrow's Dreams
8. No More Junk
9. Della Get Down
10.I Am A Woman
11. I Really Like It
12. Puppet
13. Cool Out Your Mind
14. Man Of Many Means (Previously Unreleased)
15. I Don't Know Much About Love (Previously Unreleased)

People On Sunday is an original soundtrack to the 1930 silent film variously known as Menschen am Sonntag, Les Hommes le Dimanche and People On Sunday. The film is a key work of interwar German cinema, based on a screenplay by Billy Wilder.

Like Domenique Dumont’s earlier albums, Comme Ça and Miniatures De Auto Rhythm, People On Sunday evokes a more innocent, carefree time conjured by wistful electronics full of warmth and melody. Touching on the hazy exotica that made those two records so alluring, here Dumont draws on his love of classical music, library music and early electronic experimentation to create a timeless, optimistic sound. If his past productions possessed a certain Mediterranean quality, across these 13 new pieces Dumont’s shimmering synth-pop has an enchanting simplicity.

Part documentary, part fiction, the film People On Sunday follows a group of characters going about their business in Weimar-era Berlin over one weekend and shows normal life in Germany before dictatorship.

“The film shows people and their surroundings shortly before all of it was destroyed,” says Dumont. “Ironically, watching this movie with the eyes of today, it looks more surreal than documentary. And I can’t help but think and reflect about the times we are living in now. We might have similar desires people had a hundred years ago, but we now have a completely different approach to life.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
I I Arrival
II II Gone For A Wander
III III Sunshine In 1929
IV IV Water Theme (Le Château De Corail)
V V We Almost Got Lost
VI VI Falling Asleep Under Pine Trees

Side B:
VII VII People On Sunday
VIII VIII Merry-Go-Round
IX IX Running Down The Hill
X X Rituals
XI XI Watching Boats Pass By
XII XII Back To Everyday Life
XIII XIII Everyday Life

Back in the 80s Dons Savage of Dead Famous People joined her first band Freudian Slips which soon ended so she along with fellow Freudian Slip refugee Biddy Leyland could pursue their own talents. A chance encounter with Flying Nun's spiritual guru, Chris Knox, led to a one-off deal with the label that resulted in a five-song EP, ‘Lost Persons Area’. Moving to London in 1986 the fabled "Flying Nun sound" began making an impact outside New Zealand. The release of near-perfect compilations by The Clean and The Chills except Dead Famous People were a little early for that buzz. Stumbling into a deal with Utility Records, Billy Bragg and legendary manager Pete Jenner. Dons later started singing with new combo, Saint Etienne, her vocals feature on the original version of their cover version hit, ‘Kiss And Make Up’, as well as a cover of Gil Scott-Heron's ‘Winter In America’. Around this same time, Martin Phillipps of The Chills asked Dons requested she sing on ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’. Dons soon returned home to Auckland without an outlet for her music, three decades later Fire tracked her down and the rest is history. Now set to release her new album ‘Harry’, it’s more philosophical than her earlier work. It feels like the right one for a world of apocalyptic pandemic, uncertainty and quarantine. Dons' power over melody and knack for profundity remains unchanged since Dead Famous People's original incarnation. A rare record in a time of musical factionalism and a world divided into camps of willful obscurity and grotesque mockeries of stardom and art, it’s a document of unadorned perfection.

"Bob bought a DFP single which we both really liked, we were drawn to the mystery of the band's name and the melancholy tone of Dons' voice." Pete Wiggs - Saint Etienne.

“There was a sense of excitement that something special was happening." Martin Phillipps – The Chills.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Looking At Girls
A2 Goddess Of Chill
A3 Safe And Sound
A4 Turn On The Light
A5 Dead Birds Eye

Side B
B6 Groovy Girl
B7 The Great Unknown
B8 Dog
B9 To Be Divine
B10 Harry

Bubbling up from the psychedelic tar pits of L.A., Frankie and the Witch Fingers have been a constant source of primordial groove for the better part of the last decade. Formed and incubated in Bloomington, IN before moving west to scrap with Los Angeles’ garage rock rabble, the band evolved from cavern-clawed echo merchants to architects of prog-infected psych epics that evoke a shift in reality. After a stretch on Chicago/LA flagship Permanent Records the band landed at yet another fabled enclave of garage and psychedelia - Brooklyn’s Greenway Records, now working in tandem with psych powerhouse LEVITATION and their label The Reverberation Appreciation Society, the groups latest effort is dually supported by a RAS / Greenway co-release.

After years of searching for the specific alchemy that would tear open the cosmos, they found the formula with the addition of Shaughnessy Starr on drums in the summer of 2018. They began a new cycle and tripped into tip-on double gatefold territory, flesh-ing out their lysergic impulses into a monolith of sound that closes in from all sides. The band reached new levels of grandiosity and utilized every minute to manifest their psych-soul Sabbath in four dimensions, spilling psychic blood on a populace ready and eagerly waiting. Yet, as expansive, inventive, and immersive as any studio album might be, the band is born for the stage. As their live prowess caught the ears of some legends in their own right, the band practically lived on the road last year with stints opening for Oh Sees, Cheap Trick and ZZ Top. Along the way the constant pulpit of the stage would form ZAM into a transformative experience while plotting their next permutation of space and time.

That transformation, Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters... (repeated infinitely,) rises like a Phoenix from the road tar, van exhaust, and ozone crackle of amps in heat. Once off the road it was recorded in just five blistering days. Though, while the tour may have hammered the album into shape and brought about a wind of change, those changes stretched to the band itself as well. In the wake of the tour the band’s longtime bassist Alex Bulli made his exit, with the majority of bass parts on the album being written and played by multiinstrumental magician Josh Menashe with occasional pitch in from songwriter Dylan Sizemore. Stripped to their core the band has created their most ambitious work to date, an album that takes the turbulence of ZAM and crafts it into a beast more insidious and singular than anything in their catalog. Moving forward, the band has taken on new blood. Completing their lineup, Nikki Pickle (of Death Valley Girls) will join them working the new album out roadside on bass. A new horizon of Frankie and the Witch Fingers draws near and we’re all set to follow them into the unknown.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Activate
2. Reaper
3. Sweet Freak
4. Where's Your Reality?
5. Michaeldose

SIDE B
1. Can You Hear Me Now?
2. Simulator
3. Urge You
4. Cavehead
5. MEPEM...

Even from his earliest edits and deep but different club tracks on Wolf + Lamb, it was clear that Nicolás Jaar was a special talent, and once he'd arrived at his Essential Mix in 2012, he'd more or less mastered dance music. Since then, he's turned his attention to noise experiments, film scores, politico-punk and some inspired production work for other artists, most notably FKA Twigs second LP 'Magdalena'. 

Written and produced between 2017-2019, 'Cenizas' sees Jaar in introspective mode, leading us through deep waters and seductive darkness for a little under an hour. Almost entirely fluid, the thirteen tracks bleed from one to the next, occasional snatches of latin rhythm, sleek clarinet or jazzy keys disrupting the moody electronics and crepuscular vibrations. At times beautiful and beatless, incorporating elements of drone, modern classical, latin, jazz and electronica, this LP flows like a film score and captures the otherworldly atmosphere of his aformentioned Essential Mix perfectly. There's no one out there who sounds like him, and few who operate at his level. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Vanish
A2. Menysid
A3. Cenizas
A4. Agosto
B1. Gocce
B2. Mud
B3. Vacíar
C1. Sunder
C2. Hello, Chain
C3. Rubble
D1. Garden
D2. Xerox
D3. Faith Made Of Silk

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AS PART OF THE AUGUST 29TH DROP DAY AT 6PM.
LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Exclusive colour and one time pressing.Colored vinyl, comes with download card, tip-on jacket, gold foil numbered.The Tales People Tell was released in April 2019, this is the instrumental companion to that record.None of these instrumental versions have been released, but his debut LP sold over 6000 LPs (mostly at indie retail)

Hot on the heels of "2017-2019", his second album of angular, off-kilter electronics and mechanical rhythms work under the Against All Logic alias, Nicolas Jaar offers up a 12" containing two eyebrow-raising collaborative cuts. Legendary alternative artist Lydia Lunch, who also features on the album, pops up on A-side "Illusions of Shameless Abundance", adding a out there spoken word vocal - much of which is presented as a series of overlapping loops - to Jaar's skewed modular electronics and trippy, out-of-this-world sounds. Estado Unido and FKA Twigs lend a hand on flipside "Alucinao", providing gently soulful lyrical flavour to a distorted, thrillingly aggressive South American electro rhythm, sweaty pots-and-pans percussion and metallic melodic elements.

TRACK LISTING

A Illusions Of Shameless Abundance
Featuring – Lydia Lunch

B Alucinao
Feat. Estado Unido & FKA Twigs

One of the three outrageously talented Deenmamode brothers (Mo Kolours & Reginald Omas Mamode IV), Jeen Bassa has carved out a reputation as one of the leading beat-tape producers in the game today. His warm and woozy productions mix up slo-mo, mechanised funk with hues of neon soul and blue, jazz notes. An artist that clearly stands out in a world that’s saturated with bland Dilla and Madlib-esque pastiches.‘All My People’ takes listeners on an electronic journey through hip hop, soul, jazz, funk and pan african sounds, hugely influenced by Bassa’s Mauritian roots.

TRACK LISTING

Audio Visual
Herb & Rhythm
Dramatise
Poets House
My People
Body Talking
The Landscapes
Do The Do
Latin Fingers
Cocoa Lotion
Ode To The Funk
Outro

There's a story behind all the releases I've put out in recent years.
I usually try not to bore people with the details, but this one is about my own mental health crisis back in the mid noughties.
The upshot was, I ended up trying to do the ultimate unthinkable. Luckily, I failed in my attempt, and ended up seeing a psychologist for a number of sessions.

Music has always been around for me, when I'm high or when things aren't so good, and I wrote these tracks roundabout that period.
I see them as a reflection of my experiences of the journey through clinical therapy. And in addition, the act of writing them was probably my own therapy for myself, letting things out in the form of music, though I most likely didn't see it at the time.

The tracks chart my progress from initial complete alienation at the start of therapy, through to the light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the session programme.
The original track was written and completed in 2004, and the other versions would have been started roughly at the same time, with additional production to complete them taking place this year (2019).
To my ears, they're as ever my own take on Techno - Detroit's in the mix, but also Sheffield, and of course current hometown Manchester. The Soundcloud algorithm heard disco, but also synthpop, electronic rock and chiptune.
So we can probably agree on influences such as Cabaret Voltaire, UR and Robert Gordon.

100 COPIES IN VINTAGE BATIK SLEEVE WITH NUMBERED INFO INSERT...

TRACK LISTING

1. Pod People
2. Pod People (version 1)
3. Pod People (version 2)
4. Pod People (version 3)

A People's History of Gauche, a collective catharsis of anger, frustration, and trauma through creativity. Jason P Barnett, Adrienne CN Berry, Mary Jane Regalado, Pearie Sol, and Daniele Yandel find their agency and joy through creating and performing music together in 36 minutes of groove-filled power punk. When asked about the genesis of the title of their Merge debut, Daniele cited this definition: A people's history, or history from below, is an account of events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders, the story of mass movements and of outsiders. It's a fitting title for an album that tackles such heavy topics as anxiety, capitalism and colonialization, and healing ancestral traumas, as well as dismantling and dissecting patriarchy, creating beauty in the face of oppressive forces, and resisting exploitation. These are vital songs manifested in a celebratory manner, created quickly through the group's self-proclaimed "Gauche magic." Recorded with Austin Brown (Parquet Courts) and Robert Szmurlo in Brooklyn, NY, and with Jonah Takagi (Ex Hex) in DC, A People’s History of Gauche marks the first time the band worked with people outside of their ranks, resulting in a fuller sound that boasts more intricate instrumentation.

From the very first line of album opener “Flash”—“Light’s supposed to show the way, not over-expose it”—Gauche are here to compel us to dance while singing along about society’s universal struggles. Gauche undoubtedly make art, but their guiding tenet is craft. "When I say that, I mean in the sense that Art with a capital A is thought of as something rarefied, something outside the context of everyday life, outside of everyone's grasp or potential," expounds Daniele. "That sense of craft, of something you return to every day and is valuable because it is something you share in common with all people, is how I think of music. Well, good music at least." Gauche bring us music and movement and struggle and light, and now it is our job to dance! 

TRACK LISTING

1. Flash, Cycles,
2. Pay Day,
3. Surveilled Society,
4. Copper Woman,
5. Running. 
6. Boom Hazard,
7. Dirty Jacket,
8. History,
9. Rent (v.),
10. Rectangle..

(7” Flexi Track Is “Conspiracy Theories”). 

Seeing Other People is curiously positioned as Foxygen’s most recent last-ever album. With every album the band dies; with every album the band is reborn. But unlike the last-ever Foxygen albums before it, this one seems to have a self-effacing bittersweetness to it that signifies some sort of passing; some sort of white flag. But it SOUNDS in no way like a band giving up. It has experiments in tone and genre the likes of which we’ve not heard on a Foxygen record since….Starpower?; since 21st Century?; since Take the Kids??? You don’t need our hot take on this thing

TRACK LISTING

CD/LP:

1. Work
2. Mona
3. Seeing Other People
4. Face The Facts
5. Livin’ A Lie
6. The Thing Is
7. News
8. Flag At Half-Mast
9. The Conclusion


Deluxe LP:

LP1
1. Work
2. Mona
3. Seeing Other People
4. Face The Facts
5. Livin' A Lie
6. The Thing Is
7. News
8. Flag At Half-Mast
9. The Conclusion

LP2 - DEMOS
1. Livin’ A Lie (Demo)
2. Face The Facts (Demo)
3. Mona (Demo)
4. News (Demo)
5. Seeing Other People (Demo)
6. Work (Demo)

“If there was a mission it was to create something like absurd office funk,” says Stats’ Ed Seed, recalling the birth of his band. He was working a series of banal London office jobs, but rather than switch off or despair, Seed used this conventionally sterile backdrop for creative inspiration. “It was about taking things that are considered boring or are overlooked,” he says. “If you stare at anything long enough, it becomes weird.”

Staring into the infinite oddness of office life was interrupted when Seed “fluked” his way into La Roux’s band - which itself proved a further inspiration for the evolution of Stats. “I'd always been in scrappy indie bands,” he recalls. “Then I met Elly and her crew and thought ‘wow’. This kind of pop music, I always thought it only happened over in Hammersmith, you had to have tens of thousands of pounds and a major label. But I realised you didn’t need a huge budget to make something more stylish than your average band.”

This was a turning point for Seed, recognising he could create his own contemporary version of DIY art pop. “That gave me confidence,” he reflects. “I wanted Stats to be quite theatrical. I wanted it to be strangely glamorous, in a Roxy Music or Pet Shop Boys sort of way. Something that’s glamorous and quite silly. Those bands are very serious about being very silly.”

Debut album “Other People’s Lives”, recorded at RAK studios with the full Stats band (Ed Seed – vox, guitar, John Barrett -drums, Stu Barter - bass, Duncan Brown - guitar, Nicole Robson – keyboards, Iso Waller-Bridge – keyboards, vox) is about investigating the gaps in the stories we tell about our lives. Says Ed, “the world encourages me to experience my life as a narrative: a story in which I am the lead character, going on a journey, moving towards the discovery and realisation of an authentic self. Other people’s lives are presented to me as coherent, relatable stories, full of passion and travel and wonder. But my story makes no sense: it is full of contradictions and formless subplots, and I barely feel like the same actor from one day to the next - let alone find any meaning in it.”

Musically Other People’s Lives is in many ways a time-stamp of a record, something that captures the now, the fleeting, the fickle and the forgotten – like that perfect moment lost on the dance floor. Yet the album avoids being tied to a time and place, ricocheting between 70s art rock, 80s synth grooves and cosmic disco, presented honestly and experimentally via the all-encompassing prism of pop music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Duncan from Dutch Uncles hipped me to Stats a few months back (Memphis Industries fam innit), and I was on board instantly. Following the same absurdist pop route as Fujiya & Miyagi or Yacht, but with a touch of Roxy Music glamour, some Talking Heads vocal nods and a whole lot of DFA-style indie dance grooving, Stats are 2019's answer to Hot Chip, Metronomy and Holy Ghost.

TRACK LISTING

I Am An Animal
There Is A Story I Tell About My Life
Rhythm Of The Heart
Lose It
A Change Of Scenery
Other People's Lives
Raft
From A High Sky
The Family Business
A Man Who Makes The Weather
Never Loved Anyone

From Melbourne by way of Brisbane, Confidence Man are unarguably one of the hottest acts on the planet right now. A portable party that’s levelled dance floors and flattened festival crowds as it’s rolled out across the world, they are a machine custom designed to make you dance and lose your cool.

Without doubt set to be this summer’s most joyously exciting new band, they have to be seen to be believed – upfront there’s a statuesque chap clad only in a pair of nothing-to-the-imagination hot pants next to a woman in a custom designed baby-doll dress and shorts combo while behind them lurk two shadowy mute figures on drums and keyboards, each stripped to the waist and veiled secretively in what look like a satanic beekeeper’s hats made of a material so black, the light seems to fall into it.

If Janet Planet, Sugar Bones, Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild weren’t a band already you’d be snapping at their heels demanding they form one quick-sharp. Fact is, they are, and on Friday 13th April 2018 they release Confident Music For Confident People, their 11-track debut album for Heavenly Recordings.

The band have already offered a glimpse of what’s in store on Confident Music For Confident People – recent tracks Boyfriend, Bubblegum and Better Sit Down Boy were big and brash and bright as hell, like Dee-Lite tooled up and ready for our berserk modern times.

Confident Music for Confident People sets eleven tales of 21st century ennui to irresistible, irrepressible dance music. The opening lines of Try Your Luck (“I must confess/I’ve been sleeping with your ex/’Cos I heard he was the best/I must confess/I never would have guessed he would get so obsessed… I’m not surprised”) set the tone perfectly for what follows.

Here is a set of songs that take the kind of all-consuming interior monologues that bored, disaffected youth are wrestling with the world over and places them square in the middle of the dance floor before adding call-and-response choruses for good measure – it’s the best collection of perfect pop music you’ll hear all year, the perfect embodiment of the characters that made it that somehow manages to be both wildly ambitious and deceptively simple at the same time.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Don't You Know I'm In A Band' perfectly encapsulates the whole vibe behind Confidence Men, brash, bold and more than a little conceited, they take the stereotypical entitled hilarity of stardom and turn it into a bitingly ironic, brilliantly accomplished synth journey. It's ridiculous, but it's totally brilliant. Heavenly have gone out of their comfort zone on this one, and absolutely smashed it.

TRACK LISTING

Try Your Luck
Don't You Know I'm In A Band
Boyfriend
C.O.O.L Party
Out The Window
Catch My Breath
Bubblegum
Better Sit Down Boy
Sailboat Vacation
All The Way
Fascination

French psych duo The Limiñanas have announced their new album 'Shadow People' which will be released on 19th January on Because Music. One of France’s most beloved treasures, The Limiñanas are Marie (drums/vocals) and Lionel (guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals). Hailing from Perpignan, the duo straddles the boundary between psych, shoegaze, and yé-yé. With hazy, reverb-laden hooks, combined at times with noisy distortion, and fronted by effortlessly cool vocals, reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, the band is at once timeless and quintessentially French. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Smooth, psychedelic meanderings full of rich, warming guitar and soothing, softly spoken french vox. Spin along a couple tracks and you get hynotic, Floydian driven psychedelia and hushed, fuzzy guitars. Ace

Special Love Songs for Hardworking People in Alarm Clock Britain is the new 12” album release on Creepy Crawl. Bringing together 5 tracks with only one previously released on a 50 copy only mailorder cdr (the version on this 12 is a heavier proposition with added Dik Mik audio generator skree). Jan Birth Jam is over 17 minutes of heavy jams in a LRD vein. The new tracks consist of the wah-heavy Broughton misery of No One Likes You, the sludge horror of Pigsquealer, the throbbing electronic cottage of Model ?000 and spaced out Hawkwind folk of Cardinal Drag. All recorded in various places and times over the last few years and housed in a TG sleeve as devised by Sam Giles, Rebecca Cleal and prof. With thanks to Agathe Max, Isambard and the 127. 

One year after De la Soul re-drew the map for alternative rap, fellow Native Tongues brothers A Tribe Called Quest released their debut, the quiet beginning of a revolution in non-commercial hip-hop. People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm floated a few familiar hooks, but it wasn't a sampladelic record. Rappers Q-Tip and Phife Dawg dropped a few clunky rhymes, but their lyrics were packed with ideas, while their flow and interplay were among the most original in hip-hop. From the beginning, Tribe focused on intelligent message tracks but rarely sounded over-serious about them. Includes "Can I Kick It?", "Bonita Applebum", "I Left My Wallet In El Segundo", "Description Of A Fool", "Luck Of Lucien" etc.

TRACK LISTING

1. Push It Along 7:42
2. Luck Of Lucien 4:32
3. After Hours 4:39
4. Footprints 4:00
5. I Left My Wallet In El Segundo 4:06
6. Pubic Enemy 3:45
7. Bonita Applebum 3:50
8. Can I Kick It 4:12
9. Youthful Expression 4:52
10. Rhythm (Devoted To The Art Of Moving Butts) 4:01
11. Mr. Muhammad 3:33
12. Ham ’n’ Eggs 5:27
13. Go Ahead In The Rain 3:58
14. Description Of A Fool 5:42

Formed by brothers Will and Matt Ritson, Formation's life-affirming blend of disco grooves, punk attitude and vehement social insight builds towards its ultimate statement as they deliver their eagerly anticipated debut album "Look At The Powerful People".“The album title refers to the moment when everyone has realised the secret power we have when we're all together,” adds Will. “For me, it’s a power that relates to the security that I found when I was young and hanging with my outsider friends. We had no money and no scene but we didn’t care because we had each other. We began to ask questions of the world and started to rebel about what we could or couldn’t do or say.” Produced by Leon Vynehall, ‘Look At The Powerful People’ demonstrates that Formation’s forward-thinking sonics have evolved to reach their full potential. In addition to the new single, other highlights such as ‘On The Board’ and ‘A Friend’ capture Formation’s irrepressible and bass-heavy cocktail of dirty dance rhythms which pound with the fiery energy of their live performances. At the other extreme, ‘Blood Red Hand’ in an understated, slow-burning anthem and the closing track ‘Ring’ offers something entirely different with a dreamy, piano-orientated approach closing the album on an upbeat high. In addition to the new tracks, the album also features fresh new productions of some of the key singles from Formation’s journey to date in the shape of ‘Pleasure’ and ‘Drugs’. Inspired by artists as diverse as Sly and the Family Stone, John Maus, Fugazi, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Herbie Hancock, Theo Parrish, Beastie Boys, Pantera and Ornette Coleman, Formation have built a cult following as well as exponential critical acclaim including a nomination for Best Newcomer at the NME Awards.

TRACK LISTING

1. Drugs
2. Pleasure
3. Powerful People
4. Back Then
5. On The Board
6. Gods
7. Buy And Sell
8. A Friend
9. Blood Red Hand
10. Ring 

Over the weekend of August 21-22, 2010, not long after Damien Jurado and Richard Swift first collaborated to produce Damien’s 2010 record, ‘Saint Bartlett’, the pair hunkered down with a 4- track recorder and one Coles 4038 ribbon microphone to record a collection of cover songs that run the gamut from John Denver to Chubby Checker to Kraftwerk.

The timing was perfect. On ‘Other People’s Songs Volume One’ one can see the scaffolding of what would become a creative turning point for the pair - later seen with the release of Damien Jurado’s ‘Maraqopa’, the first record in his Maraqopa trilogy - less than two years later. The opening drum hits of ‘Be Not So Fearful’, the falsetto vocals of ‘Sweetness’ and the Spaghetti-Western swing of ‘Radioactivity’ are, by now, hallmarks of the Jurado / Swift sound but ‘Other People’s Songs Volume One’ is a transitional fossil, a marking of the pair’s collaborative evolution.

This is the first time ‘Other People’s Songs Volume One’ is available on CD and LP.

TRACK LISTING

Be Not So Fearful
Hello Sunshine
Sweetness
Sincere Replies
If The Sun Stops Shinin’
Follow Me
Outside MyWindow
Radioactivity
Crazy Like A Fox