“Music affected me so much growing up, I only wanted to make music that moved me emotionally and if it didn't happen, I wouldn't make records.” ‘Understood’ – the first ever reissue of ‘Understand’ – the acclaimed 1992 debut album by Brian. Brian was the ‘band’ name chosen by Dublin singer-songwriter Ken Sweeney, after his songs attracted the interest of fellow Dubliner and head of Setanta Records Keith Cullen. The first sessions for 'Understand' dated back to the summer of 1989. Propelled by work to the suburbs of West London, Ken found himself far from his comfort zone and raw from a particularly painful break-up. “I hardly knew anyone,” he recalls, “and the only way of making sense of things seemed to be writing songs.” Inevitably, the musical lodestones of Ken’s teenage years – The Go-Betweens, R.E.M., Miracle Legion, Trashcan Sinatras – started to percolate into his own musical language. In the space between estranged lovers, all the things that are too painful to say in words seemed to find their purest expression on a fretboard. It was in this space that the songs on ‘Understand’ took shape. Why ‘Understand’? Well, that was the name of the title track. A programmed rhythm bears impassive witness to the emotional disclosure being played out over it: “The word 'understand' came up a lot, recalls Ken, “The wishing that somehow we could talk; that there could be a last conversation that would make things okay.” On its release, ‘Understand’ was greeted with unanimous acclaim. Select Magazine talked about “the devastating effectiveness of early Smiths”; Melody Maker praised its giddy, mesmeric pop songs; Hot Press called it “an astonishing achievement”. Over the ensuing decades, the album has become increasingly sought-after among music fans whose collections sit in the centre of the Venn diagram where melody and melancholy overlap. Now retitled to acknowledge the closure that comes with the passage of time, ‘Understood' has been expanded to include the four songs that comprised 1993’s Planes EP – as well as a previously unheard track If You Knew, which was intended for the original album. In later years, as an acclaimed broadcaster, Ken went on to make documentaries about several of his musical heroes, among them R.E.M., The Go-Betweens and The Blue Nile. His Trashcan Sinatras documentary earned him a prestigious Irish National Radio Award in 2024. The newly expanded ‘Understood’ has been remastered at Electric Mastering by Guy Davie.

TRACK LISTING

1. Understand
2. Big Green Eyes
3. You Can't Call Home
4. A Million Miles
5. Don't Leave Me Behind
6. You Don't Want A Boyfriend
7. It Never Crossed Your Mind
8. Time Stood Still
9. Knowing
10. Planes Stacking Up
11. The World Ended With You
12. She Takes You Away
13. If You Knew 

Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is honoured to announce the release of "Think Once More - A Journey with The Montgolfier Brothers", the first ever anthology by the feted duo made up of Mancunian musicians Roger Quigley and Mark Tranmer.

The Montgolfier Brothers released three acclaimed albums between 1999 and 2005. Roger Quigley had released music as Quigley and At Swim Two Birds, while Mark Tranmer has released music both as GNAC, in his own name and with Vetchinsky Settings.

The Montgolfier Brothers’ music is perhaps best compared to that of artists such as The Durutti Column, Yann Tiersen, Young Marble Giants and Robert Wyatt – artists whose music is celebrated for its ability to arouse deep emotion by the sparest of means.

Working closely with the family of Roger Quigley who passed away in 2020, Think Once More was sequenced by Mark during the summer of 2024. Think Once More gathers together music from the albums Seventeen Stars, All My Bad Thoughts and The World Is Flat.

Featured on the album is Between Two Points, interpreted by David Gilmour and Romany Gilmour on the recent UK number one album Luck and Strange. Prior to the album release this was also a single and, across all platforms, has surpassed 10 million streams. Of its 14 songs, nine songs featured on Think Once More have never previously been released on vinyl. As well as David Gilmour, other well-known fans of The Montgolfier Brothers include Tim Burgess and the celebrated author Jonathan Coe, who has written liner notes for the release of Think Once More.

Think Once More comes in specially created artwork by esteemed Philadelphia-based Creative Director Timothy O’Donnell. It is also first Montgolfier Brothers release to feature Roger and Mark on its front cover – the photograph (by Olivier de Banes) captures the duo in 1997, following a French show two years prior to the release of Seventeen Stars. 

The songs were all mastered for this release by Miles Showell at Abbey Road.

TRACK LISTING

1. Even If My Mind Can't Tell You
2. Pro-Celebrity Standing Around
3. Seventeen Stars
4. In Walks A Ghost
5. Between Two Points
6. Fin
7. Be Selfish
8. The World Is Flat
9. Think Once More
10. Inches Away
11. The First Rumours Of Spring
12. Koffee Pot
13. Brecht's Lost Waltz (Summer Is Over)
14. Journey's End

Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is thrilled to announce the release of Sensitive, a vinyl anthology to cover the indiepop scene of the 1980s. Sensitive features 30 songs in total by artists who defined the indiepop aesthetic, among them The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Sea Urchins, Primal Scream, The Pastels, Talulah Gosh, Orange Juice, The Field Mice, The Primitives, The Wedding Present, Miaow, Razorcuts, Dolly Mixture, The Bodines, Shop Assistants, The Soup Dragons, The Loft, The Chills, That Petrol Emotion and The Railway Children.

Sensitive takes its name from the single released by The Field Mice, and marks the first time that The Field Mice have allowed one of their songs to be used on a compilation released by any label other than Sarah Records, who released all their records at the time. Also features on Sensitive is Dying Day from Orange Juice’s hugely influential debut album You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever – marking the only time that Edwyn Collins and his wife and manager Grace Maxwell have given permission for an Orange Juice song to be featured on an anthology.

Many of the records featured on Sensitive have become highly sought-after collectors’ items since their original release. The Sea Urchins’ Pristine Christine changes hands for up to £400. Original mint copies of April Showers’ only single Abandon Ship command up to £380. If you were to try and individually buy all the records featuring the songs on Sensitive, you can expect to pay something around £1150.

Sensitive features 10,000 words of extensive track-by-track notes and an essay by Pete Paphides, who was and remains an avid proponent of the indiepop scene that this collection chronicles. All the songs on SENSITIVE have been newly mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell.

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1
1. Pristine Christine - The Sea Urchins
2. Get Out Of My Dream - The Clouds
3. Truck Train Tractor - The Pastels
4. Once More - The Wedding Present
5. Almost Prayed - The Weather Prophets
6. If She Doesn’t Smile (It’ll Rain) - Fantastic Something
7. Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh
8. Crash - The Primitives
9. It’s A Good Thing - That Petrol Emotion
10. Hang-Ten! - The Soup Dragons
11. When It All Comes Down - Miaow
12. Kaleidoscope World - The Chills
13. Somewhere In China - Shop Assistants
14. I’ll Still Be There - Razorcuts
15. Abandon Ship - April Showers

DISC 2
1. Someone Stole My Wheels - Biff Bang Pow!
2. Dying Day - Orange Juice
3. Hammering Heart - Del Amitri
4. Why Does The Rain - The Loft
5. Yesterday - The Nivens
6. Ten Miles - Phil Wilson
7. Sensitive - The Filed Mice
8. Brighter - The Railway Children
9. Adam’s Song (Pour Fenella) - The Sun And The Moon
10. She Looks Right Through Me - The Waltones
11. Therese - The Bodines
12. Velocity Girl - Primal Scream
13. Will He Kiss Me Tonight - Dolly Mixture
14. Some Candy Talking - The Jesus And Mary Chain
15. Candydiosis - Pop Will Eat Itself 

With the shoegaze and baggy movements at their zenith, The Lilac Time’s fourth album was released at a moment when the left-field music zeitgeist was shaped by the nascent shoegaze, baggy and grunge movements. Whilst Astronauts conformed to none of those trends, neither was it the record Stephen had in his head when he finally finished working on it. We’ll never know how that record would have sounded, but it’s hard to imagine a better version of the album he did end up making. The songwriter who brought ‘A Taste of Honey’ and ‘Hats Off, Here Comes The Girl’ into the world envisaged the sort of choruses that would jump from the single speaker of your favourite transistor and lodge themselves into the collective memory bank. But while he really was writing some of his most beautiful melodies, Astronauts is a family of songs that demands to be kept together in the sun-dazed cloud of inspiration that created it. It constitutes a partial retreat from the outward-facing utopianism of its predecessors, choosing instead to dwell on the journey taken to get to this point.

That this is an audibly different band to the pastoral expeditionaries of the group’s previous releases is almost entirely down to the departure of Nick Duffy and the arrival of Sagat Guirey. Suddenly, accordions, banjos and mandolins are out; jazz guitar is in. Sagat’s filigree work on the outro of ‘A Taste for Honey’ acts as a sublime parting shot to a lyric which acts as a wiser, wistful companion piece to Stephen’s 1985 solo hit ‘Kiss Me’, something tantamount to the camera retreating to reveal the years elapsed between the time depicted and the present day.

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklist:
1. In Iverna Gardens
2. Hats Off Here Comes The Girl
3. Fortunes
4. A Taste For Honey
5. Grey Skies And Work Things
6. Finistère
7. Dreaming
8. The Whisper Of Your Mind
9. The Darkness Of Her Eyes
10. Sunshines Daughter
11. North Kensington
12. Madresfield

3LP/3CD Tracklist:
1. In Iverna Gardens
2. Hats Off Here Comes The Girl
3. Fortunes
4. A Taste For Honey
5. Grey Skies And Work Things
6. Finistère
7. Dreaming
8. The Whisper Of Your Mind
9. The Darkness Of Her Eyes
10. Sunshines Daughter
11. North Kensington
12. Madresfield
13. Astronauts Meditation
14. Writing Dreaming
15. We Came From Anywhere
16. She Is All Colour
17. Writing Finistére
18. This Immortal Promise
19. In Iverna Dreaming
20. Hat’s Off #1
21. Writing The Whisper
22. You Come By
23. North Kensington Idea
24. Madresfield Demo
25. Fields (Sunday 28th October 1990 Derby College Of Higher Education)
26. The Road To Happiness (Thursday 16th May 1991 London, Underworld)
27. Black Velvet (Underworld)
28. Julie Christie (Saturday 18th May 1991 Manchester University)
29. And On We Go (Derby)
30. Dreaming (Manchester)
31. Icing On The Cake (Derby)
32. Lost Girl In The Midnight Sun (Underworld)
33. If The Stars Shine Tonight (Manchester)

Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is thrilled to announce the signing of the eagerly anticipated debut album by London singer-songwriter and renowned DJ Iraina Mancini. Iraina’s singular pop vision will be known to regular listeners of 6 Music, where her singles ‘Undo The Blue’, ‘Deep End’, ‘Shotgun’ and ‘Do It (You Stole The Rhythm)’ have all been enthusiastically embraced. Iraina's obsession with music stretches back into her early childhood, much of which was spent absorbing her parents’ collection of old 45s, in particular her dad’s Northern Soul records – an alternative education which meant that, by her early 20s, she was a familiar presence in the DJ booth at many discerning London club nights. Her love of French ye-ye, British freakbeat, Brazilian bossa nova, soul, and Turkish psych will be well-known to regular listeners of her Soho Radio show.

Having always sung from a young age, Iraina embarked on a string of collaborators such as Jagz Kooner (Sabres Of Paradise), Sunglasses For Jaws (Miles Kane) and Simon Dine (Paul Weller, Noonday Underground) which truly saw her find her metier as a songwriter, conjuring melodies that stand shoulder to shoulder alongside her impeccable influences. Iraina describes her first single for Needle Mythology ‘Cannonball’ as “a celebration of that moment when you meet someone you really fall for and it knocks you for six. It can be a bit scary, but you’ve just got to go with what your intuition is telling you.”

Written with Simon Dine, the vertiginous heart-in-mouth abandon of the song perfectly mirrors the circumstances that brought it into being. Iraina cites Jacqueline Taïeb’s 1967 single 7h du Matin as an early inspiration for the song: “There’s such a great energy about that song. Her vocal is amazing and all those stops and starts that grab your attention.”

“This is an artist I absolutely love, one of our rising stars at 6Music.“ Lauren Laverne BBC 6Music.

“Iraina seizes on the best aspects of the past, blurring those impeccable 60s and 70s influences with a touch of modernity.” Clash.

“Full of femme fatale poise and swooning chanteuse flourishes.” The Times.

TRACK LISTING

1. Undo The Blue (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-Animation)
2. Sugar High (Saint Etienne Remix)

Following its unanimously acclaimed expanded reissues of Robert Forster’s first two solo albums Danger In The Past and Calling From A Country Phone, Needle Mythology Records is proud to announce the long-awaited remastered reissue of Robert’s 1994 'I Had A New York Girlfriend' now retitled as 'Beautiful Hearts'. The album saw Robert tackle a diverse array of his favourite songs from other composers – among them Mickey Newbury’s “Frisco Depot”, Martha & The Muffins’ “Echo Beach”, “Alone” by Heart and Guy Clark’s “Broken Hearted People" Having had three decades to reflect on the record, Robert took this chance to revisit the album’s title and artwork. I Had A New York Girlfriend had been an eleventh-hour decision, a line taken from the Modern Lovers song “Old World”. The working title had always been Beautiful Hearts, a phrase borrowed from another song, “For Those” by Tindersticks. With the old title gone, the artwork – a New York street scene – no longer made sense. “So in its place,” explains Robert, “comes a contemporaneous photograph of me conducting a set of musicians crashing into the album’s opening cut ‘Nature’s Way’. Well… that’s the fantasy.”

First time on vinyl for this remastered deluxe reissue.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nature’s Way
2. Broken Hearted People
3. Echo Beach
4. Tell Me That Isn’t True
5. 2541 6. Anytime
6. Locked Away
7. Look Out Here Comes Tomorrow
8. Alone
9. Bird
10. Frisco Depot
11. 3am

The 'Directors' Cut' re-issue, featuring revised tracklisting and previously unreleased material. Originally released in 1996, Warm Nights repositioned Robert’s standing as one of the great songwriters of the post-punk era. Robert recalls that producer Edwyn Collins “got the [intended] sound of the album completely: a dry low-end groove pitched somewhere between Creedence Clearwater Revival and Willie Mitchell’s early ’70s Hi Records work.” Towards the end of the sessions some complications arose – and it’s these complications that Robert has seized the chance to remedy for this new release of Warm Nights. “It was Edwyn’s idea,” explains Robert, “to bring in a three-piece brass section – it fitted some of the songs beautifully, but it was in the mixing of the brass and the effect it had on the running order that things got complicated, [resulting in] two changes to the album that have been bugging me for 25 years.” Finally, Robert can sleep easy. The revised edition of 'Warm Nights' sees the inclusion of the brass version “Fortress” and the addition of "Half The Way Home” (a song that Robert rashly demoted from the original album and is here for the first time on vinyl).

TRACK LISTING

1. I Can Do
2. Warm Nights
3. Cryin’ Love
4. Snake Skin Lady
5. Loneliness
6.Jug Of Wine
7. Fortress (Brass Version)
8. Half The Way Home
9. On A Street Corner
10. I’ll Jump

Iraina’s singular pop vision will be known to regular listeners of 6 Music, where her singles ‘Undo The Blue’, ‘Deep End’, ‘Shotgun’ and ‘Do It (You Stole The Rhythm)’ have all been enthusiastically embraced. Iraina's obsession with music stretches back into her early childhood, much of which was spent absorbing her parents’ collection of old 45s, in particular her dad’s Northern Soul records – an alternative education which meant that, by her early 20s, she was a familiar presence in the DJ booth at many discerning London club nights. Her love of French ye-ye, British freakbeat, Brazilian bossa nova, soul, and Turkish psych will be well-known to regular listeners of her Soho Radio show. Having always sung from a young age, Iraina embarked on a string of collaborators such as Jagz Kooner (Sabres Of Paradise), Sunglasses For Jaws (Miles Kane) and Simon Dine (Paul Weller, Noonday Underground) which truly saw her find her metier as a songwriter, conjuring melodies that stand shoulder to shoulder alongside her impeccable influences.

Iraina describes her first single for Needle Mythology ‘Cannonball’ as “a celebration of that moment when you meet someone you really fall for and it knocks you for six. It can be a bit scary, but you’ve just got to go with what your intuition is telling you.” Written with Simon Dine, the vertiginous heart-in-mouth abandon of the song perfectly mirrors the circumstances that brought it into being. Iraina cites Jacqueline Taïeb’s 1967 single 7h du Matin as an early inspiration for the song: “There’s such a great energy about that song. Her vocal is amazing and all those stops and starts that grab your attention.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Deep End
2. Cannonball
3. Sugar High
4. Undo The Blue
5. Do It (You Stole The Rhythm)
6. My Umbrella
7. Shotgun
8. What You Doin’ [featuring Miles Kane And Kitty Liv]
9. Need Your Love
10. Take A Bow

Needle Mythology reissue a special expanded album edition of Finn, the album released by New Zealand’s most celebrated musical siblings Tim and Neil Finn to acclaim both from critics and long-time fans who had followed the pair’s work since their time in together in Split Enz. This is the first time Finn has received a vinyl release.

Released in close collaboration with Tim and Neil, the newly-expanded Finn comes with an entire album The Finn Demos, which gathers together ten songs from 1989’s legendary Murchison St sessions, remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Convening at Neil’s new Melbourne apartment with a view to making an album together, Tim and Neil embarked on an intensely productive period, writing several songs that would briefly result in Tim joining Crowded House for the resulting Woodface album.

Assisted by the late Paul Hester on drums, the demos capture a host of songs that would go on to be played in arenas around the world in their newborn state: ‘It’s Only Natural’, ‘Catherine Wheels’, ‘Weather With You’, featuring a whole extra verse and the previously unreleased ‘Four Stepping in 3/4 Time’.

For this release, long-time fan and collaborator on Neil’s 7 Worlds Collide project, Ed O’Brien (Radiohead) contributed liner notes, hymning the album’s “heavy” beauty and its “elemental energy.” Featuring brand new artwork designed by Needle Mythology’s James Gosling, the expanded Finn features newly-unearthed images of Tim and Neil taken by Darryl Ward during the sessions for the album. For this release, Tim and Neil have also shared the “listening notes” submitted by the brothers’ parents – something they would do for every song their sons wrote.

For Finn, Tim and Neil enlisted the services of Tchad Blake, whose “feel”-based approach brought out the best in the brothers, who played every instrument on the record. Writing about the record for Mojo at the time, David Hepworth characterised Finn as a “warm and loose record” that hardcore fans would undoubtedly “adore”.

Originally released on Parlophone Records, Finn spawned an unlikely top 30 hit, the mesmerising semi-improvised psych-rock fan favourite ‘Suffer Never’.

The expanded double album edition of Finn has been cut at Abbey Road by Miles Showell and pressed on 180g vinyl at The Vinyl Factory.

Of this release, Needle Mythology co-founder Pete Paphides says, “As a life-long fan of the Finn brothers’ music in all its incarnations, I’m grateful that Tim and Neil have given us the opportunity to re-present their work to the world in a manner that befits the magic of these sessions. The experience of hearing these songs emerge from the speakers at Abbey Road is one I’ll never forget.”

TRACK LISTING

DISC 1
SIDE 1
1. Only Talking Sense
2. Eyes Of The World
3. Mood Swinging Man
4. Last Day Of June
5. Suffer Never
6. Angel’s Heap
SIDE 2
1. Niwhai
2. Where Is My Soul
3. Bullets In My Hairdo
4. Paradise (Wherever You Are)
5. Kiss The Road Of Rarotonga
DISC 2
SIDE 1
1. Catherine Wheels (Demo)
2. Prodigal Son (Demo)
3. Four-Stepping In 3/4 Time (Demo)
4. There Goes God (Demo)
5. It’s Only Natural (Demo)
SIDE 2
1. Weather With You (Demo)
2. Strangeness And Charm (Demo)
3. Four Seasons In One Day (Demo)
4. In Love With It All (Demo)
5. How Will You Go (Demo)

Butcher Boy’s ‘You Had A Kind Face’ is the tenth release from the acclaimed Needle Mythology label. The album an anthology of songs by the revered Glasgow band originally released between 2007 and 2017. Butcher Boy released three albums of literate, melodic pop songs, none of which were released on vinyl, before returning in 2017 for a stand-alone EP Bad Things Happen When It’s Quiet. Gathering together songs from all of these releases, vinyl copies of You Had A Kind Face also come with a seven-inch made up of three brand new songs including the new single 'Dear John'.

Long-time fan of Butcher Boy, the author John Niven has written a devastatingly beautiful complement to the songs on You Had A Kind Face drawn from his own early memories of pacing the same Irvine streets where the band’s songwriter John Blain Hunt spent his formative years. The images used for this anthology are all taken from a series of 1979 photographs by John Walmsley capturing the new town landscape of Wester Hailes in South-East Edinburgh. Now in his 70s, Walmsley was so taken with Butcher Boy’s music that he assented to the use of previously unseen photographs for You Had A Kind Face.

For Needle Mythology founder Pete Paphides, the release of You Had A Kind Face is the culmination of a love affair that began back in April 2009, when Butcher Boy’s second album React Or Die was about to come out. “It was as close to an out-of-body experience as I’ve had listening to music in my adult life,” he recalls. “I was working for The Times back then, I called my editor on Monday morning and told her that we had to make this our album of the week. And the other thing I remember was that I was so nervous writing my review, the way you would be nervous writing a letter declaring your feelings for someone with whom you had fallen in love. Because I had.”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE 1
1. When I'm Asleep
2. There Is No-One Who Can Tell You Where You've Been
3. Helping Hands
4. Sunday Bells
5. The Day Our Voices Broke
6. Storm Warning In Effect

SIDE 2
1. I Know Who You Could Be
2. Carve A Pattern
3. You’re Only Crying For Yourself
4. Bad Things Will Happen When It's Quiet
5. This Kiss Will Marry Us
6. Every Other Saturday

Since its release in 1995, the second album by Whipping Boy has, slowly but undeniably, come to be regarded as one of the most extraordinary rock albums of its age. Heartworm heralded a dramatic transformation for the Dublin quartet, who jettisoned the diaphanous dreampop of their 1992 debut Submarine; choosing instead to honour Fearghal McKee’s wounded confessionals with unprecedented pugnacity and a new emphasis on melody. In the year that Britpop became a rolling news story, Heartworm slipped out under the radar – although similarly against-the-grain contemporaneous releases include Manic Street Preachers’ The Holy Bible and Radiohead’s The Bends. This reissue on Needle Mythology Records has been remastered by Sean Magee at Abbey Road and features an extra album of previously rare and unreleased music and comprehensive liner notes by esteemed Irish music journalist Colm O’ Callaghan.


2LP/2CD deluxe reissue featuring the singles ‘When We Were Young’, ‘We Don’t Need Nobody Else’ and ‘Twinkle’. Includes additional 10-track collection of b-sides and previously unreleased demos.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. Twinkle
2. When We Were Young
3. Tripped
4. The Honeymoon Is Over
5. We Don't Need Nobody Else
6. Blinded
7. Personality
8. Users
9. Fiction
10. Morning Rise

Disc: 2
1. When We Were Young (Philo Version)
2. I Am God
3. Magnolia
4. Caroline Says II
5. Tripped (Live)
6. We Don't Need Nobody Else (Acoustic Version)
7. Disappointed
8. Twinkle (Acoustic Version)
9. As The Day Goes
10. A Natural

“The Obvious I would sound unutterably pretty even as an instrumental album. But once you factor in a voice whose purity has elicited comparisons to Robert Wyatt, Mark Hollis and Dean Wareham, the effect is something akin to hearing a ghost transmitting from a machine of its own making” - Pete Paphides.

‘The Obvious I’ is the second album from Ed Dowie and is the second new master release from Needle Mythology. In 2017, Ed released his feted debut album ‘The Uncle Sold’, leading The Quietus to hail him as a “bold and starry-eyed visionary”, The Skinny to praise his “beautiful… stolen snapshots of glimpsed futures and lost pasts.” and BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction made the record one of their albums of the year. Now, four years on, Ed is to return with an album that will surely find him new followers alongside longtime fans such as Lauren Laverne, who described its predecessor as an “absolutely extraordinary” achievement.

Adhering to Kraftwerk’s maxim about achieving the maximum emotional impact by the most minimal means 'The Obvious I' marks a pronounced evolution from Dowie’s earlier music. Co-produced by pioneering British experimental musician and sometime member of Polar Bear “Leafcutter John” Burton what ultimately emerged from these efforts – and what reveals itself with successive plays – is a beguiling process of alchemy. Each song from The Obvious I is the culmination of a beautiful process of distillation. A crystal extracted from chaos. Tumult distilled into lullaby. “My biggest battle,” says Ed Dowie, “was to ask myself how I can make something that reflects the turbulence of this period without adding to it.” By that metric, and several more, The Obvious I is no small triumph.

TRACK LISTING

1. Then Send Them
2. The Obvious I
3. Red Stone
4. How Light I
5. Number Eight Wire
6. Under The Waves
7. Dear Florence
8. The Island
9. Robot Joy Army

2020 sees the thirtieth anniversary of the album that launched the solo career of sometime Go-Betweens frontman Robert Forster. Upon its release ‘Danger In The Past’ met with universal acclaim from critics, even drawing comparison with Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’ in some quarters. To mark this milestone, Needle Mythology will be reissuing expanded versions of both Danger In The Past and its 1992 successor ‘Calling From A Country Phone’. The re-release of these albums comes on the back of an incredible 2019 for Forster, in which he released an acclaimed studio album Inferno and received unanimous five star reviews for G Is For Go-Betweens Vol. 2, the second in a trilogy of box-sets gathering Go-Betweens studio albums and previously unreleased live recordings and outtakes. Forster himself has been fully involved on this expanded reissue contributing new liner notes and newly unearthed photographs. For Danger In The Past, Robert recorded in Berlin with an illustrious ensemble that included Bad Seeds alumni Mick Harvey (producer, multi-instrumentalist), Hugo Race (guitar) and Thomas Wydler (drums). BBC 6 Music’s Gideon Coe, described the record as "a beautiful, confident solo debut.” Of these new remasters, Needle Mythology co-founder Pete Paphides says, “The remastering (from Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios) has dramatically revealed a depth and physicality to these recordings that casts new light on Robert’s intentions for these records. 

TRACK LISTING

CD/LP:
1. Baby Stones
2. The River People
3. Leave Here Satisfied
4. Heart Out To Tender
5. Is This What You Call Change
6. Dear Black Dream
7. Danger In The Past
8. I've Been Looking For Somebody
9. Justice
10. The Land That Time Forgot
11. Falling Star (Original)

Bonus 7”:
1. The Land That Time Forgot
2. Falling Star (Original)

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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