With his new record Croak Dream, Puma Blue (real name Jacob Allen) returns to the spectral intimacy that first won him a cult following, now reimagined with the raw, instinctive energy of his live band. The album fuses lo-fi jazz balladry with jungle breaks, krautrock textures and trip-hop atmosphere, drawing comparisons to Portishead, Jeff Buckley, and D’Angelo.

Written in solitude and brought to life in collaboration, Croak Dream was conjured from tape loop sessions at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, co-produced and engineered by Sam Petts-Davies (The Smile, Frank Ocean) where the band improvised to fragments of Allen’s songs they’d never fully heard. The result is a dreamlike collage of baritone sax-drenched ballads and restless grooves: tender, feverish, and alive.

This record marks a daring evolution for Puma Blue, balancing bold sonic experimentation with raw emotional clarity, tailor-made for the stage.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully off-piste collection of gloomy missives and crackling unease, haunting vocals and woozy delay lines held together by Allen's perfectly imperfect vocals and impeccably rendered atmospheres. There aren't many RIYL's that would fit here, but there are certainly similarities to be drawn to Radiohead without stretching too much.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1 Desire
2 Mister Lost
3 Hold You
4 Croak Dream
5 Heaven Above, Hell Below

Side B
6 (Fool)
7 Hush
8 Jaded
9 Silently
10 Cocoons
11 Yearn Again

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds announce their new live album Live God, the stunning testament to The Wild God Tour, which wowed audiences across the UK, Europe and North America in 2024 and ‘25. Across 15 live tracks, the album captures the wildly transcendent nature of those unforgettable shows, which were, in Nick Cave’s own words, “an antidote to despair.”

The tracklist includes performances of songs from the acclaimed 2024 studio album Wild God, as well as mind-blowing versions of catalogue favourites, such as ‘From Her To Eternity’, ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’ and ‘Into My Arms’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Frogs
2. Wild God
3. O Children
4. From Her To Eternity
5. Long Dark Night
6. Cinnamon Horses
7. Tupelo
8. Conversion
9. Bright Horses
10. Joy
11. I Need You
12. Carnage
13. Red Right Hand
14. White Elephant
15. O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)
16. Papa Won’t Leave You Henry
17. Into My Arms
18. As The Waters Cover The Sea

Keaton Henson is shedding the “quiet boy” persona that has defined much of his career. Embracing the grunge-infused sounds of his youth on new album 'Parader', the elusive songwriter melds emotional darkness, melancholy, and seething frustration as he reckons with the hauntings of his past: “I was nervous about being too loud, but then it sort of just came out.”

What unravels across 'Parader’s 12 tracks is an introspective autopsy of time as it distorts and folds to inhabit the songwriter’s present. “There are these disjointed snapshots,” he shares, “memories across time popping up amongst this collection of thoughts about what it feels like to be this age and a musician.”

“Parader has legitimate confidence, it’s not me pretending to be anything I’m not,” Henson admits. “It’s maybe just me accepting that part of me is this. It's louder and it has those bigger, louder, rasher sounds, but not from a performative point of view. Maybe I'm accepting that that is a part of me as well.” As the record closes out, final track ‘Performer’ brings us full circle to the question of the album’s title – the two intrinsically linked. As he sings, “I’ll show my scars to you no matter who you are,” Henson acknowledges the emotional pains of being a musician in the public eye, with the relentless march of time a grudging ally in delivering his stories: “I am the parader. The person who parades around showing their wounds for a living.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t I Just
2. Insomnia
3. Lazy Magician (feat. Julia Steiner)
4. Past It
5. Conversation Coach
6. Furl (feat. Danielle Fricke)
7. Loose Ends
8. Operator
9. Tell Me So
10. Tourniquet
11. Day In New York
12. Performer

White Lies approached their seventh album, 'Night Light', with a fresh method: mastering the songs live before recording them. Inspired by the 1970s live-performance TV show The Midnight Special, the trio decided to rehearse and refine the tracks together in a room before entering the studio – a reversal of the process of finding the true spirit of songs only after touring them.

The band wrote much of the album in McVeigh’s London flat, opting for simplicity over gear-heavy setups. They focused on songwriting and chemistry, relying on their 17-year musical bond to shape the album’s energy. For the studio sessions, they recruited keyboardist Seth Evans, not just as support but as a creative collaborator. It was produced by Riley McIntyre and mixed by Chris Coady at The Church Studios, London.

During recording the band embraced a live, communal recording style, playing together to capture a raw, emotional sound. Tracks like ‘Nothing On Me’ and ‘All The Best’ show their musical boldness, while songs like ‘Everything Is OK’ and ‘Juice’ highlight their emotional depth and melodic strength.

'Night Light' spans progressive rock, disco, and synth-driven soundscapes, showing a band both confident and creatively energized. The
album closes with the pulsating ‘In The Middle’, showcasing their unity and matured artistry.

Now 16 years into their career, White Lies have fully embraced who they are as a band, delivering one of their most cohesive and inspired works to date. As McVeigh reflects, “We finally know what we’re doing.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Silky smooth synth-pop, snappy percussion loops and clipped, funky guitar stabs land White Lies somewhere between Everything Everything and the more gothy Horrors' outings.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nothing On Me
2. All The Best
3. Keep Up
4. Juice
5. Everything Is OK
6. Going Nowhere
7. Night Light
8. I Just Wanna Win One Time
9. In The Middle

'Volume V' follows on five years after their fourth album 'For Your Love', a record lovingly nurtured but then swallowed up by the Covid pandemic.

The title signifies the latest chapter in the ongoing story of Other Lives, their fifth record of magnificent musical and emotional depth. From the first notes of the opening track and lead single ‘Mystic’, it’s clear that the cinematic breadth of their arrangements and melodies had risen several dynamic notches, with a fuller orchestrated reach and more towering drama across the album’s eight songs and two instrumentals - evidence of the band’s hunger to keep progressing while retaining the essence of what makes Other Lives so unique and irresistible. 

The majority of 'Volume V' was recorded in The Sheerar, a former church that is now the Stillwater History Museum. The Sheerar’s acoustics partly accounts for the album’s more cathedral-esque take on Other Lives’ signature sound, which has the roots in a form of Americana but expanded via classical and post-classical forms, and the influence of iconic composers such as Ennio Morricone and Henry Mancini.  

Given the five-year gaps between the last three Other Lives albums, the band plan to follow up 'Volume V' more swiftly with a sixth and seventh chapter; a promise of more magic and magnificence to come. “I see 'Volume V' as the beginning of Other Lives’ second act,” Jesse concludes. “We’re all getting older, and we have some regrets about not putting out more music – so this might be our Neil Young phase! Releasing more music over a shorter space of time.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Mystic
2. Versailles
3. What’s It Gonna Take
4. Heading West
5. One For The Kids
6. Show Us Some Love
7. Outro
8. Cisa Cisa
9. Read My Mind
10. The Wake

Debut album from dynamic bicoastal duo Boo Boos (Katie Boo and Bronco Boo).

Katie Boo was born in a small coal-mining town in Ohio and was raised by the radio before moving to Brooklyn, NY and changing her name to Kate Mattison. The electricity of the city combined with her love of the heartland's soul music soon inspired Kate to start her band 79.5.  
 
Bronco Boo began life in a Washington, D.C. hospital and was promptly brought home to live on the wild prairies of the Northern Virginia suburbs. He changed his name to Mark Everett and then again to the letter “E” and formed the band EELS before deciding to go back to Bronco in 2025. 

While listening to radio station KCRW late one night in his adoptive town of Los Angeles, Bronco heard a song by 79.5 that he liked very much. When he was soon asked to make a playlist for Radio L'envie he put the song on it. This led to a verbal dialogue between the two artists that turned into a musical dialogue of ideas and songs sent back and forth between Brooklyn, NY and Los Feliz, CA. 
 
Feeling like they were onto something special, and realizing they were born with the same last name, they felt it would be silly not to record these songs, so they did. 
 
You are now holding a copy of the results of that musical dialogue. Or holding a device with a streaming platform that contains a playlist with the results of that musical dialogue. Or perhaps you are planning to borrow a copy down at the local library.  

TRACK LISTING

1. That’s Not A Thing
2. Stumbled
3. C’mon Baby
4. The Toughest Bitch I Know
5. Chicken In A Molehill
6. Gal Pal
7. Boo Boo Time
8. Total Thunder
9. Strange Morning
10. Intro And Outros
11. As The Sky Breaks (For You)
12. Nightly Content

International Rock Sensation The Hives, the best live band on the planet and still your new favourite band, lauded on all continents for their masterful skill and reckless abandon in the rock music field, have once again, sooner than you expected, created a new body of work the likes of which have never been heard or indeed probably will again.

A new record so full of energy, joy, anger and life that you will be questioning reality as you have known it.

They finally did it. Every single song a single, every single single a hit, every hit a direct hit in the face of the man.

This long playing music album, consisting of thirteen pieces of music was crafted with commitment, abandon and skill in Sweden in cohorts with the esteemed producers Pelle Gunnerfeldt and Mike D of Beastie Boys.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A blast of beautifully produced, energetically delivered punky indie music from The Hives. Dynamic time signatures, perfectly placed breakdowns and roaring instrumentals, reminiscent of their lo-fi heyday but with a triumphant, jubilant undertone. Great fun.

TRACK LISTING

1. (Introduction)
2. Enough Is Enough
3. Hooray Hooray Hooray
4. Bad Call
5. Paint A Picture
6. O.C.D.O.D
7. Legalize Living
8. (Interlude)
9. Roll Out The Red Carpet
10. Born A Rebel
11. They Can’t Hear The Music
12. Path Of Most Resistance
13. The Hives Forever Forever The Hives

Five years after her critically acclaimed album ‘forevher’, Shura is back with her highly anticipated third studio album ‘I Got Too Sad For My Friends’. A pastoral blend of chamber pop, sixties folk and campfire Americana, it builds Shura’s introspective songwriting out into a vast landscape – more tranquil than the soulful bounce of ‘forevher’, and more rustic than the brooding synth-pop of her 2016 debut ‘Nothing’s Real’.

That landscape is both sonically comforting and representative of her headspace during the writing process, which was one of sadness and isolation. The itinerant emotional state is mirrored in the artwork, which sees Shura perched on a Welsh mountainside in a baggy jumper, ripped jeans, Converse, and cobbled-together armour that covers everything except her vital organs – part Kurt Cobain, part Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet. The image references the French novella The Little Prince, which follows a young boy who sets out to explore other planets to cure his loneliness.
Though it’s an album exploring themes of depression and loneliness, ‘I Got Too Sad For My Friends’ is far from dejected it retains Shura’s usual crystalline sound and precision while introducing a different kind of warmth and earthiness.

Approached like an “old school record” that captures a performance rather than a production, much of the album was recorded live, with the keys, bass, guitar, and drums all tracked as a single performance. The vocals were done separately – with the exception of soft funk track 'Ringpull'.

The decision to explore a wider breadth of instruments for the first time came from a sense of urgency that was, in part, prompted by the pandemic. “It made me think: this could be over at any minute. I could never get to make a record again. I could never tour again. So my approach to this record was like, if I never get to do this again, what do I want to make sure I've done? I want to record live. I want to work with textures I've never worked with before. I want to dress up as a gnome bard knight and climb a mountain in Wales, regret it, and have no one else to blame except for myself because I'm freezing,” she laughs. “So even though it’s not necessarily a maximalist record in terms of how it sounds, the approach was maximal joy for me making it… which is hilarious, because it's about being miserable!”

TRACK LISTING

1. Tokyo
2. Leonard Street
3. Recognise
4. World’s Worst Girlfriend
5. Richardson (ft. Cassandra Jenkins)
6. America
7. Online
8. I Wanna Be Loved By You
9. Ringpull
10. If You Don’t Believe In Love (ft. Helado Negro)
11. Bad Kid (ft. Becca Mancari)

Anja Plaschg alias Soap&Skin has always had a special talent for reinterpreting songs with her own unique approach. When the Donau-Festival invited her in 2022 to perform all the cover songs she had composed over the years, she came up with the idea of a permanent collection - which will now be released as the album 'TORSO'. Previous albums "'arrow' (2012) and 'From Gas to Solid / You Are My Friend' (2018) also featured covers without being immediately recognized as such. Simply because “it feels good to escape from myself”, says Plaschg. She likes covers - quite literally as a disguise and hiding place.

For example, she first recorded the radio hit 'Voyage, Voyage', originally by Desireless, in 2011 for the soundtrack to Sebastian Meise's film Stillleben. Since then, it has been part of her live repertoire and has grown with her over the years. On 'TORSO' it finds its place as a lifetime version.The first single, the album opener 'Mystery of Love', originally released by Sufjan Stevens, rearranged with French horn and trombone, admits us delicately into the sound world of 'TORSO'. The lyric video released with the single also visually refers to the album artwork. The Oscar- and Grammy-nominated song originally appeared exclusively in 2017 on the soundtrack of the coming-of-age drama and indie hit film Call Me By Your Name by Luca Guadagnino, with lyrics that allude to the very special, intimate relationship between the film characters Elio and Oliver.

“I hear a song,” adds Anja, “and feel there's something else I'd like to add. Then I don't listen to the original. Sometimes not for years. I record the songs from memory.” So she hasn't heard The Doors' 'The End' for over seven years now. An old favorite song, a little time capsule. Similar to Shirley Bassey's 'Born To Lose'.

Other new interpretations are Cat Power's 'Maybe Not', David Bowie's 'Girl Loves Me', Tom Waits' 'Johnsburg, Illinois', Janis Ian's 'Stars' and 'Pale Blue Eyes' by The Velvet Underground among others. The strongest transformation, however, was certainly the digital bonus track, Plaschg's version of Lana Del Rey's 'Gods & Monsters'. If Lana Del Rey still wants “fame” and “liquor” and that “slowly” in 2012, Soap&Skin sings: “fame and liquor?”, “that is nothing holy.” And sunny lethargy turns into an experimental and mysterious electro soundscape. The twelve songs on 'TORSO' were recorded in Vienna by an ensemble under Anja's direction. “For the first time,” she says, “it's actually more my style to assemble the music in a safe space, alone at home, from previously recorded samples.” Still, maybe what is created collaboratively must be recorded collaboratively too.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mystery Of Love
2. God Yu Tekem Laef Blong Mi
3. Born To Lose
4. Maybe Not
5. Voyage, Voyage
6. Johnsburg, Illinois
7. Girl Loves Me
8. Stars
9. Pale Blue Eyes
10. What’s Up?
11. The End

Exactly two years after ‘Ha Ha Heartbreak’, Warhaus, the solo project of Maarten Devoldere, returns with a fourth studio album ‘Karaoke Moon’. Those who remember the heart-wrenching atmospheres of the previous album will be surprises by the opener of ‘Karaoke Moon’, the first single ‘Where The Names Are Real’.

Devoldere had more than 50 songs on the shelf after two years of disciplined monk-like work. What did the producer say when he submitted those demos? ‘You can do better’. With time, Devoldere has learnt that it pays off to trust the right people, and by right people he means producer Jasper Maekelberg. The two musical soulmates spent nine months together in a close-knit collaboration in an attic studio in Bruges. The result is the most exciting Warhaus album to date.

In 'Karaoke Moon', Warhaus plays with our modern views on masculinity. With subtle humour, he smoothly sidesteps discomfort, poking fun at himself and his kind with double-edged wit. Quite often, it seems like Devoldere is shadowboxing with his own thoughts, juggling the concoctions of his subconscious. But dark soul-searching is not all of it. Evidence of this is the stunner ‘No Surprise’, initially a pumping disco track in the demo version, but transformed by Jasper Maekelberg into a sultry nightclub tune. The contrasts in Karaoke Moon makes this album grow with each listen, seducing the listener to delve deeper, layer after layer, line by line into Warhaus’ unique universe.

TRACK LISTING

1. Where The Names Are Real
2. No Surprise
3. What Goes Up
4. Jim Morrison
5. Jacky N.
6. Zero One Code
7. Hands Of A Clock
8. The Winning Numbers
9. I Want More
10. Emely

The twelfth of her studio albums, 'Lemons, Limes, and Orchids' is a crowning showcase of Joan's voice in all its metamorphic splendour.

“I was ready to make an album that truly featured my voice. The basics were recorded like they used to be- with me singing live along with the band. My good friend said told me this is the sexiest album I’ve ever made. Honestly, I think she’s right.”

The record is a nocturne about love and loss — what else is there? — and a reckoning with our collective disorientation, part hymn to holding on and part benediction of letting go.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Dream
2. Full-Time Heist
3. Back Again
4. With Hope In My Breath
5. Long For Ruin
6. Started Off Free
7. Remember The Voice
8. Oh Joan
9. Lemons, Limes And Orchids
10. Tribute To Holding On
11. Safe To Say
12. Help Is On It’s Way

In 'Cape Forestier', Angus and Julia Stone express their extraordinary journey through heartfelt songs, emphasizing the universal language of music that feels like home to them. The concept of home has evolved beyond a physical place for Angus and Julia, becoming a deeper connection that grew from their shared musical experiences. Julia reflecis on how creating music brings them peace, acting as a common language that transcends the complexities of life.

The duo's musical journey has taken them across the globe, from childhood beginnings to record deals in London, collaborations with Rick Rubin in LA, and the establishment of a studio in the hinterlands of NSW

'Cape Forestier' serves as a narrative from the hearts and minds of Angus and Julia Stone. Each song unfolds as a different page in their storybook, covering themes from love stones to societal observations. Regardless of labels like folky, acoustic, or indie-rock, the siblings prioritize authenticity over stylistic choices.

The album features tracks like 'Cape Forestier,' 'Losing You,' 'The Wedding Song,' and 'County Sign,' each showcasing the duo's inherent musicality. Angus and Julia Stone acknowledge that this is their most stripped-back album, returing to their roots whlle incorporating the branches of experence gained over the years.

Despite their modesty about their talents, they are of everything good and natural about song writing, as they seem to constantly capture the essence of honest music. Angus and Julia recognize the charm of their innocence in earlier records. However, they also acknowledge their present curiosity and naivety in the face of the world's mysteries, traits evident in 'Cape Forestier'. Through their unspoken connection, they continue to speak the same language, reaffirming the timeless and universal power of music in their lives.

TRACK LISTING

1. Losing You
2. Down To The Sea
3. My Little Anchor
4. Cape Forestier
5. County Sign
6. City Of Lights
7. No Boat No Aeroplane
8. The Wedding Song
9. I Want You
10. Somehow
11. Sitting In Seoul
12. The Wonder Of You

The arrival of Teething invites you to take a leap beyond seeing dance music as a genre, built from this type of kick or that type of snare, and instead as its own dimension: a place you can escape to. It pays homage to the language of sounds on the dancefloor which have encouraged generations to feel, not to think. While, lyrically, the record delves into the tangle of lived experience, musically, it will free you from it.

Since the beginning, Porij had self-produced, self-mixed and entirely self-made their music, and even after having signed to [PIAS], the record was still incubated in their bedrooms where they would sit together for hours giving colour, shape and texture to this new world. It was only then that they enlisted legendary producer David Wrench, famed for his work with era-defining artists including Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs and The XX. His mentorship allowed Teething to transform their music from a live-angled proposition to something folded in the arms of pop.

Vocalist and keyboardist Scout Moore (Egg), bassist James Middleton, guitarist Jacob Maguire and drummer Nathan Carroll are armed with hard-won experience, strengthened bonds and a renewed sense of passion. Their debut album Teething is both a coming-of-age story and a bottling of the particular magic that is unmistakably – and definitively – Porij.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A syrup-smooth mix of airy Balearic beats and euphoric house-tinged synth-pop. Texturally varied, but without straying too far from dreamy front-room electronica or drifting dancefloor grooves.

TRACK LISTING

1. Marmite
2. Unpredictable
3. Don’t Talk To Me
4. Endlessly Waiting
5. My Only Love
6. Ghost
7. Stranger
8. Sweet Risk
9. Gutter Punch
10. You Should Know Me
11. Slow Down

'Up To The Glass' is a delicate exploration of finding yourself in your twenties against a backdrop of love, self-acceptance and loss. Morgan Harper-Jones explores her emotions through confessional narratives and soaring dream-pop soundscapes on her debut album. Quickly becoming one of the UKs most exciting new voices, featuring four tracks in the global #1 Netflix film 'Love At First Sight' at the end of 2023 at reaching #8 in the global Shazam charts.

“My favourite moments in other people’s songs are where it feels like someone has just reached through the speaker or headphones and grabbed my hand and said: ‘Hey don’t worry, you’re normal – I feel that too.’ I hope above anything else that my songs can be that for someone else too.”

The idea that writing & distilling my own (sometimes overwhelming) emotions and experiences into a 3 minute moment might bring someone some comfort, help someone feel or express something, understand themselves more deeply or just feel like they aren’t alone is really the most important motivation for me to share what I’m writing.” - Morgan Harper-Jones

TRACK LISTING

1. Swimming Upstream
2. Boombox
3. Leaves
4. Alone With You
5. Main Character
6. Forever For Now
7. Lose A Tooth
8. Joshua
9. Little Avalanches
10. 2D
11. Amelia
12. Easy

The concept behind LIGHT+ was simple: to give fans a fresh definition of Crystal Fighters by returning to their core values. As a result, their new album is packed with ideas – from rave workouts to tropical pop, from hints of cumbia to delicious pop melodies. "More light. More positivity. More clarity. We all need more hope in our lives.” Crystal Fighters are like a burst of light in the darkness – soon the sun will be coming up, and the party can begin.

TRACK LISTING

1. We Got Hope
2. Carolina
3. Manifest
4. Multiverse
5. Love X3
6. End The Suffering
7. Tranquilo
8. Hold Me
9. Search
10. Let Me Go

Consolidated is an American collective, formed in San Francisco in 1988. They were notable for their left-wing political activism and politically radical lyrics, as well as their innovative sound collages that blended industrial, hiphop, hard rock and funk music. Their music often focused on vegetarianism, women's rights, animal rights, the fight against racism and homophobia, unity of oppression, World War II and the Holocaust, plus the dangers of capitalism and the evils of American nationalism. Adam Sherburne, Mark Pistel and Philip Steir have embodied a unique creative vision in search of knowledge that will enable them to improve the quality of their lives and those around them.

TRACK LISTING

1. You Suck
2. Tool And Die
3. Guerillas In The Mist
4. Unity Of Oppression (Original Mix)
5. Friendly Fascism
6. Brutal Equation

The new album by Quantic aka multi instrumentalist, DJ, composer and producer Will Holland is in many ways an evolution. Now 20 years into his career, ‘Dancing While Falling’ is the British born New York based artist’s most live sounding, euphoric and, in his own words, grown up release to date.

Predominantly recorded at his own Brooklyn studio, Selva, Quantic’s initial idea for his new album was to experiment sonically. However, after a while, he changed direction and realised that the record needed to also relate to the human condition not just his “singular pandemic wormhole”. The demos, then, started off as symphonic, loosely disco era dance music a departure from his previous Latin and Spanish instrumental releases. Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco leaning album at first. “I’m really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco,” he says.

TRACK LISTING

1. Run (feat. Andreya Triana
2. Subway Lover
3. Stand Up
4. Unconditional (feat. Rationale)
5. Get In The Ride (feat. Connie Constance)
6. Brooklyn Heat (feat. Andreya Triana
7. Emeralds
8. Morning Light (feat. Andreya Triana)
9. Tikurin
10. Where The Flowers Grow (feat. Andreya Triana)

The three-way ‘Los Angeles’ collaboration was born out of a curiosity which just wouldn’t die. Made up of two of the most illustrious and inventive drummers of the post-punk era, The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst, and Budgie from Siouxsie & The Banshees and The Creatures, along with stellar producer and multi-instrumentalist Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee, this unlikely alt-supergroup have spent the last four years spiriting up one of the most extraordinary albums to appear in 2023.

Perusing the tracklist, with its guest credits for, amongst others, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, Bobby Gillespie, Civil Rights avant-gardist Lonnie Holley, Starcrawler wildchild Arrow de Wilde and The Edge from U2, you may rightly wonder just what the 13-track long-player holds in store.

The answer: a hard-hitting and compulsively exploratory 55-minute electronic mindscrew, founded on unrivalled rhythmic expertise, fleshed out with an armoury of synths, guitars (Jacknife’s forte) and supplementary percussion, often overlaid with elite-class strings and brass, then universally twisted, manipulated and quite masterfully sculpted by Lee, with his super-producer’s hat on.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Absolutely bonkers how stacked with talent this LP is! With guest spots from James Murphy and Bobby Gillespie, this supergroup odyssey from Tolhurst, Budgie and Jacknife is an eclectic collection of rhythmic set-pieces that have plenty to show-off!

TRACK LISTING

This Is What It Is (To Be Free) (with Bobby Gillespie)
Los Angeles (with James Murphy)
Uh Oh (with Arrow De Wilde And Mark Bowen)
Ghosted At Home (with Bobby Gillespie)
Train With No Station (with The Edge)
Bodies (with Lonnie Holley And Mary Lattimore)
Everything And Nothing
Travel Channel (with Pan Amsterdam)
Country Of The Blind (with Bobby Gillespie)
The Past (Being Eaten)
We Got To Move (with Isaac Brock)
Noche Oscura (with The Edge)
Skins (with James Murphy)

The Swiss trio The Young Gods were created in 1985 under the leadership of Franz Treichler. Desiring to go against the tide of conventional rock music with a radical aesthetic proposal. The bet had been won right from the outset with the first eponymous album that released the success of being voted record of the year by Melody Maker. It was not until 1992, their album Tv Sky, finally achieved an international breakthrough. We must take into account the innovative constancy of the Young Gods and their mastery of the elements.

TRACK LISTING

1. L’amourir
2. Pas Mal
3. Gasoline Man (Megadrive Mix)
4. Skinflowers
5. Kissing The Sun

Mark Thomas Griffin, better known as MC 900 FT JESUS, is an American rapper based in Dallas, Texas. A classically trained musician and trumpeter, Griffin is known for mixing hip hop and jazz. Griffin's work has often been seen as way ahead of its time with socially responsible lyrics tinged with quirky biting humour. Griffin's use of rap, electro and cool jazz (he often plays like Miles Davis) is perhaps why his title "Falling Elevators" was chosen to illustrate an ad for the 501 Levi's brand which achieved great success

TRACK LISTING

1. Falling Elevators
2. City Sleeps
3. Killer Inside Me (Killer Long Version)
4. Truth Is Out Of Style (12’’ Version)
5. I’m Going Straigth To Hell
6. Born With Monkey Ass (12’’ Version)

Nation of Language announce the release of their new album, Strange Disciple. Out September 15th on Play It Again Sam, following performances at Primavera Sound, Pitchfork Festival, Outside Lands and dozens more of their biggest headline shows to date, the Brooklyn band’s third LP is one that is meant to invoke wandering, wondrous walks through city streets both foreign and familiar. In the three short years since their acclaimed debut, 2020’s Introduction, Presence, Nation of Language have sustained an increasing ascent from small, hyperlocal scenes to international stages and late-night television, while their musical evolution has embodied three distinct modes of moving through the world: lead singer and songwriter Ian Devaney imagines the band’s first album, Introduction, Presence, as taking place in a car, whereas second album A Way Forward occurred on and as a locomotive, influenced by the chugging sound of krautrock. Now, as their first record to be fully created and released outside the confines of a pandemic-instilled lockdown, Strange Disciple is centred around groove-driven songs and bouncing basslines that feel ambulatory and wayfaring, informed by the excitement of exploring new places the band never thought they would see on tour.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's easy to hear a lot of influence here, the echoic vocals of Tears For Fears, or the percussive skitter of OMD, but all rendered in Nation Of Language's own unique indie-rock palette. Arm-raising balladry and slowly building walls of sound, pieced together arp by arp.

TRACK LISTING

Weak In Your Light
Sole Obsession
Surely I Can't Wait
Swimming In The Shallow Sea
Too Much, Enough
Spare Me The Decision
Sightseer
Stumbling Still
A New Goodbye
I Will Never Learn

This expanded edition of the third album by Anna of the North includes 3 new tracks, ‘Swirl’, ‘Try My Best’, and ‘Ridin’ which do not feature on the original digital album. Also includes the singles ‘Meteorite’ feat. Gus Dapperton, and ‘I Do You’.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Bird Sing
2. I Do You
3. Nobody
4. Listen
5. Living Life Right
6. Red Light
7. No Good Without U

SIDE B
1. Dandelion
2. Meteorite
3. 60 Seconds
4. Let Go
5. Swirl
6. Ridin
7. Try My Best

Channel Zero is a band from Brussels formed in 1990 by Franky "DSVD" De Smet Van Damme, Xavier Carion, Tino De Martino and Phil Baheux. Their name came from an American rap song by the group Public Enemy called "She watch Channel Zero?". Inspired in its beginnings by Metallica and more generally by the thrash movement of the 90s. Play It Again Sam signed the group in 1994 and produced its third album Unsafe. This album allows them to make themselves known in the States, to perform in major European festivals and to be the headliner on a tour in Australia

TRACK LISTING

1. Suck My Energy
2. Heroin
3. Help
4. Black Fuel’
5. Fools Parade

The Cassandra Complex are a British electronic rock band formed in Leeds in 1980 by Rodney Orpheus, Paul Dillon and Andy Booth. Its name refers to Cassandra syndrome. Over the years, the band's sound has included elements of EBM, industrial rock, gothic rock, dark wave, new wave and synthpop, and the band's style has been described as a mix between Joy Division, Ramones and Kraftwerk. Their albums “Theomania” or “Satan, Bugs Bunny and Me” are considered as “classics” of the genre.

TRACK LISTING

1. One Millionth Happy Customer (Ebm Mix)
2. The War Against Sleep
3. Night Fall
4. What Can I Do For You?
5. (In Search Of) Penny Century
6. Give Me What I Need

Tiga (Tiga Sontag) is an electronic music DJ, producer-composer, and performer from Montreal. Before producing music, Tiga was involved in rave parties in his hometown, he was also involved in the establishment of the after-party club SONA. Known for his remixes of Tomas Andersson, Scissor Sisters, or even Felix da Housecat, he made his own compositions such as the hit You Gonna Want Me. His album Sexor quickly became one of the references of electronic music. He also participates in many electronic music festivals. He is part of the generation of artists who strongly mark a return to new wave in electronic music.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mind Dimension 2
2. Mindi Dimension (Ben Sterling Remix)

Two years after ‘Monument’, Keaton Henson comes back with a new studio album, ‘House Party’. About the album, Keaton says : “I wanted to make an upbeat confident pop record about depression and being a performer, written from the viewpoint of an artist who has hollowed himself out over a long career in the name of success, an alternate universe version of me (the guy in the pink suit), who is left empty and lonely from climbing to the top, but is still only able to express these feelings in the language of confident, performative pop songs.”

Henson says that once he knew he was making a pop album, something inside him was allowed to run free. The stakes were somehow lowered. Take, for instance, the blissfully bleary ache of Envy one of several choruses on the record that resound in your head long after the needle reaches the runout groove. Henson says that when he wrote the song, he was trying to channel the fist pumping triumphalism of Britpop. However, that’s not something altogether apparent to anyone listening to the song. What you hear instead is perhaps something closer to the tender consolation songs of Teenage Fanclub. It’s almost as if, in this parallel world, the guy in the pink suit arrestingly depicted on the sleeve of House Party by acclaimed figurative artist Tristan Pigott is starting to fall apart before real life Keaton has fully clocked it.

TRACK LISTING

1. I’m Not There
2. Rain In My Favourite House
3. Envy
4. The Meeting Place
5. Two Bad Teeth
6. Stay
7. Late To You
8. Parking Lot
9. Holiday
10. The Mine
11. Hooray
12. Hide Those Feelings

The Weathermen are a humorous electronic duo based in Belgium. Trained by Jean Marc Lederman and Bruce Geduldig, Tuxedomoon's visual specialist. They are gradually moving away from electronic "alternative dance" music towards a more slightly satirical pop EBM music. In 1987 their hit "Poison" caught the attention of a wider audience.

TRACK LISTING

A1. POISON!
A2. BANG!
A3. BARBI AND KEN
B1. LET THEM COME TO BERLIN
B2. DEEP DOWN SOUTH
B3. OLD FRIEND SAM

Kerala Dust was formed in London in 2016. Growing up on the sounds of CAN, The Velvet Underground and Tom Waits while spending blurry mornings in nightclubs, the band combines those disparate influences of psychedelic rock, blues and techno into one.

Kerala Dust are Edmund Kenny on vocals/electronics Harvey Grant on keys Lawrence Howarth on guitar. Their live performances are a constant conversation around the sounds from the studio. Pieces are re-interpreted, looped, dismantled, and put back together again.

Since first touring in 2017, Kerala Dust have played over 150 international shows in the USA, Europe, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Dom. Republic and many more countries. Events such as DGTL (Tel Aviv), Dockville (Hamburg), Lightning in a Bottle (California), Kater Blau (Berlin), Tropico (Mexico), Sonar (Barcelona) are but a few in a long list of festivals and nightclubs that Kerala Dust have played in only a couple of years.

TRACK LISTING

1. Moonbeam, Midnight, Howl
2. Violet Drive
3. Shake
4. Red Light
5. Pulse VI
6. Jacob' Gun
7. Salt
8. Still There
9. Nuove Variazionidi Una Stanza
10. Future Visions
11. Engel's Machine
12. Fine Della Scena

In the first two decades of the 21st century, few have controlled the cultural weather quite like Stephen and David Dewaele. The Dewaeles are familiar to millions as 2manydjs, a project which undoubtedly moved the needle for modern DJing. In 2002, after a string of creative broadcasts on radio while still known primarily as a rock band, they released As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2.

This was a mix so giddy, creative, genre-blurring and downright fun that it could only be considered equal to a full-length album – which is exactly what happened, tallying Album of the Year and Album of the Decade accolades from the likes of The New York Times, Spin, The Face, Pitchfork and more, and shifting over half a million copies globally.

As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2 is now reissued featuring Richard Young’s iconic original photography. To celebrate this 20th anniversary, 2manydjs will perform at London’s Brixton Academy on Saturday December 17th alongside Miss Kittin, Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul and other 2002-specific special guests to be announced.

The Belgian brothers-in-arms are also known to many as electronic/indie rock band Soulwax, the adored group whose combination of rock, rave and gleaming white suits has proved irresistible to record buyers and festival-goers from the 1990s to the present day.

Through their Ghent-based studio and record label Deewee, the Dewaeles continue to push cutting-edge electronic music, including Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul’s infectious Topical Dancer, one of 2022’s most celebrated electronic pop albums. They have also kept up a hot streak as remixers, applying their signature jagged-yet-refined electro touch to the likes of Róisín Murphy, Peggy Gou, Robyn, Sylvester, Fontaines D.C., Wet Leg and Marie Davidson. Despacio, the roving audiophile soundsystem which the Dewaeles undertake alongside LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, completes the picture.

Alongside like-minded allies such as Erol Alkan, Tiga and Jacques lu Cont, 2manydjs swept dancefloors into delirium, gifting a rock ‘n’ roll attitude to club culture. With As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2 as their genre-blurring calling card, the Dewaeles’ unique style managed to be deeply credible and hugely scalable, propelling the brothers to dance music’s summit, a vantage point from which they never came back down.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: I’m not joking. In 2002 (the year this was released), this was THE mixtape to be seen with. Period. Infact, your very success with the opposite / same sex depended largely on whether you had this (at the time) bootleg CD-R in your collection. It got hammered so much we all knew the tracklist and running order off by heart. It introduced us then-teenagers to the joys of the mash-up, and propelled a then-burgeoning David and Stephen Dewaele into the ears of the youth, the dancefloors of the (young) adults, and the columns of the hottest music press at the time. It was and still is quite a phenomenal landmark in music culture. Referenced a million times over and played even more so.

I’ve never seen it on vinyl. Ever. Whether that’s my own ignorance, turning my back on my teenage dreams as I matured into adulthood or, as it happens, it’s actually quite rare! (it’s the latter – I just checked at the 2012 press goes for about £200!).

It’s still the ultimate soundtrack to get ready for your Saturday night. Capturing that youthful energy and hitting us with hit after hit presented in the most unusual and infectious ways. Unfortunately it’s unlikely to piss yer parents off as much as it did in 2002 cos they probably already know it!

TRACK LISTING

Kylie Minogue – Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Soulwax
Elektronic Remix) * CD Only
Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Peter Gunn (Live)
Basement Jaxx – Where’s Your Head At (Head-A-Pella)
Peaches – Fuck The Pain Away
The Velvet Underground – I’m Waiting For The Man
Polyester – J’aime Regarder Les Mecs
Sly And The Family Stone – Dance To The Music
Ready For The World – Oh Sheila (A Capella)
Dakar & Grinser – I Wanna Be Your Dog
Ural 13 Diktators – Disko Kings
Bobby Orlando – The “O” Medley
Felix Da Housecat – Silverscreen-Shower Scene
The Stooges – No Fun
Salt ‘N Pepa – Push It
Hanayo With Jürgen Paape – Joe Le Taxi
The Jets – Crush On You (A Capella)
Funkacise Gang – Funkacise
Soul Grabber – Motocross Madness
Lil Louis And The World – French Kiss
Zongamin – Serious Trouble
Garbage – Androgyny ‘Thee Glitz Mix’ By Felix Da Housecat
Frank Delour – Disc Jockey’s Delight Vol. 2
The Residents – Kaw-Liga (Prairie Mix)
Carlos Morgan – Shake Your Body
Alphawezen – Into The Stars (Firebirds Remix)
Interstellar – Concepts
Nena – 99 Luftballons
Destiny’s Child – Independent Women Part 1 (A Capella)
10cc – Dreadlock Holiday
Dolly Parton – 9 To 5
Royksopp – Eple
Arbeid Adelt – Death Disco
Jeans Team – Keine Melodien Feat. Mj Lan
Skee.Lo – I Wish (A Capella)
Maurice Fulton Presents Stress – My Gigolo
The Breeders – Cannonball
The Cramps – Human Fly
The Wildbunch – Danger! High Voltage
Op:l Bastards – Don’t Bring Me Down
Adult – Hand To Phone
Vitalic – La Rock 01
Queen Of Japan – I Was Made For Loving You
New Order – The Beach
Detroit Grand Pubahs – Sandwiches (A Capella)
Lords Of Acid – I Sit On Acid (Soulwax Remix)
Streamer Feat. Private Thoughts In Public Places – Start Button

Lykke Li returns with her fifth studio album EYEYE. The LP is an eight track story about lust, attraction, attachment, and rejection; the landscape of love. The songs are inhabited by moving images that neither start nor end. Each film functions as a visual loop, concise as a haiku, yet continuing in perpetuity. The result is a somatic, repetitious experience. Compounding chapters between a dream and reality.

Lykke Li creates connection with the depth of emotion in her lyrics and her consistency has made her an iconic staple in music with a decade spanning career having created her own lane when it comes to genre and songwriting. In addition to selling out shows across the world, she has performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Conan, Jools Holland, and received praise from The New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, The Fader, Complex, Rolling Stone and more. Last year, Lykke featured on Mark Ronson’s critically acclaimed single “Late Night Feelings” and joined him for a live performance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Outside of music, she starred in the Terrence Malick film Song to Song and also co-founded the female owned Yola Mezcal brand, which brought the inaugural all-female music and arts festival Yola Día to Los Angeles and featured performances from Megan Thee Stallion, Cat Power, and Courtney Love.

TRACK LISTING

1. No Hotel
2. You Don't Go Away
3. Highway To Your Heart
4. Happy Hurts
5. Carousel
6. 5D
7. Over
8. Ü&I

It has been half a decade since Warhaus, the brainchild of Maarten Devoldere (Balthazar), suddenly conquered our musical hearts with the triumphant double victory of We Fucked a Flame into Being (2016) and Warhaus (2017). The songs of the brandnew album Ha Ha Heartbreak came gushing out if him in a mere three weeks in the sultry city of Palermo. All Devoldere needed was the solitude of a hotel room, a guitar, a microphone, and a heart that had recently been broken in thousands of pieces. The sorrow was hard to handle, so, of course, Sicily was an escape. But as it goes, those who try to outrun life quickly run into themselves. Song after song, Maarten Devoldere dismantles his own pose. He looks at himself without mercy and, honestly, what he sees doesn’t exactly make him happy. The sound, however, remains wonderfully light. It swings and glows with tantalizing strings, sensual backing vocals, horns, playful piano parts, anything to lighten the load. It allows Ha Ha Heartbreak to be a moving emotional exploration as well as a vessel of great musical richness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Open Window
2. When I Am With You
3. It Had To Be You
4. Time Bomb
5. Desire
6. I’ll Miss You Baby
7. Mondello’s Melody
8. Batteries & Toys
9. Shadow Play
10. Best I Ever Had

Watford born indie-rock goddess Connie Constance announces her new album, ‘Miss Power’, a bold collection of songsimbued with high voltage drums, snarling guitar riffs, and anthemic feminist rage. On ‘Miss Power’, Connie takes us on a joyride through dramatic, passionate and empowering scenes with hooks aplenty and lyrics that excitedly unpick heartbreak, Connie’s strained relationship with her father and her struggles with mental health. Connie’s titular and much-acclaimed first single from her new album, ‘Miss Power’ earned itself a spot on the BBC Radio 1 C-list as well as being named Hottest Record by Radio 1’s Clara Amfo.

The album announcement comes alongside the release of a new single, ‘Till the World’s Awake’, a life-affirming indie dance track that twinkles with bright, layered guitars atop driving basslines and powerful drums. Connie Constance’s dynamic yet delicate vocals swell to a thrilling, cathartic chorus: ‘When we are young and when we get older / I want to feel like loving, feel like loving you’. Connie’s venture into the world as her authentic self is palpable.

TRACK LISTING

1. In The Beginning
2. Till The World’s Awake
3. Miss Power
4. Never Get To Love
5. Mood Hoover
6. Heavyweight Champion
7. Hurt You
8. Kamikaze
9. Home
10. YUCK!
11. Blank Canvas
12. Red Flag

The frontman and creative lynchpin of Oklahoma’s finest, Other Lives, described by MOJO magazine as “the next must have American pastoral sensation,” Jesse and his chief collaborator Kim Tabish used their time during lockdown to fashion a glorious record, as epic as it is intimate, distinguished by the same sweeping, cinematic arrangements and haunting, wistful melodies that typify the band’s catalogue, but with a rawer edge that reflects its’ home made origins.

“The album isn’t necessarily ‘western’ sounding; it’s more that, if I name something immediately, it sticks for me, so the album title stayed Cowboy Ballads.” The album’s ballads are represented by ‘New Love’, ‘Price In Full’, ‘Rituals II’ and the instrumentals ‘Italia Nite I’ and ‘Dread Harp Blues’, simmering episodes fit for a cowboy as he rides off into the sunset though few cowboys post the existential thoughts that Jesse does here.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cowboy Ballad
2. Da DA
3. Italia Nite I
4. Manchini
5. Bells And Whistles
6. Dread Harp Blues
7. New Love
8. Castro
9. Keep You Right
10. Price In Full
11. Fantastik
12. Halloween Day
13. Mystic I
14. Rituals I I

Liverpool four piece Courting return with their much anticipated debut album ‘Guitar Music’ out on September 23 rd . The new album comes on the heels of Courting’s 2021 debut EP ‘Grand National’, which saw them earn plaudits across a wide array of media for their boisterous whip smart lyrics and angular instrumentation. 

Whilst the album follows closely on the back of the EP, the new material sees the band making a marked step in a new direction, exploring more dynamically expressive songwriting than ever before.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cosplay / Twin Cities
2. Tennis
3. Loaded
4. Famous
5. Crass (Redux)
6. Jumper
7. Uncanny Valley Forever
8. PDA

Nation of Language release a limited edition 7” single covering the classic single ‘Androgynous’ by The Replacements. Presenting an entirely reimagined interpretation, Nation of Language have delivered an 80s new wave production built on playful synths and punctuating drum programming. Ian Devaney’s vocals bring the unmistakable Nation of Language take on contemporary indie electronic which they are growing to define. The B-side is a new Nation of Language recording called Again & Again which is released for the first time on this 7”.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Androgynous
B1. Again & Again

After spending a few nights in a beautiful old castle near Brussels at the start of 2021 (following lockdown), Belgian art-poppers Balthazar returned from their stay with Sand Castle Tapes, a documentary and live concert filmed by Heleen Declercq and co-produced with HolyShit sessions. They released Sand Castle Tapes as a digital EP on 24th September 2021, featuring 10 songs from the film; 8 songs reworked from the album and two jams. On 29th April 2022, Balthazar are releasing Sand Castle Tapes for the first time in physical format as a single LP.

The band say of the stay: “You only get to fully understand an album when you start playing it together, the relaxed circumstances lead to a whole other way of interpreting the songs than we would have for a live show. It’s refreshing, it’s very human.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. On A Roll (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
2. Powerless (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
3. Jam 1 (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
4. Moment (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
5. You Won’t Come Around (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
6. Linger On (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
7. Jam 2 (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
8. Losers (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
9. Halfway (Sand Castle Tapes Version)
10. I Want You (Sand Castle Tapes Version)

Arriving in the wake of his critically acclaimed debut solo album ‘A Quickening’, Week’s forthcoming record once again leans into themes of new life & parenthood, but whereas his previous work catalogued the emotions, expectations and anxieties that accompany imminent parenthood, Hop Up is an altogether more joyous and life affirming statement.

Featuring inspiring contributions from Katy J Pearson, Willie J Healey and Ben Reed (best known as part of Frank Ocean’s live band, he also played bass on the seminal ‘Blonde’ album ).

Weeks notes “It started with the idea of wanting to fill in some of the blanks that I felt I had left with ‘A Quickening’, but quite quickly it turned into something broader. The choice was always to take the more positive and uplifting sounding step. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, but as an approach it felt surprisingly novel to me.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Hop Up is an unashamedly upbeat and undeniably lovely collection of synth-pop abstractions and a wonderful testament to Weeks' abilities as a songwriter. 'Look who's Talking Now' mixes 80's pop groove with crisp production and swimming, echoic bliss.

TRACK LISTING

1. Deep Down Way Out
2. Look Who’s Talking Now
3. Bigger
4. Yup Yup Yup Yup
5. High Kicking (featuring Willie J Healey)
6. No End To Love
7. Hey You Hop Up
8. Make You Happy
9. Big Skies Silly Faces (featuring Katy J Pearson)
10. Silver
11. Way To Go

Keaton Henson’s ‘Fragments EP’ was made as a companion piece to last year’s ‘Monument’ album, written and recorded at the same time.  ‘Monument’ is a fragile, meditative and emotional unravelling of grief in the aftermath of losing his father, and for all its hushed acoustics, ‘Monument’ cocooned its emotion in some beautifully tender melodies and acute observations. It’s a warm and relatable listen. 

On ‘Fragments EP’, whilst the lyrical themes and subjects may stray from ‘Monument’’s poignant subject matter, in its sound and atmosphere, it feels suitably entwined. 

The eight tracks that form the EP orbit a sweeping kaleidoscope of sonic shapes, shades and textures. Keaton’s voice offers lyrics in an almost frozen romanticism. It’s a voice that sounds rooted in turmoil but also of strength. A happy sadness. Bleakly beautiful. 

Julien Baker shares a mic from across the ocean in Australia on ‘Marionette’. A songwriter of due reverence herself, Baker and Keaton share an affinity with the power of hushed words, fizzing melodies and an innate wisdom.  ‘Fragments EP’ and ‘Monument’ are two fine bodies of work by this singular, unique British artist, and two empathetic records of sorrow and strength.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Cassette Interlude
2. Limb
3. Before Growing Old
4. Marionette (with Julien
5. Baker)
6. New Kid
7. Invite
8. No Love Lost
9. For Kiran

An album in three parts (Building A City / Building A Myth / Bright Magic), it is their most ambitious undertaking yet, bringing you to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Hautpstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin.

“Doing this felt inevitable, somehow,” muses J.Willgoose, Esq. “In my head, it was whirring and pulsing away for a long time, even before Every Valley - this fascinating, contrary, seductive place. I knew the album was going to be about the city, and its history and myths, and I was going to move there. So it’s quite a personal story. It’s become an album about moving to Berlin to write an album about people who move to Berlin to write an album…”

Though PSB’s use of electronics and surging guitar rock remain familiar, Bright Magic uses samples, and the English language, sparingly. It differs from their previous albums in other ways: less linear and narrative, instead it’s an impressionistic portrait of a city from the ground up. A Eureka moment of sorts came in November 2018 when Willgoose heard Walter Ruttmann’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic’s tracks. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city. Resolving to integrate these long-gone fragments with new manipulated sound sources, he set about making his own Wochenende, a narrative drama for the ears which decodes and realises the dreams of Berlin he’d constructed in his mind.

J.Willgoose, Esq. said “I started to get a feeling for where the title of Bright Magic wanted to take me, towards ideas of illumination and inspiration, electricity and flashes of light and colour and sound (all the tracks would eventually be colour coded). I sent it to the rest of the band, and said, I know it’s going to change, but we’ll see how the city itself colours that.” J.Willgoose, Esq moved to Berlin from April 2019 to January 2020. Combining sound archaeology and the flâneuring of the psychogeographer, one street-level pursuit of the city’s energy involved Willgoose walking the Leipzigerstrasse, site of the city’s first electric streetlight, using a wide-band electromagnetic receiver from Moscow’s Soma Laboratories. “I walked up and down recording electrical currents and interference,” he laughs. “You can hear a few of these little frequency buzzes, clicks and impulses in Im Licht (a song inspired in part by pioneering lightbulb manufacturers AEG and Siemens). It’s what I was trying to do in the wider sense, I suppose – to capture those tiny little pulses you pick up while walking through a city.”

He wrote and recorded in Kreuzberg’s famous Hansa Tonstudio recording complex. This brought closer several inescapable musical touchstones: Depeche Mode’s classic eighties triumvirate, U2’s Achtung Baby and, crucially, Bowie’s “Heroes” and Low. “The whole shape and structure of the record is very much in debt to Low,” says Willgoose. Indeed, the Warszawa-evoking “The Visitor” – whose designated colour is the particular Orange of that album’s sleeve – was initially intended to feature a sample of Bowie reflecting, says Willgoose, on “how he viewed himself as this vessel for synthesizing and refracting other influences, and presenting avant-garde influences to the mainstream. We tried to absorb a bit of that spirit.”

As well as EERA, the album’s other guest voices include Blixa Bargeld, veteran of The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten, who becomes the voice of Berlin’s industry on the robo-teknik “Der Rhythmus der Maschinen”. Andreya Casablanca of Berlin garageistes Gurr stands in for Marlene Dietrich in “My Blue Heaven”, an anthem of proud self-determination.

A very pro-European record, Bright Magic is ultimately not just about one city, but all centres of human interaction and community which allow the free exchange and cross-pollination of ideas.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: PSB are back! It's been a long wait since their last full-length in 2017, but 'Bright Magic' has every one of the standard PSB tricks we love them for plus a few more. Filmic electronic groove, kosmische library-tinged synthplay and instantly addictive melodies. No doubt this will excite the earholes of new listeners and existing fans of the band alike, and shows a new progression of this already formidable musical force.

TRACK LISTING

‘Bright Magic’
Der Sumpf (Sinfonie Der Großstadt)
Im Licht
Der Rhythmus Der Maschinen (ft. Blixa Bargeld)
People, Let’s Dance (ft. EERA)
Blue Heaven (ft. Andreya Casablanca)
Gib Mir Das Licht (ft. EERA)
The Visitor
Lichtspiel I: Opus
Lichtspiel II: Schwarz Weiss Grau
Lichtspiel III: Symphonie Diagonale
Ich Und Die Stadt (ft. Nina Hoss)

‘Bright Magic (Demos)’
(Bonus CD With PIASR1230LPBK Only)
Der Sumpf (Sinfonie Der Großstadt) (Demo)
Im Licht (Demo)
Der Rhythmus Der Maschinen (Demo)
People, Let's Dance (Demo)
Blue Heaven (Demo)
Gib Mir Das Licht (Demo)
The Visitor (Demo)
Lichtspiel I: Opus (Demo)
Lichtspiel II: Schwarz Weiss
Grau (Demo)
Lichtspiel III: Symphonie Diagonale (Demo)

Keaton Henson’s new album Monument is a rare thing. It is an album about loss, and dealing with losing the ones we love, but told, in incredibly candid detail, through the aspects of our lives that surround the trauma itself, about love, ageing, recovery, life, seen through the prism of grief.

With the posting of an enigmatic and cryptic goodbye in 2016; Epilogue, Henson’s next project ended up becoming Six Lethargies, a complex and ambitious symphony for string orchestra, dealing with the minutiae of mental illness. He put away the guitar and retreated to his home for three years to compose it. Monument now finds Keaton re-emerging with an album of songs about grief, and how it permeates our lives.

The record began when, having recovered from both Six Lethargies and the circumstances that inspired it, Henson moved from London to the wilds of the English countryside, spending long days outside chopping wood, tending to the grounds, and watching birds of prey soaring above. It was from this remote outpost that he finally felt ready to look at a subject he had been avoiding for his entire songwriting career; the decades long illness, and imminent death of his father, who passed two days before he finished recording the album.

Keaton: “I suppose it is, at its heart, much like my first record; a collection of things I wanted to say, just so they’re out of my system, and not necessarily for anyone else to hear. I made it at home, mostly alone, to the sound of birds and rainstorms, at strange hours of day and night. But, once the bones were recorded, I was somewhat unexpectedly joined by an amazing group of people, who came to musically lift me on their shoulders, and take these unsaid feelings to another plain in terms of sound.”

These people came in the form of Radiohead’s Philip Selway providing drums and percussion, guitars provided by Leo Abrahams, saxophones from composer Charlotte Harding and at one point a full string section.

It culminates in a record that is at once intensely intimate and vulnerable, but carries with it a confidence and elevation in its musical language; the simple up-close picking of Henson’s guitar lifted on a soft bed of electronics and lo-fi tape sound, the moments of joyful acceptance punctuated by soaring drums and woodwinds, that feels like jumping in a cold pool on a warm day.

The sound of tape and VHS are a crucial vein that run throughout the album, carrying the feeling of memory and nostalgia, family and childhood. The subtle recurring use of home video sounds suddenly brings the biographical nature of the album to life, before receding again into the background.

TRACK LISTING

1. Ambulance
2. Self Portrait
3. Ontario
4. Career Day
5. Prayer
6. While I Can
7. Bed
8. The Grand Old Reason
9. Husk
10. Thesis
11. Bygones

PIAS Recordings is thrilled to announce the worldwide release of a stunning new album by the iconic ground-breaking Brazilian artist Bebel Gilberto entitled Agora (“Now”) on 1st May 2020. This is Gilberto’s first new studio album in six years and was produced by Thomas Bartlett (Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent). 

"I have gone through a lot while we were writing and recording this album. I lost my best friend, then six months later my Mom and then six months after that my Dad. It was very hard for me and still is,” says Bebel Gilberto. “I took a different approach with Agora, supported by the love and confidence I received from my long-time friend and producer of the album, Thomas Bartlett. Thomas trusted me - and let me be me. The album as a result is a little bit crazier, more mature and extremely sincere.”

World renowned and multi-Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Bebel Gilberto has been enchanting fans and critics worldwide since her solo debut release in 1986. She catapulted onto the global music scene with a track on the celebrated compilation CD, RED HOT + RIO, followed by the worldwide success of her hit breakout album Tanto Tempo in 2000. The album featured her trademark electronic bossa nova, taking over clubs around the world and positioning Bebel as one of the top-selling Brazilian artists since the '60s. Critically-acclaimed albums to follow included Bebel Gilberto (2004), on which she refined her sound to create an acoustic lounge style that showcased her strengths as a Brazilian composer, and Momento (Six Degrees 2007), which masterfully showcased her skills at fusing all her musical styles. Bebel’s 2009 Grammy-nominated album All in One (Verve), brought to forefront more of Bebel's personality and love for organic rhythms. In 2014, Bebel Gilberto released a beautiful concert DVD called Bebel Gilberto in Rio in Brazil, featuring a superb live concert on the beaches of Rio. Returning to her trademark sultry Brazilian rhythms infused with electronic beats, Bebel followed up with the album Tudo, released in August 2014 on Sony to great media acclaim.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tao Bom
2. Agora
3. Cliché
4. Bolero
5. Essence
6. Na Cara
7. Deixa
8. Raio
9. Yet Another Love Song
10. O Que Nao Foi Dito
11. Teletransportador

Love Record Stores Edition available from 9am on Saturday June 20th.
Limited to one per person.

As the birth of Orlando Weeks’ son drew near, he wanted to try to make sense of an experience that is both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. The result is ‘A Quickening’, an album that tells the story from the point of view of a prospective father-to-be, a figure both vital to the story and yet also somewhat removed, in awe of what the mother goes through and often helpless to do anything about it.

“I was trying to find a course through something that happens all the time, but still feels exceptional,” Weeks says.

A baby is born every minute, and yet the experience of becoming a parent - and the way it promises to change your life - is unprecedented.

Weeks’ voice shimmers as it expresses feelings of love, fear and wonder that are overwhelming but still delicate. Drums trip, woodwind and brass can be heard, piano lines run in and out, vocals layer and guitars are few and far between. This is not the indie rock and roll that some may have predicted.You might think of Talk Talk. You might think of Robert Wyatt. You might think of Radiohead or Bon Iver. You might think of the wonder of Kate Bush. You might think of Lambchop’s late career electronic turn, replacing in that case Kurt Wagner’s Nashville-inflected fragments with Orlando’s chiming and pure delivery, served up by way of South London.

Many of those influences surge and flourish throughout the new single ‘Blood Sugar’. A mesmeric, all-enveloping layer of sound highlighted by choral vocal harmonies. The track includes the line “gone the bell that rung forever… at least as long as I can remember”, a reference to Big Ben which was under repair and had stopped chiming at the time of his son’s birth, Weeks commented; ‘’I couldn’t work out if its silence was a good omen or a bad one.’’ Stranger than that, for much of their time at hospital, Weeks and his partner found themselves in the very same room he was born in.

‘A Quickening’ was created with the help of Weeks’ old friend Nic Nell, who produced, engineered and mixed the album. The pair collaborated on the music that accompanied Weeks’ 2012 graphic novel, ‘Young Colossus’. Nell also runs the label Algebra Records and makes music under the name Casually Here. The album also highlights select performances from members of Weeks’ live band: Caruso (drums on ‘Blame Or Love Or Nothing’ and ‘All The Things’), Sami El-Enany (piano on ‘Takes A Village’ and ‘Summer Clothes’), and Will Petherbridge (the freewheeling solo on ‘St Thomas’’).

In addition to its digital and streaming releases, it will also be available on three physical formats: heavyweight vinyl, CD packaged with a poster, and a limited edition clear deluxe vinyl which will include a signed and hand-finished print. The deluxe vinyl will only be available via Orlando Weeks’ Music Glue store and in select UK independent record stores.

Weeks spent much of his young life as the frontman of Ivor Novello wining band The Maccabees, going on to become a children’s book author in the wake of the band’s disbanding. His first book, ‘The Gritterman’ (2017), came with an accompanying soundtrack and was described by the Financial Times as recalling “Raymond Briggs at his darkest.”

TRACK LISTING

Milk Breath
Blood Sugar
Safe In Sound
St. Thomas’
Takes A Village
Moon’s Opera
All The Things
Blame Or Love Or Nothing
None Too Tough
Summer Clothes
Dream

Debut LP from West London singer songwriter Will Westerman.

Your Hero Is Not Dead is the follow-up to his critically-acclaimed Ark EP. Recorded alongside his close friend and producer Nathan Jenkins (A.K.A. Bullion) at first in Southern Portugal before finishing the process in London, Your Hero Is Not Dead is an album about empathy and compassion, struggle and release, and all the ways we contradict and battle within ourselves. The project is full of supremely crafted, groove-hinged songs about moral, political, and ethical grey areas, that find Westerman attempting to resolve external issues by looking inward.

TRACK LISTING

Drawbridge
The Line
Big Nothing Glow
Waiting On Design
Think I'll Stay
Dream Appropriate
Easy Money
Blue Comanche
Confirmation
Paper Dogs
Float Over
Your Hero Is Not Dead

Across their six official albums, Editors have achieved major success internationally, selling 2.6M albums worldwide, racking up Mercury nominations, multiple platinum and gold records, No 1s in the UK, Belgium and Netherlands and Top 10s right across the rest of Europe. The album includes 13 of the band’s biggest songs alongside three brand new tracks, including the title track ‘Black Gold’. The album cover was shot by award winning photograper Nadav Kander and designed by Tom Hingston (Massive Attack, Young Fathers, Nick Cave).

TRACK LISTING

‘Black Gold’
(LP/CD)
Frankenstein
Papillon
Munich
Sugar
Hallelujah (So Low)
An End Has A Start
Upside Down
Bullets
Ocean Of The Night
No Harm
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
A Ton Of Love
Magazine
The Racing Rats
Black Gold
No Sound But The Wind

‘Distance: The Acoustic Recordings’
(Deluxe 2CD Edition Only)
Violence
Walk The Fleet Road
Blood
Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
Fall
Two Hearted Spider
Distance

These four tracks were first performed in 2018, at the BBC's Biggest Weekend event, which saw the band debut the new material on the slipways on which the Titanic was built, broadcast live on BBC 6Music. The EP tells the story of the construction of the ship and its early, tragic, demise. The band focus on the perspectives of those who built and sailed her, whilst showing their own talent for using a mixture of music and archive audio footage to provide a new perspective on well-known events.

J. Willgoose, Esq. of Public Service Broadcasting says: “I thought it was an interesting challenge to tell the story of the ship's construction as part of Belfast's proud industrial history, the spirit of optimism of the pre-war age that she represented, and then an abstract and, I hope, respectful depiction of both the sinking of the ship (represented by the repeated Morse code distress call, C - Q - D) and the discovery of the wreck in 1985.”

The opening two tracks, ‘The Unsinkable Ship’ and ‘White Star Liner’, carry the EP forward with a motorik energy, carefully tracing the construction and launch of the ship. As the EP reaches its close, the music shifts into a more volatile state on the powerful ‘C - Q - D’ - the Morse code call sign for “All stations: distress” - before closing on the reflective ambience of ‘The Deep’, an adaptation of Archibald Joyce's ‘Songe d'automne’, the piece of music which noted Titanic historian Walter Lord concluded was probably the last to be played as the ship sank. Coupled with the impassioned voice of survivor Eva Hart, it’s a moving end to the EP, one that is a fitting tribute to those who built the ship and those who perished upon its demise. 

TRACK LISTING

1. The Unsinkable Ship
2. White Star Liner
3. C-Q-D
4. The Deep

Released in 2009, ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ was the band’s third album and second No. 1 in the UK. A musical departure being more electronic though no less anthemic than the two previous and the last to feature guitarist Chris Urbanowicz, who left the band in 2012. Includes the singles ‘Papillon’, ‘You Don’t Know Love’ and ‘Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool’.

TRACK LISTING

In This Light And On This Evening
Bricks And Mortar
Papillon
You Don’t Know Love
The Big Exit
The Boxer
Like Treasure
Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool
Walk The Fleet Road

‘An End Has A Start' is the second album from Editors. It hit No 1 on release in 2007, selling nearly 60,000 copies in the process and includes the Top 10 single ‘Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors’ plus the singles ‘The Racing Rats’, ‘Bones’, ‘Push Your Head Towards The Air’ and the album’s title track.

TRACK LISTING

CD:
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
An End Has A Start
The Weight Of The World
Bones
When Anger Shows
The Racing Rats
Push Your Head Towards The Air
Escape The Nest
Spiders
Well Worn Hand
No Sound But The Wind (Live At Rock Werchter 2010)

LP:
Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
An End Has A Start
The Weight Of The World
Bones
When Anger Shows
The Racing Rats
Push Your Head Towards The Air
Escape The Nest
Spiders
Well Worn Hand

Brand new album from Joan As Police Woman, which sees a return to the darker, sensual sound of her celebrated early releases. Damned Devotion finds Joan Wasser at her rawest yet

The first track to be shared from the album is ‘Warning Bell’, a tender, bewitching song of regret Joan wrote about “being a romantic and the naiveté that goes along with it”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Smooth, soulful grooves interspersed with mournful minor-key melodies and flickering funked-out guitar echoes. By far the most refined and emotive JAPW outing yet, lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Wonderful
2. Warning Bell
3. Tell Me
4. Steed (for Jean Genet)
5. Damned Devotion
6. The Silence
7. Valid Jagger
8. Rely On
9. What Was It Like
10. Talk About It Later
11. Silly Me
12. I Don’t Mind

It's been twelve long years since the last Soulwax release, 2005's night versions seems an awful long way away, but it's a hell of a lot closer to the introduction of half their instrumental arsenal. Peppered with drool-inducing machinery (if that's your thing) blipping and pulsing away, this is both a futuristic concept and a historical homage.  Opener 'Preset Tense' (it's funny because synths have presets now) is an acidic slice of funked-out 'tron, underpinned by stabs of crystalline keys and grooved-out 303-alike stabs. Militaristic rhythms are offset by heavily swung grooves and clashing snares. 'Condition Of A Shared Belief' twists and turns, scrawling jagged trails of krautrock-inspired sketches behind a soaring atonal vocal abstraction. It is both absorbing and jarring, rendering a head-nodding groove out many conceptual threads like some of Kreidler's finest numbers. 

Things start to get a little bit more traditionally melodic later on with the sleazy disco hustle of 'Do You Want To Get Into Trouble'. Neon steampunk percussives and glowing reverbs are met with pulsing bass and futuristic squeals, coalescing into a cosmic gothy funk. 

The afrobeat drums on 'The Singer Has Become A Deejay' twist and turn around a sidechained phaser, dropping into the background before being pulled back into the mix, twice as voracious as before. It's a mellow rhythmic break before the euphoric highs of 'Here Come The Men In Suits' and the resigned ode to bullshit that is 'Goodnight Transmission', along the same sweetly sung / sourly embittered lyrical themes of the great John Grant. 

From Deewee is a triumph, varied enough to show the wide range of skills these talented Dewaele's have (as if 2 Many DJ's weren't enough evidence), but running gracefully and satisfyingly true to (what I assume are) their influences.  

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A superbly presented suite of funked-out sleazy electronica, grooving Krautrock and simmering ambience. Shining with production prowess, but gritty and satisfying enough to keep even the interest flowing. A brilliant return for Soulwax.

TRACK LISTING

Preset Tense
Masterplanned
Missing Wires
Conditions Of A Shared Belief
Is It Always Binary
Do You Want To Get Into Trouble?
My Tired Eyes
Transient Program For Drums And Machinery
Trespassers
The Singer Has Become A Deejay
Here Come The Men In Suits
Goodnight Transmission

Sophomore ‘post reunion’ album from the alt-rock legends, their first new music since 2014’s Indie Cindy.

This 12 track record showcases the band’s unique mixture of surrealism, psychedelia, dissonance  and surf rock.

Produced by Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood, Killing Joke) and recorded at London’s Rak Studios.

Paz Lenchantin, the band’s touring bassist since early 2014 (and previously a member of A Perfect Circle and Zwan amongst others) is now a permanent member of the band and her cool vocals can be heard on the album, most notably on ‘All I Think About Now’ on which she takes the lead.

TRACK LISTING

Head Carrier
Classic Masher
Baal’s Back
Might As Well Be Gone
Oona
Talent
Tenement Song
Bel Esprit
All I Think About Now
Um Chagga Lagga
Plaster Of Paris
All The Saints

‘Belgica’ is the new film by Oscar nominated director, Felix Van Groeningen. Its original soundtrack has been composed, recorded and produced by Soulwax.

The film sees Soulwax’s influence throughout from composing, arranging and recording the original score to creating each and every one of the fictional musical artists featured. A diverse collection of songs, performed by a similarly varied set of artists, has seen Soulwax create what is a unique soundtrack that continues to see them evolve as musical progressionists.

Recorded and mixed at Soulwax’s new Deewee studio in Ghent, the entire project has been over twelve months in the making.

As the group says: “We recorded the original music being played in the club, wrote the music, rehearsed and recorded live on set the tracks played by the bands - ranging from a live kraut techno band, White Virgins, bequiffed psychobilly trio They Live through to hardcore outfit Burning Phlegm (featuring Sepultura’s Igor Cavalera) whilst chanteuse Charlotte represents the other end of the spectrum with her neo soul pop.”