Richard Ashcroft’s fourth solo album ‘These People’ became a fan-favourite in 2016, receiving great reviews and becoming a #3 album in the Official UK Albums Chart.

His reunion with Wil Malone, who had previously worked on the string arrangements for The Verve's seminal albums 'A Northern Soul' and 'Urban Hymns' added depth and emotional resonance to the album's sound. Ashcroft demonstrated his continued relevance and creative prowess as a solo artist, reaffirming his status as one of Britain's most enduring and influential musicians.

TRACK LISTING

1. Out Of My Body
2. This Is How It Feels
3. They Don’t Own Me
4. Hold On
5. These People
6. Everybody Needs Somebody To Hurt
7. Picture Of You
8. Black Lines
9. Ain’t The Future So Bright
10. Songs Of Experience

Here's Little Richard - the debut album that would go on to shape rock n' roll and popular music. The original album plus eight bonus tracks.

Rolling Stone Magazine: "A- wop- bop- a- loo- mop- a- lop- bam- boom!." Ten simple nonsensical words that changed the face of music forever. "The Innovator, The Originator, and The Architect of Rock and Roll," a more perfect title couldn't have been bestowed on Little Richard. Those words taken from Little Richard's first hit single, Tutti Frutti, which was released in 1955; before Chuck Berry released 'Roll Over Beethoven,' before Jerry Lee Lewis released 'Great Balls Of Fire' and even before Elvis released 'Blue Suede Shoes' (coincidentally 'Tutti Frutti' was its BSide). .

While 'Tutti Frutti' might be the star of Little Richard's debut record, the album is filled with Rock 'n Roll songs that would go on to shape popular music. True, Fine Mama, Ready Teddy, Slippin' And Slidin (Peepin' And Hidin'), and, of course, Long Tall Sally." - Brett Schewitz (review extract)

"Little Richard was the biggest inspiration of my early teens." - Mick Jagger

"Without Little Richard, myself and half of my contemporaries wouldn't be playing music." - David Bowie

TRACK LISTING

Tutti- Frutti
True, Fine Mama
Can't Believe You Wanna Leave
Ready Teddy
Baby (Don't You Want A Man Like Me)
Slippin' And Slidin' (Peepin' And Hidin')
By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
Directly From My Heart
Heeby Jeebies
Lucille
Long Tall Sally
Miss Ann
Oh Why? 
Rip It Up
Jenny Jenny
She's Got It
Send Me Some Lovin' 
All Night Long
The Girl Can't Help It
Good Golly, Miss Molly

The new album by Richard Hawley, 'In This City They Call You Love' sees Richard ditch the distortion pedals and go back into making voice most prominent.

Following the universal acclaim for 'Standing At The Sky's Edge', the award-winning musical based on his songs, in May Richard Hawley returns with 'In This City They Call You Love', his ninth studio album and his first since 2019's 'Further'.

'In This City They Call You Love' features 12 outstanding songs, many of which can be described as 'vintage Hawley' and are amongst some of the finest ballads he's ever written. Gorgeous melodies and arrangements are accompanied by his emotive and sonorous voice, which sounds better than ever, and will make this a crowning moment in a hugely successful recording career of almost 25 years.

TRACK LISTING

1. Two For His Heels
2. Have Love
3. Prism In Jeans
4. Heavy Rain
5. People
6. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow
7. Deep Space
8. Deep Waters
9. I’ll Never Get Over You
10. Do I Really Need To Know?
11. When The Lights Go Out
12. ‘Tis Night

When Richard Thompson began writing songs for his latest album, Ship to Shore, the artist was instinctively drawn to his own musical roots, employing them in the service of fashioning a deep and diverse 12-track collection that pulls from various styles, genres and eras, but remains unmistakably Richard Thompson.

There's the rumbling, Motown- style rhythm that propels "Trust," and the straightforward riff-rock of "Turnstile Casanova" The drone-y "The Old Pack Mule," an "old man's song" that takes musical cues from 1600s-era European music, and "Life's a Bloody Show," an ode to "snake-oil salesmen and hucksters" that floats on a glammy, cabaret-like melody that's "almost like a parody of a Noel Coward song, or something from Berlin in the 1920s," Thompson says. "I liked the idea of having a strong base to work from and reaching out from there," he says. "And I think of my base as being British traditional music, but there's also Scottish music, there's Irish music. There's jazz and country and classical. As far as I'm concerned, once you establish your base you can reach out anywhere. It'll still be you ringing through, wherever you decide to go musically."

TRACK LISTING

Freeze
The Fear Never Leaves You
Singapore Sadie
Trust
The Day That I Give In
The Old Pack Mule
Turnstile Casanova
Lost In A Crowd
Maybe
Life's A Bloody Show
What's Left To Lose
We Roll

“'Black' is a musical eulogy to Amy Winehouse, a heartfelt memorial to a sorrowful demise. Its an album of predominantly beatless ambience possessed by the ghost of 'Back to Black'. Fragmented moods and hypnotic drones melt together as its circular beauty is set adrift, floating away into an endless void, where the original only remains in spirit alone. It doesn’t make particular sense why I was drawn to this idea and compelled to immerse myself in the original song, and her life in general, but sometimes you just have to roll with your muse. Having barely registered her whilst she was alive and not cared for Mark Ronson's poptastic productions, it was only when I heard of her tragic death that it struck an unexpected chord, recalling the same surreal emotional impact as when I had heard of Kurt Cobain's premature passing previously. Both figures were unarguably gifted, but both left this planet largely without essential support, whilst they were at the peak of their powers and on top of the musical world. Gone too soon and departed too young, a world-weary voice carried on a downward spiral, Amy Winehouse seemed trapped in her self-destructive descent. It was only years later, whilst randomly watching Asif Kapadia's moving bio doc 'Amy' on a long-distance flight, that I realised the scale of her greatness and the tragedy of the circumstances that led to her untimely death. This album is simultaneously a treatise on lovelessness, tragedy and loss, echoing the absence of a support network when it matters most during such a freefall. And just as myself and others I know shed tears watching that 'Amy' documentary, this album is as much a reaction to the universal emotional themes conveyed within that touching documentary as to the tragic life of Amy herself. I have been working on the idea of this sonic album for over a year, and the slo-mo dream rotations remain as blurred and impressionistic as they are repetitive and haunting. An eerie cocktail of spectral jazz, shoegaze drone and dubbed out ambient music, it continues the solo path I have been developing as KRM. I hope it strikes a chord.” - Kevin Richard Martin.

TRACK LISTING

1. Loveless
2. Black
3. Cynthia's Passing
4. Love You Much, Love Too Much
5. On Top Of The World
6. Camden Crawling
7. Blake's Shadow
8. One Hundred Deaths
9. Belgrade Meltdown
10. To Disappear
11. Rest In Peace

The music of Arthur Russell defies classification. Across a twenty-year career he created a body of work which ranged from his pioneering compositions as part of the New York avant-garde alongside artists including Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg, to his genre-expanding disco and art pop productions, to his posthumously released folk songs. Travels Over Feeling is the result of extensive research by author Richard King, curating the ephemera and documentation found in both Arthur's and other private archives, and consists of hand-written scores, lyrics, photos, letters and drawings.

Throughout, King has conducted wide-ranging original interviews with Arthur's collaborators, contemporaries, family and friends. The resulting book reveals a true picture of one of the most distinctive artists of the last fifty years.

The definitive biography of Shane MacGowan, fully updated to include Shane's final months and the response to his passing. Punk protagonist, legendary drinker, Irish musical icon. The complete and extraordinary journey of the Pogues' notorious frontman from outcast to national treasure.

A Furious Devotion vividly recounts the experiences that shaped the greatest songwriter of his generation, including the formative trips to his mother's homestead in Tipperary and the explosion of punk which changed his life. As well as exclusive interviews with Shane himself, author Richard Balls has secured contributions from his wife and family, and people who have never spoken publicly about Shane before: close associates, former girlfriends and the English teacher who first spotted his literary gift. Nick Cave, Aidan Gillen, Cillian Murphy, Christy Moore, Sinead O'Connor and Dermot O'Leary are on the rollcall of those paying tribute to the gifted songwriter and poet.

This frank and extensive biography includes many previously unseen personal photographs.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.

Newly restored and remastered, the updated artwork contains new liner notes from Bill Dahl With this reissue, Right Now! can belatedly assume its proper place in the seminal recorded legacy of Little Richard. ñBill Dahl (from his liner notes) After his incredible run on Specialty Records in the late 1950s, Little Richard released records sporadically throughout the 1960s for a number of established, and not so established, labels. His signing to Warner Bros. in 1970 proved a comeback with three stellar releases for the label: The Rill Thing (1970), The King Of Rock And Roll (1971), and The Second Coming (1972). Those three releases, along with 1986ís Lifetime Friend were expanded and reissued by Omnivore Recordings in 2021. in 1973, he returned with a new single,î In The Name,î on Kent Records. Then, an album appeared on a Kent subsidiary, United Records: Right Now! Right Now!, its genesis, and recording are relatively mysterious. Per Richardís autobiography, the set was cut in one night with Robert ìBumpsî Blackwell in order to secure funds for an upcoming tour. Other than ìIn The Nameî carrying a recording date of January, 1973, thatís all of the information we have. No songwriters are listed on the artwork, and while ìDock Of The Bayî and ìChains Of Loveî looked (and are) familiar, the track ìChain Chain Chainî was in fact the Aretha Franklin classic ìChain Of Fools.î While Richard calls out musiciansí names in the recordings, who they actually are is speculation. What is known is that the album is a scorcher. Richardís barrelhouse keyboards set the tracks jumpingórunning in length from under three to over eight minutes. There are soul ballads (ìDonít You Know Iî), stompers (ìGeraldine Jonesî), and slow blues. Had Richard and Blackwell known that the release would come out as unadorned and poorly distributed as it did, they might have had reservations. But, out it came on a budget label, and was relegated to the cutout bins and never reissued until now. Restored and Remastered, Right Now! returns after 50 yearsófor the first time on CD and Digi

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.

'Standing at The Sky' Edge' is the 2023 Olivier Award-winning Best New Musical - written as a love letter to Sheffield and the city's iconic Park Hill Estate, is directed by Sheffield Theatres' Artistic Director, Robert Hastie and features songs by the legendary Sheffield singer-songwriter, Richard Hawley.

With a hilarious and gut-wrenching book by Chris Bush, 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' charts the hopes and dreams of three generations over the course of six tumultuous decades, navigating universal themes of love, loss and survival. 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' is a multi-award-winning production, winning 'Best New Musical' at the 2023 Olivier Awards with Sheffield singer-songwriter, Richard Hawley and Tom Deering also winning 'Best Original Score and New Orchestrations'.

It was recently awarded the internationally recognised 'Made in Sheffield' accolade, the first time a theatre production has received this unique trademark. Previously it has won the 2020 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Theatre and 'Best Musical Production' at the UK Theatre Awards in 2019. First commissioned by Sheffield Theatres and Various Productions, 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' had its world premiere at the Crucible Theatre in 2019.

Following a hugely successful, sold-out run, it returned to the Crucible Theatre in December 2022, selling out again, before making its London premiere in the National Theatre's Olivier theatre in early 2023 where it continued to sell out and receive standing ovations.

TRACK LISTING

1. As The Dawn Breaks
2. Time Is
3. Naked In Pitsmoor
4. I'm Looking For Someone To Find Me
5. Tonight The Streets Are Ours
6. Open Your Door
7. My Little Treasures
8. Coles Corner
9. There's A Storm A Comin'
10. Standing At The Sky's Edge
11. Our Darkness
12. Midnight Train
13. For Your Lover Give Some Time
14. There's A Storm A Comin' (Reprise)
15. After The Rain
16. Don't Get Hung Up In Your Soul
17. Finale
18. As The Dawn Breaks (Reprise)

Record Store Edition: Signed hardback + exclusive CD.

The accompanying 'Strange Things Are Happening' CD is a career spanning compilation which includes tracks from the seminal 'Jack The Tab' 1988 acid compilation, to The Grid's 'Floatation', through to later tracks as Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve with Erol Alkan, and a host of classic remixes and exclusive new tracks.

A memoir by one of the most influential and ubiquitous underground British musicians of the past thirty

Leafy St Albans is an unlikely starting point for one of the great psychedelic/acid house musicians of his generation, but, like so many others who brought radical change to the counterculture, Richard Norris' story starts in the suburbs.

Strange Things Are Happening documents his journey from punk through the emerging DIY indie culture to producing the UK's first acid house album, Jack the Tab; being one of the only unsigned artists to grace the cover of NME, to being one of the first faces on the scene at Shoom and Spectrum during the 1988 Summer of Love; finding international fame with The Grid in the early 90s, to working with Joe Strummer and a cast of thousands as a remixer, writer and producer. Embracing a psychedelic lifestyle along the way, Strange Things Are Happening is a funny, improbable and frequently wild journey down the rabbit hole.

Richard Norris has been involved in almost every aspect of music and its business for many decades. This is an insider's tale of inspiration and collaboration, working with some of the most iconic artists in music and beyond. We travel to basement acid parties in London to ten thousand strong raves in Ibiza. From Amsterdam with Timothy Leary, to Tijuana with Shaun Ryder and Joe Strummer, on a bumpy ride in Joe's beat up 1955 Cadillac, to the customs hall at Heathrow with Sun Ra, Top Of The Pops, LA film sets, around the world and back again. Strange Things Are Happening is a celebration of creativity and passion, of chance meetings turning into lifelong friendships, and of what is possible with an independent spirit, with an open mind and heart. Not quite Do It Yourself, more Do It Yourselves - a testimony to how small groups of people can affect and change the cultural landscape; a story about doing what you love and being eternally curious; about the inevitable occupational dead ends and wrong turns that happen when you jump in headfirst, and what is learnt along the way.

A memoir by one of the most influential and ubiquitous underground British musicians of the past thirty

Leafy St Albans is an unlikely starting point for one of the great psychedelic/acid house musicians of his generation, but, like so many others who brought radical change to the counterculture, Richard Norris' story starts in the suburbs.

Strange Things Are Happening documents his journey from punk through the emerging DIY indie culture to producing the UK's first acid house album, Jack the Tab; being one of the only unsigned artists to grace the cover of NME, to being one of the first faces on the scene at Shoom and Spectrum during the 1988 Summer of Love; finding international fame with The Grid in the early 90s, to working with Joe Strummer and a cast of thousands as a remixer, writer and producer. Embracing a psychedelic lifestyle along the way, Strange Things Are Happening is a funny, improbable and frequently wild journey down the rabbit hole.

Richard Norris has been involved in almost every aspect of music and its business for many decades. This is an insider's tale of inspiration and collaboration, working with some of the most iconic artists in music and beyond. We travel to basement acid parties in London to ten thousand strong raves in Ibiza. From Amsterdam with Timothy Leary, to Tijuana with Shaun Ryder and Joe Strummer, on a bumpy ride in Joe's beat up 1955 Cadillac, to the customs hall at Heathrow with Sun Ra, Top Of The Pops, LA film sets, around the world and back again. Strange Things Are Happening is a celebration of creativity and passion, of chance meetings turning into lifelong friendships, and of what is possible with an independent spirit, with an open mind and heart. Not quite Do It Yourself, more Do It Yourselves - a testimony to how small groups of people can affect and change the cultural landscape; a story about doing what you love and being eternally curious; about the inevitable occupational dead ends and wrong turns that happen when you jump in headfirst, and what is learnt along the way.

The second ultra limited installment of Richard Norris' journeys into the outer reaches of dub has landed.

Mixing influences from roots reggae to On U Sound to Basic Channel and beyond, these six tracks offer warm and lush sonic landscapes to sink into.

Praise for Volume One - "Richard Norris is making the music of his life right now. All of Oracle Sound is smooth, completely enveloping and utterly hypnotic, with sounds and textures you want to reach out and touch." (Joe Muggs, Bandcamp Electronic Music of the Month)

TRACK LISTING

1. Regal Dub
2. Pagan Dub
3. Mystery Dub
4. Glory Version
5. Rockers Sci Fi
6. Stronger Together 

Iconic singer/songwriter Richard Hawley recorded live at the beautiful Piece Hall in Halifax on Saturday 4 September 2021. Live at Halifax Piece Hall captures, for the first time, Richard Hawley in concert with his band in full force. Recorded on a beautiful autumn night in September 2021 and in spectacular settings, the album features many Hawley classics as well as songs from his most recent album ‘Further’, augmented by a 4 piece string ensemble. Simply put, it is Hawley at his best.

TRACK LISTING

1. Off My Mind
2. Alone
3. Standing At The Sky's Edge
4. I'm Looking For Someone To Find Me
5. Tonight The Streets Are Ours
6. Coles Corner
7. Galley Girl
8. Don't Stare At The Sun
9. Open Up Your Door
10. Down In The Woods
11. Is There A Pill
12. For Your Lover Give Some Time
13. There's A Storm A Comin'
14. Heart Of Oak

LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. The soundtrack of the award-winning documentary includes timeless hits from Little Richard like “Tutti Frutti”, “Rip It Up”, and “Long Tall Sally”, plus two covers from Valerie June and Cory Henry, and a piece from the film’s original score, composed by Tamar-Kali Brown.

TRACK LISTING

Good Golly, Miss Molly – Little Richard
Strange Things Happening Every Day – Valerie June
Baby (demo) – Little Richard
I’m Just A Lonely Guy (all Alone) – Little Richard
Tutti Frutti – Little Richard And His Band
Long Tall Sally – Little Richard And His Band
Lucille – Little Richard And His Band
Bama Lama Bama Loo – Little Richard
Rip It Up – Little Richard And His Band
Ready Teddy – Little Richard And His Band
The Girl Can’t Help It – Little Richard And His Band
Send Me Some Lovin’ – Little Richard And His Band
Tutti Frutti – Cory Henry
Legacy – Tamar-kali Brown

Mr Beatnick & Richard Greenan present their debut full length collaboration, "Coasty". Brought together by their twin residencies on NTS Radio, the duo have forged distinct paths in respective scenes over the last decade - as producers, DJs and label heads of imprints Mythstery and Kit Records.

The strength of their partnership is built on contrasting styles; Mr Beatnick's sound orbits the woozier fringes of house and hip-hop, while Richard Greenan has settled in the cracks between ambient, textural experimentation and the avant-garde. Here, these approaches coalesce in unexpected ways - with violin, harp, guitar and saxophone finding themselves serrated by volleys of percussion and punchily melodic bass.

With much of the music recorded during the pair's residency in Margate, the album documents a weekend toasted and skewed progressively sideways. The opening salvo of cascading synth muscle ("Goodnight Mush") and fragmented acoustic stepper ("Superb Crafty Gardens") could evoke Devo and Pete Rock breaking fried toast over a dirty fry up. Side A's pop sensibilities peak on the lucidly string-laden "Harbour Arms", complete with pristine guest vocal by bb sway.

Then, like the work of a pair of pissed beavers, things start to get pretty weird. Familiar structures ferment laterally, from the midi swamp-hop of "Bellows of the Earth", to the cooked techno-funk stylings of "Bronze Pears". "How to Draw Roger" offers a magma-like credits roll, the sun's purple yolk poached over a hoppy sea of amber.

TRACK LISTING

1. Goodnight Mush
2. Superb Crafty Garden
3. Harbour Arms (feat. Bb Sway)
4. Bellows Of The Earth
5. Sad Brasstard
6. Bronze Pears
7. To Sea Is To Be
8. How To Draw Roger

Richard Hawley is widely recognized as both one of the UK’s greatest songwriters and one of its most respected. Alongside two Mercury Music Prize Nominations, a BRIT award nomination and 4 UK Top 10 Albums, the Sheffield native songwriter has collaborated with the likes of Pulp, Arctic Monkeys, Lisa Marie Presley, Paul Weller and Elbow.

Following the success of Standing At The Sky’s Edge, which won Best New Musical and handed Hawley Best Original Score at the 2023 Olivier Awards, BMG announce the first ever Richard Hawley collection; Now Then: The Very Best of Richard Hawley.

Curated by Hawley and long-term collaborator Colin Elliot, Now Then spans his twenty plus year career, exhibiting all facets of his song writing mastery; marrying his most cinematic moments with his most tender, his best loved work and a host of hidden gems from his early work, to create a collection for both his hardcore fanbase and the perfect entry point for his newest fans. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A much-needed best-of from the brilliant Richard Hawley, spanning a full 20 years in the business and including a whole host of quintessentially Hawley offerings including 'Coles Corner' and 'Standing At The Sky's Edge'. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

Vinyl Tracklisting:
Side A
Open Up Your Door
Midnight Train
Tonight The Streets Are Ours
Coles Corner
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Baby, You're My Light
Side B
Not The Only Road*
My Little Treasures
Standing At The Sky's Edge
Heart Of Oak
The Ocean
Side C
Seek It
Off My Mind
Coming Home
I Still Want You
Just Like The Rain
Run For Me
Side D
Alone
For Your Lover Give Some Time
Serious
Don't Stare At The Sun
There's A Storm A'Comin
*previously Unreleased/exclusive

CD Tracklisting:
CD1
1. Open Up Your Door
2. Midnight Train
3. Tonight The Streets Are Ours
4. Coles Corner
5. Ballad Of A Thin Man
6. Baby, You're My Light
7. She Brings The Sunlight
8. Not The Only Road*
9. Which Way
10. My Little Treasures
11. Naked In Pitsmoor
12. Standing At The Sky's Edge
13. Long Black Train
14. Heart Of Oak
15. You Don't Miss Your Water
16. The Ocean
CD2
1. Don't Stare At The Sun
2. I Still Want You
3. Off My Mind
4. For Your Lover Give Some Time
5. Hotel Room
6. I’m On Nights
7. Seek It
8. Serious
9. Precious Sight
10. Remorse Code
11. Alone
12. Born Under A Bad Sign (Single Version)
13. Our Darkness
14. Run For Me
15. Kelham Island
16. There's A Storm A'Comin'
*previously Unreleased/exclusive

Golden Lion Sounds enlist the talents of no other than Richard Norris for their latest 7". The Grid and Psychic TV star gifts us a driving, Balearic-rock classic - with an almost War On Drugs-like sensibility. Moving, evocative vocals (by Findlay Brown), swirling keyboards, gentle guitar strums and a motoric beat coalescing to form an understated but highly engrossing four minutes of song writing prowess.

Rude Audio is the alias of Mark Ratcliff and collaborators (sometimes including Dan Wainwright with whom he constructed the "Psychedelic Science" release with), and they take care of B-side duties with a galloping analogue synth workout. Slightly wonky and jarring, the concentric arpeggio rotates off-center, making for a slightly discombobulating listen eschewing the smooth and silky for something a bit more raggedy and gritty. It's brilliantly constructed; with just a few simple elements working in tandem to create a dazzling, wide-screen synth scape.

As usual - top draw music from the Yorkshire underground. Limited copies in purple and black vinyl. Check!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Richard Norris and Rude Audio are the latest converts to the church of the The Golden Lion, with the Todmorden based hub casting its net far and wide to deliver the best from the independent underground.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Richard Norris - This Song's For You (feat Findlay Brown) 

Side B
1. Rude Audio - The Grinning

'This is the book we've been waiting for . . .

It is a biography to be treasured' Joe Boyd'The Drake completist could ask for nothing else' Telegraph'Illuminating. The definitive word on Drake' ObserverIn 1968 Nick Drake had everything to live for. The product of a loving, creative family and a privileged background, he was not only a handsome and popular Cambridge undergraduate, but also a new signing to the UK's hippest record label, Island.

Three years later, however - having made three well-reviewed but low-selling albums - Nick had been overwhelmed by a mysterious mental illness. He returned to live in his family home in rural Warwickshire in 1971, and died in obscurity in 1974, aged just 26. In the decades since, Nick has become the subject of ever-growing fascination and speculation.

Combined sales of his records now stand in the millions, his songs are frequently heard on TV and in films, and he has become one of the most widely known and admired singer-songwriters of his generation. Nick Drake: The Life is the only biography of Nick to be written with the blessing and involvement of his sister and Estate. Drawing on copious original research and new interviews with his family, friends and musical collaborators, as well as deeply personal archive material unavailable to previous writers - including his father's diaries, his essays and private correspondence - this is the most comprehensive and authoritative account possible of Nick's short and enigmatic life.

Includes a foreword by Gabrielle Drake and over 75 photos, many rare or previously unseen.

From 1989 onwards, Richard was an obsessive collector of house and techno music, frequenting legendary London record shops such as Fat Cat, Silverfish, Trax and Red Records. He took record buying trips to New York to find second-hand disco, house and techno 12”s, which were lying around in bargain bins. The selection for this compilation are his own personal favourites from that era. Back then, electronic dance music was young, innocent and fun; it hadn’t been analysed, theorised and fragmented into the multi-genre industry it is today

What you hear on this compilation reflects what he was playing at that time; joining the dots between ambient, techno, tribal house, breakbeat and early trance productions from the UK. Much house and techno from the US, Belgium, Germany and Holland has been well documented, but some of the more obscure British productions are lesser known and need to be showcased.

Hopefully, these tracks will inspire and educate a new generation of electronic music fans who weren’t born then and also trigger some acid flashbacks for the older ravers as they take a trip down memory lane.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Centuras - Tokyo
A2 Bandulu - Amaranth - Love Lies Bleeding
B1 Strontium 90 - Rave On The Congo
B2 Orr-some - We Can Make It
C1 Biff'um Baff'um Boys - Bombing
C2 Epoch 90 - V.l.s.i. Heaven (Zone Mix)
C3 Mind Over Rhythm - Kubital Footstorm (Global Beatmix)
D1 Dream Frequency - Dream The Dream
D2 As One - Isatai
D3 Uvx - Elevator (Trancefloor Transporter)

• Ace Records is thrilled to be working with seminal singer-songwriter, toast of this year's Olivier Awards and all-round Sheffield legend Richard Hawley on this, the first volume of a compilation series of some of his favourite singles. This is a selection of 28 7''s that Richard has collected on his travels around the globe, through friends, family, collectors, word of mouth, thrift shop finds, pub jukebox gems and everything in between. Richard refers to the glue that joins these selections together as 'Little Bangers' as they are all mini hand grenades; bright lights that explode and fizzle out, some big names, some rarities, some lost souls, some obscurities, some by artists he actively enjoys knowing almost nothing about other than they want to get him on his feet and dance. Many are garage instrumentals, exposing the guitar-line as lead melody and the art of telling a story without lyrics.

• As Richard puts it, 'I’m fascinated by the 7-inch single because of the discipline of it. A 7-inch single can only contain a certain amount of information... So, you have to learn the discipline of cramming all that information and craft into a short space of time. If you imagine this album as a piece of bacon, there’s absolutely no fat on it at all. It’s just juicy meat. There aren’t flabby recordings, they are very nimble.'

• We're extra proud that the Hendrix Estate have allowed us to include Curtis Knight & The Squires' ferocious and never previously licensed 'Hornet's Nest' which naturally we proudly kick off with. We feature the five-minutes-plus long version that has never been released before. The pace never slackens, taking in the Shadows, Link Wray, the Troggs, the Champs, Jimmy Gordon and so many more besides. It's joyful, it's relentless, and you can listen to it on repeat for a thousand miles.

To give Richard the last word: 'My advice to everybody, is keep on the surfboard, motherfucker. These records have kept me on my surfboard for decades, you know what I’m saying?'

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Richard Hawley was schooled on rock’n’roll; his dad was a musician in the 60s and 70s and growing up he was always surrounded by musicians. So, it’s no surprise that he’s compiled these 7” gems from that era, collected on his travels. As he says: “They’re called Little Bangers because they’re like miniature musical hand grenades!”

TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE
1. HORNET'S NEST –
Curtis Knight & The Squires Feat. Jimi Hendrix
2. NASTY - The Time Keepers
3. PATH THROUGH THE FOREST - The Factory
4. GET ON THIS PLANE - The Premiers
5. SCOTCH ON THE SOCKS - The Shadows
6. QUASIMOTO - The Road Runners
7. LAZY REBEL - Twangy Rebels
SIDE TWO
1. SWINGING DRUMS - Ronny Kae
2. CUTTIN' OUT - Rockin’ Ronald & The Rebels
3. HONKY - The Ho-Dads
4. BLACK NIGHT - Cheryl Thompson
5. LONG LINE RIDER - Bobby Darin
6. POPPIN' POPEYE - Link Wray
7. HOT-ROD - King Curtis
SIDE THREE
1. FEELS LIKE A WOMAN - The Troggs
2. CUTTIN' OUT - The Pirates
3. WHERE YOU GONNA GO - Art Guy
4. NEB'S TUNE - Ahab & The Wailers
5. BUZZZZZZ - Jimmy Gordon
6. JUNGLE WALK - The Dyna-Sores
7. SURFIN' & SWINGIN' - Les Brown Jr
SIDE FOUR
1. TAHITI - Jimmy & Stan
2. BAWANA JINDE - Al Duncan
3. DEAD END PART 1 - The Executioners
4. REQUIEM FOR LOVE - Bobbie Gentry & Jody Reynolds
5. 3/4 MASH - The Champs
6. EL GATO - The Chandelles
7. IT’S NOTHING TO ME – Sanford Clark

Essential UK experimental composer Richard Skelton returns to Phantom Limb for new album selenodesy, interweaving his newfound love of electronics and synthesis with mastery of gritty organic texture.

Skelton’s music has always been rooted in landscape, in the loam and grit of the earth: from his 2009 Pennine Moors-inspired modern classic Landings to his more recent Moraine Sequence of geological excavations, his work has been bound inexorably with the stark and untended wilderness of northern landscapes. With this new album, however, Skelton shifts his gaze skyward — in part the result of a move in 2017 to the countryside near the Kielder Observatory, and to a so-called ‘dark sky’ region of the UK. In this remote landscape, light pollution is minimal, allowing the austere majesty of the night sky to be seen with greater clarity.

The resulting album, selenodesy, reveals a new, reverberant spaciousness to Skelton’s use of electronics. It marries the twin worlds of his previous Phantom Limb release - 2020’s These Charms May Be Sung Over A Wound, and its abandoned-factory threnody - with the landscape-revering arcana of his earlier work, which saw him bury instruments in the soil to return months later to recover and record with them, newly imbued with the land they occupied. selenodesy was prefigured by a period of insomnia and the relief found in stargazing, during which Skelton tried to transcribe his hypnagogic visions: “much of this music came to me in the early hours, in that nowhere state between dreaming and waking. I’d look out the window and the night sky would be swirling with stars. Mars or Venus would be hovering in the corner of the room. I’d lie there and watch the Aurora Borealis dance across the ceiling.”

In selenodesy, we find the lingering, distorted sine waves of album opener “Albedo” that thrum and fizz with an icy, foreboding moonlight, rays of subtle movement that illuminate and darken alternately. Next follows lead single “The Plot of Lunar Phases”, whose passive shrieks echo about a cold, yawning space, reaching an ecstatic crescendo of hissing sonics and swirling celestial drone. Its dynamic range acts like the light of a lunar passage, from utmost darkness to radiant luminosity. Elsewhere, the pulsing, precessional bass of “Faint Ray Systems” gradually opens to reveal mournful, elegiac synthesis that reaches high into the night sky with an unearthly beauty. It is as if, during those long months of lockdown in the Scottish countryside, Skelton tapped into a series of sidereal electromagnetic transmissions, and transposed them into musical form.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Albedo View
A2. The Plot Of Lunar Phases
A3. Faint Ray Systems View
A4. Isostasy View
B1. Hypervelocity View
B2. Impact Theory View
B3. Lesser Gravity View
B4. Fallback View

Hard on the heels of their critically-acclaimed singles “Don’t Panic England” and “A DFFRNT WRLD”. TV Smith, frontman of The Adverts and Richard Strange, frontman of Doctors of Madness release “A DFFRNT WRLD”, a DOUBLE CD set of songs for the Digital Age. A collection of fist-pumping, toe-tapping rants by two of Britain’s finest songwriters. The two met in 1976 and were firm fans of each other’s bands. They started writing together in 1977, and Record Store Day 2021 saw the release of their sell-out vinyl album 1978, a collection of songs written by the two when their respective bands hit the buffers in that year. Encouraged by the success of the vinyl release, the two discussed the possibility of re-imagining and re-recording the songs in a world that has changed beyond recognition since 1978. When the two musicians first met in 1977, there was no internet, no mobile phones, no wi-fi, no samplers, no digital recording, no Instagram, no Facebook, no TikTok, no Starbucks, no Covid …it is, and was, A DFFRNT WRLD.

Produced by Strange and with some tracks mixed by Martyn Ware and Tom Gillieron, A DFFRNT WRLD flexes its musical and lyrical muscles like a digital-age superhero, and speaks loud and clear to all generations. The Adverts and Doctors of Madness were two seminal bands of the mid 70s.TV Smith wrote three of the most iconic songs of the punk era…One Chord Wonders, Bored Teenagers and the hit single Gary Gilmore’s Eyes, and has released 14 albums to date. His live shows are legendary for the fervour and the almost religious zeal of his fans. Richard “Kid” Strange went on to work with artists as varied as Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, The Nightingales and Marianne Faithfull, as well as working as an actor in the films Batman, Robin Hood, Gangs of New York and Harry Potter. Their friendship dates back 45 years, through the unique journeys their lives have taken them on. 

TRACK LISTING

Disc 1:
1. The Big Break
2. Kings Of The Wreckage
3. Making Machines
4. Last Human Being In The World
5. Summer Fun
6. Some Kind Of War
7. Torpedo
8. Dance Of Death
Disc 2:
1. A Dffrnt Wrld
2. The Big Break
3. Making Machines
4. Some Kind Of War
5. Torpedo
6. Last Human Being In The World
7. Kings Of The Wreckage
8. Dance Of Death
9. Don’t Panic England 

The debut solo album from the influential British folk-rock pioneer Richard Thompson - Originally released on Island in 1972, the album showcases Thompson's remarkable, singular talent.

Feted as their lead writer, Richard Thompson left Fairport Convention, the group he founded in 1967, in early 1971. Recorded at Joe Boyd's legendary Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea in February 1972, Henry The Human Fly was a 37-minute collection of everything that makes Thompson so cherished today – well-written vignettes with an emphasis on shadow, a cast of curious characters, all wrapped in his warm folk-based musical drone.

Backed with some of the biggest names in field (Sandy Denny, Barry Dransfield, Ashley Hutchings), Henry The Human Fly showcases Thompson at an early peak. Among its 12 tracks, Nobody's Wedding borrows heavily from the traditional Irish air, Marie's Wedding; The Angels Took My Race Horse Away features Thompson's distinctive guitar playing, part- Django Reinhardt, part- Lou Reed. There is the delightful harp melody of The Old Changing Way; the eerie Salvation Army band nativity of Mary & Joseph – there is much to savour.

This re-issue faithfully replicates the original 1972 Island Records UK release and is pressed onto high quality 180g vinyl.

Welcome to the debut album by Richard Olson & The Familiars, A LP full of dreamy harmony laden melancholy and, dare we say it, Singer Songwriter Pop Music – though Pop Music in the sense that each track is a gorgeous ear worm that you can wrap yourself in and within. Richard was a member of the now-legendary Eighteenth Day Of May, before forming The See See who would then evolve into the much loved and revered The Hanging Stars.

On Richard’s debut LP we are treated to a record full of lush harmonies, acoustic guitars and strings as well as Richards most personal and reflective writing, Songs that are full of a hazy warmth and yearning that superbly capture the feel and sound that lies somewhere between The Byrds (think Easy Rider) and The Clientele. The plaintive gorgeousness of opening track ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ reflects the heart-rending, deep feeling that flows throughout the whole of Richard Olsen and The Familiars debut LP.

Richard has a great, expressive voice, capable of switching from harmonious and melodic to world-weary within a single song. Air is especially affecting and effective - gorgeously near-ambient kaleidoscope vibe of whispered vocals with pedal steel and slide guitar. ‘I’m A Butterfly’ blends a sumptuous bouncy riff with harmonica and tambourines into hazy dream of pop perfection. Inside Sunshine is the perfect song to close the LP, lilting into the sunset as Richard creates an wonderous retro hued filter - a filmic paean to love with Luke Barlow’s flute playing adding to the trance created.

Deep Listening 2019 - 2022 features the best of Richard Norris' recent ambient, downtempo and deep listening music.

This reflective, meditative take on electronic music has been a daily practice for the musician for some years, and has resulted in numerous releases on the Group Mind and Inner Mind labels. Included are a number of 'Music For Healing' tracks, part of an ongoing series of releases specifically created for relaxation and anxiety relief. The results have been quite phenomenal. People have given birth to this music, and there have been many reports of people using this music to help anxiety, stress and bereavement.

Richard Norris is well known for his work with Soft Cell's Dave Ball in the Grid, and Erol Alkan in Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, as well as many solo releases, productions and remixes. He has been called 'the electronic musician's electronic musician', and the results are all over this double album, with warm analogue bubble baths heavily featured. Dive in... 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: LOVE a bit of Richard Norris, and this collection sees some of his best work collected together for a Deep Listening monolith. The series was a source of constant joy and relaxation for me during the pandemic, so it's great to see a summary of the myriad pieces collected together so perfectly. An essential collection for any ambient fans.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eighty Eight
2. December
3. Cornflower
4. Borders
5. I Know How You Feel
6. Through The Window
7. January
8. Four
9. Ultramarine
10. June
11. Nine
12. Grains Of Light
13. In A Heartbeat
14. The Golden Age
15. Deep Orange
16. One
17. Signal To Power
18. Super Wolf Moon
19. Two
20. Space

‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ is the title track from Richard Hawley’s sixth studio album, which debuted at number three in the UK albums chart in 2012 and was nominated for that year’s Mercury Prize. Named after Skye Edge, a hillside area with views over the city centre, the song went onto inspire a musical which tells the story of three families over sixty years living in Sheffield’s Park Hill housing estate. It premiered at the Crucible before transferring to the National in London and won Best Musical Production at the UK Theatre Awards and the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Theatre. This is another great Music Box version of one of Hawley's best-loved songs, so why not…

Triple CD set collecting rare cuts and cult favourites from the worlds of psychedelic, pastoral and funky folk, 1968-1975.

Focusing on the outpouring of psychedelic folk flavours that emerged swiftly after the first psychedelic era.

Featuring some wonderful selections from long collectable acts such as Sunforest, Mellow Candle, Trees, Heron, Trader Horne, Christine Harwood and many more. 

Compiled by Richard Norris (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve/The Grid) , the compilation is themed around UK and Irish music from that hallowed period, and comes with a 7000 word essay and sleeve notes from the musician/producer.

Celebrating the collision of traditional folk with new psychedelic studio techniques, new and exotic textures, and a developing groove. It's a wide and broad range of styles, drawing from folk, its oral storytelling tradition, and also from jazz, beat, rhythm and blues, and the more mind opening sounds of psychedelia.

Housed in a 3 CD digipack, designed in a striking wraparound collage by Lyndon Pike .

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE
1. FAT MATTRESS Leafy Lane
2. KNOCKER JUNGLE Not Even A Letter
3. DUFFY POWER I Need You
4. MIKE HURST Face From The Past
5. RAY FENWICK I Wanna Stay Here
6. HARDIN AND YORK Natural Gas
7. OPEN ROAD Mother Earth
8. PAUL BRETT Motherless Child On A Merry-Go-Round
9. THE WOODS BAND Noisey Johnny
10. MEIC STEVENS Yorric
11. MARC ELLINGTON You Just Can’t Believe What You See
12. ALAN JAMES EASTWOOD Crystal Blue
13. ARRIVAL La Virra
14. DANDO SHAFT Cold Wind
15. LINDA HOYLE Hymn To Valerie Solanas
16. NIRVANA Nova Sketch
17. BRIAN DAVISON’S EVERY WHICH WAY Castle Sand
18. JADE WARRIOR Yellow Eyes
19. WRITING ON THE WALL Buffalo

DISC TWO
1. CHRIS HARWOOD Wooden Ships
2. BRIDGET ST. JOHN Fly High
3. DANDO SHAFT Rain
4. HERON Lord And Master
5. MELLOW CANDLE Silversong
6. TREES Murdoch
7. KEITH CHRISTMAS Foothills
8. TRADER HORNE Morning Way
9. MILLER ANDERSON Shadows ‘Cross My Wall
10. THE GHOST Time Is My Enemy
11. KEVIN COYNE Flowering Cherry
12. SECOND HAND Hangin’ On An Eyelid
13. FUCHSIA Shoes And Ships
14. MIKE HURST Place In The Country
15. AMBER Swan In The Evening
16. GLOBAL VILLAGE TRUCKING COMPANY The Inevitable Fate Of Ms Danya Sox
17. MIGHTY BABY Jug Of Love

DISC THREE
1. SUNFOREST Magician In The Mountain
2. CHRIS HARWOOD Crying To Be Heard
3. WIZZ JONES City Of The Angels
4. JADE WARRIOR Lady Of The Lake
5. KNOCKER JUNGLE Oh To Be Free
6. BRIDGET ST. JOHN Silver Coin
7. FRIENDS In The Morning
8. ALAN JAMES EASTWOOD Lotus Child
9. THE DEVIANTS Bun
10. JADE Amongst Anemones
11. PRINCIPAL EDWARDS MAGIC THEATRE The Death Of Don Quixote
12. YVONNE ELLIMAN Hawaii
13. THE OCCASIONAL WORD The Evil Venus Tree
14. IAN A. ANDERSON Goblets And Elms
15. BILL NELSON Rejoice
16. ZIOR Time Is The Reason
17. CURTIS KNIGHT WITH ZEUS New Horizon
18. LINDA LEWIS Reach For The Truth

Pop in your earpiece, close your eyes and embrace the wonders (and horrors) of augmented reality and prepare to travel 500 years into the future as Richard Dawson returns with…The Ruby Cord. These seven tracks plunge us into an unreal, fantastical and at times sinister future where social mores have mutated, ethical and physical boundaries have evaporated; a place where you no longer need to engage with anyone but yourself and your own imagination. It’s a leap into a future that is well within reach, in some cases already here. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Richard Dawson hits the legendary Domino once again for a new album of wonderfully off-piste songwriting, both wildly inventive and full of stylistic turns that he alone pulls off so seamlessly. I admit that I didn't quite get Dawson's music for a while, but I definitely do now, and this is for my money, his finest work to date.

A first time release for 2 untitled demos from Spectrum’s 1992 classic “Soul Kiss (Glide Divine)” LP.

Listed here as “untitled”, the pair of tunes here were penned by Richard Formby initially and were developed into the classics “Sweet Running Water” and “The Drunk Suite” for the LP which represented Sonic Boom’s first project as a band post Spacemen 3.

Lovely stripped down minimal pieces which represent a fascinating insight into how the tracks were first laid down and presented to Sonic and Mike Stout in the band.

Definitely one for all Spacemen (and post S3 bands) afficionados and released as a one time pressing of 500 45s dressed up nice in PY’s BBC ‘70s library ‘tip of the hat’ sleeves and additional backing card. 

The latest in the Richard Hawley music box series is  fan favouriet ‘I’m Looking For Someone To Find Me’, from the award winning Singer-Songwriter’s 5th studio album ‘Lady's Bridge’. 

Released in 2007, Hawley said the LP was about “leaving the past behind” and was named after another landmark location in his hometown of Sheffield. The Guardian called the record “beautiful, moving pop at its best" and it was lauded by the NME as “an album that has moments that won't be bettered this year or any other.” with BBC Music adding that it “furthers his cause in becoming a proper national treasure".

Music For Healing is a series of long form tracks to aid stress and anxiety relief in these challenging times.

Now available on vinyl for the first time this edition collects The Longform Series 5-8.

The series totals four hours of listening time. Use them as background ambience, as immersive deep listening, in combination with meditation or any other practice. Music For Healing tracks are crafted and recorded in real time with no Artificial Intelligence involved.

Hamburg synthesist Richard von der Schulenburg returns to Bureau B with the follow up to last year’s Moods & Dances 2021, harnessing hardware crunch, cryptic found sounds and field recordings on a mission for Cosmic Diversity. Taking inspiration from the haunting electronica of BoC and Plaid, refracted here through the half-life of a Zeiss lens, RVDS navigates the musical multiverse, simultaneously straddling electro, IDM, kosmische and dub across eight exploratory compositions.

The remastered, repackaged set Music From Grizzly Man contains all of the out of print material Thompson recorded for the acclaimed documentary. Richard Thompson's score for “Grizzly Man” Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary film of real life and death in the Alaskan wilderness is one of the best-kept secrets in the British guitarist's epic canon: an instrumental masterpiece disguised as a movie soundtrack. Recorded over two days as Thompson played live in the studio to Herzog's footage – mostly alone, at times in chamber settings with cello, piano and percussion – these tenderly detailed melodies and quietly visceral improvisations are cinema in their own right, rendered with pictorial instinct and the dazzling technique forged in Thompson's lifelong passage through traditional folk, psychedelia, North African modes and intensely personal songwriting. Here is Thompson at his natural best – finger-picking dance; snake-curl twang and singing-wire harmonics – in a solo clarity that runs from jig-like joy to deep-note meditation, the "Main Title" blues march with its echoes of Fairport Convention's "Sloth" to the long night of "Treadwell No More," a harrowing darkness in slicing treble and tremolo shiver. Produced by guitarist Henry Kaiser, Grizzly Man is a record of powerful solitude as bold and majestic as the land in Herzog's film; as intimate as prayer and essential Richard Thompson.

TRACK LISTING

1. Tim & The Bears
2. Grizzly Man
3. Foxes
4. Ghosts In The Maze
5. Glencoe
6. Parents
7. Bear Swim
8. Twilight Cowboy
9. The Kibosh
10. Treadwell No More
11. Teddy Bear
12. Small Racket
13. Streamwalk
14. That's My Story*
15. Bear Fight*
16. Big Racket*
17. Corona For Mr. Chocolate
18. Grizzly Man (Revisited)
* CD Only.

Music For Healing is a series of long form tracks to aid stress and anxiety relief in these challenging times.

Now available on vinyl for the first time this edition collects The Longform Series 1-4.

The series totals four hours of listening time. Use them as background ambience, as immersive deep listening, in combination with meditation or any other practice. Music For Healing tracks are crafted and recorded in real time with no Artificial Intelligence involved.

Richard Fearless follows his critically acclaimed psycho-geographical techno masterpiece ‘Deep Rave Memory’ with its companion album ‘Future Rave Memory’.

Across titanium kosmische, industrial ambience, weightless acid and dark drone, this new record is an instrument of evocative wonder and heavy emotion.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Future Rave Memory swims with atmosphere, wrought from echoing synth drones and sliding 303 abstractions. Grains of sound clash together to form dreamy passages both organic sounding, but charged with electricity. It's a masterfully crafted and enduringly enjoyable listen.

TRACK LISTING

Tamas
Earth Tapes
Future Rave Memory
Vision
Rotation Axis
Our Acid House

Richard Dawson is the diminutive Geordie troubadour whose moving songs have been described as state-of-the-nation addresses, even — or perhaps especially — when he’s singing about pre-medieval peasants. Circle are the genre-straddling pioneers of The New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, known for wearing spandex or dead fish onstage and singing in a made-up language.

Together they are… Richard Dawson & Circle! Today, we are pleased to announce news of their collaborative album Henki, due November 26th via Weird World. Their epic joint record might seem a departure to those who are most familiar with Dawson from recent solo albums like 2017’s Peasant and 2020 (released in 2019). In fact, Henki fits comfortably into the bigger picture of two acts who have always strived for uninhibited originality.

Dawson explains the album’s title: “The word 'henki' roughly translates as 'spirit'. It's a very rich word, supple in its meaning in the same way as the Geordie 'canny'; difficult to pin down.” True to its name, while Henki is influenced, in part by heavy-metal bands, it does not sound like any metal album you will have heard before. For one thing, few metal albums are filled with songs about plants. Inspired by Circle’s guitarist Janne Westerlund instructing the group during recording to be less straightforward and more “like a plant”, each of Henki’s seven tracks deal with special plants throughout history.

As mutual fans of each other, Circle and Dawson originally hit off it via Twitter, which led to Dawson being invited to accompany Circle for their set at Helsinki’s Sideways Festival in 2019. Dawson recalls the moment: “It was like being a teenager and suddenly being asked to go onstage with Iron Maiden. That’s how important this band are to me”. Having pulled that off, they started exchanging demos before they finally got in a room together to set off on their journey proper. Most of the recording took place in Pori - a fine jewel of a city on Finland's balmy west coast - across several visits, the last being in late January 2020 just as Covid-19 first reached Europe. From there they had to finish Henki remotely - via waves of pure thought beamed across the dark dividing oceans betwixt them, and email.

Easily the greatest flora-themed hypno-folk-metal record you’ll hear this year, Henki adds an electrifying new chapter to the remarkable story of each act, and marks the beginning of a beautiful partnership. Circle, described as "the world’s greatest band - in every category” are Pekka Jääskeläinen (guitar), Julius Jääskeläinen (guitar), Jussi Lehtisalo (bass, voice), Mika Rättö (keyboard, voice), Tomi Leppänen (drums) and Janne Westerlund (guitar, voice). Richard Dawson plays guitar and vocals. Henki was mixed by Antti Uusimäki and mastered by Christian Wright.

The album features twelve newly recorded acoustic versions of classic songs from his back catalogue spanning both his solo career and his time with The Verve.

After lockdown was lifted, Richard decided to start the project as a way to reunite the community around him, bringing a selection of great musicians and old friends back together again. As the project took shape, they discovered just how varied their new approaches could be. Some of the arrangements proved to be timeless and remained similar to the originals, with years of experience and a new found passion that saw Richard’s vocals express a fresh empathy within their lyrics. Meanwhile, other songs took on a new shape in this stripped-back set-up.

The rebirth of the iconic ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ was an emotional moment for Richard. It felt particularly poignant re-recording a song that he had written almost twenty-five years ago, especially as it's now officially his composition after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards relinquished their writing credits to him.

Another big moment comes with the new version of ‘C’Mon People (We’re Making It Now)’, a duet with Richard’s old friend Liam Gallagher. The pair have often talked about recording or performing the song together since it was first released in 2000, and now it’s finally happened - the sheer energy and delight that they shared during the session is palpable as the new recording beams with a joyous feeling of optimism.

‘Velvet Morning’ is another track that has been transformed. The vocals on the original version, as featured on The Verve’s classic ‘Urban Hymns’, were sung via a megaphone that Richard had purchased from a car boot sale the day before the recording session. Now Richard’s vocal really shines as it unleashes the song’s full magnitude.

The biggest surprise on ‘Acoustic Hymns Vol. 1’ is the inclusion of ‘This Thing Called Life’, a song which Ashcroft has rarely played live. It was originally recorded with No I.D. in the USA as a highlight of his soul-tinged RPA & The United Nations Of Sound project. Now taken back to basics, the new arrangement reveals a song that feels perfectly at home alongside Richard’s most highly regarded work.

Produced by Richard with regular collaborator Chris Potter, the album features his regular live band boosted by some special collaborators. Wil Malone provides the string arrangements, which were recorded at Abbey Road Studios. In addition, Chuck Leavell (The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers) performs piano, Roddy Bloomfield leads the brass section, and Steve Wyreman (Leon Bridges, Vic Mensa) contributes acoustic guitar and backing vocals.

TRACK LISTING

CD
Bittersweet Symphony
A Song For The Lovers
Sonnet
C'mon People (We're Making It Now) – Featuring Liam Gallagher
Weeping Willow
Lucky Man
This Thing Called Life
Space & Time
Velvet Morning
Break The Night With Colour
One Day
The Drugs Don't Work

Vinyl Tracklist
SIDE A
Bittersweet Symphony
A Song For The Lovers
Sonnet
SIDE B
C'mon People (We're Making It Now) – Featuring Liam Gallagher
Weeping Willow
Lucky Man
SIDE C
This Thing Called Life
Space & Time
Velvet Morning
SIDE D
Break The Night With Colour
One Day
The Drugs Don't Work

The third in the series of Richard Hawley music boxes.

"Do you know why you got feelings in your heart....."

The 2nd in the series of Richard Hawley music boxes.

Wind the handle to play the gorgeous refrain from Open Up Your Door.

An absolute gem!

The first of a series of Richard Hawley music boxes.

Turn the handle to play a snippet of Coles Corner.

It'll melt your heart!

New album from Richard Youngs that, similar to a lot of his work, happened fairly spontaneously following our having heard one of Richard's sketches utilising a Spanish guitar during the spring of 2021 and being duly impressed. We then proposed releasing a CD album of such work, where Richard uses the same guitar alongside real-time street sounds, birdsong, tape loops, synth, FM radio and runout grooves to create a setting that's comparatively gentler than most of his work thus far on Fourth Dimension Records.

Iker, meaning 'visitation' in Basque, collects five songs wilfully displaying Richard's prowess with the guitar whilst placing his delicate strumming of it alongside subtle elements that accord the proceedings with a hue unmistakably his own. If interested in the more stripped-down approach of some of John Fahey's work or Sir Richard Bishop's own impressionist playing then Iker should make for a wonderful accompaniment to such work. Moreover, though, this is just another fantastic album from one of the best eclectic and most individualist musicians the UK has produced during the past few decades.

TRACK LISTING

1.Water Feeling
2.With Cloud
3.Narrow Afternoon Feeling
4.High Window
5.Street Feeling

Written in the wee hours of the night, the late Richard Swift’s ‘KFC’ is a winding sardonic monologue about a rough night of food poisoning following a quick dinner of fried chicken.

On the track, Swift’s vocal is pitched down and distorted while accompanied by cooing vocal harmonies and drums.

TRACK LISTING

KFC
A Man’s Man

After a host of well received ambient releases, Richard Norris is back with the motorik, trance inducing electronic groove of 'Hypnotic Response'.

Influenced by German 70's music, psychedelia, hypnotic repetition and an old Korg 55 drum machine, these tracks veer from the expansive eleven minute workout 'Arca' to the mesmeric sequences of 'In Flight', from the propulsive Kosmishe rhythm of 'Free Ride' to the electronic lullaby 'La Lune'.

A widescreen and mesmerising set, with accompanying retina altering artwork and vinyl. Dive in deep.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Aaah, Richard Norris. I am a huge fan of his 'Elements' release from last year, so it's a huge joy to have his latest collection of snappy cosmic beats and spine-tingling arpeggios to wrap the ears around. It seems like there's no stopping Norris at the moment, with all of his monthly 'Music For Healing' releases providing vital relaxation during lockdown only adding to the excellence of his physical output. 'Hypnotic Response' is a triumph in every way.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. In Flight
2. Arca
3. Free Ride

Side B
4. Gamma & Delta
5. Reflections Of Kyoto
6. La Lune

Much like the New Orleans–born artist who created it, Second Line is an unapologetic genre bender that pushes boundaries, expands possibilities, and shatters expectations. It’s more than just an album: Second Line is a cohesive sensory experience that questions traditional ideas of sound, production, and visual aesthetics as they relate to music. Its interlocking parts tell an epic story about the quest for artistic expression, with Dawn describing her project as “a movement to bring pioneering Black women in electronic music to the forefront.” She elaborates: “You never see women appreciated as producers and artists alike especially Black women in the electronic space. The time is now for us to start recognizing their talent, not only in electronic music but in all genres. I wanna be the reason why a young Black girl from the South can be whoever she wants to be musically, visually, and artistically.” Second Line cuts to the chase with its opening suite of dancefloor bangers, immediately displaying Dawn’s mastery of layered production and melodic hooks. Second Line treats Louisiana Creole culture, New Orleans bounce, and Southern Swag as elemental, allowing Dawn to weave in and out of house, footwork, R&B, and more.

As she says, “I am the genre.” The story of Second Line centers on Dawn’s persona King Creole, assassin of stereotypes, a Black girl from the South at a crossroads in her artistic career. To move forward, she decides to look back, but where previous album New Breed took influence from her father, Second Line is illuminated by Dawn’s mother. Her proud repeated proclamation of “I’m a Creole Girl” introduces the ecstatic dancehall pop of “Jacuzzi,” and later, on the cinematic album centerpiece “Mornin | Streetlights,” she answers Dawn’s question of how many times she has been in love. Intimate conversations like this between the two are interlaced throughout Second Line, giving credence to how the protagonist came to be, and direction to build a lane forward. It’s no surprise that King Creole’s story parallels Dawn Richard’s. As a founding member of Danity Kane, and later with Diddy’s Dirty Money, Dawn was able to explore the ins and outs of commercial pop music. As a solo artist, she opted to selfrelease her music. Over the span of five critically acclaimed full-length albums, Dawn has made the message clear that she will not bow down or bend to industry norms. All the while, she’s built her resume with enough extracurriculars to make your head spin: Cheerleader for the New Orleans Hornets? Check. Animator for Adult Swim? Check. Owner-operator of a vegan pop-up food truck? Check. Martial arts expert? Check! Second Line embodies the heritage of soul music and the roots of New Orleans, all surrounded by the influences of electronic futurism. “The definition of a Second Line in New Orleans is a celebration of someone’s homecoming,” says Dawn. “In death and in life, we celebrate the impact of a person’s legacy through dance and music.

I’m celebrating the death of old views in the industry. The death of boxes and limits. I’m celebrating the homecoming of the Future. The homecoming to the new wave of artists. The emergence of all the King Creoles to come.” Dawn Richard is bold, confident, purposeful, and a King throughout Second Line. Are you ready to dance?

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1 King Creole (Intro)
2 Nostalgia
3 Boomerang
4 Bussifame
5 Pressure
6 Pilot (a Lude)
7 Jacuzzi
8 FiveOhFour (a Lude)

SIDE B
9 Voodoo (Intermission)
10 Mornin | Streetlights
11 Le Petit Morte (a Lude)
12 Radio Free
13 The Potter
14 Perfect Storm

Music For Soundtracks is an album of ten ambient, atmospheric pieces Richard Norris has recently created for film and TV.

They feature in BAFTA winning director Kieran Evans’ recent Sky Arts documentary ‘Cold War Steve Meets The Outside World’, as well as Marc Issacs’ latest film ‘The Filmmaker’s House’. The tracks range from widescreen electronic dance to immersive deep listening cuts, all with a marked sense of space and landscape. Dive in…

Recorded in 2011 in a dusty, beloved barn, ‘Even Your Drums Will Die’ is a time machine, a real one, to a moment packed thick with Richard Swift’s singular, crackling liveliness. Where Swift’s studio recordings are marked by texture, tone and mood, ‘Even Your Drums Will Die’ puts a spotlight on Swift’s voice, his lyrics and his songwriting.

Running through all of Swift’s tunes is a certain agitation - a fidgetiness, a restlessness. It’s clearer than ever now, over two years after Swift’s passing, that he used his music to let a little pressure out of his tire. ‘A Song for Milton Feher’ nods to all this, its namesake coming from the professional dancer and director who taught his students to release their “habits of tension.” The song feels like a skeleton key to Swift’s oeuvre, a clear look into the wild wheels spinning inside his big old artist noggin.

On the flipside is ‘Lady Luck’. The classic. The revived ghost of a lost 45 that never existed, or maybe always did, but that only Richard Swift could make real.

If you know these songs, you will find them set alight here. If you don’t, ‘Even Your Drums Will Die’ is an incomparable snapshot of both art and artist. It is a genie, a real one, let loose from the lamp with Richard Swift’s explosive energy, imagination and mischief.

Recorded Live at Pickathon, 2011.

Swift was a celebrated recording artist, collaborator (The Black Keys, The Shins, the Arcs) and producer (Nathaniel Rateliff, Kevin Morby, Guster, Pretenders).

TRACK LISTING

The Ballad Of You Know Who
The Novelist
Looking Back, I Should Have Been Home
The Million Dollar Baby
The Songs Of National Freedom
The Original Thought
The Ballad Of Old What’s His Name
The First Time
A Song For Milton Feher
Lady Luck

Revered Hamburg musician, synthesist and DJ RVDS joins the Bureau B ranks with the meditative and mellifluous sounds of ‘Moods and Dances 2021’ - a musical present from the future past.

Inspired by the otherworldly exotica and imaginative electronics of library music’s golden age, Richard von der Schulenberg conjures palm trees and pyramids, promenades and portals, all observed from the heart of a Holodeck. Seven Of Nine tracks are named after the equipment used to create them, offering an additional journey through the patch bay-mayhem of the RVDS home studio, and paying homage to the tonal nuance among his collection.

Now whether he’s atop Mt. Acid with a molten 303, caressing tender Fender keys through an improvised jazz set or live scoring some stage-based theatrics, Richard’s music always offers an immersive experience, but perhaps never more directly than this latest opus.

We wash up on the digital shoreline of ‘Mrs Yamaha’s Summer Tune’, sparkling with salt water and the shimmer of polished mallets and subtle percussion. ‘Caravan of the Pentamatics’ heads inland through the tree line, carving a silk road through Ethiopian jazz tones and snaking rhythms until it encounters the mystical presence of The Farfisa Sphinx. Cryptic melodies float a top a bed of spheric bass, intangible and irresistible until they fade into the sand storm. The gentle and jazzy ‘Roland’s Night Walk’ provides a little rest from the desert deities, though distant gunshot and the unceasing cicadas add tension to the moonlit majesty of those delicate keys. The dawn brings heartbreak via the dewy melodies and tonal malady of Richard’s DX7, but somewhere someone’s dancing to the propulsive bassline, eerie vocals and Arabesque sounds of ‘The Space Pentas’, a little kosmische boogie which just builds and builds. But dervish whirls are thirsty business, so it follows you should take a drinks break at the ‘Wersimatic Space Bar’, a sophisticated kind of cantina awash with exotica. Then the boogie is back for the penultimate track, a deranged, demented and diabolical bit of commune chaos brought back from ‘Planet Dragon’, and translated into a Radiophonic workout. Parting is such sweet sorrow on any planet, and ‘The End (Lala)’ captures the sentiment superbly, serving space sirens, somnolent bass sounds and bursts of static at a stately tempo.

Though Library inspired, and undoubtedly indebted to the hardware in action, this intriguing intergalactic trip is more passionate than a pastiche; playful, poetic and enigmatic in true RVDS fashion. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Hamburg's synth genius RVDS fires up the hardware to create a mystical homage to the Italian library records of old. Alongside the Balearic lullabies and digital exotica there are also a couple of groovers for the more adventurous dance floor ("Dance Of The Space Pentax" I'm looking at you!)

TRACK LISTING

A1. Mrs Yamahas Summer Tune
A2. Caravan Of The Pentamatics
A3. Flowers For The Farfisa Sphinx
A4. Rolands Night Walk
A5. DX7s Broken Hearts
B1. Dance Of The Space Pentax
B2. Wersimatic Space Bar
B3. Planet Dragon
B4. The End (La La)

Twelve of Hearts is the debut album by experimental songwriters, Daniel O’Sullivan and Richard Youngs.

Each song has four chords. No more. No less. They cycle without variation. They never change key. As Youngs sings on Oblivion Riviera, this is “the glittering formula”.

The music is augmented by an array of sources including piano, tape machines, guitars, reeds, strings, metal sheet and computer. Constructed over several months - O’Sullivan in London, Youngs in Glasgow - only material strictly adhering to the formula has made it on to this release. The result is a cycle of 12 songs based on one chord progression.

After releasing O’Sullivan’s two solo albums ‘Veld’ and ‘Folly’ and Youngs’ 2018 album ‘Belief’, this is the duo's first for Tim Burgess' O Genesis label.

TRACK LISTING

A1 First Throw Of The Ocean
A2 Big Old Star
A3 Fear Catches The Sky
A4 Long Joyful Dream
A5 The Gate
A6 Touch Of The Sun
B1 Don't Hang With Angels
B2 Oblivion Riviera
B3 In The August Dream
B4 Like I Need To Be Amazed
B5 Remain The Fool
B6 Twelve Of Hearts

Five years after Tangier Sessions, Sir Richard Bishop, we presume, is back from his travels around the world. With Oneiric Formulary, he’s dug deeper into his bag of extra-musical gestures from the eternal and unknowable, along with a few sounds we might recognize, all transmuted for our mortal ears’ enjoyment. The last couple of Sir Richard Bishop releases on Drag City were genre exercises of sorts — The Freak of Araby explored the musical legacy of late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid while Tangier Sessions explored the sound of an obscure 19th century guitar that Rick had acquired from a mysterious Swiss luthier.

The title Oneiric Formulary, may sit contrarily on the tongue — but we may refer to it as representing “a collection of dream states” — which means we like it! With such a lofty goal in mind and at his fingertips, Sir Rick returns to the approach of his DC debut, Polytheistic Fragments — a different sound, a different instrument, for nearly every track, drawing from the music of all nations, including and especially that infamous republic with only one person on the census roll (initials SRB). It’s got mad variety, the kind you don’t see much of anymore — an Ed Sullivan kind of evening out, with some spinning plates, dancing mice, and of course, an appearance from Zippy the Chimp.

What it means is that when you drop the needle/raise the laser/press the head to tape/or do whatever happens when you stream it, you’ve got sounds that don’t sound at first like guitars — because they’re not! Then you’ve got sounds that sound initially like guitars — because they are! Sir Richard found joy in not only finding unlikely sounds, but also writing a fake jingle, soundtracking an unreleased film, reflecting on Southern origins, going concrète (Beatles-style!), using computers (Sir Rick, no!), and accidentally juxtaposing Frippian electric guitar drone against the grit of ol’ school acoustic guitar while thinking of sci-fi, as well as revisiting (t)rusty old forms such as Americana, classical, gypsy and raga. It’s all trotted out to phantasmic effect, as it brings to us with the freshness, the roar of the old crowd as they see, smell and hear the greatest show on earth. What a night! Thank you, Sir Richard Bishop.

TRACK LISTING

Call To Order
Celerity
Mit’s Linctus Codeine Co.
Renaissance Nod
Graveyard Wanderers
Dust Devils
Enville
Black Sara
The Coming Of The Rats
Vellum

Richard Dawson, the black-humoured bard of Newcastle, returns to release his sixth solo album 2020, his first since the critically acclaimed, Peasant. 2020  is an utterly contemporary state-of-the-nation study, that uncovers a tumultuous and bleak time. Here is an island country in a state of flux; a society on the edge of mental meltdown.

On 2020, Dawson introduces us to grand themes through small lives. His are portraits of human beings struggling with recognisable (and dare we say it, relatable) concerns, conflicts and desires, each reminding us that tragedy and gallows humour are not mutually exclusive, and that the magical can sit next to the mundane. Lyrically it is by far Dawson’s hardest-hitting and unflinchingly honest album to date. It is his poetic masterwork.

Within, we find disgruntled civil servants dreaming of better days, anxiety-addled joggers listlessly searching Zoopla for houses they cannot afford in their spare time, amateur footballers who think they’re Lionel Messi and beleaguered pub landlords battling rising floodwaters.

Here is life, in all its strange and wonderful ways.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Massive stadium rock choruses and strolling folk meet headfirst in this decidedly odd but absolutely on-brand distillation from Richard Dawson. Fiercely political but with a wry humour and unmissable melodic drive (an often overlooked aspect of the more 'humorous' releases) coupled with Dawson's flawless delivery and brilliant ear for a progression make this his most direct and essential release yet.

It’s been a while since the last Richard Hawley album - 4 years in fact. During that time he made a decision to break the recording / touring cycle he’d been working since he was 14 and went off to write music for films and also an acclaimed musical, "Standing At The Sky's Edge", based around a housing estate in his home town. But now he’s back, with a new album, and although there’s plenty of the swoonsome, croonsome Hawley we know and love, he’s not been afraid to push the boundaries a little.

If you’re a 6music listener, then you can’t fail to have heard the opening track, the bluesy rock’n’roll stomp of “Of My Mind” - maybe a bit of a shock to the system for long-time Hawley fans, but fear not! It’s followed my the Smithsian “Alone” and then the gorgeous “My Little Treasures” - a beautiful, heartfelt song written about drinking with two of his late father’s oldest friends. The sweeping strings and pedal steel of the title track and slow strummed ballad  “Emilina Says” wind things down beautifully.

I don’t know if the album was put together with the thought of an A-side and B-side in mind, but that’s how it comes across, with both sides opening with a big ballsy blast that slowly eases as the needle creeps inwards. The B-side opens with “Is There A Pill?”, with it’s pounding drums and big string surges that bring to mind “A Design For Life” era Manics. It’s followed by the chugging “Galley Girl” and then gently drifts into the languid “Not Lonely”. “Time Is” could be a Neil Diamond cover (he wrote some gems you know!) and is followed by my favourite track on the album “Midnight Train” - classic Hawley! And finally, the album is rounded off with the short but sweet, gentle strum of “Doors”.

“Further” is possibly the most diverse album Richard Hawley has recorded, but it flows beautifully - partly down to the wonderfully intertwined guitar playing of Hawley and long-time cohort Shez Sheridan, but also because Hawley is such a great song writer. If like me, you are unsure on first listen, stick with it - it’s worth it!

TRACK LISTING

1. Off My Mind
2. Alone
3. My Little Treasures
4. Further
5. Emilina Says
6. Is There A Pill?
7. Galley Girl
8. Not Lonely
9. Time Is
10. Midnight Train
11. Doors

Meticulously arranged and gorgeously recorded (including a session at Chicago’s famed Wilco Loft), ‘Atlantic Ocean’ is an immaculate kiss off. It’s a cheeky - if not wholly acrimonious - takedown of music industry artifice and hipster culture vapidity. “I’m part of the scene… I got the right LPs,” Swift begins the album on the title track over fuzzed Casio stabs and a clunky, bounding drum machine. The chorus of “Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, You’re gonna drown, drown drown” is itself a wee stab at a major label of a similar name. Across the entire album, Swift is burning bridges and the exposing trolls underneath. As the timeless Sly Stone-leaning burner ‘Lady Luck’ stretches to its climax, you get the sense that Swift has put his faith and trust into the familial love around him and not in the dangling carrot of music. Alongside 2007’s ‘Dressed Up For The Letdown’ and 2018’s posthumous ‘The Hex’, Richard Swift’s ‘The Atlantic Ocean’ (2009) completes his triumvirate of meta-pop masterpieces.

TRACK LISTING

The Atlantic Ocean
The Original Thought
Ballad Of Old What’s His Name
R.I.P.
Already Gone
Hallelujah, Goodnight!
The First Time
Bat Coma Motown
The End Of An Age
A Song For Milton Feher
Lady Luck

It was a great Swiftian irony that the shining moment of realization that is ‘Ground Trouble Jaw’ first saw its release as a modest, digital-only EP in 2008. Here Secretly Canadian right that wrong and pair it with 2011’s ‘Walt Wolfman’ EP, very much a spiritual twin of ‘Ground Trouble Jaw’. Walt Wolfman’’s blown-out, basement R&B speaker-shredders are not for the faint of heart. Highlight of the set, ‘MG 33’ is a raw and ghostly trance, a blast of kinetic energy and that jazz apple smoke blown right in your face. The quasi-title track ‘Walt Whitman’ is a cryptic salute to Whitman, whose American lineage of primal, urgent art can be traced to include Kerouac and Ray Johnson, Bo Diddley and Beefheart - right on through to Swift himself. He was an outsiderpop wanderkind who could do more with one worn, old mic than most men could with a high-end studio, taking ‘the holy moment’ and making it eternal.

TRACK LISTING

Would You
Lady Luck
The Bully
The Original Thought
A Song For Milton
Feher Whitman
MG 333
Laugh It Up
Zombie Boogie
Out & About
Drakula (Hey Man!)
St. Michael

Richard Swift confidently composed yet another original masterpiece; employing an archaic attitude of tempered restraint on a fresh collection of ten songs, without appearing shamelessly retro or kitschy. Playing a vast majority of the instruments himself, by virtue Swift has created something that is characteristically his. And considering his rough-around-the edges exterior, one could rightly assume that Swift desires the listener to accept him as an ordinary honest man with some honest songs - unmasked blemishes and all. Yet when one engages with Swift on this narrow-road-less-travelled, one immediately ignores the subtle imperfections shadowed by the all-consuming white light of well-crafted pop songs in an analogue heaven.

TRACK LISTING

Dressed Up For The Letdown
The Songs Of National Freedom
Most Of What I Know
Buildings In America
Artist & Repertoire
Kisses For The Misses
P.S. It All Falls Down
Ballad Of You Know Who
The Million Dollar Baby
The Opening Band

Following the vaguely poppy shapes of 1980's album East West, his fith album L'Ethique saw ex-Heldon guitarist and synth wizard Richard Pinhas return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. After the release he disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade and returned in the 1990s.

Interviewed by "Electronics & Music Maker" magazine in 1982, Richard Pinhas spoke in buoyant terms about the future of his recording career. Having just unveiled his fifth solo album, L'Ethique, he was already scheming towards its follow-up. The next record. It would see him shift from analogue-based methods to digital systems. He expected the album to arrive in 1984. Little did anybody know that the mooted record would not actually materialise.

The year after that interview took place, Pinhas was plunged into a long period of depression. "I stopped everything and didn't think I would ever come back to music," he remembers. "I decided music was no longer for me. I'd said what I had to wanted to say, and it was done. It was out of my head and out of my life." Thus, he sold all his synthesisers and tried to survive on their profits along with royalties from his back catalogue. L'Ethique now looked as though it was Pinhas' final artistic statement. It was a strong collection to go out on. L'Ethique saw Pinhas return to bigger and bolder band-like methods. His collaborators included bassist Bernard Paganotti and Clément Bailly, both of whom performed stints in the prog band Magma. Moog player Patrick Gauthier made a reappearance too. The line-up brought a phat and forceful feel to the crunching jazz-rock fusion of 'Belfast' and 'Dedicated To K.C.', a vibrant space-rock stomper that lurks on some distant planet between the extraterrestrial habitats of King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Hawkwind.

Part 1 of 'The Western Wall' has a particularly fast tempo. Interspersing these rockers sit some mellower moments. The title of the gorgeous synth rumination 'Melodic Simple Transition' seems far too modest. Despite its dark and brooding synth chords, the second instalment of 'The Western Wall' has a strangely calming effect on the senses. Pinhas disappeared from the limelight for nearly a decade under the weight of his depression. On the strength of this record, not to mention the works that preceded it, there's little wonder that so many labels and promoters were falling over themselves to persuade Pinhas to return to music, which he eventually did in the 1990s. "The real miracle is that I reconnected with the music-making process," says Pinhas on overcoming his reclusive years. "It is easy to fall, but very difficult to come back."

TRACK LISTING

A1. L'Ethique (part 1) 
A2. Dedicated To KC 
A3. Melodic Simple Transition 
A4. Belfast 
B1. L'Ethique (part 2)
B2. The Western Wail (part 1)
B3. L'Ethique (part 3)
B4. The Western Wail (part 2)
B5. L'Ethique (part 4)

Strong follow up to 2018’s “Belief “(O’Genesis) & “Endless Futures” (Glass Redux RSD release) Richard Youngs is also a member of Amor) “Dissident is a hallucination of a legendary lost Samizdat-style recording of the legendary lost Richard Youngs Band. It’s not clear to me that it is against anything in particular, and as such it is not literally dissident. In fact, I’m a little lost how or why it is dissident, save for being informed by the imagined provisional recordings of pre-Glasnost protest. Perhaps the wordless scratch vocals are voicing dissent, but I remember having fun. So much so, I couldn’t stop myself from fleshing out the rough nylon guitar songs to a full band arrangement, recorded in multiple spaces” – R. Youngs Imagine Richard Youngs as the junior member of a cabal of prolific and puritanical English musician-mystics, including The Fall's Mark E Smith, Van der Graaf Generator's Peter Hammill, Martin Carthy and The Clangers composer Vernon Elliot, and still his nature will elude you Stewart Lee, Sunday Times. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Filling My Mind With Stars
2. Just A Monotone
3. Lonely Suburban Eyes
4. North Sea Song
5. (Searching For A) Dead Language  
6. Paradise Begun
7. Assymetry
8. Unseeing
9. I Would Rather Fall Into Your Head
10. We Are Going Outside
11. High Low Vertigo
12. Caravans 

Fourth solo album by French spacerock mastermind Richard Pinhas. 'East West' was his first and only album to be released by a major label (CBS). Some say it is his most commercial one, Pinhas doesn't see it that way. East West contained some surprises for those who were used to Heldon’s extended jams or the sparse and moody atmosphere of the previous year’s Iceland.

East West’s average track length is four minutes, indicating greater accessibility. It also has a David Bowie cover, although Pinhas naturally chose one of the thin white duke’s more avant-garde moments: the foreboding 'Sense Of Doubt' from Heroes. East West’s synth-centric tracks, resemble siblings to the groundbreaking work of Kraftwerk. Others evoke Brian Eno or Tangerine Dream but hold their own distinct flavour.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Houston 69: The Crash Landing (part 1)
A2. London: Sense Of Doubt
A3. Kyoto: Kyoto Number 3
A4. XXXXX: La Ville Sans Nom
A5. Home: Ruitor
B1. New York: West Side
B2. Paris: Beautiful May
B3. Keflavik: The Whale Dance
B4. Houston 69: Houston 69 (part 2)

Richard Swift believed in and sought real beauty. And so, even at its most caustic and sardonic, his masterpiece swan song The Hex is beautiful. Conceived in pieces over the last several years and completed just the month before his passing, The Hex is the grand statement Swift acolytes have been a-wishin-and-a-hopin’ for all these years. After a career of sticking some of his finest songs on EPs and 45s, here are all his powers coalescing into a single, long-player statement. At its core, The Hex is an aching call out into the void for Swift’s mother (“Wendy”) and his sister (“Sister Song”) whom he lost in back-to-back years. You hear a man at his lowest and spiritually on his heels.

The pain fueling Swift’s cries of “She’s never comin’ back” on the absolutely gutting standout “Nancy” is some sort of dark catharsis for anyone who’s ever lost a loved one to the cold abstraction of Death. Over a slow, Wall of Sound kick and a warbling synth, Swift’s cries climb higher-n-higher-n-higher into what may be his most devastating vocal performance on record. A cry of pain so real and so raw Swift had to treat the performance with just a little studio effect, without which the recorded grieving might be too much to bear. The Hex is presented here as “The Hex For Family and Friends.” An obsessive fan of Wall of Sound doo-wop, early Funkadelic, Bo Diddley, Beefheart and Link Wray, Swift gives them all a moment with the flashlight around The Hex campfire, one moment to make a strange shadow-cast face for us, his family and friends.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A visceral but fascinating look into the mind of one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, 'The Hex' is disarming at points, but dynamically absorbing and brilliantly written. A superb legacy, and a superb listen throughout.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Hex
2. Broken Finger Blues
3. Selfishmath
4. Dirty Jim
5. Babylon
6. Wendy
7. Sister Song
8. Nancy
9. HZLWD
10. Kensington!
11. Sept20

"The Novelist" - Swift's highly acclaimed, succinct, eight song, nineteen minute and 38 second-long, audiophile archivist experiment - immediately ushers the listener deep into the recesses of Swift's creative core for a kaleidoscopic trip aboard an intergalactic vaudevillian steamship with a speakeasy code-word. Yet, "The Novelist" is only one small manifestation of Swift's entire musical manifesto and only one-half of this double-disc set. "Walking Without Effort" - the second disc in the two-disc set - is the first, and perhaps most deceptively complex, yet decisively understated, Swift release to date. A slight step eastward from the eclectic musings of "The Novelist", "Walking Without Effort" intentionally paints another image, and baptizes believers born-again into Swift's unique brand of sonic schizophrenia. Gramophones are replaced by 8-tracks and Persian rugs are covered with shag, as Swift nods to the early 70s solo efforts of McCartney and Harrison, while waving to Burt Bacharach and Van Dyke Parks.

TRACK LISTING

Foreward
Lady Day
Lovely Night
Sadsong St.
Blues For Mother
The Novelist
Ballad Of Clifford Swift
Looking Back, I Should
Have Been Home More
Walking Without Effort
Theme
Half Lit
In The Air
As I Go
Above & Beneath
Mexico (1977)
Losing Sleep
Not Wasting Time
Beautifulheart

Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with Heldon, his band, he released solo records from 1977 on. His transition to 'solo' material gave the guitarist and synthesist an opportunity to work on material that was a little lighter and less constrained. 'Chronolyse' was his second solo album. At the time of "Chronolyse"’s gestation, Pinhas had been listening to a lot of classical music. Bach, Scarlatti and Wagner were key. So too were the new wave of American minimalist composers; Philip Glass in particular. After the out of this world "Variations" on the A-side, skip to the flip for the Dune inspired tone poem "Paul Atreides".

TRACK LISTING

A1. Variations I
A2. Variations II
A3. Variations III
A4. Variations IV
A5. Variations V
A6. Variations VI
A7. Variations VII
A8. Duncan Idaho
B1. Paul Atreides

As the frontman for the epic British drone-pop band The Verve, Richard Ashcroft proved himself the spiritual descendant of rock & roll icons like Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison - rivetingly charismatic, menacingly serpentine, and possessed of an almost shamanic intensity, he embraced and articulated the anthemic fervor of rock music with a power and eloquence unparalleled by any of his contemporaries.

Featuring ten new songs, all of which were written by Ashcroft, ‘Natural Rebel’ was produced by the singer-songwriter alongside Jon Kelly (Paul McCartney, Kate Bush) and Emre Ramazanoglu, Bobby Gillespie). The majority of its recording took place at State of the Ark Studios in Richmond, with further sessions at The Bunker, Tileyard Studios and Hoxa HQ.

TRACK LISTING

1. All My Dreams
2. Birds Fly
3. Surprised By The Joy
4. That's How Strong
5. Born To Be Strangers
6. That's When I Feel It
7. We All Bleed
8. A Man In Motion
9. Streets Of Amsterdam
10. Money Money

The 13-song set is the Grammy nominated artist’s first self-produced album in over a decade and was recorded 100% analogue in just ten days. It was engineered by Clay Blair (The War On Drugs) and features Thompson’s regular accompanists Michael Jerome (drums, percussion), Taras Prodaniuk (bass), and Bobby Eichorn (guitar).

13 Rivers is a bare-bones, emotionally direct album that speaks from the heart with no filters. “There are 13 songs on the record, and each one is like a river,” Thompson explains. “Some flow faster than others. Some follow a slow and winding current. They all culminate on this one body of work.”

A high water mark in an overwhelmingly impressive career, 13 Rivers was recorded at the famed Boulevard Recording Studio in Los Angeles. Previously known as The Production Workshop, which was owned by Liberace and his manager, the locale served as the site for seminal classics by Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Ringo Starr, and hosted the mixing sessions for Pink Floyd’s legendary The Wall.

Of the album, Thompson says, “The songs are a surprise in a good way. They came to me as a surprise in a dark time. They reflected my emotions in an oblique manner that I’ll never truly understand. It’s as if they’d been channelled from somewhere else. You find deeper meaning in the best records as time goes on. The reward comes later.” He continues, “I don’t know how the creative process works. I suppose it is some kind of bizarre parallel existence to my own life. I often look at a finished song and wonder what the hell is going on inside me. We sequenced the weird stuff at the front of the record, and the tracks to grind your soul into submission at the back.”

TRACK LISTING

The Storm Won’t Come
The Rattle Within
Her Love Was Meant For Me
Bones Of Gilead
The Dog In You
Trying
Do All These Tears Belong To You?
My Rock, My Rope / You Can’t Reach Me
O Cinderella
No Matter
Pride
Shaking The Gates

Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, Elliott Smith, Neil Young & Big Star. Richard Edwards felt almost human when he returned to Los Angeles to record songs for what became Verdugo. It’s the follow-up to the Indiana singer’s 2017 album Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset, a beautiful, personal release that was deeply unpleasant to make. Not only was he afflicted at the time by an intestinal ailment that often left him unable to stand, let alone sing, his marriage fell apart midway through making the album. If Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset ended up being a record about letting go, Verdugo is the album where Edwards pulls himself up after falling down.

“The making of it was kind of my recovery from all the stuff,” says Edwards, who worked again with producer Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck) in L.A. “I went back and wasn’t as sick, so making the second one, and finishing it, was a much, much more joyous event.” Verdugo features 10 new songs that showcase Edwards’ considerable and longstanding talent as a writer, and also a new way of singing: Edwards’ chronic pain meant finding a vocal approach that didn’t make him feel like throwing up. “I sing in a half-falsetto high range that came out of not being able to belt stuff out for a year,” Edwards says. His new vocal style deepens the air of melancholy on the atmospheric “Strange,” takes on a wistful cast on “Beekeeper” over subtle drums and a distinctive guitar part, and is lifted aloft on a soaring blend of guitars, drums and backing vocals on “Minefield.” “They kind of disappear in this weird sky sonically now, because of this range,” he says.

“They don’t feel rooted anymore, they fly all over, and that falsetto — if you’re looking at it as a picture, it goes higher up in the room than it used to.” This is Edwards’ second solo album after more than a decade leading the Indianapolis band Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, which he founded in 2004. When health problems made touring with Margot impossible, Edwards turned inward and began writing songs “loosely inspired by all one learns, and fails to learn, while dealing with one’s own mortality,” as he wrote in a piece for Talkhouse. Verdugo is completely Edwards, the result of an agonizing stretch of dissolution and, over time, regeneration. Best of all, it’s not an end point, but merely the next station on a continuing journey. “It’s somewhere between that last record and what will happen after that, and what was going to happen before,” he says. “It comes from three years of having to get really quiet, and figure out what grows out of that.” 

TRACK LISTING

Gene
Beekeeper
Minefield
A Woman Who Can’t Say No
Howlin’ Heart
Olive Oyl
Something Wicked
Tornado Dreams
Strange
Pornographic Teens

Youngs recorded the album in his hometown, Glasgow, as a cycle of chamber songs, a 21st century update of the solo album – one musician playing all the instruments in a small one-room set up. The album itself began with Youngs collecting his own percussion samples: from handclaps, a battered old cymbal, an extractor fan vent, FM radio interference, cassette hiss and a kick from “a disastrously ‘80s sounding drum machine”. These were then used to programme beats, played back at randomly determined tempos in durations mapped to randomly chosen major label songs.

The original plan was to send Belief out to the ‘major’ labels and collect the rejection letters as an art project. But, as soon as the album had been mixed, Daniel O’Sullivan (Grumbling Fur, This Is Not This Heat) played the songs to Tim Burgess and before the mail art project could take off, Belief became Richard’s debut for Tim Burgess’ O Genesis Recordings label.

TRACK LISTING

A1: My Own 21st Century (3'48")
A2: Nebulosity (3'17")
A3: Feeling Like Dystopia (4'06")
A4: As The Mind Shrinks It Tends Towards Disappearing (2'38")
A5: Bewilderment (2'34")
B1: In Another Fog (2'27")
B2: I Wasn't Alone (2'08")
B3: Caledonia Running Out Of My Mind (3'25")
B4: Can You Not See My Intensity? (2'32")
B5: Otherwise Ourselves (1'39")
B6: Great Breath Of Wonderment (3'33")

Everything Is Recorded by Richard Russell features an eclectic international and inter-generational cast of collaborators and musicians who include (in order of appearance on the album) Sampha, Obongjayar, Kamasi Washington, Giggs, Ibeyi, Wiki, Syd, Rachel Zeffira, Infinite, Green Gartside, Peter Gabriel and Owen Pallett. The twelve track album features previous singles ‘Close But Not Quite (feat. Sampha)’, ‘Mountains Of Gold (feat. Sampha, Ibeyi, Wiki and Kamasi Washington)’ and ‘Show Love (feat. Syd and Sampha)’, which have been described as “the embodiment of pure, creative freedom” by Noisey and “a celebration of artistic freedom” by Dazed, while The New Yorker stated “Russell’s vision, it seems, is about the power of collaboration … a grand synthesis of XL’s stylistic history."

Everything Is Recorded by Richard Russell was recorded at Russell’s west London studio, The Copper House. Over the past couple of years, the studio became a creative second home for the revolving cast of both new and established artists who passed through to write, record and share ideas, mixing traditional recording sessions with extended, uninhibited live jams that lasted long into the night. With Russell at the production helm, a spirit of soundsystem-inspired collaboration and experimentation runs through the heart of an album that is born out of some spontaneous moments of togetherness and periods of intense personal reflection for its creator, and is at once soulful, timeless and boldly modern.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Close But Not Quite (feat. Sampha)
3. She Said (feat. Obongjayar & Kamasi Washington)
4. Wet Looking Road (feat. Giggs)
5. Mountains Of Gold (feat. Sampha, Ibeyi, Wiki & Kamasi Washington)
6. Show Love (feat. Syd & Sampha)
7. Echoes In The Bone - Interlude (feat. Rachel Zeffira)
8. Bloodshot Red Eyes (feat. Infinite & Green Gartside)
9. Cane (feat. Ibeyi)
10. Purify - Interlude (feat. Infinite & Peter Gabriel)
11. Be My Friend (feat. Infinite)
12. Everything Is Recorded (feat. Sampha & Owen Pallett)

Richard Pinhas is one of the most important French electronic space rock musicians. Following five albums with HELDON, his band, he released his first solo record in 1977. Backed by Heldon’s congenial drummer Francois Auger but no longer bound by the group dynamic, he explores his freshly purchased Moog Modular system in search of new sounds.

On four of its five tracks, Rhizosphere presents just the 25- year-old Pinhas and his synth alone together, a melding of man and machine that gradually becomes an expansive, outward-bound journey. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: We see the beginnings of Pinhas' evolving, industrial swirling synths and cosmic chugging krautrock on this, his debut from 1977. Airy pads and self-oscillating filters swirl and bend into an intoxicating, fascinating synth odyssey. Absolutely essential addition to any collection.

Consistently heralded as one of the most influential punk albums of all time, Richard Hell & The Voidoid’s “Blank Generation” celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with a 2CD and 2LP deluxe release for Black Friday, Record Store Day. With participation from Richard Hell, the album will be remastered and packaged as it was originally released in 1977 (unlike subsequent reissues) with a second disc of previously unreleased tracks including alternate studio versions, out of print singles and rare bootleg live tracks from their first appearance at CBGBs.  The booklet will contain additional photos (the iconic cover was shot by Richard’s ex-girlfriend, CBGB’s “house” photographer Roberta Bayley) with memorabilia and liners from Richard.

“A crack team of physicists, leather-workers, synchronised swimmers, sausage-sellers, professional wrestlers and computer games-designers assembled in a remote cleft of the Tyne Valley to portray a community fraying at the edges, eaten from the inside by some fearful sickness, searching for answers in the all the wrong places,” says Dawson of the new video. “Matt Stokes is a fabulous video artist. I've loved his work ever since seeing 'The Gainsborough Packet' almost ten years ago now. I'm very happy that we were able to work together to present to you the first song from the album Peasant. It is only one panel of a larger mural. I hope you will enjoy and find something to take from it.”

No listener to Dawson’s earlier music has ever discerned a lack of artistic ambition. Whether they got on at the last stop - the 4 track Tyneside-Trout-Mask-through a-Vic and Bob-filter of Nothing Important - or earlier in the journey, with The Glass Trunk’s visceral song cycle or The Magic Bridge’s sombre revels, devotees of his earlier recordings will be at once intrigued by and slightly fearful of the prospect of a record that could make those three landmark releases look like formative work.

Peasant is that album. From its first beguilingly muted fanfare to its spectacular climax exploring a Dark Ages masseuse’s dangerous fascination with a mysterious artefact called the Pin of Quib, it will grab newcomers to Dawson’s work by the scruff of the neck and refuse to let them go until they have signed a pledge of life-long allegiance.

Driven forward by exhilarating guitar flurries, Qawwali handclaps and bursts of choral ferocity, Peasant’s eleven tracks sustain a momentum worthy of the lyrics’ urgent subject matter. Dawson describes the themes of these songs as “Families struggling, families being broken up by circumstance, and - how do you keep it together? In the face of all of these horrors that life, or some system of life, is throwing at you?” The fact that these meticulously wrought narratives all unfold in the pre-mediaeval North Eastern kingdom of Bryneich - “any time from about 450AD to 780AD, after the withdrawal of the Roman Empire”- only makes their contemporary relevance more enduring and vital.

Dawson’s objective was to create “A panorama of a society which is at odds with itself and has great sickness in it, and perhaps doesn’t take responsibility – blame going in all the wrong directions”. But encountering Peasant’s captivating sequence of occupational archetypes (‘Herald’, ‘Ogre’, ‘Weaver’, Scientist’), listeners might find themselves wondering if these multitudes could somehow be contained with one person - surely we all have a ‘Shapeshifter’ and a ‘Prostitute’ within us?

TRACK LISTING

Herald
Ogre
Soldier
Weaver
Prostitute
Shapeshifter
Scientist
Hob
Beggar
No-one
Masseuse

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

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

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

TRACK LISTING

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

Richard Ashcroft returns in 2016 with his fourth solo album entitled ‘These People’ released on his Righteous Phonographic Association label via Cooking Vinyl Records on 20th May.

The previous Brit and Ivor Novello award winner (and Grammy nominated) artist made a handful of solo live appearances at the end of 2015, playing a performance at Zermatt Unplugged in Zurich in October and an incredible solo acoustic set in front of 30,000 people at Mexico's Corona Capital Festival in November (see below), live dates for 2016 will be announced shortly.

The album was recorded in London and produced by Ashcroft and longtime collaborator Chris Potter. It marks a reunion with Wil Malone, who worked with Ashcroft on the string arrangements on the seminal albums by The Verve ‘A Northern Soul’ and ‘Urban Hymns’. 

Richard Ashcroft Is Alive: The Verve Man's Thrilling Resurrection At Mexico's Corona Capital Festival – NME.
‘Who else here has got the bollocks to stand up on this stage, on their own, with their own tunes and their own guitar and play it from the soul?" NME.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Lead single "This is How it Feels" typifies this lush return to form for Richard. Hooked up again with both the producer and strings conductor of Urban Hymns, this album has the depth and most importantly tunes that he used to knock out for fun all those years ago.

“Glistening synth-pop number” - Dummy

“This track is the highest grade of electronic pop” - i-D

'They Know' combines pop vocals, synth textures and clipped garage beats, while exclusive track 'White Noise' shuffles along on electro rhythms. Richard Norris is brought in for the remix, utilising his know how as the Grid for a house remix of 'They Know'.

Amateur Best is the alias of Birmingham-based “personal pop” musician, songwriter and producer Joe Flory.

His second album ‘The Gleaners’ was released via Brille Records (The Knife, Gwilym Gold, John Wizards).

‘They Know’ follows the release of single ‘Marzipan’ which picked up radio support from Radio 1’s Annie Mac and Huw Stephens and XFM’s John Kennedy and Eddy Temple Morris.

TRACK LISTING

They Know
White Noise
They Know (Richard Norris Remix)

RICHARD FEARLESS (Death In Vegas) curates KOLLEKTION 4: a compilation featuring a selection of almost 200 Bureau B releases in the past 10 years, released as a 2-CD compilation and three single 1LPs! 

About Bureau B and the KOLLEKTION series: Bureau B sees itself as a platform for exciting varieties of electronic, free-spirited music. The spectrum ranges from pop to avant-garde. The label has amassed an impressive catalogue of reissues and new productions in recent years, including classics from the genre of electronic music in the 1970s and early 1980s popularly classified as Krautrock (Cluster, Roedelius, Moebius, Plank, Schnitzler), alongside new recordings by such formative artists as Faust, Kreidler, Roedelius, Tietchens, Moebius, to name just a few. To provide an overview of the various musical styles in which Bureau B specializes, the label has created a new series entitled KOLLEKTION. Each release in this series will be curated by a musician perfectly suited to the task. The fourth instalment in our series fills us with particular pride: Richard Fearless has listened his way through our entire (!) archive and now presents his own very personal selection from the catalogue on two CDs or three LPs. 

About the curator of this Kollektion: Richard Fearless is best known as the leader and founder of British band DEATH IN VEGAS. German electronic music can be heard as an influence on many of his albums - indeed even in his song titles, like 'Sons of Rother'. Fearless has worked with Iggy Pop, Bobby Gillespie, Paul Weller, Liam Gallagher and Hope Sandoval and has developed into a successful producer and remixer. 

Richard Fearless on his modus operandi: 
"I always listen out for music with a sense a space; where compositions are stripped down to the barest components while retaining the power to conjure emotion. It’s for this reason that I’m so drawn to dub, techno and German avant-garde minimalist music. To me the bands and labels in the Bureau B archive, current and past, were looking to distant lands, their own 'Neuland', whether in the future with bands like YOU and Riechmann, or from a more remote past, like medieval folk band Ougenweide. They were creating something radical and experimental, something that didn’t draw on the same rhythm and blues, Anglo-American rock that was saturating the airwaves at the time. They were pioneers in every sense of the word. With all due respect for the music that forged these paths, it was on hearing the mental guitar on Faust’s 'Herbstimmung' that I knew to look not only at the so-called golden years of this era, but to look at what these artists were doing later, as well as the new bands that were emerging from those schools. Artists who are still creating, still innovating. I hope you enjoy the journey." - Richard Fearless.

RICHARD FEARLESS (Death In Vegas) curates KOLLEKTION 4: a compilation featuring a selection of almost 200 Bureau B releases in the past 10 years, released as a 2-CD compilation and three single 1LPs!

About Bureau B and the KOLLEKTION series: Bureau B sees itself as a platform for exciting varieties of electronic, free-spirited music. The spectrum ranges from pop to avant-garde. The label has amassed an impressive catalogue of reissues and new productions in recent years, including classics from the genre of electronic music in the 1970s and early 1980s popularly classified as Krautrock (Cluster, Roedelius, Moebius, Plank, Schnitzler), alongside new recordings by such formative artists as Faust, Kreidler, Roedelius, Tietchens, Moebius, to name just a few. To provide an overview of the various musical styles in which Bureau B specializes, the label has created a new series entitled KOLLEKTION. Each release in this series will be curated by a musician perfectly suited to the task. The fourth instalment in our series fills us with particular pride: Richard Fearless has listened his way through our entire (!) archive and now presents his own very personal selection from the catalogue on two CDs or three LPs.

About the curator of this Kollektion: Richard Fearless is best known as the leader and founder of British band DEATH IN VEGAS. German electronic music can be heard as an influence on many of his albums - indeed even in his song titles, like 'Sons of Rother'. Fearless has worked with Iggy Pop, Bobby Gillespie, Paul Weller, Liam Gallagher and Hope Sandoval and has developed into a successful producer and remixer.

Richard Fearless on his modus operandi:
"I always listen out for music with a sense a space; where compositions are stripped down to the barest components while retaining the power to conjure emotion. It’s for this reason that I’m so drawn to dub, techno and German avant-garde minimalist music. To me the bands and labels in the Bureau B archive, current and past, were looking to distant lands, their own 'Neuland', whether in the future with bands like YOU and Riechmann, or from a more remote past, like medieval folk band Ougenweide. They were creating something radical and experimental, something that didn’t draw on the same rhythm and blues, Anglo-American rock that was saturating the airwaves at the time. They were pioneers in every sense of the word. With all due respect for the music that forged these paths, it was on hearing the mental guitar on Faust’s 'Herbstimmung' that I knew to look not only at the so-called golden years of this era, but to look at what these artists were doing later, as well as the new bands that were emerging from those schools. Artists who are still creating, still innovating. I hope you enjoy the journey." - Richard Fearless.

'Still' was recorded in a two-story rehearsal loft in Chicago over the course of just nine days with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy at the helm, backed by several longtime players from both Thompson's and Tweedy's bands. Thompson enlisted Tweedy's production skills in an effort to shake up his own creative approach to making records. "It turned out be really good idea," says Thompson. "Jeff is musically very sympathetic. Although some of his contributions are probably rather subtle to the listener's ear, they were really interesting and his suggestions were always very pertinent."

The key to ‘Still’'s emotional resonance is a set of gripping new Thompson compositions rich with his signature mix of trenchant insight, gallows humour, and keen empathy for characters at the brink of being overcome by their emotions, their pasts, or themselves.

A recipient of BBC's Lifetime Achievement Award and Mojo's Les Paul Award, Richard Thompson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year Honours List. The Americana Music Association also recently honoured him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. Robert Plant, REM, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and many others have recorded Thompson's songs.

Rising up from the bed of the River Tyne, a voice that crumbles and soars, steeped in age old balladry and finely-chiselled observations of the mundane.

Richard Dawson is a skewed troubadour at once charming and abrasive. His shambolically virtuosic guitar playing stumbles from music hall tunesmithery to spidery swatches of noise-colour, swathed in amp static and teetering on the edge of feedback.

His songs are both chucklesome and tragic, rooted in a febrile imagination that references worlds held dear and worlds unknown.

New album ‘Nothing Important’, released by Weird World, hypnotises from its tender dark whispers to its wild screams, an unparalleled voice in today’s over-preened and manufactured music world.

TRACK LISTING

Judas
Nothing Important
The Vile Stuff
Thomas

Spin magazine described Buckner as “equal parts Bay Area bohemian and dust bowl traditionalist” and named Bloomed one of its best albums of 1994, while Pitchfork wrote, “It’s a traditional outsider-country record in the lineage of Townes Van Zandt. Buckner’s voice is all honey and oak, his guitar style elaborately twanging, his constant subject matter heartache.” Richard Buckner provides some background on the album: Bloomed was originally (erroneously?) released on an unnamable German label in 1994. I was living in San Francisco at the time, having just moved out of a residential hotel and into the 1906 hilltop prefab that adorns the cover. At the time, I was heading a band called The Doubters. We were playing high profile events such as The Covered Wagon Saloon’s Musical Barstools, but weren’t making much headway. We had been turned down consistently every year by SXSW, but I was somehow finagled in as an unannounced guest onto an already unofficial SXSW showcase created by Butch Hancock at his gallery in downtown Austin. There, I met up again with Lloyd Maines, who agreed to produce my first record. Maines and I met in Lubbock, TX, a few months later, where we worked with Lubbock musicians in a small recording studio walled in wooden shingles Sharpied with bible passages from various church groups that also enjoyed working there. It was 112°F the morning I arrived under the suspicious (Californians are merely B-grade yankees) gaze of downtown’s Buddy Holly statue. That first night there, it hailed so hard that heaven’s angry pellets were storming in under my motel door. It only let up for a few moments that first night, allowing me to run across the street to get a butter burger and fries to go. We finished four days later and I flew back to San Francisco, dismembered the band, and embarked on a tour that would last about 20 years (or a few days, if you count what I actually remember). Nothing’s changed. I’m still dodging the sky and busking to strangers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Blue And Wonder
2. Rainsquall
3. 22
4. Mud
5. Six Years
6. This Is Where
7. Gauzy Dress In The Sun
8. Daisychain
9. Desire
10. Up North
11. Surprise, AZ
12. Cradle To The Angel

Bonus Track Info:
1. The Last Ride
2. Settled Down
3. The Worst Way
4. Emma
5. Hutchinson - Recorded In 1995 At Black Eyed Pig In San Francisco By Kyle Statham
6. Surprise, AZ - Recorded In 1996 At World Café
7. Blue And Wonder - Recorded In 1997 At KCRW
8. Still Lookin' For You-Townes Van Zandt - Recorded In 1997 At World Café
9. Up North
10. Six Years
11. Gauzy Dress In The Sun - Recorded Live At The Starry Plough

One of the UK's most outstanding songwriters, and an astonishing guitar player whose versatility allows him to adapt his style as each song requires. After taking the bold step of recording his last album of new songs live, when it came to recording ELECTRIC, Thompson turned to Buddy Miller (Robert Plant, Solomon Burke, Emmylou Harris. Patty Griffin) to produce, recording at Miller's home studio in Nashville, TN.

The record was recorded as an electric trio with Thompson, drummer Michael Jerome and bassist Taras Prodaniuk, who also sings background vocals. Guests on ELECTRIC include the legendary Alison Krauss who joins Thompson on "The Snow Goose", while English singer-songwriter Siobhan Maher Kennedy (formerly with River City People) adds vocals on several tracks as well. Fiddle great Stuart Duncan also plays on the record; one of America's leading bluegrass musicians he played on recent albums by Robert Plant/Alison Krauss and Elvis Costello.

One of the UK's most outstanding songwriters, and an astonishing guitar player whose versatility allows him to adapt his style as each song requires. After taking the bold step of recording his last album of new songs live, when it came to recording ELECTRIC, Thompson turned to Buddy Miller (Robert Plant, Solomon Burke, Emmylou Harris. Patty Griffin) to produce, recording at Miller's home studio in Nashville, TN.

The record was recorded as an electric trio with Thompson, drummer Michael Jerome and bassist Taras Prodaniuk, who also sings background vocals. Guests on ELECTRIC include the legendary Alison Krauss who joins Thompson on "The Snow Goose", while English singer-songwriter Siobhan Maher Kennedy (formerly with River City People) adds vocals on several tracks as well. Fiddle great Stuart Duncan also plays on the record; one of America's leading bluegrass musicians he played on recent albums by Robert Plant/Alison Krauss and Elvis Costello.

Once again proving himself a master of minimalist composition, Youngs also takes leaps forward as a lyricist on "Under Stellar Stream", reminiscent of the list incantations of Allen Ginsberg. With this comes a change in Youngs' voice, now less pleading, deeper and more assured. In these atonal, spatial arrangements, each phrase is granted the room to work into the cerebral cortex.

Robert Wyatt's second release for the Virgin label has lost none of its power and mystery and remains one of the greatest albums of his career. Featuring the cream of the British jazz scene as well as Laurie Allen (Gong), Fred Frith, Brian Eno and Bill MacCormick (who played alongside Wyatt in Matching Mole) it is a perfect musical statement full of originality, musicianship and imagination. Includes the classic "Soup Song".

Richard Swift is one of the most critically acclaimed artists of the last few years. On this new double album he turns his hand to a completely different genre and mood: a 20 song exploration into Richard Swift's alter ego; delivering acid garage rock classics. This was recorded on down time between tours – a chance for Richard to delve into his hugely varied musical collection. Drawing on Link Wray, Howlin' Wolf, Little Richard and others, this is an album drenched in classic reverb and knee-high boogie blues.

Sound artist Richard Lerman composed musical pieces for bicycles that sounded like the gamelan music of south-east Asia. This collection includes his "Travelon Gamelon (Music for Bicycles)" set, which was using real bicycles as musical instruments and was performed live in 1970s-80s. Disc 2 features other various sound-works of Lerman's pieces performed and recorded through 1964-1986. Both discs are CD-EXTRA (CD enhanced) including movies of his performances on QuickTime and scores / diagrams for those works as PDF files.

Richard Youngs' first new guitar / vocals full-length in two years, the first since his critically-acclaimed "The Naive Shaman", which landed him on the front cover of The Wire. Melody Maker once called him no less than the 'grand-meister of contemporary British improv, spiritual son of Eddie Prevost and Maddy Prior; gentle manipulator of English hymn-notics and religious incantations; protege, challenger and radicaliser of folk, blues, rock, minimalism and improvisation; translator for the sea and the rain and the sky; ambassador to war and peace, to love and anguish', and 'poet-seducer of souls'.

Richard Youngs has been making music for over two decades. "The Naive Shaman" is his seventh album for Jagjaguwar, and is a deeply personal work. The opening track "Life On A Beam" combines a modal vocal line with throbbing sonics and non-linear percussion. Elsewhere a plaintive voice threads itself through frosted atmospherics. At the core of the album is "Sonar In My Soul", a bass loop onto which are collaged strangulated guitar, singing and more singing. The second half of the set contrasts "Once It Was Autumn", a succinctly crafted dub chant, with the epic "Summer's Edge II", whose sprawling 16 plus minutes anchor a floating vocal melody and free-flowing drums with fuzzed bass octaves. At a time when he has increased his commitment to live performance, Richard Youngs has paradoxically produced an album that explores recording technology as an instrument - a work where song is modulated by sound.

A husky-voiced country / folk singer-songwriter, his guitar is based in rootsy country traditions, but his lyrics are far too personal and ambitious for Nashville. "Impasse" is his first new record of original material for over four years, and was recorded entirely at his home studio in Canada, with Richard playing virtually every note on the record. The album strikes the perfect balance between his acoustic introspective side and his driving electric side. For fans of Smog and Damien Jurado.