Incredibly, this will be the 25th album Gruff Rhys has released in his 35 year career individually, collaboratively and as a member of various bands. “Sadness Sets Me Free” is also the follow up to 2021’s “Seeking new Gods”, his first solo top ten record.

Lead-off single “Celestial Candyfloss” is a telling four minute glimpse of the forthcoming album, revealing the heady wonders and classic pop sounds within. Soaring strings carry the sweet melodies along, anchored by just enough necessary melancholy to add emotional ballast. The eye-popping video was created by long-time collaborator Mark James and compliments the scope and style of the song on a galactic scale.

“Celestial Candyfloss” is, Gruff says, “an attempted pocket symphony about the cosmic lengths that people will travel in the pursuit of love and acceptance. Mark James has brought the Sadness Sets Me Free album cover to life & managed to place me watching TV interference in a shipping container that’s lost in space. For what is apparently the 25th album I’ve had a hand in writing I’ve reverted to a rich seam of inspiration relating to shedding some light on sadness and the general terror of cosmic loneliness.”

And so it was that Gruff and his band – Osian Gwynedd (piano), Huw V Williams (double bass) and former Flaming Lips drummer turned Super Furry Animals archivist Kliph Scurlock (drums) piled into a van driven by the late, legendary tour manager “Dr” Kiko Loiacono and raced from Dunkirk, where they had just played the final show of a tour of Spain and France, to the outskirts of Paris in the early hours of a March morning in 2022. There, in La Frette Studios, a recording facility installed in a 19th-century house, Gruff and his road-hardened group tracked “Sadness Sets Me Free” in just three days. Backing vocals were added along the way by Kate Stables from This Is The Kit along with additional strings and orchestration and it was mixed between Marseille and Cardiff. What finally emerged from these intense bouts of cross-continental activity was Gruff’s most accomplished and beautiful record to date.

In a career that has taken him from the slate-mining towns of north-west Wales, down to the expat communities of Patagonia, up to the Mandan tribe of the Great Plains of North America and across to the Tuareg rock groups of the Saharan Desert, Gruff Rhys, one of Britain’s most beloved and successful singer-songwriters, has always been willing to follow an opportunity, wherever it may lead him. “At this point I quite like working with serendipity,” he says. “Not in a cosmic way, [but] I try and leave things open to chance encounters and chance geography. As I'm around 25 albums in I’m always looking for ways to make a different-sounding record”.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sadness Sets Me Free
2. Bad Friend
3. Celestial Candyfloss
4. Silver Lining (Lead Balloons)
5. On The Far Side Of The Dollar
6. They Sold My Home To Build A Skyscraper
7. Peace Signs
8. Cover Up The Cover Up
9. I Tendered My Resignation
10. I’ll Keep Singing

Dinked Edition Bonus 7”:
A. Amser
B. (etching, No Audio)

Sleaford Mods are pleased to announce the release of their cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ iconic single “West End Girls”, with all profits from the track going to the homeless charity Shelter.

The Nottingham duo created a version of the 1986 classic between tours for their latest album UK GRIM, and then sought the blessing of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe to put out the track.

Not only did Sleaford Mods’ “West End Girls” meet with the pair’s approval, but the Pet Shops Boys were inspired to remix the cover which will feature as one of the tracks on the limited edition single.

Hifi Sean has also contributed an Acid House meets Hi-NRG remix for the release, while Sleaford Mods’ own Andrew Fearn has added a heady vocoder led mix under his solo guise of Extnddntwrk.

Clearly apparent from their own minimal approach to music, the Pet Shop Boys have always been an important influence for Sleaford Mods, with Chris and Neil’s ability to merge sophisticated electronics and rich character often serving as a lodestar for the partnership between producer Andrew Fearn and front man Jason Williamson.

This esteem for the Pet Shop Boys can be clearly heard on their take on “West End Girls”, although Jason and Andrew have not flinched from creating a version of the song which is truly Sleaford Mods.

If the original is a sophisticated exposé of the heartlessness of 80s Thatcherite Britain while also paying tribute to people’s ability to shine despite living in brutal times, then Sleaford Mods’ have skillfully distressed the shimmering classic with sharp synths and scuffed-up vocals, offering a sense of the resilience now required to survive in our disconnected and dysfunctional days.

“’West End Girls’ is a song that’s very close to my heart, my coming-of-age track in so many ways.” says Andrew Fearn of the original.

Jason Williamson continues, “I’ve been listening to the Pet Shop Boys albums ‘Please’ and ‘Actually’ a lot, the music still fits this landscape so well. When Andrew suggested we cover “West End Girls”, it was important to honour the track’s brilliance. So when Neil and Chris gave the track their blessing, our tiny minds were blown, and when we received their remix… it was almost too much, it was brilliant!”

Neil/Chris added… “Sleaford Mods have brought East End boys back to the West End streets for a great cause and we love their new version.”

Profits generated by the single are being donated by Sleaford Mods to the charity Shelter, details of their work can be found at https://www.shelter.org.uk/

TRACK LISTING

Side 1

West End Girls (clean)
West End Girls (dirty)


Side 2

West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys Remix)
West End Girls (HiFi Sean Remix)
West End Girls (Extnddntwrk Remix)

London-based duo Jockstrap have today announced I<3UQTINVU, a fully remixed version of their Mercury Prize shortlisted 2022 album I Love You Jennifer B by the band’s Taylor Skye. I<3UQTINVU - I Love You Cutie, I Envy You - is set for release on 3 November via Rough Trade Records.

The remix record is the brainchild of Skye, who was making multiple versions of the album’s original tracklisting to stay inspired during the writing of I Love You Jennifer B. The guest features on the remix record range from Ersatz, who inspired Skye to make music many years ago to IAN STARR who he only connected with online a few months ago.

Skye explains more about I<3UQTINVU, saying, “Some of the remixes are almost three years old and some are under six months old. We played a run of shows with Babymorroco when our album came out to test them all. The main thing I was interested in whilst making this music was the sonic palette and the texture of the music. The musical material didn't matter too much, it was just about the sound. That's often what moves me, not necessarily the notes but the sound. However, I'm not even sure what that means and if music can really be separated like that. Maybe it's too paradoxical. Well… it's an experiment! I'm still learning.”

Commenting on ‘Red Eye’, collaborator IAN STARR adds: "I love making songs that push the limits of my vocality and energy, and I went all-out in efforts to craft the craziest performance possible on ‘Red Eye’. Whenever I write a song, I always have the live audience in mind; performing this at my first festival with Jockstrap made me feel really great about the result! The crowd’s energy felt amazing & I’m so excited to perform it for everyone who comes to the U.S. tour!"

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Fully remixed version of one of our albums of 2022, this is a must have companion piece for 'I Love You Jennifer B'. Goes to some pretty wild places but definitely worth sinking your teeth into!

TRACK LISTING

1. Sexy (feat. Babymorocco)
2. All Roads Lead To London (feat. Coby Sey & Ersatz)
3. Good Girl
4. I Touch
5. I Feel
6. Pain Is Real
7. Red Eye (feat. IAN STARR)
8. I Noticed You (feat. Kirin J Callinan)
9. Sexy 2

Fresh from supporting Blur at Wembley, Sleaford Mods return with a EP of six new tracks. Emerging from the same environment that created the duo's Top 3 album UK GRIM, the songs of More UK GRIM share the incisive lyrical vision and forward-thinking electronics that won acclaim for the LP. Tracks including Under The Rules, Old Nottz and Big Pharma not only continue Mods' era of dancefloor dominance, but with insight and wit, outrage and compassion, they critique yet celebrate our turbulent times.

TRACK LISTING

1. Under The Rules
2. Old Nottz
3. Big Pharma
4. PO Crazy
5. My 18hr Girdle
6. Old Nottz (Alt Mix) 

My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, ANOHNI’s sixth studio album, expresses a world view by shape-shifting through a broad range of subject matter. Through a personal lens, ANOHNI addresses loss of loved ones, inequality, alienation, acceptance, cruelty, ecocide, devastation wrought by Abrahamic theologies, Future Feminism, and the possibility that we might yet transform our ways of thinking, our spiritual ideas, our societal structures, and our relationships with the rest of nature.

On her first full album since 2016’s HOPELESSNESS, she explains the creative process was painstaking, yet also inspired, joyful, and intimate, a renewal and a renaming of her response to the world as she sees it. “Some of these songs respond to global and environmental concerns first voiced in popular music over 50 years ago.”

ANOHNI’s approach since her last record has shifted from someone tasked with challenging global denial, to an artist seeking to support others on the front lines. “I learned with HOPELESSNESS that I can provide a soundtrack that might fortify people in their work, in their activism, in their dreaming and decision-making. I can sing of an awareness that makes others feel less alone, people for whom the frank articulation of these frightening times is not a source of discomfort but a cause for identification and relief.

On “It Must Change,”ANOHNI soulfully describes systems in collapse with a note of compassion for humanity: “The truth is I always thought you were beautiful in your own way // That’s why this is so sad.” ANOHNI’s voice is sensual and smoothed, selectively reaching to the edges of what it can contain. “We’re not getting out of here // No one’s getting out of here // This is our world,” she murmurs.

A portrait of legendary human rights activist Marsha P. Johnson taken by Alvin Baltrop features on the cover, reflecting a 25-year relationship with the memory of Johnson that ANOHNI has held space for in the presentation of her own work.
Elsewhere, the album artwork states ”IT’S TIME TO FEEL WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING”. In some ways it feels as if she is reaching across her life’s expression, and has found a moment of unique composure, wearing her long exploration of disarming intensity, with the maturity of a painter carefully choosing her colors. “I want the work to be useful, to help others move through these conversations we are now facing, to move with dignity and resilience through this bitter dawning.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. It Must Change
2. Go Ahead
3. Sliver Of Ice
4. Can’t
5. Scapegoat
6. It’s My Fault
7. Rest
8. There Wasn’t Enough
9. Why Am I Alive Now
10. You Be Free

Rough Trade Records in partnership with Audika Records are excited to announce ‘Picture of Bunny Rabbit’ a new album of previously unreleased World Of Echo era material by Arthur Russell recorded in 1985/86.

‘Picture of Bunny Rabbit’ features nine previously unreleased performances from this era compiled from completed masters culled from two unique test pressings, including one, dated 9/15/85 by Arthur, provided by his mother and sister. A further four tracks were discovered in his tape archive. The track listing includes an exceptional and dramatic solo recording of “In The Light of a Miracle” and the enigmatic title instrumental “Picture of Bunny Rabbit”, written especially for a friends pet rabbit. The bulk of the material was recorded with engineer Eric Liljestrand at Battery Sound Studios, New York, which was located directly opposite the World Trade Center and at Arthur’s apartment studio in the East Village.

In 1986 Arthur Russell was diagnosed with HIV, that same year he released his career-defining masterpiece ‘World of Echo’, the first and only solo album issued during his lifetime. Arthur had found his voice and a fresh direction with a set of new, transformative material, unlike anything he or anyone else had previously released. His illness ensured that the artistic growth and sense of exploration encapsulated in ‘World of Echo’ would be tragically curtailed. Within six short years Arthur was gone.

Arthur’s final years were filled with a renewed commitment to creativity and unceasing live and recording work. He regularly performed the ‘World of Echo’ material and incorporated several of its compositions in collaborations with choreographers active in New York’s innovative dance community. Arthur worked closely with Diane Madden, Allison Salzinger, Stephanie Woodard and John Bernd, usually playing his cello and effects boxes off stage as the choreographers’ pieces were performed. In 1993 Arthur posthumously received a prestigious Bessie Composer Award for his work in the dance world.

This release is the latest in a series in partnership with Audika Records, the exclusive label and home for the Arthur Russell archive and estate, who since 2004 have compiled and published the exceptionally varied, long sought-after music of Arthur Russell, and who in the process have helped the beloved, late artist find the broader audience he always believed he would reach. A new generation of listeners and critics has come to appreciate Russell as a visionary and an influence upon a broad range of today’s most compelling musical artists.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Some premium unearthed material here from the late, great Arthur Russell. Having come from the World Of Echo sessions, you know that there's some superb material here, including nine previously unreleased performances including some salvaged from tape provided by his mother and sister.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
Fuzzbuster 10
Not Checking Up
Telling No One
Fuzzbuster 06
The Boy With A Smile
Side B:
Fuzzbuster 09
Very Reason
Picture Of Bunny Rabbit
In The Light Of A Miracle

This Is The Kit, the group led by Paris-based bandleader Kate Stables, today announced the band’s new album Careful of Your Keepers–produced by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals)–will be released on June 9th, 2023, via Rough Trade Records. The album’s propulsive yet introspective lead single “Inside Outside” finds Stables as magnetic as ever, joined once again by her stalwart band of Rozi Plain(bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), and Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums), and accented by a cascading horn quartet arrangement by Jesse Vernon.

Careful Of Your Keepers is daring and soft, cutting and warm–a wild feat of complexity and combined dispositions. There’s a shared language of the band’s family experience that is as audible as ever in these recordings, which boast beautiful instrumental performances that still leave the nuanced space required for Stables’ vocals to live at the forefront. “The album was nearly called Goodbye Bite. And in a way it still is,” says Stables. “I went for Careful of Your Keepers in the end. It’s one of my favourite songs on the album, a song that for me holds the general feeling of the album as a whole. The fragility of things. Of situations. Of relationships. Of humans. What we do to look after each other and ourselves. The passing of time and what that does to us, and how we live our lives going forward.”

Guiding the ship through changing seas is producer Rhys. Stables described his role as being a “tonesetter,” watchful and attentive to the band dynamics while making sure to always follow a hunch for where a new sound could find its place in the recording. “I’ve always loved the idea of working with him somehow, and when this album started getting planned, I realized that maybe this was my chance to reach out and see if he was up for working together,” Stables explains. “And he was! As if that wasn’t enough, he was also up for doing a bit of singing on the record, which totally blew my mind and made my year. His way with harmony and melody and the tone and quality of his voice is a totally killer combo.”

“They are so ridiculously talented–and every member is a great producer in their own right–so it was just a matter of trying to capture the magic they make when playing live together,” Rhys says of the recording process. “Their playing is by default so thoughtful and complimentary in terms of respect to each other’s parts and to the integrity of the songs themselves that it creates a beautiful foundation of often cosmic interplay that’s always in aid of Kate’s voice and vision as a songwriter.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Careful Of Your Keepers' sees Stables in fine form, confidently traversing the waters we're so familiar with from 2020's brilliant 'Off Off On' but mixed up with a hint of Gruff Rhys' wonderfully psychedelic production and a hint of jagged, art-rock groove. It's a perfect development for Stables' song writing, keeping the elements which we've become so fond of but boldly branching into new areas.

TRACK LISTING

1. Goodbye Bite
2. Inside Outside
3. Take You To Sleep
4. More Change
5. This Is When The Sky Gets Big
6. Scabby Head And Legs
7. Careful Of Your Keepers
8. Doomed Or More Doomed
9. Stuck In A Room
10. Dibs 

Following 5 BBC Folk Awards nominations and a designation by the Guardian as Folk Album of the Year in 2019, it is fair to say that Lisa O’Neill is one of the most evocative songwriters in contemporary Irish music today. Fresh off 2018’s collection Heard a Long Song Gone for the River Lea imprint, The Wren EP in 2019 and an adaptation of Bob Dylan’s "All the Tired Horses" for the final scene of epic TV drama Peaky Blinders, O’Neill now returns with her latest album, and first for the Rough Trade label, the beautiful, resonant All Of This Is Chance.

A raconteur in the truest sense of the word, every story starts somewhere and O’Neill starts this extraordinary collection here on earth, on Irish soil, hands in the land. The album is full of both orchestral masterpieces like the ambitious and cinematic "Old Note", /the title track All Of This Is Chance, inspired by the great Monaghan writer Patrick Kavanagh's prescient meditation on The Great Hunger as well as stirring meditations on nature, birds, berries, bees, and blood that ring out over a clacking banjo, dusting and devastating all those in its wake.

All Of This Is Chance takes Lisa’s inimitable voice to greater heights, or depths, depending on which way you look at it.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: While 'All Of This..' is undeniably reasonably traditional folk, it swims with emotion wrought through O'Neill's evocative rhythmic vocals and a deft instrumental talent, with both guitar and strings perfectly accentuating the affecting and dynamic vocal delivery. There are echoes of folk standards here but it's no more than a dedication, with the originality of the pieces shining on their own merits.

TRACK LISTING

1. All Of This Is Chance
2. Silver Seed
3. Old Note
4. Birdy From Another Realm
5. The Globe
6. If I Was A Painter
7. Whisht, The Wild Workings Of The Mind
8. Goodnight World

A space of wonderment and exhilaration, the home of true heart and a timeless soul, Delays' Faded Seaside Glamour was an atmospheric and evocative debut album. Released in 2004, the fragile strength of frontman Greg Gilbert's vocals intoxicatedly intertwined with the forward looking synths of his brother Aaron, Colin Fox's bass and Rowly's drumming, to create a series of affecting songs that delivered an immediate pop hit that also left a deep and wistful impact worthy of the album's enticing title.

Its iconic singles Nearer Than Heaven and Long Time Coming, became immediate yet lasting focal points for Southampton's Delays, while tracks including the melancholic No Ending, the smooth beats of Stay Where You Are and chiming opener Wanderlust demonstrated the remarkable depth of this unique debut.

Nearly 20 years have passed since the release of Faded Seaside Glamour and much has changed – most notably the loss of Greg Gilbert who passed away in 2021 after a period of treatment for cancer – but like the idiosyncratic places the album's name celebrated, Delays' music has not only endured but their art has been loved and cherished as it has continually connected with audiences.

To celebrate this soaring and smouldering body of work, Rough Trade Records is pleased to announce that it will be releasing Delays' Faded Seaside Glamour on vinyl for the first time ever. 

TRACK LISTING

A

Wanderlust
Nearer Than Heaven
Long Time Coming
Bedroom Scene
No Ending
You Wear The Sun

B

Hey Girl
Stay Where You Are
There's Water Here
Satellites Lost
One Night Away
On

UK eight-piece caroline’s eponymous debut album often cascades with force like an avalanche, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other points they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet – a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release. These songs are expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of choral singing, Midwestern emo and O’Malley and Llewellyn’s roots in Appalachian folk.

“Sometimes things sound much better when there’s empty space,” says Llewellyn. “Sometimes you might populate [a song] with too many things and forget that an element on its own is enough.” Elsewhere on the record the band have employed a collage-like technique, combining snippets of lo-fi recordings from a myriad of different locations – a barn in France, the members’ bedrooms and living rooms, the atmospheric swimming pool in which they also filmed sublime live sessions for ‘Dark blue’ and ‘Skydiving onto the library roof’ – with more traditional group sessions at the Total Refreshment Centre and their studio in Peckham.

The growth that began as a scrappy guitar band above a pub many years ago is still continuing. caroline’s astounding debut album is merely the first step. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: What a fascinating sound caroline have managed to coax out here. It's a heady mix of post-rock, folk and avant rock pulled together with a keen ear for melodies and tempered with airy group vocals, a-la ASMZ. A dynamic and ever-shifting landscape of melody and texture.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Dark Blue
Good Morning (red)
Desperately
IWR
Messen #7
Side B
Engine (eavesdropping)
Hurtle
Skydiving Onto The Library Roof
Zilch
Natural Death

Dinked Edition 7” Tracklisting:
Side A - Good Morning (red) Demo
Side B - Dirty Triple (3) #2

black midi’s new album Cavalcade is to be released on 28th May. Cavalcade is a dynamic, hellacious, and inventive follow-up to 2019’s widely-praised Schlagenheim, “a labyrinth with hairpin-turn episodes and lyrics full of dourly corrosive observations” (New York Times, Best Albums of 2019).

It scales beautiful new heights, pulling widely from a plethora of genres and influences, reaching ever upwards from an already lofty base of early achievements. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Black Midi have always revelled in forging the most cacophonous and confounding noise, drawing skilfully from a diverse range of influences. 'Cavalcade' takes this one step further with such a varied and hugely skilled narrative, it's hard not to get drawn into their world after just a couple tracks. Jazzy, noisy, heavy and in parts eerie, this is peak Black Midi.

TRACK LISTING

1. John L
2. Marlene Dietrich
3. Chondromalacia Patella
4. Slow
5. Diamond Stuff
6. Dethroned
7. Hogwash And Balderdash
8. Ascending Forth

Goat Girl will be releasing a 12” featuring Remixes of ‘Sad Cowboy’ one of the standout tracks from their new album ‘On All Fours’ as a limited edition on May 8th. The ‘Sad Cowboy’ Remix 12” will feature remixes by Tony Njoku, PVA, DJ Dairy (black midi) and Nídia.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Sad Cowboy Original
A2 Nídia Remix

B1 PVA Remix
B2 DJ Dairy Remix
B3 Tony Njoku Remix

Since 2008’s debut album Krülle Bol, This Is The Kit (lead by Kate Stables) have unpicked emotional knots and woven remarkable stories, but even by their high standards, Off Off On is a beautifully clear distillation of Stables’ song-writing gifts.

By the end of 2018, the band had finished touring their last album, the talismanic Moonshine Freeze – leading to Kate’s Ivor Novello nomination, but when it came to Stables’ natural impulse to start the next record, her efforts were diverted by an invitation to join The National on the road for multiple tours and TV appearances – a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy To Find. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of being in charge of a band or a project – I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.”

Richly illuminating and acutely sensitive to the pulses and currents of life, Off Off On shows This Is The Kit overflowing with ideas. In difficult times, it’s a record that feels like a lifeline, moving against the tide, standing against the storm. Keep going.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's no surprise that 'Off Off On' has already garnered hefty praise from the mainstream music media, with it being a perfectly illustrated collection of skilful songwriting and beautiful performance skills. While Moonshine Freeze and Bashed Out were both stunning, this shows a real maturity and unbelievable advancement of the skills that thrust Staples into the limelight in the first place. An essential addition to any collection.

TRACK LISTING

Found Out
Started Again
This Is What You Did
No Such Thing
Slider
Coming To Get You Nowhere
Carry Us Please
Off Off On
Shinbone Soap
Was Magician
Keep Going

Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn stepped out of 2019 with a Top Ten album under their belt, Eton Alive, their biggest sold out tour to date and the swagger of a band that have never been more relevant, topically challenging and downright entertaining.

Sleaford Mods are set to continue their onslaught into 2020 with the release of All That Glue, a collection of songs spanning the last seven years of the bands career; an array of crowd pleasers, B sides, unheard tracks and rarities for fans and the curious, released via Rough Trade. Over the past few years Sleaford Mods have become one of the most intractable British pop stories. One of its best. Their music is drawn at a flawless fault-line of anger, tenderness and humour, a triumvirate of raw energy which frequently jostles in the space of a cadence for supremacy. On record you can hear their sinews, live you can touch their veins.

Ahead of All That Glue's release the band will be making available fan favourite Jobseeker for the first time. In addition, footage from the duo's acclaimed sell out show last year at the Eventim Apollo, will be released for the first time and kicks off with an incendiary performance of Tweet Tweet Tweet.

Limited edition independent store-only double white vinyl includes a 16-page A5 booklet - a précis in the inimitable style of Jason Williamson - documenting Sleaford Mods inexorable rise since their inception in 2011 to the present day, together with praise from the incomparable Iggy Pop.

Pinegrove’s new album begins with a breath and ends with a shimmering exhalation. In between is Marigold, an urgent, multivalent meditation—and an expanded take on the blend of alt-country, indie rock and cerebral humanism that’s inspired the band’s ardent fan community. Marigold marks their Rough Trade Records debut, offering what songwriter Evan Stephens Hall calls a “heart-first” perspective.

Those familiar with Pinegrove will recognize signature elements of the band’s sound: literary yet conversational lyrics, geometrically interlocking guitars, the dynamic shifting shadows of rhythm and structure. But this effort marks the most spacious, bold, and well defined iteration of the project yet.

Formed in 2010 by childhood friends Evan and drummer Zack Levine, Pinegrove have released three previous albums — Everything So Far (2015), Cardinal (2016), and Skylight (2018) — to massive critical acclaim, garnering them a widespread and devoted listenership. They’ve described their sound as variously as introspective party music, or energetic music in the folk tradition; in any case they have combined catharsis and inventive structures with irrepressible melodies, resonant lyrics and emotive twang. Marigold finds the band expanding into the latter, spreading out over varying tempos and swelling pedal steel. But in surprising moments, the album can suddenly unfold into the band’s heaviest, most unbound offerings yet—a cavalier disregard of genre in favour of something honest and unique.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Swooning, Americana tinged rock choruses and beautifully mixed instrumentals from New Jersey's Pinegrove. Grand and momentous while still retaining the charm of more relaxed acoustic folk numbers. Lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

Dotted Line
Spiral
The Alarmist
No Drugs
Moment
Hairpin
Phase
Endless
Alcove
Neighbor
Marigold

The new album from Gruff Rhys, ‘Pang!’ is a Welsh Language pop album with a couple of verses of Zulu and an English title. ‘Pang!’ developed unexpectedly over about 18 months. A solo album of songs by Gruff Rhys, produced & mixed by the South African electronic artist Mmusi, and will be released by Rough Trade Records.

Recorded in Cardiff, Wales. It was mixed by the producer Muzi in Johannesburg, South Africa. Drums by Welsh-American psychedelic warlord Kliph Scurlock, brass by Gavin Fitzjohn and flute and percussion by the engineer Kris Jenkins. Beats, bass & ah’s by Muzi with Gruff on vocals and guitar.

Gruff explains “Pang! Is a Welsh language song with an English title. It started life as a folk reel and soon expanded into a ‘list’ song, listing various reasons for pangs; hunger, regret, twitter, pain, bad design etc. Using the English word pang in a Welsh language track may appear weird but I suppose it’s like using the French word ‘Magazine’ in an English song. In that it’s slightly pretentious but completely acceptable.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There is no more distinctive a voice in modern indie than Gruff, with his impeccable grasp of melody and seamless integration of welsh vocals, dynamic percussion and classic songwriting. Another absolute classic, and an absolutely lovely chap to boot. Perfect.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pang!
2. Bae Bae Bae
3. Digidigol
4. Ara Deg
5. Eli Haul
6. Niwl O Anwiredd
7. Taranau Mai
8. Oi Bys Nodau Clust
9. Annedd Im Danedd

black midi -- Georgie Greep (vocals/guitar), Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (vocals/guitar), Cameron Picton (vocals/bass), and Morgan Simpson (drums) -- have a dynamic energy, playing as a musical unit that’s constantly in a state of flux and development.

Schlagenheim was recorded with Speedy Wunderground producer Dan Carey, who the band praises for his quick, unfussy approach. black midi laid down eight of the record’s nine tracks in just five days. The process was one of refining and rebuilding tracks around the initial structures. Five hour jams would sometimes yield a riff that then became a few bars of a song. As anyone who’s been lucky enough to catch black midi live over recent months will testify, black midi’s songs are slippery creatures.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Much like the fervour that accompanied Battles' 2007 outing 'Mirrored', Black Midi have managed to make an indefinable and thrilling collection of angular post-punk, avant math-rock and percussive glitch without so much as a glance into their stylistic forebears. Singular in artistic scope and as forward thinking as they come, they are sure to have a loyal and enthusiastic following through their use of unexpected rhythms and off-piste stylistic flair.

TRACK LISTING

953
Speedway
Reggae
Near Dt, Mi
Western
Of Schlagenheim
Bmbmbm
Years Ago
Ducter

This is the band’s first new music since last year’s top 15 album “English Tapas” The EP was recorded in Spring 2018 in Nottingham, and features five new tracks including lead track “Stick in a Five & Go”. The band are confirmed to play two nights at London’s Roundhouse on September 21st & 22nd 2018 and also their biggest hometown show at Nottingham’s Concert Hall on September 30th. They also play their biggest Paris show too at Le Triannon on 26th Sept, some Scottish dates in November with shows in Copenhagen and Amsterdam planned for November too.

The band are currently in the studio in Nottingham working on tracks for a new album planned for March 2019.

Jason Williamson says about the new songs “the lead tracks are mostly full of violent tendencies that only transpire through imagination. People are powerless under the political monster and the intense anger and frustration morphs into illusions of attacking each other through the bravado of social media, depression and paranoia.”

TRACK LISTING

Stick In A Five And Go
Bang Someone Out
Gallows Hill
Dregs
Joke Shop

’Seedlings All' is Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker’s first album to be made up of all original songs, and is songwriter Clarke's most autobiographical work to date. As she explains: “For the first time I’m out there alone with a bunch of songs that expose my insecurities, fears of failure and inflated pride. They deal with my own specific thoughts and feelings about the reality of pursuing this kind of career, the cost to personal relationships, circumstance and lifestyle, and asking the question - "Is this still worth it?” They’re about trying to find an inner balance in an environment that doesn’t provide any balance or certainty. Where one day everything is brilliant and the next day it could all be over. Where one night ends in a standing ovation and the next starts by playing to an empty room."

TRACK LISTING

Chicago
Bells Ring
Seedlings All
Maybe I Won't
Tender Heart
All Is Myth
Ghost Light
Sad Day
Things Of No Use
Bathed In Light
Only Me Only

(Bonus CD)
When To Then
Milk And Honey
For All We Know

The Decemberists explore a new sound with a new producer on their inspired eighth studio album I’ll Be Your Girl, which will be released March 17 on Rough Trade Records. The acclaimed Portland, Oregon-based band worked with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Lana del Ray) and embraced influences such as Roxy Music and New Order to spark a new creative path, as can be heard on the synth-driven lead single “Severed”

I’ll Be Your Girl is the sound of a veteran band finding new inspiration, a unit unafraid of challenging itself to re-connect with its creativity. “Making music is an infinite choose-your-own-adventure,” says Colin Meloy, “and when you go down one path, the other paths get sealed off. So every time we could, we said, ‘If this is what our impulses would tell us to do, let’s try to imagine it in a different way.’”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A more direct affair than their previous outing, 'I'll Be Your Girl' flits between the full-sounding AOR melodicism of War On Drugs and the pseudo-country psychedelia of their previous iterations, 'I'll Be Your Girl' takes all the elements we love about The Decemberists and distills them into a cohesive and hugely satisfying whole.

TRACK LISTING

Once In My Life
Cutting Stone
Severed
Starwatcher
Tripping Along
Your Ghost
Everything Is Awful
Sucker’s Prayer
We All Die Young
Rusalka, Rusalka / The Wild Rushes
I’ll Be Your Girl