The Last Flight is our version of the story of Amelia Earhart's final, ill-fated journey in 1937. Having successfully navigated over 20,000 miles and 5 continents on her round-the-world trip, her aircraft, the Electra, vanished without trace near Howland Island. Her whereabouts, and those of her navigator, Fred Noonan, remain a lingering mystery to this day.

Rather than focus exclusively on the flight itself, the record is as much an examination of Earhart's remarkable character. She was an extremely rare blend of grace, composure, technical aptitude and a fortitude that the rest of us mere mortals can barely dream of, all enveloped by the soul of a poet. She was possessed of a seemingly unquenchable thirst for life - in her words, 'to find beauty in living... to know the answer to why I’m alive... and feel its excitement every moment'. That thirst for the abundance of life, the sheer joy and privilege of living, long outlasts her disappearance and death. It should serve as an inspiration, almost an instruction, to the rest of us; this record is our attempt to translate that inspiration into music.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Was Always Dreaming
2. Towards The Dawn
3. The Fun Of It
4. The South Atlantic
5. Electra
6. Arabian Flight
7. Monsoons
8. A Different Kind Of Love
9. Howland

The Last Flight is our version of the story of Amelia Earhart's final, ill-fated journey in 1937. Having successfully navigated over 20,000 miles and 5 continents on her round-the-world trip, her aircraft, the Electra, vanished without trace near Howland Island. Her whereabouts, and those of her navigator, Fred Noonan, remain a lingering mystery to this day.

Rather than focus exclusively on the flight itself, the record is as much an examination of Earhart's remarkable character. She was an extremely rare blend of grace, composure, technical aptitude and a fortitude that the rest of us mere mortals can barely dream of, all enveloped by the soul of a poet. She was possessed of a seemingly unquenchable thirst for life - in her words, 'to find beauty in living... to know the answer to why I’m alive... and feel its excitement every moment'. That thirst for the abundance of life, the sheer joy and privilege of living, long outlasts her disappearance and death. It should serve as an inspiration, almost an instruction, to the rest of us; this record is our attempt to translate that inspiration into music.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Was Always Dreaming
2. Towards The Dawn
3. The Fun Of It
4. The South Atlantic
5. Electra
6. Arabian Flight
7. Monsoons
8. A Different Kind Of Love
9. Howland

DEADLETTER were one of the most talked about band's of 2023, with their critically acclaimed debut EP 'Heat!' gaining nods from tastemakers including NME, CLASH, DIY, DORK and The Guardian, 2024 brings in the band's debut album, Hysterical Strength.

Having played together in groups prior, DEADLETTER was formed at the start of 2020, days before the pandemic struck. After some lineup experimentation, the addition of Will King (Guitar), Sam Jones (Guitar) and Poppy Richler (Saxophone) completed the group. Bound together by a recognition of frenetic energy and rhythm and leaving any wider ideological goal open to interpretation by the listener, it’s clear the release of their debut album heralds the next level for DEADLETTER.

TRACK LISTING

1. Credit To Treason
2. More Heat!
3. Mother
4. Bygones
5. A Haunting
6. It Flies
7. Hysterical Strength
8. Relieved
9. Deus Ex Machina
10. Practise Whilst You Preach
11. Mere Mortal
12. Auntie Christ 

“Writing this album, I opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out.” In a café just around the corner from his Edinburgh flat, Hamish Hawk is contemplating his extraordinary new record, A Firmer Hand. “The thing that links all of the songs is a sense of the unsaid, whether out of guilt, shame, repression, embarrassment, coyness, whatever it might have been. I realised: I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good. The album made so many demands, and I just gave myself over to it.”

At this stage, where only a handful of close associates have heard the finished album, Hawk is still unsure of what the reaction might be from fans, critics, even family. He jokes that A Firmer Hand is the first of his records that his parents might not enjoy. “But the fact that it makes me nervous tells me it was the right thing to do.”

It takes only a couple of listens to be sure that it was a risk worth taking. And just a couple more to determine that A Firmer Hand is the best and boldest record Hamish Hawk has delivered to date. “It’s a bit of a coming of age record,” he says. And a record for the ages.

TRACK LISTING

1. Juliet As Epithet
2. Machiavelli’s Room
3. Big Cat Tattoos
4. Nancy Dearest
5. Autobiography Of Spy
6. You Can Film Me
7. Christopher St.
8. Men Like Wire
9. Questionable Hit
10. Disingenuous
11. Milk An Ending
12. The Hard Won

“Writing this album, I opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out.” In a café just around the corner from his Edinburgh flat, Hamish Hawk is contemplating his extraordinary new record, A Firmer Hand. “The thing that links all of the songs is a sense of the unsaid, whether out of guilt, shame, repression, embarrassment, coyness, whatever it might have been. I realised: I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good. The album made so many demands, and I just gave myself over to it.”

At this stage, where only a handful of close associates have heard the finished album, Hawk is still unsure of what the reaction might be from fans, critics, even family. He jokes that A Firmer Hand is the first of his records that his parents might not enjoy. “But the fact that it makes me nervous tells me it was the right thing to do.”

It takes only a couple of listens to be sure that it was a risk worth taking. And just a couple more to determine that A Firmer Hand is the best and boldest record Hamish Hawk has delivered to date. “It’s a bit of a coming of age record,” he says. And a record for the ages.

TRACK LISTING

1. Juliet As Epithet
2. Machiavelli’s Room
3. Big Cat Tattoos
4. Nancy Dearest
5. Autobiography Of Spy
6. You Can Film Me
7. Christopher St.
8. Men Like Wire
9. Questionable Hit
10. Disingenuous
11. Milk An Ending
12. The Hard Won

Newly signed to SO Recordings and with a debut album proper in hand, The Joy Hotel have become a word-of-mouth success story in the Scottish DIY scene, and have since taken their live show across the UK and Europe, playing festivals including Hidden Door, Doune the Rabbit Hole, Connect, TRNSMT, Twisterella, Latitude, Sound City and The Great Escape.

The band spent eleven days at Rockfield, the legendary studio in Monmouth, Wales, recording live-to-tape. When they left, they had a sound. It is often contradictory, in that it combines the songwriting sensibilities of pop and country with arrangements reminiscent of the psychedelic scene of the 60s, six-part vocal harmonies with elements of noise rock, beautiful balladry with a sense of humour, and a cinematic quality. The result of those eleven days is debut album 'Ceremony', a record that searches for the profound in the seemingly routine, and reaches out with arms wide open to wring celebration out of each moment.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Decline
2. Forever Tender Blue
3. First Joy
4. Jeremiah
5. Black Balloon
6. Rapid Eye Movement
7. Old Man's Eyes
8. While You're Young
9. No Use
10. Twenty Three (A Comedy) - Part 1
11. Twenty Three (A Comedy) - Part 2
12. Killing Time
13. Small Mercy

'Dancing On The Frontline' is the companion record to Enter Shikari's UK #1 album 'A Kiss for the Whole World'. The new record brings together remixes, non-album singles (featuring the likes of Wargasm, Cody Frost, AViVA and Fever 333’s Jason Aalon Butler), plus live recordings from the BBC Radio 1 Rock Show and Future Sounds shows.

'Dancing On The Frontline' also comes with a Blu-ray of the band's headline performances at Slam Dunk Festival 2023 and Germany's Vainstream Festival. Their much-lauded live show has since been all around the world, covering the USA, Australia, Europe, UK, Ireland and more. Audiences in the UK also witnessed the band's biggest ever headline tour to date of the country's arenas, an audio-visual spectacular that The Guardian awarded four stars and heralded as "the beginning of Enter Shikari’s greatest chapter."

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A rare collection of non-album singles and remixes from Enter Shikari's huge 'A Kiss For The Whole World', with more than a hint of their incendiary live show coming through in the Radio 1 sessions. A great document of a mighty live band, and a great companion to the LP.

TRACK LISTING

1. Goldfish (Shikari Sound System Remix)
2. Bloodshot (Shikari Sound System Remix)
3. The Void Stares Back
4. Bull
5. STRANGERS
6. Losing My Grip
7. It Hurts (BBC Radio One Future Sounds Session Version)
8. Bull Feat. Cody Frost (BBC Radio One Future Sounds Session Version)
9. 2 Be Loved (BBC Radio One Future Sounds Session Version)
10. (pls) Set Me On Fire (BBC Radio One Rock Show Session Version)
11. A Kiss For The Whole World (BBC Radio One Rock Show Session Version)
12. Bloodshot (BBC Radio One Rock Show Session Version)

It's been almost 20 years since Seasick Steve's celebrated appearance on Jools Holland's Hootenanny launched the unknown American singer-songwriter to worldwide fame, and his beat-up three-string Japanese guitar and old wooden stompbox made musical history. The overwhelming response surprised nobody more than Steve himself, and was like a lightning strike; the impact of which is still being felt close to two decades later, as he has gone onto play almost every major festival in the World, rack up over 2 million album sales, and release three UK Top 10 albums.

His new record A Trip A Stumble A Fall Down On Your Knees is a record he proudly says is his favourite to date. Steve says: “This album was made by mistake, as the title suggests we just tripped and stumbled into it, and it became my favourite album ever and the piece of work I’m most proud of to date. There’s not a week goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars for that night on the Hootenanny which has brought us here to this record”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Another slab of gritty southern blues and dusty rock and / or roll from Seasick Steve, with catchy slides, rolling bass licks Steve's evocative syrupy vocal drawl laid over the top.

TRACK LISTING

1. Move To The Country
2. Internet Cowboys
3. San Francisco Sound '67
4. A Trip And A Stumble (For Leya)
5. This Way
6. Backbone Slip
7. Let The Music Talk
8. Funky Music
9. Cryin' Out Loud
10. Elisabeth

Words are not to be taken for granted. Especially when they’re being bellowed, full blast, by a broad-shouldered poet with the brimstone fire of a preacher and the honesty and wisdom of a layman, over ground-shaking live beats and between anthemic blasts of melody and rousing riffage.

Words matter. History matters. People matter. And BIG SPECIAL matter.

For BIG SPECIAL - Joe Hicklin (vocals) and Callum Moloney (drums) - their sound is one that comes from vital, frustrated young working-class voices that don’t always get heard on the scale they should do. It’s a frustration that comes to the fore through a voice that is at times coarse and raw, but sensitive, desperate and soulful at others. Hicklin's brimstone-fired voice marches from guttural punk barks and serrated spoken word to soaring soul and back again, arriving siphoned from their forebears, crushed under the weight of history, and retooled for a new generation. It’s wrought, raw and angry at a world lacking options, the thinning of the common understanding between the social classes of England, exasperation at repeating cycles, and the feeling that you’re watching your own life unfold from the outside.

These are songs that channel that voice you hear when you look in the mirror and see your true self – fight songs for a world gone wrong.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A rousing mix of visceral industrial instrumentation, cutting spoken word and pummelling percussion that's rooted in cinematic metal and drone music, but with a melodic leaning and vitriolic drive. It's not a combination we hear together often but works seamlessly here, blending the sound worlds with real skill.

TRACK LISTING

01. BLACK COUNTRY GOTHIC
02. I MOCK JOGGERS
03. DESPERATE BREAKFAST
04. SHITHOUSE
05. THIS HERE AIN’T WATER
06. MY SHAPE (BLOCKING THE LIGHT)
07. BLACK DOG / WHITE HORSE
08. BROADCAST: TIME AWAY
09. ILL.
10. MONGREL
11. BUTCHER’S BIN
12. DUST OFF / START AGAIN
13. TREES
14. FOR THE BIRDS
15. DiG!

Enter Shikari are a rock band from St Albans, UK. In 2020, they released their sixth album - Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible - which also gave them their sixth album to debut in the UK Album Chart top 5. Frequently collecting Best Live Artist awards, Enter Shikari’s seventeen-year career thus far has seen them rise from teenagers touring the UK grassroots venues, to festival main stages and arena headliners worldwide.

It was in the Spring of 2022 that the band descended to the coastal town of Chichester, and a delipidated farmhouse, to rebuild their studio setup and capture their renewed momentum on record. Using only solar power to track the album–in what Reynolds says was to “bring back some sense of naivety” – the life-giving properties and Technicolor palate of A Kiss For The Whole World were made real. Reynolds continues: “Back to basics. This band - my best friends - bundled into an old farmhouse, miles away from anywhere.

Off-grid, and ready to rediscover ourselves. This album is powered by the sun, the most powerful object in our solar system. And I think you can tell. It’s a collection of songs that represent an explosive reconnection with what Enter Shikari is. The beginning of our second act”.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
01. A Kiss For The Whole World X
02. (pls) Set Me On Fire
03. It Hurts
04. Leap Into The Lightning
05. Feed Yøur Søul
06. Dead Wood

Side B
01. Jailbreak
02. Bloodshot
03. Bloodshot (Coda)
04. Goldfĭsh ~
05. Giant Pacific Octopus (i Don’t Know You Anymore)
06. Giant Pacific Octopus Swirling Off Into Infinity…

Acclaimed Brit quartet Hundred Reasons return with album number five ‘Glorious Sunset’ (their first studio album in fifteen years). The path to the first Hundred Reasons album in a decade and a half may well have taken many detours for the Aldershot quartet as lives, roles and responsibilities diverged but ultimately their route back to one another came as something of a natural process. The creative urge seemingly never left the band - Colin Doran (vocals), Larry Hibbitt (guitar, vocals), Andy Gilmour (bass), Andy Bews (drums) – and their first sessions back together became less about re-capturing the magic of their previous four studio albums, or addressing unfinished business, and more satisfying a growing urge to be creative together once more. They set about fanning the flame of a spark that was never truly extinguished, aiming to capture spontaneity in its rawest form, and later hone and perfect their work with the band’s own Larry Hibbitt on production duties. Consequently, Glorious Sunset is as vivid, exciting and as fresh a collection as they have ever produced - distinctly Hundred Reasons and full of fire. Lead singer Colin Doran says of the first writing session; “I came away from that session not just feeling closer to the other guys, having not seen them for some time, but thinking the music was f****** awesome. We all looked at each other and knew it was a go.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Glorious Sunset
2. New Glasses
3. It Suits You
4. Replicate
5. Done
6. Right There With You
7. Insultiment
8. So So Soon
9. The Old School Way
10. Wave Form

Tradition, community and the rugged ways of the island life: it all soaks into Hold Fast by Colin Macleod, his first album for SO Recordings. From the plangent, spacious Americana of the string laden opener Queen of the Highlands to his heartfelt love letter to home This Old Place, Hold Fast tells the tale of a man returning to the island where he was born after trying to make it in the world. Contrasting parts — Springsteen-style widescreen rock on The Long Road and Sleep, introspective acoustic folk on Made of Stone and 33 (one of two tracks on the album featuring Sheryl Crow) — contribute to a poignant whole.

And although it may sound like a story culled from Macleod’s own experience, being a singer songwriter who indeed left his tight-knit island community in search of glory, it is a work of fiction. It just happens to be fiction embedded in truth. "The stories in this album are a culmination of a mis-spent youth. Although the tales are fictional, there not a million miles from the truth, or from my own story, but hopefully more of a cautionary tale. What goes on in the shadows of an island? what happens when the summer light is replaced by long winters? Beautiful places often have a sorry tale to tell, but also a community to help pick you up if you fall by the roadside. This album is the story of one such journey. " - Colin Macleod

TRACK LISTING

1. Queen Of The Highlands
2. The Long Road
3. Warning Signs
4. Old Soul*
5. Sleep
6. Made Of Stone
7. 33*
8. Runaway
9. Looking For God
10. This Old Place