Two of the biggest names in "egg" Punk (or whatever stupid subgenre you want to call it) come together for a split single sure to dominate the world this Summer. Barcelona's favourite felons Prison Affair have teamed with Nashville's Snooper for 6 tracks of the catchiest punk songs sure to hit this year! Be sure to catch them both touring across Europe Summer 24!

TRACK LISTING

1. Snõõper - Company Car
2. Snõõper - Waste
3. Snõõper - Security
4. Prison Affair - Algo Huele Mal
5. Prison Affair - Apuñalamiento (pero Entre Colegas)
6. Prison Affair - Quizas

Originally released in 1993 as part of their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), 'CREAM' epitomises the group's raw energy and streetwise storytelling, blending gritty lyricism with a haunting piano loop. Reflecting the harsh realities of inner-city life along with its infectious hook and vivid verses, it remains a standout track in the Wu-Tang Clan's legendary discography, revered by fans and critics alike for its authenticity and impact. For the B-side we get 'As Long As I've Got You' by The Charmels, a 1967 soul masterpiece that exudes timeless elegance and emotional depth and became the inspiration for Wu-Tang's groundbreaking hit.

TRACK LISTING

A1. The Wu Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M
B1. The Charmels - As Long As I've Got You

A livid document. Recorded in pastpresentfuture tense. In 2010, highly influential/ inspirational noise/psych revolutionaries The Telescopes gave a rare and memorable glimpse of their classic debut ‘Taste’. Which stormed the independent charts over twenty years ago, sending waves beyond the realm of natural vision that resonate still. Within moments of them walking onstage, I forget where I am and what year it is.. Immediately I'm hit by a tidal wave of noise, which sets the tone for the rest of the show... the relentless energy that Stephen injects into his performance. He is in no way a conventional front man, and his onstage demeanor is just as I imagine it would have been 20 years ago. Stephen is free to leave the stage and stumble around, dragging the mike stand behind him and colliding with anyone foolish enough to stand too close. He curls up in a fetal ball or rolls around the floor, frequently getting tangled up in his microphone cable. The anger, fear and frustration that he exudes can be uncomfortable. Stephen looks genuinely tormented and I believe this is his way of dealing with traumatic events in his life. I have not seen a performance this cathartic since Michael Gira fronting Swans.

As the final song, "Suicide", heads towards its ear-splitting climax, I begin to wonder what Stephen has in mind to finish the set. He picks up a bottle and I'm worried that he is going to do himself some serious harm, but instead he calmly leaves the room, while the noise inside gradually diminishes to a single piece of feedback. Much of the excitement here comes not from actions themselves but the tension of not knowing. It reminds me that there was a time when gigs were often confrontational, and dangerous for both audience and performer. Today's live shows are often very safe in comparison. Rebellious Jukebox Crashing in with 'There Is No Floor' the band perfectly captured the noise assault of the early material and it was great to see that Stephen Lawrie had lost none of his venom in the preceding years. Clearly these songs still meant everything to him as he screamed them out whilst rolling around the floor. Fucking great. I look forward to new Telescopes material. Gig Junkies

A new album is underway, featuring material recorded at the Brian Jonestown Massacre studio in Berlin. The latest EP sold out immediately. And “Taste”, first aired on a 1989 BBC1 session for John Peel, is due for an April reissue on the Bomp! label, along with the crucial EP “The Perfect Needle”.

TRACK LISTING

There Is No Floor
Sadness Pale
Threadbare
Violence (live)
Please, Before You Go
Suicide (live)

Neutrals return after five years with album number two, a co-release between Static Shock Records and Slumberland. New Town Dream is thirteen songs of innocence, intensity and observations of everyday life. It’s like a Mike Leigh film lyrically - seeing the world through the eyes of normal people but with music that leans heavily on the TV Personalities, The Times, The Wedding Present and the Jam. The rhythm section is the perfect foil for the spikey and clean guitar work but it’s always the tune that is king with Neutrals. One listen and you are transported into the world of travel agents, bus conductors, kebabs and substitute teachers. It’s the sound of a time long gone but a time we miss and love.

TRACK LISTING

1. New Town Dream (Version)
2. That's Him On The Daft Stuff Again
3. Wish You Were Here
4. Stop The Bypass
5. Travel Agent's Windows
6. Chaos At The Jasmine
7. Last Orders
8. Steven Proctor, Bus Conductor
9. The Iron That Never Swung
10. How Did I Get Here
11. Substitute Teacher
12. Phantom Arcade
13. Leisureland

The Minneapolis Uranium Club Band, along with Static Shock Records are proud to present “Infants Under the Bulb”; The Uranium Club’s fourth album and first full length since 2018’s "The Cosmo Cleaners".

Precisely timed ahead of the band’s debut tour of Australia commencing March 19, Infants Under the Bulb will light up stores across the globe from March 1st. Recorded in Minneapolis over the course of 2023 by long time collaborator Grant Richardson and just as rampant and agitated as ever, The Uranium Club once again win their dear listeners over with eccentrically wild guitar parts, revolving voices, elastic-tight drums and the addition of their very own Saints-styled horn section.

Lyrically, Under the Bulb opens up the history books of unsolved mysteries - unidentified, unsolved, unanswered subjects of suspicious acts or individuals across the last century. Who, what, when and where… but mostly, why? Ignorant humanity of earth orbits the sun once again. The Somerton Man, Bergmann, Bauby, Denton, phone phreakers, and just what is lurking behind the cosmic organ of The Wall?

As always, the artwork was handled in-house by the Club and ambitious as ever. The spectacular cover shot captures a carefully coordinated event orchestrated by the Club to photograph a crowd of the local volunteers wearing ponchos standing together in an open field to make the shape of a giant spiral. The spiral pictured is 120 feet (36.5 meters) wide, photographed by drone, and was plotted out on the ground using a protractor specially fabricated for the occasion by the band with a pivoting centre and 60ft long adjustable arm.

TRACK LISTING

1. Small Grey Man
2. Viewers Like You
3. Game Show
4. The Wall Pts.1&2
5. Tokyo Paris L.A. Milan
6. The Wall Pt.3
7. 2-600-LULLABY
8. Abandoned By The Narrator
9. The Ascent
10. Big Guitar Jack Off In The Sky
11. The Wall Pt.4

First time on colour vinyl with 3 never-heard before bonus tracks! Static is the follow-up to Cults' critically adorned 2010 self-titled, debut release. Written and recorded over the course of 2012 in the band's home base of New York City, Static is produced by Cults with support from Shane Stoneback (Sleigh Bells, Vampire Weekend) and Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Washed Out). The album is comprised of 11 tracks including lead single "I Can Hardly Make You Mine", "High Road" and the platinum-certified crowd favourite "Always Forever,” which is currently the band’s most popular track. In celebration of the 10th anniversary, the Static reissue will feature never-heard bonus tracks on a sky blue color vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. I Know
2. I Can Hardly Make You Mine
3. Always Forever
4. High Road
5. Were Before
6. So Far
7. Keep Your Head Up
Side B
1. TV Dream
2. We've Got It
3. Shine A Light
4. No Hope
5. Barry (Bonus Track)
6. Hurting (Bonus Track)
7. Always Forever - Demo (Bonus Track)

65daysofstatic celebrate 10 years of ‘Wild Light’ in 2023, with a long overdue vinyl repress of that much-loved album on 180g transparent magenta vinyl. Originally released in 2013, the bands sixth studio album was called “an exploration and expression of sonic freedom” by The Quietus, and has since become a favourite amongst fans.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Heat Death Infinity Splitter - 65daysofstatic
2. Prisms - 65daysofstatic
3. The Undertow - 65daysofstatic
4. Blackspots - 65daysofstatic

SIDE B
1. Sleepwalk City - 65daysofstatic
2. Taipei - 65daysofstatic
3. Unmake The Wild Light - 65daysofstatic
4. Safe Passage - 65daysofstatic

Long before John Brannon of Negative Approach cemented himself as a USHC icon, you would hear rumblings about his pre-NA glam group, STATIC. Only a handful of people were lucky/brave enough to see them live. Scenesters spoke of a tape but never seemed to have one. Their most well-remembered song, Toothpaste and Pills, allegedly featured smashing beer bottles against John’s mom’s basement wall as a percussion instrument. Could this be real?

Fast forward to 2020 and a few months into the covid-19 lockdown, Brannon came across a bunch of tapes he dug out of a box in his Mom’s closet - STATIC “DEMOS ‘78”, STATIC “LIVE AT GROSSE POINTE SOUTH H.S.”, STATIC “LIVE AT PLEWA HALL”. Holy shit! The legend is true! And best of all, STATIC rule!

John Brannon grew up in Grosse Pointe Park just a few blocks from the Detroit border. John was always into music, but as soon as he heard T-Rex, The Stooges and Alice Cooper, he was obsessed (and still is) and had to start a band to channel his obsessions. With the help of neighborhood kid and collaborator Billy Daniels and a local drummer simply known as “Red”, STATIC was born.

Before Negative Approach changed the face of punk and hardcore, before Laughing Hyenas scared the world silly and blew everyone else off the stage and before Easy Action started melting minds all over the world, there was STATIC. STATIC was real. STATIC was real as shit.

Third Man Records is beyond ecstatic to be providing this long-missing piece of the American Underground Music puzzle. We worked closely with John Brannon and Warren Defever, one of Third Man Mastering’s resident wizards, to put together this essential collection of demos and live recordings.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Toothpaste And Pills
2. Punk Nation
3. TV Show
4. We're So Cheap We're Divine
SIDE B
1. Ain't No Stranger
2. High School Riot
3. What's This Thing Called Love
4. We're So Cheap We're Divine
5. Video Deficiency
6. If We Had Brains We'd Be Dangerous
7. Ugly Teenager

With his now sold out, seated and socially distanced live show Together In Static set to take place at London’s recently restored Hackney Church on 29th May across two sittings, matinee and evening, Daniel Avery announces an 11-track album of the same name, comprised of music created exclusively for the performance.

The London-based artist and producer also announces a live stream from the church on 27th May, allowing more fans to experience the immersive performance of previously unheard music combined with the refined and creatively ambitious production Avery has become renowned for. ‘As with many things this past year, the project took on a power and a life of its own right in front of me,’ he explains. ‘The original idea was to simply play a couple of intimate gigs at Hackney Church during the last lockdown. I started to make music specifically for the shows yet, as plans continued to shift, I fell deeper into the waves. I considered a 12’ or an EP but by the time I came up for air, I realised I had a complete record I wanted to share. I feel it’s some of my best work and I’m gassed for you all to hear it.’

“Together in Static” comes almost a year to the day after Avery’s surprise third studio album “Love + Light”, released last June in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Where his previous record was hailed by NME as ‘a heartfelt eulogy for the hedonism we’re missing this summer,’ hope and expectation course through the new album. There is joy in communion, and change is coming.

STAFF COMMENTS

Sil says: A live performance specially written and performed during the madness of the last 18 months gets a nice vinyl release for anyone who couldn't witness it live. I love Daniel Avery so this is a must-listen for me.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Crystal Eyes
Yesterday Faded
Nowhere Sound
The Pursuit Of Joy
Fountain Of Peace

Side B
Together In Static
A Life That Is Your Own
Hazel And Gold
Endless Hours
The Midnight Sun

Returning with their first new music in 8 years, Stubborn Heart have announced their anticipated new album ‘Made Of Static’, released on June 4th via One Little Independent Records.

Luca Santucci and Ben Fitzgerald, who have spent the last few years developing the ten brooding electro-soul tracks that make up the successor to their lauded 2012 self-titled debut, have once again struck a fine balance between ominous synth-soundscapes and introspective songwriting.

Balance is the key theme here. With Fitzgerald leading the production and manning the machines, the sound is rawer than on their previous album. Left-field pop with dark, icy edges, it finds a home somewhere in between r&b and cold wave. Santucci brings the heart and with it his aching, obsessive lyrics and a desire for something grittier in its presentation. The duo’s talents complement each other perfectly throughout.

Santucci has amassed an impressive list of writing and vocal credits in his time, with the likes of XL and Warp signee Leila Arab, Plaid, Riton and Soulwax amongst them. Fitzgerald has also been hard at work at his home studio programming various styles of music for artists and producers from around the world. As Stubborn Heart, they come armed with some serious experience and a wealth of influences. There’s an honest simplicity in the way they create, with lyrics written in an immediate, direct fashion with the aim to catch a feeling rather than emulate one. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Talking Gold
2. Proves To Be
3. Against The Tide
4. Mum’s The World
5. Points Of View
6. Everything Matters
7. To Make You Happy
8. Oh Stephanie
9. Drop The Ball
10. Out Of My Hands

Sheffield-based experimental stalwarts 65daysofstatic release their anticipated, expansive new album replicr, 2019 via Superball Music. This immersive album highlights a continuation from previous releases and a constant evolution which has been evident since their formation. In 2016, they released their critically-acclaimed score for ‘No Man’s Sky’, the most anticipated game in the world at that time. Their generative, infinitely long, in-game score was experienced uniquely by each of the game’s millions of players.

This crash course in algorithmic music led to the band building their own procedural musical systems and generative soundscapes, crafting custom synths, live coding and writing software to make music for (and against) them. This new way of working they called “Decomposition Theory” — decomposing from the infinite possibilities their systems churned out instead of composing from the ground up, a dialectic between the band and their machines. From the eventual smouldering wreckage of their broken software systems and entropic algorithms, the band realised their next record needed to be the opposite. An album born from the debris, but stripped down to its most focussed, intentional form. replicr, 2019 is the album carved from the wreckage. Forty two minutes of dread. A record that stares head on into the abyssal futures of late capitalism and refuses to blink. A melancholic, tireless soundtrack of acceleration. A feeling of frayed-nerved, time-smudged, light-speed drifting through cities built upon cities. Neon seen through rain-riddled windowpanes. replicr, 2019 is a stark, angular, stripped back slab of focussed noise. It wastes no time because there is no time left to waste.

TRACK LISTING

1. Pretext
2. Stillstellung
3. D|| Tl | | |
4. Bad Age
5. 05|| | 1|
6. Sister
7. Gr[]v-_s
8. Popular Beats
9. Five Waves
10. Interference_1
11. []lid
12. Z03
13. U| || | Th | R| D
14. Trackerplatz

Laced Records have teamed up with 65daysofstatic and Hello Games to bring you No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe across digital, CD and vinyl formats. After the track ‘Debutante’ accompanied the first reveal of No Man’s Sky in 2013, the band spent over a year composing original music for the game’s soundtrack. No Man’s Sky’s procedurally generated universe is unlike anything yet seen in the gaming world, and 65daysofstatic’s sonic assault is equally ambitious. The release itself comprises 10 tracks of original music, plus a second collection of 6 soundscapes and sound design, an all-encompassing journey of almost two hours. The 6 additional soundscapes are exclusive to the Laced Records release.

No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe is equally grand in its ambition, an experimental and overwhelming sonic experience that pushes 65dos into new territory while retaining their innate sense of relentlessness, driving rhythm, and a tune you can hum.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's been a while, but there really is no more thrilling an experience in the computer gamesphere than jetting through the stars to an unknown destination with the machine gun percussion of 65DOS pumping in your lobes, or cataloguing completely undiscovered subterranean caves with trickling ambient washes and synth swells filling your ears. This soundtrack is a perfect balance of the heft we've come to know from the band and a distillation of their ambient mastery, all in one beautiful double LP. Essential purchase.

TRACK LISTING

1. Monolith
2. Supermoon
3. Asimov
4. Heliosphere
5. Blueprint For A Slow Machine
6. Pillars Of Frost
7. Escape Velocity
8. Red Parallax
9. Hypersleep
10. End Of The World Sun

Four years after their critically acclaimed debut on Static Caravan Records, Manchester / Dundee based duo Art Of The Memory Palace announce their highly anticipated new EP, ‘Dusk at Trellick Tower’. With this new work, the duo accelerate their trajectory since 2015’s incendiary debut, ’This Life Is But A Passing Dream.’ Upon its release the latter was called “Fresh and euphoric…an incredible debut” by The Quietus and “Fantastically addictive” by The Sunday Herald, while Shindig! Magazine proclaimed, “A spine-chillingly satisfying journey into kraut-influenced electronica”. In the years since, AOTMP have released a split 7” with esteemed Welsh psych label Fruits de Mer Records, a long sold-out spoken-word collaboration with acclaimed Scottish author James Robertson, and a limited-edition cassette-only French Noir soundtrack album on Horror Pop Records.

Radio support has come from Gideon Coe and Tom Ravenscroft on 6Music, Vic Galloway on BBC Scotland and Andy Weatherall on NTS. Raz Ullah (synths / tape loops) has become an intrinsic part of Jane Weaver’s touring band, while Andrew Mitchell (vocals / synths / guitar / bass / drums) has released two albums under his ‘Andrew Wasylyk’ moniker. ‘Dusk at Trellick Tower’ is inspired by Hungarian Brutalist architect Erno Goldfinger; a towering presence in Modernism who courted controversy throughout his life. Known for being a humourless man prone to vicious rages, as well as the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s most notorious Bond villain, Goldfinger. Across the six tracks, Ullah and Mitchell channel the darkness and dystopia which grew from much of Erno’s work, building synth-heavy sonic edifices evoking lonely night time walks along empty echoing corridors, urban decay and towering, impassive concrete monoliths. Using analogue synthesizers, drums, bass and tape loops processed through long chains of effects pedals, Art Of The Memory Palace strive for greater depths with this release, weaving menacing hooks and icy vocals together with droning chords and ambient soundscapes and creating their own shade of dark, beautiful melodies in the process. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There really is no better duo of thoroughly excellent people and oustanding musicians in the UK right now that Raz Ullah and Andrew (Wasylyk) Mitchell. It's an outstanding combo, with beautiful melodies and evocative synths shining any idea of winter out of your head. A beautiful, rich tapestry of sound and a huge progression than their already mindblowing cassette debut from 2017. Absolutely stunning.

Birmingham’s iconic audio scientists, Modified Toy Orchestra, are back. This time as mto and with a new single on their old label.

Hand cut in an edition of 100 copies by PhilM at 3345 this return sees the band in a casio only landscape watching the mathematician Richard Feynman sit alone at the top of a light house on mars contemplating calculus and aspects of his life.

‘Mary = X’
A haunting lament of what might have been from the perspective of Richard Feynman's ex-wife Mary, her plaintive voice keening for her husband’s attention, a hopeless attempt against the infinite mysteries of calculus.
"He begins working calculus problems in his head as soon as he awakens. He did calculus while driving in his car, while sitting in the living room, and while lying in bed at night." —Mary Louise Bell divorce complaint.

‘The breath they've been holding.’
The Title is taken from a news broadcast observing the faces of the doomed astronaut’s families during the space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

Since touring the world performing their 2nd album Plastic Planet, which culminated in sell out shows at the Hong Kong Civic Hall, mto have been commissioned to perform Stockhausen and to collaborate with composer/conductor Richard Baker on "Game" by Faster than sound performed at Aldeburgh Britain's oldest classical music festival.

The 2 tracks are part of digital EP called "Feynman on Mars" which shows a darker, colder distant side of mto an aspect of the band which will be further explored as they blast off in to the outer reaches of the cosmos on what will be there 3rd album "Silfurburg".

Goodnight Lenin are pleased to announce the details of their forthcoming debut album, In The Fullness Of Time which is mixed by Californian guru Jonathan Wilson and set for release on November 24 via Static Caravan (VAN273).. Having been building to the album since their formation in 2011, Goodnight Lenin have released two singles, one double a-side Record Store Day 7" and two EPs along the way, all of which sold out of their limited physical run upon release. The band have worked with Nick Drake producer John Wood, Broadcast's Tim Felton and Modified Toy Orchestra's Brian Duffy as well as artists Clare Rojas, Mark Edwards and Nathalie Daoust, whose photographs accompany In The Fullness Of Time. Front man John Fell said of the album: "It took us a long time to find our sound... years in fact! We scrapped the record two or three times until we were happy with the songs. We recorded the bases of the tracks live onto analogue tape to give it the 70's feel we wanted plus we were honoured to have one of our greatest influences, Jonathan Wilson, mix the album. It's something we are very proud of and we feel like it's the start of something special."

Goodnight Lenin are a West Coast Americana five-piece who formed in the West Midlands in 2011. An independent outfit with an old school attitude to music, the band celebrate the DIY ethic of the late 80s / early 90s grunge approach and combine with influences including Neil Young, Jonathan Wilson, Phosphorescent and Wilco. Goodnight Lenin have released two singles and two EPs, all of which sold out of their limited physical run upon release. The band have played over 60 festivals including Glastonbury, Bestival and Green Man and have been on tour with Dry The River, First Aid Kit, Stornoway and Beth Jeans Houghton.

TRACK LISTING

1. You Were Always Waiting
2. Weary
3. Another Day
4. The Tell-Tale Heart
5. A Cautionary Tale
6. Carry The Burden Of Youth In Your Heart
7. In The Fullness Of Time
8. Old Cold Hands
9. The Constant Lover
10. The Reason
11. Electric Leaves

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

The Further Navigations EP is a continuation of the themes which informed The Memory Band album On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs) also released on Static Caravan. Featuring remixes from Belbury Poly and Grantby and a brand new Memory Band track the EP draws inspiration from the ancient "lost road" that is the Harrow Way. The choice of collaborators are two producers who have had a profound impact on The Memory Band sound in different ways, but both bring to the fore the cinematic elements of Stephen Cracknell's approach to traditional music. In the decade since The Memory Band began one of its greatest contemporary influences has been the fine collection of work released by the Ghost Box label, in particular the Belbury Poly aka label boss Jim Jupp. Spectral, haunting and yet vibrant and knowing his work has established Jupp as a truly English original, making some of the essential electronic music of the new century. For "Hobby Horse" Belbury Poly takes the blueprint from the Memory Band's version of the traditional funeral march "When I Was On Horseback" transforms it by speeding it up, flicking the swing setting and produces something that sounds like David Munrow making music for schools on analogue synthesisers. Grantby aka Dan Grigson has a mysterious history, famed for the Timber EP and tracks for labels such as Mo-Wax in the mid ‘90s, his work defined and exceeded trip-hop and garnered a loyal international underground following who spoke of him as an English version of DJ Shadow. Memory Band leader Stephen Cracknell worked alongside Grigson on a one or two of those early recordings and when Grigson withdrew from music after an ill-starred move to Creation Records, Cracknell moved to focus on his own projects which lead to The Memory Band. Recently Grigson returned to music, working on music for film and television music before returning to remixes and production. Here Grantby takes the traditional ballad "As I Walked over Salisbury Plain" leads it into the military zone and the result is "The Ballad Of Imber Down" named after the "lost village" of Imber upon Salisbury Plain, from which its inhabitants were evacuated by the Army during the Second World War only to learn that after the War that it had been decided the village would remain the property of the military and that they could never return again. Their ultimately doomed campaign to return has itself passed into legend.The Memory Band original "Walk Along It" is a hymn to majesty of walking in the open air. It borrows heavily from the anonymous and haunting version of the traditional English tune The Lincolnshire Poacher, broadcast from a shortwave numbers station and believed to be operated by the British secret services.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. The Memory Band & Belbury Poly - Hobby Horse
2. The Memory Band - Walk Along It
Side 2:
3. The Memory Band & Grantby - The Ballad Of Imber Down

“Nothing but the fall of ashes from which no phoenix can rise,” say Atlantic-straddling outfit Distant Correspondent. The band’s helmed by David Obuchowski (Goes Cube), who recruited Emily Gray (Meanwhile Back in Communist Russia), Michael Lengel, Edith Frost (signed to Drag City) and Tyler Wilcox to what was originally a completely secret project. Their songs were written largely by collaboration, albeit separately – David sent the vocal and guitar parts to Michael, who provided the bass and drum parts. Those tracks have grown and evolved since the addition of the other members, including Oxford-based Emily who added moving lyrics and narrative touches.

The quartet’s first single for Static Caravan, ‘Shatter’, is the first offering from an album they’re releasing in October on Hot Congress/Old Flame Records. It underlines just why they’ve been hotly tipped by websites such as Oh My Rockness and Vice’s Noisey blog. The 7” features two songs of woozy, atmospheric indie rock, combining gentle melancholy with brooding yet beautiful melodies. The Cocteau Twins are an obvious touchstone, but at times the four-piece also recall Red House Painters’ enchanting melancholy and song craft.

Lead track ‘Shatter’ is a bittersweet song whose ethereality and pop hooks dovetail gracefully, in a way reminiscent of Besnard Lakes. Topped with Edith Frost’s fragile, world-weary vocal, it then breaks down into expansive guitar pop propelled by a driving rhythm section and the kind of swirling, dream-like melancholia which reminds of Do Make Say Think, while Emily Gray’s closing monologue is stark and poetic, complementing the song’s epic sheen.‘Badlands’ on the flip is another slice of gauzy dream-pop which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on 4AD in the 1980s and early 1990s, all glistening guitar melody, throbbing bass and hypnotic, interlocking vocals. Its haunting refrain – “Death is not an option that I can afford” - adds to the spectral feel; all these ingredients combine to result in sparse but lilting, summery pop with a hint of darkness underneath the surface. On the evidence of this pair of songs, they’ll be burning brightly for a long time yet.

Strictly Ltd to 300 copies on 7” wax only.

Releases by Stephen Cracknell and his acclaimed project The Memory Band have always lent themselves to journeys and landscape: dream-like stumbles through stony megaliths, wintry climbs along snow-covered hills, drunken dashes through sun-splashed fields with a summer love. Their records have always been more pre-occupied with external narratives than internal emotions. But perhaps never before quite as literally as on adventurous new album On The Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs), a beguiling musical tribute to a mythical ancient pathway crossing a Southern England shrouded in mystery and withered by time.

Made of eleven songs spread across haunting horn noises, crackles, drones, blissed-out beats and tender piano melodies, this fourth studio album marks the tenth anniversary of one the most invigorating and much loved folk acts around, a group described by NME as “a disorientating, drugged-up soundtrack for the 21st Century… genuinely beautiful.” And speaking of monumental journeys, it’s been quite a road to this moment for Cracknell and his ever evolving cast of collaborators.“I’ve had a decade of marginal poverty, nice trips and the company of wonderful dreamers,” laughs the mercurial composer, formerly seen fronting much loved outfits The Accidental and Balearic Folk Orchestra. “The idea with this record was it to be sort of a road trip along a mythical track way, an irreverent and episodic journey across a landscape inundated with history and the marks of change and transformation, some striking and immediate, others slow and imperceptible.”

He may as well be describing his own sounds to be found in On The Chalk… – for every jaw-dropping shimmer of harp or arresting moment of reed organ, there’s an avalanche of clever quiet detail to be unearthed, with cinematic overtones that recall his Wicker Man touring soundtrack that Cracknell has taken to fields everywhere from Glastonbury, Green Man to a castle in Jersey.Cracknell says: “There’s been a real revival of interest lately in old roads and green lanes, in literature, art and film. This has run parallel to so much of the renewed interest in folklore and folk music. One supposedly ancient trackway that I'd hear referenced again and again was the Harrow Way, which stretched from the Straits Of Dover all the way to the west country by an overland route on chalk ridgeways. I grew up in a place supposedly along its route.”What followed was a period of extensive research, digging deep into his own past and the World around him, listening to a strange combination of traditional folk-songs and seminal British landscape music such as Chill Out by acid house pranksters the KLF, tracing old roads and creating ambient recordings on site for use on the album. ”It was all a lot of fun, running round the country playing at psycho-geography,” recalls Cracknell. “Like the landscape that inspired it, it’s an album that at times is dark and imposing and at others more peaceful and serene.”Recorded in the songwriter’s home studio in East London (“an empty schoolroom overlooking a park… quite a peaceful place for London, really”), this is an album by a group who, like their subject matter, have changed and grown over time, but remain every bit as vital as ever.

London’s Sauna Youth follow up their acclaimed debut lp 'Dreamlands' with a two track single on Static Shock, but those who are only hoping for Dreamlands Pt.II are likely to be disappointed. This is (for this release, at least) Sauna Youth reborn as a c86 indie pop band. These two female fronted tracks (one being a unique interpretation of a Pissed Jeans song!) sound so good they could have been released back in the day on the Subway Organization or 53rd and 3rd. The music is raw and simple like a slowed down Ramones but the vocals are sugar sweet with lots of backing harmonies. If you love the Fizzbombs, The Flatmates or The Rosehips you will instantly fall in love with these two perfect under three minute indie pop gems.

Manchester-based six-piece Table are led by songwriter David O'Dowda, who combs together different strands of modern folk music to create something new and wonderful on this, their first seven-inch titled "Songs You Can Sing". The two tracks on this single are sumptuous delights, airy and ornate while being oddly familiar. Marshalled by David, Table waltz through quietly elegant folk-pop with minimal guitar, stately piano and low-key vocals on what sounds like an endearingly sweet single, despite the deceptively barbed tale woven throughout. If "Songs You Can Sing" is beguilingly understated, then "Most" is multi-layered and bursting with ideas where electronic and organic sounds collide. It's a many hued delight which pulls together disparate elements and twists them into a myriad shapes, blurring excitedly before sweeping to a beautiful climax. Music that reaches into you and pulls out your soul, personal and frankly as dangerous as it is fragile. Imagine East River Pipe covering a Richard Hawley penned lullaby and you'll have a good idea of what to expect.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: I can't really think what to say about this, other than I really like it! Two slices of cleverly constructed folkiness which despite the addition of electronics, maintains a real warmth and charm. Lovely stuff!

Perfect for removing dust, grease and fingerprints from your precious vinyl.

Ass is the work of Andreas Soderstrom. Soderstrom plays all of the instruments found on this quietly intoxicating 10 track record, the follow up to his astonishingly assured, eponymous debut – both released on Headspin Recordings. It finds him hacking through the folk undergrowth, his fluid dynamic underpinning a stark melancholy which simmers throughout. From the Britfolk fingerpicking of "I've Been Here" to the austere "Cool Water", the self taught multi instrumentalist wrings a plaintive beauty from his fingers; penning profoundly moving, largely non vocal entities, augmented at various points by electronic gurgles, horns and an accordion. Channelling a hypnotic style which is at times reminiscent of folk legends such as Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and John Fahey, his crisp compositions nevertheless have an ultra modernist edge to them, digital elements seeping through and sounding perfectly at home, but with a softly engaging feel rather than the clinical hum of technology. "My Get Up And Go Just Got Up And Went" is that rare kind of record; bewitching and thought provoking, comforting and challenging. It's a real treat, and a chance to hear the whispered charm of a subtly disarming performer.

This release contains the finest songs the old man has ever committed to tape - a smorgasbord which encompasses expansive sonic meanderings, unselfconscious indie-rock thrashing, sad-eyed melodrama and the kind of wised-up humour we might expect from a statesman and scholar with such a track record, but which is a rarity in these youthquaking, moronically-earnest and docile times. Here we have George Washington Brown comprehensively topping his past endeavours, having created a truly cherishable thing - a humanistic modern record, a gift from one adventurer to others. For fans of Guided by Voices, Animal Collective, Van Dyke Parks and the Elephant 6 collective.

Static Waves influences include The Fall, Swell Maps, Stereolab, The Yummy Fur, The Monks, The Ronettes and Trumans Water. Live and on record they sound like a garage band playing English folk songs for release on a scratchy DIY label.

Sugarcult may look like the Jam but they sound like typical Californi-yay surf punks. Named after seven lesbians who lived across the hall from singer-guitarist Tim Pagnotta, the band have their own brand of clever wretchedness, constantly veering between hardcore and pop punk. The band subscribes to the don't-bore-us-get-to-the-chorus approach to power pop, fused with the spirit of 70s punk.

The Catheters bring real energy back to a genre all too often plagued by bands simply going through the motions. For fans of The Dwarves, Dead Boys, Murder City Devils & The Germs...