Celestial Echo returns with a proper UK soul classic — The Cool-Notes “I Forgot How To Love You”, back on 12” and cut loud for the dancefloor.

Hailing from South London, The Cool-Notes were one of the UK’s most consistent soul outfits through the late ’70s and ’80s. While many know them for their chart successes later in the decade, this early period shows the band in a formative state - warm basslines, tight rhythm section, rich harmonies and that unmistakable Britfunk feel.

“I Forgot How To Love You” is one of those records that’s quietly done the rounds for years. A favourite of Frederika’s back in the day, it’s about time it has it’s first ever reissue.

Presented on 12” in a clean company sleeve, this edition gives the record a new lease of life.

Celestial Echo is here to put proper soul records back into circulation.

TRACK LISTING

A1. I Forgot How To Love You
B1. Why Can’t We Be Friends

Solid gold previously unreleased Junior Murvin Album produced by King Jammy finally sees the light of day - Rare non-album singles plus a trailer load of previously unreleased make 'Cool Down The Heat' a must have companion to Junior Murvin's iconic Lee 'Scratch' Perry recordings.

Among the newly discovered gems Junior Murvin revisits his two signature songs 'Police and Thieves' & 'Cool Out Son' and locks them down in true Waterhouse style.

TRACK LISTING

Cool Down The Heat
World Inflation
Come From Far
Ism Schism
No Bed Of Rose
Police And Thieves
Cool Out Son
Dancehall Girls
Zoops
Lion Mouth

Hailing from Amsterdam, New Cool Collective Big Band (or NCCBB as they shall now be known) are an 8-piece jazz combo / 21-piece big band playing a crossover of jazz, cumbia, afro, surf, boogaloo and more. Released on the highly acclaimed Japanese label P-Vine, "Enter The Dragon" b/w "Misirlou" is a vibrant representation of what the band are all about - frenetic grooves, advanced muscianship, heritage jazz models, modern experimentation.

Two tracks that pay tribute to golden age cinema (Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon & Dick Dale's surf romp made famous on Pulp Fiction)  whilst injecting their own flair and flamboyancy cooly into proceedings. A modern jazz collectors gold nugget - don't sleep. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Busy and bustling modern jazz-funksters with plenty of attitude and the musicianship to match. Incredibly well executed covers of two cinematic anthems, injected with the band's own unique spirit.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Enter The Dragon

Side 2
1. Misirlou

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the other members of Miles's sextet come together to record the bestselling jazz album of all time: Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue follows the paths of Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and their roads on from there. It's a book about music and business, race and heroin, and an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange hothouses that can produce its full flowering.

But above all this is the story of three very different men - their struggles, their choices, their inspiration. The tapestry of their lives is, in James Kaplan's hands, an American Odyssey.

Timeless soul, 'Cool Cool' is the standout title track from James Alexander Bright's recent album. It's an immediately enchanting gem, with tendermusicianship and a stripped back production highlighting James' voice, pitchedsomewhere between Eddie Chacon, Beck and Michael McDonald. Athens of theNorth's in-house band East Coast Love Affair add a delightfully psychedelic Balearicpiquancy with an beautiful dub version on the flip.

'Cool Cool' has been enjoying a plethora of worldwide support; seeing James insession for Gilles Peterson, suppling a Block Party mix for Huey Morgan, interviewedby Bandcamp Weekly.

The past six years has seen James release a veritable treasure trove of music:'Mallorca' and 'Strange Folk' EPs, debut album 'Headroom', joyous second 'Float', analbum of collaborations and reworks with cosmic Americana-disco DJ/producer duoFlying Mojito Bros, and a new project with Groove Armada's Tom Findlay as Bright & Findlay. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Cool Cool
2. Cool Cool (ECLA Beautiful Dub)

With Sod’s Toastie, Tom Greenhouse and his intrepid band of sonic explorers are more assured and confident than ever throughout this sublime sophomore album.

While frontman Tom Greenhouse’s off-kilter observations and bizarro anecdotes remain front and centre, this time round the band up their game with a more vigorous sound that keeps pace with Greenhouse’s wholly distinctive lyrical style. Greenhouse continues to revel in telling increasingly surreal short stories, rejoicing in the power of the deadpan one-liner and bedecking his songs with far-flung cultural references. But now the band employ a variety of techniques with improved production, from the impulsively bashed keyboards and jubilantly repetitive guitar stabs that have become their trademark, to flirtations with–heaven forbid!–melody, chord progressions and arrange- ments which elevate their tried-and-tested blueprint into a more exciting and cohesive whole.

Opener Musicians is the perfect embodiment of this conscious development. Here, Greenhouse recounts a sarcastic tale of half-truths that see him galavanting around town trying to put a band together. Sonically, it begins with a caustic callback to the group’s first EP Crap Cardboard Pet and its über-minimalist aesthetic. But by the end of the song a joyous festival of afrobeat-inspired instruments including samba whistles, bongos and saxophones are added to the mix as the frontman, ironically, fails in his mission to recruit more players.

With Get Unjaded, the band have somehow conjured something close to pop, without abandoning the repetition and wit that’s relished by their early fans. I Lost My Head also adopts a jangle-pop sheen with a luscious synth melody, as the frontman ditches the spoken-word for a surly croon (his first known attempt at actual singing!) that provides a welcome breather from the onslaught of dense recantations that are the band’s bread-and-butter.

While the lyrics here are still often humorous and political, Greenhouse has also notably expanded his interests on this album to include a new host of topics. The influence of extraterrestrials, for example, infiltrates the subject matter frequently. On The UFOs, the mysterious protagonist Blinkus Booth’s isolationist lifestyle is apparently interrupted by the spectres of otherworldly visitors, while closer The Neoprene Ravine feels like an extract from a deep space rock opera. Here, jaunty and angular instruments pile-on as we are fed images of an interstellar Spinal Tap, the titular fictional band “The Neoprene Ravine” who are “the alien equivalent of the Velvet Underground” and include an alien Lou Reed yelping “too busy sucking on my little green ding dong!”.

Meanwhile, Hard Rock Potato is propelled by a vortex of keys and synths, a real noise-pop gem comprised of real guitar chords (!) and rock-orientated riffs. Here the stream-of-consciousness lyrics take shots at the sinister financial industry, and include one of the many top-tier one-liners on the album: “It’s not gambling if you’re wearing a tie (even if you’ve got no trousers on)”.

On Sod’s Toastie, The Cool Greenhouse have pushed their distinctive flavour of post-punk to the point of perfection – their incongruous riffs, alchemical instrumental chemistry, and irreverent spoken-word vocals are a delight throughout. Sod’s Toastie is hilarious at times, and at others just hi- lariously good – a not-so-difficult second album. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Angular instrumentation and wry social commentary form the backbone of this soaringly clever and brilliantly dynamic second album from The Cool Greenhouse. It's full of sweet melodies and wonderfully vivid real-life tales, both smooth and surprising at points, a fun listen.

TRACK LISTING

1. Musicians
2. Sod's Toastie
3. The UFOs
4. Get Unjaded
5. I Lost My Head
6. The Next Stage Of Destiny
7. Hard Rock Potato
8. Get Deluded
9. Y.O.L.H
10. The Neoprene Ravine

This album grew out of the recording sessions that produced the “Mystery / Poetry” LP, adding brass & violin parts, new songs, new recordings of three audience favourites, & reworking three songs that appear on the LP. Core Irregulars John Forrester (bass), Arvin Johnson (drums & percussion) & Fae Simon (vocals & percussion) are joined by Sian Allen (trumpet), Linze Maesterosa (saxophone) & Lorsey Tillbrook (violin). Together they create a truly fine album showcasing some of the best of Robb’s songwriting for electric band performance. “The most joyous & life affirming set that I watched over the weekend” – audience response to recent Irregulars festival appearance.

TRACK LISTING

1: Win, Lose Or Draw
2: From Tolpuddle To Timbuktu,
3: Brown & Black In The Union Jack
4: One Day We Go To Wembley
5: Fiddler In The Rain
6: Start Counting *
7: When I Look Up*,
8: The Summer Time Is Coming
9: Be Reasonable
10: My Very Best Of Friends.

* Lead Vocal Fae Simon

Basic Rhythm returns to his Jungle roots for his final release with Planet Mu. Harking back to the golden era of the mid 90s, but with a contemporary slant, Basic Rhythm hands in three dance floor killers, with a remix from the grim reaper himself, Loxy. The titular track, Cool Down The Dance, opens with a jittery fragmented drum pattern and wooshing stereo effects, lending a slightly disorienting feel to the intro before the well known vocal refrain leads into a monster amen drop. Deep subs, amen breaks and steely stabs roll out this dance floor banger.

This is followed up with an absolute behemoth of a track. Horse Mout’ utilises an infamous vocal sample in a fresh way, building upon the intro with waves of dubwise effects before launching into a devastating onslaught. With support from scene stalwarts DJ Storm and Flight this one has been smashing up dance floors! The third track is a remix of Cool Down The Dance by Loxy, bringing his inimitable cool production style to the fore, stripping away the amen layers to reveal something for the darker corners of the dance. One for the head noders and the eyes down crew. The final track, Satta, is a nod to the dub of Augustus Pablo, King Tubby, and On U Sound. A slow boiling minimal intro that drops into the extreme minimalism of just a kick drum and sub bass line belies the swagger of the eventual drop. Swinging drums in an almost military pattern tumble and stagger around the core line of kick drum and sub bass, lending this an almost drunken air.

TRACK LISTING

A:

1/Cool Down The Dance
2/Horse Mout'

B:

1/Cool Down The Dance (Loxy Remix)
2/Satta 

Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but The Cool Greenhouse are about to shatter glass ceilings with their self-titled debut LP.

“I wanted to hear repetitive music that wasn’t pretentious” tells the band’s voice Tom Greenhouse of his personal agenda to inject some pop sentimentality into the rock’n’roll textbook. “The mission was to make long, repetitive pop music that wasn’t boring. I soon realised I could do that through focusing on the lyrics.”

With phrases culled from the pages of his many notebooks, Greenhouse has a way with words. Exploring Rotary Club jumble sales and mausoleums or making futuristic voyages into musical VR, his songs dig at the gammon classes and scoff at the stupidity of society alongside pop punches about female harassment. Inspired by conversations and magazine articles he narrates upon the world as he sees it, preferring wise-cracks and judgement to merely passing comment. “At school I wrote a story about a whale that fell in love with a submarine and tried to have sex with it which almost caused a serious nuclear meltdown; it won a prize. As a teenager I thought I was Arthur Rimbaud so moved to Paris and wrote terrible poetry.”

Down and out in Paris and later, in London, Tom got skint fast so headed to the sticks of Norwich. Sitting in his garden, inspired to turn scripture into song and record it on a friend’s tape recorder, he began penning the album between writing clickbait articles to get by and turned to humour to express his deeper thoughts; “A lot of punk is on the nose like “fuck the Tories” but I’m not that hardcore. Humour is good for talking about serious things without getting too sentimental.”

Encouraged by The Shadow Ring’s Graham Lambkin (“I wrote to him asking whether it was worth the bother. He sent a really nice reply. He probably doesn’t remember, but it spurred me on.”), Tom took to the live circuit, but his solo backing track performances needed a fuller sound. Ahead of securing a show with The Stroppies, he turned to the talent of guitarist Tom O Driscoll, bassist Thom Mason, drummer and percussionist Kevin Barthelemy and Merlin Nova on keys and synths, harmonium, melodica, violin and backing vocals. “We practiced the songs and played that first show; we did a good job and Melodic signed us! Those guys are crazy,” Tom says. Perhaps not; also championed by DIY it could be a sign of things to come as the band prepare for their Great Escape debut.

Discovering The Cool Greenhouse’s first 7” (which coincidentally mentioned his own surname) ace producer, sound engineer and mixer Phil Booth (Sleaford Mods, Jake Bugg) invited the group to his JT Soar studio in Nottingham. The old potato-packing warehouse offered an idiosyncratic working method for the band, who recorded the album over 7 days as live between kipping on its couches, 4am whiskey-soaked sessions and Mario Kart ’64 on demand. “Phil’s got all the kit and know-how, but the studio is rough around the edges with great character,” Tom tells. “There were weird little synchronistic miracles… discussing a song then seeing its title on a shop window, finding things in pubs straight out of our songs… these zapped me onto some sort of Jungian plane where I didn’t need sleep and knew just what to do.”

Blissfully instinctive, Tom’s lexicon flies across the album with the agitation of an internal monologue that won’t quit. From pop culture to cautionary tales, anything deemed too musically extravagant was swiftly removed before being mastered by Mikey Young (Bodega, Amyl and the Sniffers); “we added a tympani and clarinet but ended up taking it all off again” At times the Truman Show-trappings of ‘Trojan Horse’ or ‘Gum’s unsettling cowbell hint at the motoric. For now, whatever it is that gets you going, let’s just call it The Cool Greenhouse effect.

TRACK LISTING

01 The Sticks
02 Cardboard Man
03 Gum
04 Life Advice
05 Dirty Glasses
06 Smile, Love!
07 Trojan Horse
08 4Chan
09 Prospects
10 Outlines
11 The Subletters Pt 2 (Ft. The Shifters)

Announcing a reissue of The Oh Sees - The Cool Death of Island Raiders
We here at Castle Face are not afraid to get our shins dirty mucking around in the stacks and we’re well aware of an out-of-press gap of Oh Sees releases right before 2006 when we started the label with Sucks Blood. We’re rectifying that and first among these is The Cool Death of Island Raiders, a particularly dusty gem that we think merits another look.

Kicking off the record with what should have been the hit of the summer that year but for the hard C in the title, "The Gilded Cunt" seems to clearly preface Oh Sees’ later psych skewed pop sensibilities. At the time it was an obvious jam and I recall being floored by its shuffling beauty. Chirping birds, gently lapping tempos and the nascent harmonization of Bridgid Dawson and Dwyer detail what I consider to be a definitive highlight of their early quiet period of the band. The tree hangs heavy with Patrick Mullins’ handiwork, manning the musical saw, drums, and an assortment of home made electronics. It seemed a bit radical to be so quiet about it but the tunes are total earworms among the assorted drones, cut up bits of tape noise, and mellow front porch vibes, and the whole thing hangs together in a lovely hand-made way, helped in no small part by Dave Sitek’s production (he would later work on Master’s Bedroom as well). “

We flew Brigid out a fresh woman and literally sent her home on a plane with a trash bag of her clothes” says John. Evidently the whole record was accidentally erased at some point right around when the photo on the back of the jacket was taken, which makes it all the more remarkable that the result sounds so casually and confidently careworn. 

TRACK LISTING

1. The Gilded Cunt
2. The Dumb Drums
3. Turn Offs
4. Losers In The Sun
5. Drone Number One
6. Island Raiders
7. Cool Death
8. Broken Stems
9. We Are Free
10. Drone Number Two
11. You Oughta Go Home

NYC’s The Prettiots (Kay Kasparhauser and Lulu Prat) release their debut album ‘Funs Cool’ via Rough Trade.

Packed with catchy melodies, memorable hooks and heart on the sleeve lyrics, ‘Funs Cool’ acts as a thoughtful, funny, and catchy-as-hell state of the union address from young women living in a big city and watching life unfurl in fits and starts before them.

‘Funs Cool’ comes hot on the heels of the band’s recent rapturously received first UK shows in November.

The Prettiots have a playful aesthetic and a sweet pop sound but their observations are scalpel-sharp and the emotional gut-punch their music packs is real. For Kay (vocals and uke) and Lulu (bass), simple instrumentation and no-frills vocals aren’t employed because they’re easy or cute - they’re useful because they’re the fastest way to the truth.

As Kasparhauser explained recently in a Rookie Magazine interview earlier this year, “My lyrics are completely honest… they’re 100% true to my thoughts at any given moment. I like to talk about Werner Herzog and sex.”