'The Scream', Siouxsie & the Banshees' first album, was released late enough in the punk era to bear some claim as the first post-punk album, with only a minor traces of 'punk' (one lingering early song, "Carcass" comes to mind) and enough hints of what had come even earlier, Andy MacKay-like saxophone flourishes - to feel utterly new. Not to mention the effort producer Steve Lillywhite must have put into the album, his first fully-credited major label production.

Siouxsie was clearly the focus of the band, with her unique vocal style and lyrics, but the real star, we've always known, was John McKay, who wrote most of the album's music (as well as singles like 'Hong Kong Garden'), creating a wholly new guitar sound - harsh and brittle, yet melodically intoxicating . . . best articulated by a somewhat confounded Steve Albini years later ". . . only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". McKay's influence lives on; many of the most influential guitarists of the past four decades credit him as a major influence - Geordie from Killing Joke, Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain, U2's The Edge, Thurston Moore, Johnny Marr and even the two guitarists - The Cure's Robert Smith and Magazine's John McGeoch - who followed him in The Banshees.

McKay's burgeoning status as the anti-guitar hero was halted when he and Banshees drummer Kenny Morris - at odds with Siouxsie and bassist Steve Severin - fled the band just after the start of a tour supporting the group's second album, 'Join Hands'. It was a weekly music paper scandal, later the subject of a BBC documentary, and Siouxsie's vitriol working its way into the lyrics of a later Banshees b-side, 'Drop Dead / Celebration'. Aside from a solitary single on Marc Riley's In Tape label nearly a decade later, no music was heard from McKay again. So it comes as a major surprise to learn of a pile of excellent recordings made in the years just after he left The Banshees, unheard by all but a very few, some of which feature drummer Kenny Morris, plus Mick Allen from Rema Rema, Matthew Seligman of the Soft Boys and longer-term collaborator Graham Dowdall and John's wife Linda . . . the latter three of whom now all sadly deceased.

'Sixes And Sevens' is an historic lost album. Brazenly genius and bearing fair claim as the lost treasure of the post-punk era, the album collects eleven studio tracks, carefully mastered from original tapes. It's a masterpiece which best speaks for itself. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Zen And The Art Of Nonsense
2. Fun On The Floor
3. The Blessed West
4. Taken For Granted
5. Looks Can Kill
6. Sacred Measure
7. Flare
8. Black Five
9. Vigilante
10. Zor Gabor
11. Tightrope

This isn't the only press release we're putting out for Keeley's second album, Beautiful Mysterious, but this one's from an entirely subjective position. Around the release of Keeley's debut, Floating Above Everything Else, there was a flurry of press which seemingly continued unabated for months and - to our mystification - seemed to offer no clues as to what, exactly, was going on with this artist or how or why any of it mattered. That album's label, Dimple Discs, has a roster of predominately Irish (and generally excellent) artists; I suppose in some unconscious way we wrote it off as "I suppose you've got to be Irish to get it". And then we were solicited Keeley's next album. Well, boy were we wrong! KEELEY is a band led by Keeley Moss, with musicians Lukey Foxtrot and Andrew Paresi, although it's a tight-knight group who propel the project and it makes no sense not to mention manager Nick Clift and studio genius Alan Maguire, who are also intrinsic members of this outfit. There's a conceit behind the band's work. Every song in the band's full repertoire shares a single subject - Inga Maria Hauser, a teenaged German backpacker found brutally assaulted and dead in a remote part of Ireland's Ballypatrick Forest in 1988. Moss's personal interest in the case caused her to create a blog, The Keeley Chronicles, which has reported on the case so doggedly that it's now viewed as the crucial source of public information on the case. And there's more to that story, of course. But our point is this: Beautiful Mysterious is that rarest of all jewels, the instant classic. Imagine going back in time to when you heard Fear Of Music, Colossal Youth or Forever Changes for the very first time, knowing what each would mean to you many years later. Don’t miss that chance with Keeley’s incredible Beautiful Mysterious. Well, here's your chance.

TRACK LISTING

1. A Doorway To Another World
2. Trans-Europe 18
3. Inga Maria's Dream
4. Days In A Daze
5. Last Words
6. Galloway Princess
7. Inga Hauser
8. Forever Froze
9. Scratches On Your Face
10. Waves Of 1988
11. You Were The Beauty. 

Young Marble Giants' "Colossal Youth" has mystified and beguiled audiences since its 1980 release. Seen by primary songwriter Stuart Moxham as "a last gasp" at making a record, Stuart insisted the one-off 7" deal offered by Rough Trade be altered to allow an entire album . . . that paid off when with a big seller which produces cover versions even from bands whose members were a decade or two away from being born on the album's release. When YMG disbanded, Stuart was at a loss; he'd never envisioned a follow-up. A series of experimental recordings made with pal Phil Legg (Essential Logic) and supported by other YMG members, musicians from This Heat and Swell Maps, old Cardiffian pals, and new friends like Vivien Goldman resulted in an album, "Embrace The Herd", as The Gist. Released just before Rough Trade made bold moves toward pop charts with Scritti Politti, The Smiths and others, the album was odd for its time, but has since taken on the lustre of genius. Years of silence followed, thereafter intermittently broken by the odd release from small labels. Stuart delved into family life, though he never stopped writing and recording. In more recent years, two retrospective compilation of lost recordings by The Gist have been released, as well as a superb collaboration with French arranger Louis Philippe, "The Devil Laughs".

"Fabstract" is the final gathering of Stuart's lost recordings. Compiling long-lost YMG-era tracks with the recent brilliance of "Crow, Crow" and "Suburban Monochrome", through bits of whimsy and vastly alternate versions of fan faves, this diverse album shouldn't work . . . but it does, telling a satisfying story of an underrated talent whose mistake was following his muse, not the charts. This album precedes a new recording, years in the making, produced by Dave Trumfio, which promises to be Stuart's most complete - and original - work since "Colossal Youth". 

TRACK LISTING

1. Various Organs
2. Crow, Crow
3. Night By Night (v3)
4. Angelic Aye Are
5. Last Summer (Ilkeston Version)
6. Shark Attacks
7. Two Minute Warning
8. Suburban Monochrome
9. Suburban Monochrome (instrumental)
10. My Mouth Is Bored
11. No One Road (early Version)
12. In A Room
13. Blue Loop (demo)
14. The Long Run (demo)
15. Immaculate Mistake
16. Unused YMG Organ Riff

Both Tymon Dogg and Richard Dudanski had musical roots playing in The 101'ers with future Clash singer/guitarist Joe Strummer. All three shared a deep love for southern Spain, due perhaps to the influence of the Romero sisters, Paloma (later "Palmolive" of The Slits) and the artist Esperanza, who were among the first Spanish punk refugees in London. Tymon's career began with beguiling interactions with Apple Records, The Moody Blues and future Led Zeppelin members John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page before he discovered his true musical self as a punk / folk experimentalist, opening shows for the likes of The Slits, Raincoats and Pop Group and becoming the longest-running musical foil in Strummer's career, continuing into The Clash and Mescaleros. Similarly, Richard played in Basement 5, Public Image Ltd, The Raincoats and others before following Esperanza back to Granada...which subsequently became second home to Tymon and Joe.

Spain is not without its own punk heroes, and chief among them was Granada's Antonio Arias, another pal of Joe's and leader of Spain's musical heroes, Lagartija Nick, which also included Dacoits members Juan Codorniu and JJ Machuca. Antonio sings the albums two Spanish-language songs. while Tymon sings the other nine...and there's an instrumental, "Mongols", which the band considered too epic as a stand-alone instrumental to mess with! Tymon sings three songs from his past: "The Wheel Of Life And Death" has been heard before as a live bonus track on the expanded reissue of "Battle Of Wills", "Conscience Money" was heard in a very different version on the impossible-to-find "Made Of Light" album, and an embryonic take of "Something To Prove" turned up the even rarer 1989 solo album, "Relentless". If you imagine the playful elasticity of "Sandinista!" recast into a more straightforward record, with Tymon taking the lead on something more than that album's "Lose This Skin", you're halfway there. Guests include Killing Joke bassist / famed producer Youth and Dr Robert from The Blow Monkeys. 

TRACK LISTING

01 Wheel Of Life And Death
02 Cruel Mind
03 Casida Del Herido Por El Agua
04 Something To Prove
05 Brother Of Genghis Khan
06 I Don't Wanna Be Poor
07 Nadsat
08 Chimney Sweep
09 Conscience Money
10 Give Us A Jesus
11 Turning Of The World 

What a difference a year makes, right? HOUSE Of ALL's follow-up to their self-titled debut came about at some risk to band and label . . . so absolutely sure of their debut, Martin Bramah asked for an advance on recording costs for the follow-up before their self-titled album had even been released. Needless to say, things went pretty well with the debut, which led to a few sold-out tours, wildly enthusiastic press and great sales.

Follow-ups do come with perils, but perhaps Bramah's presumption was the very thing which has allowed CONTINUUM to escape the dread second album syndrome, because . . . it's fantastic! Whatever initial re-establishment of synaptic connection was needed to get things grooving on their debut, after many years since they'd last played together (excepting Peter Greenway, whose genuine bravery in joining four former members of The Fall whom he alone had never played with before) is history now. The grooves are bigger, the lyrics brilliant, Tomos Williams' production is top-notch and the necessity sitting on this album while the first one kept on rolling offered the advantage of allowing Dave Trumfio (of The Mekons and Pulsars) time to fine-tune the mixing and mastering . . . and it sounds HOT.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's no doubting House Of All's credentials, being formed of Fall alumni and clearly heavily influenced by the sound of their former band. What we get here is a slightly less abrasive, heavily punky redux of The Fall's soaring momentum and chaotic wall-of-sound roars, but topped with brilliantly sung vocals and produced to perfection. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. For This Be Glory
2. Murmuration
3. Gaudy Pop Scramble
4. Cuckoo In The Nest
5. Under A Crooked Sky
6. Aim Higher
7. Letter To A Young Poet
8. A Taste Of Money
9. I Must Get Clean
10. Each Ending Has A Beginning

The first really revolutionary fracture in The Fall was the departure of guitarist Martin Bramah. Commonly understood as the only viable challenger to Mark E Smith's dominance of the band, Bramah was The Fall's first singer and primary songwriter at the start. His subsequent group, Blue Orchids, was originally a reconstitution of the first recorded line-up of The Fall, without Mark, but with another slightly later Fall member, Eric McGann. After slight revisions in the lineup, Blue Orchids created a singular sound of maniacally aberrant psych on two thrilling singles - "The Flood" and "Work" - before recording one of the most imperfectly perfect debuts in what could no longer really be called 'rock and roll'.

'The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain)' eschews the frenetic energy of those singles to present itself as the greatest 'morning after the trip' albums ever - Martin and Una's wonderful explanations of the experiential backdrop to "Sun Connection" take up nearly as much space as those of all the other songs combined! Without exception, the songs are brilliant, majestic and memorable . . . plus it's possible that more covers of songs from 'The Greatest Hit' have been recorded by bands of credibility and renown than from any single Fall LP (although we're counting!), with near-contemporaneous versions arising from Fish & Roses, Slovenly, Dustdevils and Aztec Camera and many others since.

Never reissued on vinyl since its 1982 release, due to objections from the WB Yeats estate for the album's musical interpretation of the author's "Mad As The Mist And Snow" (now in public domain!), this deluxe edition includes a bonus album with two unreleased pre-album demos, two further demos released only on long out-of-print cassette compilations from more than forty years ago, and scorching live set featuring several of their early songs, extensive liner notes from Martin Bramah and Una Baines, a reproduction of the original lyric fold-over booklet and (with the 2LP version), a download card. The original artwork for the album and booklet have been restored painstakingly, and as Bramah himself says, "It's better than the original." After over four decades, we're proud to make available this classic album again. Tiny Global Production's first release was a companion to this release (it's also available again), containing the band's two 7" singles, the album's follow-up EP 'Agents Of Change', and two unheard demos.

TRACK LISTING

Sun Connection
Dumb Magician
Tighten My Belt
A Year With No Head
Hanging Man
Bad Education
Wait
No Looking Back
Low Profile
Mad As The Mist And Snow
Disney Boys (demo)
The Flood (demo)
Low Profile (C81 Cassette Version)
Thirst (Pleasantly Surprised Cassette Version)
Live In Manchester, 2014: Motorway
Hanging Man
Olympian
Work
A Year With No Head
The Unknown

Martin Bramah, lead guitarist in The Fall, was the final original musician to leave the band and inarguably the most important factor in the band's original sound. What Bramah took with him on departure was a sort of hazy psychedelic vision featured so readily on The Fall's debut, Live At The Witch Trials, and continued through his work with Blue Orchids, even if that lineage was obscured somewhat by The Fall's popularity and consistent stream of releases. For Bramah, the decades after The Fall were fraught. After regrouping as Blue Orchids with fellow Fall castaways Una Baines and Rick Goldstraw), initial releases rose to notoriety with two caustic and intense 7" singles, The Flood and Work, along with the more varied collection of songs featured on their debut LP, The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain), which topped the indie charts and remains a touchstone for many artists. Personal issues within the band made progress difficult. The 12" EP Agents Of Change, introduced changes to their sound (in part due to their work with Nico - yes, that Nico). But after its release, silence followed. Bramah sightings were elusive - a solo on an album by Una's band The Fates, a 12" single with mesmerising songs performed, oddly, in a sort of reggae style. A short second stint in The Fall. You get the picture. Any semblance of a career only began with a series of archival and new releases starting in 2015: a new studio album, followed by another new album nearly every year thereafter. Each sold better than the last, until this year's debut release by HOUSE Of ALL, a 'side project' featuring four other former members of The Fall. It was a hit within days of its announcement, in no small part to its immediacy - recorded in three days - and a healthy dollop of scandal . . . the spectre of retrospective threat to MES's hegemonic rule of The Fall.

TRACK LISTING

The Face Of Time
Dark Dame
Need Woke Her
As My Vision Cleared
High Horse
She Had Practically No Money
Tableau Vivant
Replica Of Me
On Your Honour Then
Rocket To Stardom

After releasing his seventh - arguably best and most popular album - The Odd Shower, The Bitter Springs' singer / songwriter Simon Rivers reinvented himself as Poor Performer, whose own debut, Like Yer Wounds Too, followed the same winning formula, widened somewhat by the inclusion of songs with a greater fragile beauty and introspection . . . though rarely without a degree of self-effacing humour and a rather stylish wit. Decades of self-releasing compact disc-only albums from the far southwestern suburbs of London, with scant regard for promotion or the normal machinations of showbiz - touring, for instance - did little to spread the word about Rivers' unique and prestigious talents. A conversational singer with a delightfully warm and convivial stone, Rivers' sense of the absurd and willingness to portray aspects of life generally unrecognised by pop music, one supposes it's not entirely unfair to have expect Top of The Pops to come calling. Yet the relative absence of cult of Simon Rivers fans is somewhat perplexing, for his lyrics, ideas and tunes all do merit it. There's little affectation in the sense of stage persona, but heaps of personality and intriguing, occasional perverse idea. It's hard to listen to anything he's down without a degree of sheer enjoyment. It's real, without affectation. The very real bumps heads with the slightly mental, just like in life! So what does this new guise - Oldfield Youth Club - have to offer? It's partially a revival of Rivers' first 'real' band, Last Party, and it displays hallmarks of that band's youthful energy. There's a bit of teen glam in Good News I'm Afraid and (Theme From Oldfield Youth Club, even while lead track We're The OYC and When Bob Grant Ruled The World add a dollop of an energetic ruefulness to the mix. A Kind Of Loving In A Loveless Town is an immediate classic, a song one could hear dozens of times before really reaching the core of its magic and majesty. Lest this sound like the work of a solo artist, it does feel like a band - a rather clever one, in fact. Including members Kim Rivers and Neil Palmer (both from Last Party), as well as trumpeter / vocalist Alison Targett, Oldfield Youth Club is a band with an obvious musical kinship. There's a connection to the literal style of Vic Godard's Subway Sect (and members have been shared between both acts) or early Go-Betweens . . . there's an alchemical sensibility shared by all three acts wherein their words and tunes inform each other in a deceptively casual but arresting manner. It's hard not to love, a rare work that earns immediate affection and just grows better from there.

TRACK LISTING

We're The Oyc
Good News I'm Afraid
Strange Family Dynamic
Lightbulb Moments
When Bob Grant Ruled The World
A Kind Of Loving In A Loveless Town
(theme From) Oldfield Youth Club
Cutbacks
Talk 2 People
Baby Joy
The Glue
Net Curtains

Before hitting twenty, Tymon Dogg had made a single with pre-Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, recorded with Paul McCartney for Apple Records (running off with the tapes when he sensed they were 'too saccharine'), made a second single for The Moody Blues' label Threshold and then seemingly lost all faith in normal music business machinations.

So he wandered, busking at tube stations and encountering "Woody", who acted as Tymon's roadie and, when trade was slow, Tymon would teach him a few chords.

After being assaulted by police, Tymon won a £500 settlement, with which he recorded an album, singing and playing every instrument himself. Dwelling somewhere between avant-garde folk, Weimar cabaret and with an eerie sense of punk's D-I-Y ethos, the 1975 album failed to sell in appreciable numbers.

By then, "Woody" was known as Joe Strummer and had formed The 101'ers with Elgin Avenue friends and squat-mates. Tymon sporadically played songs with the band, including his "Dog Dirt On Your Shoe" (the only known recording of which is included here), a forerunner to punk expression if there ever were one.

Finding himself in NYC years later, Tymon was ushered into the studio by Mick Jones to record the first song completed for Sandinista!, "Lose This Skin", possibly the most polarising song on the album. Tymon became a de facto studio member of The Clash through Combat Rock and later joined The Mescaleros.

But in 1982, Tymon recorded Battle Of Wills, the last release on Dick O'Dell's Y Records, home to The Slits, Sun Ra, The Pop Group, Shriekback and others, reissued here with added studio rarities and a 1980 live set. The sole Tymon Dogg album released by an outside label, it got somewhat lost in the collapse of Y, yet it's a singular work: perfectly executed and fiercely unique. Tymon's vocals transcend the limits of 'rock' music, weaving their way through a seemingly disconnected array of parts - incongruous tabla, unsettlingly upfront violin parts, minimal folk drumming. It feels like an exemplar of some obscure, ages-old musical tradition rather than what it is - a conceptually original work by an artist of rare talent. Unavailable for forty years, the album has been expanded to include a seven-song 1980 live set and six rare studio tracks. With one exception, this extra material has never been available on vinyl, more than half of it was never released at all. Tymon's archives contain bountiful rare and unheard material, and this expanded edition of Battle Of Wills is the first of several planned archival releases.

TRACK LISTING

1-01 Firefishes
1-02 Once You Know
1-03 Safeway People
1-04 Locks & Bolts & Hinges
1-05 Battle Of Wills
1-06 Sirens
1-07 Brandy Love
1-08 Too Far To Touch The Ground
1-09 Low Down Dirty Weakness
1-10 Get Your Hands Off Me
1-11 Legal Thief
1-12 Golden Rain

2-01 Indestructible
2-02 Cold Wind Blows
2-03 Oil.
2-04 Guantanamo.
2-05 Lose This Skin (2009 Version)
2-06 Travelling Man (Re-Visited)
2-07 Get Your Hands Of Me (Live)
2-08 Indestructible (Live)
2-09 The Wheel Of Life And Death (Live)
2-10 Johnny Is A Wanderer (Live)
2-11 Safeway People (Live)
2-12 Lose This Skin (Live)
2-13 Dog Dirt On Your Shoe (Live)

Since we've known him, Robert Lloyd has made quite clear his enormous affection for the songs and sounds of Freakwater, the duo of Janet Beveridge-Bean and Catherine Irwin who've been wrongly denied their place as rightful and willful progenitors of alt-country's 'movement', which (frankly) is to their credit. Their genius in offering absolute authentic to the sound old-time Appalachian folk music with a modern façade that in no way negates tradition (one of their albums is titled Feels Like The Third Time) is unparalleled within the genre, and Freakwater remain under-appreciated.

After the start of Covid, Robert dared approach Janet with the idea of recording together. Over the course of the long pandemic, songs were bandied about for months, and when recording was finally practical, a band was assembled with dates set up for a recording session in Valencia, Spain. Robert and Janet were joined by Robert's long-time ally, Pete Byrchmore, the musical foil for Robert's solo album on Virgin and a former Nightingale, Mark Bedford, the bassist for Madness and Terry Edwards' Near Jazz Experience, and Pablo Roda, Spanish mystery drummer, couldn't have worked out more perfectly. Tracks were selected without regard for collective presentation, just the goal of walking out of the studio with an album of perfect gems. Forget Lee & Nancy or George & Tammy, Rob and Janet have an immediate chemistry that only sounds long-lived - and too uniquely them to merit any comparison.

The title track, Black Cat, Dark Horse is the sole Lloyd / Bean / Byrchmore composition and one of the record 's highlights. Jim Elkington, collaborator with Jeff Tweedy and Richard Thompson, contributes Heavy Reckonings and a song written with Janet, The True Lovers' Knot And The Lie, while Robert adds reworkings from past releases - Sweet Georgia Black and Black Country (with Pete) - not to mention the unreleased Eggs And Bacon. Janet brought One Shot and the unheard Freakwater song Arc Of A Smile. Covers of tunes from Dion and The Monkees and a magnificent Jon Langford song, "Tears Like Stars" round out the album. We daresay the album is among the finest you'll hear in 2023. That it doesn't fit perfectly into any preconceived genre is a testament to its quality. "Songcraft" is a word used infrequently today, yet Black Cat, Dark Horse will show that good songs endure. We're proud that Robert and Janet will find some new admirers through this album's release. The Michael Cumming / Stewart Lee film King Rocker made a case for Robert Lloyd-as-losthero; this album furthers that idea and shows a compelling side of Janet's talent and abilities which will be a surprise to her fans and serve as an entry point to exploring her many other compelling projects. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Black Cat, Dark Horse
2. Heavy Reckonings
3. Wake Up Baby
4. Sweet Georgia Black
5. Eggs And Bacon
6. Arc Of A Smile
7. Take A Giant Step
8. The True Lovers' Knot And The Lie
9. Tears Like Stars
10. One Shot
11. Black Country

Early Band Of Holy Joy existed somewhere on the cut-up side of proto-industrial music, resting between Marc Stewart & Maffia, Sonic Youth, and Current 93, and proponents of a more romantic musical language - Virginia Astley, Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins among them - all artists whose work BPHJ's music sat comfortably alongside across on a stream of low-budget vinyl and cassette compilations after the start of the eighties. A great leap in polish led to a deal with Rough Trade and several early '90s albums which flirted with the mainstream, with BOHJ almost an odder, less obvious cousin to Dexys Midnight Runners. When these releases failed to take off as hoped, lost years followed on smaller labels and self-released projects, until the renewed urgency of the 2016 Brutalism Begins At Home EP and increasingly majestic albums on which saw leader Johny Brown's lyricism enter a new phase. The common thread through BOHJ's four decades of recordings is the foundational warmth and humanity of Brown's words. The band's earliest recordings seemed garnered from street-level observations of neighbourhood people and sights. By the time of near-hit "Tactless", their songs - whatever the underlying impulses may have been - had become immediate enough to overcome the mystery of a line like "Do you remember the swan that was shot in the park?"

Over each of their last three albums - Funambulist We Love You, Neon Primitives and Dreams Take Flight - BOHJ has bettered itself, and may now have reached their apex, Fated Beautiful Mistakes. We live in a time of generally justifiable gloom and awkward uncertainty. So it may appear cavalier to claim this album sounds revelatory in that context, but Band Of Holy Joy's strengths rest largely in Johny Brown and the band's ability to capture a wider societal feeling. One listen to the escapist fantasy of "Our Flighty Season Under The Flighty Sun" and its slightly-haunted ending speaks volumes beyond most of what passes for music in 2023, and it's just one of many perfect moments on this album.

TRACK LISTING

Lighthouse Keeper
New York Romantic
A Citadel Of Crooked Soul
Mersey Ferry On The River Thames
Our Flighty Season Inn The Dirty Sun
Circus Folk
City People
Instagram Moon
The Curve Of The Bay
The Full Bloom Of Roses
Babylon Farewell

These days everyone loves The Fall, but rarely has a band's rise to cult status been quite as lengthy, unpredictable and unprecedented as that of those lovable Mancunian misfits who went through more line-up comings and goings than anyone sane would bother to count. Martin Bramah, The Fall's singer until Mark E Smith's lesser guitar skills caused them to swap places, was, per Daryl Easlea, "possibly the last true equal to Smith in the group" and likewise the longest survivor of the original line-up. Yet while The Fall was later famous for their legendary productivity, Bramah often went great spans of time between releases, releasing fewer albums in thirty-five years (under any guise) than he has in the last seven with Blue Orchids - who already have a fantastic new album in the can. What caused HOUSE Of ALL to come together is something of a mystery. Bramah has joined forces with four other mighty Fall alumni: Steve Hanley, The Fall's longest-serving bassist, as well as his brother Paul Hanley, who drummed on what may be the best run of Fall records, from "Grotesque" to "Bend Sinister". The three have also played together as Factory Star, for a brief period. Joining them are two surprise members - drummer Simon Wolstencroft, who joined the Fall around the time Paul left, and more surprisingly, guitarist Pete Greenway, The Fall's longserving and final guitarist who has, to our knowledge, never played with the other four before. And the album? Recorded in a burst of intense creativity, we won't tempt to propagandise you, the album speaks or itself, but it wouldn't be a false boast to say that it stands with much of the best Fall or Blue Orchids music, displaying an energy and psychic impulse all its own, each member playing as sharply and with as much drive as ever, around manic motorik grooves and a shocking lack of 'compromise'. It's an album of depth which demands multiple visits to uncover its many dimensions, yet it still satisfies upon first listen. The album will be supported by a week-long tour in late May, with more surprises to come. "[Bramah]'s lyrics are brilliant - some of his best ever. It stands up against the Fall at their very best. It's unimaginable, A Fall Album Without MES." - Ged Babey, Louder Than War. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: There is certainly some echoes of the jagged groove of The Fall here, but House Of All is more of a modern take on Smith's golden era band. It's both wonderfully reminiscent while being entirely a thing all of it's own. A bunch of very talented musicians showing their best side.

TRACK LISTING

Aynebite 
But Wilful I Am
Dominus Ruinea
Harlequin Duke
Magic Sound
Minerva Disrobed
There's More
Turning Of The Years

The follow-up to last year’s first volume, English Primitive II continues the themes introduced previously in a harder, more electric and psychedelic style.

The songs were mostly recorded during the same sessions but, if EP I showcased the ‘songs of innocence’, this new set comprises ‘songs of experience’. Callahan's lyrical themes here are frequently the sleaze and corruption of our ‘betters’, the intentional and unintentional brutality meted out on those weaker and the sometimes perverse ways in which this happens. There are moments of reflection among the broken mirrors, but they allow scant solace or reassurance. Dressed in another of Scottish artist Pinkie McClure’s witty and detailed stained glass creations and recorded at home and under a railway arch, EPII rises above its origins and invades the wider world, in all its colour, gritand glory. Each song serves as a monument to its internal tale – in fact, the whole LP is as much a collection of musical short stories as it is an album of songs. Opening with Invisible Man, the impression of a regular person with hidden grievances, biding his time and waiting to lash out is given. Waves of distant samples ebb and fall as the warped guitars swell and crash behind the main themes. We don’t know when this explosion will happen – we only know it will.

A sleazy celebration of Britain’s position as the laundering capital of the world follows in the form of Beautiful Launderette. It’s good that we keep everything nice and clean for the whole planet, isn’t it? Business as usual, keeping the globe turning – that’s our role and we love it. The Parrot rocks like only a prolonged evisceration of governmental mouthpieces and their court stenographers can. It’s a thankless task making sure that the powers that be retain their authority in all things and patrolling the borders of what is allowed to be said and believed, but somebody’s got to do it. If you’re providing a service, you’ll need to present a united front against the grievances of the public, so you’ll need The Scapegoat. Mistakes and accidents can’t be the company’s fault, so you’ll need to pay someone to be publicly and repeatedly sacked to make it appear as if you’re solving problems and getting better. Lessons will be learned, going forward. The disturbing tale of Bear Factory begins side two and is the real-life story of the murder of one of the singer’s primary-school classmates in the 1970s, and true in every detail. The victim’s body was never found but the killer justifiably imprisoned for life. A more ancient scent of death pervades The Burnet Rose. This ground-hugging plant covers the graves of the victims in a seventeenth-century plague village on the Yorkshire coast to this day, commemorating their sacrifices when all around have forgotten. It’s this particular songwriter’s favourite flower. Orgy of the Ancients describes the intimate intricacies of ageing politicians and the press as they decide whether to go to war. In grotesque scenarios worthy of Caligula, they decide the fates of our children. And it’s not even half the truth. To finish, the songwriter looks back to an admired predecessor, when he sets William Blake’s famous poem London in a groovier setting than we’re used to – in the form of London by Blakelight. If London swings, it’s from the Tyburn tree. 

TRACK LISTING

Invisible Man
Beautiful Launderette
The Parrot
The Scapegoat
Bear Factory
The Burnet Rose
Orgy Of The Ancients
London By Blakelight

Revisiting a press release for the Nightingales' last album, Four Against Fate, we recalled hesitant anticipation for the forthcoming King Rocker, a film documentary of Robert Lloyd and Nightingales, made by Michael Cumming and Stewart Lee. After forty years of activity, Robert and the band had seen hyped recordings go lost, scant commercial success. Royalties? Ha. Yet response to King Rocker was immediately positive. Fab reviews galore, a long process regaining master rights which led to a series of expanded reissues with Fire. A tour postponed three times finally took place, to fully-packed houses. It was a very good year. The band felt a degree of anxiety prior to the sessions, which took place at Valencia's Elefante Studios. With bassist Andi Schmid isolated during Covid, the band had yet begun working out individual rough sketches, typically battered into songs over a period of months. They went into a new studio blind, with a new producer, Jorge Bernabe, without rehearsals . . . and produced a top-to-bottom masterpiece.

Thirty seconds in, "Sunlit Uplands", is already a classic showcasing Fliss Kitson's increased songwriting power and the core dichotomy of the groups's best songs: perverse as fuck, catchy as fuck. i <3 CCTV is highlighted by a fab Jim Smith astral-garage guitar riff . . . and that's a one-two punch few albums ever equal, let alone carry over to the affectionate "Frances Sokolov", Robert's ode to mentor Vi Subversa, the playground riff that underlines "Spread Yourself Out" and then "Bloody Breath", the best encapsulation of all the band's genius in developing a kind of "pop" that no other combo has ever cracked. Other highlights include the lopsided mysterious beauty of "Magical Left Foot", the courtly raver of "I Need The Money At The Time" with a wonderful motorik groove driven by bassist Andi Schmid, and the album closer, "My Sweet Friend", a rockabilly lullaby which sounds like a magical outtake from Robert's one and only solo album It's a corker, it's a marvel, it's the best Nightingales record to date. Try and deny it. 

TRACK LISTING

Sunlight Uplands (turn That Frown Upside Down)
I <3 Cctv
Frances Sokolov
Spread Yourself Out
Bloody Breath
Mind Of Stone
I Needed The Money At The Time
The Very Nature
Magical Left Foot
Mark Meets No Mark
My Sweet Friend

Blue Orchids created a singular sound of intellectualised psychedelia on their first 7" singles, The Flood and Work, and despite their historically infrequent outings - the band has released more new music in the last six years than in the whole of the thirty-five years prior to it - the subtle originality of their sound permeates each of their releases, down primarily to original member Martin Bramah's singular vision. Yet each new release presents subtly directed changes to their work.

Once at the brink of possible pop stardom that Bramah tossed aside by refusing to move down south to London - which he did a few months later anyhow! - his music has always had a rather perverse commerciality. Relative to the size of their respective catalogues, Bramah's songs have been covered by credible artists roughly as often as those by his first band, The Fall. The hazy oddness and off-kilter sound of Blue Orchids' debut LP, The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain), did not offset its popularity of the cognoscenti. It sold over 15,000 copies and saw its songs covered by the likes of Aztec Camera and pioneering American indie bands such as Slovenly, Dustdevils and Fish & Roses, and it's still a cult classic today - soon to be released as a double album, with unheard songs.

The album recalls Blue Orchids' classic debut more than any other chapter of Bramah's catalogue - just take a look at the song titles! The lyrics were written in a freer verse than typical song lyrics allow, the music written later. John Paul Moran - Bramah's longest-serving musical partner - evokes the same eerie atmosphere from his keyboards as Una Baines did from her’s years before, with new member Tansy McNally (ukulele) and rhythm section Vincent Hunt (bass) and Howard Jones (drums) holding it all together. Angus Tempus Memoir is Bramah's most beguiling work in decades and will be supported by numerous UK dates throughout the year, in tandem with a host of special projects. Forty years on, Martin Bramah's Blue Orchids revisit the darker side of The Money Mountain in their most captivating work since their 1982 debut album. 

TRACK LISTING

1 Perturbation
2 What Thing Is Man
3 Long And Loud Was The Applause
4 The Adventure Thus Embarked Upon
5 No Ghosts No Answers
6 The Young Generation Is Our Hope
7 O Joyous City
8 My Sympathies Are Entirely With The Stranger
9 They Believe We Ought To Live In Solitude
10 It Was In This Scene Of Strife
11 For The Death
12 Perturbation

Uniquely of the many acts which came to public awareness through the lauded C86 compilation, David Lance Callahan has pursued a career of consistent brilliance and stark originality. After a run of fine albums with The Wolfhounds, outstanding work with Moonshake and collaborations with members of Stereolab and PJ Harvey (among others), Callahan has outdone himself on this long-awaited solo album, the results of which merit the sort of deep dive best explained with with ample time and a quality turntable. Whether English Primitive I is a product of the past year's isolation or of a long-simmering brew only now ready for dissemination is something Callahan has yet to reveal. Whatever its origins, English Primitive I is the work of a massive talent.

Wolfhoundian riffage offered enough ramshackle charm to somewhat obscure Callahan's darker, more penetrating writing. Likewise, Moonshake's musically bi-polar approach disguised his underlying political impulse. Here Callahan's lyricism finally, indelibly, proves him to be among the finest British pop craftsmen. This is his masterwork, a mélange of what has been called "mutant Eastern, West African, folk, blues and post-punk influences" . . . an improbable cross-cultural gumbo, yet one which coalesced into a swirling, kaleidoscopic psychedelia of emotion unlike any other record in this era. As with any recording favouring the avant-garde –works like Balaklava, Brian Jones Presents The Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, and The Heart Of The Congos– one might expect that the impact of English Primitive I will be revealed slowly, over a much longer span of time than the the too-often workaday product of today's independent music scene. With this album, Callahan takes his place alongside cult heroes Robert Wyatt, Scott Walker and Cathal Coughlan as a prime example of seemingly limitless artistic expression.

TRACK LISTING

1. Born Of The Welfare State Was I 
2. Goatman 
3. Foxboy 
4. She's The King Of My Life 
5. She Passes Through The Night 
6. One Rainy September 
7. Always

Tim Burgess of The Charlatans hosts Tim's Twitter Listening Party on Saturday evenings, where he chooses an album in advance and the show's followers simultaneously click 'play', listening in tandem while sharing anecdotes, impressions and criticisms of that week's choice. It's not uncommon for the artists themselves to pop up and interact with fans, a welcome diversion while we're all bottled up at home. Tim's recent choice of Blue Orchids' The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain) was no random one - the album's influence on The Charlatans is palpable, though the album remains one of rock's greatest obscurities. So one week after Susanna Hoffs turned up to talk about The Bangles, it was no surprise to see Blue Orchids founder Martin Bramah arrive and announce himself, only to mysteriously disappear in seconds, for the duration of the show. And thus it has been with Blue Orchids.

Tantalising, brilliant songs appearing out of nowhere, an album arriving, only for Martin to take unannounced leave for years, without explanation. So it's a miraculous turn of good fortune that Blue Orchids have released as much new material in the last five years than in the thirty-six (!) years before that, even if you include Blue Orchids-buy-any-other-name combos like Thirst and Factory Star into that equation. The sterling quality and wit of those releases remains undimmed since the beginnings of the band back in 1980. Speed The Day retains the classic line-up from the last two albums' line-up and adds electric ukulele player Tansy McNally, hailing from Australia and adding a different psychedelic lacquer to an impassioned set of nine new songs, pls an oddly paranoid cover of Chicago's 25 Or 6 To 4, which slyly mutates lyrics about late-night songwriting into a paean to speed. (Although your interpretation may vary!) An far darker and more energetic album than The Magical Record Of Blue Orchids, their album of obscure garage covers, Speed The Day is a sterling addition to the the canon of Martin Bramah masterpieces

TRACK LISTING

1. Deeper Than Sin 
2. Lucky Speaks 
3. Classy Fella 
4. 25 Or 6 To 4 
5. Street Of Flowers 
6. What Lies Beneath 
7. Like A Clockwork Orange 
8. The Pebble 
9. Meet The Maker 
10. 22nd Century

The apotheosis of Band Of Holy Joy's bile toward today's pathetic state of affairs will be released shortly – a blistering remix of "The Devil Has A Hold On The Land" from their last album, Neon Primitives. Remixed by Youth (Killing Joke bassist, Paul McCartney collaborator, producer of Melanie C and U2!), who was so taken by the song as to remix it gratis, the remix will be part of a series of 23 discrete 7" 45s by Jon Langford of The Mekons and an assortment fellow travellers from around the globe. Dreams Take Flight transitions from political discourse into a post-virus rebirth of human relationship and the inevitable fumblings of the society's psychological reconstruction over the forthcoming year. Have you ever wondered what purpose your joy or my pain? All those moments shared together to be washed away by the rain . . . Have you ever doubted our super hipster being love-in at all? Just a pair of urbane fools passing through waiting for our call . . . Take a leap into the great unknown. Almost perversely heart-on-sleeve, Johny Brown and compatriots have never fitted well within a particular scene - nor have they ever seem to try.

Although recorded under the existence of quarantine and a healthy amount of paranoia, in search of the joy of greatly hindered collaboration, the band has opted to turn over each song to a different visionary video artist for an exhibition which will take place for a week at London's Gallery 46 beginning at the end of February and open to the public. The video exhibition will subsequently be available online, before the album's release. While still featuring some of the band's strongest songs, Dreams Take Flight has a strange film-like ambience in parts, almost as if planned as a soundtrack, a thought mirrored in Inga Tillere's sublime, dream-like sleeve, best seen in real life. "A Leap Into The Great Unknown" and "Notes From A Gallery" will likely be heard as too disarmingly direct for radio, and the videos will likely never see the entry door to MTV, but Dreams Take Flight will ultimately be considered a masterwork of clarity in a confused, contentious time.

TRACK LISTING

1. This Is The Festival Scene 
2. A Leap Into The Great Unknown 
3. That Magic Thing 
4. When Love Is Not Enough 
5. On Set Romance 
6. Notes From A Gallery 
7. The Rhythm Of Life 
8. A New Clear Vision 

Remember The Glitter Band? Original songwriter / leader John Rossall is back with his best album ever, abetted by glam-era friends, plus Nightingales and Membranes. Contrary to the old blather, it was The Glitter Band, and glam rock in general, that pointed to possibilities which exploded during punk, not - let's be honest! - the dirty beard-wearing post-hippie meanderings of pub rock. GLAM! Those outfits! The endless soaring choruses! Outer space futurism! At its best, it couldn't be topped. Even famed glam fans The Ramones couldn't match the perfect minimalism of The Glitter Band, adding a "ho!" where "hey!" was already perfection. But it's not quite remembered that way. Glam's audacity was gummed up by over-reliance on early rock covers, stingy recording budgets, endless tours eating up writing time, and the showbiz machinations of jealous stars - damaging enough to prevent The Glitter Band from seeing their records released in America. Despite further hits, the band stumbled when John Rossall left, after their second album, to start a solo career that never quite took off the way his many fans had hoped. A small but niggling rock 'n roll question is, what might have happened had Rossall and group been given the time, budget and freedom to record an album of their own creation? It's been nearly half a century since Rossall left the band he started, but - unbelievably - that question has now been answered by the release of the best start-to-finish album by The Glitter Band or any of its alumni. Recorded Simon "Ding" Archer and mixed by Dave Trumfio, Rossall's The Last Glam In Town is a near-perfect album of soaring tunes, energy and fun, capturing the spirit of The Glitter Band audaciously accurately. Though ably assisted by longtime collaborator Mark Standley, members of his touring band, as well as The Nightingales (whose leader, Robert Lloyd sings two songs), and arch-fan by John Robb of The Membranes (who also sings two), it's John Rossall front and centre, clearly having the time of his life. Bob Bradbury contributes the mighty Got My Groove, and tragically, Alan Merrill of The Arrows, writer of rock standard I Love Rock And Roll, gifted Rossall a potential hit in "Equalizer", shortly before his death due to COVID-19 complications. 2020 is the perfect year for the joyous rock abandon and soaring optimism of The Last Glam In Town.

TRACK LISTING

1. Fear Of A Glam Planet
2. Never Say Forever Again
3. Get Go Girl
4. Got My Groove
5. Have I The Right
6. Equalizer
7. Neon Lights
8. Blackpool Rocks
9. Glitterbomb
10. Let's Get Together Again (Again)

An air of the unsettled is a staple of Robert Lloyd’s career, from The Prefects’s dank dexterity and jittery paranoia of the first Nightingales’ release, Idiot Strength, onward through four decades of top-notch recordings. If the unique persona of Lloyd and crew always came across on their ten albums and countless line-ups, it was largely as an acquired taste of the musical cognoscenti. Labels good and bad seemed to feel, at one point or another, a public duty and a point of pride to release a Nightingales album before returning to the business of business. Four Against Fate is remarkable. It’s the work of what’s now the band’s longest-serving line-up. The instrumental precision of any version of Nightingales has been one of the band’s defining hallmarks, but the psychic interplay of a group can take a few albums to kick in with full majesty - here’s proof of that. The rhythm section of Fliss and Andi functions now on a purely intuitive level.

Jim’s work now ranks with that of any guitarist in modern ‘rock’ music, not just in originality, but also across an egalitarian mass of inspiration. Each member sings. Although Robert’s voice functions as the band’s superego, Fliss takes lead in several songs. Few bands today sound as much like a single unit as do Nightingales, but this group has the bonus of a distinct and credible musical language, exemplified by The Desperate Quartet, which comes across as both a medieval war march and the anthem of looming apocalypse.

When at the song’s halfway point, American classical musician Clara Kebabian’s violin and Mark Bedford’s (of Madness) double bass overtake the Robert, Fliss, Jim and Andi, it’s a jawdropper of such intense perversity that it alone defies the listener to not play the album again from the start. Not that this album lacks ‘hits’ - The Top Shelf, Everything Everywhere All Of The Time, Devil’s Due and The Other Side are stunners. Robert claims Four Against Fate is the first of his album on which he skips no tracks on playback! Finally, the world has awakened to one of British music’s last treasures. After forty years of new labels, this is the first time Nightingales have released an album on the same label as their last full-length.

TRACK LISTING

1. Thicko Rides Again 
2. The Top Shelf 
3. Neverender 
4. Wicked Winter (Lost In Highland Park) 
5. Then I Felt 
6. The End Began Somewhere 
7. Devil’s Due 
8. Everything, Everywhere, All Of The Time 
9. The Other Side / On The Make 
10. Simple Soul 
11. The Desperate Quartet