Vinyl Description:
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Band On The Run, this special vinyl edition was cut at half speed using a high-resolution transfer of the original master tapes from 1973 by Miles Showell at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, London. This tracklist mirrors the US release which includes the song “Helen Wheels”. Includes reproduction of Linda McCartney Polaroid poster. Features an Obi strip.

CD Description:
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Band On The Run, this special 2CD edition features the original album and a second disc of previously unreleased “underdubbed” mixes of the songs. CD1 mirrors the US release which includes the song “Helen Wheels”. The set also includes a double-sided fold-out Polaroid poster taken by Linda McCartney.

TRACK LISTING

1LP: 
Band On The Run (Side A)
Jet (Side A)
Bluebird (Side A)
Mrs. Vandebilt (Side A)
Let Me Roll It (Side A)
Mamunia (Side B)
No Words (Side B)
Helen Wheels (Side B)
Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me) (Side B)
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five (Side B)

2CD:
Disc 1 - Band On The Run
Band On The Run
Jet
Bluebird
Mrs. Vandebilt
Let Me Roll It
Mamunia
No Words
Helen Wheels
Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five

Disc 2 - Band On The Run (Underdubbed Mixes)
Band On The Run
Mamunia
No Words
Jet
Bluebird
Mrs. Vandebilt
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five
Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)
Let Me Roll It

the remarkable account of Paul McCartney's time in Wings and ascent into solo stardom, by renowned music biographer Lesley-Ann JonesNo comprehensive biography of the time Paul McCartney spent with Wings has ever been published, until now. A period often dismissed as McCartney's 'missing' years, in fact the band lasted for a decade: two years longer than the Beatles, and wielded such impact and influence that they at one point achieved the status as the biggest live band in the world. Band on the Run sold over 6 million copies worldwide and became EMI's biggest selling album of the 1970s in the UK.

Music biographer Lesley-Ann Jones has met McCartney many times and knew his late wife Linda. Here she shows how crucial Linda was to the evolution of Wings - at great cost to herself given the ridicule she was to encounter. But Linda saw that McCartney needed the band in the wake of the break up of the Beatles.

Drawing on extensive interviews and her trademark meticulous research, the author shows how this period in Paul McCartney's career was to become crucial not only to his development as an artist, but to his very survival.

Scenic Route follow up their now classic Nourished By Time album with the debut 7" from London's Natty Wylah. Tip for fans of Cobey Sey / Curl, Young Fathers and Wu Lu.

This year Natty Wylah has been cementing himself in London’s rich contemporary music scene with festival performances at Glastonbury, We Out Here with Silhouettes Project and a headline Southbank show as part of Nabihah Iqbal’s ‘Glory To Sound’ series. As well as contributions to Rhythm Sections, compilation ‘Shouts’ all in the run up to his next EP, "Willowisp".

"Moth Wings / FB Trap" is the perfect introduction to Natty’s world where magic, slime and reality all mix together. With his cinematic lyrics on "Mothwings", Natty conjures up the imagery of celestial moths, who when seeking the moonlight end up stuck chasing flickering artificial light bulbs. The track features the unmistakable characteristics of Natty’s sound: traipsing across hip-hop, the psychedelic and punk, all adorned with ethereal vocals and woozy synths from Poppy and Finn Billingham.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Scenic Route continue to scout out the hottest new sounds from the underground. After slaying us with that Nourished By Time album earlier in the year they now turn the spotlight on the charismatic Natty Wylah.

TRACK LISTING

A. Moth Wings
AA. FB Trap

The first album in over six years from American songwriter Julie Byrne is a testament to patience and determination, the willingness to transform through the desolation of loss, the vitality of renewal, and the courage to rise, forever changed. For nearly a decade, Byrne has moved through the world as a characteristically private artist largely outside the public eye. A self-taught musician that has committed her life to her work, she now emerges from a deeply trying and generative period with the most powerful, lustrous, and life-affirming music of her career, The Greater Wings. While they hold the plasticity of grief and trauma, the songs are universally resonant, unbridled in their devotion and joy, held up by the love and alliance of a chosen family. Byrne leans further into atmospheres both expansive and intimate; the lush, evocative songcraft flows between her signature fingerpicked guitar, synthesizer, and a newly adopted piano, made wider by flourishes of harp and strings. It is the transcendent sound of resource, of friendship that was never without romance, of loyalty that burns from within like a heart on fire, and the life force summoned in unrepeatable moments — raw, gorgeous, and wild.

The Greater Wings was written across several seasons, pulling imagery from nights on tour, periods of isolation, and the drives cross-country for its various collaborations between Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Recording started with the late Eric Littmann, her longtime creative partner and Not Even Happiness producer, and finished in the Catskills of New York with producer Alex Somers (Sigur Rós, Julianna Barwick).

“My hope for The Greater Wings is that it lives as a love letter to my chosen family and as an expression of the depth of my commitment to our shared future. Being reshaped by grief also has me more aware of what death does not take from me. I commit that to heart, to words, to sound. Music is not bound to any kind of linear time, so in the capacity to record and speak to the future: this is what it felt like to me, when we were simultaneous, alive, occurring all at once. What it has felt like to go up against my edge and push, the love that has made it worth all this fight. These memories are my values, they belong with me.”

Julie Byrne will confess the success of her 2017 LP Not Even Happiness was unexpected; nine gracefully road-worn odes to the fringes of life she assembled without any expectation that they’d travel so far beyond their DIY origins. But its hushed closing track, “I Live Now As A Singer,” did forecast an intention. She knew the open space — occupied by Littmann’s signature palette of synth tones, Jake Falby’s strings, and Byrne’s robust, drifting voice — presented something new and thrilling, something they’d develop as a live band touring the world, and what would later be understood as the catalyst for material to come. From orchestral folk meditations (“The Greater Wings”, “Portrait of a Clear Day”) to windswept piano ballads (“Moonless”, “Death Is The Diamond”) to the luminous, synth-driven euphoria of “Summer Glass,” The Greater Wings builds on this revelatory space at every turn.

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Following on from her standout 2017 LP 'Not Even Happiness', 'The Greater Wings' is a sweeping, expansive and meditative record that passes through wistful orchestral folk, heartfelt piano balladry and iridescent synth passages - gorgeous, gorgeous stuff!!

TRACK LISTING

1. The Greater Wings
2. Portrait Of A Clear Day
3. Moonless
4. Summer Glass
5. Summer’s End
6. Lightning Comes Up From The Ground
7. Flare
8. Conversation Is A Flowstate
9. Hope’s Return
10. Death Is The Diamond

Sometimes after hoping and dreaming for so long, miracles really do happen. Athens of the North have gifted us this marvelous Marion Javius track and we couldn’t be more grateful.

‘Roll on 15 years and I was speaking to my record fiend and friend David Haffner who helps with releases on AOTN. It turned out he had been sitting on the multi-track tapes for Marion Javius for some time and was cool with us doing a 45. Having multi-track was an opportunity for me to fix the little bug bears with the OG mix. On first listen, I was delighted to hear a vocal take without the "Shamwooon" on the chorus, so myself and Linkwood got on the case to rebuild an ECLA version without the Game Show bar ends and "Shamons" that had been haunting me for years.’

Enjoy this special seven knowing all is right in the world now this is here!

TRACK LISTING

1. Waiting In The Wings (East Cost Love Affair Mix)
2. Waiting In The Wings

High-flying composer and tuba player Theon Cross returns with soaring new single, Wings.

Explaining the inspiration behind Wings, Cross says: "Conceptually, the song speaks of the metaphorical wings needed to take flight and embrace new changes and directions in life. It captures a feeling of freedom and symbolises a sense of progressive movement which feels significant as I move into a new chapter in my career." The single comes with a second track; an easy-going, bassheavy cover version of reggae heroes Aswad's Back To Africa.

TRACK LISTING

Wings
Back To Africa

The Wave Pictures, industrious and prolific as ever, return on Thursday 18 November with ‘This Heart Of Mine’. Following two albums in 2018, ‘Brushes With Happiness’ and ‘Look Inside Your Heart’, this is the first track to be made available from their new double album ‘When The Purple Emperor Spreads His Wings’, due for 2022 release.

Formed over twenty years ago by Franic Rozycki and David Tattersall in Wymeswold, Leicestershire, and joined by Jonny ‘Hudderfield’ Helm since 2005, The Wave Pictures have released over twenty albums of their own, along with exciting side projects such as garage rock supergroup The Surfing Magazines, several albums with Stanley Brinks, and Dave’s recent guitar contributions to Billy Childish albums, with whom they also collaborated on their 2014 album ‘Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon’. Across these varied releases, accommodating Dave’s free flowing fountain of songwriting, The Wave Pictures have shown their deep affection for rock and roll, blues, jazz, classic rock, and of course Dave’s legendary love of good guitar solo.

With a nuance of autumn, ‘This Heart Of Mine’ references time and space travel & memory all rolled into one. Musically inspired by classic Neil Young, ‘This Heart Of Mine’ witnesses The Wave Pictures going full-on country and features cowboy harmonica from Dominic ‘Hotdog’ Brider, Franic Rozycki on mandolin, alongside Dave Tattersall’s gentle acoustic guitar strum.

TRACK LISTING

A1. River Of Gold
A2. Back In The City
A3. French Cricket
A4. Never Better
A5. Blink The Sun
B1. Samsun
B2This Heart Of Mine
B3. Douglas
B4. Jennifer
B5. Smell The Ocean
C1. I'd Be Doing Anything
C2. Hazel Irvine
C3. Don't Forget Me
C4. Winter Baby
C5. Flight From Destruction
D1. When The Purple Emperor Spreads His Wings
D2. Never Let You Down
D3. Dale It's A Damn Shame
D4. Walking To Wymeswold
D5. Secret Messages

Following the eclectic charm and intimacy of 1970's solo McCartney and 1971's homespun lo-fi indie-pop progenitor RAM credited to Paul and Linda McCartney, Wild Life found Paul once again redefining his post-Beatles creative identity, this time beginning his tenure as a founding member of Wings. A rollicking left turn from its predecessors, Wild Life was recorded in barely more than a week, with more than half of the songs captured in a single take. The end result would be eight songs running the gamut from joyous freewheeling jams to proto-chamber pop to spare introspective musings — all bristling with a raw, jagged energy akin to the grungiest of garage bands—whether on the careening blues-rock rave-up of opener "Mumbo," a reggae-tinged reimagining of Mickey & Sylvia's "Love Is Strange," or the plaintive and heart wrenching ballad "Dear Friend."

Cracking the top 10 and going gold in the US, Wild Life faced an admittedly uphill battle as the debut of Paul's first post-Beatles band. In a recent reassessment, Billboard noted that modern-day Wild Life listeners "can throw out all this cultural baggage and just enjoy the tunes… by not reaching for any obvious Beatles tropes, Wings achieved something fresh and inviting…" And in fact, Wild Life would prove to be the first spark of the Wings phenomenon that would develop and flourish into one of the defining sounds of '70s rock n roll. The streak of #1 albums from Red Rose Speedway, Band On The Run, Venus And Mars, At The Speed Of Sound through the 3LP live opus Wings Over America, and the sold-out shows that provided the blueprint for the '70s arena rock experience—can all be traced back to the big bang of those first eight months during which Wings would form, release Wild Life in December 1971 and play their first-ever live shows in February 1972.

TRACK LISTING

Side A

Mumbo
Bip Bop
Love Is Strange
Wild Life

Side B

Some People Never Know
I Am Your Singer
Tomorrow
Dear Friend

Beloved Scottish band, The Yummy Fur, are releasing a 14-track ‘best of’ album, Piggy Wings, on Glasgow's Rock Action Records. Singer / guitarist, John McKeown, fronted the band from their 1992 inception (scores of cartoon melodies under a minute long delivered at high velocity) until their demise in 1999. Along the way they recorded three albums: Night Club (1996), Male Shadow at Three O'Clock (1998) and Sexy World (1999). Firm favourites of John Peel, they recorded two sessions for the much revered DJ and regularly featured on his show.

TRACK LISTING

1. Department
2. Plastic Cowboy
3. In The Company Of Women
4. Kirsty Cooper
5. The Canadian Flag
6. Roxy Girls
7. Sexy World
8. Policeman
9. St John Of The Cross
10. The Career Saver
11. Supermarket
12. Colonel Blimp
13. Chinese Bookie
14. Death Club

“Kyle Field, professionally known as Little Wings, is a living legend. He is the modern embodiment of the traveling bard and the singing troubadour. Kyle’s discography is vast and impressive, full of tunes plucked from the lexicon of great American songwriting. On his latest effort, Explains, he crafts melodies so haunting and familiar, it’s as if he’s not composing them at all. He is tapping into something greater, acting as a vessel for the collective unconscious that is folk music.

“This is an album that is immediately accessible and also unfolds slowly, revealing greater depth with each listen. Kyle’s lyrics are direct yet poetic, funny yet sad. Explains is a fantastic record that celebrates the enduring spirit of a great artist. Its release on Woodsist is all too fitting - a label whose very foundation seems based on lasting creative integrity.”  - Alex Bleeker.

TRACK LISTING

1. By Now
2. Light Brang
3. Fat Chance
4. Hill Hidden Nog
5. Old Apocalypse Style
6. A Blade Of Grass
7. A Sky
8. Around This World
9. Hollowed Log
10. This Evening
11. Where

Vinyl re-pressing of classic mid 70s period Wings release.

As the noughties came to a close, Two Wings (whose core members are singer/multi- instrumentalist/visual artist Hanna Tuulikki and guitarist/singer Ben Reynolds) formed. Having spent years bumping into each other in Glasgow's burgeoning folk scene, the pair finally took some time out to explore and develop their own compositions together, following in the direction of their many musical passions - from traditional folk (rock) to rock n' roll to psychedelia to soul and beyond. Glasgow has always been fertile ground for those seeking to synthesize traditional/ popular musical forms with a more progressive approach, and Hanna and Ben have long been travellers on this path. Hanna's experimental song-based project Nalle was described by Wire Magazine as "easily some of the most convincing free-folk the UK has ever produced". She was also a member of free form jazz folk ensemble Scatter and The Family Elan. Ben has been a solo artist for many years and his numerous releases include the 2009 solo guitar album How Day Earnt Its Night, released by New York's Tompkins Square Records. Ben was also the original lead-guitarist in critically acclaimed Glasgow folk-rockers TREMBLING BELLS and has collaborated with a number of other artists including Glasgow's Alasdair Roberts and Tin Angel Records' Baby Dee.

Tin Angel Records has made quite a noise with some of its recent signings, and Two Wings join an already fabulous roster. On tracks like the album opener Eikon, Hanna's utterly unique vocals steal the show, while the seven minute title track is progressive, haunting, even unsettling at times. Elsewhere, Alters & Thrones marries twinkles and chimes with ethereal vocals and the 8 minute epic album closer Forbidden Sublime purposefully meanders its way to a spellbinding climax. Two Wings are quite simply impossible to ignore.

Little Wings is a diverse musical palette Kyle Field uses to paint stories with sound. With this album Kyle worked with producer Calvin Johnson at Dub Narcotic Studios, recruiting a variety of other artists, musical and visual, Phil Elverum (Microphones) Bobby Birdman, Lee Baggett amongst others. This album fits in perfectly with the current new-folk scene that has taken the USA and world by storm. File alongside Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, Cocorosie, White Magic, Six Organs Of Admittance and Joanna Newsom.

Debut album from this Liverpool five piece. The album showcases the band's distinctive blend of folksy melodicism and economical songwriting.

Somehow Hollow are a Canadian based band who play slightly metallic, melodic punk. If you are looking for aggressively melodic riff-heavy punk rock, this is the album you want to start with.