After their celestial Arcturian Corridors opened proceedings on Quindi, London-based brothers Clive and Mark Ives are back with a new record. When Woo first began recording at home in the early 70s, Clive and Mark were the embodiment of furtive genius. Since re-emerging in 2013, they’ve released scores of albums, collaborated with Seahawks, and have now struck up a productive relationship with Quindi.

On Paradise In Pimlico, you’re hearing a very different sound to the one gently creaked out on early classics like Into The Heart Of Love. This is fulsome, contemporary production rich in detail and artful sound design, but crucially, Clive and Mark’s gorgeously melodic approach remains open and inquisitive, even with the sheen and shimmer of modern studio techniques.

Woo sound more confident than ever in their composition, too. The crystalline, fragile tones of ‘Cadenza D’Innocenza’ glide through key changes that spell out an engrossing narrative, while the cascading melodies on ‘Moment To Moment’ pirouette across the space between notes with masterful poise. ‘Paradise In Pimlico’ is an illustrious suite of orchestral composition played out with the lightest touch, framed by the slightest of synthesized fauna and topped off with tender sax and flute. Album closer ‘In Case Love Fails’ takes on a subtly cinematic urgency with its undercurrents of walking bass and the strike of the string section (synthetic or otherwise).

There’s space for markedly new approaches, too. The rhythm section on ‘The Motorik Mirror’ clunks and pops with a tactile, high-definition quality which teeters between electronic sculpture and clockwork, organic machination. The deft, lightly-brushed drums coursing through ‘Even More Notes’ see Clive and Mark step into a different mood, celebrating the beat as another fluid, tonally-rich texture in the mix and adding a smoky, jazzy hue to the Woo repertoire.

It’s far from a drum-focused exercise though. At every turn, you’re confronted with aching beauty and timbral surprises. If there’s one constant throughout Paradise In Pimlico, it’s the omnipresent chimes. These twinkling drops of light scattered throughout are something of a hallmark of Woo, ensuring the lilting, lullaby-like magic of their music persists whichever direction they head in.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Let It All In
A2. The Motorik Mirror
A3. Cadenza D'Innocenza
A4. Gold Star
B1. Paradise In Pimlico

‘From a View’ is the debut album from Melbourne’s Floodlights.

'From a View' explores themes of identity, personal cross-roads and the misuse of power.

The bands first exploration into proper studio recording with a well regarded sound engineer. It was recorded over two days onto a 24 track tape machine at Head Gap studios in Preston in November.

Floodlights are made up of members Louis Parsons, Ashlee Kehoe, Joe Draffen and Archie Shannon. They present a distinctly Australian perspective, with a shambolic, catchy sound that melds 80s Indie-Rock rock with 90s New Zealand jangle-pop.

Following a tour of Australia’s East Coast in October last year the band began working on “From a View”. The songs were arranged and performed as a band, but often began from Louis or Ash presenting ideas to the group and building on them from there. The songs themselves were written over various points in the bands short career, yet come together very fittingly to show their distinct sound.

Lead single Thanks For Understanding is about two lives going in different directions. It describes the complicated process of growing apart from someone, even though you still care for them.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Great debut album from this Melbourne four piece. They have a distinctly Antipodean sound, that draws on 80s and 90s indie rock with a nod to Flying Nun records in it's prime.

TRACK LISTING

Side A: 
1 Water's Edge
2 Matter Of Time
3 Walk Away
4 Don't Pick That Scratch
5 Glory Of Control
6 Thanks For Understanding

Side B:
7 It Was All Going So Well
8 Tropical Fun
9 Proud And Well
10 Shifting Shadows
11 Happiness

The premise for Quindi Records is simple – to represent music with a universality at its core. Without adhering to specific genre tropes, the releases are intended to have a meaning and purpose in all kinds of situations – a social soundtrack as much as a stimulating experience, feeding emotions and the psyche with a sentimental palette of sounds. Lovers’ music, loners’ music, music for friends and family alike.

Woo makes for a perfect choice to meet this loose concept head-on – the music of Clive and Mark Ives straddles disparate worlds and finds its own peculiar balance. On one hand it’s delicate synthesizer music with a minimalist bent, while on the other their joyous, twinkling harmonies have an immediacy that speaks to the soul. You can detect privacy in their craft – the brothers originally recorded their music in relative isolation in London in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. It’s only in recent years their sublime work has enjoyed a wider audience through an extensive run of reissues.

Arcturian Corridor presents a rare, previously unreleased piece of music from Woo – the expansive suite of the title track that unfurls across five parts. It’s an enchanting listen that shows a new breadth and depth to the duo – detailed drum programming and a broader palette of synth tones cascading in elegant unison. The name refers to Arcturus, the fourth brighteststar in the night sky. As Woo themselves explain, “The Arcturian Corridor is said to be a channel of light that brings.

TRACK LISTING

A1: Arc I 4.48
A2: Arc II 4.14
A3: Arc III 3.57
A4: Arc IV 3.40
A5: Arc V 4.16
B1: Love On Other Planets (Woo Remix) 5.13
B2: AC V (Wino Wagon Remix) 7.42
B3: AC II (Ultramarine Remix) 4.18

Emotional Response and Ocean Moon come together for a special collaborative release, where Seahawks take the music of WOO on a journey to the inner sanctum. Immersive, psychoactive and phased to perfection. For those who know not the music of WOO, prepare to behold a rare and magical incarnation of transcendent beauty.

Perhaps Seahawks most spaced out voyage since Vision Quest One: Spaceships Over Topanga Canyon, ‘Celestial Railroads’ is a psychedelic odyssey that goes way beyond the norm. 'After the Last Train To Trancentral far Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, Celestial Railroads await….’

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The nation's favourite cosmic seafarers return with cult oddball music mavericks Woo for one of their most star-flung voyages yet.

TRACK LISTING

1.The Next Level
2. Travel Softly
3. The Way Of Woo
4. Magic Totem ­­
5. Omotion
6. A Deep Trip Within
7. Angelic Forces Unite
8. All Beings Of Light
9. Magic Sphere
10. Distant River
11. The Heart’s Fandango
12. Seven States Of Bliss

Emotional Response close the year on a high with "Foreign Affairs" - a limited edition special remix 7-inch single featuring reworks from Alexis Georgopoulos & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's "Fragments of A Season" album by Woo and Felicia Atkinson.
Last year's ""Fragments of A Season"" represented a unique chapter in both artist's canon. Georgopoulos, who released the Arp album "Zebra" in June this year and Cantu-Ledesma, who released "On The Echoing Green" in October 2017 - both on Mexican Summer and to critical acclaim - wanted to stretch out and create a discrete work. A peripheral listen to "Fragments" revealed a resonant album of delicate, ambient vignettes, suggesting a Balearic take on Vini Reilly, Young Marble Giants and other poetically-minded, minimalistic post-punk era bands.
The Brothers Ives aka Woo were a major influence on the album's makers and so AG and JCL are thrilled they've submitted a beautiful reworking of the album's "Marine". Whereas the original sounded like Marine Girls and The Gist getting together for a nice beach day jam, Woo's rework transforms it into pulsating track of glistening proportions. Percolating synths, some guitar and clarinet - the true classic, idiosyncratic Woo-ification - creates a woozy, romantic, impossible to categorize slice of Balearic meets dub atmospherics.

If "Marine" is all midday sun, intoxicating and potently optimistic, Atkinson's remake represents the literal and figurative flip, bringing out the overcast dreaminess to "Cleo". Sounding like an outtake from a Rohmer film, or perhaps Cocteau Twins and Broadcast having a picnic in Biarritz, the version veers between abstraction, celluloid ambiguity and suggested narrative. Atkinson's reworking adds poetry of the tune (quite literally!) with her soft vocal under-gliding to perfection. Representing a temporary idyll, a meeting point where cobblestone streets lead to the sea. At nightfall, a discotheque heard in the distance. The morning mist burns off. Only such memories remain.

TRACK LISTING

A. Marine (Woo Version)
B. AA Cleo (Felicia Atkinson Version) 

After blessing deep music archeologists all over the globe with the much needed reissue of Mariah's "Utakata No Hibi" last year, Palto Flats are back, teaming up with New General Catalogue to release "Awaawaa", a new record by Woo, the longstanding project of British brothers Mark and Clive Ives. Featuring never before heard recordings from Woo’s archives, "Awaawaa" sees the band at their most evocative and psychedelic - presenting a suitelike, atmospheric collection of stunning miniatures. Recorded in South London during 1975-82, "Awaawaa" lines up chronologically with other Woo releases, such as "Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong," and touches upon synth, ambient, electronics, dub, and even krautrock. Following re-issues on Drag City and Emotional Rescue, "Awaawaa" presents a new chapter in Woo’s celebrated discography, further distilling the brother’s unique and otherworldy vision.

The album includes performances from a handful of very special guests including Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (singing duet on "Would You") and members of Lambchop and The Silver Jews (Matt Swanson on bass, Tony Crow on synth and William Tyler on electric guitar). Strings and horns were recorded in Kangaroo Valley by Tony Dupe. "A Loud Call" was recorded in a brick house on a leafy street in Nashville, Tennessee by engineer and producer Mark Nevers (Lambchop, Andrew Bird, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy). Partly written on the road , partly written at home, the songs on "A Loud Call" find their inspiration in the tenuous gaps between hope and resignation, romance and indecision, nostalgia and rejuvenation. From the swelling guitar feedback and beds of vocal harmonies which engulf the opening track ("Warm Jets") to the odd-pop, bicycle wheel percussion of "Time It Takes" and the bright sparks of trumpets and pizzicato cellos on "A Heart Divided" the album is richer and more full bodied than its predecessors. But for all it's diversity, "A Loud Call" is effortlessly cohesive: quotidian narratives, epigrams against heartbreak, and vivid, otherworldly fragments are anchored by Holly's distinctive phrasing and lyrical concision.