Modular synth wizard Blawan gifts XL with more of his fizzy, phlegmy, syncopated techno productions. Possibly his most insectoid, gnarly, circuit-fried record to date; layers of glitched and scorched atmospheres tumble over ripped apart breaks and incomprehensible vocal murmurings. It's comparable to the sensation you get after smoking salvia and feel like your skin is being torn off... anyone else?

Limited copies! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Blawan has fast become the punkish rebel rouser of modular synthesis. Dressing his modules in spiked leathers and pink mohawks, his tracks address the dancefloor with an uncompromising and hawkish attitude. Possibly the wildest collection of cataclysmic electronic wrecks tracks he's released to date.

TRACK LISTING

1. Toast
2. Panic
3. You Can Build Me Feat. Monstera Black 
4. Body Ramen
5. Dismantled Into Juice Feat. Monstera Black - 

Highly anticipated would be an understatement; since their inception Overmono have purposefully cultivated a fanbase that heralds them as one of the UK’s most original contemporary live electronic acts.

A run of ground-breaking club EPs between 2020 and 2022 built momentum and culminated in their breakthrough club single, “So U Kno”, which encapsulated the hearts of clubbers and went on to become a bonafide phenomenon as dancefloors re-opened; featuring in end of year lists published by Resident Advisor, Pitchfork, DJ Mag and Mixmag. Since then, Overmono have been named ‘Best Live Act’ at the prestigious DJ Mag Best of British Awards, taken their custom audio-visual live show to the most credible festivals across the globe, including Glastonbury, Movement Festival, Dekmantel and to sold-out crowds in London, LA and NYC as part of their debut headline tour last year. And, they have produced innovative releases including their instalment of their ‘Fabric Presents’ DJ mix series and collaborations with the likes of Joy Orbison.

Now, Overmono return to present their most ambitious release to date. Across the twelve-track project, Overmono journey through a powerful distillation of their musical career so far; incorporating “So U Kno” alongside new music that propels them beyond the dancefloor. Good Lies remoulds and interweaves captivating vocal cuts into a series of multi-genre electronic sounds that flits effortlessly between euphoria and melancholy.

Talking about their debut album Good Lies, Overmono says: “Across the last two years, we have spent so much time on the road, making music whenever we could. Moving around all the time was always really inspiring and got us experimenting a lot and having fun with how we created chords or chopped and pitched vocals. This album is really a letter of love to the journey so far and marks where we want to take things. Much love, T&E x

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: It's been an incredible trajectory for brothers Overmono who've practically become a household name amongst future music lovers and a must-see live act. Now they present their debut album and it's a sonic masterpiece. The album format allowing for intimate moments of sonic exploration alongside their rugged stadium-ready productions.

TRACK LISTING

1. Feelings Plain
2. Arla Fearn
3. Good Lies
4. Walk Thru Water
5. Cold Blooded
6. Skulled
7. Sugarushhh
8. Calon
9. Is U
10. Vermonly
11. So U Kno
12. Calling Out

Dreamt up across New York, London and Seoul, With A Hammer sees Yaeji contending with a lifetime’s worth of both societal and self-imposed repression. The resulting 13-track full-length from the producer, vocalist, DJ, visual-artist and creative director is an exploration of shapeshifting sonics - blending Yaeji’s original dance music roots with Korean indie rock, electronica and pop from the ‘90s and early 2000s.

With A Hammer follows Yaeji’s journey as she wades through the murkiness of sorrow and doubt and releases the frenzy of anger, with the help of a metaphorical hammer - Hammer Lee - which she wields to smash the rigid rules, expectations, and barriers that have prevented her from speaking her fullest truth. Through this transformative process she eventually meets the thrilling self-determination and hope that awaits on the other side, and invites her listeners and fans to do the same.

Yaeji enlisted some close friends to join her on the record as features, including British musician Loraine James, up and coming Baltimore singer Nourished By Time, plus NYC-based producers K Wata, Enayet from Yaeji’s extended crew SLINK NYC. Yaeji once again floats back and forth between English and Korean to convey what’s on her heart with the utmost sincerity. It’s in this sincerity, deep care and awareness that Yaeji is seen in the U.S. and Korea as a musical renegade who has carved out her own world that exists in-between the traditional and conventional, the personal and the universal.

After breaking out with her 2017 debut EPs that featured singles “Raingurl” and “Drink I’m Sippin On,” Yaeji featured on Charli XCX’s 2019 album Charli, produced remixes for Dua Lipa, and Robyn, collaborated with the beloved Seoul-based polymath OHHYUK for stand-alone singles “29” and “Year to Year”, headlined her own and festival stages around the world, and launched her bespoke lifestyle webstore JI-MART. Born in Flushing, Queens in 1993, she has roots in Seoul, Tokyo, Atlanta, and New York City, all serving as the backdrop for her singular, hybrid-sound that synthesizes influences of Korean indie rock and electronica, late ‘90s and early 2000s hip hop and R&B, and leftfield bass and techno. With her critically-acclaimed 2020 mixtape WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던, she sharpened her vision as a musician who is creatively unbounded by language and geography, leading to collaborations with timeless entities such as PAC-MAN. Named by Pitchfork as one of the “25 Artists Shaping the Future of Music” in 2022, she’s also graced the cover of Crack, The FADER, MixMag, and Burdock, among others, and has been featured in programming at the V&A Museum, Serpentine Gallery, and MoMA PS1. Her highly anticipated debut album, With A Hammer, sees Yaeji excavating her inner world with full force, smashing everything in order to build it back up into the true visions of her dreams.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A sleek and perfectly produced juxtaposition of dancefloor-ready rhythms, crystalline synth work and cavernous bass grooves, all forming the perfect bed for Yaeji's otherworldly vocals. Chaotic in places and swooningly placid in others, but never less than impeccable.

TRACK LISTING

Submerge FM
For Granted
Fever
Passed Me By
With A Hammer
I’ll Remember For Me, I’ll Remember For You
Done (Let’s Get It)
Ready Or Not
Michin
Away X5
Happy
1 Thing To Smash
Be Alone In This

The Smile’s Europe 2022 Live Recordings. The release marks the triumvirate’s momentous debut European 30 + stop tour including illustrious venues such as London Roundhouse and Berlin’s Tempodrom and Primevera Sound, Barcelona.

Performed by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner - The Smile.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
The Opposite
Thin Thing
FeelingPulledApartByHorses

Side B
The Same
Waving A White Flag
Free In The Knowledge

LOUIE is the debut album from Kenny Beats, best known for producing seminal albums for some of the world’s most exciting artists (including Vince Staples, IDLES, Rico Nasty and Denzel Curry). On LOUIE Kenny subverts expectations with an almost entirely instrumental artist record, looping obscure 70s soul, lo-fi snippets of his fathers voice, along with guest 'vocals' from the likes of Jpegmafai and Slowthai over woozy beats. The cut'n'paste, sample heavy vibe brings to mind the likes of DJ Shadow and Avalanches in an LP that acts as a deeply personal tribute to his father.

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Really nice cut-n-paste, (mainly) instrumental LP from this relatively new studio wizard who's already turned heads working with some fantastic high profile artists.

TRACK LISTING

Leonard
Parenthesis
Hold My Head
So They Say
Family Tree
Hooper
Still
Moire
Get Around
Eternal
Last Words
Drop 10
The Perch
Really Really
That Third Thing
Rotten
Hot Hand

With Coexist, The xx defied any perceived "difficult second album" pressures to create a record that cemented their status as a truly global breakout act. On the follow up to their acclaimed, era-defining debut, the London based trio of Romy Madly Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith (aka Jamie xx) continued to deal in compelling, sparse atmospherics but expanded their musical world, especially through producer Jamie's growing electronic sound palette.

Coexist surpassed expectations to become the best-selling vinyl record of 2012. Meanwhile, the band progressed from playing intimate venues to becoming an international must-see live act, curating their own festivals and collaborating with symphony orchestras. A final ambitious run of 25 shows at New York's legendary Armory venue rounded off the album campaign, witnessed by fellow artists (such as Beyonce, Jay-Z and Madonna) and fans alike.

TRACK LISTING

Angels
Chained
Fiction
Try
Reunion
Sunset
Missing
Tides
Unfold
Swept Away
Our Song

White label edition, featuring Sampha, Syd Tha Kid and Obongjayar!

Thursday 30 June 2022 - marks 25 years since the release of The Prodigy’s ‘The Fat of the Land’; an album so iconic it turned the sound of underground rave music into a global force; capturing the world's attention and dominating the charts. In celebration XL Recordings releases a limited edition 2LP silver 12” vinyl package of the original album with a reimagined version of Alex Jenkin’s artwork.

TRACK LISTING

1 Smack My Bitch Up
2 Breathe
3 Diesel Power
4 Funky Shit
5 Serial Thrilla
6 Mindfields
7 Narayan
8 Firestarter
9 Climbatize
10 Fuel My Fire

In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven’s personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators – including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill – the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature “organic beat music” sound that’s become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it’s the strongest and clearest statement we’ve yet to hear from McCraven, the composer.

TRACK LISTING

In These Times
The Fours
High Fives
Dream Another
Lullaby
This Place That Place
The Calling
Seventh String
So Ubuji
The Knew Untitled
The Title

Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are joined by Tom Skinner of Sons Of Kemet fame, and it's amazing how transformative his presence can be. While there are elements of the sombre avant-electronics of Radiohead (obviously), Skinner's frenetic drumming morphs the whole sound into the peripheral realms of modern Jazz. We get surprising progressions, soaring orchestration and glimmering pop all at once. As expected, a thoroughly stunning listen.

The 13- track album was produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Tracks feature strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra and a full brass section of contempoarary UK jazz players including Byron Wallen, Theon and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman and Jason Yarde.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are joined by Tom Skinner of Sons Of Kemet fame, and it's amazing how transformative his presence can be. While there are elements of the sombre avant-electronics of Radiohead (obviously), Skinner's frenetic drumming morphs the whole sound into the peripheral realms of modern Jazz. We get surprising progressions, soaring orchestration and glimmering pop all at once. As expected, a thoroughly stunning listen.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
The Same
The Opposite
You Will Never Work In Television Again

Side B
Pana-vision
The Smoke
Speech Bubbles

Side C
Thin Thing
Open The Floodgates
Free In The Knowledge

Side D
A Hairdryer
Waving A White Flag
We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings
Skrting On The Surface

Produced and recorded by Arca, The complete Kick Cycle; KICK ii – kiCK iiiii. The Grammy nominated Venezuelan star, showcasing the multiplicity of her artistry. The distinct collections span moods and modes, featuring her visionary avant-garde cyber-reggaeton production, operatic range, unexpected collaborations (including Sia, Shirley Manson, Oliver Coates, Planningtorock, Ryuichi Sakamoto), and a boundary-smashing approach to genre and identity.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
In The Face
Pu
Chiquito
Estrogen
Ether
Amrep
Sanctuary Ft. Ryuichi Sakamoto

Side B
Tierno
Músculos
La Infinita
Fireprayer
Crown

Produced and recorded by Arca, The complete Kick Cycle; KICK ii – kiCK iiiii. The Grammy nominated Venezuelan star, showcasing the multiplicity of her artistry. The distinct collections span moods and modes, featuring her visionary avant-garde cyber-reggaeton production, operatic range, unexpected collaborations (including Sia, Shirley Manson, Oliver Coates, Planningtorock, Ryuichi Sakamoto), and a boundary-smashing approach to genre and identity.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Doña
Prada
Rakata
Tiro
Luna Llena
Lethargy

Side B
Araña
Femme
Muñecas
Confianza
Born Yesterday Ft. Sia
Andro

Produced and recorded by Arca, The complete Kick Cycle; KICK ii – kiCK iiiii. The Grammy nominated Venezuelan star, showcasing the multiplicity of her artistry. The distinct collections span moods and modes, featuring her visionary avant-garde cyber-reggaeton production, operatic range, unexpected collaborations (including Sia, Shirley Manson, Oliver Coates, Planningtorock, Ryuichi Sakamoto), and a boundary-smashing approach to genre and identity.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Bruja
Incendio
Morbo
Fiera
Skullqueen
Electra Rex
Ripples

Side B
Rubberneck
Señorita
My 2
Intimate Flesh
Joya

Produced and recorded by Arca, The complete Kick Cycle; KICK ii – kiCK iiiii. The Grammy nominated Venezuelan star, showcasing the multiplicity of her artistry. The distinct collections span moods and modes, featuring her visionary avant-garde cyber-reggaeton production, operatic range, unexpected collaborations (including Sia, Shirley Manson, Oliver Coates, Planningtorock, Ryuichi Sakamoto), and a boundary-smashing approach to genre and identity.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Whoresong
Esuna Ft. Oliver Coates
Xenomorphgirl
Queer Ft. Planningtorock
Witch Ft No Bra
Hija

Side B
Boquifloja
Alien Inside Ft. Shirley Manson
Altar
Lost Woman Found
Paw

The third album from Afro-Cuban French twins Lisa-Kainde and Naomi Diaz who together are Ibeyi. Inspired by the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, this is a record celebrating their multitudes are harnessing their power to heal others. Featuring collaborations with Pa Salieu, Jorja Smith, BERWYN, Dave Okumu, Ben Reed and Owen Pallett, with production by Richard Russell.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Ibeyi fall perfectly in that magical middle ground between synth-pop disco and funk, imbued with musical sensibilities from their Afro-Cuban heritage, it's a beautifully balanced and eminently listenable triumph. The track with Jorja Smith on it is a particular delight too, probably my favourite piece of theirs to date. ace.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Sangoma
O Inle
Made Of Gold Feat. Pa Salieu
Sister 2 Sister
Creature (Perfect)

Side B
Tears Are Our Medicine
Foreign Country
Lavender & Red Roses Feat. Jorja Smith
Rise Above Feat. BERWYN
Los Muertos

Continuing his signature slacker sound ‘stupid’ comes with an infectious acoustic hook and trademark wry lyricism. Written, recorded and produced by dvr he’s fast becoming one of the UK’s most compelling young talents. Fans include Snoop Dogg, FINNEAS, Omar Apollo, Joy Orbison + Clara Amfo: “dvr - a name that is going to be everywhere in the coming years.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Dirty Tapes
2. Stupid
3. Lowlife (With Kenny Beats)
4. Drugs
5. Tunnel Vision

“Saturday Specials” sees the legendary Bristol drum & bass don Clipz remixing Everything Is Recorded’s acclaimed second album “Friday Forever” in its entirety. Clipz’s first album length project, split here across three volumes; and at first a strange but ultimately rewarding hybrid of the two artists’ involved styles. This third and final set of club ready remakes features the talents of Everything Is Recorded collaborators Infinite Coles & Berwyn.

Swerving between adderol-fuelled, agro-jungle and smoother-edged, mainroom rollers, it's another perfectly curated and classy display of everyone involved's unique take on modern dnb. Winner!

TRACK LISTING

1. Walk Alone - Everything Is Recorded & CLIPZ Feat. Infinite Coles, Berwyn
2. Dream I Never Had - Everything Is Recorded & CLIPZ
3. The Night - Everything Is Recorded & CLIPZ Feat. Berwyn

Nine years since their first collaboration, the three modern musical monoliths, Burial, Thom Yorke and Four Tet return for another spellbound session. Conjuring up two tracks of rainy day, dreamstate melancholia that seemed perfectly suited to the drugery of lockdown whence it was first released.

Thom Yorke's vocals are stunning, yet subtley blended with a kind of fractal haze, reflecting Four Tet grasp of soundscapes while Burial's hushed ghostly whispers also reflect the kinda decayed urban dystopia the producer has singlehanded produced over his career.

Downtempo and understated, they're highly emotive tracks that challenge your perceptions of how a track should make you feel and behave.

*LIMITED REPRESS - MOVE QUICK!*

TRACK LISTING

Her Revolution
His Rope

The band's Mercury-nominated second album from 1994.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. Break & Enter
3. Their Law
4. Full Throttle
5. Voodoo People
6. Speedway (Theme From Fastlane)
7. The Heat (The Energy)
8. Poison
9. No Good (Start The Dance)
10. One Love (Edit)
11. 3 Kilos
12. Skylined
13. Claustrophobic Sting

Produced and recorded by Arca, KiCk i defines a new era of multiplex harmony for the Venezuelan artist, singer, DJ, performer and experimental music composer. With appearances from Björk, Rosalía, Shygirl and SOPHIE, this is the first time Arca has invited collaborators into her world, previously having lent her sound to some of the decades most avant-pop artists. With the release of “Nonbinary” kicking off the new era, today Arca shares the first single from KiCk i called “Time”:

“Time” originally premiered in September 2019 at Arca’s Mutant;Faith, a four-part experimental performance cycle at the new NYC performing arts space The Shed. The performance “stood to prove why Arca’s work is beyond innovative, and why her vision for the future of pop is so thrilling,” declared them., with Pitchfork revering Arca’s ability to “continue to create a singular world.” Captured on the fourth-day of Mutant;Faith performance cycle, the video for “Time” was conceptualized by Arca, Carlos Sáez and MANSON, who directed the video in front of a live audience at The Shed and on the streets of NYC.

KiCk i is a celebration not only of the joy Arca’s been able to find in her life, but the sometimes arduous journey it took for her to find it. Her struggles to reconcile her Venezuelan heritage and her trans Latinx identity emerge as reggaetón and pop en Español. But KiCk i isn’t just a pop record, or an experimental record, or even simply a mix between the two, but rather all of them at once- and so much more. Depending on where you drop the needle you’ll find bubblegum, harsh noise, electronic psychedelia, balladry, bangers, laughter, tears, passion, and expressions of faith - sounds and ideas that don’t simply blend together, but coexist simultaneously in quantum superposition made possible inside the sonic worlds Arca builds in her music.

“I don't want to be tied to one genre,” Arca explains. “I don't want to be labeled as one thing.” Where she is now, being nonbinary doesn’t end with her gender identity. It’s become a mindset where no one thing has to be just one thing, where multiple meanings, multiple realities can coexist in superposed balance. In this space between states, where one thing is the other, Arca has discovered a vast field of untapped creative power. KiCk i is the sound of her plugging in.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Venezuelan sound artist and synthpop wunderkind Arca brings all of the heat from their hugely popular last two releases into the first of a quadrilogy of releases. If this is anything to go by, it's sure to take the synth world by storm. Vapourwave meets glitch via everything else.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nonbinary
2. Time
3. Mequetrefe
4. Riquiqui
5. Calor
6. Afterwards Ft. Björk
7. Watch Ft. Shygirl
8. KLK Ft. Rosalía
9. Rip The Slit
10. La Chíqui Ft. SOPHIE
11. Machote
12. No Queda Nada

Friday Forever is the second album from multi-artist project Everything Is Recorded, helmed by producer artist Richard Russell. This follows the critically acclaimed and Mercury Music Prize nominated debut of 2018, Everything Is Recorded by Richard Russell. Friday Forever takes on a multi-lensed perspective of a classic night out, followed closely by the sobering reflections of the next morning. The album features an array of new collaborators – in British rappers Aitch, Flohio and Berwyn, Irish singer songwriters Maria Somerville and Kean Kavanagh, the inimitable voices of A.K. Paul, James Massiah, and returning vocalist Infinite Coles – as well as established names like Ghostface Killah and Penny Rimbaud.

TRACK LISTING

10:51 PM / The Night
09:46 PM / Every Friday Thereafter
12:12 AM / Patients (Fucking Up A Friday)
01:32 AM / Walk Alone
02:56 AM / I Dont Want This Feeling To Stop
03:15 AM / Caviar
04:21 AM / That Sky
05:10 AM / Dream I Never Had
09:34 AM / Pretending Nothings Wrong
10:02 AM / Burnt Toast
11:55 AM / This World
11:59 AM / Circles

Through Water is the follow up to Lapsley's 2016 album Long Way Home, one of that year’s most acclaimed debuts. Released while she was still a teenager, Long Way Home featured Låpsley’s breakthrough moments ‘Station’ and ‘Falling Short’ and spawned one of the biggest club tracks in recent years (DJ Koze's edit of "Operator") as well as inspiring a new generation of electronically minded songwriters including Billie Eilish, who namechecked it as a key influence on her sound.

Through Water is without doubt Låpsley’s most accomplished work to date, written and recorded during her transition into young womanhood. With Låpsley as the major producer and songwriter, the ten songs (whittled down from over one hundred) reflect her newfound confidence, clarity and self-awareness as an artist, documenting a wealth of personal experiences and coming-of-age stories set against a thematic backdrop of water, climate, weather and the elements.

TRACK LISTING

Through Water
My Love Was Like The Rain
First
Ligne 3
Our Love Is A Garden
Leeds Liverpool Canal
Sadness Is A Shade Of Blue
Womxn
Bonfire
Speaking Of The End
Online (bonus 7” Only)

In February 2010, the late, legendary musician, poet and author Gil Scott-Heron released his thirteenth, and last, studio album. First conceptualised in 2005, and ultimately produced by XL Recordings head Richard Russell during New York recording sessions that commenced in January 2008, "I’m New Here" was Scott-Heron’s first album in thirteen years and found him sounding as vital, boundary-pushing and insightful as ever before.

In addition to the original album, this 'I'm New Here' 10th Anniversary Edition features two unreleased tracks - a cover of Richie Havens’ 'Handsome Johnny’ and a previously unheard Scott-Heron song 'King Henry IV’ - as well as a selection of other recordings from the original I’m New Here sessions that were only previously available on a rare, vinyl only deluxe version of the LP.

"Ten years ago I was in the midst of recording “I’m New Here” with Gil. There was a lot more to the experience than it was possible to process at the time, and there was some great material that never made it onto the album. Our cover of “Handsome Jonny” was the last recording Gil and I made on the last day of the last session for “I’m New Here”, at Clinton Studio in Hell’s Kitchen, NY, on September 19, 2009. Gil had introduced me to the original version of the song, explaining how Richie Havens had performed it in his opening set at Woodstock some forty years earlier, and we added it to a list of material we were considering for the album. In the end we recorded some of these songs, like Bobby Blue Bland’s “I’ll Take Care Of You”, Bill Callahan’s “I’m New Here” and Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil”, and didn’t get round to some others, including Joy Divison’s “Disorder”." - producer Richard Russell

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A Piccadilly Records Album Of The Year back in 2010. There's little that can be said about this legendary outing from XL head Richard Russell and the great GSH that hasn't already been said, it's an absolutely essential listen, and this expanded edition makes it even more so. A wildly groundbreaking and influential recording.

TRACK LISTING

On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 1)
Me And The Devil
I'm New Here
Your Soul And Mine
Parents (Interlude)
I'll Take Care Of You
Being Blessed (Interlude)
Where Did The Night Go
I Was Guided (Interlude)
New York Is Killing Me
Certain Things (Interlude)
Running
The Crutch
I've Been Me (Interlude)
On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 2)
Handsome Johnny
King Henry IV
Piano Player (Intro)
Home Is Where The Hatred Is
Winter In America
Winter In America
Jazz (Interlude)
Is That Jazz
A Place To Go (Interlude)
My Cloud

To mark the tenth anniversary of the release of "I’m New Here", the thirteenth - and last - studio album from the legendary US musician, poet and author Gil Scott-Heron, XL Recordings release a unique reinterpretation of the album by acclaimed US jazz musician Makaya McCraven. Titled "We’re New Again", the album's release comes exactly a decade after the release of Scott-Heron’s original Richard Russell-produced recording. Following in the footsteps of Jamie xx’s highly acclaimed 2011 remix album "We’re New Here", this is McCraven’s first release of 2020, following the huge global acclaim heaped upon his 2018 album "Universal Beings". One of the most vital new voices in modern jazz, McCraven is described by the New York Times as a "Chicago-based drummer, producer and beat maker, [who] has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality".

TRACK LISTING

Special Tribute (Broken Home Pt. 1)
I'm New Here
Running
Blessed Parents
New York Is Killing Me
The Patch (Broken Home Pt. 2)
People Of The Light
Being Blessed
Where Did The Night Go
Lily Scott (Broken Home Pt. 3)
I'll Take Care Of You
I've Been Me
This Can't Be Real
Piano Player
The Crutch
Guided (Broken Home Pt. 4)
Certain Bad Things
Me And The Devil

Over a decade in the making, ‘After You’ was produced in collaboration with Paul Epworth, Inflo and Alex Epton. Prayer, the first single from the album, features Peñate playing several instruments, as well as the production credit he set out to achieve. It carries more than a nod to gospel, all set around a glorious pop hook, played on a Farfisa organ. Its musical and lyrical complexities belies the fact it was written in twenty minutes. “Once we had written it, all the pieces of the past ten years fell into place. It was like a puzzle coming together.”

Former Spankrock member turned producer and jazz drummer, Alex Epton came on board and set to bring together 10 years worth of work into a cohesive album in XL’s New York studio, adding in additional programming and production as well as drums and percussion. Paul Epworth, with whom he created Everything Is New, came back in and worked on several tracks.

The album doesn’t just draw on his musical journey of the past ten years, it brings in influences from the music he heard as a child. Loaded Gun has a prechorus that Lennon and McCartney would have liked to have written. As a child his brother would play him Jungle music. There’s elements of that too. His dad ran acid house raves – that’s in there. But perhaps, the most poignant track is Gemini. With nothing more than piano, vibraphone and drum beat, the words of Peñate’s grandfather, the writer and artist Mervyn Peake, are read by his uncle Fabian. And it’s not the only family tie. The artwork for the album, and the first video, has been done by Peñate’s cousin, the acclaimed artist, Eddie Peake. “We both grew up with an uncanny focus on what we wanted to do, but had never worked together,” says Jack. His work is both incredibly joyous and melancholy, and it does something to me that music does to me too.”

If Peñate’s ambition was to be able to make a sound that sounded like a feeling felt, and to be able to master studio production, and to be able to have longevity in his career, then it’s safe to say that with After You, that ambition has been realised.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Peñate returns after a full decade (almost) to reiterate his dedication to smooth, richly produced soulful downbeat business, and it doesn't disappoint. Full of momentum and perfectly measured instrumentation bolstered with Peñate's unmistakable acrobatic vocal bliss.

TRACK LISTING

Prayer
Loaded Gun
Round And Round
Cipralex
Murder
Gemini
Let Me Believe
GMT
Ancient Skin
Swept To The Sky

Jack Peñate’s new single ‘Prayer’, is his first official release in a decade since his second album ‘Everything is New’ was released on XL Recordings in 2009.

Jack took time away from releasing music to experiment with writing and production, collaborating with others along the way (including David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’). ‘Prayer’ was written and recorded in the space of one day when Jack meet the producer Inflo. They immediately jumped in a car and drove to Jack’s garage-converted studio in Oxford where ‘Prayer’ was born, before being finished in New York with Alex Epton.

“Prayer was made for and with my family and friends. It’s a piece about the unifying nature of loss and the thread of hope that survives throughout.”

TRACK LISTING

Prayer
Prayer (Bobby Remix)

Thom Yorke releases his new album ‘ANIMA’.

‘ANIMA’ was written by Thom Yorke and produced by Nigel Godrich.

A ‘one-reeler’, also entitled ‘ANIMA’, will be available exclusively via Netflix, made by Paul Thomas Anderson and set to three tracks from Thom’s new album.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: ‘Anima’ is yet more evidence of Yorke's endless artistic vision and his ability to turn his hand to any musical or audio-visual endeavour with unparalleled success. ‘Amina’ is both an arresting visual feat and a brilliantly realised auditory artifact, as comfortable being listened to in situ (with visuals) or on it's own.

TRACK LISTING

CD/DOWNLOAD:
Traffic
Last I Heard (...He Was Circling The Drain)
Twist
Dawn Chorus
I Am A Very Rude Person
Not The News
The Axe
Impossible Knots
Runwayaway

Vinyl:
Traffic
Last I Heard (...He Was Circling The Drain)
Twist
Dawn Chorus
I Am A Very Rude Person
Not The News
The Axe
Impossible Knots
Runwayaway
Ladies & Gentleman, Thank You For Coming (NB: This Track Is Vinyl Only And Isn't Available On The Download Voucher)

XL Recordings release ‘Spoken By The Other’, the first release by Powell Tillmans. It’s a collection of recordings from two of the most interesting artists in Europe and one whose short length belies its radical tenderness, sonic language and political ambition.

The first part of the partnership is Oscar Powell, the London-based electronic musician. The second is Wolfgang Tillmans, the Turner Prize-winning fine artist and musician who lives between Berlin and London.

After 25 years away from music-making, Tillmans began releasing his own vocal-led electronic tracks in 2016, with a series of EPs and collaborative visual mini-albums, with one track closing Frank Ocean's Endless album. Powell, meanwhile, has been releasing music since 2011, on his own label Diagonal and XL, drawing from the history of machine music to create a bold new language. They met at the Tate Modern, where Tillmans was programming a series of performances to coincide with his 2017 exhibition. Quickly the conversation turned to talk of a full collaboration and following Tillmans’ video for Powell’s track ‘Freezer’, over the summer they got into the studio to begin making music.

Recording took place in Berlin, London and Turin, with Tillmans’ vocals working in tandem with Powell’s synthetic processes. Rather than a simple producer-vocalist arrangement, explains Powell, “Wolfgang’s voice and my sounds drive toward some sort of shape or feeling together.” These tracks were workshopped live at European festivals Atonal and Club2Club in the second half of 2017 and with no small number of emails and voice files exchanged, these ideas evolved into the final release this year.

TRACK LISTING

Feel The Night
Tone Me
Doucement
Speak Out (Version)
Rebuilding The Future
445

Suspiria consists of 25 original compositions written by Thom specifically for Luca Guadagnino reimagining of the 1977 Dario Argento horror classic. The album is a mix of instrumental score work, interstitial pieces and interludes, and more traditional song structures featuring Thom’s vocals such as “Unmade”, “Has Ended” and “Suspirium,” the album's first single featuring the melodic theme that recurs throughout the film and its score.

As scoring a horror film presented Thom with altogether new challenges and opportunities, Suspiria stands apart from any of his other work. Piano/vocal ballads, Krautrock-esque modular synth work inspired by the film’s Berlin 1977 setting, multilayered vocals, and melodies that convey terror, longing and melancholy combine to create a chaotic yet cohesive musical spell.

Suspiria was written and arranged by Thom Yorke, recorded and produced by Thom and Sam Petts-Davies. The album also features the London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir, Noah Yorke on drums on “Has Ended” and “Volk,” and Pasha Mansurov on solo flute on “Suspirium.”

TRACK LISTING

A Storm That Took Everything
The Hooks
Suspirium
Belongings Thrown In A River
Has Ended
Klemperer Walks
Open Again
Sabbath Incantation
The Inevitable Pull
Olga’s Destruction (Volk Tape)
The Conjuring Of Anke
A Light Green
Unmade
The Jumps
Volk
The Universe Is Indifferent
The Balance Of Things
A Soft Hand Across Your Face
Suspirium Finale
A Choir Of One
Synthesizer Speaks
The Room Of Compartments
An Audition
Voiceless Terror
The Epilogue

New single by London based soul collective, Jungle. Radiant, shimmering and golden voiced, their songs possess a catchy, mainstream appeal yet are light years ahead of the pop market - with technologically advanced production galvanzing much of their tunes in much the same way The XX seems like love songs beams from the future.

"Heavy, California" and "Cherry" epitomizes this ethos, with the former quicker paced and primed for excitement singing about the graces of the Golden State while the latter is slower, playful and tantric, with Lloyd-Watson & McFarland's delicate falsetto sounding in fine form. Killer stuff from one of the hottest acts on the scene right now.  

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: We’ve being spoilt here by Jungle, another release!! We’re all in anticipation for the new album ‘For Ever’ due out next month. They are a Piccadilly favourite here, catchy and drenched in synth drops to die for. So good.

Jungle return with a set of new songs, each showcasing a very different side of their sound.

AA-sided single cuts 'Happy Man' and 'House In LA' are the first tracks to be revealed from Jungle's forthcoming second album which was recorded in London; J and T describe it as "a post-apocalyptic radio station playing break up songs”.

If Jungle’s first album was their imaginary soundtrack to the places they had never been, their new record captures the landscapes they had so often dreamed of. To write and record the new album, J and T swapped Shepherds Bush for the Hollywood Hills. Their romanticization of The California Dream clashed with the reality of living it—although the experience led them back home to London to finish the album, the journey itself ultimately defining the music it produced.

'Happy Man' sees the band visiting themes of disenfranchised youth in an era where the dreams of the Baby Boomers are out of reach for a younger generation (lyrical terrain previously explored in Jungle's crossover anthem 'Busy Earnin’).

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: Jungle’s new sound is irresistibly good, the lyrics and rhythm are pure goodness and oh so catchy. They’ve come a long way since their self-titled album nearly four years ago (!!) and it’s good to have them back.

‘Bodysong’ is an album by Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood as well as a soundtrack to a film of the same name. On the album, Greenwood fuses elements of jazz, electronic, classical and experimental music.

The soundtrack was originally released in 2003. Now remastered by Christian Wright.

TRACK LISTING

Moon Trills
Moon Mall
Trench
Iron Swallow
Clockwork Tin Soldiers
Convergence
Nudnik Headache
Peartree
Splitter
Bode Radio / Glass Light / Broken Hearts
24 Hour Charleston
Milky Drops From Heaven
Tehellet

TRACK LISTING

A Brain In A Bottle
Guess Again!
Interference
The Mother Lode
Truth Ray
There Is No Ice (For My Drink)
Pink Section
Nose Grows Some

One of ex-staffer Michael Riley and current staffer Matt Ward's favourite rappers of late, Wiki of Ratking and solo fame drops a much anticipated new full length via XL as he climbs to the top of the new school and hits a well documented purple patch. The toothless, skateboard loving, Arnold Palmer drinking upstart has had quite a rise to stardom, after blowing us away with hit after potty-mouthed hit and with some of the most creative and unique videos to have hit the hip-hop genre in recent times. With Ratking he flipped what was expected of hip-hop groups in general, adding a psychedelic yet gritty haze, flipping song structures and retreating from the misogynistic, all-frontin' bullshit that half of the hip-hop game seem to be peddling. Solo we see him in comfortable stride, mixing a half-sung vocal style with fiery and poignant flow, always sticking to content that's real and fully lived be him and his crew. You won't hear him fake-talking about peddling crack and having millions in the bank (or driving a Ferrari for that matter...), just quick-witted, keen-eyed observations on street life delivered with a sharp tongue. The album features fellow New York natives, both legend and novice, including Ghostface Killah, Lakutis, ACAB, Slicky Boy, Your Old Droog and more. Production credits include Ratking’s Sporting Life, Tony Seltzer, Kaytranada, Earl Sweatshirt and Wiki himself; a who's who of who's reinventing the script in 2017>18. Highly recommended. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: It's time for the whole world to hear how Wiki-speaks as the NY rapper climbs to the top of the game and shouts his message to the world. Get on board.

XL Recordings are very happy to announce the release of ‘The Lost Tape’. Having already made history by single-handedly bringing back UK garage, the stars of BBC’s BAFTA winning comedy ‘People Just Do Nothing’, Kurupt FM, have decided to do it again with the greatest mix ever recorded - according to them. The legendary set was broadcast live in 2011 on Kurupt FM 108.9 and was recorded onto cassette tape by an anonymous listener. Once lost in a backpack in deepest Brentford, the lost tape has now been uncovered, remixed and mastered for the very first time.

‘The Lost Tape’ is a journey across an entire CD, documenting the seminal tracks which have shaped club culture from Hammersmith Boulevard to the Champagne Steam Rooms.

Featuring MCs DJ Beats and MC Grindah and mixed live by Steves, it’s over an hour of UK Garage, Grime and 100% Kurupt originals, including ‘Suttin’ Like That’.

With a feature documentary from legendary filmmaker Ewen Spencer on the way, who has previously made documentaries about The Streets and Massive Attack as well as his scene-defining piece ‘Brandy & Coke’, Ewen’s film will cement Kurupt FM even further in to UK music history.

‘The Lost Tape’ is the culmination of a big 18 months that’s seen Kurupt FM named GQ Men Of The Year, collaborate with Ed Sheeran for Comic Relief, sell out Brixton Academy, two nights at London’s Roundhouse and festival slots from Reading and Leeds to Lovebox.

One of the most celebrated figureheads on the independent British scene, Archy Marshall returns with the dense, sprawling “The OOZ”, the much anticipated follow up to his debut “Six Feet Beneath the Moon”. Drifting and seeping through the cracks of South London like the album title, King Krule casts an unflinching eye over his kingdom, transforming his observations of all the disorientation and heartbreak of his youth into piercing narratives and poetry that are both startlingly honest and brutally beautiful. With “The OOZ”, Marshall finally takes the crown as poet laureate for the dazed and confused generation, painting a bleak and sometimes harrowing picture of a rapidly splintering city.

Where “Six Feet Beneath the Moon”, released in 2013, was a rigorous, rambling excavation of Marshall’s expansive body of work to date, “The OOZ” snaps into focus quickly and sharply, his modus operandi coming into view almost immediately. Over jazzy curlicues and guitars, the opener “Biscuit Town” sets out its stall irresistibly as Marshall sings about rapidly disintegrating romance and personal dissolution with acute, almost painful detail. These wrenching themes of self-annihilation and fraying relationships seem inextricably linked in Marshall’s eyes – once you lose yourself to someone else, you inevitably wind up losing yourself completely when they leave – and recur in other tracks. “Why’d you leave me? Because of my depression? You used to complete me but I guess I learnt a lesson” he spits on the roiling “Midnight 01 (Deep Sea Diver)”, and, even layered with the warm vocals of Okay Kaya, “Slush Puppy” is an unsparing dissection of a couple with nothing left to give, like a Gainsbourg and Birkin ballad gone toxic. Elsewhere, things only get darker, as Marshall desperately tries to find safe harbor in the city he knows and loves, only to be thwarted constantly, as on “The Cadet Leaps” and first single “Czech One”. Not even the synthetic high of chemicals, as shown in “Emergency Blimp” and “A Slide In (New Drugs)”, can stanch the suffering.

Although seeming at first abstract, “The OOZ” as a title proves oddly fitting. There are references littered throughout about its physical manifestation, or as Marshall himself says, “about earwax and snot and bodily fluids and skin and stuff that just comes out of you on a day to day basis”. But it works on a more figurative level too, with the OOZ also representing the unknown depths or horizons the solitary mind can travel to, whether it’s sinking into the deep sea or soaring through the night sky. It may be messy, unwieldy, even unsightly, Marshall seems to say - but we need The OOZ in order to exist.

TRACK LISTING

Biscuit Town
The Locomotive
Dum Surfer
Slush Puppy
Bermondsey Bosom (Left)
Logos
Sublunary
Lonely Blue
Cadet Limbo
Emergency Blimp
Czech One
A Slide In (New Drugs)
Vidual
Bermondsey Bosom (Right)
Half Man Half Shark
The Cadet Leaps
Midnight 01 (Deep Sea Diver)
La Lune

French-Cuban twins Ibeyi are back with their second album ‘Ash’, a record that tackles subjects as diverse as womanhood, spirituality, activism and racism, all conveyed in Ibeyi’s own unique blend of modern pop, hip-hop and electronic influenced music that incorporates the traditional sounds of Yorùbá. ‘Ash’ is the follow-up to the twin’s 2015 critically acclaimed, eponymous debut album that made Ibeyi a globally recognized name.

While Ibeyi’s first album grappled with the past—the sister’s relationship, origins, loss, and roots. It earned them fans and collaborators in some of the most iconic and crucial artists of today, Beyoncé and Alvin Ailey included. By contrast, Ash is a more visceral and potent political statement, and while firmly rooted in Afro-Cuban culture and history, finds itself entirely concerned with Ibeyi’s present: Who Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi are, what’s important to them, and how they live today, especially given that the spheres, both personally and politically, are entirely different from when Ibeyi was recorded.

‘Ash’ was recorded in November 2016 in London with producer Richard Russell at his studio The Copper House. The album features twelve new tracks, including ‘Away Away’ which was released in June, and includes appearances from Kamasi Washington, Mala Rodriguez, Chilly Gonzales, Meshell Ndegeocello.

‘Deathless,’ the second track to be debuted from ‘Ash’, features the incomparable Kamasi Washington on saxophone, and was written in the wake of an experience that Lisa-Kaindé had when she was sixteen that involved her being wrongly arrested by French police. She went home and wrote the emotive ‘Deathless,’ in which she describes her experience: “I was writing ‘Deathless’ as an anthem for everybody!” Lisa-Kaindé says. “For every minority. For everybody that feels that they are nothing, that feels small, that feels not cared about and I want them to listen to our song and for three minutes feel large, powerful, deathless. I have a huge amount of respect for people who fought for, what I think, are my rights today and if we all sing together ‘we are deathless, ’they will be living through us into a better world”.

Step out of the gloom and into Ibeyi’s world, a place of optimism, openness and acceptance. The modern world never looked so beautiful as it does through Ibeyi’s lens

Rescued from defunct formats, prised from dark cupboards and brought to light after two decades in cold storage… OKNOTOK will be issued on June 23rd through XL Recordings, coinciding (roughly) with the original 1997 release date(s) of Radiohead’s landmark third album OK COMPUTER.

OKNOTOK features the original OK COMPUTER twelve track album, eight B-sides, and the Radiohead completist’s dream: “I Promise,” “Lift,” and “Man Of War.” The original studio recordings of these three previously unreleased and long sought after OK COMPUTER era tracks finally receive their first official issue on OKNOTOK.

All material on OKNOTOK is newly remastered from the original analogue tapes.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I can't think of anyone that wasn't floored by Radiohead's transformation from grungy gloom mongers to the indie/electronic greats they have become today, and this was the turning point. Liberally spread with their trademark morosity but with an unheard technical ability, ‘OK Computer’ was a stinging criticism of modernity delivered via a new sonic language. Now, twenty years after its landmark release, the band revisits this masterpiece with the definitive version. Alongside the original twelve track LP we’re treated to eight B-sides and a trio of previously unreleased tracks from the same era. This isn’t just an LP, it’s a historical document.

Everything Is Recorded is the new collaborative artist project from record producer and XL Recordings head Richard Russell. With Russell at the helm, his west London studio ‘The Copper House’ has become a creative second home for a revolving cast of vocalists and musicians who pass through to write, record and share ideas, mixing traditional recording sessions with extended, uninhibited live jams.

The ‘Close But Not Quite’ EP is Everything Is Recorded’s debut recorded statement and is a captivating snapshot of the kind of collaboration and experimentation that has taken place at The Copper House. Across five tracks, the EP is a soundsystem influenced mix of brand new talent and established names, featuring an eclectic host of artists including Sampha, Giggs, Obongjayar, Tic, Warren Ellis, Infinite, Mela Murder, Green Gartside and Baluji Shrivastav.

EP opener ‘Close But Not Quite’ marries Sampha and Curtis Mayfield, the former’s distinctive vocal wrapped around a sample of Mayfield’s 1970 ‘The Makings Of You’. ‘Early This Morning’ links Peckham and Harlem, with Giggs delivering trademark hard bars over a recontextualisation of Gil Scott-Heron’s 2010 ‘Me and the Devil’ (also produced by Russell). ‘Washed Up On The Shore’ introduces Nigerian-born, UK-based newcomer Obongjayar alongside drones from the legendary Nick Cave collaborator Warren Ellis, while ‘D’elusion’ invites Staten Island to west London with Infinite and Mela Murder on lead and Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside on backing vocals. All – including EP-closing instrumental ‘The Rhythm Of Life And Death’ – are brought together under Russell’s inclusive, idiosyncratic production vision.

‘Close But Not Quite’ is the first of several Everything Is Recorded releases planned for this year.

XL Recordings release Nines’ eagerly awaited debut album ‘One Foot Out’. It follows his ‘One Foot In’ mixtape, titles informed by the desire to move away from street activity and towards the industry recognition he deserves.

For those not familiar with with the most authentic name in London’s exploding underground scene, Nines hails from the Church Road Estate in North West London. Without the approval of the industry, Nines’ previous four music videos have amassed over 31.2 million views on YouTube. He has self-released four mixtapes since 2011 and his debut single ‘Yay’ sold over 30,000 copies - staggering figures that fully justify the hysteria surrounding Nines’ rap pedigree and which reinforce that this is no false dawn but a golden age for UK rap music.

In addition to the mixtapes and singles, Nines is also infamous for his ‘JD Sports Shutdown’ and ‘Turkey Shutdown’ videos (the former featured on Worldstarhiphop.com), which saw the rapper taking kids from his neighbourhood to JD Sports to buy them new trainers, as well as providing Christmas turkeys to those less fortunate to the whole of his Church Road Estate.

With production from the likes of Jevon (New Gen) and Menace (Desiigner’s ‘Panda’) and featuring guest appearances from Taylor Gang’s Berner, previous collaborator Tiggs Da Author, J Hus and Akala, ‘One Foot Out’ sees Nines stepping out of his comfort zone and displaying the depth of UK rap. His charismatic, laid back flow covers braggadocio on ‘High Roller’ (“Came through in the Audi you’re in that Honda Accord / All this gold got me looking like a Oscar Award”), soul searching on ‘I Wonder’ (“Wonder how all these guns get in to my area / wonder why they care about celebs instead of Syria”) and is filled with pop culture references (“acting like he’s shotting all that coke / looking invisible in the club like he’s got on Harry Potter’s cloak”), ‘One Foot Out’ is a statement of intent that should promote Nines into rap’s premiere league.

TRACK LISTING

Intro
Going In
Trapper Of The Year (ft Jay Midge)
Love 2 The Game (ft Hudson East)
Getting Money Now
These Keys (ft Berner)
Stacey Adams
Hoes (ft Tiggs Da Author)
Nervous
High Roller (ft J Hus)
Break Away
I Wonder (ft Akala)
Trap Music
Make It Last
Outro

Released in 1993, Pablo Honey is the debut studio album from Radiohead. Produced by Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie, the album was recorded at Chipping Norton Recording Studios and Courtyard Studio, Oxfordshire. The album features the singles, "Anyone Can Play Guitar", "Stop Whispering", and "Creep". - The standout single "Creep" was the international hit that helped propel Radiohead and Pablo Honey to popular acclaim. Released several months before the album itself, "Creep" went on to define the band's early career. Also included on Pablo Honey are ethereal rocker "You", fan favorite "Thinking About You", and "Blow Out", all of which point to the band's future sonic manipulations.

TRACK LISTING

1. You
2. Creep
3. How Do You?
4. Stop Whispering
5. Thinking About You
6. Anyone Can Play Guitar
7. Ripcord
8. Vegetable
9. Prove Yourself
10. I Can't
11. Lurgee
12. Blow Out

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of his seminal, magical, Mercury-prize winning debut, Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) releases a new deluxe version of the album, including bonus unheard tracks (on the double CD version) and new artwork.

Released in May 2000 to widespread acclaim, ‘The Hour Of Bewilderbeast’ beat other shortlisted nominees including Coldplay, Doves, Leftfield and Richard Ashcroft to that year’s Mercury Music Prize. Like all great debuts, it captured the zeitgeist of the moment, managing that rare feat of sounding both completely of its time, and utterly timeless. The album went platinum and Damon was then asked to write the soundtrack the film of Nick Hornby’s book ‘About A Boy’, which became a huge hit. He went on to release eight studio albums over 12 years, before taking a break over the last couple of years and now he’s back with a fresh focus.

It’s an album that shouldn’t really work on paper, a bewildering assortment of leftfield folk ditties, poetic shanties, experimental passages and nocturnal piano ballads, some recorded in bedrooms, some in studios, with a myriad of different oddball production techniques, and numerous personnel playing most instruments known to man, and several not. However, underpinned by the genius songwriting of Damon Gough and his intuitive ear for melody, it worked beautifully, and charmed a generation of music critics and music lovers. Damon arrived fully formed yet badly drawn, an overnight success which had taken years, simultaneously a little shambolic and in possession of grand vision, somehow both cocksure and yet self-doubting, all of which only endured him to a public growing tired of the over-polished sheen of late 90s.

Andy Votel has updated his classic artwork, loosely based on Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man’, for the re-release. “I’m very fond of the cover,” says Damon. “It sums up the time as much as the music does. The gatefold vinyl will have the original artwork and when you open it up there’s a new version which reflects everything that’s happened in the last 15 years.”

"In 2005, having decided to approach Gil Scott-Heron to suggest that we made a record, I stopped listening to any of his previous output. This was to avoid feeling intimidated by the weight of Gil's musical history, and by the sheer quality of the 14 studio albums he'd released since 1970.

Part of my initial suggestion to Gil was that we recorded sparse, stripped down versions of his old songs. We both thought that might make an intriguing album. So we started off recording versions of some of Gil's repertoire, just voice and piano. But our album gradually evolved into something different - "I'm New Here", which as the title suggested, didn't touch on any of Gil's previous recordings (except for "Your Soul And Mine", which is a re-imagining of "The Vulture" from Gil's 1970 debut LP "Small Talk at 125th and Lennox").

I didn't pay much attention to the acoustic versions of Gil's older repertoire that we had recorded, as I was so focused on our making an entirely new album. We didn't make the album we set out to; we made something different.

In November 2011, six months after Gil died, I sat down to listen to the whole of Gil's back catalogue, on vinyl, album by album, chronologically. It's an incredible body of work; 13 albums between 1970 and 1982, and then 2 ("Spirits" and "I'm New Here") until Gil passed in 2011. I did this as a sort of meditative exercise, for the joy of sitting and listening to Gil, now that I was no longer getting to hear his voice down the phone from Harlem.

I listened to these 15 albums over the course of a few weeks as a way to keep our communication going. They led me back to the acoustic piano versions of Gil's old songs that we had captured in New York and I found that they were in themselves remarkable; completely different to the originals, and full of magic in their simplicity. I realised we in fact had made the album we originally set out to, as well as "I'm New Here". We had recorded an album's worth of new, stripped down versions of some of Gil's best (but not necessarily best known) songs. We had recorded an album I thought should be called "Nothing New".

"Nothing New" is recordings Gil and I made in New York of songs he chose from his catalogue, just voice and piano, pure Gil. I realised that each song he had chosen was from a different album of his. He had carefully curated the selection, so the album serves as an excellent introduction to his previous output.

In our early letters, Gil had picked up on my use of the word "spartan" to describe how our record could be. The Oxford dictionary defines "spartan" as showing "indifference to comfort or luxury". Very Gil. "Nothing New" is truly spartan in that it is utterly sparse and devoid of anything that is not completely necessary. All it contains is Gil's singing and piano playing.

You also hear excerpts of our conversations between takes; these give a sense of Gil's profound and profane nature. I believe Gil would approve of calling an album of him covering his own material "Nothing New"; the wordplay is inspired by him. Gil once expressed that he felt our album "could do with a few more yuks" - so now you can check out some of Gil's asides, and particularly the final interlude "On Bobby Blue Bland" for a glimpse of the man's playful sense of humour.

Once I'd compiled and edited these songs, I made three acetates, and we screenprinted artwork at XL. I gave one of these three special copies to Gil's son Rumal Rackley, sent another to Gil's friend and keyboard player Kim Jordan in Washington DC, and the third went to Ms Mimi, who kept Gil's house in order. This could have been the end of the process, but Rumal felt we should share this work with people - so here it is.

I hope you enjoy this album. It completes the set of 3 albums generated from our sessions in New York between 2005 and 2009 - the first 2 records being the main work "I'm New Here" and Jamie xx's remix album "We're New Here".

This is "Nothing New"."

Richard Russell, XL Recordings, London, 2014

TRACK LISTING

01. Did You Hear What They Said
02. Better Days Ahead
03. Household Name (Interlude)
04. Your Daddy Loves You
05. Changing Yourself (Interlude)
06. Pieces Of A Man
07. Enjoying Yourself (Outro)
08. Alien (Hold On To Your Dreams)
09. Before I Hit The Bottom (Interlude)
10. 95 South (All Of The Places We’ve Been
11. The Other Side
12. The On/Off Switch (Interlude)
13. Blue Collar
14. On Bobby Blue Bland (Outro)

Recorded over 15 months in the band’s east London studio-laboratory-bunker with co-producer Craig Silvey, it’s the follow-up to the band’s 2007 debut Strange House, the Mercury-nominated Primary Colours (2009), and the critically-acclaimed Skying (2011) – a record that entered the charts at Number Five, featured prominently in the end-of-year magazine/newspaper polls, and was anointed NME's Album Of The Year.

Luminous is an album that, for once, merits that over-used phrase “keenly-anticipated”. Tipped to be one of the biggest British albums of 2014, it follows the breakthrough success of the silver-selling Skying, an album beloved of heroes and peers such as Bobby Gillespie, Alex Turner and Trent Reznor and that also brought The Horrors into the world of the Radio 1 A-list and Later… With Jools Holland. Tasking themselves with, as ever, moving onwards, The Horrors determined to make an album that was brighter, more positive, more electronic. ‘We’ve refined our sound,” affirms lead singer Faris Badwan, “and in terms of songwriting it is the record I'm happiest with.” Or, in the words of bass player Rhys Webb, “it’s not so much about heavier guitars as a heavier potency… We want to make music you can dance to, music that elevates…” Luminous by name, luminous by nature: this is an album radiating light and energy. These songs are The Horrors writing at their instinctive, intuitive and accessible best.

By way of explaining the intense but unhurried writing and recording of the album, the frontman says that, “If you're happy with one record I think you always have those fears that you'll somehow never be able to write a good song again. But I think between us we would never allow something that we weren't happy with to be released. I can imagine it taking us 10 years to finish something – but I'd rather that than be a band who regress with each release.” Shedding some light on the intra-band, in-studio creative process, keyboard player Tom Furse mentions an ever-evolving playlist featuring “so much, the usual – Beatles, Sabbath, Kraftwerk also Eno, J Dilla, Metroplex/Trax Records…but as always psychedelic music from all over the world, soul, funk, dub…”

Further input came from producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Paul McCartney, Foster The People) on the track Falling Star. There was also a crucial role for a new piece of kit. Badwan reveals that Richard Russell, boss of their label XL, “had the pyramid synth from our Changing The Rain video built for us.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Beautifully produced, deep, melodic, doomy yet somehow skyscraping album. Great songs, bringing the past into the future. Their best album.

TRACK LISTING

1. Chasing Shadows
2. First Day Of Spring
3. So Now You Know
4. In And Out Of Sight
5. Jealous Sun
6. Falling Star
7. I See You
8. Change Your Mind
9. Mine And Yours
10. Sleepwalk

"Kid A is like getting a massive eraser out and starting again," Thom Yorke said in October 2000, the week this album became the British band's first Number One record in America. "I find it difficult to think of the path we've chosen as 'rock music'."

"In texture and structure, Kid A, Radiohead's fourth album, renounced everything in rock that, to Yorke in particular, reeked of the tired and overfamiliar: clanging arena-force guitars, verse-chorus-bridge song tricks.

With producer Nigel Godrich, Yorke, guitarist Ed O'Brien, drummer Phil Selway, bassist Colin Greenwood and guitarist Jonny Greenwood created an enigma of slippery electronics and elliptical angst, sung by Yorke in an often indecipherable croon. The closest thing to riffing on Kid A was the fuzz-bass lick in "The National Anthem"; the guitars in "Morning Bell" sounded more like seabirds.

The result was the weirdest hit album of that year, by a band poised to be the modern-rock Beatles, following the breakthrough of OK Computer. In fact, only 10 months into the century, Radiohead had made the decade's best album — by rebuilding rock itself, with a new set of basics and a bleak but potent humanity. Yorke's loathing of celebrity inspired the contrary beauty of "How to Disappear Completely," with its watery orchestration and his voice flickering in and out of earshot. His electronically squished pleading in "Kid A" sounded like a baby kicking inside a hard drive.

Ironically, Radiohead, by the end of this decade, had fulfilled much of that modern-Beatles promise by following rock's first commandment: Go your own way.

"Music as a lifelong commitment — if that's what someone means by rock, great," Yorke said in that 2000 interview. By that measure, with Kid A, Radiohead made the first true rock of the future." - Rolling Stone.

TRACK LISTING

1 Everything In Its Right Place
2 Kid A
3 The National Anthem
4 How To Disappear Completely
5 Treefingers
6 Optimistic
7 In Limbo
8 Idioteque
9 Morning Bell
10 Motion Picture Soundtrack
11 Untitled

THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 1997

This is the album that started to show their real potential and their first use of electronics (which mix beautifully with their older rawer rock style). The album that pushed them to the very top.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: There can be few greater endorsements for anything than winning over a convinced sceptic. I started off from the premise that I didn't like this corporate indie sellout, but that, I am happy to say, proved an utterly impossible position to maintain after I actually heard it. Every last track is an utterly mesmerizing glimpse into blighted existence; a beautifully rendered, multilayered kaleidoscope of angst. 'Classic' is an overused word, but this is precisely the kind of idea it was coined for.

TRACK LISTING

1. Airbag
2. Paranoid Android
3. Subterranean Homesick Alien
4. Exit Music (For A Film)
5. Let Down
6. Karma Police
7. Fitter Happier
8. Electioneering
9. Climbing Up The Walls
10. No Surprises
11. Lucky
12. The Tourist

Vampire Weekend’s third album is ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’, released on XL Recordings.

When asked in interviews about the new record, the band have been guarded in describing it, but have stated the album is darker and warmer, saying in Triple J Magazine that “this is our most American album” and citing New York City at night as inspiration for the new sound. The band told interviewer Zan Roew that they focused on “good songwriting”, saying “we wanted the songs to just be amazing”, working towards a sound in which “something that sounds traditional and maybe something that seems modern come together and it feels natural.”

The cover art is a 1966 photograph by Neal Boenzi of the smoggiest day in New York City history, on which the air pollution killed at least 169 people.

TRACK LISTING

1. Obvious Bicycle
2. Unbelievers
3. Step
4. Diane Young
5. Don't Lie
6. Hannah Hunt
7. Everlasting Arms
8. Finger Back
9. Worship You
10. Ya Hey
11. Hudson
12. Young Lion

‘Amok’ is the debut album from Thom Yorke (Radiohead)’s new project Atoms For Peace.

Atoms For Peace include Thom Yorke (vocals, keyboards, programming, guitars), Nigel Godrich (production & programming), Joey Waronker (drums), Mauro Refosco (percussion), Flea (bass).

In Thom Yorke’s own words: “We formed to learn to play ‘The Eraser’ record, if you know that, and discovered a really good energy doing that… and it fell into this record. I’m still reeling from being on tour for much of the year but we are planning to get together and play etc next year! We’re figuring all that out right now. Atoms… is an ongoing and open ended project, where it leads I know not for certain... which is what is nice about it.”

TRACK LISTING

01 Before Your Very Eyes
02 Default
03 Ingenue
04 Dropped
05 Unless
06 Stuck Together Pieces
07 Judge Jury And Executioner
08 Reverse Running
09 Amok

ULTRA LIMITED DELUXE VERSIONS ON CD AND VINYL.

‘Amok’ is the debut album from Thom Yorke (Radiohead)’s new project Atoms For Peace.

Atoms For Peace include Thom Yorke (vocals, keyboards, programming, guitars), Nigel Godrich (production & programming), Joey Waronker (drums), Mauro Refosco (percussion), Flea (bass).

In Thom Yorke’s own words: “We formed to learn to play ‘The Eraser’ record, if you know that, and discovered a really good energy doing that… and it fell into this record. I’m still reeling from being on tour for much of the year but we are planning to get together and play etc next year! We’re figuring all that out right now. Atoms… is an ongoing and open ended project, where it leads I know not for certain... which is what is nice about it.”

Over the Summer Radiohead have released a series of limited edition 12" singles featuring tracks from their "King Of Limbs" album, remixed by electronic producers / artist who are currently exciting and inspiring the band.

This double CD compiles all the tracks from the 12"s, in chronological order.

Named after the island in Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel 'Island', "Pala", recorded over the last 12 months in locations across London, St. Albans, Rye, New York and Yvetot, France, has been produced in part by Paul Epworth along with the band. The artwork for the album features a parrot photograph from one of famed fashion photographer Solve Sundsbo's personal projects, while the album also sees musical collaborations with The Harlem Gospel Choir and Holy Ghost's Alex Frankel. The release follows the success of the band's debut album which received two Brit nominations as well as picking up a Mercury Prize nomination.

Radiohead's eighth studio album, "The King Of Limbs", is an experimental progression on the sound of its predecessor, 2007's "In Rainbows". Lyrically the record harks back to 2001's "Amnesiac", and indeed the heavy use of electronic instrumentation and distortion also recalls both "Amnesia" and "Kid A". Announced only a week before its intended release date, "The King Of Limbs" is named after an ancient tree near Radiohead's recording studio.

Some bands stay in a holding pattern their whole careers. Others jerk the steering wheel hard and fly off the road. On their second album, Vampire Weekend do neither. Or maybe they do both. “I think we sound more like Vampire Weekend than we did on the first record,” says drummer Christopher Tomson.

"Contra" pulls off a series of impressive feats: It’s bustling with fresh ideas and yet it sounds immediately familiar; it’s heavily layered but taut and kinetic; it chews ravenously through sound palettes and rhythms, and yet it’s nimble and assured; it’s still breezy, and yet it smolders with a newfound emotional heft. “It’s sadder than the first one, a bit more sentimental,” says singer Ezra Koenig. The songs are catchy, fast, twinkling, clattering – the darker themes of loss, doubt and regret accumulate almost imperceptibly, but they land a powerful blow.

TRACK LISTING

1 Horchata
2 White Sky
3 Holiday
4 California English
5 Taxi Cab
6 Run
7 Cousins
8 Giving Up The Gun
9 Diplomat’s Son
10 I Think Ur A Contra

Already the winner of a Brit Award (Adele was voted the 'Critics Choice' - the most exciting new British artist expected to 'make it big' in 2008) (and didn't she just!), "19" is Adele's debut album. She combines the full range of her influences: Etta James, Jill Scott, Bjork, Dusty Springfield, Billy Bragg, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, The Cure and Peggy Lee with her stunning voice on this great debut. Includes her classic debut single "Chasing Pavements"

TRACK LISTING

1. Daydreamer
2. Best For Last
3. Chasing Pavements
4. Cold Shoulder
5. Crazy For You
6. Melt My Heart To Stone
7. First Love
8. Right As Rain
9. Make You Feel My Love
10. My Same
11. Tired
12. Hometown Glory

Dealing in genres the band have dubbed 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa' and 'Upper West Side Soweto', Vampire Weekend is a breath of fresh air, both musically and lyrically, with this New York band endeavouring to make music that is anything but straight ahead rock. This is indie-rock that isn't indie-rock, a joyously exuberant carnival of melody and rhythm. Strings. Organs. Afro-funk guitars. Courtly 18th century harpsichord. A bit of post-punk (maybe Franz Ferdinand crossed with the Bhundu Boys?). Lyrics about grammar and architecture and preferred bus routes and the British Imperial origins of American preppie fashion. With fleet-footed pizzazz Vampire Weekend deploy all these to craft a tinglingly refreshing sound. Anyone for brainy party music?

TRACK LISTING

1 Mansard Roof
2 Oxford Comma [Explicit]
3 A-Punk
4 Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa [Explicit]
5 M79
6 Campus
7 Bryn
8 One (Blake's Got A New Face)
9 I Stand Corrected
10 Walcott [Explicit]
11 The Kids Don't Stand A Chance

Following the landmark independent digital release of Radiohead's seventh LP whereby customers could name their own price, the experimental British rock stalwarts finally issued "In Rainbows" in its physical formats. Musically, this release can be seen as a logical culmination of much of the band's previous work, incorporating the avant-garde electronics of later records and more traditional guitar-heavy elements synonymous with their inception. The overt political themes of previous album "Hail To The Thief" are largely jettisoned for an altogether more romantic milieu, with songs such as "Videotape" and "Nude" showcasing the intimate nature of singer Thom Yorke's voice.

"Cripple Crow" finds Devendra continuing his extraordinary growth as a writer, vocalist and musician. Songs like "Now That I Know" and "I Do Dig A Certain Girl" among others provide more of the hushed, mysterious acoustic alchemy that delighted listeners on preceding set though the new tunes show still greater artistic depth and delicacy. Other performances are more elaborate featuring a range of electric instruments, rock rhythm section, sitar, flute, violin, cello, exotic percussion, et cetera. Banhart and company evoke a tribe of sun-dappled psychedelic gypsies on "When They Come", while "Long Haired Child" has a more acid-damaged garage-band cut and thrust. "Pensando Enti", "Quedate Luna" and "Luna De Margarita" are gorgeous ballads sung in lilting Spanish. All in all, "Cripple Crow" witnesses Banhart furthering his mastery of the acoustic/experimental idiom he helped pioneer as well providing himself with fresh challenges an artist.

Six years, three top five albums, numerous stellar collaborations, countless globetrotting technicolour punk carnival live appearances – now, on CD, XL bring us Basement Jaxx: "The Singles". Spanning everything from the proto punk garage of early hit "Flylife" to the Motown monster that is "Good Luck", taking in worldwide smashes like "Red Alert", "Where's Your Head At", "Rendez Vu" and "Romeo". Where most greatest hits albums fall down at least once there can be no argument that this collection delivers the bangers and nothing but.

Has anyone ever done this before? Achieved massive commercial success and followed it with three totally uncompromising, madly unexpected records. You have to admire their integrity. This album is something of a consolidation of their post- "OK Computer" direction. While it's choc-ful of analogue electronics, jazz-rock oddness, techno Gothic wierdness, scatterbrained drum-machines and insanely-inspiring words - there is actually more to properly grab a hold of this time. There's a number of conventional(ish!) piano songs including one acheingly gorgeous standout called "Sail To The Moon". There's also more obvious(ish!) rockier moments like "2+2=5" which ends in punky, thrashed guitar, and "A Punch-Up At A Wedding" that has lyrics you can follow (!!) and a sweet, undulating bassline. This album's just as challenging as the last two, but a lot more rewarding.

The band's second album, recorded on 8-track analog tape in Jack's living room, was released in 2000 and today is a cult classic.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Detroit brother / sister duo's second album. Fantastic heavy raw blues that bring to mind Royal Trux / Blues Explosion at their best.