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James Holden

Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities

    Electronic explorer James Holden returns with a generically unconstrained new album of rave music for a parallel universe that seeks to reconnect with the feelings of hope, freedom and possibility that characterised the earliest days of dance music, coming to terms with his own musical past in the process.

    In contrast to its jazz adjacent live band predecessor The Animal Spirits, Holden's trippy fourth solo artist album is more of a continuous sound collage, artfully juxtaposing audio worlds and field recordings with an anything goes approach in the style of early nineties pastoral classics like The KLF’s Chill Out and the sprawling radioscapes of Future Sound of London.

    Physical formats include a colourful 12 page booklet of original illustrations by Jorge Velez (Professor Genius).


    STAFF COMMENTS

    Barry says: James Holden has been an inspiration for many a year, deftly moving from jagged instrumental genius ‘The Inheritors’ through jazzy ambient fare ‘Animal Spirits’ to this latest album, imbued with the spirit of both. It's a sprawling and multi-faceted triumph, another indication that Holden is one of the greatest producers around.

    TRACK LISTING

    1) You Are In A Clearing
    2) Contains Multitudes
    3) Common Land
    4) Trust Your Feet
    5) The Missing Key
    6) In The End You’ll Know
    7) Continuous Revolution
    8) Four Ways Down The Valley
    9) Worlds Collide Mountains Form
    10) The Answer Is Yes
    11) Infinite Fadeout
    12) You Can Never Go Back

    Luke Abbott

    Translate

      'Translate' is the first solo artist album in six years from Norfolk synthesizer specialist Luke Abbott: a strikingly direct and assured return to the solo music-making game following a productive diversion into live improvisation with his experimental jazz trio Szun Waves.

      At times dark and ominous, others bright and welcoming, these eleven electronic vignettes form a dramatic and undeniably cinematic body of work which functions as a fitting widescreen soundtrack to our new now.

      The lumbering rhythms, strident synths and distinctive touchstones of 'Translate' represent a musical reconciliation with the directness of the wave-making rolling synth-kraut of Abbott’s forthright debut 'Holkham Drones'.

      Newly-reinvigorated and with a new sense of musical purpose, this is Luke Abbott’s sound fully realised and never so sure of itself.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: 'Holkham Drones' was one of my favourite albums for many a year, and still gets a good playing nowadays but nothing has come close to the mind-melting electronic bliss-blanket of 'Translate'. Perfectly split between hypnotic electronic counterpoints and synthy, IDM levity.

      TRACK LISTING

      1) Kagen Sound
      2) Our Scene
      3) Flux
      4) Ames Window
      5) Roses
      6) Earthship
      7) Living Dust
      8) River Flow
      9) Feed Me Shapes
      10) Luna
      11) August Prism

      Holden & Zimpel

      Long Weekend EP

        UK synth wizard James Holden teams up with Polish clarinet guru Waclaw Zimpel for a four track mini album of deliciously Krauty improvisations, recorded back in the summer of 2018 when Zimpel (and, on "Tuesday" and "Wednesday", his longtime collaborator guitarist Jakub Ziolek) joined Holden in his London studio for a series of musical experiments; with the goal of completing one track per day. The resultant "Long Weekend EP" is a captivating, in-the-moment lyrical conversation between alto clarinet and modular synth, judiciously supplemented by guitar, organ, voice and assorted percussion and glued together with atmospheric syrupy tape overdubs. A meeting of two like-minded masters of their instrument, whose disparate musical journeys now converge in a shared love of all things hypnotic and trancey. 

        STAFF COMMENTS

        Matt says: A well trodden path but none the less arresting when done proper; the merger of advanced synthesis and organic instrumentation can yield dazzling results - perfectly demonstrated here by two master craftsmen.

        TRACK LISTING

        Saturday
        Sunday
        Tuesday (ft Jakub Ziolek)
        Wednesday (ft Jakub Ziolek)

        Viv Albertine

        The Vermillion Border

          THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

          After a twenty five year hiatus from music, Viv Albertine, lead guitarist and songwriter of the hugely-influential ‘punk’ band ‘The Slits’, released her first full-length album. ‘The Vermilion Border’ includes a prestigious guest line-up of guest bassists and even reunites her with Dennis Bovell - producer of The Slits seminal 1979 album ‘The Cut’. Featured bassists: Jack Bruce, Jenny Lee Lindberg, Tina Weymouth, Wayne Nunes, Glen Matlock, Richard Pike, Dennis Bovell, Norman Watt Roy, Danny Thompson. Plus guest guitar from Mick Jones! Now for RSD 2019 it will be available as a gatefold sleeved, 2LP 180g red & orange vinyl.

          Technological force-of-nature Leafcutter John teams up with fellow stalwarts of idiosyncratic electronica Border Community for the release of his masterful seventh artist album: the small-yet- perfectly formed joyously utopian artefact ‘Yes! Come Parade With Us’.

          Interweaving layers of lyrical modular synth and occasional guest drums (from Tom Skinner and Sebastian Rochford) with a set of field recordings collected during his sixty mile walk along the Norfolk coastal path during the summer of 2017, these seven bright-eyed folk anthems sing with positivity and a sense of place and see Leafcutter John on career-defining form.

          TRACK LISTING

          Doing The Beeston Bump
          Yes! Come Parade With
          Us
          Pillar
          Elephant Bones
          Stepper Motor
          This Way Out
          Dunes

          James Holden

          A Cambodian Spring: Original Soundtrack

            The latest addition to the James Holden archive is an album of solo synth work originally written to accompany the critically-acclaimed documentary ‘A Cambodian Spring’: fourteen tracks of pulsing melancholy, foreboding drone and even the occasional burst of beatless trance in the form of the uplifting arpeggios of surefire album highlight ‘Solidarity Theme’.

            Picking up where his classic 2013 album ‘The Inheritors’ left off (and giving ‘Self-Playing Schmaltz’ a new cinematic airing) Holden’s debut soundtrack project combines the sound palette of his beloved Prophet 600 with a cranky old Hammond organ to showcase the full breadth of his musical tastes across the epic documentary format.

            The LP includes digital download code and sleevenotes by ‘Imaginary Cities’ author Darran Anderson.


            TRACK LISTING

            Srey Pov’s Theme
            Monk’s Theme Part I
            Downturn Medley
            Solidarity Theme (Villagers)
            Monk’s Theme Part II
            The Villagers
            Disintegration Drone I
            Solidarity Theme (Release)
            Monk’s Theme Part III (Exit)
            Reprise
            Disintegration Drone II (Torn Cone)
            Disintegration Drone III (Death Rattle)
            Self-Playing Schmaltz
            Srey Pov’s Theme (End Credits)

            James Holden & The Animal Spirits

            The Animal Spirits

              Let electronics guru James Holden and his newly-expanded band The Animal Spirits transport us to a magical other world with this third album: a bold new set of synth-led folk-trance standards, fusing elements of psychedelia, krautrock, world and spiritual jazz with Holden's usual propulsive melodic vigour into his most ambitious - but also most accessible - work to date.

              The synth-and-drum core of Holden's Inheritors-era live touring outfit has picked up several members along the way, incorporating saxophone, cornet, recorder and cosmic percussion, all recorded live together in one room under the direction of band leader Holden to produce a genre-blending new form of universal music that feels inherently fluid and alive.

              STAFF COMMENTS

              Barry says: Holden, and his newly inherited (pun intended) band segue away from the dense, fractured electronic excursions of yesteryear, into a genre-bending percussive world-music odyssey. Progressive, multi-layered and incredibly rewarding. Another slice of genius from the Border Community head honcho.

              TRACK LISTING

              Incantation For Inanimate Object
              Spinning Dance
              Pass Through The Fire
              Each Moment Like The First
              The Beginning & End Of The World
              Thunder Moon Gathering
              The Animal Spirits
              The Neverending
              Go Gladly Into The Earth

              RocketNumberNine

              Two Ways - Coloured Vinyl Edition

                London-born brothers Ben and Tom Page return from their travels with Neneh Cherry with a crisp new black-and-white split colour vinyl 12”, the James Holden-produced two track celebration of synth and drums "Two Ways". Accomplished jazz drummer Tom also plays in Holden’s own live band so Border Community provides a fitting home for his live take recordings of the RocketNumberNine brothers’ in-the-moment improvisations, capturing them at the peak of their performative powers. "Two Ways" sees afro-tinged percussive melodics and a beefy bass component build to a wild and joyful free jazz crescendo. The insistent rave stabs of flipside "Balance Of Imbalance" meanwhile power ahead noisily over judiciously placed atonal metallic clangs and the frenetic rattle of Tom’s vintage drum kit.

                Tom McRae & The Standing Band

                Did I Sleep And Miss The Border?

                Recorded in Wales, Los Angeles, and Somerset this is Mercury and Brit nominated McRae's 7th studio album, and is the follow up to 2013's critically acclaimed "From The Lowlands".

                Featuring his international band, this new album of soulful alternative Folk/Americana has been garnering rave reviews.

                **** MOJO "A dark triumph"
                **** Q Magazine "finds real beauty in despair"
                8/10 UNCUT, "a thrilling air of doom...beautiful" 


                TRACK LISTING

                1. The High Life
                2. The Dogs Never Sleep
                3. Christmas Eve,1943
                4. Expecting The Rain
                5. Let Me Grow Old With You
                6. We Are The Mark.
                7. My Desert Bride
                8. Lover, Still You.
                9. Hoping Against Hope

                Luke Abbott

                Wysing Forest

                  Four years of slow-burning success on from the rolling primal rhythms and joyous arpeggios of his 2010 debut album 'Holkham Drones', Luke Abbott makes a bold return to the Border Community with his sublime second album offering ‘Wysing Forest’.

                  Named after the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire who hosted Luke as their first ever musician-in-residence over a six week period during the winter of 2012, the album comprises a series of improvised live recordings, edited and compiled after a period of after-the-act reflection into one rapturous movement. The finished article’s 52-minute duration may have been chopped into nine track-sized chunks for its official album release, but this is most definitely an album which is greater than the sum of its parts, designed to be listened to in one immersive go.

                  “‘Wysing Forest’ has a very particular arc to it an the tracks only make sense in the context of that arc,” Luke explains. “Structuring the album to work as a whole was quite a challenge, almost more of a challenge than making the music, but I think I’ve ended up with something that has a kind of internal logic.” And though only a pair of tracks - ‘Free Migration’ and ‘Highrise’, together forming the subtle peak that marks the mid-point of the album - approach ‘Holkham Drones” idiosyncratic lumpen danceability, it is thanks to Luke’s perfectly judged elegant transitional dynamics that neither piece - although as dancefloor-directed as anything he has ever done before - feels out of place amongst the album’s more mellow moments.

                  Wesley Matsell

                  Total Order Of Being

                    Welsh mystic Wesley Matsell returns to Border Community with an ebullient EP of 90s tinged dance utopianism. File alongside the good-natured old school stylings of Orbital, Lone and The MFA. Thoroughly road tested in the DJ sets of James Holden, the staccato gasps of rave banger ‘Total Order Of Being’ exude a melodious, propulsive appeal.

                    A trio of companion tracks seal the deal: ‘Future Beacon’ combines sacred, mystical arpeggios and rattling breakbeats; ‘Dowlais Wheelie Crew’s layers of vibrant synths form a decidedly modern groove; and ‘Rite Of Pant’ is a rousing exercise in handmade primal proto-house.

                    This is the final release in a collectable four part series of limited vinyl (500 copies). All four covers fit together to reveal a larger picture by UK designer Jack Featherstone.

                    Holden

                    The Illuminations

                      Another handy 12” of DJ tools, de- and re-constructed from the raw materials of James Holden’s ‘The Inheritors’ album and thoroughly road-tested in his own DJ sets. This time it is the turn of trippy instrumental album interlude ‘The Illuminations’.

                      In its ‘12” Version’ club incarnation, Holden’s mystical cascading arpeggios are juxtaposed with a skittering Detroitian thump to cater for a multitude of bewilderment-inducing dancefloor moments the world over.

                      The ‘Drumsolo’ strips things back to functional old school techno basics as we get to eavesdrop on Holden jamming with his modified DR-110 drum machine.

                      Finally, the extended ‘Arpsolo’ draws out the melodies of the original into a dreamy Boards Of Canada-esque bonus indulgence.

                      Holden

                      The Inheritors

                        ‘The Inheritors’ is the eagerly awaited follow-up to James Holden’s rightfully acclaimed ‘The Idiots Are Winning’ milestone of 2006: a whole new world and complete mythology in album form, which stretches way beyond the traditional confines of ‘dance’ music.

                        Holden has woven a rich aural tapestry that treads a singular path. Bold, epic and psychedelic, striking a delicate balance between weighty tome and transformative trip, and with a production aesthetic that is all his own, Holden is certain that this is the album he has always wanted to make.

                        ‘The Inheritors’ is an album that fully immerses you in a timeless space with abundant hidden depths.

                        Nathan Fake

                        Paean - Inc. Lone / Lukid Remixes

                          Fake’s ‘Steam Days’ album opener ‘Paean’ gets the remix treatment from two of Nathan’s favourite young British electronica upstarts: sometime Werk Discs brethren Lone, and Lukid.

                          Recent R&S album recruit Lone takes the Fake original and makes it very much his own, as 'Paean’s wistful strains slot seamlessly into Lone's seductive wobbly, wonky, early Nineties retro-futurist world view.

                          Fresh from 'Lonely At The Top' album duty, Lukid’s rework is a more transformative affair, sprinkling his trademark bass heavy hypnotic drum mantras with a suitably warped smattering of Fake’s mystical twinkles.

                          Finally, Fake’s own bonus contemplative ‘Coda’ version wrings every last ambient drop out of his utopian original.

                          The ultra-collectable 10” vinyl edition (with artwork by Jack Featherstone) is strictly limited to just 500 copies.

                          The New Mastersounds

                          Breaks From The Border

                          "The New Mastersounds release their first ever US-recorded album, 'Breaks From The Border'. 'Breaks...' marks a new era in the band's sonic landscape by topping their unique syncopated grooves with group vocal stylings. Band tested, fan approved. After a major US festival tour, instead of flying home to England, they diverted to El Paso, Texas, from where they made the short journey to the outskirts of the border town of Tornillo. Sonic Ranch is a residential studio in the middle of a huge pecan orchard, and this was the setting for the band’s seventh studio album, Breaks from the Border. “This group was one of the few bands to draw the festival’s jam, funk and hipster crowds to one stage.” - Jambands.com.

                          TRACK LISTING

                          01. Take What You Need 3:11
                          02. Run The Gauntlet 4:20
                          03. On The Border 4:11
                          04. Free Man 3:20
                          05. Freckles 3:43
                          06. Passport 4:44
                          07. Walk In These Shoes 5:50
                          08. Josus 4:56
                          09. Can You Get It? 7:20
                          10. Turn It Up 3:08
                          11. Up In The Air 3:38

                          The Border Surrender

                          Lean Season EP

                          Following on from the remarkable and gloriously haunting single “Oh Mary”, The Border Surrender return with their second EP “Lean Season”. Having firmly established themselves in amongst the fray of the UK’s most exciting new acts, the North London quartet demonstrate their remarkable ability to evolve and build upon their own foundations with this, a mesmerising recording that delicately drifts away from the earlier proclaimed tags of Americana Folk that were drawn upon on their debut EP, and shifts itself towards the other Southern state influences of Blues and Gospel. Released on Smoky Carrot Records, “Lean Season” places itself in the unusual territory of being not only technically comprehensive and steeped in heavily educated influences, but of also being filled with overwhelmingly anthemic choruses and masterful pop driven hooks.

                          Although utterly unique in their production and execution The Border Surrender, to a certain degree, take pride in wearing their influences on their combined sleeve. In fact, each of the four songs included on this record were specifically chosen to represent the different styles and genres that the quartet have drawn upon to create their sound. Opening the EP in magnificent style is the ethereal and euphoric melody of “If You Pass Me By”. Written with the sound of Springsteen’s Nebraska album in mind, but resulting in a more muscular full band sound that has drawn comparisons to The Arcade Fire, this composition is best described as experimental-country, and could be viewed as the centre piece to the entire EP. The lyrics follow the feelings of an unfortunate soul, who can only look on at people enjoying the spoils of success while he walks the streets with his memories of a grand dream that in hindsight and passing looks more like grand delusion. Whereas, the rallying, almost biblical, “Call To Prayer” and the wistful “What Happened at The Estuary” are gleefully infected with an honest Blues tint, which the band proclaim is largely due to a love of modern blues based artists such as The Black Keys and Nick Cave. However, sandwiched between in the middle, we can hear an audible difference in the approach to the more pop-driven folk sound of “The Mariners Wife” whose bouncing verse and joyful chorus sits in stark contrast to the lyrics of its two worn out subjects. These words recall a tale of a retired navy captain, who looks back on his life with a woman who he left his position to marry. She now lives under his shadow and has almost completely lost her own identity, being now constantly referred to as the Mariners wife rather than her own title. On listening to this superlative EP in its entirety, the complexities and comfortable contradictions of each recording truly find their way to the front and mark this out as a highly accomplished and poignant record; one which will no doubt dominate the listeners ear phones for quite a time to come.

                          Nathan Fake

                          Hard Islands

                            "Hard Islands" showcases a tougher, more grown-up sound than Nathan Fake's hugely successful "Drowning In A Sea Of Love" debut, as the producer continues to mature in perfect step with Britain's youthful new wave of danceable electronica. The album edges towards the tougher end of electronica occupied by Warp and Rephlex stalwarts Clark and Aphex Twin, where spine-tingling melody meets Fake's acute awareness of what works on the dancefloor.

                            RJAP

                            Taste The Whup At Oki Dog

                              After fifteen years creating twangin' Scandinavian garage-punk rouser, aspiring rock'n'roll icon Robert Johnson and his band Punchdrunks, have let a bunch of friends - including Finland's Bangkok Impact, members of electro-vixens Rev19n and RJ's long-term contempories Bob Hund, remix the music, creating a long player of startling cinemascope surf-rock, sleek robotic disco and 21st century Krautrock, all under 'Bladerunner' skies.

                              The Sunset Sound

                              Border Town

                                Great guitar pop from this Reading band, Beach Boys harmonies and catchy guitar riffs.


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