2024 ushers in a brand new Barry Adamson album entitled, ‘Cut To Black’ The album swaggeringly embraces Adamson’s trademark genre hopping compositions, covering Pop, Soul, Jazz, Hip Hop and Gospel.

A must for fans of all things Cinematic Soul, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Post Punk, Massive Attack, Unloved and much more

TRACK LISTING

1. The Last Words Of Sam Cooke
2. Demon Lover
3. Cut To Black
4. Manhattan Satin
5. These Would Be Blues
6. Please Don’t Call On Me
7. Amen White Jesus
8. One Last Midnight
9. Was It A Dream?
10. Waiting For The End Of Time

Leon Dinero returns with more rocksteady magic from producer Victor Axelrod.

Originally written and recorded by James Hunter, "Heartbreak" gets the Axelrod treatment, turning this mid-tempo R&B gem on its head. The laid back vocal and tasteful organ give "Heartbreak" a wholly fresh vibe whilst staying respectfully true to the original.

On the flip is "Cut Both Ways" an instrumental version courtesy of The Inversions. One listen and you'll find that these are some of the baddest musicians in the game.

TRACK LISTING

Side A – Heartbreak
Side B – Cut Both Ways

As the first-ever album composed entirely of sampled material, "Endtroducing" is a landmark in the history of electronic music.

its influence reverberates through the years, inspiring countless artists and solidifying DJ Shadow's place as a visionary in the realm of sample-based production. Each track tells a unique story, from the hypnotic groove of "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt" to the cinematic atmosphere of "Midnight In A Perfect World." Shadow's meticulous craftsmanship shines through, showcasing his unparalleled skill in constructing beats that resonate with both intensity and emotion.

TRACK LISTING

Best Foot Forward
Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
The Number Song
A - Changeling
B - Transmission
What Does Your Soul Look Like , Pt. 4
Stem / Long Stem
A - Transmission 2
B - Mutual Slump
Organ Donor
Why Hip-hop Sucks In '96
Midnight In A Perfect World
Napalm Brain / Scatter Brain - Medley
A - What Does Your Soul Look Like Pt. 1 / Blue Sky Revisit
B - Transmission 3

LNTG brings another batch of supremely executed edits to the table, timeless tracks from the vaults given a fresh feel, extended, reworked and reloved direct from the Stems.

A side features Disco Funk royalty reworked to perfection. On the flip we have 2 classic party anthems.

LNTG at his best!

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: LNTG has become synonymous with working the bigger hits of the disco and soul spectrum into workable, modern dancefloor epics. His formula ain't changed on number 13 of this Tuff Cuts series, with three well known numbers receiving his usual high grade surgery.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Want You 4 Myself
B1. Peg
B2. 2 B Real

Pejzaz (aka Bartosz Kruczyski) returns with two captivating new collage albums. Divided into two records LIST I (which was released end of September this year) & LIST II - which premieres end of movember - delves into the realm of 90s/Y2K Eastern European CD releases. Employing hundreds of samples, Pejzaz sculpts a mesmerizing and distinctive body of work.

LIST II guides the listener into the night, combining trip hop and dub influences, dusty samples, wailing blues guitars, and cold-wave synthesizers. Its haunting soundscapes provide an apt soundtrack for winter in Eastern Europe.

Notably, this marks Pejzaz first foray into a fully instrumental album. Although devoid of lyrics, the bittersweet blend of samples infuses the music with a profoundly Polish essence, further enhancing its distinctive allure.

TRACK LISTING

A1 List II
A2 Duchy Lasu
A3 Imperium Znaków
A4 Blues Trzeci
A5 Bez Grawitacji
A6 Ogród

B1 Serce
B2 Po Godzinach
B3 Wizje
B4 Dziennik Pisany Noc?
B5 Linia Pi?kna

Director's Cut is Kate's 9th studio album and was released on 16 May 2011 on Kate's own label Fish People.

On Directors Cut Kate revisits a selection of tracks from her albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

Kate has re-recorded some elements whilst keeping the best musical performances of each song - making it something of a director's cut but in sound, not vision.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Flower Of The Mountain
A2. The Song Of Solomon
A3. Lily
B1. Deeper Understanding
B2. The Red Shoes
B3. This Woman’s Work
C1. Moments Of Pleasure
C2. Never Be Mine
D1. Top Of The City
D2. And So Is Love
D3. Rubberband Girl

The car windows are down, the air is warm, and the possibilities are boundless. On Cut Worms, the new self-titled album from Brooklyn-based Max Clarke, the singer-songwriter and musician continues his exploration of what he calls “pop essentialism”. Mining the golden hits of yesteryear for a timeless double A-side sound, he contemplates age-old questions through a modern lens. Here, he leaves behind the legendary studio and sought-after producers for a more homegrown approach, working with a cast of gifted friends and collaborators. The result is a compact collection of daydream anthems that live between the summer’s hopeful beginnings and the season’s fleeting end.

As opposed to recording the entire album in one chunk at one studio, Clarke varied his methods. Three of the songs were cut from start to finish in his shared rehearsal space. “Don’t Fade Out” and Living Inside” were recorded in Brooklyn by Brian and Michael D’Addario of the Lemon Twigs, who also played piano and bass, respectively, on these two songs. Further basic tracking was done by Rick Spataro (of indie folk band Florist) at his Hudson Valley studio, Onlyness Analog, with contributions from the long standing Cut Worms live band–keyboardist John Andrews, bassist Keven Louis Lareau, and drummer Noah Bond (who played on all three sessions).

A youthful spirit breathes throughout these nine songs. The carnation-adorned school dance serenade of “I’ll Never Make It”; the starry eyed infatuation of “Is it Magic?”; the first fall leaves on the bus ride to school on “Living Inside”–all evoke a place of warmth and safety. Declarations like “Don’t Fade Out”, “Let’s Go Out On The Town”, and “Use Your Love” make high demands for life to change, but beg for us, as people, to keep hold of what makes us human. Clarke wrestles with a paradox–the joys of experience cannot be won without the loss of innocence.

On “Ballad of a Texas King” Clarke sings, ““Hey kid come along... something is wrong... I believe you know... All this to say, only one way that this can go…” It’s as if he’s reaching out to his younger self, letting him know the changes are inevitable. How do we hang on to a dream? How do we not lose ourselves in a world that is lost? The only way out of a nightmare is to keep going. Clarke’s answer lies in his art, where the search for love and the perfect pop song coalesce and transcend him to that other plane. –Kyle Avallone

STAFF COMMENTS

Liam says: Never straying too close to needless nostalgia, Cut Worms' latest is a lovely collection of charming 60s inspired pop-rock that you can't help but love!

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t Fade Out
2. Take It And Smile
3. Ballad Of The Texas King
4. I’ll Never Make It
5. Is It Magic?
6. Let’s Go Out On The Town
7. Living Inside
8. Use Your Love! (Right Now)
9. Too Bad

Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of deliciously trashy rock’n’roll in all its perverse forms. Cut number nine reveals Double Agent 7’s top-secret tactics. Music festival stage regulars, the London-based DJ duo have a long-running monthly residency at one of the capital’s hippest bars where they make it their Mission45 to spin 50s/60s R&B floorfillers all night long. Bravo team, mission complete.

Cut Copy’s January Tape, an ambient project originally released in 2016 as a limited-edition run of 400 cassette tapes, comes to vinyl for the first time on January 2023 via Cutters Records and Diggers Factory.

Dan Whitford of Cut Copy said the project took shape after the band took a break from recording the follow-up to 2013’s Free Your Mind. “Having worked for much of the previous 12 months on a new Cut Copy album, we decided in January it was time to give ourselves a well earned break, “Whitford stated. “But instead of retreating to the wilderness or decompressing on a beach somewhere, we spent ten days in the studio making a collection of ambient instrumental works. We wanted to share outtakes from these sessions in all their unedited glory with you, and put them out as an extremely limited edition cassette, available mainly through our webstores.” Now with this limited vinyl release, more fans will be able to grab a hold of a physical copy of the music (the OG cassette’s are now a long-gone and highly coveted collector’s item).

Composed and recorded by Whitford and Cut Copy’s guitarist Tim Hoey, January Tape was accompanied by a short video, January Trip, by Glen Goetze and Brendan MacLeod. The video takes from several parts of the tape, evoking the lush, cinematic and occasionally disparate moods in the music via split screen themed imagery, both man-made and elemental in origin. More meditation than music video, more hypnosis than hype, January Trip works as a harmonious visual companion to the soundscapes in the tape.

TRACK LISTING

FACE A
1.Part 1
2.Part 2
FACE B
1.Part 3
2.Part 4
3.Part 5

Glaswegian soul star Joesef announces his debut album Permanent Damage. Representing the multilayers of the Scottish singer’s character and heart, over the past two years we have all witnessed an artist who has grown from bedroom pop to master and co-producer of new soul born from new heartbreak. Including singles 'It's Been a Little Heavy Lately' & 'East End Coast' the highly anticipated comes after a raft of media support from the likes of Radio 1, Vogue & Attitude Magazine & comes alongside the announcement of a headline European tour in Q1 of 2023 which includes headlining London's Roudhouse.

TRACK LISTING

1. Shower
2. Permanent Damage
3. Joe
4. It's Been A Little Heavy Lately
5. East End Coast
6. Blue Car
7. Moment
8. Just Come Home With Me Tonight
9. Last Orders
10. Borderline
11. Didn't Know How (To Love You)
12. All Good
13. Apt 22

"Sztossingery EP" (which means 'BANGERSSS' in English) is the fruit of a creative agreement between Belmondawg (one of the most brilliant polish hip-hop artists of the young generation) and The Very Polish Cut Outs.

The result are 6 remixes from Belmondawg's highly acclaimed "Hustle As Usual" mini LP that came out in 2020, created by some of the best Polish producers that are often associated with the label.

The EP starts with a massive remix from Schmoltz of "Pappardelle Al'arrabbiata" - the Belarusian producer transforms the original into a bright-eyed smooth 90's house anthem. Next is the chuggy, rugged, heavy-hitting remix of the cult track "Te Tereny" which has almost kwaito vibes to its mid-tempo stomp. The side A closes with Speek's deep, swirling, broken beat take on 'Wte i Wewte'.

On the flip we get another house shirt-lifter from Polotronic (1/2 of the duo Holiday80), a crazy re-interpretation by Tamten who transforms one of the skits on the album "Agnihotra" into a crazy and psychedelic 135bpm dancefloor affair and last but not least the record ends with the mighty Pejzaz transforming "Te Tereny" into a breezy jungle jam. Tons of variety across the EP - it's another winner for TVPC. Recommended. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Jam packed full of Polish house heat. A smattering of remixers tackle the stems of Belmondawg's ""Hustle As Usual" LP with staggering success.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Pappardelle Alla Arrabbiata (Viva Italia Schmoltz Wersja)
A2. Te Tereny (Niemoc Remix)
A3. Wte I Wewte (Speek Remix)

B1. Poppyn Universe (Polotronic Remix)
B2. Warszawa Plonie (Belmondawg Tribute)
B3. Te Tereny (Pejzaz Remix)

Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of good ol' trashy rock'n'roll in all its vintage vinyl forms. Cut 8 introduces Johnny Alpha and Carl Combover, purveyors of all things sleazy, greasy and raw. When deliquent-at-large Carl isn't pounding drums, he's running the Go-Go Cage, Liverpool's most raucous 60s night. Johnny's Killer Diller radio show, broadcast from a bunker in Wigan, unearthed so many exclusive 45s, it defined a genre. For years this pair have slung records at Europe's coolest clubs and fuzziest festivals. Now they've stewed up a heady mix with pungent notes of tonic wine and spiced rum. Slurp! Feat Tarheel Slim, Richard Anthony, The Champs, Swan Silvertones and a whole heap more.

Pol Rax's album (simply titled "Pol Rax") with the artist's recordings from the years 2000-2010, including the ultra-hit "Dla Ciebie", is an electro-banger that simply had to be put on vinyl!

The Very Polish Cut Outs and Superkasety Records, have chosen, together with the artist, 8 tracks recorded in the first decade of the new millennium - some of them are released for the first time, others have so far lived to see only digital editions (by Seek Records), and only "Dla Ciebie" was released earlier on CD (by the famous French label Kitsune).

For a long time single tracks of Pol Rax were available only on YouTube, and after releasing those few tracks mentioned before, the artist from Wroclaw put the synthesizers aside and retreated into the shadows. It was then that - as Eltron aptly put it - 'a legend was born'.

"Dla Ciebie" and other tracks were gaining popularity on Youtube, famous Polish footballer Artur Boruc even danced to the rhythm of Pol Rax's "#borucdance" and club dancefloors were heating up with tracks like "Rock Your Video" and "Za Pozno".

This album, played and sung entirely by Pol Rax and a few guests, is full of electro-disco bangers for the club and ambitious synth-pop that derseves repeat radio play. There's also the highly cosmic funk of "Goraco" feat. Julee, or the erotic Italo-inspired: "Zatrzymac sie". Pol Rax himself mentions among his inspirations (for the music, but also for the lyrics he writes) the new wave of the 80's, the raw pop of early Bajm or the synth sound of Dwa Plus One.
These sources can be perfectly heard in his music, but there is also something else - sometimes a bit of French touch in the spirit of Daft Punk, other times minimal wave or boogie funk. It a delciously accomplished album that doesn't take itself mega mega serious yet somehow delivers something elegant, mature and likely to be one of your most rotated records of the year. Highly recommended! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: TVPCO come up trumps here with a fabulous LP by Pol Rax. Utterly cosmic in every essence, it skilfully navigates various tempos & moods without ever going on with itself and keeping every last musical utterance vital & mellifluous. A tour de force of modern cosmic prowess. You need!

TRACK LISTING

A1. Dia Ciebie
A2. Rock Your Video
A3. Goraco Feat. Julee
A4. 78 Km/h
B1. Zatrzymac Sie Feat 4 Letters
B2. Szal Sezonowej Mody Feat. Nice2mu
B3. Za Pozno
B4. Full Of Shame Feat. Nice2mu

The shopping malls have closed down, the dressing rooms are filled with ghosts, and the carousel is covered in cobwebs. Nobody Lives Here Anymore, the latest and greatest from Max Clarke as Cut Worms, is the haunted reverie of an American landscape in-and-out of Clarke’s mind. Recorded between May and November 2019 in Memphis, Tennessee, the album is a snow globe of the mid-twentieth-century’s popular music filled with chiming guitars, honkey tonk pianos, and Telstar organs. A constant creator - be it his Cut Worms alter-ego or his day-job illustration work (designing brand logos and beer labels with madhouse technicolor pictures) - writing and making records has always been Max’s driving force.

So after an extensive eighteen-months of touring in support of 2017’s Alien Sunset and 2018’s Hollow Ground, he set about sifting through the fragment pieces and sketches of tunes he’d accumulated, along with a jet-stream of new compositions, mining his life-long devotion to the lost American songbook for inspiration. By the time he flew to Memphis to work with producer Matt Ross-Spang at Sam Phillips Studio, he’d stockpiled more than thirty new songs. A loss of innocence lingers through this 80-minute opus as Clarke attempts to harbor love and meaning inside a world that sold itself out. He explores the wistfulness of the past in search of answers for tomorrow. And while his grand anthems overflow with timeless pop charm, his ability to dig deeper than lollipops and holding hands sets his work apart from the days of 45s and Top of the Pops.

As you could possibly guess from the title, 'Freeze, Melt' is a more restrained affair than recent Cut Copy releases. You could never accuse the Melbourne outfit of resting on their stylistic laurels, covering New Order-esque melancholic pop, hazy summer synth jams, filtered funk, acid house and stadium bangers across their five previous long players. After relocating to Copenhagen, removed from his studio, safe space and record collection, Dan Whitford took inspiration from the minimalism and cool of his Scandinavian surroundings, as well as the immersive sparsity of Four Tet, Floating Points and Terry Riley. Despite this detour into the ambient realm, this remains a Cut Copy LP, so there are still hooks, grooves and playful motifs shimmering amid the restraint - the 'Melt' to the 'Freeze' I guess.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Freeze, Melt is every bit the Cut Copy LP you'd expect, with huge synths and melodic vocals leading the way through a perfectly sequenced set of downbeat percussives, huge melodies and soulful grooves.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cold Water
2. Like Breaking Glass
3. Love Is All We Share
4. Stop, Horizon
5. Running In The Grass
6. A Perfect Day
7. Rain
8. In Transit

The Cut is a sister release to their critically-acclaimed 2019 album, Inside The Rose, and is a vast collection of new music, orchestral interludes and reworkings, and remixes by friends and collaborators including the likes of Ossian Brown (Clyclobe, Coil), Andrew Liles (Current 93, Nurse With Wound), and Scintii (Taiwanese singer-producer, featured on Inside The Rose). Marking the finite end of the Inside The Rose era, The Cut is available  in limited edition CD format, featuring hand-cut slit fabric artwork.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Mirage
2. Infinity Vibraphones Orchestral Mirror
3. Beyond Black Suns (Scintii Remix)
4. If I Were You (Love At The End Of The Human Age)
5. Infinity Vibraphones Postlude
6. Angels Come Down
7. Anti-Gravity Piano Mirror
8. A-R-P Piano Mirror
9. Beyond Black Suns (Andrew Liles Ambient Mix)
10. New Fire
11. Sphinx In Pieces
12. Inside The Rose Orchestral Mirror
13. Where The Trees Are On Fire (Maenad Veyl Remix)
14. Inside The Rose #MeToo Mix (Andrew Liles)
15. Angels Brass Canon
16. Where The Trees Are On Fire (Phone Note)
17. Into The Trees (Ossian Brown Recomposition)
18. Intro Tape, Pt. I
19. Intro Tape, Pt. II

Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of good ol’ trashy rock’n’roll in all its vintage vinyl forms. Club top-cat, Fritz, then took the primitive Buzzsaw sounds online with a series of savage Mixcloud mixes created by record fiends from all over the globe. Now, the high-octane energy of Buzzsaw Joint has manifested into the physical form with a run of compilations on Stag-O-Lee. Get your ears around the wild’n’weird sounds of the extraordinary and inimitable Buzzsaw Joint! Dusty Stylus is a music junkie who lives in the country, a hundred kilometers north of Melbourne, Australia. He spent the late 80s drumming in 60s garage bands and now mainly gets his buzz from collecting post war blues, R B, and good old Aussie garage rock. He hosts a couple of nights, including the ever greasy Bacon Fat, and is often on the DJ bill at the phenomenal Slow Grind Fever. For the sixth Buzzsaw Joint cut, Dustys dusted off a purely top shelf selection of his rare 45 and 78 rpm records. Take the edge off with a hit of this gear here.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Elmore James - I Was A Fool 2:50
2. Two Crows The Diggers Poison Ivy 2:09
3. Dennis Roberts Come On 2:17
4. Jolly Jax Further Up The Road 2:15
5. Tommy Williams & The Fingerpoppers The Feeling Is Real 2:28
6. Ted Taylor - I Do
7. Margo Everyday 2:00
8. Pearl Woods Don't Tell It All 2:26

Side B.
1. Grade Wicker Lulu Brown 2:50
2. Piney Brown I'm Traveling 1:53
3. Tabby Thomas My Baby's Got It 2:32
4. Billy Ray Playboy 2:23
5. Otis Blackwell On That Power Line 2:16
6. Leo Baxter Please Pretty Please 2:10
7. Big Jack Reynolds Made It Up In Your Mind 2:23
8. Moose John Talkin' About Me 2:30

'If Confronted Just Go Mad' sees a fresh direction for The Twang and their first album to include vocals from new female vocalists, both of whom also perform for rising star Tom Grennan. The girls have become an instant hit with twang fans while providing the band with a new optimistic sound. The new album, mixed by Mint Royale legend Neil Claxton, is sure to satisfy the band’s loyal fan-base serving up large slices of the classic Twang emotion that has served them so well over the past decade. Songs confront the fragility of relationships, the lure of addiction, a cover of an eighties indie classic and even an appearance by leading spoken word artist Polarbear. Core writers Phil Etheridge and Jon Watkin have put real emotional energy into making the record, finding a new way of working together which has delivered a sound that feels authentic and exciting. If you get knocked down… just get up… If Confronted Just Go Mad! 

TRACK LISTING

1. Everytime
2. Lovin State
3. It Feels Like ( You're Wasting My Time)
4. Million Miles
5. Time Waits
6. Dream
7. Izal
8. Went Walking
9. Kingdom
10. Tinseltown In The Rain
11. Nothing Gets Better (Feat. Polarbear)

The story’s almost over. A year on from the release of their first album, Here Lies The Body – a busy 12 months in which there was a Christmas album, a live album, countless shows and sessions – they have decided it’s time to part ways.

The goodbye comes in song: the final release, the brand new single Cut To Black, which serves as an epilogue to Here Lies The Body. The 7” vinyl single, is released by Rock Action and features an exclusive b-side with download.

TRACK LISTING

A - Cut To Black
B- Song On Song

Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of good ol trashy rock n roll in all its vintage vinyl forms. Club top-cat, Fritz, then took the primitive Buzzsaw sounds online with a series of savage Mixcloud mixes created by record fiends from all over the globe. Now, the high-octane energy of Buzzsaw Joint has manifested into the physical form with a run of compilations on Stag-O-Lee Records. Get your ears around the wild n weird sounds of the extraordinary and inimitable Buzzsaw Joint! Bill Springer, The Demons, Jimmy Uke & His Islanders, Herb Zane and lots more. 

Who'd have thought that the inclusion of drummer Budgie (Palmolive left to join The Raincoats) and production by UK reggae master Dennis Bovell could've transformed The Slits' freeform punk thrash of 1977 / 1978 into the totally awesome dub-punk-funk mash up you hear here by 1979! Mixing unavoidable hooks, minimalist arrangements and exuberant vocals with a rough street smart style, "Cut" remains as fresh and innovative today as it did back then. Includes their classic tracks - "Typical Girls", "Newtown", "Shoplifting", "Love And Romance", "So Tough" etc. Not to be missed!!

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: TThe Slits untamed, naive and totally wonderful thrash of 1977 was unrepentantly unhindered by the ability to play their instruments. Two years later their sound had been transformed by their having some idea of what they were doing, but certainly not enough to spoil things, only to enable them to express themselves as they had always wanted, adding reggae rhythms and vocal styling into the post punk mix. Their joyful insolence was undimmed - "Shoplifting" extolls the virtues of free stuff ("Ten quid for the lot? We pay fuck all!"), "Typical Girls" deals with lazy gender constraints, "Instant Hit" Keith Levene's drug use, "So Tough" Sid Vicious and John Lydon's antics and "F.M." radio news indoctrination - it is only the method of delivery that differs. And what delivery it is! The songs are amazing, with Ari Up's flat wild German delivery completely perfect and completely unforgettable.

Dark wave techno / goth / electro-punk business here from Poison Arrow on the seductively named Pleasure District. A-side tracks, "If You Don't Love Me" and "Casa Show" both pair skeletal drum machines with gothy, pitch black female vocals and eerie metallic washes. A little Chris & Cosey, a little Massive Attack and a little Tropic of Cancer all thrown into one heady, black eye-linered muse.

Side B sees two remixers, Konrad Black and Razor take turns on the lead track. KB keeps "If You Don't Love Me" deeply in the sex dungeon, soaked in amyl nitrate and scarily carnal. Meanwhile, the Razor dub of said track sees it strung out into a highly taut bubbler, smothering the vocal in tape delay and allowing the various elements plenty of room to make their impact.

Causing an immediate stir around Piccadilly HQ this afternoon this is a beautifully dark and arresting record and one that should more than stand the test of time. Highly recommended! 

Max Clarke has a knack for conjuring up warmth in his music, like endless summer or ageless youth. The 27-yearold’s debut album, ‘Hollow Ground’, crackles with the heat of a love-struck nostalgia, woven together with a palpable Everly Brothers influence and retro sound. It reaches back into decades of plainspoken, unfussy and squarely American storytelling and pulls it forth into 2018.

Some of ‘Hollow Ground’ bloomed from that same period of driven creativity that yielded EP ‘Alien Sunset’; both ‘Like Going Down Sideways’ and ‘Don’t Want To Say Good- Bye’ find new life on the album.

The rest is new. There’s ‘Till Tomorrow Goes Away’, a sheepish love song, thrumming with twangy guitar and a two-step rhythm. ‘Cash For Gold’ channels buoyancy; a doo-wop effect on the sleepy backing vocals build out the dreaminess of Clarke’s own affecting croon.

‘Hollow Ground’ strikes the balance between cerebral and simplicity in his storytelling. His lyrics explore the raw realm of youth, its weightlessness and possibilities but channelled through a lens of restraint. Someone who’s old enough to know better but still gets drawn back into the romanticism of teenage feelings - and knows how to take the listener along, too.

TRACK LISTING

How It Can Be
Coward’s Confidence
Don’t Want To Say Good-Bye
It Won’t Be Too Long
Till Tomorrow Goes Away
Like Going Down Sideways
Think I Might Be In Love
Cash For Gold
Hanging Your Picture Up To Dry
Mad About You

Northern California electronic producer Fred Welton Warmsley III’s solo work as Dedekind Cut (pronounced “dead-da-ken cut”) has evolved from fractured industrial design into increasingly subdued and sublime ambient meditations across two years of dedicated activity. His second full-length collection, Tahoe—so named after the mountain lake town he now calls home—swells with widescreen grandeur, evoking vistas both inner and outer. There are echoes of his earlier, more tempestuous mode in tracks like “MMXIX” and “Spiral” but overall the album skews panoramic and pensive, muted synthetic mists contoured with choral melody, field recordings, and radiant drone. His compositional instincts feel alternately classical, contemporary, and conflicted, befitting an artist whose discography spans labels as divergent as Hospital Productions, Ninja Tune, and NON.

Warmsley characterizes Tahoe as a “time peace,” sifting through “the past, the present, future, and fantasy.” Recorded primarily in New York, with additional sessions sourced from Berlin, Cambridge, and Placer County, California.

TRACK LISTING

1. Equity
2. The Crossing Guard
3. Tahoe
4. MMXIX
5. De-Civilization
6. Spiral
7. Hollow Earth
8. Virtues 

Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of good ol’ trashy rock n roll in all its vintage vinyl forms. Club top-cat, Fritz, then took the primitive Buzzsaw sounds online with a series of savage Mixcloud mixes created by record fiends from all over the globe. Now, the highoctane energy of Buzzsaw Joint has manifested into the physical form with a run of compilations on Stag-O-Lee. The fourth Buzzsaw Cut has been compiled by the Juke Joint Crew, an international trio of music fanatics. These guys spend all their time (and money!) seeking out rare, weird and wonderful original vinyl 45s. They don’t mind getting dusty fingers digging up obscure sounds for their pleasure and yours. 

The Twang have spent over a decade defying expectation. From their beginnings in their Birmingham home town, written off by most of the local scene as the band that wouldn’t make it, through a year of hype and madness and out the other side, they simply did what they had always done; kept making music and playing it to people. So, whilst a clutch of tracks on ‘Either Way, It’s The Best Of The Twang’ will be immediately familiar to anyone who was listening to Radio One in 2007, that triple whammy of playlist conquering songs that is ‘Either Way’, ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Two Lovers’, some may be surprised to know that the album contains many more singles and album tracks that are regarded by those who have supported the band since that debut as their finest moments. The likes of ‘Barney Rubble’, ‘Encouraging Sign’ and ‘Took The Fun’ from ‘Jewellery Quarter’, a trio of tracks that perfectly demonstrate The Twang’s ability to move from cracking dance floor pop to tender love songs with heart melting choruses, show how the band’s musical trajectory post the hype of their debut was resolutely upward. Listen to ‘We’re A Crowd’ or ‘Mainline’ from third album 10:20 and you hear a band confident of their abilities and still pushing forward, adding flashes of Midlands ska and orchestration to songs that are unafraid to talk about wider issues. For The Twang were always more than they were painted.

Buzzsaw Joint was born of a club offering Londoners the chance to revel in the sounds of good ol’ trashy rock’n’roll in all its vintage vinyl forms. Club top-cat, Fritz, then took the primitive Buzzsaw sounds online with a series of savage Mixcloud mixes created by record fiends from all over the globe. Now, the highoctane energy of Buzzsaw Joint has manifested into the physical form with a run of compilations on Stag-O-Lee. Get your ears around the wild’n’weird sounds of the extraordinary and inimitable Buzzsaw Joint! Cut number three comes from Pavinyl, a gent whose ride is a decked-out disco-hearse that, in his words, “puts the fun back into funerals”. Vowing to ‘Keep Music Evil’, his club night, Mockers, has had the British market town of Stroud dancing for a decade. Mockers initially played on the musical blur between Mod and Rock’n’Roll culture, but now ventures further afield. As does the DJ himself - his records have hyped hep clubs from Barcelona to New York. On this Cut, Pavinyl shares 18 exotic pearls. From the jungle to the orient, ancient Egypt to Native America - hold on tight, it’s quite a trip!

Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade. Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.

Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic So Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more extreme, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post industrial music.

Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internet-age has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and her collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."

Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and 2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.” 

Brand new (and also the last one) treat in the The Very Polish Cut-Outs 7" series, usually devoted to quirkier and weirder tracks than the much acclaimed 12" samplers.

Eltron John kicks off the A-side with a reggae influenced rework of a Polish children's song from late 80s called 'Ludzie z Marsa'.

His modern, dubby production and close attention to the smallest details fuses perfectly with abstract lyrics. This serious-not-serious song treats about people who are from Mars and invade Earth, because 'they can't remember what the forest animals look like, what a farce!

Already road tested by the members of TVPC, this Caribbean-East European depth of a groove works perfectly in late night drunk sets.
On the B-side Eddie C visits executive suite of a cruise ship with his extended, melancholic rework of 'Stoneczna Promenada'. The original tune is an old Polish cocktail-lounge classic from the late 70s, transformed here into a psychedelic story of epic proportions. Moody loops evoke instant headnodding and added dub effects magnify the nostalgic, sunny vibe.

TRACK LISTING

A. Ludzie Z Marsa
B. Stoneczna Promenada

‘NEONTWANG’ was recorded in London at Rory Attwell’s Lightship95 with the Warm Brains man on production duties, a combination that has delivered the band’s strongest set of songs to date.

‘NEONTWANG’ also marks the full debut of new member Jon ‘Simmo’ Simkins as a full writing member of The Twang. Simmo was also the brains behind the video for album track ‘The Wobble’ which premiered on The Fly’s website in October who described it as ‘resembling Ariel Pink doing Tears For Fears’.

‘NEONTWANG’ marks an important moment for the band. Their fourth album, lead singer Phil Etheridge described making it as ‘easily the most fun we've had in the studio since before the band got a record deal’. Having lived through (and survived) the slings and arrows of (much) outrageous fortune, the band have found a space where they are back to the core values that have kept them together as a writing unit for over a decade.

‘NEONTWANG’ comprises a series of recordings that encompass light touch balladry, dub, trip hop and sunshine pop. That early leak of ‘The Wobble’ from the album points the way, a track that veers from delicate melody to overdriven industrial noise, it is the perfect pointer for an album that cares only for its own quality. Those who know their music may also note the echo of club culture, a constant driver for the band, in album closer ‘Bywyd Da’, with its reference to Inner City’s club classic ‘Good Life’. Welsh speakers (or users of Google translate) will get the joke.

TRACK LISTING

1. City Lights
2. Larry Lizard
3. New Love
4. The Wobble
5. Sucker For The Sun
6. Almost Anything
7. Happy Families
8. Medicine
9. Bigger Than You
10. Step Away
11. Bywyd Da

On the heels of last years critically acclaimed debut LP “Under the Pale Moon,” and “Earth Has Doors” EP comes the sophomore full length from Wymond Miles, guitarist of San Francisco garage-pop titans The Fresh & Onlys. “Cut Yourself Free” assembles another convergence of moon-lit romantic swagger and post-punk massacred urgency. Again self recorded and produced to tape, Miles’ song-craft has emerged more refined and poignant, benefitting from the avalanche of his frenzied live shows, but also adhering to a more minimalistic fashion with crooning mid-era Nick Cave or Bowie/Roxy Music strains of pop-modernism. But what stands at the forefront is Miles’ command of his textural guitar and vintage-synth sprawl that on his choosing can open dream-like vistas, or pierce with an engine’s snarl. Turning to the narrative, Miles weaves each song with its own vignette of story line, often with a vaguely obscured protagonist/antagonist dialog. Relationships in Miles’ sketches are always tangled, if not licentious affairs, but are presented more as lustrous gateways to mend and revitalize rather than squalor in.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Ascension (5:33)
2. Passion Plays (3:27)
3. Night Drives (4:06)
4. White Nights (2:12)
5. Bronze Patina (1:32)
6. Vacant Eyes (5:30)
7. Anniversary Song (4:43)
8. Why Are You Afraid? (3:17)
9. Love Will Rise (2:59)

“We recorded the album in our own studio in Birmingham with our good friend Jon Simcox. As we built the studio ourselves, and were funding the record ourselves, we weren’t under any pressure to meet anyone else’s deadlines and had the freedom to work whenever and however we wanted without any record company hassle. We decided early on that we wanted the record to be more organic than our previous two albums so we’ve tried to be disciplined and strip away the layers and leave something natural and beautiful”.

Lyrically 10:20 is reflective and often introspective, dealing with the problems that life throws at two people trying to live together. The album features the two earlier singles Paradise and Guapa (the story of a rebel soldier falling madly in love with a girl days before he is likely to meet his death in battle) and ‘We’re A Crowd’, a call to arms addressing what people can achieve when they join together in a positive way, and written at the height of the UK’s 2011 summer riots. The record also features a cover of the Durutti Column’s lost classic, Tomorrow - a nod to Factory Records back catalogue from fans discovering the beauty and desperation of that song for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

1. Neptune
2. Mainline
3. We’re A Crowd
4. Take This On
5. Last Laugh
6. Beer Wine & Sunshine
7. Paradise
8. Whoa Man
9. Tomorrow
10. It Ain’t You
11. Guapa
12. Strangers

In 1984, two years after their first album collaboration, "Strange Music", Dieter Moebius and Gerd Beerbohm issued their second LP, "Double Cut". It bore the same distinctive hallmarks as its predecessor, but this time around, the two musicians had simplified matters significantly. This was not simplification due to a lack of inspiration, however, but a masterful concentration on what really counts in pop music: rhythm. The centrepiece of the album, the 22-minute "Doppelschnitt", can be tagged as proto-techno. Moebius and Beerbohm have grafted an endless stream of rhythmical electronic particles onto an ostinato bass and drum figure, fluttering to and fro like the lightest of shimmering veils.

An incendiary chemical reaction resulting from the mixing of equal parts synth pop, spiky, burning guitar riffs, walls of feedback and Mark Thomas Kluepfel's spine tingling, bruising imagery exploring the divergence of life, death, love and war. Features Taking Back Sunday's Eddie Reyes and Gary Bennett of Kill Your Idols.