2020 album

2020 album

The acclaimed box set, which was previously released on vinyl format, celebrates one of music's greatest gospel and soul groups. This presents all of the group's studio albums released on the Memphis label, spanning 1968-1974, and features the Staples biggest hits, including I'll Take You There, Respect Yourself, and If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me). Each album was remastered from the original analog masters while the seventh disc offers rarities, non-album singles and live recordings from the legendary 1972 Wattstax music festival. Housed in a slipcase, the seven-disc collection also includes a booklet with archival photos and liner notes from American music specialist and curator Levon Williams (formerly of the Stax Museum and the National Museum of African American Music), and folklorist, ethnomusicologist and writer Dr. Langston Wilkins.

This brand new collection, featuring 7 previously unreleased tracks, explores what is possibly Morricone's richest creative period, between the end of the 1960s to the early 80s, demonstrating Morricone's long lasting influence for generations of musicians and film directors to this day. MORRICONE SEGRETO is an acid-tinged sonic journey through mysterious voices, fuzz guitars, airy strings, eerie synths and modern grooves from the Academy award-winning composer who was always ahead trends, dictating style in his own way.

2020 album

20 track compilation by Marco Pirroni of tracks used in Malcolm McLaren and Vivenne Westwood's 'Sex' shop. Track listing : 1 Psychotic Reaction - The Count Five, 2 Through My Eyes - The Creation, 3 Ain't Got No Home - Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, 4 Shake Some Action - Flamin' Groovies, 5 You're Gonna Miss Me - The Spades, 6 Liar Liar - The Castaways, 7 In The Nighttime - The Strangeloves, 8 Brand New Caddilac - Vince Taylor, 9 You Better Move On - Arthur Alexander, 10 Eighteen - Alice Cooper, 11 Night Of The Vampire - The Moontrekkers, 12 Monster In Black Tights - Screaming Lord Sutch And The Savages, 13 I Can't Control Myself - The Troggs, 14 I Put A Spell On You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins, 15 Have Love Will Travel - The Sonics, 16 Joue Pas Le Rock 'N Roll Pour Moi - Johnny Halliday, 17 The Pill - Loretta Lynn, 18 We Sell Soul - The Spades, 19 Valerie - The Starlites, 20 Roadrunner - The Modern Lovers.

17 tracks from Eno's most recognisable film and television work spanning 5 decades.

2020 album. African rock n roll.

1970 album remastered with 13 bonus tracks.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl and Deluxe Box. 

Our Overview. 

Manchester indie band Doves return with their first album in 11 years - ‘The Universal Want’. Turning the page onto the next chapter of a three-decade career, it follows the Mercury-nominated albums, ‘Lost Souls’ (2000) and ‘The Last Broadcast’ (2002), their second, successive UK Number One album, ‘Some Cities’ (2005) and ‘Kingdom Of Rust’ (2009).

Dropping breadcrumbs in rare interviews since they announced their return in late 2018, Jimi Goodwin, Andy and Jez Williams have remained reluctant custodians of their barely-kept secret of a new album throughout 2019’s busy period of memorable festival and outdoor headline shows. Coming together to confirm themselves, once again, as an artistic unit for the first time since sessions ended on 2009’s ‘Kingdom Of Rust’, the Manchester trio hint that ‘The Universal Want’ has become an equally poignant and celebratory document of both time passed and time recouped. “It’s definitely got the stamp of ‘the time’ all over it,” says Williams, when asked as to what lies ahead for fans who have waited patiently for over a decade for another record. “Everything on the album is an echo. It’s an echo of what we were going through at the time. Getting back together, the Royal Albert Hall and everything else.”

Only the second track and first single proper to be revealed, “Prisoners” forces attention upon itself, not least with the poignancy of Goodwin’s repeated greeting to ‘old friends’, but as an unstoppable, driving tale of caution in a world of unending desire. Produced by Doves with Dan Austin and recorded at the band’s own Frank Bough Sound III studios in North West England, the high heat of its Northern Soul beat is fanned by wiry guitar breaks and cuts of ethereal noise contorting beneath layers of stacked vocals. “Prisoners” guides Doves’ second chapter to a peak now within touching distance, the lyrics contrasting to express unease with modern ills. Andy Williams says of the single: “It’s about continually chasing something and not being satisfied when you eventually get it. You’ve got ‘that thing’ and you find you’re not any happier. Be careful what you wish for.”

Tracklisting: Carousels / I Will Not Hide / Broken Eyes / For Tomorrow / Cathedrals Of The Mind / Prisoners / Cycle Of Hurt / Mother Silver Lake / Universal Want / Forest House

2020 album. Electronic.

2020 album

1977 album remastered with 3 bonus tracks. Plus BBC Radio One In Concert at Golders Green Hippodrome, London, 12th March 1977. Esoteric.

Early recordings, King Crimson, ELP album track & singles, solo & collaborations. 60pp book.

2020 album. With Beck, Elton John, Fatoumata Diawara, Georgia, Kano, Leee John, Octavian, Peter Hook, Robert Smith, Roxani Arias, ScHoolboy Q, Slaves, Slowthai, St Vincent and 6LACK, as well as CHAI, EARTHGANG, Goldlink, Joan As Police Woman, JPEGMAFIA, Moonchild Sanelly, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Skepta and Tony Allen.

Official collection which features nearly six hours of unreleased home, live, and radio recordings. Radio Station CFQC AM, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada (ca. 1963) / Live at the Half Beat: Yorkville, Toronto, Canada (October 21, 1964) (1st and 2nd sets) / Joni's Parents' House: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada (February 1965) / Myrtle Anderson Birthday Tape: Detroit, MI (1965) / Jac Holzman Demo: Detroit, MI (August 24, 1965) / Let's Sing Out, CBC TV: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada (October 4, 1965) / Home Demo: Detroit, MI (ca. 1966) / Let's Sing Out, CBC TV: Laurentian University, London, ON, Canada (October 24, 1966) / Live at the 2nd Fret: Philadelphia, PA (November 1966) / Folklore, WHAT FM: Philadelphia, PA, (March 12, 1967) / Live at the 2nd Fret: Philadelphia, PA (March 17, 1967) (2nd & 3rd sets) / Folklore, WHAT FM: Philadelphia, PA (March 19, 1967) / A Record Of My Changes - Michael's Birthday Tape: North Carolina (May 1967) / Folklore, WHAT FM: Philadelphia, PA (May 28, 1967) / Home Demo: New York City, NY (ca. June 1967) / Live at Canterbury House: Ann Arbor, MI (October 27, 1967) (1st, 2nd & 3rd sets).

1970 album (Man Who Sold The World) remixed by Tony Visconti in 2020. Metrobolist was the working title for the album and the cartoon cover used for the artwork.

2020 album with The E-Street Band.

2020 album with 6 bonus acoustic tracks in casebound book.

Both albums: The Garden Of Jane Delawney (1970) and On The Shore (1971) plus 2 bonus discs of alternate mixes, early demos, BBC session tracks and 2018 live recordings in London. Includes lost demos of Polly On The Shore and Streets Of Derry. Plus book. Earth Recordings.

Two albums: I'm Kiki Dee (1968) & Great Expectations (1970) plus all her singles for both labels including various European language singles. 60 tracks in all. 28pp book. Edsel.

2020 album inspired by Uncle Dave Macon. Features Ry Cooder.

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Roachford, whose most famous song “Cuddly Toy” has been a mainstay of radio airplay for over three decades now, is back with what is assuredly the best album of his career in ‘Twice in a Lifetime’. It’s the sound of someone at the top of their game, of one who knows his craft inside out. Produced by Grammy award winning Jimmy Hogarth, who has previously worked with Paolo Nutini, Duffy and Amy Winehouse, and featuring several members of Winehouse’s band, it’s full of grit and the most tremendous sonic energy, tracks like “Are You Satisfied?” throbbing with Stax-era musicality and soul. Lyrically, meanwhile, the album reveals an artist who has unambiguously Lived A Life.

Since "Cuddly Toy" reached number four in the charts back in early 1989 - Andrew Roachford has carved out a career for himself as one of the most compelling, and consistent, rock and soul artists the UK has produced. He has released 10 studio albums, several greatest hits collections, has been approached to write for various other artists including Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson and Joss Stone, and toured with contemporaries including Terence Trent D’Arby and The Christians. For the past nine years, he has been part of Mike + the Mechanics, recording with Mike Rutherford’s post-Genesis band, playing live with them across the world. He is someone who channels the energy of James Brown before going on stage each night, and who, on record, summons up the spirit of everyone from Al Green to Joe Cocker. When he sings, you listen.

Tracklisting: High On Love / Love Remedy / Too Much To Lose / Give It Up And Let Go / What We Had (with Beverley Knight) / Won’t Think Twice / So Long / Are you Satisfied? / The Truth Hurts Too Much / Gonna Be The One / Once In A Lifetime / Written In My Heart / You’re The One

The collection includes seven remastered studio albums: Then Play On (1969), Kiln House (1970), Future Games (1971), Bare Trees (1972), Penguin (1973), Mystery To Me (1973), and Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974) plus 18 bonus tracks across all the albums. Disc 8 is an unreleased recording of the band's 15th December 1974 concert at The Record Plant in Sausalito, California.

Label Review. 

2020 release. Recorded and filmed over two nights at the famed London venue 3rd/4th May 2019. Also available on Blu-ray and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

In 2018, guitarist with The Blockheads (Ian Dury’s backing band) convinced Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason to come out of performing retirement to form a new group dedicated to celebrating the early material from the Floyd’s illustrious catalogue. Joining them were later Pink Floyd bassist Guy Pratt, Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp and completing the line-up, keyboard man Dom Beken. The quintet made their debut at some low-key dates in the spring of 2018 and since then have performed a handful of tours around the world to a rapturous response.

The set-list for the dates throughout 2018 & 19 have been largely static but seeing Nick bash his kit to songs he hasn’t performed for nearly 50 years abetted by his band who exude sheer joy at breathing new life into these esteemed compositions has seen another surprising and pleasing chapter in the story of one the rock world’s biggest bands.

A total of seven songs by original leader Syd Barrett prove his bright but brief period of creativity garnered a crop of material that remains startingly original today. Meanwhile after he left, the band took several years to work out where to take their sound and although these songs are not as well known as the ones that populate albums such as ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ and ‘Wish You Were Here’ they retain a vitality perhaps missing from the aforementioned classics.

This live album recorded at the Roundhouse, where Pink Floyd cut their teeth in 1966/67, is expected to only be the first recorded document from Nick’s new group. Let’s hope there will be more to come - Mason has hinted in interviews that there will be more to come from outfit - it definitely seems they are having more fun than the Floyd anyway!

Tracklisting: Beginnings / Interstellar Overdrive / Astronomy Domine / Lucifer Sam / Fearless / Obscured by Clouds / When You’re In / Remember A Day / Arnold Layne / Vegetable Man / If / Atom Heart Mother / The Nile Song / Green Is The Colour / Let There Be More Light / Childhood’s End / Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun / See Emily Play / Bike / One Of These Days / A Saucerful Of Secrets / Point Me At The Sky.

Label Review. 

1996 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Penny Penny (real name Giyani Kulani) is a South African musician known affectionately as the “Shangaan Disco King” for the musical style he helped popularise and ‘Yogo Yogo’ is his second album from 1996. The rags-to-riches chronicle of Penny Penny’s life would be remarkable if he had only released his smash debut ‘Shaka Bundu’ and packed houses for a few years. But the inimitable South African singer and dancer known for his trademark top ponytail and emphatic anthems was no one-hit wonder.

In the aftermath of ‘Shaka Bundu’s’ nationwide explosion, far beyond his country the album resonated with ever bigger audiences. He performed up and down the continent, building fanbases in more than a dozen countries. ‘Yogo Yogo’ solidified Penny Penny’s standing in pop music nationally and provided new energy to his pan-African stadium-filling adventures. The album reflected the era in which it emerged. If Shaka Bundu arrived triumphantly amid newfound political freedom in South Africa with the end of Apartheid and Nelson Mandela’s election, ‘Yogo Yogo’ was a next level expression for the maturing artist. He wanted to get a message out.

Composed with Joe Shirimani, who also produced the album, the sound and compositional style echoes the earlier recording but the topical nature of the lyrics became more deliberate, more didactic. In the song “Ingani” Penny proclaims, we are all one people even though we may speak different languages while “Kulani Kulani,” which means grow up, urges young people to say no to drugs and yes to education. “Ama Owners”, referring to the public transport drivers involved in violent rumbles, asks the nation’s drivers to relax because we need them for our safe arrival.

Penny explains. “Our music was traditional before. But I brought a mix of rock and disco and it became the bomb. Every star won’t be popular without your own style. The songs just happened. Joe is very good at listening and producing, he has lots of patience. When he played the keyboard I would sing, standing behind him once he finished the rhythm, I would sing it all in one take, non-stop. We were not using computers to record, we were singing live.” Fast-forward to 2020, Penny Penny is deep in the political game and appears on television 6 times a week as the star of his own reality TV show, “Papa Penny Ahee!”. He is setting up an avocado farm and provides fifty families in his region with food every month via his charitable foundation.

Tracklisting: Ibola Aids / Ingani / Amarumasi / Kulani Kulani / Hai Kamina / Dodomedzi (CD Bonus) / Yogo Yogo / Ti Samaboko / Ama Owners / Kulani Kulani (Remix) CD Bonus

Label review. 

Bespoke boxset containing 8 original 2 Tone albums, with original artwork on mini LP-style sleeves and a 24 page booklet with sleeve notes by Jason Weir and Peter Walsh. THE SPECIALS Specials [1979] / THE SELECTER Too Much Pressure [1980] / THE SPECIALS More Specials [1980] / VARIOUS Dance Craze [1981]* / RICO That Man Is Forward [1981]* / RICO Jama Rico [1982]* / VARIOUS This Are Two Tone [1983]* / THE SPECIAL AKA In The Studio [1984]. *First time on CD for a long time or ever.

Our Overview. 

Hailing from Coventry in the UK, the ska-revival group The Specials tore up the charts for a couple of years between 1979-81 with a string of singles and a couple of well received albums. But what made them stand out even more was that they had full artistic control with their own label: 2 Tone Records, despite the fact it was administered by Chrysalis Records. After the success of their first single "Gangsters", they quickly started signing other acts, providing a launching pad for Madness, The Beat and The Selecter.

When it came to albums however, only The Selecter and Cuban trombonist Rico Rodriguez had the opportunity record long-players. Alongside The Specials albums, a live collection and the first label 'best of' they are all collected here for the first time on CD. The live album 'Dance Craze' has never officially been on CD before and this vibrant set offers a taste of the scene.

1994 album with 10 bonus tracks. Plus CD3: Home Recordings and CD4: Wildflowers Live.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Rock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Norweigan rock band Motorpsycho release their latest epic ‘The All Is One’ which finishes the so-called “Gullvåg trilogy”. However, ‘The All Is One’ is so much more than a sequel, and very much a standalone album in its own right. While the second part ‘The Crucible’ took the band a step further out than ‘The Tower’, the new one explores new frontiers, especially with the dark, brooding landscape of the 42-minute epic centerpiece that is “N.O.X.”, possibly the most ambitious piece of music they have recorded.

Eight shorter tracks, clocking in between two and ten minutes, make up the rest of the album and bring some balance to the proceedings. Lyrically, ‘The All Is One’ takes up the threads from the previous albums. While there is no thematic red line as such - and not being overtly political - it is difficult for a socially conscious writer like Bent Sæther not to observe and reflect on what goes on in an increasingly unstable world. They have also found strong inspiration and common ground in the paintings of Håkon Gullvåg, the artist responsible for the cover art.

Artistically searching as ever, and in their own way joyously stretching the rock format as out of whack as they can, Motorpsycho neither can nor will align themselves fully to any scene or genre. Travelling their own path in their own tempo, it might take longer to get anywhere, but that is just fine when the journey itself is the whole point. And what a journey it has been; this band is still peaking after more than 30 years in the business.

Tracklisting: The All Is One / The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy) / The Magpie / Delution (The Reign Of Humbug) / N.O.X. I - Circles Around The Sun, pt 1 / N.O.X. II - Ouroboros (Strange Loop) / N.O.X. III – Ascension / N.O.X. IV - Night Of Pan / N.O.X. V - Circles Around The Sun, pt 2 / A Little Light / Dreams Of Fancy / The Dowser / Like Chrome

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

American alt-rock band PVRIS release their third studio album ‘Use Me’, and on the new record, frontwoman, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Lynn Gunn steps into a new chapter, as she owns her role as PVRIS’ leader and sole architect. The result is 11 pop conjurations of glitchy beat-craft, airy guitars, and spell-binding vocals.

A newfound sense of freedom lies at the core of ‘Use Me’. For years, Lynn remained in the background too shy to take all of the credit for the vision of PVRIS and her role in the songwriting, presentation, much of the production, merch, and visual video concepts. At last, she is ready to shine a light on who she is and what she does. “I allowed myself to support a narrative I thought I had to support of PVRIS being a band,” says Lynn. “I didn’t really have a role model for this. Coming from a ‘band culture,’ it’s about how the group is always greater than the sum of its parts, and you’re not supposed to take credit, even if you do everything. There’s no template or role model for really owning it as a woman. I wanted to make everyone else happy and uphold an image I thought we had to.”

“Growing up, I learned I don’t have to do that anymore. I’m finally allowing myself to take credit. I’ve got the full support and encouragement of my bandmates. PVRIS is a unit and very much a team, but the heart and soul of the vision and music always has sourced from me. I’m just saying it now. I fulfilled my own vision of what a role model should be.”

Tracklisting: Gimme A Minute / Dead Weight / Stay Gold / Good To Be Alive / Death of Me / Hallucinations / Old Wounds / Loveless / January Rain / Use Me / Wish You Well

Label Review. 

Huge hit singles, highly-regarded psych-pop B-sides, criminally overlooked album tracks, alternative versions, outtakes, foreign language recordings, a live cabaret album and even the first-ever full release of the complete sessions for the 1970 cult movie ‘May Morning’.

Our Overview. 

There have been Tremeloes compilations before. However, The Complete CBS Recordings 1966-72 is unquestionably THE definitive anthology of one of the most successful British pop groups of the late Sixties. This 6-CD release features every note of the band’s recordings during their halcyon days with CBS.

Originally fronted by Brian Poole, they were auditioned by Decca Records on the same day as the Beatles and it was The Tremeloes that got the prized record contract. They had their share of success including a No.1 single (“Do You Love Me?”). After Poole left in 1966, The Tremeloes carried on as a four piece and the following year had a second wave of popularity with hit singles “Here Comes My Baby”, “Even The Bad Times Are Good”, “Silence Is Golden”, “(Call Me) Number One”, all featured here along with highly-regarded psych-pop B-sides, criminally overlooked album tracks, alternative versions, outtakes, foreign language recordings, a live cabaret album and even the first-ever full release of the complete sessions for the 1970 cult movie ‘May Morning’. ‘The Complete CBS Recordings’ gathers everything under one roof for the first – and, almost certainly, the last time.

Featuring no less than 165 tracks in mono, full fat stereo and even electronically-processed stereo (the way the band’s mono-only early recordings were heard at the time in more stereo-oriented countries such as the USA), ‘The Complete CBS Recordings’ is an essential purchase for both the band’s numerous fans and admirers of late Sixties/early Seventies British pop in general. Containing over seven hours of music across six CDs, this stunning package includes a lavish 32-page booklet with a new 5000 word essay on the band’s career, numerous band quotes and a huge number of extremely rare photos of the band in their youthful prime.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: Here Comes My Baby / Run Baby Run (Back Into My Arms) / My Town / Round And Round / What A State I’m In / Loving You (Is Sweeter Than Ever) / Good Day Sunshine / You / Let Your Hair Hang Down / Shake Hands (And Come Out Crying) / When I’m With Her / Even The Band Times Are Good / Here Comes My Baby (UK Single Version) / Gentleman Of Pleasure / Jenny’s Alright / Be Mine (Mi Seguirai) / Here Comes My Baby / Run Baby Run (Back Into My Arms) / My Town / Round And Round / What A State I’m In / Loving You (Is Sweeter Than Ever) / Good Day Sunshine / You / Let Your Hair Hang Down / Shake Hands (And Come Out Crying) / When I’m With Her / Even The Bad Times Are Good / Even The Bad Times Are Good (Alternative Stereo Version)

Disc Two: Happy Song / Running Out / Negotiations In Soho Square / Suddenly Winter / Sunshine Games / Silence Is Golden / Norman Stanley Jones St. Clair / Cool Jerk / I’m With You All The Way / Sing Sorta Swingle / Too Many Fish In The Sea / Come On Home / Sing Sorta Swingle (Alternative Mono Version) / On Love / Every Little Bit Hurts / No, No, No (Fast Version) / Happy Song / Running Out / Negotiations In Soho Square / Suddenly Winter / Sunshine Games / Silence Is Golden / Norman Stanley Jones St. Clair / Cool Jerk / I’m With You All The Way / Sing Sorta Swingle / Too Many Fish In The Sea / Come On Home / Sing Sorta Swingle (Alternative Stereo Version)

Disc Three: Suddenly You Love Me / As You Are / Helule Helule / Girl From Nowhere / My Little Lady / All The World To Me / You Don’t Know Like I Know / Show Me / I Take What I Want / Reach Out I’ll Be There / Peggy Sue / Everyday / The Lion Sleeps Tonight / Rag Doll / I’ll See You There / Willie And The Hand Jive / Helule Helule / Girl From Nowhere / Alley Oop / Travelling Circus / Ain’t Nothin’ But A House Party / Suddenly You Love Me / You Don’t Know Like I Know / Show Me / Be Mine / I Take What I Want / Reach Out I’ll Be There / E In Silenzio (Silence Is Golden, Italian Language Version)

Disc Four: I Shall Be Released / I Miss My Baby / I’m Gonna Try / I Will See You There (Single Version) / En Tu Mundo / Hello World / Up, Down, All Around / Once On A Sunday Morning (Cuandro Sali De Cuba) / Fa La La, La La, La Le / Sadness Of Tomorrow / (Call Me) Number One / Instant Whip / Run Baby Run (Back Into My Arms) / Shake Hands (And Come Out Crying) / Hello World / My Little Lady / Angel Of The Morning / Games People Play / Proud Mary / Blessed / Here Comes My Baby / En Tu Mundo / Mountain Dew / Fbi / I Shall Be Released / Silence Is Golden / Even The Bad Times Are Good / Suddenly You Love Me / Good Times

Disc Five: Wait On Me / Long Road / Now’s The Time / Try Me / But Then I… / Before I Sleep / Boola Boola / I Swear / Baby / By The Way / Willow Tree / Me And My Life / Wait On Me (Alternative Version) / What Can I Do / Yellow River (Version 1) / Breakheart Motel / Right Wheel, Left Hammer, Sham / Take It Easy / Hello Buddy / My Woman / Right Wheel, Left Hammer, Sham (2000 Stereo Mix) / Yellow River (Version 2) / No Comprendes (Yellow River, Spanish Language Version) / Jacqueline (Hello World, Italian Language Version) / (Call Me) Number One (2000 Stereo Mix)

Disc Six: May Morning / All Pull Together / Till The Sun Goes Down / Turn On With Thee / I Can’t Even Breathe Down Here / May Morning (Reprise 1) / Anything / Think Of What You Said / Beer Duel / Hard Time / I’ll Take You Home / Bunch Of Rapes / May Morning (Reprise 2) / I You Know (Version 1) / Anything (Reprise 1) / I You Know (Version 2) / Remember Looking Back / No, No, No / Please No More Sad Songs / Too Late (To Be Saved) / If You Ever / How Can You Say Goodbye / Heaven Knows Why / I Like It That Way / Wakamaker

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD and Deluxe CD. 

Our Overview. 

Undeniably one of the best voices of our generation, Grammy award-winning singing sensation Gregory Porter has made his eagerly-awaited return to the studio with his sixth studio album ‘All Rise’.

Following on from 2017’s ‘Nat King Cole & Me’ album, Porter’s forthcoming record marks a return to his beloved original songwriting – heart-on-sleeve lyrics imbued with everyday philosophy and real-life detail, set to a stirring mix of jazz, soul, blues, and gospel. First single, “Revival”, sets the tone, kicking off with Gregory’s signature hand-clapping. “Yes, you could say that I went big,” says Gregory about the track, which features a handpicked horn section and 10-member choir. He explains, “For me, it’s the message of walking into this life and having some fear and self-doubt, and the point where you grab onto something that you know is real, the silent and real things, the truth… Once you can wrap onto the truth then this fearlessness comes.”

Since his 2013 debut, ‘Liquid Spirit’, which won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Gregory hasn’t let down his legion of fans, whether collaborating with Disclosure on ‘Holding On’, releasing his dance hit ‘Liquid Spirit – Claptone Remix’ which became one of the most popular tracks in Ibiza, scoring another Grammy for ‘Take Me to the Alley’ (2016), or telling his life story through Cole’s songbook. Porter is still surprised by his runaway success, but he has a theory: “I was soothed by my voice as a child and I think that’s the same thing others get from it. I’m trying to heal myself with these songs.”

Tracklisting: Concorde / Dad Gone Thing / Revival / If Love Is Overrated / Faith In Love / Merchants of Paradise / Long List of Troubles / Mr. Holland / Modern Day Apprentice / Everything You Touch Is Gold / Phoenix / Merry Go Round / Real Truth (bonus track 1) / You Can Join My Band (bonus track 2) / Thank You

Label Review. 

1974 album remastered with 5 bonus tracks. Esoteric. 

Our Overview. 

After earning success as a performer and songwriter with The Move and The Electric Light Orchestra, Roy Wood formed Wizzard in 1972. The band stacked up a series of classic hit singles and released the album ‘Wizzard Brew’ for EMI’s Harvest label before departing for Warner Bros in 1974. Wood and his band embarked on the recording of their second album, a loose concept base around a fictitious British Rock band of the early 1960s, Eddy and the Falcons. The resulting album was a triumphant pastiche and was a top twenty hit upon its release.

He wrote eight different stylistic and artistic tributes, summarizing with the closing “We’re Gonna Rock n Roll Tonight,” a song that recalls such latter-day Move rockers as “California Man”. The rest of the album is deliberately self-conscious, as Wood reconstructed specific sounds -- Phil Spector on “This Is the Story of My Love (Baby),” Del Shannon’s “Runaway” on “Everyday I Wonder,” Elvis on “I Dun Lotsa Cryin’ Over You,” teen idol pop on “You Got Me Runnin’.” whilst retaining his own specific style.

Unavailable on CD for many years, this welcome Esoteric Recordings reissue has been newly re-mastered and includes five bonus tracks drawn from singles all issued in 1974, including the top ten hit “Are You Ready to Rock”. The release also restores the original artwork and features a new essay and a replica poster included with the original 1974 LP release.

Tracklisting: Intro / Eddy’s Rock / Brand New 88 / You Got Me Runnin’ / I Dun Lotsa Cryin’ Over You / This Is The Story Of My Love (Baby) / Everyday I Wonder / Crazy Jeans / Come Back Karen / We’re Gonna Rock N’ Roll Tonight // Bonus Tracks - Rock N’ Roll Winter (Loony’s Tune) / Dream Of Unwin / Nixture / Are You Ready To Rock / Marathon Man

Label Review. 

Paul Kossoff’s last band. The Band Plays On, 2nd Street, Live At Fairfield Hall Croydon and Final Performance.

Our Overview. 

The story of Back Street Crawler is sadly a short one, but also a tale of what might have been. After forming in 1968, the British blues rock legends Free finally called it a day after 1972’s ‘Heartbreaker’, just as the band was on the verge of cracking America. Free guitarist Paul Kossoff’s first move was to record his solo album ‘Back Street Crawler’ for Island Records in 1973. Joining forces with Terry Wilson (bass), Mike Montgomery (keyboards) and Tony Braunagel (drums), who had played together in Bloontzfrom, plus singer Terry Wilson-Slesser, Kossoff’s ‘Back Street Crawler’ solo record gave the new band their name, who were then signed by Ahmet Ertegun to Atlantic Records.

Prior to the release of their debut album ‘The Band Plays On’, they performed a handful of UK shows, including a gig at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall on 15th June 1975, captured in this box featuring the songs ‘The Band Played On’, ‘It’s A Long Way Down To The Top’, ‘New York, New York’, ‘Train Song’ and ‘Survivor’ from the band’s debut, as well as Kossoff’s ‘Molten Gold’ and the blues rock classic, ‘The Hunter’.

Further touring was curtailed by Kossoff’s ill-health, but he regained enough strength to record on second album, ‘2nd Street’. Now featuring the keyboards of former Free and future The Who member, John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, the album includes “Blue Soul”, “Stop Doing What You’re Doing”, “Raging River” and “Leaves In The Wind”. Kossoff tragically passed away before the album’s release, which was “Dedicated To Koss” on the posthumously issued LP.

The band played a series of shows at the famed Starwood club in Los Angeles, a regular venue for up and coming rock acts. Sadly, this 3rd March 1976 show would be Paul Kossoff’s final ever performance, but fortunately a fan was present to illicitly record the show, seven tracks of which are reproduced on the fourth CD. Featuring plenty of rare, contemporary memorabilia, this collection comes with the full involvement of Back Street Crawler front man and singer, Terry Wilson-Slesser.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: The Band Plays On (1975): Who Do Women / New York, New York / Stealing My Way / Survivor / It’s A Long Way Down To The Top / All The Girls Are Crazy / Jason Blue / Train Song / Rock & Roll Junkie / The Band Plays On

Disc Two: 2nd Street (1976): Selfish Lover / Blue Soul / Stop Doing What You’re Doing / Raging River / Some Kind Of Happy / Sweet, Sweet Beauty / Just For You / On Your Life / Leaves In The Wind

Disc Three: Live At Fairfield Hall, Croydon (1975): The Band Played On / Sidekick To The Stars / It’s A Long Way Down To The Top / New York, New York / Train Song / Survivor / Stealing My Way / All The Girls Are Crazy / Jason Blue / Rock & Roll Junkie / Molten Gold / The Hunter / We Won / Bird Song Blues

Disc Four: Final Performance - Live At The Starwood Club, Los Angeles: 3rd March 1976: Who Do Women / Stealing My Way / Cheat On Me / Common Mortal Man / Train Song / Just For The Box / It’s A Long Way Down To The Top // Bonus Tracks : Jason Blue (Outtake) / Evening Time (Unreleased) / It’s A Long Way Down To The Top (Outtake) / She’s Gone (Unreleased)

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Rock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

London based Girls In Synthesis highly-anticipated debut album, by those that know, arrives with the first bitter taste of new single “Pressure”; one-minute-and-fifty-four seconds of screeching feedback, tribal drums and unbridled rage that is exactly the shot in the arm and the boot up the arse this nation, if not the world, needs right now. “In both music and lyrical content this song sets out to capture the unrelenting pressures of living in the modern world,” explains vocalist and guitarist Jim. “The pressures and expectations of which ‘they’ force upon you - with the apparent realisation that you will never be what they want you to be. “Pressure, the twist of the gut, as one door opens another fucking shuts”

Since forming in late 2016, Girls In Synthesis have quickly forged a fearsome reputation as one of the most exciting and volatile live acts in London. In equal parts frantic, considered, ear-splitting and melodic, the group take their cues from the early DIY punk and post-punk pioneers to keep everything in-house; artwork, videos, performances and recordings are created entirely by the group and their handful of trusted collaborators, under a bedrock of heavy, bludgeoning, dark, post-punk. ‘Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future’ is their first release for fabled experimental punk label Harbinger Sound and finds the band advancing their sound, making subtle but experimental shifts in texture and tone, helping to break free from the shackled straight-jacket of punk rock that, to be fair, never really held them down in the first place.

In their few years of existence, fans and critics alike have been stunned by the bands pure visceral and punishing wall of sound, as well as applauding the groups way of making a GIS show an all-inclusive experience; playing from within the crowd to create a unique and awe-inspiring spectacle. Being hand-picked to support acts as diverse as Damo Suzuki, Slaves, Bad Breeding, Warmduscher and Wolf Alice has seen a widening of the groups fan base. Sold out headline shows across the UK have led to frantic and chaotic performances, and packed, sweaty venues, the word is getting out and spreading rapidly. Catch GIS while you can and witness the rise of one of the UK’s most original and unique underground bands.

Tracklisting: Arterial Movements / Pressure / The Images Agree / Scrapped / Human Frailty / They’re Not Listening / Cause For Concern / Coming Up For Air / Set Up To Fail / Tirades Of Hate and Fear.

Label Review. 

25 tracks. The first ever compilation of tracks by Helen from this period drawn from five different labels. Ace.

Our Overview. 

Before she had reached her 16th birthday Helen Shapiro became one of the UK’s brightest stars of the early 1960s, with two of her first four singles topping the charts. In the years before the Beatles (who once supported her on tour!) Helen was a permanently visible presence on our charts, and continues to be a fan favourite seven decades on and almost 20 years after she announced her retirement.

Most of Helen’s early hits can be found on at least one CD. But in ‘Face The Music’ Ace Records brings you the first-ever compilation to pull together the complete A and B sides of every seven inch single Helen released under her own name between 1967 and 1984, with repertoire drawn from five different labels. ‘Face The Music’ comes to you with the full approval and endorsement of Helen and John, her husband of more than 30 years. A sleeve note featuring a specially conducted 2020 ‘lockdown’ interview with the artist provides Helen’s own thoughts on both these recordings and this period in her 40+ year career.

All tracks appear here in their original mono and stereo single mixes, just as they were released on 45. Around a third of the titles have never been reissued before, in any format. With a booklet stuffed with the usual plethora of ephemera, labels and rare foreign picture sleeves, it’s something no Shapiro fan will want to miss.

Tracklisting: Stop And You Will Become Aware / She Needs Company / Make Me Belong To You / The Way Of The World / You’ll Get Me Loving You / Silly Boy (I Love You) / Today Has Been Cancelled / Face The Music / You’ve Guessed / Take Me For A While / Take Down A Note Miss Smith / Couldn’t You See / Waiting On The Shores Of Nowhere / A Glass Of Wine / You’re A Love Child / That’s The Reason I Love You / (I) Can’t Break The Habit / For All The Wrong Reasons / Every Little Bit Hurts / Touchin’ Wood / Let Yourself Go / Funny / (Play Something Sweet) Brickyard Blues / Just Another Weekend / Das Ist Nicht Die Fiene Englische Art

Label Review. 

Blue Pine Trees, Too Many Crooks, One More Tomorrow plus 39 bonus tracks. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

Lead by singer songwriter Ken Baker, Unicorn were one of the UK’s prime exponents of ‘Country Rock’ but although their four albums released over the course of the 1970s sold poorly, despite the patronage of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour who was a big fan of the group, today the band remain a cult favourite with fans of the genre.

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a new 4 CD boxed set that gathers together their second, third and fourth albums plus an additional disc of previously unreleased archive material. Unicorn recorded their first album in 1971 for the Transatlantic label, but by 1973 they began an association with Gilmour who was taken with the band’s musical approach and American West Coast musical influences, vocal harmonies and very English lyrics. Gilmour played slide guitar and produced their next album, ‘Blue Pine Trees’ for Charisma Records. Featuring a line-up of Kenny Baker (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Pete Perryer (Drums, lead vocals) Pat Martin (bass, vocals) and Kevin Smith (lead guitar, mandolin). In 1976 the band signed with EMI’s Harvest label and recorded their next album ‘Too Many Crooks’ again with David Gilmour. The album included the song “No Way Out Of Here” which Gilmour would cover on his first solo album in 1978. ‘One More Tomorrow’ was the band’s final album and was released in 1977.

Although Unicorn would continue until 1979, the band didn’t record another new album. However this box set features an additional CD with 19 previously unreleased studio and live archive recordings, selected by Unicorn’s Pat Martin. The set also features an illustrated booklet and essay and is a fine tribute to one of Britain’s most unique bands.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: Blue Pine Trees - Electric Night / Sleep Song / Autumn Wine / Rat Race / Just Wanna Hold You / Holland / Nightingale Crescent / The Farmer / In The Gym / Blue Pine Trees // Bonus Tracks - Ooh Mother / Volcano / The Ballad Of John And Julie (BBC Session 1974) / Bog Trotter / Ooh Mother (Single Version) / I’ll Believe In You (The Hymn) / Take It Easy

Disc Two: Too Many Crooks - Weekend / Ferry Boat / He’s Got Pride / Keep On Going / Too Many Crooks / Bullseye Bill / Disco Dancer / Easy / No Way Out Of Here / In The Mood // Bonus Tracks - So Far Away / Weekend (Live Radio Studio Session 1975) / Ferry Boat (Live Radio Studio Session 1975) / He’s Got Pride (Live Radio Studio Session 1975) / No Way Out Of Here (Live Radio Studio Session 1975) / Disco Dancer (Single Version)

Disc Three: One More Tomorrow - Have You Ever Seen The Rain / New Shoes / Slow Dancing / Get Along Fine / British Rail Romance / Eric / One More Tomorrow / So Hard To Get Through / I’m Alright (When I’m With You) / The Night / The Way It Goes / Magnolia Avenue // Bonus Tracks - Give And Take / Nothing I Wouldn’t Do / In The Mood / Keep On Going (Live Radio Studio Session 1975) / Rio De Janeiro / Don’t Tell Me I Know / All Crazy People

Disc Four: Archive Recordings Previously Unreleased - Come A Long Way / Billy The Kid / The Man In Me / Hold On / Loving You / Don’t Turn Away / This Old World / The Sweeter Life / Look Into Your Mirror / Boney Fingers (Live In The USA 1974) / Corrina Corrina (Live In The USA 1974) / Nashville West (Live In The USA 1974) / Lenny Dee / In The Gym (Live BBC Radio) / Get Along Fine (Alternate Version) / Man In The Fog / You Angel You / One More Tomorrow (Demo) / Tell Me Straight

Label Review. 

1990 album. Also available on CD and Deluxe CD. 

Our Overview. 

The 30th Anniversary reissue of ‘Wrong Way Up’, the historic coming together of two icons of leftfield music: Brian Eno and John Cale. Having both started their careers as creative forces in seminal bands (Eno’s unique synthesizer treatments in Roxy Music and Cale’s viola and bass contributions to the Velvet Underground), they’ve appeared as guest musicians on each other’s records as far back as 1974, the year in which they also made a historic live album with Nico and Kevin Ayers at the Rainbow Theatre in London.

They remained friends and the year prior to ‘Wrong Way Up’, Eno produced Cale’s ‘Words For The Dying’ album. This paved the way for the pair to write and record an album together, notably the first time Eno had delivered a collection of song-based recordings since ‘Before And After Science’ in 1977. The resulting album is a triumph for both artists, containing the singles ‘Spinning Away’ and ‘Been There Done That’. The b-sides to the ‘Spinning Away’ single are included as bonus tracks.

Despite the pair’s avant-garde leaning’s the resulting album turned out to be a stunning pop record. Pitchfork said of the album: “Brian Eno and John Cale’s 1990 collaboration is an album of contention, contrasts, cycles, and pop songs so layered and euphoric it ranks among the best albums either artist has ever made.”

Tracklisting: Lay My Love / One Word / In The Backroom / Empty Frame / Cordoba / Spinning Away / Footsteps / Been There Done That / Crime In The Desert / The River

Label Review. 

105 tracks of which 34 are previously unreleased. Studio and live recordings 1979-1983. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

In mid-1979 the trio incarnation of Spirit broke up and Randy formed a new solo band and embarked on a European tour supporting Ian Gillan. After recording a series of demos further studio sessions produced the recordings which would form his solo album ‘Euro-American’, released in 1982 and included in this set. The original boxed set of ‘The Euro-American Years’ was compiled by Spirit archivist Mick Skidmore and was issued in 2006. The original concept for this box (which sold out very quickly in its first pressing, only to be consistently bootlegged in various countries via downloads and separate CDR discs for which the artists received no compensation) was to pull together the vast amount of music that Randy released during 1979-1983 period (although some tracks were recorded earlier and were shelved due to lack of a record deal).

Due to demand from fans, Mick Skidmore has recovered from the archives an additional two CDs worth of previously unreleased material, namely a live concert by Spirit recorded in Greensboro, North Carolina in April 1981 before a wildly exuberant audience, along with The Randy California Band’s entire set at Reading Festival in 1982 and a part of the band’s set at Glastonbury Festival from the same year.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: You Stole My Heart / California Man / Song For Laura / Thinking Of You / Reeling In The Night / Lani By The Sea / Shattered Dreams / Rock Of Ages / Magic Wand // “Euro American” The Original Album - Toy Guns / This Is The End / Mon Ami / Rude Reaction / Calling You / Wild Thing / Easy Love / Fearless Leader / Five In The Morning / Skull And Crossbones / Breakout // Bonus Tracks - Man At War / Write You A Letter

Disc Two: Hand Guns / Come On Woman / Trouble In Mind / Cabin De Telephone / Shane / All Along The Watchtower / Don’t Bother Me / Downer / Brittany / Second Child / Man At War / Killer Weed / Radio Man / Superchild / Run To Your Lover / Love’s Not A Game / Love Is War / Childhood’s End / Overloaded Ships Sink

Disc Three: Spirit Live 1980 And 1981: 1984 / Turn To The Right / Five In The Morning / Hungry Driver / I Want Somebody / Hey Joe / Shattered Dreams / Fish Fry Road / Magic Wand / Come On Woman / Breakout / Downer / Song For Laura / Wild Thing

Disc Four: Grosser Herrscher / His Spirit Is Travelling On / Pt 109 / Whispers From Heaven / Trying To Get Closer To You / Since She’s Gone / Past Love / Stepping Son / Otter In The Sea / California Man / Childhood’s End // Live In Ayr, Scotland, October 1979 - Downer / You Stole My Heart / Move On Up / California Man / Rebel’s Flight / Breakout / Song For Laura

Disc Five: Live At Louie’s, Greensboro, South Carolina 1981 - 1984 / Turn To The Right / Animal Zoo / Magic Wand / Nature’s Way / Five In The Morning / So Little Time To Fly / Mr. Skin / Come On Woman / All The Same / I Got A Line On You / Fish Fry Road / Wild Thing / Like A Rolling Stone / Come And Get It (Magic Spirit)

Disc Six: Live At The Reading Festival 1982 - Second Child / Downer / Man At War / Like A Rolling Stone / All Along The Watchtower / Come On Woman / Nature’s Way / Killer Weed / Run To Your Lover / I Got A Line On You / Song For Laura / Wild Thing // Live At The Glastonbury Festival 1982 - Hand Guns / Lisa / Don’t Bother Me / Rebel On Attack / Killer Weed

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Canadian alternative/shoegaze band No Joy release their fourth album ‘Motherhood’, their first LP since 2015’s ‘More Faithful’. No Joy’s relentless sonic permutations are evidence of frontperson and principal songwriter Jasamine White-Gluz’s insatiable desire to grow. For No Joy’s first full length in five years, White-Gluz took what she learned from synthesis, reincorporated guitars, and produced an album that is not a departure from No Joy’s early shoegaze, but a stylistically omnivorous expansion that ekes into trip hop, trance and nu-metal.

‘Motherhood’ is the culmination of years composing outside of her comfort zone, and a return to DIY recording with a leveled-up expertise in production. Throughout the record there are loving nostalgic nods to the records White-Gluz adored on their release twenty years ago Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps, No Doubt.

White-Gluz hadn’t read Sheila Heti’s ‘Motherhood’ when she wrote and titled this record, but when she did, the narrative parallels between the two projects were “like looking into a mirror. Time is critical, and you have to make decisions that are extremely time sensitive and your body doesn’t care,” she explains. “It’s a lot of seeing myself through my mother’s experiences, and the physicalness of a body getting older.”

The album also investigates the implications of her parents’ aging on her role as their child. Heti’s book’s central conceit is an open-ended pondering of whether dedication to writing is more significant than the desire to have children. No Joy doesn’t definitively answer this existential quagmire, either--how could anyone? Instead, ‘Motherhood’ is a beautifully dense exploration that proves how thoughtful, thorough music can translate into art that is rich, vast and alive.

Tracklisting: Birthmark / Dream Rats / Nothing Will Hurt / Four / Ageless / Why Mothers Die / Happy Bleeding / Signal Lights / Fish / Primal Curse / Kidder

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie rock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Seattle based indie rock trio Naked Giants release their second album ‘The Shadow’ produced by Chris Funk of the Decemberists and follows the ‘Green Fuzz’ EP (2019) and debut album ‘Sluff’ (2018). ‘The Shadow’ is an energetic and exhilarating musical rollercoaster ride. Within the first ten minutes the band have already careened through a blitz of post-punk riffing, wastoid gang shouting, a singalong anthem-for-the-disaffected and a Talking Heads-ish funkrock workout with bits of shimmery synth and lo-fi slide guitar riffing thrown in for good measure.

‘The Shadow’ also reveals new and welcome layers to the Naked Giants sound, both musically and lyrically. The band say ‘The Shadow’ “is a much more honest album than ‘Sluff’ - we’ve come to realize that the path to becoming a better person and bringing positivity into the world isn’t always linear, and there’s a lot of growth in taking an honest look at the ‘shadow-y’ parts of life. Whether it’s personal anxiety and depression or collective guilt and trauma, there’s always a part of yourself that’s hard to confront and understand. But ‘The Shadow’ is all about facing that darkness and having the strength to bring it into the light.”

Tracklisting: Walk Of Doom / High School (Don’t Like Them) / Take A Chance / Turns Blue / (God Damn!) What I Am / The Ripper / Unpeeled / Television / Better Not Waste My Time / The Shadow / Song For When You Sleep

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

American female psych/punk/garage band from Los Angeles release second album ‘Play With Fire’.Where their self-titled album oozed with vibe and atmosphere, with the whole mix draped in reverb, sonically placing the band in some distant realm, broadcast across some unknown chasm of time, second album ‘Play With Fire’ comes crashing out of the gate with a bold, brash, in-your-face rocker “Fire Starter.” The authoritative opener is a deliberate mission statement.

“‘Play With Fire’ is a suggestion to make things happen,” says vocalist/guitarist Sade Sanchez. “Don’t fear mistakes or the future. Take a chance. Say and do what you really feel, even if nobody agrees with your ideas. These are feelings that have stopped me in the past. I want to inspire others to be freethinkers even if it causes a little burn.” And by that line of reasoning, “Fire Starter” becomes a call to action, an anthem against apathy. From there, the album segues into the similarly bodacious rocker “Motorcycle Boy” a feisty love song inspired by classic cinema outlaws like Mickey Rourke, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen. At track three, we hear L.A. Witch expand into new territories as “Dark Horse” unfurls a mixture of dustbowl folk, psychedelic breakdowns, and fire-and-brimstone organ lines. And from there, the band only gets more adventurous.

‘Play With Fire’ is a bold new journey that retains L.A. Witch’s siren-song mystique, nostalgic spirit, and contemporary cool. Despite the stylistic breadth of the record, there is a unifying timbre across the album’s nine tracks, as if the trio of young musicians is bound together as a collective of old souls tapping into the sounds of their previous youth.

Tracklisting: Fire Starter / Motorcycle Boy / Dark Horse / I Wanna Lose / Gen-Z / Sexorexia / Maybe the Weather / True Believers / Starred

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

American Folk punkers The Front Bottoms celebrating life and purge angst on their fifth album, ‘In Sickness & In Flames’ which finds them pushing forward with positive and creative energy, and features celebrated singles “Camouflage” and “Everyone Blooms.”. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Brian Sella and drummer Mathew Uychich, The Front Bottoms have gripped listeners and press around the world with their ragged honesty and emotional urgency.

The New Jersey based band’s 2017 album, ‘Going Grey’ arrived to critical acclaim with lead single “Peace Sign” breaking into the Alternative Radio charts. Some of the praise included “The Front Bottoms make memorable sing-a-longs that call back to a different, simpler, sadder era of confessional guitar music” (Fader) and “grand and reflective and damn near arena-ready.” (Stereogum) A.V. Club professed, “The Front Bottoms are more confident, and secure enough to confess to all they don’t yet know. It’s a privilege to listen in as they work it out”.

Describing their new album, the band said: “Earlier this year, we made a new album and decided to name it 'In Sickness & In Flames'. When we were writing the album and settling on the title, it meant something completely different to us. We could have never imagined where the world would be just six months later. In true TFB style this album has developed into something of its own that we no longer control the narrative of”.

Tracklisting: Everyone Blooms / Camouflage / Jerk / The Truth / Montgomery Forever / The Hard Way / Leaf Pile / New song d / Fairbanks, Alaska / Love At First Sight / Bus Beat / Make Way

Label Review. 

2020 album. Alt rock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Tennessee-based rock band Bully release their third album ‘Sugaregg’ The old saying goes that no one saves us but ourselves. Recognizing and breaking free from the patterns impeding our forward progress can be transformative - just ask Bully’s Alicia Bognanno. The album may not ever have come to fruition had Bognanno not navigated every kind of upheaval imaginable and completely overhauled her working process along the way. “There was change that needed to happen and it happened on this record,” she says. “Derailing my ego and insecurities allowed me to give these songs the attention they deserved.”

‘Sugaregg’ roars from the speakers and jump starts both heart and mind. Like My Bloody Valentine after three double espressos, opener “Add It On” zooms heavenward within seconds, epitomizing Alicia’s newfound clarity of purpose, while the bass-driven melodies and propulsive beats of “Where to Start” and “Let You” are the musical equivalents of the sun piercing through a perpetually cloudy sky.

On songs like the strident “Every Tradition” and “Not Ashamed”, Bognanno doesn’t shy away from addressing “how I feel as a human holds up against what society expects or assumes of me as a woman, and what it feels like to naturally challenge.” But amongst the more dense topics, there’s also a light-heartedness that was lacking on Bully’s last album, 2017’s ‘Losing’. Pointing to “Where to Start”, “You” and “Let You”, Bognanno says “there are more songs about erratic, dysfunctional love in an upbeat way, like, ‘I’m going down and that’s the only way I want to go because the momentary joy is worth it.’”

Tracklisting: Add It On / Every Tradition / Where to Start / Prism / You / Let You / Like Fire / Stuck in Your Head / Come Down / Not Ashamed / Hours and Hours / What I Wanted

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Former singer and songwriter with The Broken Family Band Steven Adams releases his second album with current band The French Drops called ‘Keep It Light’. The buoyant and relaxed mood can be heard across the album in its gloriously skipping tones, as it traverses across indie, pop, alt-rock and more tender acoustic and folk-leaning moments. It’s a craft that Adams has been honing for years as the lead figure in outfits such as The Broken Family Band and Singing Adams, so much so that by now it oozes out of him with a seamless grace.

The album is one as full of joy and beauty as it is ink black humour and caustic revelation. On the gorgeous shuffle of “Oh Dear” - recalling the kind of stripped back beauty of Yo La Tengo at their finest - Adams sings: “and true love will not find you in the end.” A knowing nod and a wink to Daniel Johnston’s earnest refrain that indeed true love will find you in the end. It’s such moments that fill the album with equal parts weight and lightness, a smart touch delivered with a deft hand. Of the broad range of the album and its wide-spanning lyrical content Adams simply says: “the upbeat stuff is pretty upbeat and the darker stuff is pretty dark, but it’s all still with some humour.”

“I love making records but sometimes time, money, or people - including me - fuck up my enjoyment of the process. So this time I kept saying to myself ‘keep it light’ whenever I was making decisions.” Once described by The Guardian as “one of Britain’s smartest, most underrated songwriters”, Adams’ aim was clear with this record. “I wanted to make a super personal, light-hearted and upbeat record,” he says. “I wanted to do the whole write about what you know thing and keep it as light as possible.” The lightness of the album was a guiding principle but it wasn’t a rule set in stone, as Adams soon found out the deeper he plunged into himself. “We had a running joke about how we were making an album called ‘Keep it Light’ that is full of songs about racists and panic attacks and existential angst,” he says. “But it does you good to get that stuff out. Writing songs and making records keeps me sane.”

Tracklisting: Soft Landings / Bring on the Naps / Canary / Gracechurch St / Oh Dear / Going to Everglades / Note to Self / My Brother The Racist / Jonny / Mr Sunshine

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD and Coloured Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

American indie band Bright Eyes, lead by Conor Oberst, release their tenth studio album and first release since 2011, ‘Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was’ - a record caught in the profound in-between of grief and clarity - one arm wrestling its demons, the other gripping the hand of love, in spite of it.

The end of Bright Eyes’ unofficial hiatus came naturally. Conor Oberst pitched the idea of getting the band back together during a 2017 Christmas party at Bright Eyes bandmate Nathaniel Walcott’s Los Angeles home. The two huddled in the bathroom and called Mike Mogis, who was Christmas shopping at an Omaha mall. Mogis immediately said yes. There was no specific catalyst for the trio, aside from finding comfort amidst a decade of brutal change.

The resulting Bright Eyes album came together unlike any other of its predecessors. ‘Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was’ is Bright Eyes’ most collaborative, stemming from only one demo and written in stints in Omaha and in bits and pieces in Walcott’s Los Angeles home. Radically altering a writing process 25 years into a project seems daunting but Oberst said there was no trepidation: “Our history and our friendship, and my trust level with them, is so complete and deep. And I wanted it to feel as much like a three-headed monster as possible.”

‘Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was’ is a distillation of a prolific, enduring canon. It’s immediate and urgent, the product of its creators’ growth across a decade apart, as well as the need to make a record together to find solace from loss. Through deliberate, fearless experimentation in process, the trio made the truest Bright Eyes sound: the sound of a deep bond, of a band coming home but also a seamless continuation, like Bright Eyes never went away. It’s the impossible, sprawling mess of human experience that Bright Eyes has always sought to put to tape, since the beginning - the sound of holding on.

Tracklisting: Pageturners Rag / Dance and Sing / Just once in the World / Mariana Trench / One and Done / Pan and Broom / Stairwell Song / Persona Non Grata / Tilt-A-Whirl / Hot Car in the Sun / Forced Convalescence / To Death’s Heart (In Three Parts) / Calais to Dover / Comet Song

Label Review.

2020 album. Rock.

Our Overview.

‘Untenable’ is the sophomore full-length by Washington, D.C.’s Bad Moves - power pop band formed in 2016, and are currently on Don Giovanni Records. The band consists of David Combs, Katie Park, Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Emma Cleveland. On this record, the band has leaned into the outer edges of their influences, expanding their power-pop umbrella to include hints of folk, garage rock, and ‘90s “indie” while still keeping the hooks tuneful and sticky.

Lyrically, the band explores the myriad anxieties of modern living -- from heady questions of self-definition and identity to day-to-day matters, like labor precarity, climate change, social media, automation and the surveillance state.

Tracklisting: Local Radio / Night Terrors / Party With the Kids Who Wanna Party With You / Cape Henlopen / Toward Crescent Park / Working for Free / Muster / Fog Is a Funny Thing / Same Bad Friends / Settle Into It / Tides / End of Time

1970 album. CD1: 2012 remaster of original album. CD2: 1974 quad mix. CD3-4: Live in Montreux and Brussels 1970. 60pp book.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

After a break from writing or recording new musical material of nearly seven years, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine’s former frontman, Jim Bob returns with a smashing new solo record ‘Pop Up Jim Bob’. The album is a sharp and witty social commentary, full of catchy tracks that will delight Carter USM fans and anyone who loves a great tune.

The music is a return to his honest and intelligent indie-pop-rock. From the frank, dark humoured lyrics of “Jo’s Got Papercuts” (“Jo knows it is what it is now, she knows she can’t dance to The Smiths now”), to the much darker meander of “Truce”, Jim provides us with songs of his most unique views on life. “Kidstrike!” is a lyrically busy snapshot of modern life in London, while “#thoughtsandprayers” is a sardonic number that shines a light on the downtrodden in our society. From TED talks to drinking in the park, Jim’s vivid descriptions of his characters let us in on his world. A place that, deep down, we knew all along – and live every day.

As singer with Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine Jim Bob had 14 top 40 singles, four top ten albums (including a number one), sold over a million records, toured the world and headlined Glastonbury. In 2007, ten years after initially splitting, Carter USM reformed for a series of huge, sold out shows until they called it a day again in 2014. Outside of Carter Jim Bob has had a long and varied solo music career. He has released ten solo albums, written songs for Ian Dury and for the 2006 Barbican production of Mark Ravenhill’s Dick Whittington & His Cat. In August 2010 Jim Bob made his Edinburgh Fringe debut in the Ward and White musical ‘Gutted, A Revenger’s Musical.’

Tracklisting: Turn On, Tune In, Pop Up! / Jo’s Got Papercuts / Kidstrike! / Ted Talks / Truce / 2020 Wtf! / If It Aint Broke / Big Boy / Barry’s On Safari (In His Safari Suit) / #Thoughtsandprayers / You’re Cancelled And We’re Done

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on CD, Black vinyl and Blue Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

First formed in a Chicago apartment in 2014, tackling songs by the Everly Brothers, Allen Toussaint and more, Whitney follow their acclaimed sophomore 2019 album ‘Forever Turned Around’, by deciding to record a loving tribute to songs that have been formative and lasting to the entire band.

‘Candid’ is a 10-song collection boasting covers of artists like Kelela, David Byrne, John Denver, SWV and others but it’s also a band challenging themselves to explore more than their musical comfort zone. “This could’ve been as simple as saying we really love these songs and we love our bandmates and making a covers record just felt right but it truly became an exploration into how we can evolve as a band going forward,” says drummer and singer Julien Ehrlich.

Covers have long been an integral part of Whitney’s ethos. Ever since the band played an important part in the songwriting process for their breakthrough 2016 debut ‘Light Upon The Lake’. Since then, their takes on NRBQ’s ‘Magnet’ and Neil Young’s ‘On The Way Home’ have become live staples, an essential and communal part of their sets. Their love for the music that makes up their deepest influences has always been genuine and tangible.

The album is a sincere snapshot of their evolving and eclectic tastes that’s imbued with a wholly inviting charm. It’s Whitney at their most unvarnished and inventive but most importantly, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the songwriters who’ve helped them most.

Tracklisting: Bank Head / A.M. AM / Take Me Home, Country Roads (ft Waxahatchee) / High on a Rocky Ledge / Something Happen / Strange Overtones / Hammond Song / Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying / Rain / Rainbows & Ridges

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield releases his second solo album ‘Even In Exile’. Using the lyrics of Patrick Jones (James’ bandmate Nicky Wire’s brother) it is inspired by the story of Victor Jara, the Chilean poet-singer-activist who was tortured and killed during the early days of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. An ultra-vivid eulogy to a brilliant life cut short, ‘Even In Exile’ is a beautiful collection of songs that loosely traces Victor Jara’s story - at points pure and biographical, at others dreamlike and opaque, Bradfield sets Jones’ words written specifically for the project to some of the most addictive and affecting melodies he’s ever composed.

James says “I’d known about him all my life. I knew the story, the tragedy, the political history – but I never really knew much about Victor Jara’s music. When I started listening to it two years ago, I was just stunned that his music could have such a tender and beautiful heart. There’s such a spirit of reconciliation in his protest music and I’d never heard that before. Protest music is usually quite confrontational. That led me on to make a record trying to reach and communicate with other people – not to just confront. I’m glad that in this day and age, I chose to write about someone like Victor – a person that wanted people to be together rather than apart.”

Tracklisting: Recuerda / The Boy From The Plantation / There’ll Come A War / Seeking The Room With The Three Windows / Thirty Thousand Milk Bottles / Under The Mimosa Tree / From The Hands Of Violeta / Without Knowing The End (Joan’s Song) / La Partida / The Last Song / Santiago Sunrise

Label Review. 

2020 album. The Doors guitarist. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Robby Krieger the legendary guitarist and songwriter of The Doors and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Robby Krieger will be releasing his first solo album in a decade ‘The Ritual Begins At Sundown’. The Doors weren’t just one of the most iconic bands of their generation, but one of the most influential bands in rock history and Robby Krieger was responsible for writing some of their biggest hits in “Light My Fire,” “Love Me Two Times,” “Touch Me” and “Love Her Madly.”

Krieger returns for his ninth solo album, and his first since 2010s Grammy nominated ‘Singularity’, once again with his long-time writing partner and co-producer Arthur Barrow. Barrow worked with Frank Zappa through the 1970s-80s as well as Giorgio Moroder, Joe Cocker, Diana Ross and Janet Jackson, and worked on soundtracks for Top Gun andScarface. The album also features other Zappa alumni Jock Ellis (Trombone), Sal Marquez (Trumpet) and Tommy Mars (Keys), as well as AeB Bryne (Flute), Vince Denim (Sax), Chuck Manning (Sax), Joel Wackerman (Drums) and Joel Taylor (Drums).  Krieger shares, “I was hanging out with my buddy Arthur Barrow and we had some songs we had been fooling around with then we got some other friends involved.”

'The Ritual Begins At Sundown' is a ten-song instrumental record which was recorded at his own Horse Latitudes Studio in Los Angeles and features nine originals and one cover, the Frank Zappa song “Chunga’s Revenge.”  To understand where he is for the album now, you need to go right back to the beginning when he was on the exploding jazz scene.  Krieger explains, “When I wrote songs for The Doors, it was always the music first. I think you have to have some musical ability to really understand Jazz.  When I was young, I didn’t really understand it.  It took me a while. I was going to the clubs with John Densmore – before The Doors – to really get an appreciation of Jazz. We used to go see Wes Montgomery, Roland Kirk, Miles Davis, stuff like that. At first, I didn’t really get it, but after a while it sank in and I always loved it after that.”

The album really is a return to friends with his relationship with Barrow and Sal Marquez dating all the way back to his first solo album. “After The Doors I started becoming interested in Jazz and started hanging out with a guy called Sal Marquez,” he says. “So, we put this band together and that was the first Robby Krieger band and we played at the Whiskey A-Go-Go with Don Preston, Zappa’s keyboard player. Arthur Barrow who was a huge Zappa fan –  this was before he worked with Frank – he decided that, after graduating from North Texas State music school that he was gonna come out to LA and try to get into Frank’s band, which was pretty brash of him,” he laughs. “He started hanging out with Don and with Zappa, Don was in my band so we decided to put Arthur in charge of the mixing at the Whiskey for our shows, that’s when I first met him in the 70s.”

Krieger’s influence spans generations, from Alice Cooper, who when playing the Sunset Strip for the first time in the 70s, was taken under the wing of The Doors and said of Krieger, “I never heard a guitar player like this, he did things with the guitar that nobody’s ever done.”  William Duvall (Alice in Chains) has proclaimed that “Robby Krieger is one of my absolute heroes,” whilst John Garcia (Kyuss) got the opportunity to have Krieger guest on his album in 2015 and said “I will never forget that experience for the rest of my life, it truly made the song better, not to mention the entire record.” Other plaudits have come in from Ritchie Sambora who said “People do not know how good he is.”

Tracklisting: What Was That? / Slide Home / The Drift / Chunga's Revenge (Frank Zappa cover) / Hot Head / Yes, The River Knows / The Hitch / Dr Noir / Bianca's Dream / Screen Junkie

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Jon Anderson, the English singer and songwriter best known as the frontman for the prog rock band Yes, releases his latest solo album, ‘1000 Hands Chapter One’. The album originates from sessions for a project to have been called Uzlot (a northern English pronunciation of “us lot”) that Anderson had been recording in Big Bear, California, with English keyboardist Brian Chatton around 1990. Chatton wrote most of the music, played keyboards and also sang. Anderson asked his then Yes bandmates Chris Squire and Alan White to play on the project too. At the time, Yes were preparing for a tour and Anderson put the master tapes in his garage and, as he has recounted, gave them very little thought for many years.

In 2016, producer Michael Franklin contacted Anderson about using the tapes and finishing an album. Further recordings followed at Solar Studios in Orlando, Florida. Along with some newly written material, the final result is ‘1000 Hands’. As the new title suggests, the album was created with a stunning array of guest performers, including Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain, Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice, Rick Derringer, the Tower of Power horn section, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and pianist Chick Corea. Franklin blended their contributions into the original 1990 recordings with Anderson, Squire and White to create a seamless album that sounds like it was all recorded at the same time. “He did all of it behind my back,” says Anderson. “When he told me he was getting Chick Corea, I couldn’t believe it. But then it was like, boom! He came in and made me sound better. The whole thing was like, ‘Surprise! Surprise!’”

Tracklisting: Now / Ramalama / First Born Leaders / Activate / Makes Me Happy / Now Variartions / I Found Myself / Twice In A Lifetime / WDMCF / 1000 Hands (Come Up) / Now And Again

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Scottish rock trio Biffy Clyro are releasing their much anticipated eight album ‘A Celebration Of Endings’ of which frontman Simon Neil explains “This is a very forward-looking album from a personal perspective and a societal perspective. The title is about seeing the joy in things changing, rather than the sadness. Change means progression and evolution. You can retain everything you loved before, but let’s lose the bad shit. It’s about trying to take back control.”

The band made an instant impact with ‘Instant History’ blending their explosive attack with apocalyptic synths and bombastic beats, the track was premiered as BBC’s Annie Mac’s Hottest Record in the World. The band’s approach to opus eight was simple. Keep things fresh and maintain the wide-eyed wonder of what they do. Surprise themselves and each other. Push things to their furthest extremes. Their first building block in embracing the new was to turn to an old friend. In came Rich Costey, producer of ‘Ellipsis’.

Sonically, Biffy Clyro playfully push the outer reaches of their sound to the extreme – often in the case of the same song. Opening track ‘North of No South’ hits hard before finding the space for the Johnston brothers to unleash some soaring Queen-style vocal harmonies, before ‘The Champ’ throws piano, cinematic strings (conducted by Bruce Springsteen collaborator Rob Mathes at Abbey Road) and Biffy’s prototyped jagged rhythms into the mix without ever losing any of its sleekness.

Other songs are far more direct. ‘Tiny Indoor Fireworks’ is the best direct rock anthem they’ve ever written, somehow snappy, melodic and light on its feet while feeling so natural you could imagine it was conceived in minutes.  Meanwhile, ‘Space’ is a natural successor from previous lighters-in-the-air highlights ‘Many of Horror’ and ‘Rearrange’. It’s a sincere message of reconciliation for someone you love, and Biffy’s most tender, unguarded moment from the sweet spot of their catalogue.

How can you conclude an album of such esoteric diversity? Biffy launch headfirst into ‘Cop Syrup’. There’s the rush of ‘The Vertigo of Bliss’, a detour into Sub Pop-style grunge and manic shrieks which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Liturgy record. But then it contorts again, first into ethereal orchestration and then with a final burst of violence. It’s an ending to celebrate.To coincide with the album’s launch, Biffy Clyro have today shared the new track ‘End Of’. The aggression is old school Biffy, but the out-of-nowhere piano break and a final rally of rampaging riffs matches their current unpredictable flair.

Tracklisting: North Of No South / The Champ / Weird Leisure / Tiny Indoor Fireworks / Worst Type Of Best Possible / Space / End Of / Instant History / The Pink Limit / Opaque / Cop Syrup

2020 live album recorded on the 2017/18 world tour.

Label Review. 

2020 album. His final solo recordings made before he passed in 2013. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Eight Gates’ is the last collection of solo studio recordings American singer songwriter Jason Molina made before he passed from complications related to alcoholism in 2013. Raised in northern Ohio, he came to prominence performing and recording as Songs: Ohia, both in solo projects and with a rotating cast of musicians in the late 1990s. Beginning in 2003, he would garner a further indie following for his releases with the band Magnolia Electric Co.

Sometime in 2006 or 2007, Jason Molina moved from the Midwest to London, England. Separated from his bandmates and friends and never one for idleness, Molina explored his new home with fervour. Sometimes he’d head out on foot, often with no destination in mind. Other times, he’d pick a random tube stop and find his way back home. He’d pick up on arcane trivia about London’s rich history and if the historical factoids weren’t available - or weren’t quite to his liking - Molina was quite comfortable conjuring his own history. His adoration of The Great American Tall Tales like John Henry and Paul Bunyan’s blue ox Babe stretched across the Atlantic, where he created his own personal Tall Tales. And when he learned of the London Wall’s seven gates (itself a misconception), Molina went ahead and called it eight, carving out a gate just for himself. The eighth gate was Molina’s way into London, a gate only passable in the mind.

Recorded whilst in London, some of the songs (“Whispered Away”, “Thistle Blue”) are fully-realized - dark, moody textures that call to mind his earlier work on ‘The Lioness’. Other songs (“She Says”, “The Crossroads and The Emptiness”) lay in a more unfinished state, acoustic takes that call to mind Molina’s “Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go”, and still tethered to Molina’s humorous studio banter. On the closer, ‘The Crossroads and The Emptiness’, Molina snaps at the engineer before tearing into a song in which he sings of his birthday (December 30), a palm reading and the great emptiness with which he always wrestled. It is a perfect closer and, in many ways, the eighth gate incarnate: mythical, passable only in the mind, built for himself and partway imaginary but shared, thankfully, with us.

Tracklisting: Whisper Away / Shadow Answers the Wall / The Mission’s End / Old Worry / She Says / Fire on the Rail / Be Told the Truth / Thistle Blue / The Crossroads and the Emptiness

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Eyedress is LA based Filipino singer, musician and producer Idris Vicuña. ‘Let’s Skip To The Wedding’ is his first album since relocating from Manila to the US in late 2018. A passionate exploration of the themes of love, adjusting to life in a new city, and preparing to welcome a child into this ever changing world. His unique songwriting pairs lovesick lyrics with infectious guitar hooks & his trademark, cold wave inspired, woozy synths. “My next album is for everyone who wants to be in a serious relationship, real simp shit”.

The album follows his ‘Valentine’s Day’ single, which was championed by Mike D (Beastie Boys) on his Beats 1 show, and 2019’s ‘Jealous’ EP, whose title track has grown to become his most popular to date. Over the past year Eyedress began collaborating with kindred spirits like Cuco, Triathalon and Inner Wave, and earned a reputation for his wild and unpredictable performances, which saw him sharing stages with acts like Homeshake, Enjoy, Jasper Bones, N8NOFACE and B Cool Aid, as well as supporting Inner Wave on their 13 date west coast tour.

His last album ‘Sensitive G’ was a personal reflection of Manila life told through the music of his youth; dreampop, punk & indie rock. In 2017 he released his debut album ‘Manila Ice’, a record about love and survival in the Philippines. Eyedress has previously collaborated with King Krule, VRITRA, Fazerdaze and Jess Connelly. “I will continue to create works that send a message to inform and awaken those that are not aware of the social injustices going on around us every day.”

Tracklisting: Let’s Skip to The Wedding / Skateboarding Day / Never Want To Be Apart / Can I See You Tonight? / Romantic Lover / X-Girl / I Don’t Wanna Be Your Friend / Jealous / Last Time I’m Falling In Love / Pop The Question / Happy Hour / Trauma / My Girl The Finest / Never Been To Prom / Mystical Creature’s Best Friend / Pick Up Your Phone / Self Improvement / Kiss Me Like It’s The Last Time / Anything For You

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

On her second solo album, ‘Who The Power’, Liela Moss follows 2018’s deeply personal ‘My Name Is Safe in Your Mouth’ - an album at times serene, at others stormy, on every front sumptuous. Now, she has forged an album of questioning intensity and synth-loaded drama, with the expressive force in her voice refuelled by the urgent desire to interrogate the role of selfhood in fraught times. And, crucially, backed by the urgent grooves needed for the job. “If you’re going to deconstruct the modern psyche,” says Liela Moss, “you might as well dance to it.”

Album opener “Turn Your Back Around” is a yearning eco-lament set to banked synths over a propulsive beat. Or, as Moss puts it: “One filthy, upbeat, downhearted, close-your-eyes-and dance- by-yourself pop song, offered as a parting gift to Mother Earth”. “Watching The Wolf” is another forthright song for today, its brooding, near-gothic swagger framing a righteous modern-day folk tale about wolves converging to unseat a toxic political pundit. A controlled rage shows in Moss’s voice, which grows more liberated still amid the simmering darkwave throb of “Atoms At Me”, where Moss issues a call to free the senses from the call to consume.

Elsewhere, the moody elegance of ‘Battlefield’ and bruised plea of ‘Nummah’ rank among Moss’s finest vocal performances. ‘Suako’ offers pulsing synth-rock impetus to risk starting anew, while the blissful ‘Stolen Careful’ ends the album on a palpable note of revitalisation, all risks rewarded as Moss emerges refreshed in her hunger to explore new, meaningful ways to engage with the world.

Widescreen ambitions fulfilled, the result is another bold leap forward for one of alt-rock’s most magnetic, exploratory voices. Over 14 years, Moss’s work with the Duke Spirit (on pause) ranged from brawling riff-rock to more cinematic ventures. Other gigs have included synth-rock recordings with Butler under the name Roman Remains and various collaborative ventures – with UNKLE, Nick Cave, Giorgio Moroder and Lost Horizons, as well as serving as muse for fashion icons Alexander McQueen and Phillip Lim, among others.

Tracklisting: Turn Your Back Around / Watching The Wolf / Atoms At Me / Always Sliding / The Individual / White Feather / Battlefield / Nummah / Suako / Stolen Careful

Label Review. 

2020 album. Electronic. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Purple Noon’, is Ernest Greene’s fourth album as Washed Out and presents his most accessible creation to date. Greene again wrote, recorded and produced the entirety of the album, with mixing handled by frequent collaborator Ben H. Allen. Production of the album followed a brief stint of writing for other artists (most notably Sudan Archives), which enabled Greene to explore genres like R&B and modern pop. These brighter, more robust sounds made their way into the songs of ‘Purple Noon’ and mark a new chapter for Greene as a producer and songwriter. The vocals are front and centre, tempos are slower, beats bolder, and there’s a more comprehensive depth of dynamics. One can hear the luxuriousness of Sade, the sonic bombast of Phil Collins and the lush atmosphere of the great Balearic beat classics.

Mediterranean coastlines inspired ‘Purple Noon’ and Greene pays tribute to the region’s distinct island culture - all rugged elegance and old-world charm - and uses it as a backdrop to tell stories of passion, love and loss (‘Purple Noon’s title comes from the 1960 film directed by Rene Clement and based on the novel ‘The Talented Mister Ripley’ by Patricia Highsmith). Much like romantic Hollywood epics, the melodrama throughout is strong: a serendipitous first meeting in “Too Late”; a passionate love affair in “Paralyzed”; disintegration of a relationship in “Time to Walk Away”; a reunion with a lost love in “Game of Chance”. ‘Purple Noon’ adds a layer of emotional intensity to the escapism of Washed Out’s oeuvre, taking the music to dazzling new heights.

Tracklisting: Too Late / Face Up / Time to Walk Away / Paralyzed / Reckless Desires / Game of Chance / Leave You Behind / Don’t Go / Hide / Haunt

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

On ‘Prisyn’, his third album as Jaye Jayle, Evan Patterson continues to show he is a wanderer and an explorer. It’s evident in the constant evolution of his music since his earliest days as a guitarist in left-of-center bands, but it’s best exemplified by the constant creative shifts within the fever-dream blues of Jaye Jayle. Patterson takes his boldest leap into unknown territories, capturing immediate moments in his ever-shifting surroundings with the most basic tool at his disposal: the GarageBand app on an iPhone.

The album began with a request from couture designer Ashley Rose, when she proposed that Evan Patterson team up with Sargent House label mates Chelsea Wolfe and Ben Chisholm to create a soundtrack for one of her upcoming fashion shows. Patterson was in the early stages of a massive eleven-week stretch of touring and used his downtime in the van to flesh out ideas on his phone. “I sent a track to Ben and he sent it back the next day with additional instrumentation, sounds, and effects,” Patterson recalls. “It was wild. He suggested we make a whole record that way. I printed out all these poems, stories, and journal entries I’d made on my phone over the course of the year and went into the studio with my friend Warren (Christopher Gray). We’d find things that rhythmically worked, and that’s how all the lyrics and singing happened. It was all gut instinct, improvisational,” Patterson recalls. “The vocal approach isn’t meant to be full of hooks and melody."

The record’s title “Prisyn” is a play on the idea of a synthetic prison, and alludes to Patterson’s desire for artistic freedom and the album’s conflicted use of addictive technologies. Evan comments, “These songs have a totally different energy, and that’s the exciting thing about making art. Things have to progress. I don’t want to draw the same picture for the rest of my life. Maybe that keeps you from being a master at it, but being a master isn’t the key to art. It’s having that constant expression, the constant outlet, the constant change”.

Tracklisting: A Cold Wind / Don’t Blame the Rain / Synthetic Prison / The River Spree / Making Friends / Guntime / Blueberries / I Need You / The Last Drive / From Louisville

Label Review. 

1981 album. Synth pop. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The early 80s were prolific for Electronic music pioneer Hideki Matsutake. As the go-to keyboard programmer for the tokyo music scene, he worked with Akiko Yano, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mkwaju Ensemble’s “Mkwaju” and found time to record two albums under the Logic System name in 1981. While the first album, ‘Logic’ had a harder techno feel, the second one ‘Venus’ was different affair.

Recorded in Los Angeles at the new state of the art Yamaha Studio, it was loosely themed on the Greek goddess Venus and had a funkier more organic sound. For the album Matsutake had asked a handful of American musicians to provide songs he would then add his synth magic touch to. Michael Boddicker, Don Grusin, Nathan East and Roger Powell duly complied and also played on the album. The updated sound was achieved by switching from the Moog III to the E-mu modular System (which Matsutake brought over to LA) and other synths like the Prophet 5, the Roland MC-8 and TR 808 and the Yamaha GS-1, a forerunner of the DX7. The result is an amazing futuristic mix of electronic music and early 80s funk, announcing many genres to come, from techno and house to French electro and Vaporwave.

From the breezy ambient synth of “I Love You” to the city pop edge of “Be Yourself” (originally written by Nathan East for Debra Laws) and the vocoder-led Daft Punk-ish “Take A Chance”, ‘Venus’ is a fascinating album that both pushes the boundaries of electronic music and is yet strangely accessible and beautiful.

Tracklisting: Venus / Morpheus / I Love You / Plan / Take A Chance / Automatic Collect Automatic Correct / Be Yourself / Prophet / Metamorphism / Equivalent

Label Review. 

2020 album. Electronic. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Los Angeles composer, artist, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has chartered a pioneering career with multiple critically-acclaimed albums since 2015. Following the release of ‘The Kid’ in 2017, Smith focused her energy in several directions. She founded Touchtheplants, a multidisciplinary creative environment for projects including the first volumes in her instrumental Electronic Series and pocket-sized poetry books on the practice of listening within. She’s continued to explore the endless possibilities of electronic instruments as well as the shapes, movements, and expressions found in the physical body’s relationship to sound and color. It is this life-guiding interest that forms the foundational frequencies of her latest full-length, ‘The Mosaic of Transformation’, a bright, sensorial glide through unbound wave phenomena and the radiant power discovered within oneself.

“I guess in one sentence, this album is my expression of love and appreciation for electricity,” says Kaithlyn. While writing and recording, she embraced a daily practice of physical movement, passing electricity through her body and into motion, in ways reflecting her audio practice, which sends currents through modular synthesizers and into the air through speakers. Not a dancer by any traditional definition, she taught herself improvisatory movement realizing flexibility, strength, and unexpectedly, what Smith calls “a visual language” (the term was introduced to her by filmmaker Sean Hellfritsch) stemming from the human body and comprised of vibrational shapes. Understood as cymatics, as she says, “as a reference for how frequencies can be visualized,” much like a mosaic.

As it has arrived, in a completed state, The Mosaic of Transformation is a holistic manifestation of embodied motions. Airy organ and voice interweave with burbling Buchla-spawned harmonic bubbles. If the record could be summarized in a single movement, it is the 10-minute closing suite, a rapturous collage called “Expanding Electricity.” Symphonic phrases establish the piece before washes of glittering electric peals and synthesized vibraphone helix into focus. Soon, Smith’s voice grounds it all with an intuitive vocal hook, harmonized and augmented by concentric spirals of harp-and-horn-like sounds. Smith’s music doesn’t capture a specific emotion as much as it captures the joys of possessing a body, and the ability to, with devotion and a steady open heart, maneuver that vessel in space by way of electricity to euphoric degrees.

Tracklisting: Unbraiding Boundless Energy Within Boundaries / Remembering / Understanding Body Messages / The Steady Heart / Carrying Gravity / The Spine Is Quiet In The Center / Overflowing / Deepening The Flow Of / Expanding Electricity

Label Review. 

2020 covers album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

American singer, songwriter, and former band member of Indie legends Throwing Muses and Belly, Tanya Donelly covers some of her favourite songs by The Go Go’s, Leonard Cohen, Kirsty MacColl, Split Enz, Linda Ronstadt, The Pretenders, Wings, Echo & The Bunnymen, and Mary Margaret O’Hara on this outstanding new album.

Tanya says of the project: “When Joe from American Laundromat asked if I’d be interested in doing a covers album, I was hesitant, mainly because most of the songs I truly love are already perfect in their original form. But then I had the idea to ask the brilliant Parkington Sisters to be the band for this project, to bring their gorgeous sound and spirit, and make it something cohesive and centered. Happily, they said yes. So I chose a handful of songs that have been on heavy rotation in my head and heart from the first time I heard them, and the Sisters took over. These are some of the most honest, moving, beautiful, unfiltered, true and cool songs that have ever been written, in my opinion. And those same adjectives apply to the Parkington Sisters as well.”

For ten years Tanya jointly steered Boston based Throwing Muses with Kristin Hersh until she left in 1990 to for The Breeders with The Pixies Kim Deal. After just one album Tanya formed her own band Belly whos first album ‘Star’ in 1993 was a breakout success especially in the UK. However they broke up after just one more album (‘King’ in 1995) and Tanya went solo before retreating to the Boston scene and raising a family. The last few years has seen a reunion of Belly which included a new album ‘Dove’ and a series of EPs called ‘Swan Song Series’ which saw Donelly collaborate with numerous musicians, authors and friends.

Tracklisting: Automatic / Dance Me To The End Of Love / Days / Ocean Rain / Let Me Roll It / Kid / Different Drum / Devil You Know / You Will Be Loved Again

Label Review. 

1968 album remixed and remastered with 10 bonus tracks, 2 of which completely unreleased. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘The Delta Sweete’ is the second studio album by American country pop star Bobbie Gentry: A concept album inspired by her Mississippi childhood, it was originally released in February 1968 by Capitol Records and recorded at Capitol Recording Studio (Hollywood). ‘The Delta Sweete’ is Bobbie Gentry’s most critically acclaimed album and has not been pressed in the UK or US since 1972. Interest in the album is at a high after Uncut recently placed it 4th in their ‘Ultimate Genre Guide’ to the top 40 singer-songwriter albums of all time, and in February 2019, Mercury Rev released their tribute album The Delta Sweete Revisited (chartered 32 in UK Albums chart and 1 in UK independent chart), with guest vocalists, Norah Jones, Beth Orton and Lucinda Williams to name a few).

This 2CD / 2LP release will feature the original album remixed and mastered from multi-tracks by Andrew Batt, and is supplemented by outtakes and demos, featuring two previously unleased tracks. The CD edition also features the original mono release of the album which has not appeared on CD before. Sleevenotes are supplied by Andrew, and are illustrated with unseen images from the Capitol archive.

Bobbie is best known for her debut single “Ode To Billie Joe” which reached No.1 in the US and scored big around the world. The track which she wrote and sang with her sultry voice and minimal backing from her guitar and strings in the background, it tells of a rural Mississippi family’s reaction to the news of the suicide of Billie Joe McAllister, a local boy to whom the daughter (and narrator) is connected. The album of the same name was also a big seller but the swiftly recorded follow-up failed to replicate the success of those first releases.

‘The Delta Sweete’ is a concept album based on modern life in the Deep South. Gentry wrote eight of the album’s 12 tracks, which detail her Mississippi childhood and includes vignettes of home and church life (“Reunion” and “Sermon”), as well as recollections of blues and country hits she heard as a youngster (“Big Boss Man” and “Tobacco Road”). The song “Okolona River Bottom Band”, accented by a sophisticated horn chart and breathy strings, used the same basic cadence as “Ode to Billie Joe”. Although ignored at the time today the album is seen as the best of the seven albums she released between 1967-1971.

Tracklisting: 

CD1: Okolona River Bottom Band / Big Boss Man / Reunion / Parchman Farm / Mornin’ Glory / Sermon / Tobacco Road / Penduli Pendulum / Jessye’ Lisabeth / Refractions / Louisiana Man / Courtyard / Okolona River Bottom Band (Instrumental) – Previously unreleased / Mississippi Delta (Alternate Version) / Seventh Son (Band Version) / The Way I Do (Demo) – Previously unreleased / Feelin’ Good (Demo)

CD2: Okolona River Bottom Band (Mono) / Big Boss Man (Mono) / Reunion (Mono) / Parchman Farm (Mono) / Mornin’ Glory (Mono) / Sermon (Mono) / Tobacco Road (Mono) / Penduli Pendulum (Mono) / Jessye’ Lisabeth (Mono) / Refractions (Mono) / Louisiana Man (Mono) / Courtyard (Mono) / Mornin’ Glory (Demo) / Sermon (Demo) / Jessye’ Lisabeth (Demo) / Refractions (Demo) / Louisiana Man (Demo)

2LP: Okolona River Bottom Band / Big Boss Man / Reunion / Parchman Farm / Mornin’ Glory / Sermon / Tobacco Road / Penduli Pendulum / Jessye’ Lisabeth / Refractions / Louisiana Man / Courtyard // Okolona River Bottom Band (Instrumental) – Previously unreleased / Mississippi Delta (Alternate Version) / Seventh Son (Band Version) / The Way I Do (Demo) – Previously unreleased / Feelin’ Good (Demo) / Mornin’ Glory (Demo) / Sermon (Demo) / Jessye’ Lisabeth (Demo) / Refractions (Demo) / Louisiana Man (Demo)

Label Review. 

Saint Etienne Presents. 20 tracks compiled by Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. Ace.

Our Overview. 

‘Songs For The Fountain Coffee Room’ is the latest in the highly popular ‘Saint Etienne Present’ series, soundtracks for places both real and imaginary. This time, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs have put together a selection to fit a bar in mid-70s Los Angeles, the kind of place where Warren Beatty and Julie Christie might meet in the afternoon for a secret rendezvous between shooting scenes for ‘Shampoo’.

There’s a high quotient of airy, top-down soul, FM yacht rock, and an even larger amount of blue-eyed soul, with the odd singer-songwriter from Laurel Canyon making an appearance. Familiar summer sounds come from Todd Rundgren, Millie Jackson and Seals & Crofts. Among the discoveries are Hall and Oates’ deep cut “Lilly (Are You Happy)”; Bill Quateman’s irresistible acoustic guitar and string-powered “Only Love”; Marvin Gaye’s gorgeous “Where Are We Going?”, from the period between ‘What’s Going On’ and ‘Let’s Get It On’; and the £100 crossover soul gem “One Way Or The Other” by the Fifth Avenue Band.

These gems are the kind of thing Netflix will be tripping over themselves to use next season. Amid the potted palms, the pace is strictly mid-tempo; it’s too warm for anything faster. The windows are wide open, the sky is a clear blue, and this is the perfect summer soundtrack.

Tracklisting: Only Love - Bill Quateman / Where Are We Going? - Marvin Gaye / Get Closer - Seals & Crofts / Tell Her She’s Lovely - Batteaux / One Way Or The Other - The Fifth Avenue Band / Lilly (Are You Happy) - Daryl Hall & John Oates / Love Is The Answer - Utopia / Oh Honey - Delegation / Easy To Love - Leo Sayer / A House For Sale - Millie Jackson / Tin Man - John Edwards / Thunder In The Afternoon - Bobbie Gentry / Save It For A Rainy Day - Stephen Bishop / Love Don’t Come No Stronger (Than Yours And Mine) - Jeff Perry / Hollywood - Boz Scaggs / A Love Of Your Own - Ned Doheny / Natural High - Bloodstone / Hickory - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons / Touch Me Baby (Reaching Out For Your Love) - Tamiko Jones / Sunshower - Dr Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band

Label Review. 

1997 album remastered on two discs. Half-speed master. Also available on 2CD, 3LP & Deluxe Box. 

Our Overview. 

‘Flaming Pie’ is the tenth solo studio album by Paul McCartney, first released in 1997 and is the 13th album by Paul to receive induction into his long running ‘Archive Collection’. Having been heavily involved in The Beatles’ ‘Anthology’ project in the mid-1990s, Paul had time to reflect on the standards he and his bandmates had set during their career, and applied these to what would become his first album in four years. Made in a much more spontaneous style, with songs recorded here and there, mostly on holiday, it’s an album that luxuriates in its own sense of fun.

‘Flaming Pie’ is equal parts a masterclass in songcraft and a sustained burst of joyful spontaneity. With highlights ranging from the uplifting and inspirational opener “The Song We Were Singing” to the raucous title track to the pensive “Calico Skies”, and featuring singles “Young Boy”, “The World Tonight” and “Beautiful Night”, ‘Flaming Pie’ would represent yet another pinnacle in Paul’s solo catalogue: Released to rapturous reviews, the album would be Paul’s most commercially successful release of the ‘90s, achieving his highest chart positions since the ‘80s and would receive gold certifications in the US, UK, Japan and more.

Featuring producers George Martin and Jeff Lynne, as well as musicians including Steve Miller, Ringo Starr and his son, James McCartney, ‘Flaming Pie’ remains one of his career highlights. Sales were brisk, with the album only kept from the Number 1 slot on both sides of the Atlantic by the cultural phenomenon that was the Spice Girls’ ‘Spice’ album. The album’s title is a reference to an anecdote that John Lennon told in a humorous story published in Mersey Beat in 1961 about the origin of the Beatles’ name: “It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, ‘from this day on you are Beatles with an A.’”

Tracklisting: 

The Song We Were Singing / The World Tonight / If You Wanna / Somedays / Young Boy / Calico Skies / Flaming Pie / Heaven On A Sunday / Used To Be Bad / Souvenir / Little Willow / Really Love You / Beautiful Night / Great Day

Label Review. 

2020 album. Brazilian guitarist. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Prelúdio’ is the third album Now-Again Records will issue from the thrilling, young Brazilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento. Produced by Mario Caldato, Jr. and Luther Russell and engineered and mixed by Caldato and Jason Hiller, this album features do Nascimento’s longtime drummer Ricardo “Tiki” Pasillas.

It is the first album of solely do Nascimento’s own compositions and, like his previous albums ‘Dança dos Tempos’ and ‘Tempo dos Mestres’, follows folkloric Brazilian music, Brazilian jazz, bossa-nova and samba as experienced through the mind and able fingers of an expansive musician, combing the heady ‘60s and ‘70s experimentalism of Hermeto Pascoal and Baden Powell with the childlike elegance of music played and passed down by native Brasilians for generations.

He was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up there and in Sao Paulo, where he found inspiration in his uncle, the late Lúcio Nascimento, bassist and composer in Leny Andrade’s band Bom de Três. While he came from a musical pedigree, he’s largely self-taught, largely in the service of an overarching mission to showcase the folkloric music of his home country as he continues to develop possibilities for language of the guitar itself.

His collaborators now include Madlib, multi-instrumentalist Sam Gandel, Innovative Leisure chanteuse Claude Fontaine and legendary Brazilian percussionist, bandleader, songwriter and catalyst Airto Moreira. Moreiera states that Nascimento is “Brazilian but (his mind is) from a place in Brazil that is not common. Fortunately, we still have some musicians who like to play music and who like to touch the instrument and who like that energy! You see, because that’s the most important thing in music. The energy. That’s why I love to play live. And that’s why I’m playing with Fabiano.”

Tracklisting: De Rio a Tapajós / Partiu / Mente Azul / Rainha / Tributo / Malandro / Amanhecer / Ilhas / Prelúdio Amazônico / Trem-bala

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Highly influential post punk stars, The Psychedelic Furs release their new album, their first in nearly 30 years, ‘Made Of Rain,’. From its exhilarating opening bars, ‘Made Of Rain’ - sounds like The Psychedelic Furs and them alone. Their peerless permutations of art, aggression and ambience drive the dynamics, and it’s always been this originality which has set them apart, a cut above. If first single “Don’t Believe” is at all representative of ‘Made of Rain’, expect a slightly more bitter Psychedelic Furs than you might be used to. Or perhaps they always have had that bite, and it’s just taking firmer hold with this tight, modern production. Classic sax notes follow the guitar’s breathing melody, trudging with lowered shoulder against the psychedelic swirl of the track. It all bursts free on the hook, as lead vocalist Richard Butler and a chorus of voices call out, “I don’t believe/ I don’t believe you/ Don’t believe me.”

Led by vocal and lyrical genius Richard Butler with his brother Tim on bass, The Psychedelic Furs released seven critically acclaimed studio albums - ‘The Psychedelic Furs” (1980), ‘Talk Talk Talk’ (1981), ‘Forever Now’ (1982), ‘Mirror Moves’ (1984), ‘Midnight To Midnight’ (1987), ‘Book Of Days’ (1989) and ‘World Outside’ (1991). They released many classic singles throughout the ’80’s and into the 90’s, including: “Sister Europe”, “Love My Way”, “The Ghost In You”, “Pretty In Pink”, “Heaven”, “Heartbreak Beat”, “All That Money Wants” and “Until She Comes”. They went on hiatus in 1992 although since 2000 they have frequently got back together to tour but there hasn’t been a new album until now.

The last few years has seen the band’s legend growing, highlighted by the fact they have scored over 150 million streams of their songs worldwide. Their influence since arriving on the post-punk scorched-earth landscape four decades ago has reverberated and resonated from everyone from The Killers to REM to Foo Fighters to Bob Dylan has sung their praises. “I’m aware of the fact that people cite us an influence”, says Richard, “though I don’t often recognise it in their music. It’s gratifying of course, as it is that there’s still an interested and enthusiastic audience for us. That’s an honour.”

Many moons after “Pretty In Pink” (sort of) inspired that John Hughes movie, “Love My Way” has featured in Oscar-winning film ‘Call Me By Your Name’ and “The Ghost In You” in sci-fi smash ‘Stranger Things’ showing that The Psychedelic Furs are sounding stronger than ever. As anyone who’s seen the band lately knows, Butler remains one of the most watchable frontmen in the game.

Tracklisting: The Boy That Invented Rock & Roll / Don’t Believe / You’ll Be Mine / Wrong Train / This’ll Never Be Like Love / Ash Wednesday / Come All Ye Faithful / No-One / Tiny Hands / Hide The Medicine / Turn Your Back on Me / Stars

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Such Pretty Forks In The Road’ will be Canadian-American singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette’s first original album since 2012’s ‘Havoc and Bright Lights’, and marks the 25th anniversary of her 2 x Grammy awarded album ‘Jagged Little Pill’. Alanis has worked on the album for three years and in a 2017 interview revealed the name of a new song called “Reckoning”. She described this song as “patriarchy falling down”, and said it was in reference to her day in court in regards to the trial in which others were accused of embezzling from her.

Since then Alanis has been previewing new songs at one-off shows and on radio sessions before hitting the studio in 2019. Three tracks have already been released from the upcoming album: “Reasons I Drink”, “Smiling”, and “Diagnosis” and immediately gained widespread praise from music magazines such as Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NY Times, and Vulture, and have been solidly supported from radio stations across the globe.

Although it seemed that Alanis shot to fame in 1995 with her album ‘Jagged Little Pill’ with over 30 million copies sold worldwide, it was her third record following two largely ignored collections issued in the early 1990s when she was still a teenager. Alanis was writing songs as early an nine years old and a demo tape brought her to the attention of MCA Records Canada who later signed the talented young singer songwriter. Following the worldwide success of ‘Jagged Little Pill’ Alanis forged a long lasting musical career and has branched out into acting too. However, music is where her heart is at and she will be hitting the road for a world tour in 2021.

Tracklisting: Smiling / Ablaze / Reasons I Drink / Diagnosis / Missing The Miracle / Losing The Plot / Reckoning / Sandbox Love / Her / Nemesis / Pedestal

Label Review. 

2020 album. Folk. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Irish-based songwriter Amelia Baker aka Cinder Well is at the vanguard of a different kind of transatlantic folk revival, one forged amidst the uncertainty of a global pandemic. Her music isn’t nihilistic; instead, it strips traditional forms to their bones, creating a meditative, trance-like space for sonic healing. The sparse soundscapes and haunting stillness of her new album ‘No Summer’ are not meant to be paens to loneliness. Rather, Baker was inspired by the rich musical connectivity of the pub scene in Ireland, and her move from California to County Clare to study traditional music of the region. A member of anarchist folk project Blackbird Raum, Baker’s time on the circuit with Irish trad-punk group Lankum eventually led her to a small settlement in County Clare, and to the rich dissonance of her music as Cinder Well, a dissonance caught between worlds and histories.

The original songs on ‘No Summer’ boldly rub shoulders with careful reworkings of traditional Appalachian sources. Baker’s songs parse these transatlantic traditions, and throughout, her remarkable voice cuts to the bone like some ghostly ballad singer bound to sing these words from here to eternity. From the eerily prophetic title track which presaged a season of canceled shows to “Our Lady’s”’s imagined stories of spectral abandoned asylum residents, ‘No Summer’ is as haunting as it is connected, as dark as it is sacred, a kind of ritual healing that’s existed through the ages.

To create ‘No Summer’, Baker sought out Nich Wilbur (Black Belt Eagle Scout, Angel Olsen) of “The Unknown” studio in Anacortes, WA. This studio in a converted church is known for its work with The Microphones and Mount Eerie, and its quiet nature gave Baker space to explore the songs. “I was sleeping in the church,” she says “and it felt haunted, but it gave me this incredible experience of being really focused. I was listening to David Lynch’s audiobook about creativity every night. I was in a zone where I had a very clear image of what I wanted to capture in the sound and the story of it.”

Tracklisting: Wandering Boy / No Summer / Our Lady’s / Fallen / The Cuckoo / Old Enough / Queen Of The Earth, Child Of The Skies / The Doorway / From Behind The Curtain

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Love Is’ is Steve Howe’s 17th solo record, comprising ten songs: five with current Yes singer, Jon Davison, singing harmonies and playing bass guitar and five instrumental tracks rotating through the running order. The instrumentals keep a highly progressive rock guitar style to the fore, with songs that explore stories of lives lived and lives only just beginning. “Love Is A River” is the central track, with several textural shifts, featuring a theme played on 12 string and steel guitars. Steve’s son, Dylan, features on drums.

“I called the album ‘Love Is’ because it hints at the central idea that that love is important but also love of the universe and the ecology of the world is very important,” comments Steve. “Alexander Humboldt went around the world and recognised we are destroying the planet but that was 200 years ago! We are still destroying the planet and, I suppose, my songs show the yearning I have for the love of nature and how beauty, art and music all stem from nature. There is a theme about those things, love, beauty, ecology, nature and wonderful people.”

Steve Howe is best known as the guitarist for progressive rock band Yes, and he has enjoyed a prolific recording and performing career spanning five decades. In addition to his solo work, Steve has released more than 50 albums with bands such as Yes and Asia and guest appeared with the likes of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Lou Reed and Queen.

Tracklisting: Fulcrum (instrumental) / See Me Through / Beyond The Call (instrumental) / Love Is A River / Sound Picture (instrumental) / It Ain’t Easy / Pause For Thought (instrumental) / Imagination / The Headlands (instrumental) / On The Balcony

Label Review.

2020 album. Digital rumba.

Our Overview.

Using musical motifs from Africa and Colombia’s Caribbean coast such as the gaita, call-and-response vocals, and an array of hand drums and rhythms, coupled with the elegant electronic production of Techno and House, Ghetto Kumbe creates an Afro-futurist soundscape with lyrics to motivate, elevate, and inspire. This has not gone unnoticed and they’ve played Barranquilla’s world famous Carnival, Boiler Room, and have even opened for Radiohead.

Raised on Colombia’s Caribbean coast and united by it’s capital, Bogota, Ghetto Kumbe combine the rich musical heritage of their home, to invoke the spirit of digital rumba in audiences all over the world.

The secret behind their irresistible electronic sound lies in their powerful percussion base; Caribbean house beats and traditional afro-Colombian rhythms inherited from West Africa. The album’s co-producer, The Busy Twist, adds all the legacy of the UK’s Bass scene to the Afro-futuristic sounds of the 3 Colombians.

Inspired by the different revolutionary movements emerging all over the world, their self-titled debut is visceral, committed, and rebellious, denouncing through frantic rhythms the inequalities and abuses imposed by corrupt governments, while simultaneously enticing listeners to join in the fight. Dance mingles with awareness to create a global community, where family, friends, and strangers come together through our shared love of music and activate change amongst themselves.

Tracklisting: Intro / Sola / Vamo A Dale Duro / Djabe / Interludio / Pila Pila / Cara A Cara / Tamb / Esta Pillao / Pide Mas / Lengua Ri Suto

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Alain Johannes, the Chilean-American guitarist and vocalist, co-creator of the highly influential 1990s alternative rock band Eleven, presents ‘Hum’, his third solo album and first for six years. As well as tearing up his trademark Jazzmaster with major acts such as Queens Of The Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and Chris Cornell he has lent a trusted ear when producing the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Brody Dalle and Mark Lanegan.

His new album is acoustic-based with songs echoing the sounds of artists ranging from Nick Drake to Eddie Vedder. “It’s more about me than probably any album I’ve ever done,” says Johannes about the collection that follows a period of tragic loss, extreme illness and rebirth. “It was something I was striving for and needed to communicate. Coming out of a difficult period, I was liberated. I had lost people who were very close to me. I went through struggles with my own health. There’s a personal energy behind the way it was recorded and the feel of the songs. It’s a document of my life right now.”

"You can think of the album title 'Hum' a few ways," adds Johannes. "Of course, there's a musical hum. There's an electrical hum. To me, it suggests a sense of mystery. When you stop and listen to silence in nature, the hum is underneath the threshold of hearing. It's a mysterious and magical sense of something existing, beautiful, and alive. It's a blanket word for the sound of the ether — something that's always been there, always will be there, and everything comes from it. It's the common connection to everything."

Tracklisting: Mermaids’ Scream / Hum / Hallowed Bones / Someone / If Morning Comes / Free / Sealed / Here In The Silence / Nine / Finis

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘On&On’ is the brand new album from Daniel Blumberg. A 9-track song cycle that confirms the London musician and visual artist as a unique creative force, pushing the art of song into expansive new territories. Following 2018’s ‘Minus’, Blumberg’s debut for Mute, ‘On&On’ is a consolidation of the deconstructed song aesthetic he has developed, operating at the intersection between conventional song structures and free improvisation.

Now he takes this further, incorporating recurring, shapeshifting motifs and at times dissolving the boundaries between songs altogether.Born out of live sessions with the same core group of players as ‘Minus’: Daniel Blumberg (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Ute Kanngiesser (cello), Billy Steiger (violin), Tom Wheatley (double bass) and Jim White (drums), with the addition of electronic maverick Elvin Brandhi (vocals). As such it represents a deepening of relationships and distillation of techniques for this tight-knit group of freeplaying musicians, who are loosely based around Café OTO.

The album is recorded by Peter Walsh (Scott Walker), who has captured the group’s extraordinary performances, encompassing the full expressive range of their instruments from softly-bowed melodies and tender vocal harmonies to rough-hewn scrapes, plucks and rattles, while the sound of the room and the outside world spill naturally into the soundfield.

Tracklisting: On&On / Sidestep Summer / On&On&On / Bound / Silence Breaker / On&On&On&On / Teethgritter / On&On&On&On&On / Pillow

Label Review. 

Originally released in 1992 on a rare edition of her debut album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

British singer/songwriter PJ Harvey’s first album ‘Dry’ is approaching 30 years old and her singular approach to her art has kept her dedicated fanbase rabid for new product over the course of her career especially as new albums come fairly infrequently. Although previously released, the demos of the songs she recorded in preparation for ‘Dry’ from 1992 are perhaps the most sought after releases of her catalogue. When that album was first released a limited number of CD’s had the demos tacked onto the end of the album while a special double vinyl edition had those recordings on the second disc. Copies of both versions have changed hands for over £200!

Now, those demos are being treated to a proper release for the first time with new artwork and unseen photographs taken by her official snapper Maria Mochnacz. Harvey said of her debut album: “‘Dry’ is the first chance I ever had to make a record and I thought it would be my last. So, I put everything I had into it. It was a very extreme record. It was a great joy for me to be able to make it. I never thought I’d have that opportunity, so I felt like I had to get everything on it as well as I possibly could, because it was probably my only chance. It felt very extreme for that reason.”

The finished album was fairly raw in its production and emotion played with her then band of Rob Ellis on drums and Steve Vaughan on bass while the demos feature Polly on her own with her guitar for company. The recordings show that the songs arrangements were pretty much in place and wouldn’t need too much work to lay down with the band. Of the reasons behind her raw approach she later said: “I’m somebody who looks for something that’s going to shock or excite me; that really shakes me up in some way inside, so you have to stop and really take a look at what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it. And nothing was doing that for me. So I had to do it for myself.”

Tracklisting: Oh My Lover / O Stella / Dress / Victory / Happy And Bleeding / Sheela-Na-Gig / Hair / Joe / Plants And Rags / Fountain / Water

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, indie-pop trailblazers The Naked and Famous launch their fourth album ‘Recover’ which represents a new era for the band, and reasserts them as one of the most exciting sonic trailblazers, taking them to emotionally inspired depths, while maintaining the fresh effervescence that has charged their previous records.

‘Recover’ is largely an autobiographical record rooted in a powerful sentiment of survival, and of the very human process of self-preservation - of saving, choosing and celebrating oneself in a world constantly trying to put us down. Each song is carefully crafted with an important messages ranging from the sentiment of survival (“Death”), touching on topics of self-identity (“Well-Rehearsed”), resilience (“Recover”), mortality (“(An)Aesthetic”) written by Thom about his near-death experience with blood poisoning) and the things that affect our lives in ways we never anticipated (“Sunseeker”).

Leading members Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers met while attending music college. They put out the EPs ‘This Machine’ and ‘No Light’ in 2008, then made their full-length debut with ‘Passive Me, Aggressive You’ which featured their breakthrough hit “Young Blood” in 2010. Of the new record, Thom Powers says “‘Recover’ is about the duo, recovering ourselves, and our artistic vessel. The album is a statement of creative healing and a vehicle to plow forward into our own future. We hope that the messages of healing and resilience have some effect on its listeners.”

Tracklisting: Recover / Sunseeker / Bury Us / Easy / Come as you Are / Everybody Knows / Echoes in the Dark / Well-Rehearsed / Monument / Death / Count on You / Muscle Memory / The Sound of My Voice / (An)aesthetic / Coming Back to Me

Label Review. 

Andrew Gold (1975) What’s Wrong With This Picture (1976) All This And Heaven Too (1978) Whirlwind (1980) plus 3 bonus tracks. Plus a disc of out-takes and unreleased recordings and another with two live performances. DVD: Promo videos, Live Old Grey Whistle Test 15th March 1977 and OGWT in the studio 24th Jan 1978. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

One of the finest musicians and songwriters to emerge from the Los Angeles music scene in the mid-1970s, Andrew Gold had already established a reputation as an arranger and key member of Linda Ronstadt’s band before breaking out as a solo artist with his self-titled debut album in 1975. His song “Endless Flight” was covered by British singer Leo Sayer on his album of the same name the following year. The classic album ‘What’s Wrong With This Picture’ followed in 1976 and spawned the huge hit “Lonely Boy” and broke Andrew internationally. His third album ‘All This And Heaven Too’ would produce three international hit singles in “Thank You For Being A Friend”, “Never Let Her Slip Away” and “How Can This Be Love” and was another acclaimed work. The 1980 album ‘Whirlwind’ was Andrew’s final album for Asylum. More muscular in nature, it featured the excellent “Kiss This One Goodbye”.

Andrew Gold’s recorded legacy is now celebrated with this boxed set featuring 73 tracks on six CDs, including the aforementioned all newly re-mastered from the original Asylum Records master tapes, along with a disc of out-takes and rarities from the album sessions and a CD comprising 18 live tracks (17 previously unreleased) drawn from a concert at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles in 1977 and a BBC TV concert recorded in London in November 1976 for the classic series ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’. It also includes an additional 80 minute DVD featuring six promotional videos, the complete BBC Old Grey Whistle Test concert recorded in November 1976 and broadcast in March 1977 & a special Andrew Gold feature from the show first broadcast in 1978 – all of which are previously unreleased. The set also includes a lavishly illustrated booklet and a poster. ‘Lonely Boy - The Asylum Years’ is a fitting tribute to Andrew Gold, a much missed master of his craft.

Track Listing:

CD1: That’s Why I Love You / Heartaches In Heartaches / Love Hurts / A Note From You / Resting In Your Arms / I’m A Gambler / Endless Flight / Hang My Picture Straight / Ten Years Behind Me / I’m Coming Home / Hang My Picture Straight (Live At Santa Monica Civic 1975)

CD2: I Hope You Feel Good / Passing Thing / Do Wah Diddy / Learning The Game / Angel Woman / Must Be Crazy / Lonely Boy / Firefly / Stay / Go Back Home Again / One Of Them Is Me

CD3: How Can This Be Love? / Oh Urania (Take Me Away) / Still You Linger On / Never Let Her Slip Away / Always For You / Thank You For Being A Friend / Looking For My Love / Genevieve / I’m On My Way / You’re Free / Endless Flight (Live At The Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Florida 1978)

CD4: Kiss This One Goodbye / Whirlwind / Sooner Or Later / Leave Her Alone / Little Company / Brand New Face / Nine To Five / Stranded On The Edge / Make Up Your Mind

CD5: Within A Word / Broken Pinball Machine / Ten Years Behind Me (Demo) / Lonely Boy (Original Version) / Firefly (Early Unfinished Version) / Feel It / Gorilla Jam / Gambler (Version #1) / Still You Linger On (Alternate Take) / Thank You For Being A Friend (Outtake) / Genevieve (Original Version) / Gambler (Version #2) / Traffic Jam / The In Crowd

CD6: Live Recordings – Released 1976 / 1977: Hope You Feel Good / Stay / That’s Why I Love You / Endless Flight / Learning The Game / Hang My Picture Straight / One Of Them Is Me / Lonely Boy (Live At The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles – 6th January 1977) / Heartaches In Heartaches / That’s Why I Love You / Endless Flight / Do Wah Diddy Diddy / Learning The Game / Angel Woman / Hope You Feel Good / One Of Them Is Me / Lonely Boy / Go Back Home Again (Live At The New Victoria Theatre, London 23rd November 1976)

DVD: The Promotional Videos: Lonely Boy / Go Back Home Again / Thank You For Being A Friend / Never Let Her Slip Away / How Can This Be Love / Kiss This One Goodbye // BBC TV Live At The New Victoria Theatre, London – Broadcast 15th March 1977: Heartaches In Heartaches / That’s Why I Love You / Endless Flight / Do Wah Diddy Diddy / Learning The Game / Angel Woman / Hope You Feel Good / One Of Them Is Me / Lonely Boy / Go Back Home Again // BBC TV Old Grey Whistle Test 24th January 1978: Hope You Feel Good / Andrew Gold Interview / One Of Them Is Me

Label Review. 

2020 album. Folk. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

After being one of the most significant figures in the English Folk Revival of the 1960s then not releasing an album in 38 years, 2016’s ‘Lodestar’ was a musical miracle, and there’s no stopping Shirley Collins now. ‘Lodestar’ brought Shirley’s widely missed voice back to fans with subsequent heralded live shows at London’s Barbican, The Roundhouse and Cambridge Folk Festival.

Recorded at Metway in Brighton, ‘Heart’s Ease’ is as compelling and original as Shirley’s great albums from the 1960s and 70s, with traditional songs from England and the US, four non-traditional tracks with a burst of experimentation that hints at possible new directions to come. ‘Heart’s Ease’ in turn, named after a wild pansy, also follows the release of Collins’ second book ‘All In The Downs’ which won the Penderyn Prize and the documentary ‘The Ballad of Shirley Collins’.

Collins’ intriguing choice of songs on ‘Heart’s Ease’ includes two with lyrics by her first husband Austin John Marshall, a graphic artist and poet who produced several of her albums and had the inspired idea of getting Shirley to work with blues/jazz/world music guitarist Davy Graham on that extraordinary album ‘Folk Roots, New Routes’ in 1964. There are more family memories with “Locked In Ice”, written by Dolly’s son the late Buz Collins and the most startling new piece is the finale, “Crowlink”, named after a pathway on the South Downs overlooking the English Channel “where I love to be,” in which Shirley sings against a moody, atmospheric fusion of Ossian Brown’s hurdy-gurdy, and electronica and field recordings of waves and sea birds from Matthew Shaw.

‘Heart’s Ease’ is a glorious reminder that Shirley Collins is still in a class of her own, both as a folk singer with a distinctive no-nonsense style that is all her own, and as an innovator. And she certainly doesn’t intend this album to be her last. “I have such a huge memory of songs, so many of which I still want to sing. And I wasted all those years not singing, so now I’ve got to catch up a bit!”

Tracklisting: The Merry Golden Tree / Rolling In The Dew / The Christmas Song / Locked In Ice / Wondrous Love / Barbara Allen / Canadee-i-o / Sweet Greens And Blues / Tell Me True / Whitsun Dance / Orange In Bloom / Crowlink

Label Review. 

2020 album. Shoegaze/psychedelia. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Winter is talented Brazilian Samira Winter and ‘Endless Space (Between You & I)’ is her debut album. The power of a Winter song is hard to describe, like how the delicate world building of a good book can be more compelling than real life. There’s a make-believe, fairy tale surrealism that sets Winter’s blend of shoegaze and psychedelia apart while existing in the same universe as the ethereal dream pop of Cocteau Twins and Melody’s Echo Chamber.

Samira Winter grew up in Curitiba, Brazil, where her Brazilian mother filled their home with the gentle melodies of MPB (música popular brasileira), and her father introduced her to the distorted sounds of American punk. At 18, she moved to Boston where she first released music as Winter, eventually moving to LA’s Echo Park. Winter has built a cult following with a stream of bilingual releases and national tours supporting Boogarins, Broncho and Cherry Glazerr, not to mention dates in Mexico, South America and Europe.

“Winter’s breathy voice is pretty magical.” say Brooklyn Vegan. Meanwhile “Winter makes cosmic dream-pop fit for stargazing. The languid motion of their soaring tunes are filtered through fuzzy sounds of slowly writhing guitar work.” suggests AudioTree.

Tracklisting: Between You & I / Endless Space (Between You & I) / Here I Am Existing / Healing / In the Z Plan / Say / Bem No Fundo (feat. Dinho Almeida) / Constellation / Memoria Colorida / Wherever You Are / Pure Magician

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Bab L’Bluz are a Moroccan-French power quartet fronted by an African-Moroccan woman in a traditionally male role. Bab L’Bluz are devoted to a revolution in attitude which dovetails with Morocco’s ‘nayda’ youth movement – a new wave of artists and musicians taking their cues from local heritage, singing words of freedom in the Moroccan-Arabic dialect of darija.

“More than anything we’re a rock band,” declares frontwoman Yousra, who sings, ululates and fires riffs from her goatskin-covered awicha [small guembri] like some Berber warrior goddess. We use the awicha as a guitar and the guembri as a bass, both at different tunings. We channel our huge range of influences into music that crosses borders and travels through time.”

Think old-school Gnawa meets funk. Moroccan chaabi meets trance. The sung poetry of Mauritania meets the deep spiritual cry of the blues. Imagine ninja-style flute, propulsive drums and percussion including spiralling metal qraqeb castanets. Wrap it all up in the turned-on-tuned-in psych rock grooves of such countercultural heroes as Santana, Jefferson Airplane and Nass El Ghiwane, Morocco’s very own Rolling Stones.

Tracklisting: Gwana Beat / Ila Mata / El Gamra / Glibi / Oudelali / Waydelel / Africa Manayo / Yemma / El Watane / Bab L’ Bluz

Label Review. 

2020 album. Electronic. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

RY X and Frank Wiedemann reunite as Howling to present ‘Colure’ the sophomore full-length record from their joint musical enterprise, a bigger, sharper follow-up to their debut, ‘Sacred Ground’. RY X rose to underground-folk fame with breakthrough hit ‘Berlin’ and followed up with solo albums ‘Dawn’ and 2019’s ‘Unfurl’. His band, The Acid - a project with producers Adam Freeland and Steve Nalepa created a multimedia film, “the bomb” in 2017. Wiedemann is royalty of the 4/4 scene as one half of Âme with Kristian Beyer and head honcho of Berlin label Innervisions he co-owns with Dixon & Kristian.

On ‘Colure’, the Berlin-based Wiedemann and Los Angeles-based RY X conjure transcendent creations out of their contrasting musical backgrounds and environments. The album is assuredly dualistic: electronic and acoustic sounds sit comfortably side-byside, and big melodic hooks are laced into hypnotic club productions.

Tracklisting: Ellipses I / Pieces / Bind / Healing / Dew / Need You Now / The Water / Light On / Phases / Mother / Body Inside / Lover / Ellipses II

Label Review. 

2020 album plus instrumental disc. Prog rock. Also available on CD & Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Haken are an English progressive metal band formed in 2007 and they release their sixth album the topically titled ‘Virus’. Since releasing their last album ‘Vector’ in October 2018, Haken have completed headline tours the world over, played sold-out shows across Europe and North America as support for Devin Townsend and picked up a Prog award for their efforts too! All the while, they have been quietly, secretly working on the follow-up album.

All the initial ideas were created back when they were writing ‘Vector’ at the end of 2017. The album title generated surprise as it was announced during the COVID-19 pandemic, but vocalist Ross Jennings said it was just coincidental. The singer also remarked that “whilst ‘Virus’ can absolutely be enjoyed as a stand-alone work, it is thematically and conceptually linked with ‘Vector’.

The band comments: “[The track] “Prosthetic” was the first song we completed during the ‘Virus’ writing sessions and we always felt it would be the perfect opener for the album. It’s a very guitar heavy track with its roots in 80s thrash riffing, but with the unconventional rhythmic twists and turns we often like to explore in Haken. We sadly never had a Jeff Hanneman and Robert Fripp collaboration, but this song at least draws on inspiration from them both! Lyrically the song is a bridge between our two albums ‘Vector’ and ‘Virus’. The message was brilliantly brought to life by video director Vicente Cordero, who also beautifully captured the live energy of the band in a way that both enhances the song, and perfectly sets the scene for what’s to come.”

Tracklisting: Prosthetic / Invasion / Carousel / The Strain / Canary Yellow / Messiah Complex i: Ivory Tower / Messiah Complex ii: A Glutton for Punishment / Messiah Complex iii: Marigold / Messiah Complex iv: The Sect / Messiah Complex v: Ectobius Rex / Only Stars

Label Review. 

2020 album. Jazz. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Wu Hen’ is the second album from South London’s Kamaal Williams -- an invitation to elevate to a higher state. Cinematic strings that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Scott Walker record from Miguel-Atwood Ferguson and virtuoso saxophone from Quinn Mason are textural additions that make for a deeper, multi-layered experience than previous releases. Also on ‘Wu Hen’ are LA’s Greg Paul on drums (of Kalayst Collective), Rick Leon James on bass, vocals from cult rapper Mach-Hommy and Kaytranada collaborator Lauren Faith.

Williams proclaims “We learnt Jazz in the streets, not in the classroom”, an apt statement since the artist’s core influences include hip hop, grime, UK garage and house, whilst overlapping with 70’s funk, soul and jazz for a fusion he describes as “Wu Funk’’ as affirmed on his recent edition of the legendary DJ Kicks series at the end of 2019. Kamaal rose to prominence with the hugely acclaimed Yussef Kamaal alongside drummer Yussef Dayes and a catalogue of 12”s for imprints such as MCDE, Eglo, and Rhythm Section as Henry Wu that became essential DJ tools. In 2018 he launched Black Focus Records with the Kamaal Williams debut The Return, which charted in the UK and saw sold out shows and festival appearances across Europe, North America and Asia.

Tracklisting: Street Dreams (Feat. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) / One More Time / 1989 / Toulouse / Pigalle / Big Rick / Save Me (Feat. Mach-Hommy) / Mr.Wu / Hold On (Feat. Lauren Faith) / Early Prayer

Label Review. 

13 new performances or alternate versions to the band’s catalogue, and both sides of The Gist’s first 7 inch (recorded at the same session as the final Young Marble Giants single), along with their contribution to the Rough Trade / NME classic compilation C81. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

In the wake of Welsh indie band Young Marble Giants’ breakup, two camps were created, with Stuart Moxham taking the band’s minimalist, geometric play to extremes and Alison Statton adding more warmth and feeling to the same basic template and creating something stunning but based in popular forms. In recent years, both artists have almost reversed course, with Stuart proving himself an ace songwriter in classic pop form, and Alison’s work again approaching a modern abstraction of quiet folk music - experimental but accessible. Without a real template to guide him, Stuart’s new form of music - as The Gist - was widely regarded as wildly uneven. Stuart admits that he didn’t know which way to go, so in perverse style, he decided to take all directions at once. The Gist’s original discography stood at a scant 18 songs, but only seven featured Stuart’s own voice, often in heavily processed and oddly mixed form. So while The Gist’s label, Rough Trade, had the widest array of unique voices in popular music, Stuart buried his own voice. Sales disappointed and The Gist were dropped.

A decade later, starting with a critical re-evaluation of The Gist’s sole album, ‘Embrace The Herd’, in an issue of Mojo magazine, the tide begin to turn. Ambience in pop music had enjoyed a cult following from Eno on, but the non-linear structure of many of The Gist’s songs had certain parallels with the rise of artists such as Aphex Twin and Seefeel. One song from the era was covered by Etienne Daho in France. Sounding rather advanced for French pop at the time, it ended up selling over a million copies and was later covered by Lush and sampled by DJ Koze with Lambchop singer/songwriter Kurt Wagner. The Gist’s story could have been different.

Recent discovery of a trove of unreleased songs, versions and demos showed that Stuart had ample material on a par with his YMG work, sometimes in rough demo form, but often in five or six complete, entirely different arrangements. With the 2017 album of unreleased material by The Gist, ‘Holding Pattern’, a new audience discovered the band and the release sold out quickly. This new collection of previously unreleased snapshots, coincides with Stuart Moxham’s album of new material with Louis Philippe ‘The Devil Laughs’.

Tracklisting: Yanks / Stones And Sunlight #2 / Being True (band version) / This Is Love / Greener Grass / Public Girls (demo) / How To Be / The Landmark / C Me / Working It Out / You Were The One / Unsettled Hash / Here Comes Love #2 / Piano Piece / Stones And Sunlight #3 / Mistakes In Love

Label Review. 

Pinball, Pick Up, I / You plus 5 bonus tracks. 7T’s.

Our Overview. 

Brian Protheroe may be better known for his TV roles in shows such as Reilly Ace of Spies, Lovejoy, North and South, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Doctors and Spooks but back in the 1970s Brian was signed to Chrysalis Records and released three albums for the label between 1974-76. His single “Pinball” cracked the Top 30 and although none of his albums or other singles were hits his music retains a cult following. Aside from obscure Dutch reissues in the 1990s, this is the first officially sanctioned reissue of his work and Brian has been fully involved with the box set.

Protheroe joined the folk group Folk Blues Incorporated (FBI) when he was nineteen, while at this time listening to Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He came to London with FBI in 1965, and played in folk music clubs in and around London. In 1966, Brian began his career as an actor. His first job was with his local repertory theatre in Salisbury. He worked there for about seven months then spent the next five years in various theatre companies around Britain, developing his musical skills as well as becoming an experienced actor. In 1968 he worked for nearly two years in a theatre company in Lincoln, where he met Martin Duncan who was also a musician, writer and actor. Over the next few years they collaborated on various musical and artistic projects.

In 1973, Brian was playing the part of a pop singer in a play called 'Death on Demand', when a representative from Chrysalis Records heard a song he had written for the show. His first single, “Pinball”, was released in August 1974 and reached No.22 and an album of the same name followed. Two more albums – ‘Pick Up’ and ‘I/You’ were released over the next couple of years which featured Simon Phillips, as well as Ian Anderson and Barriemore Barlow of Jethro Tull. Protheroe’s songs are noted for their use of wordplay, some nonsensical, in the vein of John Lennon largely written by Martin Duncan although Brian had a hand in the writing too. Failing to replicate the success of his first single he returned to acting full time where he has carved out a successful career.

Tracklisting:

CD1: Clog Dancer / Money Love / Moon Over Malibu / Micky Dollar Dreams / Goodbye Surprise / Pinball / Kinotata / Changing My Tune / Monkey / Lady Belladonna / Fly Now / Interview / Also In The Limelight / Wrong Kinotata / Play

CD2: Enjoy It / The Good Brand Band Song / Scobo Queen / Cherry Pie / Oh Weeping Will / Gertrude’s Garden Hospital / Running Through The City / I Spy Lady / Chase Chase Chase / Soft Song / The Pick-Up / Back Away

CD3: I/You / Every Roman Knows / Evil Eye / Under The Greenwood Tree / Dancing On Black Ice / Battling Annie / Never Join The Fire Brigade / Hotel / Lucille / The Face And I / Back Away (Re-Mix) / Enjoy It (Re-Mix) / Fly Now (Re-Mix)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Hate For Sale’, produced by the revered Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur), is the 11th studio album by The Pretenders. The record features 10 new songs written collaboratively by Chrissie Hynde and the electrifyingly dynamic guitarist James Walbourne, in what is the first Hynde/Walbourne song writing collaboration to date. Speaking about writing with James for the first time, Chrissie said: “I wanted to write with him since day one. James is especially sought after and has recorded with Jerry Lee Lewis, Dave Gahan, and The Rails, to name but a few. We always planned on writing while on the road, but as anyone in a band will tell you, being on tour is a procrastinator’s dream come true”.

The Pretenders and Chrissie Hynde have been part of the rock firmament for over 40 years. After a great start scoring a UK No.1 with “Brass In Pocket” they had to overcome the early tragedy of losing two members to drug overdoses in the early 1980s. Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers (who is still in the band today) continued with new members and more hits such as “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, “Hymn To Her” and “I’ll Stand By You”. The current line-up of Hynde, Chambers, Walbourne, Nick Wilkinson (bass) and Eric Heywood (guitar, vocals) have been steady for over 10 years and have now added Carwyn Ellis (keyboards) to further expand their sound.

Tracklisting: Hate For Sale / The Buzz / Lightning Man / Turf Accountant Daddy / You Can’t Hurt a Fool / I Didn’t Know When To Stop / Maybe Love Is In NYC / Junkie Walk / Didn’t Want To Be This Lonely / Crying in Public

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Rock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Silverbacks are a 5-piece band from Dublin, Ireland and release their debut album ‘Fad’. Taking their cues from the taut rhythms and urgent drive of late 70s punk and the discordant, unpredictable freak-outs of NYC no wave, they craft a signature sound spiked with triple guitar riffs, a motorik rhythm section and on-the-pulse lyrics.

‘Fad’ represents the sound of a band trying to make sense of a noisy and disjointed world - one that competes for your attention at every turn. For them, it has come to be a symbol of what it feels like to try and absorb the world through both fleeting moments in front of screens, and prolonged obsessive periods filled with focus. They pull apart pop-culture in search of new meaning, whether it’s a nod to The Simpsons (“Fad 95”), imagining a lost John Hughes film (“Klub Silberrücken”), spiralling downwards into Youtube deep-dives (“Pink Tide”), or making sense of youth culture through The Urban Dictionary (“Grinning At The Lid”).

Much in the same way that modern life can be defined by its unpredictability, Silverbacks colourful, vivid and exuberant songs dismantle their source material and end up in places that you don’t think they will. It can be heard in the spidering guitar lines of opening track “Dunkirk”, or “Pink Tide”’s Thin Lizzy-aping riffery, “Fad 95”’s overt Pavement influence, “Up The Nurses” Blondie injection or “Last Orders”’ Fall-inspired tale of escapism. “Grinning At The Lid”’s huge gang vocal chorus even recalls New Fellas-era The Cribs. Elsewhere “Just In The Band” draws on tales of Bowie and Iggy Pop’s friendship, and “Muted Gold” – having sprouted from a time spent practising Afrobeat and highlife guitar techniques – shines a light on situations in which women are continually inundated with unsolicited advice. All over ‘Fad’ are the fingerprints of a band clawing their way through the remains of the day, seeing what there is to uncover.

Tracklisting: Dunkirk / Pink Tide / Drink It Down / Fad ‘95 / Dud / Klub Silberrücken / Travel Lodge Punk / Just In The Band / Grinning At The Lid / Muted Gold / Up The Nurses / Madra Uisce / Last Orders

Label Review.

2020 album. Folk.

Our Overview.

‘We’ll Look For Stars’ is the new album from Lynn Miles. Lynn is one of Canada’s most accomplished singer/songwriters. With 14 albums to her credit, the winner of multiple Canadian Folk Music awards (2011 English Songwriter of the Year), and a 2003 Juno award for Roots and Traditional Solo Album of the Year, she has certainly found her strength over time.

There’s something to be said for experience, for taking the time to grow into your own skin. All sturdy things need time to root firmly into the ground to find their strength.

Through a career that has seen her move from Ottawa to Los Angeles and back again, with stops in Nashville and Austin TX., and a healthy touring schedule that regularly takes her through the US, Europe and across Canada, she has always created and performed music with unbridled feeling and vulnerability. After a successful duo-stint with Lynne Hanson (as The Lynnes) Lynn Miles now returns to a solo career with what may well be her most achieved and most personal album yet Some press for her previous solo release ‘Downpour’.

“Lynn Miles excels at exquisite melancholy and delivers another aurally addictive course of intensive treatment”. Maverick Magazine: - Arthur Wood

“The wonderful new album has the singer in top form, as she creates 11 incredible soundscapes...has she ever sounded better...with her new album she has aimed for the sky, and scored a direct hit.” Country Music People - Paul Riley

“I’ve a deep appreciation for almost all of Lynn’s past work and several of her albums are favourites from my music collection. Downpour, though has quickly become my favourite Lynn Miles album (at least until her next one)- and that says a lot” Folk Roots/Folk Roots Branches - Mike Regenstreif 

Tracklisting: WE’LL LOOK FOR STARS / The World Is Spinning / Merle / She Drinks / Old Soul / Because We Love / In The Wilderness / Main Street / Restless / A Heart Can Only Take So Much / The Saddest Song

Label Review. 

2020 debut album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Born in New York City, 21 year old Maya Hawke is an actress, singer and lyricist. Hawke was most recently seen in the third season of Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things,’ as well as in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ and Amanda Kramer’s ‘Ladyworld.’

Following the release of her independently released A and B side singles in 2019, she returns with a deeply personal full-length album ‘Blush’. Hawke, who wrote the lyrics, continued her collaboration with Grammy Award-winning songwriter Jesse Harris, who wrote the music for the album. On creating the album, Hawke says, ‘This album happened accidentally’ Jesse and I started working together accidentally... we kept writing, kept collecting songs because it brought joy into both of our lives.

Collecting them into an album and releasing it comes from a crazy, if not pathological desire to share that joy with others. From my point of view, ‘Blush’ is a collection of secret messages, hidden communications with the people in my life. ‘By Myself’ was a secret message to myself, that I hope I’ll receive someday soon.’

Tracklisting: Generous Heart / So Long / By Myself / Animal Enough / Coverage / Hold the Sun / River Like

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Much has been written about Welsh indie band Young Marble Giants’ small, perfect catalogue, which contained roughly two-dozen songs, nearly each one a perfect gem. Less is known about Stuart Moxham’s long wilderness years after the break-up of his first professional band. His next project, The Gist, chopped YMG’s minimalism into a new sound. “This Is Love”, “Public Girls” and “Fool For A Valentine” showed his songs to be razor-sharp, but the album’s fragmented pieces were a step too far for some, though even the strangest, “Carnival Headache”, when cast in sunlight by Alison Statton’s combo Weekend, was as fine a song as any he’d written - and “Love At First Sight” became a million-seller when covered by Etienne Daho. Then Stuart disappeared.

A mid-90s resurgence led to fine albums done on low budgets, before more silence followed. The Gist’s 2017’s release ‘Holding Pattern’ - unexpected and then quickly followed by YMG singer Alison Statton’s first new album with her accompanist Spike in two decades, adding fuel to public interest. ‘The Devil Laughs’, recorded a few years back, is a compelling addition to the canon of Moxham’s songwriting. Stuart’s generally unadorned musical presentation does not hinder his appreciation for the skills of Louis Philippe, whose iconic arrangements across an array of Él label albums inspire the fierce devotion of aficionados around the world.

“Tidy Away” is Young Marble Giants redux, though the backing vocals hint at maturity which band didn’t live to see. “Fighting To Lose”, written with producer Ken Brake, would pass as a worthy b-side to “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and although the songs are otherwise Stuart’s, Louis fans will delight at several, like “Love Hangover” and “Sky Over Water”, which display his style and production genius as succinctly as anything on his own albums. ‘The Devil Laughs’ is as out of its time as ‘Colossal Youth’ was - its subtle but immediate beauty, devoid of “rock”, is a recording best understood in the light of those obscure groundbreakers who inspired it - the faux barbershop vocals of Smile-era Beach Boys, the studio lustre of Tom Wilson’s work with Simon & Garfunkel, a dash of The Swingle Sisters and French chanson - along with enough hints of Young Marble Giant’s modernist folk abstraction to satisfy longtime fans. ‘The Devil Laughs’ is a small masterpiece of pure expression.

Tracklisting: Tidy Away / Day Must Come / It Goes Like This / Love Hangover / The Devil Laughs / Sky Over Water / Fighting To Lose / Untitled #2 / Come To Me Nancy / Head In A Song / Singing Out / Tidy Away (Reprise)

Label Review.

2020 album. Hip hop. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Blinded By The Neon’ is a rap tribute to the art of storytelling. The contemplation of a man alone in the twilight hours, plus a bittersweet emotional cocktail of self-doubt comprised of equal parts love, the side-effects of success and the life of an artist, are the chief inspirations behind this conceptual debut LP by jazz/hip-hop group Ferge X Fisherman aka German/American vocalist Fritz Fisherman and the German producer Ferge.

“A sublimely accomplished modern day gem. My favourite hop hop album of 2020 thus far. Fresh as spring air 5/5” MUSIC REPUBLIC MAGAZINE

Citing legendary platters such as ‘Heart Of Saturday Night’ by Tom Waits and ‘In The Wee Small Hours’ by Frank Sinatra as influences for their own modern masterpiece, ‘Blinded By The Neon’ revolves around a central character and his shifting feelings of self-awareness and ambivalent relationships with his own art and with himself as an artist. Musically, the arc of the album sweeps from sweet melancholy and tasteful strings to freak beat maker-aesthetics and on to melodic gospel and soul.

The concept of the record determines the musical route and takes the listener on a journey through our hero’s complex inner world. With an expanded lineup, Ferge X Fisherman have been making a name for themselves as a live act in Germany, demonstrating how the balancing act between electronically produced hip hop and live instruments can succeed. Here, they combine the best of both worlds and make this album a dynamic, varied pleasure for the listener, retaining its attraction even after repeated plays. Let yourself be blinded by the neon.

Tracklisting: Head On Stage / Backstage / One Of My Best Friends (feat. Maniac) / Role / Reflections On My Windshield / Call You / Anna Nicole (feat. Florian Heimbuchner) / Playin’ Different (feat. Spiritchild & Felisha George) / City Serenade / Drunk On The Moon / Stumbling (feat. Ki’Luanda) / In My Shoes

Label Review. 

2020 album. Metal. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Four musically kindred spirits from Birmingham, Alabama, USA, collectively known as EMBR have released their debut album ‘1823’. Within the genre of heavy metal there can be an abundance of variation, color, texture and tone. There are many different shades and many different categories within that catch-all phrase. It’s not all about throat ripping vocals or Neanderthal riffage.

EMBR spent most of 2019 writing 7 new songs for ‘1823’. The title has special significance. It’s not just a numerical title, it has substance. Eric Bigelow (drummer) had been on the list for a kidney for around 4 years received a transplant in May 2019. The organ was from a deceased donor and all Eric and Crystal Bigelow (singer and Eric’s wife) know about the donor is that it was a young woman between the ages of 18-23. The album is dedicated to the donor and the surgeons at Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville TN.

Musically ‘1823’ could be categorized as ‘Doom’. However, on this debut it’s obvious that EMBR have range, drive and a desire to add to the genre, to broaden it whilst staying true to its core fundamentals. Mark Buchanan (guitar), Alan Light (bass) and Eric keep everything tight and weighty. Massive drop-tuned guitars, chest rattling low end, pounding drums, fuzzy distortion, it’s all there. But they also add in synths, a bit of grunge and alt rock flavors. The vocal talents of Crystal absolutely soar and strengthen the music with her range, patterns and harmonies which transport the band’s music skyward. Crystal adds soul and an air of melancholia to the musical creations.

As many who are not drawn metal’s immediate charms may perceive, heavy music can encompass a whole panoply of sounds, moods and ambition. It can surround you with emotional elegance and distressing chaos. There can be subtleness, thoughtfulness and deep introspection even when things get exceptionally heavy which is what EMBR provide on ‘1823’.

Tracklisting: Prurient / Where I’ve Been / Stranger / Powder. / Eyes Like Knives / Your Burden / Vines

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

“Everybody wants to know / how I feel and what I think,” Margo Price sings in her emotive, bittersweet twang, halfway through her third full-length record. On ‘That’s How Rumors Get Started’, Margo has committed her genre-bending rock-and-roll show to record for the first time, stretching out into sky-high soft-rock, burning psychedelic rock ballads, stomping road songs, and sprinkles of pop. “Twinkle Twinkle” is an anti-nostalgia anthem of sorts, about the polarization of becoming a more well-known artist, and the wild ride that was Margo Price’s last few years. It traces her trajectory: she gets by, gets high, racks up debt, can’t pay the rent, plays dives to stay alive. “If it don’t break you, it might just make you rich,” she sings, with heroic sass.

The song was inspired by a back-stage encounter with Marty Stuart and the Superlatives at a music festival that was otherwise pretty bleak. (Price has played with Superlatives guitarist Kenny Vaughan over the years.) After the show, in Stuart’s trailer, while he tuned his guitars, he said to Price, “So, you and the band have been on the road a lot lately, do you all hate each other yet?” As Price recalls it: “I said, ‘No, well, I mean, our marriages are falling apart and our health’s deteriorating. But other than that, we’re great.’ And he looks at me, and he gets this gleam in his eye, and he says, ‘You wanted to be a star.. Twinkle twinkle.’”

Tracklisting: That’s How Rumors Get Started / Letting Me Down (featuring Sturgill Simpson) / Twinkle Twinkle / Stone Me / Hey Child / Heartless Mind / What Happened To Our Love / Gone To Stay / Prisoner Of The Highway / I’d Die For You

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie folk pop. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

After the celestial adventures of Lancaster polymath Ben Hall, AKA Mr Ben & the Bens’ previous issue, band-leader Ben Hall finds all the magic he needs on earth with his new album, ‘Life Drawing’, released via Bella Union.

On 2019’s Who Knows Jenny Jones?, Hall plotted the story of a young, shy Pitsmoor woman who returned from an alien encounter newly armed with serious disco-dancingknow-how. ‘Life Drawing’, meanwhile, looks closer to home for its inspiration – Sheffield and thereabouts – for twelve brightly plaintive, character-driven vignettes, set to warm, acoustic, indie-folk-pop backdrops after its predecessor’s close encounters of the synth-driven kind.

A “cloudy thread of narrative” is present, Hall explains, but this time it’s left open for listeners to map routes through it. “The idea with the title is that the songs are character sketches, and their stories coalesce in a place that has a bit of all the towns in the North of England I’ve lived in. Bits of myself in the stories came out unintentionally, so I’d like it if the listener could find those semi-truths from the songs and place them into their own experiences.”

Since their 2017 emergence, Mr Ben and the Bens’ supporters have included Clash and Marc Riley; in addition, they’ve provided touring support to – among others – British Sea Power.

Stretching back to his recording origins in a Lancashire barn circa 2012, Hall’s own musical history ranges from lofi acoustic folk to the skewed electronic experiments of Jenny Jones, with influences including Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, English folk music and Belle and Sebastian. “I like how their approach was actually punk but with an emotional sensibility,” says Hall of the latter. “That totally resonates with what I’m trying to do.”

Tracklisting: On the Beach / How do you Do? / Danny / Faithful Hound / Astral Plane / Minor Keys / Beast in the House / Walking to an Open Sky / The Wind on Spittlehill / Irish Rain / Closing Time / Watering Can

Label Review.

2020 album. Indie.

Our Overview.

‘Clouded’ is the solo debut album for Les Nuby. Beginning as the drummer in the 90s Birmingham, Alabama indie-rock power house, Verbena, Les Nuby began a steady musical exploration that’s still going. He’s a one-time touring member for Scottish legends Idlewild, touring guitarist with Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), guitar slinger for Vulture Whale, and current guitarist/vocalist for Holiday Gunfire. It’s a hefty musical resume before the production credits even begin.

In his Birmingham studio, Ol’ Elegante, Nuby has been the production captain for several notable releases in the past few years for artists such as Will Stewart, Sarah Lee Langford, The Dirty Clergy, and Witch’s Wall, to name a few. He’s pretty much been there and done it all in the past couple of decades as player and producer. The only item missing from the list was a solo album. Until now.

Naturally, given his musical pedigree, Nuby had to do it all himself on his premiere offering, and produced, engineered, and played all the instruments on ‘Clouded’, and the ten track album blends Southern sensibilities with a shoe-gaze sound, while at the same time, giving it a Brit-rock vibe. Whatever the genre, whatever the sound, Nuby’s track record goes way before him, so you know you’re going to love it before you even press play.

Nuby’s solo debut ‘Clouded’ injects a southern sensibility into his unique and ultracapable take on brit/shoe-gaze rock that produces ten melody laden, thoughtfully arranged and undeniably powerful songs. Nuby produced, engineered and played all the instruments on ‘Clouded’, a reminiscent snapshot of when music had the ability to make you drive faster and cry harder. It may have taken him awhile to get around to making an album all for himself. But, anyone who knows the man or is familiar with his past work isn’t going to be surprised that ‘Clouded’ has clearly been worth the wait.

Tracklisting: Never Falling Away / Fighting Sleep / Know What She Said / Now It’s On / Come To Us / Hey Ivey / Standing Still / OK Let’s Try / Say Love / The Shadowlands

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Unfollow The Rules’ is Rufus Wainwright’s tenth album and sees him at the peak of his powers, entering artistic maturity with passion, honesty and a new-found fearlessness, while remaining as mischievous as ever. Recorded in the same legendary Los Angeles studios as his landmark debut, his new record is both a bookend to Act 1 of an extraordinary career and a distillation of 21 years of experience at pop’s most flamboyant coal face. Inspired by middle age, married life, fatherhood, friends, loss, London and Laurel Canyon, ‘Unfollow The Rules’ captures Rufus at a crossroads. Ready to tackle new challenges, yet compelled to confront his past, he’s taking stock of two decades of running riot with rules, making sense of how he has matured as a musician and celebrating the contended family man he has become.

Speaking about ‘Unfollow The Rules’, Rufus said that he would like the album “to symbolise a coming together of all the aspects of my life which have made me a seasoned artist. My aim is to emulate the greats of yore whose second acts produced their finest work – Leonard Cohen when he made ‘The Future’, when Sinatra became Sinatra in his 40s, when Paul Simon put out ‘Graceland’, pop music isn’t always about your waistline. Many songwriters improve with age. I’m flying the flag for staying alive!”

First single “Damsel In Distress” is an homage to Joni Mitchell in some ways, particularly the structure” Wainwright explained. “My husband and I now live in Laurel Canyon. I wasn’t that familiar with Joni’s music but Jörn became obsessed and took me on a journey into her music. We ended up hanging out with her and I get now why she’s one of the greats. So it’s part Laurel Canyon, part a song about a personal relationship that I’m trying to come to terms with, but mostly my Mitchell virginity being broken.”

Tracklisting: Trouble In Paradise / Damsel In Distress / Unfollow The Rules / You Ain’t Big / Romantical Man / Peaceful Afternoon / Only The People That Love / This Ones For The Ladies (THAT LUNGE!) / My Little You / Early Morning Madness / Hatred / Alone Time

Label Review.

1955 & 1956 albums.

Our Overview.

‘Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings’ (Clef MG C-678) was the first album featuring Joe Williams (1918-1999) as the vocalist of the Count Basie orchestra. 2 LPs on 1 CD - 6-Panel Digipak Collectors Limited Edition - Includes Inside Booklet With Updated Liner Notes.

American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer Count Basie and American jazz singer Joe Williams’ first real encounter would take place in 1954, and from that year until 1961, Williams remained the singer for the band, rising to national prominence with Basie. “Every Day I Have the Blues”, taped in 1955, was one of his many hit sides (it was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame for recordings of particular historical or qualitative importance in 1992).

The complete Basie/Williams LP The Greatest!! Count Basie Plays, Joe Williams Sings Standards (Verve MG V-2016), as well as the only existing alternate take from that album and two further rare collaborations between pianist and singer have been added as a bonus.

Joe Williams, vocals on all tracks Count Basie & His Orchestra Wendell Culley, Reunald Jones, Thad Jones, Joe Newman (tp), Henry Coker, Bill Hughes, Benny Powell (tb), Marshall Royal (as, cl), Bill Graham (as), Frank Wess (ts, fl), Frank Foster (ts), Charlie Fowlkes (bar), Count Basie (p), Freddie Green (g), Eddie Jones (b), Sonny Payne (d). Arrangements by Frank Foster & Ernie Wilkins. Fine Studios, New York, May 17 & July 26, 1955.

*BONUS ALBUM (10-22): The Greatest!! Count Basie Plays, Joe Williams Sings Standards: Same personnel as above. Arrangements by Buddy Bregman. Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, April 28 & May 1, 1956.

**BONUS TRACKS (23-24): Same personnel as above. Universal Recordings Group, Chicago, January 23, 1956. Originally issued on the Verve 7” single MGV-2004. INCLUDES All original sessions produced by Norman Granz.

Tracklisting: Every Day (I Have The Blues) / The Comeback / Alright, Okay, You Win / In The Evening (When The Sun Comes Down) / Roll’em Pete / Teach Me Tonight / My Baby Upsets Me / Please Send Me Someone To Love / Ev’ry Day (I Fall In Love) / Thou Swell* / There Will Never Be Another You* / Our Love Is Here To Stay* / ‘S Wonderful* / My Baby Just Cares For Me* / Nevertheless* / Singin’ In The Rain* / I’m Beginning To See The Light* / A Fine Romance* / Come Rain Or Come Shine* / I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me / This Can’t Be Love* / I’m Beginning To See The Light [alt Tk]* / Stop! Don’t! ** / As I Love You**

Label Review.

2020 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

British folk singer-songwriter Laura Marling’s exquisite seventh album 'Song For Our Daughter' arrives almost without preamble or warning in the midst of uncharted global chaos, and yet instantly and tenderly offers a sense of purpose, clarity and calm.

Three years ago, Laura Marling's sixth album, ‘Semper Femina’, ended with the sound of her putting down her guitar and walking out of the studio and into a garden. Then a door closed and the listener was left alone, in silence. It was a cryptic reference, the singer explained, to Henrik Ibsen's play ‘A Doll's House’, in which with a woman walks out on her husband and children in an effort to discover herself.

As a balm for the soul, this full-blooded new collection could be posited as Laura’s richest to date, but in truth it’s another incredibly fine record by a British artist who rarely strays from delivering incredibly fine records.

On her Grammy-nominated 2017 album ‘Semper Femina’, Marling used Classical-era imagery to add mythos to women-focused stories, but Song for Our Daughter, her seventh album, is guided by its own kind of far-reaching lore. Marling does away with her previous record’s occasional blues-rock grit and peels her sound back to its gleaming bones: pristine acoustic guitar, textural hums, a metronome click. She doesn’t need much else to frame her quartz pendant of a voice, which can reach Alpine altitudes as well recall a troubadour singing through chewing tobacco. Marling has described ‘Song for Our Daughter’ as a rumination on modern femininity, and her tendency to leave lyrical narratives open and unfinished adds an evocative elasticity to her new music. You may find yourself wanting to fill in the spaces as if playing a particularly soul-searching kind of Mad Libs.

Taking much of the production reins herself, alongside long-time collaborators Ethan Johns and Dom Monks, Laura has layered up lush string arrangements and a broad sense of scale to these songs without losing any of the intimacy or reverence we’ve come to anticipate and almost take for granted from her throughout the past decade.

Tracklisting; Alexandra / Held Down / Strange Girl / Only The Strong / Blow By Blow / Song For Our Daughter / Fortune / The End Of The Affair / Hope We Meet Again / For You

Label Review. 

2020 album. Original songs. Sunshine pop. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Explorers Club’ is the eponymously titled fourth album by the Nashville-based Sunshine Pop band and there is a companion album of covers too called ‘To Sing And Be Born Again’. This twelve-song-set is the band’s boldest work to date, breaking sonic barriers while maintaining lush melodies and artistic influences. Key tracks include: “Ruby,” “Look To The Horizon,” “One Drop Of Rain,” “Somewhere Else”.

The Explorers Club is the brainchild of Jason Brewer, who founded the band in his native Charleston, SC before relocating to Nashville. With several songs featured on such shows as ‘The O.C.’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and with three albums already under their belts – ‘Freedom Wind’ (2008), ‘Grand Hotel’ (2012) and 2016’s ‘Together’ – 2020’s twin releases are Brewer’s most ambitious undertaking to date.

The self-titled album of originals is an artistic triumph that includes standout tracks “Love So Fine,” the Phil Spector-inspired “Look To the Horizon” and “Dawn” – The Explorers Club’s first exploration into bossa nova. “I had a solid lineup of musicians working with me on the previous albums and I catered to their tastes, but this time around I made the record that I wanted to make,” Jason proclaims.

Musically adjacent to successful pop artists from the 1960s, 70s like The Beach Boys, Turtles, Association, Grass Roots. Brainchild of Charleston, SC native Jason Brewer, the only constant “member” of The Explorers Club over the band’s lifespan. Brewer re-unites with ‘Freedom Wind’ and ‘Grand Hotel’ producer, Matt Goldman (Copeland, Underoath, Smalltown Poets, etc). New contributors to this incarnation of The Explorers Club include Shane Tutmarc (Dolour, Sean Nelson) and Austin, TX based songwriter, Will Courtney. Consequence of Sound suggested that Explorers Club’s “vocal harmonies are to swoon for,” adding, “Old-school Americana drips off every warm keyboard hit, horn embellishment and lyric about gosh-darn romances from simpler times.”

Tracklisting: Ruby / One Drop Of Rain / Love So Fine / Mystery / Don’t Cry / It’s Me / Dawn / Dream World / Say You Will / Somewhere Else / Dreamin’ / Look To The Horizon

Label Review.

1961 & 1962 albums.

Our Overview.

Essential Jazz Classics Jack Teagarden - ‘Mis’ry And The Blues’ + ‘Think Well Of Me’ 2 Lps On 1 CD - 6-Panel Digipak Collectors Limited Edition - Includes Inside Booklet With Updated Liner Notes.

In the years between leaving Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars and his death (1952- 1964), the great trombonist and singer Jack Teagarden led a Dixieland-oriented sextet. Presented here in their entireties are two of his last albums, Mis’ry and the Blues (Verve V6-8416) and Think Well of Me (Verve V6-8465). While the former LP features his regular group in a selection of standards, the latter (on which a string section is added) concentrates on compositions by Willard Robison. Although Teagarden went through a rough time in the early 1960s that would lead to his premature death in 1964 (at the age of 58), these recordings give ample proof that he was a true master until the end, both as a trombonist and as a singer.

‘Mis’ry And The Blues’: Jack Teagarden, trombone & vocals; Don Goldie (tp), Henry Cuesta (cl), Don Ewell (p), Stan Puls (b), Barrett Deems (d). Chicago, June 18-22, 1961.

‘Think Well Of Me’: Jack Teagarden, trombone & vocals; The Russ Case/Bob Brookmeyer Orchestra, featuring Don Goldie (tp). Arrangements by Claus Ogerman, Russ Case & Bob Brookmeyer. New Jersey, January 17-19, 1962.

Tracklisting: Don’t Tell A Man About His Woman / Basin Street Blues / Froggie Moore Blues / I Don’t Want To Miss Mississippi / It’s All In Your Mind / Mis’ry And The Blues / Dixieland One-Step / Love Lies / Afternoon In August / Peaceful Valley / Where Are You? / Cottage For Sale / Guess I’ll Go Back Home This Summer / I’m A Fool About My Mama / Don’t Smoke In Bed / In A Little Waterfront Caf / Think Well Of Me / Old Folks / Country Boy Blues / Tain’t So Honey, Tain’t So / ‘Round My Old Deserted Farm

Label Review.

2020 album. Synthwave. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

US based Synthwave band composed of Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Jamison Tyler Lyle and LA based Danish-born producer, songwriter and singer Tim Daniel McEwan aka The Midnight are releasing their fifth album ‘Monsters’.

The Midnight have attracted a strong fan base over the past decade, fusing synth-driven film scores, deep house, pop, and rock. And having gone from online cult fascination to selling out London’s Roundhouse in 2019 the album finds the duo creating a sweeping sound that fuses Americana archetypes with an evocative electronic palette.

‘Monsters’ (released via Counter Records, home to Maribou State, Odesza, Chrome Sparks) sees a continuation of The Midnight’s immersive world building that has attracted a rabid fanbase.

“‘Monsters’ is the story of being a teenager,” says the band in a press release. “Adolescence is messy, tragic, brutal, wistful, and beautiful. ‘Monsters’ is all of that.”

From the album artwork to the song titles, the record excavates teenage emotions through nostalgic touchstones — the early internet, VHS tapes, Playstations, movie posters — to recreate the thrilling and crushing experiences of those tumultuous years.

Tracklisting: 1991 (intro) / America Online / Dance With Somebody / Seventeen / Dream Away / The Search for Ecco / Prom Night / Fire In The Sky / Monsters (feat. Jupiter Winter) / Helvetica / Brooklyn / Deep Blue / Night Skies / City Dreams(interlude) / Last Train

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Deluxe CD and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Paul Weller releases his 15th studio album ‘On Sunset’ which features another batch of classic yet modern songs. ‘On Sunset’ is a soul album. At the same time it’s also an electronic album, an orchestral album, an album packed with masterly pop songs and heart-tugging ballads, and an album filled with touches of experimentalism. It’s also an album that sees Weller taking a rare glance into the rear-view mirror as he speeds into the 2020s.

Weller started work on ‘On Sunset’ soon after finishing 2018’s masterpiece ‘True Meanings’. Opening track “Mirror Ball” was from the TM sessions and originally slated as a b-side. Thankfully it was rescued for ‘On Sunset’ as it’s shimmering opener. As ever, Weller retains a rigorous forward-looking focus when it comes to seeking out the best contemporary sounds and music. But lyrically, Weller – back on his old home, Polydor Records for the first time since the Style Council days – is also starting to look back on the past with the insight of age especially on songs like “Old Father Thyme”.

Most of the album sees Weller multi-tasking on various instruments with accompaniment from his regular band - Ben Gordelier appears on all tracks and Andy Crofts on most whilst Steve Cradock pops up with his guitar on four songs. An eclectic and sometimes surprising gathering of guests appear on On Sunset including Slade’s Jim Lea contributing violin to the Bonzos-esque “Equanimity”, and Paul’s old Style Council chum Mick Talbot adds his signature Hammond Organ sound to 3 tracks. The beautifully lush “More” features a verse sung by French singer Julie Gros, from the band Le Superhomard (whose album Meadow Lane Park was one of Weller’s favourites of 2019) as well as the return of The Strype’s guitarist Josh McClorey. English folk trio The Staves contribute backing vocals for 3 tracks. Once again Hannah Peel sprinkles her magic over the album with string arrangements and The Paraorchestra were invited to add their expertise to four tracks.

Tracklisting: Mirror Ball / Baptiste / Old Father Thyme / Village / More / On Sunset / Equanimity / Walkin’ / Earth Beat / Rockets

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Post rock/post classical. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Making her stage debut in April 2019 and selling out her first headline show at London’s prestigious Southbank Centre less than a year later, A.A. Williams has hit the ground running. Similarly, the acclaim for her performances and her music has been unanimous from the start. After one self-titled EP and the 10” vinyl collaboration Exit in Darkness with Japanese postrockers MONO, the London-based singer-songwriter has signed to Bella Union and made a stunning debut album, ‘Forever Blue’. 

A rapturous blend of post-rock and post-classical, 'Forever Blue' smoulders with uncoiling melodies and haunted atmospheres, shifting from serenity to explosive drama, often within the same song. Williams is a fantastic musician as well as songwriter, playing the guitar, cello and piano, and her voice has the controlled delivery of a seasoned chanteuse whilst still channelling the rawest of emotions.

'Forever Blue' is named after a song that didn’t make the album’s final cut, “but it stillencapsulated these songs,” Williams explains. “It sounded timeless and in the right place.” The album’s threads encapsulate the anxieties and addiction of love and loss with haunting detail, for example ‘Glimmer’(“I wasn’t meant to see the sun washed out and pale / I wait undone / I wasn’t meant to be the one hollow and hurt and meant for none”), though Williams admits the theme was shaped more by her subconscious than any grand plan.

Therapy is intrinsic to Williams’ approach: to not just express and unpick her feelings of longing and loss but to work through them. “Verbalising something, you feel a weight has been lifted,” she says. The transition can be mirrored in the dynamic shift from ‘quiet’ to ‘loud’, as on ‘Glimmer’ and arguably at its most euphoric on ‘Melt’. “There’s something very satisfying and elating about songs that have that drop in them, to stomp on the guitar pedal on and let it all out.

”It’s testament to Williams’ skills, and those of husband and bassist Thomas Williams, that ‘Forever Blue’s’ commanding sound was largely captured at the couple’s two-bedroom flat in North London. Drums by Geoff Holroyde were added at engineer Adrian Hall’s studio in South London, with guest vocals from Johannes Persson (Cult Of Luna), who adds his deep-trawling growl to ‘Fearless’ (“he sounds like Tectonic plates moving” Williams feels), Fredrik Kihlberg (Cult Of Luna) on ‘Glimmer’ and Tom Fleming (ex-Wild Beasts) on ‘Dirt’.

Tracklisting; All I Asked For (Was To End It All) / Melt / Dirt / Fearless / Glimmer / Love And Pain / Wait / I’m Fine

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Pioneering pop perennials Sparks – Ron and Russell Mael – return with their new studio album ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’. Since storming into the charts, minds and airwaves in 1974 with “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us” from their 3rd album ‘Kimono My House’, the musically vital pop pioneers have created a unique legacy both on record and in their live performances.

‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ follows Sparks’ 2017 album ‘Hippopotamus’, an extraordinary record which saw them return to the Top 10 and was universally acclaimed with many critics declaring it to be one of the finest albums of the year and the pinnacle of the band’s career -until now. First single from the new album “Please Don’t Fuck Up My World” is the closing track on the new collection and sees the brothers address a broad sentiment we can all relate to - to look after our planet - against a sweeping keyboard and orchestral backing before a big vocal chorus comes in to repeat the message and then back to Russell for a final plea. Other tracks previewed sees more usual Sparks fare - guitars and keyboards and catchy pop melodies proving the duo still haven’t lost their touch after nearly 50 years in the game.

Tracklisting: All That / I’m Toast / Lawnmower / Sainthood Is Not In Your Future / Pacific Standard Time / Stravinsky’s Only Hit / Left Out In The Cold / Self-Effacing / One For The Ages / Onomata Pia / iPhone / The Existential Threat / Nothing Is Faster Than The Speed Of Light / Please Don’t Fuck Up My World

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Electronic. Also available on CD.

Our Overview.

‘Débuts’ is the France-via-Brussels duo, Nikitch & Kuna Maze’s aka Nicolas Morant & Edouard Gilbert first full length album. Building on their collaborative EP “Mush”, ‘Débuts’ continues to explore the melting point between jazz and club culture, interspersed with the signature sounds of broken beat, Chicago footwork, UK garage, Detroit house, and underpinned by their road-tested new live format.

The collaboration project between musician Nicolas Morant aka Nikitch and Brussels-based producer Edouard Gilbert aka Kuna Maze began when the duo met at the Chambery Jazz Conservatory in France. Before attending university to study jazz, both artists had trained in classical music while growing up in the Lyon countryside.

This early musical development laid the blueprint for their musicianship today, allowing the duo to gradually explore the new artistic languages of jazz, and later electronic music. Both artists used their time at university to widen their horizons, encountering other musicians from outside from classical and jazz music circles, and as a result, started gigging and working on projects beyond the conservatory’s curriculum.

It wasn’t long until the duo started making electronic music together – a genre that wasn’t popular at the conservatory at the time, as retaliation. Born out of wanting to try something different, and a mutual love of the same artists, the pair produced their first beat on the train from Chambery to Lyon.

Musically influenced by the likes of Theo Parrish’s Signature Sound imprint, Moodymann, Idris Muhamad and International Anthem’s signee Resavoir, the duo take inspiration in the creative process of producers such as Max Graef and Glenn Astro. Nikitch & Kuna Maze channel their instrumental skills to create compositions using their common chemistry; blurring the lines between improvisation, production and the art of DJing. All these aspects become the creative DNA for the duo and become a catalyst in the music itself. “It is the approach to the craft”, Nicolas says.

‘Débuts’ see’s the band push their musical and creative development even further, a result of touring extensively around Europe with a live drummer, from high-brow jazz festivals to sweaty basement clubs. “We would be lying if we said our gig experience didn’t influence us on this record” Edouard explains. “We discovered new aspects to songs such as “Bruk” and managed to push forward the energy side of the music from the rawness of the live shows. This energy empowered to produce and compose new material in the same vein”.

Tracklisting: ZBRA / Francis’ Theme / Bruk / 46 Rue Du Fort / CBD / Monopoli Driver / JPS / Hey, This Must Be Deep / The Leak / Start / La Fin

Label Review. 

2020 album. Ethio-Jazz meets Global funk. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘To Know Without Knowing’, Mulatu Astatke and Black Jesus Experience’s new album is their second together. A grooving transcontinental gem, recorded in Melbourne, Australia and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Filled with the warmth of the mentorship and friendship of their creative partnership honed over a decade of performing together in Africa, Australia and UK/Europe.

Mulatu Astatke is the Father of Ethio-Jazz and one of Africa’s most influential and enduring musical figures. Black Jesus Experience is a community of artists, centred around a twelve piece global-funk-machine born of Australia’s vibrant multiculturalism. Mulatu and Black Jesus Experience met in Addis Ababa in 2009, embarking on both a musical relationship and a friendship that has led Mulatu Astake to describe Black Jesus Experience as, “My favourite backing band” and, “...they’re family.”

Mulatu’s great contribution to music has been to to combine Jazz and funk grooves with Ethiopia’s distinctive pentatonic scales. His musical genius is the sensuality and sophistication with which Mulatu contrasts these minimalist scales with richly chromatic harmony. But Mulatu’s equally great contribution has been to share both his enduringly unique modernity and Ethiopia’s timelessly spiritual music with the world. Black Jesus Experience treasure the special relationship of generosity, mentorship and collaboration they have been privileged to share with this master musician. ‘To Know Without Knowing’ is the product of this gift.

Tracklisting: Mulatu / Ambassi Lemdi / Kulun Mankwaleshi / Living On Stolen Land / To Know Without Knowing / Lijay / Blue Light / Mascaram Setaba / A Chance To Give

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

London based Dream Wife - vocalist Rakel, guitarist Alice, bassist Bella – are back with their second album, ‘So When You Gonna’ Just like the title suggests, this is a record brimming with adrenaline and playful excitement (“It’s an invitation, a challenge, a call to action,” says Rakel). From the jagged, CSS-like guitar of “So When You Gonna…” to the hooky brightness of album opener “Sports!” and the whip-smart lyrical asides of “Validation”, these are moreish, pumped up, sparkling tracks that feel like newer, dynamic evolutions of debut standouts, like “F.U.U.” and “Hey Heartbreaker.”

But on ‘So When You Gonna’ they often lean into sweeter, softer, more emotional moments too. “With every loss how do you carry through / Know you’re brave to jump back into,” sings Rakel on “Temporary”, her voice floating over melodic, honey-sweet guitar like an indie lullaby. “There are so few songs about miscarriage,” Rakel says, speaking about the lyrics. “People don’t talk about this. And then to not have this as a conversational topic in our society among woman... you realise, in your later twenties, probably every other one of your friends has experienced an abortion or miscarriage. I think that’s something that needs to be spoken about.”

Dream Wife’s rise has been swift and steep from the start. Their self-titled debut album from 2018 – an 11-track collection of heavy garage-punk riffs and dance party pop, was released to widespread critical acclaim (five stars and a cover in the NME, positive coverage across BBC Radio 1, The Guardian, The Fader, Dazed, Nylon and more). They soundtracked shows like ‘Orange is The New Black’ and ‘Trinkets’. Supported bands such as Garbage, The Kills and Sleigh Bells. Toured with Sunflower Bean across North America. And during all of this, took their explosive live show and pushed it out further, to an already eager, international audience.

Tracklisting: Sports! / Hasta La Vista / Homesick / Validation / Temporary / U Do U / RH RN / Old Flame / So When You Gonna… / Hold On Me / After The Rain

Label Review. 

2020 album. World. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Afropentatonism’ is a pan-African Allstar band merging two cultures. When Desert blues man Alhousseini Anivolla (Niger) met Ethio-jazz guitarist Girum Mezmur in 2005 at a festival in Europe, they were both already established professionals. Alhousseini had been part of the Tinariwen movement, and later on, gained a remarkable reputation with his band Etran Finatawa and his trio Anewal. The Sydney Morning Herald praised his ”gloriously repetitive, traditional music mixed with some of the slickest and most beautiful electric guitar imaginable.” Girum has been a mainstay in Addis Ababa’s live music scene as a guitarist and producer for decades. He is the musical director of Ethiopia’s greatest star Mahmoud Ahmed and has worked with the likes of Angelique Kidjo and Ali Keita.

Their new collaborative project fuses some of the most intriguing art of their respective cultures. Repetitive grooves, hypnotic jams and raw guitar sounds shape the album – all amidst the laid-back vocals of Alhousseini, who sings in his native tongue Tamashek. It’s an outstanding pan-African collaboration. The two leaders are joined by percussionist Misale Legesse and two players of traditional East African instruments: the masinko (one-stringed Ethiopian violin) played by Habtamu Yeshambel and the krar (five-stringed bass-like lyre), played by Anteneh Teklemariam. The sextet is completed by 78-year-old mandolin legend Ayele mamo from Addis. The New York Times hailed Mamo’s playing for its “honeyed melody”.

The album was recorded live during a concert in Nairobi, Kenya and features extended versions of the original songs. The infectious “Isouwad”, almost nine minutes in length, includes a rousing finale that had every audience member dancing. Quieter songs are amongst the most political tunes on the album. In the dreamy “Algher” (“Peace”), Alhousseini sings about the conflicts in his home region, directly addressing younger generations: “Children of this country protect our peace!”. “Raise your voice to bring people together no matter which colour and background” is the central message of the enchanting “Asmoussoudou” (“Those Who Unify”). Alhousseini Anivolla and Girum Mezmur have created a glorious example of the power of nonverbal communication. Five notes per octave and six friends are all you ever need.

Tracklisting: Awash/Ammalele [Awash River] / Chet Azawad [Women Of Azawad] / Asalam [Peace With You] / Algher [Peace] / Toumast Enkere [All People Of Our Earth-Together] / Asmoussoudou [Those Who Unify] / Isouwad [He Is Watching Us] / Tamadrite Nakal [Youth Of The Planet]

Label Review.

2020 album. Afro-Cuban jazz.

Our Overview.

The new album by the prolific saxophone player Raúl Gutiérrez (ex-Afrocuban All Stars) with a long list of sidemen, deeply rooted in Afro-Cuban jazz as members of Buena Vista Social Club.

Saxophonist Raúl Gutiérrez is one of the most prolific musicians in South American jazz whose biography is deeply associated with Latin jazz, Afro-Cuban music and tropical music - genres in which he was leader of a series of big bands. Raúl Gutiérrez’s career started in the 1970s when he studied classical clarinetbefore the visit of drummer Elvin Jones in 1972 forever changed his point of view on music. In Lyon, he joined the avant-garde jazz collective ARFI, which sought to create an imaginary folklore through liberated improvisation, and then the big band La Marmite Infernale, played in Tito Puente’s orchestra for a long time in Europe and finally in 1981 he founded in Munich what would be his great personal project IRAZU which he kept running in Cuba for a long time into the new millennium in various incarnations.

Gutiérrez then joined Afrocuban All Stars, a group that along with the Buena Vista Social Club reopened the doors for Cuban music and toured the world extensively. All these years of activity in Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz are present on his latest album “Dias De Illuvia” for which Gutiérrez (now based in Mexico) invited an illustrious group of young lions as well as reputed players from the scene: Lazaro Oviedo, Adolfo Argudin “Perruchin”, Yaker Manzano, Rolando Luna and Armadito Valdes.

The larger part of the 11 songs were arranged by Horacio Gonzales who until his death in 2018 was director of the cabaret “Tropicana” and one of the key figures in Cuban culture in general, and Jess Fuller who in the past worked with Lou Donaldson, Dizzy Gillespie, Paquito d’Rivera, “Papa” Jo Jones, Gerry Mulligan and more - including a splendid version of the jazz standard “Heres That Rainy Day”, the unofficial title track of a truly accomplished album!

Tracklisting: Beautiful Love / Embraceable You / Callejeros / Tema De La Tarde / Salsa Con Swing / Homenaje Al Bolero / Here’s That Rainy Day / September Song / Son Progresivo / Cheek To Cheek / Peque a Descarga En Bb

Label Review.

2020 album. Reggae. Also availble on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Acclaimed The Hempolics return with ‘Kiss, Cuddle & Torture: Volume 2’, the follow up to their triumphant 2017 album which won them accolades including a BBC 6 Music ‘Album Of The Year’ selection and they are out to put those organic rootsy vibes back into music; with their fat radio-friendly hooks, bumping soundsystem bass and a wanderlusty, ineffably real sound all of their own...

The new release builds on their trademark mash-up sound of reggae, dub, soul and pop but explores new territories with elements of hip-hop, shoegaze and trip-hop welcome additions to the mix. As with Volume 1, the release is underpinned by the masterful production of main man Grippa - an engineer who cut his teeth working with Faithless - and he’s once again joined by unmistakable Hempolics vocalists Dandelion and Nubiya, who continues to turn heads with her Amy Winehouse meets Hollie Cook timbre. Highlights of the album include the upbeat soul and reggae hit ‘Play On’, the trip-hop meets dub-influenced single, ‘Full of Surprises’, and the British reggae-funk stomper ‘Bongadashi’. ‘Gotta Thing’ sees the band deliver a fast hip-hop house track laced with classic Hempolics’ reggae flavours, vocals courtesy of Miami rapper Cojack, whilst ‘Place Is Here’, written by Grippa alongside Faithless vocalist Pauline Taylor, is a 90’s shoegaze influenced cut with a languid psych groove.

Sounding like the i-pod of the attention-deficit generation and swelled by guest appearances from various international talents The Hempolics have a storm brewing that promises to tear up the UK music scene. Recording underground style throughout the bedrooms and home studios of the band The Hempolics have created an infectious mash-up of Reggae, Electro, Hip-Hop, Soul, Rock and Pop. Although the weather out might be dull London-side it’s strictly sunshine vibes, resplendent with huge hooks and festival friendly choruses. These are tunes that people will be bopping to across festivals, clubs and car journeys for years to come.

Tracklisting: Full Of Surprises / Strange Feeling / Place Is Here / Bongadashi / MoonStars / Play On / Forever / In The Night / Get It Right / Gotta Thing / VaporizeMy Dream / The Enemy

Label Review.

2020 live album.

Our Overview.

Arkansas Dave aka Dave Pennington, having released his critically acclaimed debut album, Arkansas Dave embarked on a tour across Europe, lasting 2 months and over 25 shows, reaching its pinnacle at Montreux Jazz Festival. ‘Live At Music In The Park At Montreux Jazz Festival’ is one of the finest bodies of work you’ll hear in a long time. An accomplished and ballsy piece of work. The same authenticity as Chris Stapleton Raw songwriting at its best.

Rock and blues were his salvation, even if that feels, as the singer-songwriter says, like a bit of a "romantic cliche." Arkansas Dave has been called everything from an alt-rocker to an Americana act, from blues to indie rock to Southern country; clearly, he runs the gamut of styles and moods in his music.

“After being on tour in Europe for over a month, at that point, the band was firing on all cylinders and we were more confident than ever to walk on that stage. This is the best representation of what my band and I sound like live. That’s why I chose to put this out as a live album. Playing Montreux Jazz Festival was absolutely the highlight of my career so far. To be able to release a live album from that show is an affirmation that this is what I’m meant to be doing with my life.” Arkansas Dave

Tracklisting: Intro / Bad At Being Good / Think Too Much / Come Back To Me / Bad Water / Chocolate Jesus / Squeaky Clean / The Wheel / Rest Of My Days / Honey Bee / Diamonds / Black Draws/Let’s Have A Party / On My Way

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Kidbug’s roots date back to December 2018 at Joyful Noise Recordings’ Indianapolis label headquarters for their annual holiday party. Born from the romance of Croatian-born, Netherlands-based artist Marina Tadic and Australian transplant Adam Harding who met at said gathering, they make self-described “cuddlebug sludge”, the harmoniously spiky offspring of Harding’s fuzzy guitar grunge-gaze and Tadic’s dreamy left field pop.

“We all convened at Postal Recording in Indianapolis to record Christmas songs for the label, and it just sort of grew from there,” Harding explains. When Tadic learned that Harding was also an accomplished video maker, she asked if he would make a video for Eerie Wanda before she was due to leave town. According to Tadic, the creative sparks started flying immediately, inspiring a series of long-distance musical love letters. The initial results were raw, personal, and naked in their emotional honesty, with a purity of expression that Tadic and Harding were eager to preserve. “We made a pact that whatever came out, we wouldn’t second guess it,” says Harding. Adds Tadic: “We were inspired by the honesty and purity of John and Yoko singing love songs to each other. We wrote these songs for each other, and there was no reason to overthink them or purposefully obscure the lyrics, which made both the writing and recording process really fun and spontaneous.”

To achieve full cohesion, strong rhythmic components were required: Best Coast’s Bobb Bruno was recruited for bass and additional guitar, and 2019 Joyful Noise Artist in Residence Thor Harris was tapped for drums and percussion. “Thor was the glue that brought everyone together. He was our first and only choice for a drummer,” Harding emphasized. The album was recorded in 3 days at Postal Recording in Indianapolis, with Tadic once again flying out from the Netherlands, and Thor Harris coming up from his home in Austin, Texas.

Melvins’ legend Dale Crover makes a special guest appearance behind the kit on the album’s closing track “Dreamy.” Kidbug’s debut LP is fueled by a deeply charged electrical love, and the band hopes to return that magical energy to listeners. “This album is a celebration of love. All of my songs with [previous band] Dumb Numbers have been about endings, but Kidbug is about beginnings,” Harding shared. “We hope to bring love into the world with this album,” Tadic adds. “We dig love.”

Tracklisting: Now Let’s Go To Sleep / Lovesick / Good Inside / Moonglue / Never / Woozy / Theme from Kidbug / Together / Stay / Yesterdays/ Dreamy (feat. Dale Crover).

Label Review. 

Remastered albums: Class Of ‘55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming / Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town / Water From The Wells Of Home / Classic Cash: Hall Of Fame Series / Classic Cash (Early mixes) / Boom Chicka Boom / The Mystery Of Life. Also available on Vinyl (without bonus tracks).

Our Overview. 

In 1986, after almost 30 years on Columbia Records, Country music legend Johnny Cash released his first album on Mercury Records – ‘Class Of ’55’, in collaboration with fellow Sun Records alumni Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Seven years later, his last recording before signing with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings would be another collaboration, “The Wanderer”, with U2.

In the years that span those recordings, Johnny Cash released a total of six albums for Mercury. Despite significant focus and attention around his Columbia and American recordings, his Mercury catalogue has never been revisited… until now. UMe / Mercury Records are proud to announce that 2020 will see the release of ‘Johnny Cash: The Complete Mercury Studio Albums (1986-1991)’ – a 7CD/ 7LP boxed set featuring newly remastered audio for the very first time, using the original Mercury master tapes.

Notably, the album ‘Classic Cash: Hall Of Fame Series’ is presented in a 2LP format for the very first time. With brand new liner notes by music writer Scott Schinder, ‘Johnny Cash: The Complete Mercury Studio Recordings (1986-1991)’ represents the very first deep dive into the Country music legend’s Mercury catalogue, and reveals its importance as the bridge between his better known catalogues on Columbia and American.

Tracklisting: 

Class Of ‘55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming: Birth Of Rock And Roll / Sixteen Candles / Class Of ‘55 / Waymore’s Blues / We Remember The King / Coming Home / Rock And Roll (Fais-Do-Do) / Keep My Motor Running / I Will Rock And Roll With You / Big Train (From Memphis)

Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town: The Big Light / The Ballad Of Barbara / I’d Rather Have You / Let Him Roll / The Night Hank Williams Came To Town / Sixteen Tons / Letters From Home / W. Lee O’Daniel (And The Light Crust Dough Boys) / Heavy Metal (Don’t Mean Rock And Roll To Me) / My Ship Will Sail

Water From The Wells Of Home: Ballad Of A Teenage Queen (With Roseanne Cash & The Everly Brothers) / As Long As I Live (With Emmylou Harris) / Where Did We Go Right (With June Carter Cash and The Carter Family) / The Last Of The Drifters (With Tom T. Hall) / Call Me The Breeze (With John Carter Cash)That Old Wheel (With Hank Williams, Jr.) / Sweeter Than The Flowers (With Waylon Jennings) / A Croft In Clachan (The Ballad Of Rob MacDunn) (With Glen Campbell) / New Moon Over Jamaica (With Paul McCartney) / Water From The Wells Of Home (With John Carter Cash)

Classic Cash: Hall Of Fame Series: Get Rhythm / Tennessee Flat Top Box / Long Black Veil / A Thing Called Love / I Still Miss Someone / Cry, Cry, Cry / Blue Train / Sunday Morning Coming Down / Five Feet High And Rising / Peace In The Valley / Don’t Take Your Guns To Town / Home Of The Blues / Guess Things Happen That Way / I Got Stripes / I Walk The Line / Ring Of Fire / Ballad Of Ira Hayes / The Ways Of A Woman In Love / Folsom Prison Blues / Supper Time

Classic Cash (Early mixes): Sunday Morning Coming Down / Get Rhythm / I Walk The Line / Long Black Veil / I Still Miss Someone / Blue Train / I Got Stripes / Peace In The Valley / Five Feet High And Rising / Folsom Prison Blues / Cry, Cry, Cry / Don’t Take Your Guns To Town / Tennessee Flat Top Box / A Thing Called Love / The Ways Of A Woman In Love / Ballad Of Ira Hayes / Guess Things Happen That Way / Home Of The Blues / Supper Time / Ring Of Fire

Boom Chicka Boom: A Backstage Pass / Cat’s In The Cradle / Farmer’s Almanac / Don’t Go Near The Water / Family Bible / Harley / I Love You, Love You / Hidden Shame / Monteagle Mountain / That’s One You Owe Me / Veteran’s Day (b-side of of The Mystery Of Life) / I Shall Be Free (b-side of of Farmer’s Almanac) / I Draw The Line (previously unreleased) / A Backstage Pass (early version) / Harley (early version) / That’s One You Owe Me (early version) / Veteran’s Day (early version)

The Mystery Of Life: The Greatest Cowboy Of Them All / I’m An Easy Rider / The Mystery Of Life / Hey Porter / Beans For Breakfast / Goin’ By The Book / Wanted Man / I’ll Go Somewhere And Sing My Songs Again (with Tom T. Hall) / The Hobo Song / Angel And The Badman / The Wanderer (with U2) [Long version from the Faraway, So Close! soundtrack album]

Label Review. 

2020 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘The Greatest Part’ is the second album from New York born Becca Mancari. Her debut ‘Good Woman’ was a critical smash, praised by NPR and hailed as one of 2017’s best by Rolling Stone. Her songs racked up millions of streams, which helped land Mancari dates with the likes of Margo Price, Natalie Prass, and Julien Baker, among others. On top of her solo work, Mancari also teamed up with Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard and songwriter Jesse Lafser to form Bermuda Triangle, which earned similarly glowing reviews as they performed sold-out headline shows across the country.

Despite all her success, the relentless pace of life on the road left Mancari little time to grapple with the trauma of her past, nor absorb any new challenges arising in her present. So, in 2019, Mancari decamped to friend and producer Zac Farro’s home studio to set about constructing her sophomore album, a record that would balance unflinching self-examination with intoxicating grooves and infectious instrumental hooks.

The result is ‘The Greatest Part’. Propelled by an airtight drum groove and lacerating guitar line, hypnotic opener “Hunter” finds Mancari singing to a ghost from her past, promising, “You’re never gonna track me down / You’re never gonna find me out,” her crystalline voice floating effortlessly above the distorted maelstrom brewing below it. Like much of the album, it’s a song of defiance and self-assurance that’s streaked with loneliness and regret. To that end, earworm “Lonely Boy” reflects on the ways that fear can hold us back from human connection, while the bittersweet “First Time” reaches out to a younger self, asking “Hey, did you find your way out?”

Yet, as much as ‘The Greatest Part’ is a vehicle for examining Mancari’s past, it’s also a lens through which she makes sense of her future. Perhaps it’s bare-bones album closer “Forgiveness” that best ties together all of the record’s loose threads. Searching for mercy in the midst of lingering anger and grief, the hushed, intimate track locates the beauty in letting go, in accepting ourselves for all our flaws and baggage, in walking forward boldly into the unknown.

Tracklisting: Hunter / First Time / Like This / Bad Feeling / Pretend / Lonely Boy / Tear Us Apart / I’m Sorry / Stay With Me / Knew / Forgiveness

Label Review. 

2020 album. Folk. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

On her new record Entre nous, Jill Barber reaches a new level of intimacy with the French language. An unabashed francophile, it all began at the Montreal Jazz Festival over a decade ago: she surprised her audience with a French translation of one of her songs, and the room exploded into applause and a chorus of bravos.

Quebec was charmed. In response, Jill was inspired to record her debut French album, interpretations of classics from Piaf to Gainsbourg on 2011’s Chansons. Soon millions of listeners worldwide were discovering Jill’s music through her french material, and she continues to earn spots on top french playlists with songs from Chansons across streaming platforms. In a bold move for an Anglophone, Barber now releases Entre Nous (2020), her first collection of original French songs, written with Francophone collaborator Maia Davies and produced by Montreal born, NYC based, Gus Van Go.

Inspired by french pop music of the 1960’s, Entre nous invites the listener on an musical rendezvous through champagne-soaked love songs like the title- track, cheeky y y -inspired songs like “Chat domestique”, the psychedelic “Commes les fleurs” reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, the hooky pop song “Le monde est beau”, a haunting interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne”, and a steamy duet with Quebec chanteur Yann Perreau on “Les t s de Montreal”.

Much like her predecessors, anglophones Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, the more Barber sings in French, the more she is embraced for her unique and pleasing accent. Singing in a second language lends a quality to her voice that is more vulnerable, tender, playful and passionate: it’s simply charming. As a songwriter, Jill Barber is beloved in Canada and abroad for her talent and impressive body of work in English; in French she is irresistible and her star is only just beginning to rise.

Tracklisting: Entre nous / Chat domestique / Joue avec le feu / Le monde est beau / Les t s de Montreal / Commes les fleurs / La pluie / Reflets / Suzanne / Nos retrouvailles / Coeur de ma jeunesse

Label Review. 

Chocs Away (1975) / The Great Artiste (1976) / Golden Mile (1976) / Five Live Kursaals (1977) / A Former Tour De Force Is Forced To Tour (1988) plus bonus tracks. RPM.

Our Overview. 

Kursaal Flyers were an integral element of the ‘Thames Delta’ music scene emerging from the late 60s clubs into the bright lights of the 1970s pop world. Alongside contemporaries, and in some cases old schoolmates, in bands such as Dr Feelgood and Eddie & The Hot Rods , the Kursaal Flyers (named after a Southend amusement park carnival float) were a regular fixture on the Pub Rock and College circuit of 70s Britain.

Their sound was more diverse than their R&B contemporaries. Being influenced by American Country Rock, the band included banjo and pedal steel guitar as fixtures in their musical oeuvre. They toured Europe with The Flying Burrito Brothers. The Kursaals were also notable for a wry observational sense of humour which the band’s songwriters, Will Birch and Graeme Douglas, regularly injected into the material. Complemented by the chameleon-like vocal styles employed by front man Paul Shuttleworth.

Disc One contains the two complete albums made for Jonathan King’s UK Records label in 1975, ‘Chocs Away’ and ‘The Great Artiste’. Presented in a gatefold wallet to show the original artwork for both of the original LPs, these are the greatly enhanced remixed versions from 1991.

Disc Two has their first CBS album from 1976 ,’Golden Mile’, produced by Mike Batt, including both versions of their hit single “Little Does She Know”, the single edit, and the “kitchen sink” LP version which comes on like the 1812 Overture involving as they do the London Symphony Orchestra. Plus the non LP A+B-sides, and an unreleased track “The Questionnaire”.

Disc 3 has their live album recorded at The Marquee, ‘Five Live Kursaals’ released by CBS in 1977. As live albums tend to do, these recordings highlight how the band truly were on stage, a highly energetic rock band with a raw sound belying their country roots. A particular image in the booklet gives further rise to their mood depicting the moment Paul would smash up TV sets on stage with an axe (in an homage to The Move). Plus three tracks which were unreleased at the time, from recording sessions with Muff Winwood aimed at a second CBS studio LP which was never finalised.

Disc 4 is their third studio LP, ‘A Former Tour De Force Is Forced To Tour’ recorded in 1988 and exhibits a very strong country rock groove, which would not be out of place if released to today’s Americana market. The bonus tracks include a four song 1975 countryfied radio session, and a 1975 live recording in Southend of “Route 66” which is interestingly somewhere between Bobby Troup’s nightclub jazz original and Chuck Berry’s RnB version.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: Chocs Away / The Great Artiste: Pocket Money / Hit Records / Kung Fu / Tennessee / Chocs Away / Speedway / Brakeman / Now I’m Back / Yellow Sox / Silver Wings / Cross Country / Ugly Guys / The Great Artiste / Fall Like The Rain / Cruisin’ For Love / Back To The Book / Palais De Danse / Pain And Misery / Hypochondriac / Television / Drinking Alone

Disc Two: The Golden Mile: Little Does She Know / One Arm Bandit / Drinking Socially / Two Left Feet / Modern Lovers / Street Of The Music / Radio Romance / When The Band’s On The Stand / Detroit Tin / Third Finger Left Hand / Ready To Go / Little Does She Know (Edit) / Girl Talk / The Questionnaire / The Sky’s Falling In On Our Love / Revolver

Disc Three: Five Live Kursaals: Original Model / Yellow Sox / Pocket Money / Cruisin’ For Love / The Sky’s Falling In On Our Love / Little Does She Know / Street Of The Music / Tv Dinners / Speedway / Revolver / On My Mind / Anna (Go To Him) / Friday On My Mind / Television Generation / Girlfriend Kinda Girl / Everything But A Heartbeat / Girls That Don’t Exist

Disc Four: A Former Tour De Force Is Forced To Tour: If You Would Only Talk To Me (Like You Talk To The Dog) / Pre-Madonna / Tonight Before Tonight / Man In Mohair / A Former Tour De Force Is Forced To Tour / Luxury Lane / My Sugar Turns To Alcohol / Paranoid Weekend / Old Men Need Some Lovin’ Too / Monster-In-Law / Cruisin’ For Love (Remake) / Slimmin’ (For The Women) / Walking To School / Route 66 (Live) / Tennessee (Radio Session) / Foggy Mountain Breakdown (Radio Session) / Yellow Sox (Radio Session) / Route 66 (Radio Session)

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Exotic rock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Bananagun and their debut album album ‘The True Story Of Bananagun’ has a sound stretching from 60s and 70s afrobeat and exotica to Fela Kuti-esque repetition, the proto-garage rhythmic fury of The Monks and the grooves of Os Mutantes, there’s an enticing lost world exoticism to the music of Bananagun. It’s the sort of stuff that could’ve come from a dusty record crate of hidden gems; yet as the punchy, colourfully vibrant pair of singles “Do Yeah” and “Out of Reach” have proven over the past 12 months, the band are no revivalists.

On ‘The True Story of Bananagun’, they make a giant leap forward with their outward-looking blend of global tropicalia. It marks Bananagun’s first full foray into writing and recording as a complete band, having originally germinated in the bedroom ideas and demos of guitarist, vocalist and flautist Nick van Bakel. The multi-instrumentalist grew up on skate videos, absorbing the hip-hop beats that soundtracked them -taking on touchstones like Self Core label founder Mr. Dibbs and other early 90’s turntablists. That love of the groove underpins Bananagun - even if the rhythms now traverse far beyond those fledgling influences.

“We didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing, we wanted it to be vibrant, colourful and have depth like the jungle. Like an ode to nature.” says Nick. “We were playing a lot leading up to recording so we’re all over it live”, Nick fondly recalls of the sessions that became more like a communal hang out, with Zoe Fox and Miles Bedford there too to add extra vocals and saxophone. “It was a good time, meeting there every night, using proper gear [rather than my bedroom setups.] It felt like everyone had a bit of a buzz going on.”

Tracklisting: Bang Go The Bongos / The Master / People Talk Too Much / Freak Machine / Bird Up! / Out of Reach / She Now / Perfect Stranger / Mushroom Bomb / Modern Day Problems / Taking the Present for Granted

Label Review. 

16 tracks. (Bid from Monochrome Set). Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The world of Scarlet’s Well was conceived in 1998 by Bid, the lead singer, guitarist, and main songwriter of UK New Wave/Indie legends The Monochrome Set, after they had disbanded for a second time. Lavishly illustrated albums emerged quietly, all set in and around Mousseron, “a sickly village situated somewhere east of the Azores and only slightly north of the Styx” populated by howling wolves, seductive mermaids and a bawdy captain with his crew of beer-swilling pirates and off-kilter animals with disturbingly human characteristics.

In Bid’s words, “I wanted this to be an ‘atmosphere’ rather than a band, and thought I’d have greater freedom using a variety of different singers, musicians and writers. The identity of the albums had to be strong enough to allow these changes, without them seeming like compilations. It’s akin to an open-ended musical with a partly ever-changing cast.”

Between 1999 and 2010, Scarlet’s Well released seven albums on Spanish-based Siesta Records. It was originally designed as a studio project, with a vague idea that a live band may follow. In the event, four albums were made where nearly all the instrumentation was performed by Bid, Orson Presence (keyboard player of the 90s Monochrome Set), and Toby Robinson (producer of most of the 90s Monochrome Set albums). Bid’s voice took turns with an enchanting cast of young ladies, of whom only Alice Healey was a permanent member. Soon after the fourth album, a live band was formed, though without Orson Presence, who was now living in Canada. A slightly changing line-up then recorded three more albums, with live performances, before Scarlet’s Well disbanded in 2010. The third rebirth of The Monochrome Set then followed, and is still going.

Archaic and arcane, literate and witty, cinematic and surreal, the Scarlet’s Well songs feature gorgeous, timeless, intoxicating melodies with wide range of rich and multi-layered instrumentation. Although there is a conceptual thread that runs through the albums, each song still stands alone, an oddly shaped trinket from a treasure trove. Lyrics leap from cryptic literary allusions to pert whimsy, and although there is a certain obscure quality there is also an air of familiarity: a morphic memory magic, bringing on a parallel universe that reveals itself to those who are open to getting lost with new acquaintances down strange cobbled streets, wooded glades, uncharted waters or the dark tunnels of the underworld.

Tracklisting: Sweetmeat / Willy Whispers / The Captain’s Song / Isle Of The Blue Flowers / Dark Dreams Aboard The Hesperus / Lord Fishgarlic’s Last Expedition / Night Of The Macaw / The Ballad Of Johnny Freak / The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse / Big Dipper On The Spearman’s Floor / Savage / Black Tulip Wings / Golden, It Is, Beautiful / My Little Doll / Supernatural Services / The Vampire’s Song

Label Review. 

36 tracks including hits, His own versions of songs written for others and 2 brand new songs.

Our Overview. 

Mike Batt’s long and varied career is celebrated on his new Penultimate Collection double album, with 35 tracks highlighting his work as performer, composer, arranger and key British musical figure – but especially as performer, as not only does it feature Batt’s original solo material – including his international solo hits -, but also his own versions of songs he wrote for other artists. “The Closest Thing To Crazy”, “Bright Eyes”, “A Winter’s Tale”, “Caravan Song” and “I Feel Like Buddy Holly” are given Mike’s own distinctive treatment, alongside his orchestral works, and contributions from Colin Blunstone, Bonnie Tyler and Family’s Roger Chapman.

'Mike Batt – The Penultimate Collection' features his work from the classic feelgood pop of Summertime City, his number four hit from 1975, through his hugely successful Wombles hits and orchestral pieces, to two brand new recordings. While Disc 1 of this double CD package houses the familiar hits, Disc 2 is an eclectic collection of more boundary-breaking tracks including early singles, oddball instrumentals and compositions that give an insight into the imagination and adventurous spirit of his work.

“Summertime City”, theme to the BBC’s variety show Seaside Special, has only been released once since it was a hit. Says Mike: “For many years, despite its success I looked back on it with embarrassment but now I am proud of it as a good, strong pop record. I insisted that Sony ‘delete it forever’ and the rights to the song reverted to me. So this is the first time (apart from the MB Music Cube) that it has been released since 1975.” There’s also an early pre-Womble solo single, “Your Mother Should Know”, recorded when he was just a teenager. “It’s 19-year-old me doing a cover of this great little Beatle song using a Vivaldi-style string approach. The lead fiddle player is Jack Rothstein, and we recorded it at Wessex Studios in London.

And of course, there are numbers by The Wombles, too. “Some may say The Wombling Song needs no introduction, but it has one, courtesy of four unison French horns. It was my first-ever hit. This is of course the main theme to the Wombles TV show, and was the first of about 50 songs about the famous eco-warriors. I count the Wombles tracks as ‘Mike Batt’ tracks because they are indeed just me singing with a session orchestra; usually with Chris Spedding on guitar and Clem Cattini on drums”

Tracklisting: 

CD1: Children Of The Sky / Bright Eyes / The Winds Of Change / Lady Of the Dawn / Railway Hotel / Imbecile (feat. Roger Chapman) / Please Don’t Fall In Love / Love Makes You Crazy / A Winter’s Tale / Soldier’s Song / Better Than A Dream / Into The Sunset Duet (with Bonnie Tyler) / The Closest Thing To Crazy / Voices In The Dark / Nine Million Bicycles / Caravan Song / Caravan Theme / I Feel Like Buddy Holly / The Ride To Agadir

CD2: Waiting For A Wave / Six Days In Berlin, Pt. 1 / Warsaw / Tarota / On Watership Down / The Fires Of Rabat / Summertime City / Your Mother Should Know / It’s Only Pain / Tiger In The Night (feat. Colin Blunstone) / Run Like The Wind (feat. Roger Chapman) / The Wombling Song / Minuetto Allegretto / The Orinico Kid / The Aspidistra Suite (2nd Movement) / The Walls Of The World / The Vanishing (feat. Julian Lennon, John Gielgud, John Hurt & Maggie Reilly

Label Review. 

2020 album. Americana. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

'Magdalen Accepts The Invitation' is the 2020 full-length by the husband and wife-duo comprising Mark Olson (ex-Jayhawks) and Ingunn Ringvold. The husband-and-wife duo's third collaboration mines a "Death Valley isolation chamber folk/pop sound" that is awash with darkness and light. A roller coaster in a long-closed Lake Minnetonka amusement park, walks through historic orthodox churches, a fossil-collecting canoe trip along the Niobrara River, and an isolated pizza place in South Africa. Old memories swirling in the warm Joshua Tree breezes provided them with the inspiration for the set of intriguing, imagistic songs that lovingly fill their latest outing, Magdalen Accepts the Invitation. The album's ten tracks draw upon the couple's recent adventures together and their earlier adventures apart as well as tapping into, and stretching out, their own individual musical influences. 

While continuing along the Americana-cobbled roads they took on their first two albums, Olson and Ringvold explore lesser traveled musical territories on this release. Without exactly knowing where they were going, the two were emboldened by each other's company and unafraid to push forward. As Olson describes it: "The recording sessions occurred during the heat of summer at Thermometer Shelter Studios, located not too far from Death Valley National Park." The Armenian Qanon, the Mellotron, the dulcimer, and djembe drums are among the world of instruments that the multi-talented Ringvold contributed to Magdalen's sound. The variety of arrangements on the album act, she explains, "like a different color in an impressionistic painting." Ringvold also is thrilled about being able to weave elements of her family's musical heritage into her own songs and the interesting ways that her work blended in with Olson's original material. All of Magdalen's original track recordings were done on a Nagra field recorder, which further enhanced the album's unvarnished sonic textures.

Mark Olson was born and raised in Minnesota by a family of mostly farmers and schoolteachers. Predominately a self-taught musician, Olson is well known for his use of alternate tunings and two-part unison singing that then breaks into harmony. He co-founded (and was a principal songwriter, singer and guitarist) the Jayhawks in 1985 in Minneapolis. Upon leaving the Jayhawks, he formed the Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers in 1997 with Victoria Williams. That band, later called the Creekdippers, made seven albums. 

Ingunn Ringvold comes from Larvik, Norway (also the home of Thor Heyerdahl, the famed explorer and Kon Tiki author). Blessed with a naturally beautiful voice, she began singing in public at a very young age. Ringvold hears music in her heart and writes emotionally moving string arrangements. She studied the Armenian Qanon with Arax, a master musician in Vanadzor, Armenia, where she learned how to harness great strength in her performance style. She has released four solo albums in addition to her collaborations with Olson. Olson and Ringvold live now in the California desert, and they tour off and on internationally almost every year. 

Tracklisting: Pipestone I Won't Be Back / You'll Find the Morning / Excelsior Park / Christina Hi / 31 Patience Games / Children of the Streetcar / Silent Mary / Elmira's Fountain / Black Locust

Label Review. 

2020 album. Rock. Also available on Vinyl and Deluxe Box Set. 

Our Overview. 

Grey Daze, Chester Bennington’s pre-Linkin Park band, have announced ‘Amends’, the Phoenix-born band’s eagerly-awaited album featuring newly recorded music with re-mastered vocals from the group’s long out-of-print, and largely undiscovered catalogue.

‘Amends’ is the origin story of one of modern rock’s most recognizable voices and also a full circle moment among friends. The album is the fulfillment of a planned Grey Daze reunion that Chester had announced prior to his untimely passing. The remaining band members - Dowdell (drums), Mace Beyers (bass) and Cristin Davis (guitar) - along with Talinda Bennington (Chester’s widow) and his parents, made it their mission to see the project through with assistance from Tom Whalley, the founder of Loma Vista Recordings and former Warner Bros. Record Chairman during Linkin Park’s tenure at the label.

Dowdell, Beyers and Davis selected the tracks from the band’s mid-‘90s, but largely unknown catalogue and re-recorded the music in 2019 to accompany Chester’s re-mastered vocals. Produced by Jay Baumgardner, several musicians leant their time and talent to the album, including Korn’s Brian “Head” Welch and James “Munky” Shaffer, Paige Hamilton (Helmet), Chris Traynor (Bush, Helmet, Orange 9MM) and singer-songwriter, LP.

“We started Grey Daze in 1993, the band ended up breaking up in 1998,” explains Dowdell. “Fast forward to 2016, Chester’s on the road and says, ‘I think we should put Grey Daze back together.’ Obviously, what happened, happened and Chester was tragically taken from us. Of course, as soon as he passed, it was like ‘oh my God, I lost my friend, my friend’s wife is now a widow and my friend’s kids are now fatherless.’ There were all of these emotions. About six or seven months later, I started some conversations and said I really want to finish this album. We’re not going to accept mediocrity, we’re going to do our friend proud, we’re going to make Chester proud and we’re going to make sure this is something he would have been elated to put out.”

Tracklisting: Sickness / Sometimes / What’s In The Eye / The Syndrome / In Time / Just Like Heroine / B12 / Soul Song / Morei Sky / She Shines / Shouting Out

Label Review. 

1982 debut album remastered. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Diamanda Galas’ debut album ‘Litanies of Satan’, originally released in 1982, is finally reissued on her own Intravenal Sound Operations label. Born in 1955 to a Greek American family in San Diego, California, Galas began playing piano at the age of 3 and encouraged by her father took to other musical instruments such as cello and violin. She began playing gigs at 13 with her fathers band.

During the 1970s Diamanda studied biochemistry at the University of Southern California but returned to music at the end of the decade and by 1982 unveiled her debut album ‘The Litanies Of Satan’. It’s a challenging listen, Galas had honed her voice into a sonic weapon covering four octaves and merging this with her command of electronics created what writer Louis Pattison called a “whirlpool of cacophony”. The text for ‘The Litanies of Satan’ is taken from a section of ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ by Charles Baudelaire and in her original liner notes she explained the piece “devotes itself to the emeraldine perversity of the life struggle in hell”.

Tracklisting: The Litanies Of Satan / Wild Women With Steak-Knives

Label Review. 

Official 22 track best of to celebrate her 100th anniversary. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The commanding Peggy Lee was one of the great female song stylists who sits among iconic female sonic alumni such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. Smoky, sensual, sultry, confident, commanding…there has never been a voice quite like that of Peggy Lee. A triple threat singer/songwriter/actress, Lee had a remarkable career in music spanning over fifty years.

Inaugurating Peggy Lee 100 is a new collection from UMe and celebrating an artist who never goes out of style, ‘Ultimate Peggy Lee’ is primed with 22 indelible performances including classic hits, five of her own compositions, and one previously unissued track, “Try a Little Tenderness,” from 1963. Whittling down Lee’s discography to one CD or 2 vinyl LPs is no easy task; she wrote over 200 songs and recorded more than 1,100. But the selection here is a fine cross-section of the songs that made Peggy Lee a one-of-a-kind superstar.

Drawing on her original Decca and Capitol recordings, the anthology boasts such timeless favourites as “Fever” (reinvented by Lee from Little Willie John’s original), the alluring “Big Spender,” “Black Coffee,” “Why Don’t You Do Right,” “The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” and two powerful anthems from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller: “I’m a Woman” and “Is That All There Is?,” the latter with a Randy Newman arrangement. Peggy’s own songs here include “It’s a Good Day,” “I Love Being Here with You,” and “He’s a Tramp.”

Peggy scored her first chart-topper in 1942 and her final recordings were released in 1995, seven years before her death in 2002.  She was an Academy Award-nominated actress (Pete Kelly’s Blues), a 13-time Grammy nominee (and two-time recipient), and a talented songwriter whose collaborators included the esteemed likes of Harold Arlen, Cy Coleman, Duke Ellington, and Lalo Schifrin.  Lee was also a fierce advocate of artists’ rights, winning a highly-publicised lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company over home video exploitation of Lady and the Tramp, the 1955 film for which she supplied songs (including the immortal “He’s a Tramp” and romantic “Bella Notte,” both co-written with Sonny Burke) and the voice of – who else? – Peg. This week, The Peggy Lee Estate announced Peggy Lee 100, a centennial campaign honouring the late, great songstress and her influence across the spectrum of popular music.

Tracklisting: I Love Being Here With You / Fever / Things Are Swingin’ / I Don’t Know Enough About You / I’m A Woman / Just In Time / Hallelujah, I Love Him So / Sweet Happy Life / Alright, Okay, You Win / Too Close For Comfort / Why Don’t You Do Right (Get Me Some Money Too) / It’s A Good Day / You Deserve / Heart / Big Spender / He’s A Tramp / I Wanna Be Around / Black Coffee / I’ve Got The World On A String / The Folks Who Live On The Hill / Is That All There Is? / Try A Little Tenderness*

Label Review. 

2020 album. Nuclear Blast. Also available on Vinyl and Deluxe box set. 

Our Overview. 

Now in their 20th year as Lamb Of God, the American Heavy Metal legends release their eighth album ‘Lamb Of God’. Within heavy music circles, a new album from Richmond Virginia’s Lamb Of God is a monumental event. Worldwide, the band has continued their steady march to the highest levels of the rock world, so much so that a band this unapologetically aggressive are now even a fixture at the top of mainstream album charts - the band’s last album ‘VII: Sturm Und Drang’ debuted in the Top Five on US, UK, Canada, Australia national charts, and was nominated for a Grammy.

“We never head into anything with an idea of what we want it to sound like,” guitarist Mark Morton says. “All we know is we want to keep surprising ourselves and doing stuff we like. That excites us because we’re the ones that are going to have to play the songs over and over.” ‘Lamb of God’ sounds a bit like all of the group’s previous albums. “Checkmate” is old-school LOG, melding rapid-fire riffs with tumbling beats and roaring vocals. By contrast, opening track “Memento Mori” offers a new shade of darkness, starting with eerie sound effects and atmospheric guitars overlapped by baleful, melodic vocals reminiscent of Sisters of Mercy’s Andrew Eldritch before bursting into a surging rhythm augmented by asymmetrical, staccato guitar licks. “Bloodshot Eyes” finds Blythe upping the ante by harmonizing with himself before returning to screaming.

A band that has never shrunk from it’s role in channeling the turmoil and crisis on display in this world, into cathartic, aggressive, and modern heavy metal. Musically, Lamb of God know no equals in the modern heavy world, combining metal, punk, and groove in a devastating and signature attack. Lyrically, vocalist Randy Blythe pulls no punches, with so much to confront at this moment in history.

Tracklisting: Memento Mori / Checkmate / Gears / Reality Bath / New Colossal Hate / Resurrection Man / Poison Dream (feat Jamey Jasta) / Routes (feat Chuck Billy) / Bloodshot Eyes / On The Hook

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Norah Jones will release her seventh studio album, ‘Pick Me Up Off the Floor’, via Blue Note Records. She has previewed the record with lead single “I’m Alive”, a collaboration with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. The laid-back track, which Tweedy co-wrote and produced, features the Wilco leader on acoustic guitar, electric guitar and bass. His son and frequent collaborator Spencer Tweedy plays brushed drums. “Just sit and wait, don’t move — just hesitate/You can hope and pray; you can moan; maybe things will change,” Jones croons over her warm, languid piano. “You feel your soul get hollowed out/While the world implodes, you just live without.”

‘Pick Me Up Off The Floor’ which also includes the Tweedy-assisted “Heaven Above” marks Jones’ second collaboration with the Wilco frontman, who co-wrote and produced two tracks on her 2019 LP, ‘Begin Again’. “Norah’s been a great friend for a long time and she’s one of the most effortless musicians I’ve ever played with,” Tweedy told Rolling Stone.

Norah detailed the inspiration and creative process behind the album, which sprung from a productive session with her regular drummer Brian Blade. “Living in this country - this world - the last few years, I think there’s an underlying sense of, ‘Lift me up. Let’s get up out of this mess and try to figure some things out,’” she said. “If there’s a darkness to this album, it’s not meant to be an impending sense of doom, if feels more like a human longing for connection. Some of the songs that are personal also apply to the larger issues we’re all facing. And some of the songs that are about very specific larger things also feel quite personal. I don’t know if I was just in a zone or if this process turned it on, but I’ve felt more creative in the last year than I ever have.”

The project also features contributions from bassists Christopher Thomas, John Patitucci, Jesse Murphy, and Josh Lattanzi; drummers Nate Smith, Dan Rieser, and Josh Adams; keyboardist Pete Remm, pedal steel guitarist Dan Iead, violinist Mazz Swift, violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Paul Wiancko, percussionist Mauro Refosco, background vocalists Ruby Amanfu and Sam Ashworth, trumpeter Dave Guy and tenor saxophonist Leon Michels.

Tracklisting: How I Weep / Flame Twin / Hurts To Be Alone / Heartbroken, Day After / Say No More / This Life / To Live / I’m Alive / Were You Watching? / Stumble On My Way / Heaven Above