Label Review. 

2020 album. Richard Russell. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Friday Forever’ is the second album from multi-artist project Everything Is Recorded, helmed by producer artist Richard Russell. This follows the critically acclaimed and Mercury Music Prize nominated debut of 2018, ‘Everything Is Recorded’ by Richard Russell. ‘Friday Forever’ takes on a multi-lensed perspective of a classic night out, followed closely by the sobering reflections of the next morning.

The album features an array of new collaborators - in British rappers Aitch, FLOHIO and Berwyn, Irish singer songwriters Maria Somerville and Kean Kavanagh, the inimitable voices of A.K. Paul, James Massiah and returning vocalist Infinite Coles - as well as established names like Ghostface Killah and Penny Rimbaud.

Also released in April 2020, via White Rabbit, Richard Russell’s ‘Liberation Through Hearing’ - available in hardback, ebook, audio - is a spiritual journey through music by the Mercury Prize nominated musician and the man behind some of the world’s biggest recording artists including Adele, Dizzee Rascal and The Prodigy. ‘Liberation Through Hearing’ sees Richard Russell telling the remarkable story of XL Recordings and their three decades on the frontline of innovation in music; the eclectic chorus of artists who came to define the label’s unique aesthetic and Russell’s own story; his highs and lows steering the fortunes of an independent label in a rapidly changing industry, his celebrated production work with Bobby Womack and Gil Scott- Heron on their late-career masterpieces and his own development as an artist as 'Everything Is Recorded'.

Always searching for news sounds and new truths, ‘Liberation Through Hearing’ is a portrait of a man who believes in the spiritual power of music to change reality. It is also the story of a record label that refused to be categorised by genre and in the process cut an idiosyncratic groove which was often underground in feel but mainstream in impact.

“Writing this book was an opportunity for me to reflect on the last few decades. I hope people will get something from it. I’ve tried not to compromise in anything I’ve done, and that includes writing ‘Liberation Through Hearing’” - Richard Russell

Tracklisting: 09:46PM/EVERY FRIDAY THEREAFTER (Intro) (feat. Maria Somerville & Berwyn) / 10:51PM/THE NIGHT (feat. Berwyn & Maria Somerville) / 12:12AM/PATIENTS (FUCKING UP A FRIDAY) (feat. Aitch & Infinite Coles) / 01:32AM/WALK ALONE (feat. Infinite Coles & Berwyn)/ 02:56AM / I DONT WANT THIS FEELING TO STOP (feat. FLOHIO) / 03:15AM/CAVIAR (feat. Ghostface Killah & Infinite Coles) / 04:21AM/THAT SKY (feat. Maria Somerville & James Massiah) / 05:10AM/DREAM I NEVER HAD (feat. A. K. Paul) / 09:35AM/PRETENDING NOTHINGS WRONG (feat. Kean Kavanagh) / 10:02AM/BURNT TOAST (feat. Berwyn & A. K. Paul) / 11:55AM/THIS WORLD (feat. Infinite Coles & Maria Somerville) / 11:59AM CIRCLES (Outro) (feat. Penny Rimbaud)

Label Review.

2020 release. Recorded live in 2017 at the JFK Center in Washington DC. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Formed in the summer of 1995 at Washington D.C.'s Eighteenth Street Lounge, Rob Garza and Lounge co-owner Eric Hilton were drawn together over their mutual love of club life, as well as dub, bossa nova and jazz records and together as Thievery Corporation, have thrived for 20 years without a radio hit, a big budget video, or major label backing? Moreover, have managed to do high-profile TV appearances, own and operate their own independent label since day one, sell several million albums and continue to expand their fan base across the globe each year. On 2017 Thievery Corporation played a historic concert at The JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The show saw their songs re-imagined with orchestral arrangements from some of today’s leading young classical composers.

The show is now legendary, and those fortunate to attend heard Thievery Corporation in an entirely new way. To honour this show and inspiration it provided, Hilton and Garza have created ‘Symphonik’ - recorded with Prague’s FilmHarmonic Orchestra along with Thievery Corporation’s live band and engineering and co-production by Gianmaria Conti.

Thievery Corporation have collaborated with such uniquely famed artists David Byrne, Perry Farrell, The Flaming Lips, Anushka Shankar, Femi Kuti, Seu Jorge, Bebel Gilberto, and been featured on major film soundtracks such as Garden State. They’ve headlined top music festivals, such as Coachella and Lollapalooza, and have influenced a whole generation of electronic producers and DJs. If you add these elements together, you can arrive at only one conclusion: Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, aka: Thievery Corporation.

Tracklisting: Heavens Gonna Burn Your Eyes / Love Has No Heart / Ghetto Matrix / Passing Stars / Until The Morning / Depth Of My Soul / Sweet Tides / Lebanese Blonde / Weapons Of Distraction / The Forgotten People / Marching The Hate Machines

Label Review.

2020 album. Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) and Australian composer Anthony Pateras. Also avavailbel on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘necroscape’ is the sophomore release from the bi-continental outfit formed by Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) and Australian composer Anthony Pateras. ‘necroscape’ synthesizes a lot of territory: odd-time rock, musique concrète, otherworld grooves, soul, industrial noise, microtonal psychoacoustics… seemingly strange bedfellows on paper, yet in the ears they surprisingly coalesce into 13 songs which playfully challenge our notions of sonic logic and make you move at the same time.

Five years in the making, ‘necroscape’ mushroomed organically from Pateras’ production based on tape loops, analogue synthesis and rarified keyboard instruments in combination with Patton’s dense vocal arrangements, Erkki Veltheim’s exploratory violins and drummer Will Guthrie’s unique percussive strategies. The result is a handmade, kaleidoscopic tour-de-force which re-imagines songwriting as something other.

Pateras and Patton "created an intelligent but ferocious mixture of avant-garde experimentalism, world music accents, and heavy metal velocity" (All Music) within the confines of their 11-track, 2014 debut, "Geocidal". NME described the collection as "Roni Size getting spiked with GHB and fed through a woodchipper" while Alternative Press said, "once you are acclimated, it will leave you tingling." The pair, joined by Will Guthrie (percussion) and Erkka Veltheim (violin), both of whom appear on "Necroscape" as well, made their live debut, fittingly at the Tasmania Mona music and art festival. The Guardian said of the outing: "TĒTĒMA didn't enrapture with anthems or token festival rock gestures, they enraptured with mood, with surprises, and with evocations rarely felt by audiences…"

Packaging features noted artist Talitha Kennedy’s sculpture work, packaged in super gloss digipak (CD) and embossed extra glossy gatefold sleeve (white vinyl).

The track ‘Funerale’ is a cover of the Ennio Morricone classic.

Tracklisting: Necroscape / Cutlass Eye / Wait Till Mornin' / Haunted On The Uptake / All Signs Uncensored / Milked Out Million / Soliloquy / Flatliner's Owl / Dead Still / Invertebrate / We'll Talk Inside A / Dream / Sun Undone / Funerale Di Un Contadino

Label Review. 

2020 album. Americana. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

As our culture grows increasingly isolated and selfish, Seattle-based roots group Western Centuries believes that the way forward is better together. ‘Call the Captain’, the band’s third full-length record, is a cosmic, genre melding testament to the power of collaboration and humility. Mutual admiration are what Cahalen Morrison, Ethan Lawton, and Jim Miller cite as the heart of their project. Western Centuries celebrates their third album as a “band’s band” (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the band’s lack of hierarchy). Unsurprisingly for such an egalitarian outfit, the collection offers harsh criticism of dogmatic belief systems, all while leading by example with a unique, genre-defying sound.

Teaming up again with Band of Horses veteran and GRAMMY-nominated producer Bill Reynolds, ‘Call the Captain’ is rife with topical songwriting, deftly woven into a crazy quilt of country, rock & roll, and classic R&B sounds. ‘Call the Captain’s’ twelve tracks delve into issues contemporary and timeless, be it the arrogance of the powerful, the search for purpose, or the ever-sorrowful pain of lost love. The band’s three songwriters (Ethan Lawton, Jim Miller, and Cahalen Morrison) question dogmatic authority and institutional thought throughout, with both an earnest, introspective approach as well as brilliantly executed humour and satire.

Similarly, the band’s kaleidoscopic sonic choices make it nigh on impossible to pigeonhole the group, adding a subtle undercurrent of subversion to the country music establishment. The core makeup of the band (Lawton, Miller, Morrison, Nokosee Fields, and Thomas Bryan Eaton) are embellished with special guests along the way, including Americana legend Jim Lauderdale and former Stray Birds fiddler Oliver Bates Craven. Western Centuries will have you questioning your deepest assumptions, but don’t be fooled: with ‘Call the Captain’, you’ll have a damn good time doing it.

Tracklistng: Lifeblood Sold / Every Time It’s Raining / Barcelona Lighthouse / Heart Broke Syndrome / No Cure / All The Things That I Could Say To You Right Now / The Sentinel / Long Dreadful Journey / Dynamite Kid / Space Force / Sarah And Charlie / Before That Final Bell

Label Review.

2020 album.

Our Overview.

Maya Rae has been described by CBC as “One of Canada’s Top 35 Jazz Artists Under 35…a supremely gifted artist who is able to phrase like Sarah Vaughan but write a lyric like Joni Mitchell." Poised at the crossroads between innocence and experience, Maya Rae’s voice communicates with an immediacy and commitment that most artists never attain. In an age when so much music feels overproduced and lacking in genuine emotion, Maya’s songs come like a breath of fresh air. Vital, committed and uplifting, the upcoming sophomore release from Maya Rae, ‘Can You See Me?’ is the real deal.

With a group that included Kai Welch, (keyboards/trumpet) Jamie Dick (drums), John Estes (bass) as well as The Birds Of Chicago on supporting vocals and Dawson on guitars, Canadian Maya Rae dove right into five days of intense recording and ‘Can You See Me?’ is the result. With only one vocal retake in the whole session, the group recorded live off the floor.

Maya and her brother, Gabriel, started writing songs together in the summer of 2018. Inspired by classic singers like Carole King and Nina Simone, iconic performers such as The Beatles and Joni Mitchell as well as modern-day artists like Ed Sheeran and Adele, Maya felt ready to record an album of original material. That’s where veteran roots musician and producer, Steve Dawson came in. On the strength of the demo she sent him, Dawson invited Maya to come to Nashville, saying that he had time to record the very next week. She flew down a few days later and almost immediately found herself at Black Hen Studio, surrounded by some of the hottest young musicians in Nashville with whom Steve had gathered to collaborate with Maya on the new material.

In Maya’s words, ‘Can You See Me?’ became a tribute to human cooperation and the merging of artistic visions with all the contributions from the musicians coming together. But, as good as the music supporting Maya is, her voice and songs are always the central focus. Melodically challenging, lyrically compelling and beautifully phrased, Maya’s songs reflect on experiences with an insight one would usually expect from a much more seasoned performer. “All of the songs are relevant to my own life. The title track, ‘Can You See Me?’ is about choosing to remove the masks we wear to reveal our true selves.

Confident and vulnerable, soulful and revealing, the songs on her new album are as impressive as you will hear anywhere. Produced by veteran roots musician and multiple Juno Award winner Steve Dawson, Can You See Me? takes the listener on a journey through the soul of a deeply talented young artist.

Tracklistng: Can You See Me? / I Get By / The Sun Will Come Out Again / New For Me / Picture Frame / Storm Leaf / Freedom Fighter / Mountain Angel / Moon Girl / Lonely Ones / Goodnight River

Label Review.

2020 album. Singer songwriter. Also avavailble on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

With recurring themes of isolation, weariness and longing, the songs on Michigan based indie pop/folk musician Anna Burch’s new album ‘If You’re Dreaming’, deliver that emotional arc with a delicate but uncompromising execution. Anna’s intrinsically catchy songwriting dials down the urgency of her debut a notch, taking a turn towards airy, jazz-voiced chords, floating reverb and an expansion of the sonic palate with unexpected instrumentation. The soft-rock bass grooves and understated saxophone lines of ‘Not So Bad’ push an impressive pop structure into exciting new territory and the sweetly melancholic “Tell Me What’s True” centres around muted electric piano, its languid but metered vibe recalling the gentler side of Carole King.

The nuance of arrangements that could sometimes get buried on debut ‘Quit The Curse’ rises to the surface on patient, opulent tunes like ‘Every Feeling’ and in the twelve-string guitar hooks of ‘Party’s Over’. The album drifts dreamily as much as it hones in with a sharper clarity on some of Burch’s most personal songs.

Even at its most introverted, ‘If You’re Dreaming’ is always warm and present. It’s a deliberately drawn chapter of Burch’s work, trading in the wild-eyed and sometimes neurotic party hopping of ‘Quit The Curse’ for a more solitary walk after midnight. Daring and clearheaded, these songs cut deeper in their subtleties. ‘If You’re Dreaming’ moves with intention, taking its time revealing new layers of sophistication and growth in Burch’s always charming songcraft.

‘If You’re Dreaming’ was tracked with producer Sam Evian in his home studio in the Catskill mountains of upstate New York. Where the first album had been a rush of inspired songwriting followed by a drawn-out process of arrangement and mixing, Burch and Evian worked with self-imposed time limitations to establish a sharper focus and get to the core of the new songs. The work was swift but somehow more relaxed, locking into a groove of tracking the basic elements and then expanding on the arrangements with overdubs and auxiliary instrumentation. The end goal was to present not just an assortment of new songs but craft an album that moved dynamically through an interconnected emotional arc.

Initial LP pressing on purple vinyl with digital download code in spot varnish sleeve.

Tracklisting: Can't Sleep / Party's Over / Jacket / So I Can See / Ask Me To / Keep It Warm / Go It Alone / Tell Me What's True / Not So Bad / Picture Show / Every Feeling / Here With You

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Ren Harvieu has come a long way from the 17-year-old who was signed to Island Records and release her debut album ‘Through The Night’ (2012), and who had no intention of becoming a singer-songwriter. And now the British singer-songwriter announces her long-awaited new album ‘Revel In The Drama’, via Bella Union. The album is a brilliant, bolder and broader take on her timeless pop classicism, a compelling diary of a struggle with self-belief and a celebration of liberation and survival, seven years after her Top 5 debut album and having overcome a life-threatening injury. Think of ‘Revel In The Drama’ as Harvieu’s second debut album; a new beginning.

Harvieu’s defiance against the odds and her willingness to lay herself open to make what she believed was within her is baked into every groove of the record, across every stylistic turn: the giddy pop of ‘Strange Thing’, the gothic swoon of ‘Cruel Disguise’, the smoky seductiveness of ‘Yes Please’ through to the stirring torchsong finale ‘My Body She Is Alive’.

It wasn’t until 2015 to be exact, when she met Romeo Stodart, the Magic Numbers frontman and songwriter who had emailed after seeing her perform on Later… With Jools Holland, to ask if she’d consider writing together. “When we started, the energy was immediately different to anyone I’d worked with before, there was this insane instant musical connection” she says. “I loved that Romeo really embraced who I was and encouraged it, I was starting to realise that I didn’t have to be anything other than myself.”

The pair spent the next two years co-writing: “I wasn’t in a massive hurry, because at last I was having fun” Harvieu says. “We’d stay up all night drinking, dancing and playing music, I felt like I was re-discovering a girl who had been hidden, quietened. I’d tell Romeo, I don’t just want to paint pretty pictures I want to revel in the drama of my life, the good and the bad, before I was afraid to say something in my lyrics, but no longer. I felt free.”

The album was co-produced by Romeo Stodart and Dave Izumi Lynch, owner of Echo Zoo studio in Eastbourne where recording took place. “It was a truly magical experience working with Dave & Romeo, they are two absolute nurturing musical wizards.” says Harvieu.

Harvieu’s lyrical confidence is evident throughout the album and has you leaning in to absorb line after line. Her voice, soaring and caressing in equal measure, is matched in force by her flirtatious personality. From the album’s opening lyric “Let me put my paws on you, strange thing” through to the feminine bite of ‘Curves And Swerves’ - “I’ve got some curves and some swerves, what you gonna do about it?” which crackles with sexual tension and an aching vulnerability.

Tracklisting: Strange Thing / Teenage Mascara / This Is How You Make Me Feel / Curves And Swerves / Cruel Disguise / Yes Please / Spirit Me Away / This Is Our Love / You Don’t Need Me / Tomorrow’s Girl Today / Little Raven / My Body She Is Alive

Label Review. 

1982 album with 3 bonus tracks. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Recorded in 1982, not long after she moved to Paris, ‘Fodder On My Wings’ was one of Nina Simone’s personal favourites of her own albums and yet has remained one of her most obscure. Originally recorded for a small French label and only sporadically available since its initial release. The album is one of Simone’s most introspective and personal works, with songs about her father’s death and her (not always pleasant) stay in Liberia, Trinidad and Switzerland.

‘Fodder On My Wings’ also features similarly personal and autobiographical songs such as “I Was Just A Stupid Dog To Them” and a searing lyrical improvisation about the death of her father, on a remake of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally)”. Simone’s loneliness at the time of her Parisian stay exacerbated her mental illness, and her family life was fractured. From her despair, the near-title track “Fodder On Her Wings” was forged.

Pitchfork, in their analysis of Simone’s most memorable work, said that the song “Fodder On Her Wings” “captured with startling intimacy the pain of this period, and she returned to it frequently through the next decade, cutting another studio version three years later (the synth-heavy take on ‘Nina’s Back!’) and including it on several live albums, including an awe-inspiring performance on 1987’s ‘Let It Be Me’. Simone’s vocal makes a song of weariness and defeat carry an air of defiance, a wise word from someone who survived to tell the tale.”

Tracklisting: I Sing Just to Know That I’m Alive / Fodder in Her Wings / Vous Etes Seuls, Mais Je Désire / Etre Avec Vous / Il Y a Un Baume À Gilead / Liberian Calypso / Alone Again Naturally / I Was Just a Stupid Dog to Them / Color Is a Beautiful Thing / Le Peuple En Suisse / Heaven Belongs to You / Thandewye / Stop / They Took My Hand

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Critically acclaimed Canadian indie rock mainstays Born Ruffians return with their new studio album, ‘Juice’, on Yep Roc Records filling our airwaves with their energy driven, wit-filled lyrics. Hailing from Midland, Ontario, Canada who formed in 2002. Since their debut, they have released five studio albums along with two EP's, and become one of the most exciting and intriguing bands on the famously fertile Canadian indie rock scene.

Born Ruffians—guitarist/vocalist Luke Lalonde, bassist Mitch DeRosier, and drummer Steve Hamelin—are proof that a group of friends with a tireless work ethic and fierce, grassroots commitment to their labour's integrity and vision can still go a long, long way. 15 years into their career, the trio isn't slowing instead, they're doubling down on those designations with ‘Juice’, their 6th full-length record. It's a hyper, earnest, and affecting collection of rock and roll songs, written and polished over a three-year span then sewn together into a cohesive and uniquely enjoyable experience. It's Born Ruffians as they've always been: on their own terms, heads against the wind until their work is done.

‘Juice’ finds the band moving into a more confident and polished direction, bringing to mind 1970s songwriting prowess with layered, and mature production sensibilities. The album was produced by Graham Walsh, known for his work with Alvvays, !!! (Chk Chk Chk), and Holy Fuck.

‘Juice’ is a testament to where Born Ruffians have come from, and a bold, pulpy mission statement for the future. However weird and overwhelming things get, Born Ruffians close out the record by reminding us that they're in this for the long haul, as Lalonde sings, "You see a light come shining from behind, reminding you that kid is always on your back."

Tracklisting: I Fall In Love Every Night / Breathe / Dedication / The Poet [can’t Jam] / I’m Fine / Hey You (Feat. Maddy Wilde) / Squeaky / Hazy Wave / Wavy Haze

Label Review. 

2020 album. Synth pop/hip hop. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

After more than five years, Canadian electronic music duo Purity Ring return to announce their third album. ‘WOMB’ - which is the follow-up to 2015’s ‘Another Eternity’- is released via 4AD and is entirely produced and recorded by the band of vocalist Megan James and multi-instrumentalist/producer Corin Roddick, the Edmonton native pair is known for blending electro-pop, synth-pop, and hip-hop with rather gory song lyrics.

‘WOMB’ chronicles a quest for comfort, the search for a resting place in a world where so much is beyond our control. The striking vulnerability of ‘rubyinsides’ - “If I could, I would let you see through me” - charts a course that’s both intensely personal and deeply connected to those close to us, our kin whether by nature or nurture.

As the ground shifts beneath their feet, ‘WOMB’’s characters help one another face death, despair andworld-altering discovery with resilience and grace. For all the terrain it encompasses, ‘WOMB’’s quest culminates in ‘stardew’, a glittering, transcendent invitation to “just be where you are” - to experience the kind of powerful peace that can only be found by truly coming home.

‘WOMB’ follows Purity Ring’s 2012 internationally acclaimed and highly influential debut ‘Shrines’ and 2015’s ‘another eternity’. On ‘another eternity’, The New York Times praised the songs as “only a few steps removed from radio hits by singers like Ariana Grande and Ellie Goulding” while Rolling Stone called them “lustrous synth pop plus cavernous hip hop” and The New Yorker lauded the duo, stating that they “create electro-pop that is as warm and human as it is cold and alien, an intoxicating combination that feels boldly futuristic.”

On their own prior headlining tours, the duo accompanied their live set with a dazzling sequence of pulsating lights. The pair have also teamed up together to strike a series of crystal shapes that rested upon tall poles to generate sounds during the show. Incorporating these mesmerising lights and sounds into their show is part of Purity Ring’s mystique.

Tracklisting: rubyinsides / pink lightning / peacefall / i like the devil / femia / sinew / vehemence / silkspun / almanac / stardew

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD, Picture Disc and Pink Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

Thundercat is the stage and recording name of esteemed American R&B, jazz fusion, electronic, and psychedelic, bass player Stephen Bruner, hailing from Los Angeles, California, U.S. and now the artist drops his new album on Brainfeeder Records ‘It Is What It Is’, a unique voice transcending style and genre: “This album is about love, loss, life and the ups and downs that come with that,” says Thundercat.

Bruner grew up in a creative and musical family, with his father Ronald Bruner Sr., an established drummer known for his work with Diana Ross and the Temptations, and his brother Ronald Jr. known as a Grammy-winning drummer, who has worked with the likes of Kenny Garrett and Stanley Clarke. Bruner’s earliest musical excursion was in the boyband No Curfew before joining his brother as a member of the L.A. metal band Suicidal Tendencies.

Thundercat’s new LP ‘It Is What It Is’ picks up where his last full-length, 2017’s ‘Drunk’, left off. Like that record It Is What It Is intersperses more fully-formed tracks with scene-setting vignettes.

A quick glance at the tracklisting shows several of the entries here clock in at under two minutes, but this does not reflect a paucity of ideas. Rather, the shorter interludes add light and shade to Thundercat’s already colourful combination of neo-soul, fusion-funk and R ‘n’ B - for instance, the spiritualised cooing of ‘How I Feel’ sets the scene perfectly for the astral yacht-rock jam ‘King Of The Hill’ that follows it.

As is often the case on Thundercat albums, a variety of guest stars appear on 'It Is What It Is'. It’s an intriguing mix of talents here, one that simultaneously expands and refines the album’s sonic universe. The likes of Steve Lacy and Childish Gambino are easy bedfellows for Thundercat’s sound, and along with Steve Arrington they help to construct one of the record’s poppiest joints in ‘Black Qualls’. However, the meeting of Ty Dolla $ign and Lil B on the ultra-smooth ‘Fair Chance’ is delightfully unexpected. KNOWER’s Louis Cole and rap prankster Zack Fox are the other features on It Is What It Is.Thundercat’s ‘It Is What It Is’ is both another soulful triumph for the artist and also the sort of record that only he could make.

CD in softpack.

Deluxe 140g picture disc LP housed in a 6mm spined gatefold sleeve with gold foil detail and OBI strip. Includes digital download code.

Deluxe 140g pink clear vinyl LP housed in a 6mm spined gatefold sleeve with gold foil detail and OBI strip. Includes digital download code.

Red 140g vinyl LP housed in a 3mm spined sleeve with OBI strip. Includes digital download code.

Thundercat will play his biggest UK shows to date in April.

Tracklisting: Lost In Space / Great Scott / 22-26 / Innerstellar Love / I Love Louis Cole (feat. Louis Cole) / Black Qualls (feat. Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington, & Childish Gambino) / Miguel's Happy Dance / How Sway / Funny Thing Overseas (feat. Zack Fox) / Dragonball Durag / How I Feel / King Of The Hill / Unrequited Love / Fair Chance (feat. Ty Dolla $ign & Lil B) / Existential Dread / It Is What It Is (feat. Pedro Martins)

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Migration Stories’ is a spare and spacious 11-song album. It’s written, says M.Ward - a Souther California based prolific singer-songwriter writer, producer and performer - from the point of view of people living their day-to-day amidst political chaos, relying on faith and hope to keep going to try and find better lives. Ever since early human history, people have migrated, immigrated and emigrated. So, Ward thought, he should tell some of their stories. And he does so in his signature restrained, hypnotic style.  “I love concise, short songs,” Ward says, citing The Beatles and The Minute Men as examples. “I’m inspired by songwriters that are able to say a lot with as little as possible.”

M. Ward’s music has always felt intricate, intimate and other worldly. With ‘Migration Stories’ he breathes beautiful life into vignettes of human flight, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy as it reckons with a world that feels more divided than ever before, even as its inhabitants grow more inextricably linked by the day.

For Ward, who wrote much of his new album amidst the contemporary torrent of terrible news headlines swirling the country of late, his processing involves music, often used as a filter. “The first thing that inspired the record were the articles that I’ve been reading in the newspaper and hearing about from friends when I travel,” he says. “It’s the story that’s impossible to ignore right now. The music comes out in a way that, to me, sounds like my brain is still processing the injustices I’m reading about.”

M. Ward has established himself as one of modern American music’s most unique and versatile voices. For his tenth album he journeyed to Quebec, Canada to work with Arcade Fire’s Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry, producer/mixer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine) and Teddy Impakt who opened up a new world of synthesisers and keyboards for the music.

Tracklisting: Migration Of Souls / Heaven’s Nail And Hammer / Coyote Mary’s Traveling Show / Independent Man / Stevens’ Snow Man / Unreal City / Real Silence / Along The Santa Fe Trail / Chamber Music / Torch / Rio Drone

Label Review.

2020 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Nashville, Tennessee-based singer-songwriter, Lilly Hiatt felt lost. She’d just returned home from the better part of a year on tour in support of her acclaimed third album ‘Trinity Lane’ and, stripped of the daily rituals and direction of life on the road, she found herself alone with her thoughts for the first time in what felt like ages.

So Lilly - daughter of legendary songwriter John Hiatt - did what’s always come most natural to her in times of questioning and uncertainty: she picked up a guitar. Over the course of the ensuing winter, she wrote a mountain of new music that grappled with her sense of self and place in the world, reckoning with issues that had been bubbling beneath the surface of her subconscious in some cases for years.

The result is ‘Walking Proof’, Hiatt’s fourth and most probing collection to date. Produced by former Cage the Elephant guitarist Lincoln Parish, the record walks the line between Hiatt’s rough, rock and roll exterior and her tender, country roots, exuding a bold vulnerability as she takes a deep and unflinching look in the mirror. What emerges is a newfound maturity in Hiatt’s writing, an abiding sense of calm in the face of chaos as she learns that sometimes, you have to let go in order to get what you want most. By the time she headed into Parish’s Nashville studio in May, Hiatt had piled up more than twenty-five new songs and, with the producer’s help, she pared it down to a tight and cohesive eleven.

After capturing the core performances live with her band over the course of roughly a week, Hiatt devoted the early part of the summer to finishing touches, which included contributions from friends like Amanda Shires and Aaron Lee Tasjan along with a guest appearance from her father, John Hiatt, who joins his daughter on record for the first time here.

Lilly Hiatt’s not feeling so lost these days and, with ‘Walking Proof’, she’s crafted a roadmap to share with the rest of us.

Tracklisting: Rae / P-Town / Little Believer / Some Kind of Drug / Candy Lunch / Walking Proof / Drawl / Brightest Star / Never Play Guitar / Move / Scream

Label Review. 

2020 album. Drum & Bass also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

UK based drum & bass, hip-hop and R&B producer/emcee Degs’ hit single ‘Poveglia’ and 8-track ‘Mixtape Sprayout’ has made him a drum & bass fan favourite, now he takes centre-stage to unveil his highly anticipated debut album, ‘Letters From Ndgewa’.

As well as producing, writing and singing on his tracks, Degs has brought in an all-star collective with S.P.Y, Logistics, Unglued, LSB and Pola & Bryson. His unmistakable charisma is injected across 14 tracks, including his previous singles ‘Levitate Your Mind’ (ft Unglued) and ‘Killer’. ‘Sleepless’ showcases Degs’ versatility as a vocalist. This deep, atmospheric number, produced by Shogun Audio’s Pola & Bryson, wields the art of spoken word and unique lyrical flowfor a mesmerising late-night stepper. Degs’ bittersweet soul shines through on ‘Head Trip’ with the production finesse of Phil:osophy. Haunting piano work serves as the foundation for Degs’ silky flows, tear-out rap and snappy hooks. Hospital heavyweight Logistics, a master of liquid D+B, joins the fray on ‘Colour My Soul’ for a sublime track that takes you back to the original Hospitalloungecore sound. Degs’ meteoric rise has taken him worldwide, performing alongside his touring DJ, Lens, at huge summer hotspots like Audioriver, Sun & Bass and Hospitality In The Park.

He continues to shine when hosting for some of D+B’s biggest names - London Elektricity, Hybrid Minds, Danny Byrd - and has already received support from BBC Radio 1’s Rene LaVice, Kiss FM’s Andi Durrant, Charlie Tee and Mollie Collins, and Worldwide FM’s Laurent Garnier.“ 

‘Letters From Ndegwa’ is a culmination of life experiences and thoughts since signing with the Hospital family back in 2018. For me, it represents the unpredictable nature of life. I’ve been blessed to work with some of my heroes on this project and having my little brother feature on this is the icing on the cake, he was the catalyst to all of this happening in the first place.” - Degs

LP 1: “Driving Under Lights” / “Sleepless Feat. Pola & Bryson” / “Levitate Your Mind Feat. Unglued” / “4 Days” / “Head Trip Feat. Phil:osophy” / “Trade Places Feat. Lsb & Phoebe Freya” / “Colour My Soul Feat. Logistics”

LP 2: “K Soul Interlude Feat. Muriuki” / “Killer” / “Do Not Pass Go Feat. Unglued & Javeon” / “She Feat. S.P.Y” / “The Roots Feat. Missing” / “Crusade Feat. In:most” / “Pamoja Forever”

Label Review.

2020 album. Blues. Ruf Records.

Our Overview.

Enough manufactured pop princesses. The 26 year old, Croatian born, Vanja Sky is the real deal: a fire voiced blues-rock gunslinger, armed with a troublemaking new album of modern classics. Building on the momentum, ‘Woman Named Trouble’ debuts eight original songs penned by Sky with guitarist Robert Wendt, plus three classic covers - and a fistful of attitude.

We’ve already seen the Croatian-born bandleader blow up Ruf’s 2018 Blues Caravan with songs from that year’s acclaimed ‘Bad Penny’ album. Now, Sky returns with a hard-rocking second release that dares you to be her partnerin- crime. “If you asked people close to me,” she says, with a mischievous grin, “they’d say ‘Woman Named Trouble’ is describing me.”

For heavy riffage, try opener “Rock ‘N’ Rolla Train”, complete with a bee-in-abottle lick worthy of Angus Young’s playbook, and “Turn It On”, whose vicious intro breaks into a seductive vocal. But Sky and Wendt’s songcraft goes far beyond blues-rock. Myriad genres are explored here, from the gorgeous Stonesy country-blues chime of “Hard Times”, to “What’s Going On’s” leap into trilling folk, and the mesmerising bass-led funk of “Troublemaker”. Elsewhere, there’s the stormy “Voodoo Mama” and the heartache of “Call Me If You Need Me”, while the rockabilly rave-up of “Let’s Go Wild” will make you do precisely that.

Still just 26, Vanja Sky’s early career has been just as wild. From dive bars and dead-ends to headline tours and supports with the mighty UFO, the highlights since 2017 would make that young Croatian gunslinger pinch herself. Now, ‘Woman Named Trouble’ leaves no doubt there’s plenty more trouble to come. “Besides being tons of fun to make,” she reflects, “I think we did a great job with the music. I’m very proud of this album...”

Tracklisting: Rock ‘n’ Rolla Train / Hard Times / Turn It On / Life Is A Bitch / Trouble Maker / What’s Going On / Call Me If You Need Me / Let’s Get Wild / Oh Well / Voodoo Mama / Shadow Play

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on standard CD and Clear Coke Bottle Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Canadian indie rock band from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nap Eyes’ latest full length, ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’, is proof that sometimes the late bloomers bloom brightest. It took Nap Eyes a long time and a long practice to reach this artistic zen, but one gets the feeling throughout 'Snapshot of a Beginner' that this balance is going to hold. Eight years and four albums into it, the artistic arc of Nap Eyes finds itself tracing a line alongside frontman Nigel Chapman’s daily tai chi practice. Those first years and albums are the cold mornings in the park: the measured movements, the joint aches, the self-doubt. With each new release, an incremental and invigorating step forward. And with the end of each album and tour, a return to the beginner’s practice. And now, ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’ - Nap Eyes’ boldest, most concentrated and most hi-fi album to date - a study of that repeated return and all that it can teach you.

Almost all the songs of Nap Eyes are whittled into their final form from Chapman’s unspooling, 20-minute voice-and-guitar free-writing sessions. Each member - drummer Seamus Dalton, bassist Josh Salter or guitarist Brad Loughead - then plays a crucial role in song development, composing around the idiosyncratic structures and directing the overall sound and feel of the songs. Until now, that final song construction and recording has been mostly done live in a room. But for ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’ the band went to The National’s neuvo-legendary upstate NY Long Pond Studio, working with producers Jonathan Low (Big Red Machine, The National) and James Elkington (Steve Gunn, Joan Shelley), the latter of whom also did pre-production arrangement work with the band.

It took Nap Eyes a long time and a long practice to reach this artistic zen but one gets the feeling throughout ‘Snapshot Of A Beginner’ that this balance is going to hold.Previous album ‘I’m Bad Now’ was described by Uncut as “as much a modest masterpiece as ‘Spring Hill Fair’ [by The Go-Betweens] or ‘Tigermilk’ [by Belle and Sebastian].”

Available on CD, ‘Coke Bottle clear’ coloured vinyl and black vinyl LP.

Tracklisting: So Tired / Primordial Soup / Even Though I Can’t / Read Your Mind / Mark Zuckerberg / Mystery Calling / Fool Thinking Ways / If You Were In Prison / Real Thoughts / Dark Link / When I Struck Out On My / Own / Though I Wish I Could

Label Review.

2020 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

“Stevens remains at the height of his powers - capable of work as individual, compassionate and powerful as any American composer working today.” - The Washington Post commented on ‘Aphoria’ the new album from New York based singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens and his step-father and record label co-owner, Lowell Brams.

The 21 songs on ‘Aporia’ are tightly crafted, resonating with a gem-like intensity, in the spirit of the New Age composers who sanded off the edges of their synths’ sawtooth waves, ‘Aporia’ approximates a rich soundtrack from an imagined sci-fi epic brimming with moody, hooky, gauzy synthesiser soundscapes.

The album may suggest the progeny of a John Carpenter, Wendy Carlos and Mike Oldfield marriage but it stands apart from these touchstones and generates a meditative universe all its own. This is no mere curio in the Sufjan Stevens catalogue but a fully realised collaborative musical piece.

“Sufjan Stevens is one of the most prolific and absolutely gifted American songwriters of the 21st century.” - NPR

Available on CD, first-run yellow coloured vinyl and cassette.

Tracklisting: Ousia / What It Takes / Disinheritance / Agathon / Determined Outcome / Misology / Afterworld Alliance / Palinodes / Backhanded Cloud / Glorious You / For Raymond Scott / Matronymic / The Red Desert / Conciliation / Ataraxia / The Unlimited / The Runaround / Climb That Mountain / Captain Praxis / Eudaimonia / The Lydian Ring

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Little Dragon - the pioneering Swedish four-piece fronted by enigmatic vocalist Yukimi Nagano, with multi-instrumentalists H.kan Wirenstarnd and Fredrik Wallin on keyboards and bass respectively and Erik Bodin on drums and percussion - return with their sixth studio album, ‘New Me, Same Us’, their first album release since signing with Ninja Tune.

Entirely self-produced and recorded at their long-time studio base in Gothenburg, the album represents another chapter in the continuing evolution of Little Dragon, finding new direction in their unique style of unhurried, off-kilter r’n’b, pop and electronics, they sound as rejuvenated and energised as ever.

The album is accompanied by the release of a photographic book by David Uzochukwu (has worked with FKA Twigs, Pharrell and Ibeyi) called ‘Yerba Mates’. Shot during their latest US tour, David captures his journey with the guys in a surrealistic style. Release date around album release.

This year Little Dragon play a huge run of headline shows in March/April 2020. A 32- date tour across the UK, EU and North America that will see the band playing in front of over 40K fans, including the Hollywood Palladium (5K) and London’s O2 Brixton Academy (5K). The band has previously remixed the likes of Rhye and Childish Gambino. Additionally, artists such as NAO, Lianne La Havas, Nick Mulvey and Rosie Lowe all have covered Little Dragon. ‘Tried’, their recent collaboration with BADBADNOTGOOD, received great support from the likes of Pitchfork, The FADER,NPR and Annie Mac. Yukimi has previously lent her trademark vocals to Gorillaz, Flume, SBTRKT, Kaytranada, Christian Rich, De La Soul, DJ Shadow, Tinashe, Mac Miller, Big Boi, Faith Evans and ODESZA.GRAMMY nominated for 2014’s ‘Nabuma Rubberband’, Little Dragon have long been seen as one of the most sought-after groups to work with.

CD in gatefold sleeve with gloss finish. LP in gatefold sleeve, 140g black vinyl in black paper inner and 12” lyric booklet plus product sticker in silver foil embossed back cover.

Tracklisting: Hold On / Rush / Another Lover / Kids / Every Rain / New Fiction / Sadness / Are You Feeling Sad? / Where You Belong / Stay Right Here / Water

Label Review.

2020 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

American bluegrass singer-songwriter, mandolinist, and guitarist Sierra Hull’s ‘25 Trips’ further establishes her as a powerhouse instrumentalist, vocalist, and esteemed song-writer. It’s a genre-transcending album emerging from the world of folk-pop, bluegrass, and acoustic music. This 13 song album is a testament to Hull’s virtuosic prowess, and showcases her as the singular talent that she is.

Those familiar with Hull’s bluegrass history might initially hear the never-before-included elements on this record – namely drums, electric guitar, and electric mandolin – as mildly out-of-place. However, as sonic symbols for the flow of time, personal growth, and a sense of openness fostered from the former, these new instrumental additions merely provide a welcoming opportunity to witness the continuing transformation of Hull’s perspective as a person and musician when reflecting on her past, present, and future.

“When I started digging through songs for the record, they seemed to tell a story in a way, that led to being able to put this particular group of songs together – both in terms of, yes, musical approach but also whether it be the story of being kind of open minded as a musician and being able to take multiple approaches to recording something,” says Hull.

’25 Trips’ shows that what music looks and sounds like for Sierra Hull from here on, is only limited by her own sense of adventure. Listeners new and old can take heart that no matter what, she certainly seems to be at peace with trusting herself to figure things out as they come.

Produced by Shani Ghandi (Parker Millsap) and featuring guest appearances by the estimable talents of Katie Pruitt, Mindy Smith, Angel Snow and Molly Tuttle, ‘25 Trips’ is offering up some of Hull’s best collaborations to date.

Tracklisting: Beautifully Out Of Place / Middle Of The Woods / How Long / 25 Trips / Ceiling To The Floor / The Last Minute / Escape / Poison / Waiting / Everybody’s Talking / Envy / Less / Father Time

Label Review. 

2020 album. Members of I Was A King, The Minus 5, The Baseball Project and R.E.M. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

The No Ones , a bi-continental collaboration featuring Scott McCaughey, Frode Str mstad, Peter Buck and Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen, is a band that stretches from the southwest of Norway through Athens, Georgia to the northwest corner of the USA, consisting of members from I Was A King, The Minus 5, The Baseball Project and R.E.M.

As this pedigree almost dictates, they wield Fender and Rickenbacker guitars, cutting, chiming and fuzzing their way through songs dealing with abduction, interstellar mysteries, witchcraft, and more mundane fare like climate change, gentrification, and the desolation of the soul. The vocal harmonies and psychedelic flourishes fuse the sunny turbulent sounds of the ‘60s with the darkness and decay of today.

LP Yellow Vinyl with Purple Splatter; bonus 45 featuring 2 new songs on Purple Vinyl with Yellow splatter.

Tracklisting:

LP 2: Apples / Slow Century

Label Review.

2020 album.

Our Overview.

Original member of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention, Iain Matthews and his latest incarnation of Matthews Southern Comfort release their new album ‘The New Mine’, featuring 12 tracks, with which they continue their musical successful recipe: somewhere between traditional British folk-rock and Americana, strong songs, excellent playing and arrangements and perfect production all add up to make this a supremely enjoyable listen again.

Two years ago the country rock/folk rock musician Matthews Southern Comfort celebrated a much acclaimed musical comeback with their album ‘Like A Radio’. In a new and younger lineup, the album of the singer/songwriters was at the cutting edge - it sounded fresh, absolutely modern and innovative. The musical skills of the new MSC members, their engagement as well as their unbridled joy of playing were still unparalleled and the polyphonic flowing vocal harmonies evoked the original version of the band.

‘The New Mine’ features an extraordinary and remarkable version of Joni Mitchell’s “Ethiopia” from the “Dog Eat Dog” album, which the popular American singer and songwriter had released in 1985. Remember: Matthews Southern Comfort had their biggest chart success exactly 50 years ago with their million-selling version of Joni’s “Woodstock”. Maybe history is repeating itself!

Tracklisting: Ethiopia / The Hands Of Time / Feed It / Patty’s Poetry / Working In The New Mine / Starvation Box / C’mon Amigo / The Hole / A Secret Is Gone / The Sacrificial Cow / Inbetween / In My Next Life

Label Review. 

2020 album. Trumpter. ECM. Also availble on CD.

Our Overview. 

Considered one of the best trumpeters in the world, charismatic trumpeter Avishai Cohen, the virtuoso bassist who often combines his eclectic and acoustic jazz with Mediterranean and Israeli folk traditions, launched his homegrown band Big Vicious six years ago, after relocating from the US to his native Israel, rounding up friends to shape the music from the ground up.

Big Vicious is another project in which a special sound is created. A combination of rock & roll, psychedelia, groove, jazz and more, all in great synergy.  This project began several years ago in New York, where the writing and collection of materials began, and was also played by bassist Michel Nedgochello. In order to create this project in Israel, Avishai chose a non-standard ensemble of two drummers, two guitarists, leaving the ensemble without bass, giving the musicians a new and uncharacteristic space and reaching new heights. The musical format of the show makes room for interaction with musical guests from different worlds.

Guitarist Uzi Ramirez, bassist Jonathan Albalak and drummer Aviv Cohen write much of the material together with Avishai. Ziv Ravitz, from Avishai’s acoustic quartet, was recruited as second drummer a year ago. “We’re all coming from jazz, but some of us left it earlier”, Avishai says, summing up the stylistic reach of his cohorts. “Everyone’s bringing in their backgrounds, and that becomes part of the sound of the band.” Textures from electronica, ambient music and psychedelia are part of the blend, so too grooves and beats from rock, pop, trip-hop and more. A wide-open approach to cover versions – from Massive Attack to Beethoven - is also integral to the Vicious vision.

Recorded in Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in August 2019 and produced by Manfred Eicher, Big Vicious’s debut album is issued as the band gears up for extensive international touring, including Love Supreme in July.

Tracklisting: 1. Honey Fountain / 2. Hidden Chamber / 3. King Kutner / 4. Moonlight Sonata / 5. Fractals / 6. Teardrop / 7. The Things You Tell Me / 8. This Time It’s Different / 9. Teno Neno / 10. The Cow & The Calf / 11. Intent

Label Review.

2020 album.

Our Overview.

Jennah Barry is one of Atlantic Canada’s surest sirens. Her music effortlessly moves between folk, country, and indie-rock, and places her at the forefront of women making music as strong as it is sentimental. Hailing from the coastal haven of Mahone Bay, NS, the 31-year-old has a knack for crafting true-to-life vignettes with a twist of honesty that smarts. She has also been careful to surround herself with a stable of collaborators who are consistently elevating her work to its instantly classic status. Her debut album, ‘Young Men’ (2012) showcased Jennah’s uncanny ability to write the world and sing it so assuredly to life and after a 8 year hiatus she is releasing her sophomore album ‘Holiday’.

On the south shore of Nova Scotia, in a house she helped build, Jennah Barry wrote, arranged, and recorded the songs that comprise Holiday,her second album. With Colin Nealis, her “greatest musical partner” and partner in life she made the album in 20- minute pockets, whenever their brand-new daughter would sleep, resulting in a piece of art that’s focused, delicate, of its own time while seemingly of one past.

The title is a hallmark of Barry’s trademark wit and the truth of that progress is found in the gentle mundanity of everyday spiked with big life events like vocal surgery, and a baby. The truth is, Barry simply needed the time. “I make Grand Canyons in my brain I can’t escape,” she says. “The only time I can write about it is when I find a way out. The whole record is about ruminating.”

You can hear the ruminating from the very beginning, starting with the rueful waltz “No Dancer, on which Barry sings, “He sure can move / but he’s no dancer” before a swell of backing singers adds “Board the door / for one more night.” It’s followed by the first single “Roller Disco,” steeped deep in nostalgia, strings, and gentle sadness, a lost AM radio hit. “Ever since I wrote that song I had a visceral idea of how I wanted the whole album to feel,” she says. “I wanted people to feel very far away, and lonely but okay with it.”

Touring UK for Focus Wales and The Great Escape with additional dates in London and more TBA. UK Tour, May 2020

Tracklisting: No Dancer / Roller Disco / The Real Moon / Big Universe / Are You Dreaming / Rocket / I See Morning / Pink Grey Blue / Stop The Train

Label Review. 

2020 album. Jazz vocalist. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Robin McKelle, the Paris based vocalist from New York, is setting and singing such new standards. With influences ranging from classic R&B to vocal pop to swing her ninth solo album ‘Alterations’ sees the 43-year-old interpreting favourites by those female songwriters, who inspired and moved her to become the “powerful and expressive alto voice” she is today (Blues & Soul). ‘Alterations’ makes for perhaps Robin McKelle’s most personal work speaks volumes about her abilities and her artistry. An album where the savvy Robin delves into the catalogue of some of the most celebrated women of song, interpreting these masterworks through the lens of the jazz idiom.  On Alterations, McKelle follows in a long tradition of female song interpreters, lending her sultry vocal stylings to classics by a diverse list of female innovators.

Robin‘s new album is her first album of cover songs featuring the work of artists like Sade, Lana Del Ray, Adele, Dolly Parton, Billie Holiday, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, or Janis Joplin. Pianist Shedrick Mitchell has helped her co-produce and arrange the album of which Robin says: “The energy and connection with the musicians was so powerful. They lifted me up and made it feel effortless. I’ve never felt so confident in the studio.” The songs were actually recorded live with the band.

Robin starts off the album with a slightly subdued, very soulful take on “Back To Black” by Amy Winehouse, complete with a fancy Latin backdrop and great organ playing by Shedrick. She is also backed by Richie Goods on bass and Charles Haynes on drums. Robin’s voice has taken on yet another quality improvement on this album, sounding exquisitely intense and secure and her version of “Rolling In The Deep” sounds much more urgent and compelling than the original. Nir Felder was asked in here to play some fierce guitar lines.

Tracklisting: Back To Black / Rolling In The Deep / Head High / Don’t Explain / Born To Die / Jolene / River / No Ordinary Love / Mercedes Benz / You’ve Got A Friend (Bonus Track)

Label Review.

2020 live album.

Our Overview.

American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Watermelon Slim is one of the most authentic bluesman in the world today. With an ever-expanding career of ramshackle grandeur, Bill “Watermelon Slim” Homans has built a remarkable reputation with his raw, impassioned intensity. HARP Magazine wrote “From sizzling slide guitar…to nitty-gritty harp blowing…to a gruff, resonating Okie twang, Slim delivers acutely personal workingman blues with both hands on the wheel of life, a bottle of hooch in his pocket, and the Bible on the passenger seat.” Paste Magazine writes “He’s one hell of a bottleneck guitarist, and he’s got that cry in his voice that only the greatest singers in the genre have had before him.”

Slim’s compelling live solo performance is captured on this brilliant double CD. Featuring Watermelon Slim on vocals, harmonica and electric slide guitar, and produced by Slim & Chris Hardwick, ‘Traveling Man’ is a stunning mix of original & classic blues tunes (including Fred McDowell’s “61 Highway Blues”, Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” and Muddy Waters’ “Two Trains Running”) covering topics both personal and political. ‘Traveling Man’  features Watermelon Slim at his finest — alone with his slide guitar and powerful rough-hewn vocals.

Watermelon Slim’s critically acclaimed previous release, 2019’s Church of the Blues, has just been nominated for two 2020 Blues Music Awards — “Album of the Year” and “Traditional Album of the Year.”  The Blues Music Awards will be announced in Memphis on Thursday, May 7, 2020. “A knowing observer of all those things that define the blues at its very essence, he provides a stirring reminder of what craft and credence can deliver when served up in sync.”  (Living Blues)

This is Watermelon Slim at his finest’ alone with his slide guitar and amazing vocals .‘Traveling Man’ is the ultimate in a Watermelon Slim live performance: a brilliant double CD featuring the best of two shows. Watermelon Slim is Mensa-smart and possesses the acute powers of observation that makes his songwriting so seductive. But whether he’s using a mini-bar bottle, one-inch socket or a seashell as a slide, his bottleneck and singing style set him apart in today’s roots & blues world.

Tracklisting:

CD 1: Blue Freightliner (Live) / Truck Driving Songs (Live) / Northern Blues (Live) / The Last Blues (Live) / Scalemaster Blues (Live) / 300 Miles (Live) / Jimmy Bell (Live) / 61 Highway Blues (Live) / Smokestack Lightning / Two Trains Running (Live) / Frisco Line (Live) / Holler #4 (Live)

CD 2: Let It Be In Memphis (Live) / Into The Sunset (Live) / John Henry (Live) / Archetypal Blues (Live) / Oklahoma Blues (Live) / Devil’s Cadillac (Live) / Dark Genius (Live)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Activity release their debut album ‘Unmask Whoever’ and they are an avant four-piece featuring Travis Johnson, and drummer Steve Levine, both from the band Grooms, bassist Zoë Browne from Field Mouse, and guitarist Jess Rees from Russian Baths. Produced by engineer Jeff Berner of Psychic TV, it forms a casually menacing framework for lyrical themes of paranoia, exposed character flaws, and the broader human capacity for growth when an ugly truth is laid bare.

Lead single “Calls Your Name,” establishes the record’s spectral aura with nauseated electronic bells, and a relentless Geoff Barrow-esque drum beat beneath a half-sung, half-spoken lyrics inspired by C.S. Lewis’s 1945 novel The Great Divorce. In the novel, characters stuck in a grey, joyless conception of hell repeatedly deny opportunities to be taken into heaven, instead making excuses as to why they should remain in their embittered purgatory states. Allegorically, this speaks to the kind of opportunity for metamorphosis and positive change that’s possible when the depths of disillusionment are reached, an idea which permeates much of the album. Despite recurrent aches of discontentment, each track glows with radiant waves of catharsis while elegantly evoking jubilation and anguish within the same breadth, showing that the two are always around the corner from one another.

Tracklisting: In Motion / Calls Your Name / Spring Low Life / Nude Prince / Looming / Earth Angel / The Heartbeats / I Like the Boys / Violent and Vivisect / Auto Sad

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Saint Cloud’ is Katie Crutchfield’s, a.k.a.Waxahatchee’s fifth album and she spent much of 2018 asking “What do we hold on to from our past?”, and “What must we let go of to truly move forward?” She revisied her roots for answers and the result is ‘Saint Cloud’, an intimate journey through the places she’s been, filled with the people she’s loved.

Written immediately in the period following her decision to get sober, the album is an unflinching self-examination. This raw, exposed narrative terrain is aided by a shift in sonic arrangements as well. While her last two records featured the kind of big guitars, well-honed noise, and battering sounds that characterized her Philadelphia scene and strongly influenced a burgeoning new class of singer-songwriters, ‘Saint Cloud’ strips back those layers to create space for Crutchfield’s voice and lyrics.

The result is a classic Americana sound with modern touches befitting an artist who has emerged as one of the signature storytellers of her time. Many of the narratives on ‘Saint Cloud’ concern addiction and the havoc it wreaks on ourselves and our loved ones, as Crutchfield comes to a deeper understanding of love not only for those around her but for herself. This coalesces most clearly on the song “Fire,” which she says was literally written in transit, during a drive over the Mississippi River into West Memphis, and serves as a love song to herself, a paean to moving past shame into a place of unconditional self-acceptance.

Over the course of ‘Saint Cloud’, which was recorded the summer of 2019 and produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver), Crutchfield peels back the distortion of electric guitars to create a wider sonic palette than on any previous Waxahatchee album. It is a record filled with nods to classic country, folk-inspired tones, and distinctly modern touches. ‘Saint Cloud’ marks the beginning of a journey for Crutchfield, one that sees her leaving behind past vices and the comfortable environs of her Philadelphia scene to head south in search of something new. If on her previous work Crutchfield was out in the storm, she’s now firmly in the eye of it, taking stock of her past with a clear perspective and gathering the strength to carry onward.

Tracklisting: Oxbow / Can’t Do Much / Fire / Lilacs / The Eye / Hell.. / Witches / War / Arkadelphia / Ruby Falls / St. Cloud

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Manchester-based indie music stalwart Harry Stafford’s new album ‘Gothic Urban Blues’, is an album about the Metropolis, the naked city, the urban sprawl and the need to get back to the ripped back streets when you’re far away. If there are a million stories in the naked city, here are a few to keep you warm. Lead track “She Just Blew Me Away” is dedicated to Jim the singer, who would tell me stories of his love affairs. He would begin with. “I mean, she just blew me away”. And and how did it end? I would ask. “Ah well, she just blew me away,” says Harry Stafford.

Harry Stafford is best known as founder, guitarist and vocalist of post-punk gothic rockers Inca Babies. The band’s core includes drummer Rob Haynes (The Membranes, Inca Babies), trumpeter Kevin Davy (Lamb, Cymande), guitarist Andy Mills, and Vincent O’Brien on Weisseborn slide guitar. Formed in the early 1980s, Inca Babies released four albums and multiple singles and Peel sessions. Much of his musical career has been spent with Inca Babies, playing across Europe and the world but in 2015, after 35 years with Inca Babies, Stafford decided to release untamed solo material that echoes his love of blues piano and barroom ballads.

The new album ‘Gothic Urban Blues’ and debut solo album ‘Guitar Shaped Hammers’, released in 2017, are the inevitable result, reflecting a multitude of ideas around a driving yet lilting punk-piano blues. The idea was for Stafford to leave his noisy electric guitar behind - abandoning everything he held and cherished - to make some new music with a piano and a head full of ideas. The new album, features a more defined sound of a band finding its stride. The band is hereforth called Guitar Shaped Hammers to reflect this cohesion of musical unity - with more guitars from Vincent O’Brien, and an additional layered sonic blast from Nick Brown (The Membranes). With intense percussion from Rob Haynes and a truly masterful trumpet contribution from jazz supremo Kevin Davy, the result is very much the soundtrack of a basement radio station stumbling across a new genre they’ve tagged Gothic Urban Blues.

Tracklisting: She Just Blew Me Away / Cruel Set of Shades / Gothic Urban Blues / Painted Ocean / Infinite Dust / Black Rain / Sideways Shuffle / Disappearing / Man in a Bar / Into The Storm

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Cable Ties are releasing their second album ‘Far Enough’. They are a fierce, tense rock’n’roll trio and they take the three-minute punk burner and stretch it past breaking point to deliver smouldering feminist anthems. Post-punk and garage rock hammered together by a relentless rhythmic pulse. Jenny McKechnie channels her struggles into songs that resonate deeply, giving voice to feelings often buried in modern life. Shauna Boyle and Nick Brown are a rhythm section anchored in Stooges primitivism, relentlessly hammering out a bedrock for McKechnie’s guitar pyrotechnics and vocal wallop.

Three friends summoning a rhythmic tide to deliver anthems that turn latent anxieties into a rallying cry. The band has been committed to an inclusive feminist and political outlook since its inception in 2015, exploring issues of gendered violence, colonialism, and sexual assault. The band members are dedicated to their local community and independent networks, and to playing diverse and inclusive shows. They have toured Australia a number of times and have developed into a lean and efficient touring band who deliver powerful and meaningful shows.

Tracklisting: Hope / Tell Them Where to Go / Sandcastles / Lani / Not My Story / Self-Made Man / Anger’s Not Enough / Pillow

Label Review.

2020 album. Indie. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Norwegian artist Kai Gundelach heads the project Gundelach. Synth, emotions, percolating anxiousness – all combine into the hazy iridescence, in which is demonstrated in ‘My Frail Body’. A paladin worth of grifting waves, it signals the unknown, as does the identifiable deference. Ambience, corporality and our connection to the natural world make up the defining themes of Gundelach’s sophomore LP, ‘My Frail Body’.

A calmer, more contemplative affair than 2018’s acclaimed Baltus, the record opens with an atmospheric collage built around a set of field recordings made by the artist last summer in the Dutch nature reserve of Het Twiske. There, surrounded by green meadows and dense, verdant forest, Gundelach had his first encounter with psychedelic mushrooms. “I was suddenly opened up to nature in a way I had never experienced before", he recalls.

As cliche as that sounds Kai was coming off a period of prolonged illness and the experience left a profound impression on him. Long after the haze had cleared he couldn’t shake his interest in how our bodies are deeply intertwined with our surroundings - that there are forces that we can yet explain that impact our lives and our bodies everyday “It really altered my perspective and ended up setting the conceptual framework for the entire album,”.

'My Frail Body' came together during an intense summer and fall touring and recording in Europe. At the time, Gundelach’s girlfriend was pregnant with the couple’s first child - a life event that has helped permeate the record with a new sense of clarity and direction. While his previous output has centred on the melancholy undercurrents of love and longing, the artist says he is now at a point where things feel more grounded. That was particularly true for “Stay in the Water”, Gundelach’s soft and humble homage to his newborn daughter, which took him only a few hours to write. The track features his signature falsetto vocals laid over gently levitating chords and the sound of chirping birds. “There was a sense of physicality on so many levels during this period, which I found incredibly inspiring”

“Norway’s Gundelach spins a tale of love, loss, and depression into a bright and tender piece of synth-pop that is nothing short of comforting.” - Nylon

Tracklisting: Forskjellige Steder / My Frail Body (Feat. Bendik Hk) / Rainstorm (I Worry ‘bout You Always) / Stay In The Water / Red / Moon Perfume / Bolder / Silver / Cynical Mind (Feat. Aurora) / Obuli

Label Review. 

2020 album. Double LP with 3 sides + 1 etched & 28 page booklet. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Seven years after ‘Lightning Bolt’ Pearl Jam are releasing their much-anticipated eleventh studio album, ‘Gigaton’. Produced by Josh Evans and Pearl Jam, ‘Gigaton’s cover features Canadian photographer, filmmaker, and marine biologist Paul Nicklen’s photo “Ice Waterfall.” Taken in Svalbard, Norway, this image features the Nordaustlandet ice cap gushing high volumes of meltwater..

“Making this record was a long journey,” explains guitarist Mike McCready. “It was emotionally dark and confusing at times, but also an exciting and experimental road map to musical redemption. Collaborating with my bandmates on Gigaton ultimately gave me greater love, awareness and knowledge of the need for human connection in these times.”

2020 also marks Pearl Jam’s 30th anniversary - formed in 1990 from the ashes of Mother Love Bone which featured guitarist Stone Gossard and bass player Jeff Ament. Before their completed debut album was released , lead singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose. The album was released anyway but the band broke up - however Gossard and Ament built a new band with lead guitarist Mike McCready and singer Eddie Vedder to form Pearl Jam. They caught the Grunge Rock wave and hit big with their debut album ‘Ten’ in 1992 and haven’t looked back since. Although they struggled with various drummers during the 1990s, Matt Cameron picked up the sticks in 1998 and their line-up has remained unchanged ever since.

Tracklisting: Who Ever Said / Superblood Wolfmoon / Dance Of The Clairvoyants / Quick Escape / Alright / Seven O’Clock / Never Destination / Take The Long Way / Buckle Up / Comes Then Goes / Retrograde / River Cross

Label Review. 

2020 live album. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Also available on Vinyl and Blu-ray. 

Our Overview. 

US rockers Tesla release their new live album, ‘Five Man London Jam’ which was recorded and filmed in 4K high-definition as an homage to their critically acclaimed and highly influential Top 20 platinum album ‘Five Man Acoustical Jam’. It was recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios for a one-night musical event capturing the band performing songs from their legendary arsenal including “Love Song” and “What You Give” along with their classic covers of “Signs” and “We Can Work It Out”. Additionally, the band performed live for the first-time-ever tracks from their latest album ‘Shock’ including “California Summer Song”, ‘Tied To The Tracks’ and ‘Forever Loving You.’

One of the world’s most celebrated and enduring rock bands with a die-hard, loyal fanbase, Tesla have enjoyed international chart, radio, and tour success for nearly 35 years, with multi-platinum albums and global album sales topping 15 million. That they are still roaring and soaring should be no surprise. That’s just how they are built. Tesla may have been born in the mid ‘80s eruption of excess, but this band has never been about those things. Their bluesy, soulful sound is strongly embedded in the roots of organic, authentic 1970s rock and roll. The same roots that produced bands like the Allman Brothers, Grand Funk Railroad, AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Aerosmith. Tesla’s legacy is alive and well as they continue to record and sell out venues all over the world.

Tracklisting: Cumin’ Atcha Live - Truckin’ / Tied To The Tracks / We Can Work It Out / Signs / What You Give / California Summer Song / Forever Loving You / Miles Away / Paradise / Call It What You Want / Stir It Up / Into The Now / Love Song

Label Review. 

The Hit Sound Of (with 5 bonus tracks), Sing (with 9 bonus tracks) & Roots (with 7 bonus tracks).

Our Overview. 

With an Americana music pedigree born of their Appalachia roots The Everly Brothers ably crossed over from the pop charts to the country music charts during their hit-making heyday. During the mid sixties however they suffered a lean spell for commercial success all the while trying to update their sound. This box set focusses on the following period from November 1966 – November 1968 when the Everlys recorded mostly in Los Angeles rather than Nashville with the duo searching for a musical direction. Eventually achieving a musical cohesiveness with the release of ‘Roots’.

Disc 1 presents the ‘The Hit Sound’ album, recorded from December 1966 onwards, with contemporary rock’n’roll and pop covered in Everlys harmony style updated with the cream of the LA session crew including Glen Campbell, Larry Knechtel, Ray Pohlman, Hal Blaine.

Disc 2 presents the ‘Sing’ album, the Everlys and their label Warner’s response to the prevailing ‘youthquake’ band sound straddling the transatlantic. On the album are songs by The Buckinghams, Patrick Campbell Lyons and Procul Harum.

Disc 3 presents the ‘Roots’ album, pieced together from the LA sessions at studios like Goldstar, conducted by Lenny Waronker during April-September 1968, with the ace studio musicians known as ‘The Wrecking Crew’ aided by Van Dyke Parks and James Burton. The Everlys took the chance to pay homage to their country roots with songs by contemporary country writers Merle Haggard, Glen Campbell, George Jones as well as more from their own pen. Unreleased tracks include compositions by Neil Young and Dolly Parton.

Tracklisting:

Disc One (The Hit Sound Of): Blueberry Hill / Movin’ On / Devil’s Child / Trains And Boats And Planes / Sea Of Heartbreak / Oh, Boy! / (I’d Be A) Legend In My Time / Let’s Go Get Stoned / Sticks And Stones / The House Of The Rising Sun / She Never Smiles Anymore / Good Golly, Miss Molly // Bonus Tracks: Even If I Hold It In My Hand (Hard Luck Story) (Take 2) / When Eddie Comes Home / Nothing But The Best / A Little Bit Of Crazy / Bowling Green (Demo)

Disc Two (Sing): Bowling Green / A Voice Within / I Don’t Want To Love You / It’s All Over / Deliver Me / Talking To The Flowers / Mary Jane / I’m Finding It Rough / Do You / Somebody Help Me / A Whiter Shade Of Pale / Mercy, Mercy, Mercy // Bonus Tracks: Love Of The Common People / You’re Just What I Was Looking For Today / My Elusive Dreams / Lord Of The Manor / Love With Your Heart / Love With Your Heart (Version 2) / It’s My Time / Empty Boxes / Milk Train

Disc Three (Roots): The Everly Family (1952) / Mama Tried / Less Of Me / T For Texas / I Wonder If I Care As Much / Ventura Boulevard / Shady Grove / Illinois / Living Too Close To The Ground / You Done Me Wrong / Turn Around / Sing Me Back Home / Montage: The Everly Family (1952)/Shady Grove/Kentucky // Bonus Tracks: Lady Anne (Vsn 2) / Shop Girl / Human Race (Mix 1) / Omaha / Mr Soul (Mix 1) / Down In The Bottom (Aka Meet Me In The Bottom) (Mix 1) / In The Good Old Days (Mix 1)

Label Review. 

56 tracks.

Our Overview. 

By 1965, the British R&B boom was over. Cyril Davies was dead, Alexis Korner was employed as MD on a children’s TV show, and the legion of young acolytes the two men had inspired had drifted away from the blues and into mainstream pop stardom. The more “purist” individuals were out in the cold: Brian Jones was marginalised in the Stones by the emergence of the Jagger/Richards songwriting team, while Eric Clapton had stormed out of the most blueswailing Yardbirds in protest at their recording of winsome pop ditty “For Your Love”.

But things were about to change. In April 1966, club band John Mayall’s Blues Breakers – prominently featuring a still-simmering Clapton – recorded their debut studio album with the aid of producer Mike Vernon. Released in July, the LP was a huge, entirely unexpected success, reaching the UK Top Ten and remaining in the charts for an impressive 17 weeks.

Suddenly, an astonishing number of virtuoso young British (and Irish) blues guitarists, all of whom rejected the trappings of pop success as fervently as the young Eric, were inspired to form their own bands. In the wake of Clapton, his Yardbirds replacement Jeff Beck and Peter Green (Eric’s replacement in Mayall’s band after he’d split to form Cream) came the likes of Kim Simmonds, Jeremy Spencer, Stan Webb, Paul Kossoff, Alvin Lee, Clem Clempson, Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore and Mick Ronson. Within a year or two of Mayall’s unexpected breakthrough, the second wave of the British blues boom was in full, glorious bloom.

Featuring all of the above names, ‘Crawling Up A Hill’ chronicles the development of the British blues scene during that relatively brief but halcyon period, covering both the electric blues bands (Mayall’s Blues Breakers, Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown, Ten Years After etc) and the acoustic country blues acts (Jo-Ann Kelly, Mike Cooper, Ian A. Anderson and others). ‘Crawling Up A Hill’ is a fascinating document of a genre that, though relatively short-lived, would have a seismic influence on the subsequent development of rock music.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: All Your Love – John Mayall’s Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton / Crawling Up A Hill – The Zany Woodruff Operation / Louise – Anderson Jones Jackson / I Love You – The Graham Bond Organization / I’m A Man (Live) – The Yardbirds / Don’t Want You No More – The Spencer Davis Group / I Can’t Keep From Crying, Sometimes – Ten Years After / Jumping At Shadows (Demo Version) – Duster Bennett / Charlie – The Deviants / You Shook Me – Jeff Beck / Ain’t Nothin’ In Ramblin’ – Jo-Ann Kelly / Love That Burns – Fleetwood Mac / Wang Dang Doodle – Love Sculpture / Operator – Alexis Korner Featuring Robert Plant / Can Blue Men Sing The Whites? – The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band / Walking - Dr. K’s Blues Band / Little Woman You’re So Sweet – Shakey Vick / A Stranger In Your Town – The Climax Chicago Blues Band / Lord Of The Rings – Downliners Sect

Disc Two: Sweet Tooth - Free / Death Letter – Mike Cooper / Blister On The Moon – The Taste / I Just Can’t Keep From Crying – Levee Camp Moan / Sometime Girl – Sam Apple Pie / Skin Game (Live) – John Dummer Blues Band / Diamond Joe – Quiet Melon / Nobody By My Side – Killing Floor / Dear Jill – Blodwyn Pig / There’s An Easy And A Hard Way Of Living - Icarus / Tears In The Wind – Chicken Shack / Bring It On Home - Bakerloo / The Same For You - Jaklin / Train Comes, Train Goes – Frozen Tear / Telephone Blues (Aka Talk To Me Baby) – The Rats / Madison Blues – Angel Pavement / It’s You I Miss – Christine Perfect Band / This Love Of Old – Medicine Head / Baby Please Don’t Go - Jasper

Disc Three: I’ve Got Those Fleetwood Mac Chicken Shack John Mayall Can’t Fail Blues – Liverpool Scene / Ride With Your Daddy Tonight – Brunning Sunflower Blues Band featuring Peter Green / Time To Move – Red Dirt / A Hard Way To Go (Live) – Savoy Brown / Mean Blues – Jeremy Spencer / Chauffeur – Black Cat Bones / Gardener Man - Siren / Dupree Blues – Blue Blood / Passing Through – Steamhammer / Raining In Your Heart – Stone The Crows / Old Gopher – Edgar Broughton Band / Roadrunner – Stack Waddy / Take Me Down To The Water – Heavy Jelly / The Man Who Never Was – Skid Row / Take Your Money – Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts / The Sun Is Shining – Mungo Jerry / Backlash Blues – Linda Hoyle / Railroad – Status Quo

Label Review. 

Three albums remastered: 'Oh How We Danced', 'Whale Meat Again' and 'Short Cut Draw Blood' plus 6 bonus tracks. DVD contains two Old Grey Whistle Test appearances 18th Nov 1975 & 30th Mar 1976.

Our Overview. 

Jim Capaldi was also a successful solo artist, enjoying a series of hit albums and singles in his own right aside from his work as a founder member with the acclaimed band Traffic (a group for which Jim co-wrote most of their classic songs with Steve Winwood), His solo career began with the album ‘Oh How We Danced’, recorded whilst Traffic was on hiatus whilst Steve Winwood was recovering from peritonitis. Mainly recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, the album featured the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section of Roger Hawkins (drums), David Hood (bass) and Barry Beckett (keyboards), along with a host of guests such as Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, Paul Kossoff, Dave Mason, Ric Grech, Jim Gordon, Mike Kellie (Spooky Tooth) & Trevor Burton (The Move / Steve Gibbons Band). Featuring tracks such as “Eve”, “Don’t Be A Hero” and “Open Your Heart”, ‘Oh How We Danced’ was a superb debut.

Jim’s second solo album was the 1974 release ‘Whale Meat Again’, an album that tackled a variety of lyrical subjects, including environmental issues. Once more he utilised the services of Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Barry Beckett, along with Steve Winwood. Featuring tracks such as “It’s Alright”, “Whale Meat Again” and “Summer is Fading”.

With the disbanding of Traffic in 1974, following a troubled US tour, Jim embarked on his next solo project (and final album for Island Records of the 1970s), ‘Short Cut Draw Blood’. The album would prove to be one of his most successful, featuring the singles “It’s All Up to You” and “Love Hurts” (a cover of the Everly Brothers hit), both of which enjoyed chart success. Aside from these tracks the album also featured the emotive “Boy with a Problem”, featuring Paul Kossoff (of Free) on guitar, and other classics such as the album title track, “Goodbye Love” and “Seagull”. Once again Jim Capaldi assembled a stellar cast of musicians to contribute to the album such as Steve Winwood, Chris Spedding, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Barry Beckett and Chris Wood.

This boxed set has been newly re-mastered from the original master tapes and features an additional 6 bonus tracks, (four previously unreleased on CD), all drawn from single releases and also includes a bonus DVD featuring previously unreleased live appearances by Jim Capaldi on BBC TV’s ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’; a session from November 1975 (featuring Steve Winwood on piano) and a 50 minute concert by Jim Capaldi & the Space Cadets at the BBC TV Theatre in March 1976. The boxed set also includes an illustrated booklet with a new essay. ‘Open Your Heart – The Island Recordings 1972-1976’ is a fitting tribute to a fine and much missed musician.

Tracklisting:

Disc One (Oh How We Danced): Eve / Big Thirst / Love Is All You Can Try / Last Day Of Dawn / Don’t Be A Hero / Open Your Heart / How Much Can A Man Really Take / Oh How We Danced / Going Down Slow All The Way (bonus)

Disc Two (Whale Meat Again): It’s Alright / Whale Meat Again / Yellow Sun / I’ve Got So Much Lovin’ / Low Rider / My Brother / Summer Is Fading / We’ll Meet Again / Tricky Dicky Rides Again (bonus)

Disc Three (Short Cut Draw Blood): Goodbye Love / It’s All Up To You / Love Hurts / Johnny Too Bad / Short Cut Draw Blood / Living On A Marble / Boy With A Problem / Keep On Trying / Seagull / Sugar Honey* / It’s Alright* / Talkin’ About My Baby* / Still Talkin’*   *Previously Unreleased On CD)

Disc Four (DVD) The Old Grey Whistle Test: Short Cut Draw Blood (Live 1975) / Goodbye Love (Live 1975) / Low Rider (Live 1976) / Love Hurts (Live 1976) / Goodbye Love (Live 1976) / Elixir Of Love (Live 1976) / Boy With A Problem (Live 1976) / Short Ends (Live 1976) / Talkin’ About My Baby (Live 1976) / Keep On Trying (Live 1976)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Amalie Bruun aka Myrkur releases her third album ‘Folkesange’ which moves away from the black metal of the first two records towards a traditional folk sound journeying into the Scandinavian culture that marked her childhood. ‘Folkesange’ offers an emotional sanctuary, from the opening track “Ella” and its heartbeat, frame-drum percussion and crystalline vocals that become the grounding for a rapt, richly textured awakening, to the gentle carousel of the closing “Vinter”, with its nostalgia-steeped connotations of seasonal, snowfall-bewitched awe.

Although the album looks backward using traditional instruments throughout, such as nyckelharpa, lyre, and mandola, the album is no museum piece; it resonates in the here and now, aided by the spacious production of Heilung member and musical collaborator Christopher Juul. Cinematic yet intimate, ‘Folkesange’ exists in a state of boundless reverie, bourne by string-led drones, cyclical, elegiac rhythms and Amalie’s frictionless voice, all carrier signals for deep-rooted, ancestral memories, and associations felt on an elemental level.

An immersive experience in its own right, but also belonging to a wider, pagan folk-based renaissance that has attracted a devoted following worldwide, ‘Folkesange’ answers a need that has become ever more pressing in turbulent times. A zeroing in on a resonance that is both intrinsic and enduring, it’s a rediscovery of personal grounding, and an experience that reaches beyond culture to remind us of a shared, deeply rooted inheritance. A tuning fork that binds the personal and the universal, ‘Folkesange’ is a reminder that the most transcendent experiences are those closest to home.

Tracklisting: Ella / Fager som en Ros / Leaves of Yggdrasil / Ramund / Tor i Helheim / Svea / Harpens Kraft / Gammelkäring / House Carpenter / Reiar / Gudernes Vilje / Vinter

Label Review.

2020 debut album. Frontman of Klaxons. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Frontman of the Mercury Prize-winning Klaxons, recording artist with Arctic Monkeys and creator of his Shock Machine project, English musician James Righton is now set to release his debut solo album ‘The Performer’.

‘The Performer’ stands in stark contrast to the electro-hedonism of Righton’s work with Klaxons. Instead, it spins through various points from 1970 onwards. It touches on the suave art-lounge of Roxy Music, the jangly grooves of R.E.M., the sumptuous psychedelia of latter day Beach Boys and the songwriting gift of Nick Lowe. In short, it uses classic elements as the groundwork for something which feels a natural fit for 2019.

The album flits between two core themes. Fatherhood has changed Righton’s life. It’s altered the relationship with his wife Keira Knightley, which he explores on the 90s-tinged pop-rock of ‘Start’ and the crescendo that soars through ‘Lessons In Dreamland, Pt2’. But there are simpler emotions too, with the unrequited love and sweet harmonies of ‘Edie’, a song he wrote for his daughter when she was just a few days old.

‘The Performer’ was written, performed and produced by James Righton, with the help of some select collaborators. James Ford (The Last Shadow Puppets, Simian Mobile Disco) performed drums throughout and bass on two tracks; Sean O’Hagan (High Llamas, Microdisney) contributed string arrangements; saxophone was provided by Jorja Chalmers (Bryan Ferry) and Josephine Stephenson (Thom Yorke, Ex:Re) contributed additional piano and string arrangements.

Tracklisting: The Performer / Edie / See The Monster / Devil Is Loose / Lessons In Dreamland, Pt. 1 / Start / Are You With Me? / Heavy Heart / Lessons In Dreamland, Pt. 2

Label Review. 

2020 album. Paul Webb (formerly of Talk Talk). Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Former Talk Talk and O.Rang bassist Paul Webb made his first record under the moniker of Rustin Man eighteen years ago with Beth Gibbons, on their collaborative album ‘Out Of Season’. Fast forward to now and he’s putting out his second solo album ‘Clockdust’; the follow-up to 2019’s ‘Drift Code’ and his second release in two years.

The roots of ‘Clockdust’ can be found in the same extended sessions that birthed ‘Drift Code’. “Early on I realised I had two albums worth of material,” Webb explains. “The first tunes I wrote were electric guitar based, with long arrangements that built up in layers to something sonically quite dense. These became the bulk of ‘Drift Code’. As a reaction, I wrote a batch of songs that were tighter in their structure but had more feeling of space. These make up the bulk of ‘Clockdust’.

“I think of the album as containing stories from people who’ve reached their present situation through many years of experiences,” he adds.

‘Clockdust’ draws upon an armoury of instruments, some, like the euphonium, unfamiliar in such contexts and plenty - the kokoriko, the okónkolo - with even more unfamiliar names. Each track, too, indicates Webb’s fondness for the path less travelled, its twists and turns at first jarring but soon intuitive. That they’re embellished by a voice which has seemingly endured many lifetimes emphasises their mysterious nature. That its recording was soundtracked by Jacques Brel, Jet Harris and Kurt Weill no doubt contributed too. That many songs are inspired by old movies enhances their ageless atmosphere yet further.

Tracklisting: Carousel Days / Gold & Tinsel / Jackie’s Room / Love Turns Her On / Rubicon Song / Old Flamingo / Kinky Living / Night In The Evening / Man With A Remedy

Label Review. 

1968 debut album remastered in mono and stereo plus 10 bonus tracks. Features pre-fame Jeff Lynne.

Our Overview. 

Emerging from the ashes of beat boom hopefuls Mike Sheridan and The Night Riders, by late 1966 Birmingham band The Idle Race were looking for a new guitarist. The successful applicant was local teenager Jeff Lynne. By the time the band signed to Liberty Records, the prodigiously-talented Lynne – several years younger than his new colleagues – had been promoted to frontman status, blossoming as the band’s chief songwriter while also taking lead vocals.

After “Skeleton And The Roundabout” had attracted much airplay but fallen just short of the charts, the band cut their debut album. Issued in October 1968, the idiosyncratic ‘The Birthday Party’ gave notice of a major new talent on the British pop scene. A dazzling creation that matched Beatle-ish melodic flair and witty, surreal vignettes with the heightened ambition of psych-era British studio pop, the set attracted rave reviews and the support of Radio One DJs including Kenny Everett. Sadly, however, ‘The Birthday Party’ failed to sell in any great quantity after Liberty mysteriously chose not to issue a single in support of the release and the wider world wouldn’t notice Lynne until he joined The Move in early 1970.

Now acknowledged as a classic album of song-based British psychedelic pop, ‘The Birthday Party’ finally gets the attention that it deserves with this definitive new 2-CD package. The original stereo album is joined by alternative versions, stand-alone singles and, most notably of all, the first-ever official CD release of the original, substantially different mono version of the LP, taken from the original masters. This also features a 24-page booklet containing numerous rare photos and memorabilia as well as a new essay on the album.

Tracklisting:

Disc One (Mono): Skeleton And The Roundabout / Happy Birthday / The Birthday /I Like My Toys / Morning Sunshine / Follow Me Follow / Sitting In My Tree / On With The Show / Lucky Man / Don’t Put Your Boys In The Army, Mrs. Ward / Pie In The Sky / The Lady Who Said She Could Fly / End Of The Road / (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree / My Father’s Son / Imposters Of Life’s Magazine / Knocking Nails Into My House / Lucky Man (Alternative Version) / Follow Me Follow (Alternative Version) / Days Of The Broken Arrows / Worn Red Carpet / Days Of The Broken Arrows (Alternative Version)

Disc Two (Stereo): Skeleton And The Roundabout / Happy Birthday / The Birthday / I Like My Toys / Morning Sunshine / Follow Me Follow / Sitting In My Tree / On With The Show / Lucky Man / Don’t Put Your Boys In The Army, Mrs. Ward / Pie In The Sky / The Lady Who Said She Could Fly / End Of The Road / Sitting In My Tree (Alternative Version)

Label Review. 

Featuring the independent demos, singles and abandoned album sessions, three full albums (Lovely, Pure and Galore), singles and related B-sides, cover versions, BBC sessions and material recorded live at Bath Moles. 118 tracks in total.

Our Overview. 

During the mid-late 1980s, few bands navigated the transition from indie darlings to mainstream hit-makers as slickly and successfully as The Primitives. Armed with a pocketful of two and a half minute, hook-laden songs and a loyal fanbase, the group found themselves catapulted from obscurity to the pop charts, via magazine covers and glowing reviews, and became a significant live draw around the world. Fronted by the enigmatic Tracy Tracy, and driven by chief songwriter Paul Court, the group experienced the heady highs and frustrating lows of mainstream success, producing an excellent run of singles and albums along the way.

‘Bloom!’ has been produced in conjunction with the band, and captures every period of a career which spanned seven years in its first incarnation. Including albums, B-sides, cover versions, demos, BBC sessions and live recordings, alongside four recordings recently unearthed from the archives, this set showcases a group who delivered catchy, high-quality material at will, and who remain loved and respected today.

Tracklisting: 

Disc One (The Lazy Years): Crash (Demo) / Across My Shoulder (Demo) / Spacehead (Demo) / Really Stupid (Demo) / Nothing Left (Demo) / Thru The Flowers / Across My Shoulder / She Don’t Need You / Lazy / Really Stupid / We Found A Way To The Sun / Where The Wind Blows / Stop Killing Me / Buzz Buzz Buzz / Laughing Up My Sleeve / Ocean Blue / Shadow (Guitar Version) / Thru The Flowers (New Version) / Everything Shining Bright / Nothing Left (Sounds Version) / I’ll Stick With You (1987 Version) / Dreamwalk Baby (1987 Version) / Buzz Buzz Buzz (1987 Version) / Nothing Left (1987 Version) / Out Of Reach (1987 Version) / Carry Me Home (1987 Version) / Don’t Want Anything To Change (1987 Version)

Disc Two (Lovely): Crash / Spacehead / Carry Me Home / Shadow / Thru The Flowers / Dreamwalk Baby / I’ll Stick With You / Nothing Left / Stop Killing Me / Out Of Reach / Ocean Blue / Run Baby Run / Don’t Want Anything To Change / Buzz Buzz Buzz / I’ll Stick With You (Single Version) / Things Get In Your Way / Crash (Live In The Studio) / Out Of Reach (Single Version) / Dreamwalk Baby (Live) / Really Stupid (Live) / Crash (Live) / I Wanna Be Your Dog (Live)

Disc Three (Pure): Outside / Summer Rain / Sick Of It / Shine / Dizzy Heights / All The Way Down / Secrets / Keep Me In Mind / Lonely Streets / Can’t Bring Me Down / Way Behind Me / Never Tell / All The Way / Down (Beat Version) / Way Behind Me (Acoustic Version) / Noose / I’ll Be Your Mirror / As Tears Go By / I Almost Touched You / Secrets (Demo) / Secrets (Zeus B Held Version 12” Mix) / Secrets (Zeus B Held 12” Dub) / You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care)

Disc Four (Galore): You Are The Way / Lead Me Astray / Earth Thing / Give This World To You / Slip Away / Cold Enough To Kill / Hello Jesus / Empathise / See Thru The Dark / Kiss Mine / Smile / The Little Black Egg / In My Dream / Sunpulse / Flow / Stop Killing Me (Acoustic) / You Are The Way (September Mix) / You Are The Way (Re-Ravishing Mix) / You Are The Way (God’s Own Garage Band Mix – Alternate Version) / Under My Spell / Haunted

Disc Five (BBC Sessions 1986-1987 / Live At Bath Moles): Really Stupid / Nothing Left / Run Baby Run / I’ll Stick With You / Where The Wind Blows / Across My Shoulder / Spacehead / Crash / Stop Killing Me / Shadow / Buzz Buzz Buzz / As Tears Go By / Dreamwalk Baby / Ocean Blue / Everything’s Shining Bright / She Don’t Need You / All The Way Down (Live) / Sick Of It (Live) / Give This World To You (Live) / Outside (Live) / Slip Away (Live) / You Are The Way (Live) / Earth Thing (Live) / See Thru The Dark (Live) / Stop Killing Me (Live) / Way Behind Me (Live)

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Night Chancers’ is the sixth-studio record from the ever engaging, talented British singer-songwriter Baxter Dury - son of Ian Dury and Betty Rathmell. The new ten-track record was inspired by the sleazy creatures and characters of the night. And we’re happy to report Baxter hasn’t missed a beat, not afraid to evolve as an artist rather than staying in a safe musical sweet spot.

As ever with Dury his lyrics are candid, sometimes bordering on the confessional. ‘Night Chancers’ is another sonic step forward for Baxter. He’s retained his unique sound, yet managed to add more strings to his bow in terms of vocal nuances. It all combines in a work that’s sort of splendidly scuzzy and all we’re certainly not complaining.

Baxter describes this recent delve into darkness as, “a bit Kubrick-y, a psychological journey through the maze bit in The Shining.” He sees the album in a filmic sense with different tracks introducing us to varying characters and blurry-eyed vignettes riffing on real-life, whether taking aim at social media stalkers with ‘I’m Not Your Dog’ or self-satirising on title track ‘Night Chancers’. From thrilling affairs that dissolve into sweaty desperation to the absurd bloggers, fruitlessly clinging to the fag ends of the fashion set (‘Sleep People’), via soiled real life (‘Slum Lord’) and new day, sleep-deprived optimism (‘Daylight’), the record’s finely drawn vignettes are all based on the corners of world Dury has visited.

Again Baxter has turned to his regular collaborators, with The Night Chancers including backing vocalists Madeline Hart, Rose Rose Elinor Dougall and Skinny Girl Diet’s Delilah Holliday. There’s also guitarist and new musical writing partner Shaun Paterson, and Dury’s long-term collaborator and friend, producer Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, John Grant, Arctic Monkeys) who’s helped create a soundtrack infused with classic disco, Italian pop, ’80s hip hop beats and smart strings that give each micro-narrative a soundtrack that forms a wider mood across the album.

Tracklisting: I’m Not Your Dog / Slumlord / Saliva Hog / Samurai / Sleep People / Carla's Got A Boyfriend / The Night Chancers / Hello, I'm Sorry / Daylight / Say Nothing

Label Review. 

The 25-Year Retrospective Concert / Indeterminacy / Double Music / Cartridge Music / Fontana Mix.

Our Overview. 

“If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it is not.” John Cage.

"Without John Cage, much of what happens in modern music and art would not be possible.” Frank Zappa.

John Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist (study of fungi). A pioneer of percussion, chance, and electronic music. Cage was one of the most influential American composers of the twentieth century. His influence on the popular arts of the 1960s was considerable; the Beatle Paul McCartney and Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention being numbered among his disciples. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance in America, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ‘4’ 33”’, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played.

The late 1950s, early ‘60s was the period in which the works of John Cage first began to be represented by a quantity of recordings. This edition combines two important large-scale performances, the indispensable ‘25-Year Retrospective Concert’, which so admirably showcased the composer’s broad spectrum of interests (and the first recording to include audible audience disagreement since the riot at the premiere of Déserts by Edgard Varèse in Paris in 1954), with ‘Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music’, which finds Cage reading 90 short Zen-like stories, each punctuated by piano and tape interjections by his long-time musical collaborator, David Tudor.These works are complemented by the original tape realisation of the ‘Fontana Mix’ sound collage, assembled by the composer in Italy; ‘Double Music’, which explores the percussive qualities of metal; and the challenging ‘Cartridge Music’, a manipulation of phonograph cartridges, where, Cage warns, “all sounds, even those ordinarily thought to be undesirable, are accepted.”

Tracklisting:

Disc One: The 25-Year Retrospective Concert Of The Music Of John Cage - Six Short Inventions For Seven Instruments (1934) / First Construction In Metal (1939) / Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939) / The Wonderful Widow Of Eighteen Springs (1942) // She Is Asleep (1943) Quartet / Duo // Sonatas And Interludes (1945-48) - Sonata I / Sonata II / Sonata III / Sonata IV / First Interlude / Sonata V / Sonata VI / Sonata VII / Sonata VIII / Second Interlude // Music For Carillon No.1 (1952) / Williams Mix (1952)

Disc Two: The 25-Year Retrospective Concert Of The Music Of John Cage (Continued) - Concert For Piano And Orchestra (1957-58) // John Cage And Lou Harrison - Double Music (1941) // John Cage And David Tudor Indeterminacy: New Aspect Of Form In Instrumental And Electronic Music - Part One / Part Two

Disc Three: John Cage And David Tudor Indeterminacy: New Aspect Of Form In Instrumental And Electronic Music (Continued) - Part Three / Part Four // John Cage: Cartridge Music (1960) / Fontana Mix (1958)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Roger Eno and Brian Eno together and individually are among the foremost innovators in experimental ambient music and will release their first album on Deutsche Grammophon Records: ‘Mixing Colours’. Brian and Roger Eno have revolutionized many concepts of music production and performance, from pioneering treatments of pop music by Brian Eno to younger brother Roger Eno’s ambient synth/piano recordings reminiscent of Erik Satie. These qualities resonate on this new release.

Each brings his unerring sense of place and mood to the album. The timbre in each title deepens and opens up with each listening. Specific yet abstract titles guide listeners through the collection created over several years in a unique collaboration by both artists. The result is deep dive listening and landscapes of sound bearing titles like abstract art: "Obsidian", "Deep Saffron", or "Wintergreen".

Their debut DG release will reach a wide new audience still unfamiliar with their artistry. The poetic and ambient anthology reveals two celebrated ambient musicians at the height of their artistry. Roger says “There’s a huge commonality between what we’re interested in.” while Brian adds “These pieces are very Impressionistic and very much to do with sonic quality, sonic colour.”

Tracklisting: Spring Frost / Burnt Umber / Celeste / Wintergreen / Obsidian / Blonde / Dark Sienna / Verdigris / Snow / Rose Quartz / Quicksilver / Ultramarine / Iris / Cinnabar / Desert Sand / Deep Saffron / Cerulean Blue / Slow Movement: Sand

Label Review. 

1986 album. 

Our Overview. 

‘In From The Cold’ was the final shot at success by 60s influenced British garage rock band The Prisoners, the only problem was they didn’t want it. Signed by Eddie Piller to his Stiff-backed subsidiary Countdown they were put in the studio with Troy Tate (Teardrop Explodes / The Smiths) and made this astounding album which they then disowned. This long overdue reissue on coloured vinyl is the first time the album has been issued in its original form since 1986 when, due to Stiff’s imminent demise, it was deleted very quickly.

Formed in 1980, Kent England, The Prisoners, were a regular live fixture in London’s underground “psychedelic revival” and “mod revival” scene of the early 1980s, as well as a linchpin of the Medway scene. That are one of the most influential bands of the 1980s, an astounding live act whose records were the opposite of what pop radio demanded in that era. Raw where they were smooth and full of character where those records needed to be blandly conformist. They hardly sold a record and yet they can count the likes of Noel Gallagher and political journalist John Harris as their fans. Steve Lamacq devoted a whole chapter of his book to his love of them whilst Tim Burgess of The Charlatans once said that at that time he only checked for The Prisoners and New Order. At least two UK hits used their arrangement on Joe South’s ‘Hush’ as their basis.

By 1986 they were an incredible live band and had released three albums of their distinctive 60s influenced garage rock. A four-piece featuring Johnny Symons on drums, future Acid Jazz hitmaker James Taylor on organ, Allan Crockford on bass and backing vocals and the compellingly soulful Graham Day on vocals. Graham also wrote fantastic songs. Ten years later and they would have been lauded as heroes in Brit Pop land but the mid-80s had no place in the mainstream for a band with their influences.

‘In From The Cold’ is full of amazing songs from the hard edges of ‘All You Gotta Do Is Say’, ‘Ain’t No Telling’ and ‘The More That I Teach You’, to the mournful ‘Wish The Rain’ and ‘Be On Your Way’. It is no surprise that Mojo journalist Lois Wilson described this as her favourite album by the band.

Tracklisting: All You Gotta Do Is Say / Come Closer / The More That I Teach You / Mourn My Health / I Know How To Please You / Deceiving Eye / In From The Cold / Wish The Rain / Be On Your Way / Find And Seek / Ain’t No Tellin’ / Main Title Theme (The Lesser Evil)

Label Review.

2020 album. Blues. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Stand Up!’ It’s not just an album title, it’s an order, forcing anyone who hears Whitney Shay’s brand of rocket-fuelled R&B onto the dance floor. A flame-haired stick of dynamite in a sparkling dress, this San Diego phenomenon has made a record for dancing, drinking and dreaming, with songs to soundtrack the peaks and punches of life.

“I make high-energy soulful rhythm ‘n’ blues,” she explains, “that makes people dance and feel something deep inside.” Released in 2020 on Ruf Records, ‘Stand Up!’ is sure to mark the global explosion of an award-winning singer-songwriter who’s long been threatening to go ‘boom’. Tracking at Austin’s Wire Recording Studio with producer Kaz Kazanoff, and setting the pace with the title track’s brassy soul and smoky quickfire vocal, this third record’s upbeatmoments twist from the rolling groove of Tell The Truth to the dirtied-up funk of P.S. It’s Not About You. The new material of Stand Up! - penned alongside writing partner Adam J. Eros - might fill the dance floors, but it also brings you deep into Shay’s headspace, with themes that span from the personal to the socio-political.

Whether it’s raucous or wracked with pain, every note on ‘Stand Up!’ is real. And whether you play this record at top volume - or catch these tunes live when Shay and her band take Stand Up! out on the road for Ruf Records’ 2020 Blues Caravan showcase - she’ll have every last listener up on their feet. “When I perform,” says Shay, “I want people to dance and be engaged. To me, music has always been about catharsis, the purging of sad experiences. If I can make the audience leave smiling and feeling like they’ve forgotten about the troubles of their day, I’ve done my job.”

Tracklisting: Stand Up! / Someone You Never Got To Know / Equal Ground / P.S. It’s Not About You / I Thought We Were Through / Far Apart (Still Close) / You Won’t Put Out This Flame / Tell The Truth / Boy Sit Down / I Never Meant To Love Him / Getting In My Way / Change With The Times

Label Review. 

2020 album. Unfinished sessions from 2010 and completed with the blessing of Masekela’s estate. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Rejoice’ is a very special collaboration between Tony Allen, the legendary drummer and co-founder of Afrobeat, and Hugh Masekela, the master trumpet player of South African jazz. Having first met in the 70s thanks to their respective close associations with Fela Kuti, the two world-renowned musicians talked for decades about making an album together. When, in 2010, their touring schedules coincided in the UK, the moment presented itself and producer Nick Gold took the opportunity to record their encounter. The unfinished sessions, consisting of all original compositions by the pair, lay in the archive until after Masekela passed away in 2018. With renewed resolution, Tony Allen and Nick Gold, with the blessing and participation of Hugh Masekela’s estate, unearthed the original tapes and finished recording the album in summer 2019 at the same London studio where the original sessions had taken place.

‘Rejoice’ can be seen as the long overdue confluence of two mighty African musical rivers – a union of two free-flowing souls for whom borders, whether physical or stylistic, are things to pass through or ignore completely. According to Allen, the album deals in “a kind of South African-Nigerian swing-jazz stew”, with its roots firmly in Afrobeat. Allen and Masekela are accompanied on the record by a new generation of well-respected jazz musicians including Tom Herbert (Acoustic Ladyland / The Invisible), Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective), Mutale Chashi (Kokoroko) and Steve Williamson.

Tracklisting: Robbers, Thugs and Muggers (O’Galajani) / Agbada Bougou / Coconut Jam / Never (Lagos Never Gonna Be The Same) / Slow Bones / Jabulani (Rejoice, Here Comes Tony) / Obama Shuffle Strut Blues / We’ve Landed

Label Review. 

1974 album remastered with 5 bonus tracks. Includes Live at The Academy of Music in New York City on 17th May 1974. Plus 5.1 mix of the original album. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

Formed in 1969 from the ashes of The Yardbirds, Renaissance would become the renowned prog rock act they are today. Back in 1974, with all the founding members gone a new line-up had become established and the album they released that year - ‘Turn Of The Cards’ was an artistic triumph and heralded the band’s commercial breakthrough in the United States.

Featuring highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion), ‘Turn Of The Cards’ was recorded in March 1974 at De Lane Lea studios in Wembley, North London and featured the band incorporating symphonic orchestral arrangements into their material extensively on classic pieces such as “Running Hard”, “Things I Don’t Understand” and “Mother Russia”. The album would also feature the evocative “Cold Is Being” and the celebrated “Black Flame” which would result in ‘Turn Of The Cards’ being praised as one of the finest works by Renaissance.

This expanded edition has been newly re-mastered from the original master tapes and also features an entire concert at The Academy of Music in New York City on 17th May 1974 (with a 24-piece orchestra) over two bonus CDs which has been newly mixed from the original 16-track master tapes, including live versions of songs from the album, along with classics such as “Can You Understand”, “Carpet of the Sun”, “Prologue” and a 25 minute version of “Ashes Are Burning” featuring guest Andy Powell (of Wishbone Ash) on lead guitar. The fourth disc is a DVD which features a new 5.1 Surround sound and high-resolution stereo mix of ‘Turn Of The Cards’. The set also includes the previously unreleased song “Everybody Needs a Friend”, recorded during the sessions for the album and the rare single edit of “Mother Russia”. The release also features an illustrated booklet with a new essay featuring interviews with Annie Haslam, Terry Sullivan and Jon Camp.

Tracklisting: 

Disc One: Running Hard / I Think Of You / Things I Don’t Understand / Black Flame / Cold Is Being / Mother Russia / Everybody Needs A Friend (Previously Unreleased) / Mother Russia (Single Edit) (Previously Unreleased) / Things I Don’t Understand (New Stereo Mix) / Black Flame (New Stereo Mix) / Mother Russia (New Stereo Mix)

Disc Two: Can You Understand (Live 1974) / Black Flame (Live 1974) / Carpet Of The Sun (Live 1974) / Cold Is Being (Live 1974) / Things I Don’t Understand (Live 1974) / Running Hard (Live 1974)

Disc Three: Ashes Are Burning (Live 1974) / Mother Russia (Live 1974) / Prologue (Live 1974)

Disc Four (DVD): 5.1 Surround Sound & High-Resolution Stereo Mixes - Running Hard / I Think Of You / Things I Don’t Understand / Black Flame / Cold Is Being / Mother Russia

Label Review. 

2020 album. Mystic folk rock. Also available on standard CD and standard Black Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

Arbouretum’s mystic folk-rock uses English folk, country blues, Americana and 70s psychedelia as touch points in their singular and distinctive sound and they’ve perfected the craft of storytelling, using a delicate interplay of melodies and prosaic lyrics.

‘Let It All’ In is their most accomplished and evocative album yet. Guitarist and vocalist Dave Heumann’s melodies and solos remain a central focus, bolstered by the hypnotic rhythms of bassist Corey Allender and drummer Brian Carey, enhanced by Matthew Pierce’s substantial yet understated keyboard figures. Each song a vivid scene or tale; Heumann’s deep sense of spirituality and command of storytelling through myth and metaphor transports the listener to another world and time.

The album features guest performances from Mike Kuhl, Hans Chew and Dave Ballou, and was mixed by Steve Wright at the iconic Wrightway Studios. Arbouretum will be touring in 2020.

LP available on light blue vinyl. LPs include digital download cards.

Tracklisting: How Deep It Goes / A Prism In Reverse / No Sanctuary Blues / Night Theme / Headwaters II / Buffeted By Wind / Let It All In / High Water Song

Label Review. 

2020 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

There’s a wealth of lost bands that outpaced their more high-profile brethren from the era of brotherly love, but fate and fortune lost them to time until a voracious reissue market snatched them back from the brink of obscurity. Wax Machine lives in the creases and cracks between these reinvigorated volumes, tripping easily among the children of the sun without ever feeling like tourists. They are kindred spirits, or perhaps the channeled chosen brought back to life for a new era. Their sound coalesces within ‘Earthsong of Silence’. They skirt the blade like full force psych-folk warriors, but also skitter through more OUT territory — clattering odysseys that resolve to map nowhere and everywhere are nestled next to propulsive grooves that lap at head-nodding ecstasy.

Brighton UK’s Wax Machine are a band so steeped in the kernel of psychedelic seep that there’s every indication they may have slipped through a side door in space-time and sprouted anew a few years back on the UK coast. However, for all intents and purposes it’s best to believe that they truly sprang from the fertile mind of Brazilian-born, Italian/English-raised Lau Ro (Guitar/Vocals). Lau’s international upbringing served as the wellspring for some of the eclectic taste that informs the core of Wax Machine’s sound. On ‘Earthsong of Silence’, that eclecticism incorporates Spiritual Jazz, Krautrock, Tropicália and Library Music while filtering them all through a psychedelic lens. Per Lau, “The album is an exploration into paradoxes, meditation and magic, predicated on the underlying idea of becoming one with nature and in harmony with the environment.” It borrows from dreams and trances to give life to a psychedelic experience that feels hauntingly familiar, yet strikingly new. On his journey Lau met up with fellow Brighton musicians and birthed Wax Machine with members from local bands Rokurokubi, Hill, Strange Cages and singer-songwriter Woody Green. Ro’s fellow travelers include Isobel Jones, who adds soaring vocals and provides Wax Machine’s entrancing flute work alongside Toma Sapir who locks down a groove on the kit that keeps ‘Earthsong of Silence’ from floating into the ether. 

The band’s laid down a couple of great EPs over the last couple of years, awash in the same smoke curls that surrounded Ivory, Fifty Foot Hose, and The United States of America — a distinctly more nuanced niche than most of their peers are filling. They pick up right where their last EP’s title track, “Mind Palace,” left them —growing into the mossy eiderdown of the English countryside, delightfully dosed and drenched in the sun that filters through the trees. The flutes, wandering guitars, and jazz touches come rising through the mists once again, but this time they’ve given the album an aura of mystique not quite present in their early offerings. Along with a guiding hand from Kikagaku Moyo’s Go Kurosawa behind the boards, they add a new dimension to their sound, further exploring both their English psych-folk roots and mining a deeper appreciation for a West Coast sound dipped in sun, peace and serenity. They add splashes of Serpent Power’s quieter moments to the languid grooves of “Sun Dance,” channel the mystic melancholy of Susan Christie on “Birdsong” and tap into the sunshower psych of Sapphire Thinkers and Sarofeen & Smoke on “Truth.” Their love of lush arrangements brings to mind The Millennium and The End in subconscious snatches. Wax Machine aren’t passing travelers on the path to psychedelic oblivion, they are full-fledged guides, so maybe take a few notes. 

Tracklisting: Shhh... / Shade / Truth / Sun Dance / Time Machine / Patterns / Birdsong / Turiya / Mysty Mountain

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Now active for over 30 years, a bona fide legend of the acid jazz / jazz funk scene, James Taylor returns with a new James Taylor Quartet record, ‘People Get Ready (We’re Moving On)’. It ties together the effortless melodic funk of the quartet, the fullness of sound that only an orchestra can bring, high quality commercial song-writing and the staggering vocal talents of Noel McKoy and Natalie Williams. Renowned for his Hammond organ sound, James Taylor recorded this “dream project” at London’s Abbey Road Studios with a string orchestra and two UK soul sensations in Natalie and Noel, the latter with who he previously worked when helping to carve out the Acid Jazz sound back in the early 1990s.

James himself says: “Along with a desire to develop the breakthrough sound of JTQ + orchestra debuted on Soundtrack of Electric Black, I also wanted to make a record to showcase outstanding soul voices. Reaching back and re-examining the crossover work I did thirty years ago with the UK’s finest soul singer Noel McKoy, combined with the discovery of the stunning soulful vocal talent in the form of Natalie Williams, I was drawn to write a funk vocal album for these outstanding voices, but now incorporating these new orchestral ideas. I hope you enjoy this album half as much as we did making it! People….Get Ready….We’ve moved on!“

Tracklisting: A Giant Leap / Who’s Gonna Break The News? (feat. Natalie Williams) / People Get Ready / (We’re Moving On) / Get Out And Walk / Boogie On Through The Night / Street Hustle Interlude / Smokin’ The Future (feat. Noel McKoy) / Living On The Front Line (feat. Natalie Williams) / Newsflash / Baby Come Back (feat. Noel McKoy) / Tomorrow’s Sun

Label Review. 

This four LP box set contains three studio albums Bigger Than America, Before After and Naked As Advertised as well as the concert album How Live Is. Demon. Also available ‘Another Big Idea (1996-2015)' on 9CD Box.

Our Overview. 

Glistening 80’s electro-pop trio, from Sheffield, UK in 1988 after their fifth album for the Virgin label, Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory decided to rest Heaven 17. Fast forward to the present and the band are releasing ‘Another Big Idea 1996-2015’ , nine-CD and 4LP vinyl box sets that follow the band’s work from when they regrouped and returned from a six-year hiatus in 1996 with the album ‘Bigger Than America’. 

The nine-disc CD version of ‘Another Big Idea’ features the albums ‘Bigger Than America’ (1996) and ‘Before After’ (released 2005 – the last album to feature Ian Craig Marsh). There’s also the 1998 remix album ‘Retox/ Detox’ where various then-contemporaries took the band’s earlier hits down the rave-up, 2008’s ‘Naked As Advertised: Versions 08’ where they offered acoustic/ stripped back versions of their and The Human League’s catalogue, and 1999’s ‘How Live Is’ – taken from their first live appearance. The box also hoovers up covers of songs by U2 (‘With or Without You’), Prince (‘Sign O’ The Times’) and Madonna (‘Holiday’) which the band had recorded for various tribute albums.

More intriguing is the previously unreleased ‘Space Age Space Music’. An instrumental album recorded in 1998, where they’d planned to get various singers to write their own lyrics to the tunes, but never got around to fully realising it.

In total, there are 48 bonus tracks and remixes, and like last year’s ‘Play to Win’ set, ‘Another Big Idea’ comes packaged as a large format (12″ x 12″) book. This contains 28-pages of photos, new notes and interviews with the band.

The 4LP coloured vinyl version of ‘Another Big Idea (1996-2008)’ brings together the three studio albums – ‘Bigger Than America’ (opaque blue vinyl), ‘Before After’ (white vinyl) and ‘Naked As Advertised’ (transparent green) – and ‘How Live Is’ (process blue vinyl).

Tracklisting:

LP 1: BIGGER THAN AMERICA: Dive / Designing Heaven / We Blame Love / Another Big Idea / Freak! / Bigger Than America / Unreal Everything / The Big Dipper / Do I Believe? / Resurrection Man / Maybe Forever / An Electronic Prayer

LP 2: HOW LIVE IS: Fascist Groove Thing / Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry / We Blame Love / Come Live With Me / Freak! / Let Me Go / Let’s All Make A Bomb / Penthouse And Pavement / Designing Heaven / Temptation / Being Boiled

LP 3: BEFORE AFTER: I’m Gonna Make You Fall In Love With Me / Hands Up To Heaven / The Way It Is / Freedom From Love / Don’t Fear The Reaper / Into The Blue 2. Deeper And / What Would It Take / Someone For Real / Are You Ready?

LP 4: NAKED AS ADVERTISED [VERSIONS ’08]: Being Boiled / Geisha Boys And Temple Girls / Temptation [featuring Billie Godfrey] / Penthouse And Pavement / Party Fears Two / Don’t Fall / (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang / We Live So Fast / Empire State Human

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Manchester four-piece rock band The Slow Readers Club have announced their fourth album, ‘The Joy Of The Return’, via Modern Sky UK. Recorded at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool and produced by long-standing collaborator Phil Bulleyment, and featuring 11 brand new tracks, ‘The Joy Of The Return’ marks a significant change in the band’s process, with their extensive touring allowing them time to write and develop tracks and arrangements through soundchecks and back-of-van jams. "Their sound is timeless and classic, so big and anthemic. Most of their songs are instant anthems, you can see them playing stadiums in the future" John Kennedy, Radio X

“I think it’s definitely our most interesting and accomplished record musically,” says singer Aaron Starkie. “Lyrically the album covers love, alienation, the rise of right wing populism and comments on algorithm driven propaganda. And as always, I try to deliver those lyrics with uplifting melody.”

Throughout the album, the band explore a vast swathe of sonic territory, from the passionately delivered “All The Idols”, to the poppier tones of “Jericho” that power through with bright indie guitar lines and ethereally melodic choruses. The dark power-pop that defined their previous releases holds a strong influence, with the brooding “No Surprise” providing a powerful dose of evocative lyricism amid immersive soundscapes, while the unsettling “Paris” is an undulating exploration of observational songwriting and eclectic musicality. 

Tracklisting: All I Hear / Something Missing / Problem Child / Jericho / No Surprise / Paris / Killing Me / All The Idols / Every Word / The Zero Hour / The Wait

Label Review. 

This box set represents the band’s first two albums: On Through the Night (1980) and High N Dry (1981) and has been prepared in conjunction with singer Joe Elliott who has acted as executive producer on the set. The mastering has been done by the band’s long serving sound engineer Ronan McHugh. It consists of the original albums, various B-sides and re-mix versions, Radio One sessions, Live from Reading and the first ever appearance of an unreleased and newly mixed show from Oxford in 1980.

Our Overview. 

Def Leppard emerged in 1979 with their own self financed and released EP and with the help of airplay from legenardary DJ John Peel, the band’s commercial heavy rock sound lead them to a deal with Phonogram and ‘On Through The Night’, the band’s debut album, was released in 1980 and immediately put the rock world on notice. The band were destined for big things with the album charting at No. 15 in the UK and No. 51 in the US. Produced by Tom Allom (Judas Priest, Black Sabbath), it featured many of the band’s live favourites and some updated versions of early singles. The album achieved platinum status in 1989.

‘High ‘N’ Dry’, the first of Def Leppard’s albums to be produced by Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange (then AC/DC’s producer), was released in 1981. It reached No. 26 in the UK charts and No. 38 in the US, further cementing the bands status. The Early Years 79-81 box set includes a history of the band’s first two albums written by Mojo and Classic Rock writer Paul Elliott (no relation) featuring personal insights from the band on the making and releasing of those early records as well as rare photos and memorabilia.

Lead singer, Joe Elliott says, “Well the fans asked, and we listened! Really excited to have our early years reworked with a load of rare material including the newly unearthed Live at the Oxford New Theatre, recorded on the 1980 UK tour …. It’s been a trip putting this box set together!”

Tracklisting:

CD1 (On Through The Night): Rock Brigade / Hello America / Sorrow Is A Woman / It Could Be You / Satellite / When the Walls Came Tumbling Down / Wasted / Rocks Off / It Don’t Matter / Answer to The Master / Overture

CD2 (High N’ Dry): Let It Go / Another Hit and Run / High N Dry (Saturday Night) / Bringin’ On the Heartache / Switch 625 / You Got Me Runnin’ / Lady Strange / On Through the Night / Mirror Mirror (Look into My Eyes) / No No No

CD3 (When The Walls Came Tumbling Down – Live In Oxford 26/04/1980): When the Walls Came Tumbling Down / It Could Be You / Rock Brigade / Satellite / Medicine Man / Answer to the Master / When the Rain Falls / Sorrow Is a Woman / Good Morning Freedom / Don’t Matter to Me / Overture / Lady Strange / Getcha Rocks Off / Hello America / Wasted / Ride into The Sun

CD 4 (Too Many Jitterbugs – B-Sides And Rarities): Ride into The Sun / Getcha Rocks Off / The Overture / Wasted / Hello America / Rock Brigade / Glad I’m Alive / Good Morning Freedom / Let It Go / Switch 625 / Bringin’ On the Heartbreak / Me and My Wine / Bringin’ On the Heartbreak (remix) / Me and My Wine (remix)

CD5 (Raw – Early BBC Recordings): Glad I’m Alive (07/06/1979) / Sorrow Is A Woman (07/06/1979) / Wasted (07/06/1979) / Answer to The Master (07/06/1979) / Satellite (03/10/1979) / Rock Brigade (03/10/1979) / Wasted (03/10/1979) / Good Morning Freedom (03/10/1979) / Satellite (03/10/79) / When the Walls Came Tumbling Down / Medicine Man / The Overture / Lady Strange / Getcha Rocks Off’ (Live at the Reading Festival – 24/08/1980)

Label Review.

2020 album. Folk.

Our Overview.

Songs are central to Scottish folk band Salt House. New songs that sound as if they’ve always been here. Ancient ballads woken up. Poems given the tunes they’ve long deserved. Songs about place, politics, landscape and birds. The new album from Salt House sees them solidify their reputation as fine interpreters of words both old and new. ‘Huam’, (Scots for “the call of an owl”) is their third collection of songs, and the second pairing with producer Andy Bell.

The trio - Jenny Sturgeon, Ewan MacPherson and Lauren MacColl - continue their love of recording ‘on location’ with this album, taking themselves to rural Argyllshire to finish writing and recording the songs which were crafted between their homes of Inverness-shire and Shetland. Singer, guitarist and harmonium player Jenny has a PHD in seabirds. Described by R2 Magazine as “a singer-songwriter who brings together the old and new with a rare skill.” Her songs are earthy and wise; she sings them with beauty and power. Singer and guitarist Ewan brings to Salt House a wealth of understanding and experience gained from collaboration with musicians from all corners of the scene. His songs are poetic and layered; his voice plaintive and from the heart. Fiddler, viola player and vocalist Lauren’s arrangements hold a rich, deep, darkness flecked with gold. You can hear the Highlands in Lauren’s elegant bowing, and a knowledge of how to weave around a narrative. She plays with warmth, wisdom and soul.You’ll also hear echoes of Pentangle, a touch of Dick Gaughan, murmurs of Scandinavian and Scots, all woven into a music that’s traditional and new. The group’s meticulous attention to detail, shared passions and care for their craft sees Salt House soar.

Tracklisting: Fire Light / All Shall Be Still / Mountain Of Gold / William And Elsie / Hope Is The Thing With Feathers / If I Am Lucky / Lord Ullin s Daughter / The Disquiet / The Same Land / Union Of Crows

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

With four of the original six members, The Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats are back together with their first studio album in over 35 years ‘Citizens Of Boomtown’. Formed in 1975, the group led by Bob Geldof, swept into the Irish and UK charts in 1977 with “Lookin’ After No.1” arriving off the back of the burgeoning punk/new wave scene. They hit their peak of popularity between 1978-80 scoring a brace of hit singles in both countries whilst broadening their sound - “Rat Trap” and “I Don’t Like Mondays” were back to back No.1s in the UK and the latter track was a smash all over Europe.

As the hits began to dry up Geldof tried his hand at acting appearing in the lead role of “Pink” in the film adaptation of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1982. Of course, he became best known as the driving force behind Band Aid and Live Aid in the mid-1980s raising money and awareness for African people short of food and medicine. The band called it day after this and Geldof went solo while the rest of the band went off in other directions forming other groups and moving into production.

And now the group have finally played the “get back together” card after resisting the temptation until now. The first song to be aired from the new record sound like the title suggests: “Trash Glam Baby” evoking the spirits of 1970s both the Glam Rock sound and the loosness of New Wave. It owes a debt to 1990s band Suede to our ears as well!

Tracklisting: Trash Glam Baby / Sweet Thing / Monster Monkeys / She Said No / Passing Through / Here’s a Postcard / K.I.S.S. / Rock and Roll Yé Yé / Get a Grip / The Boomtown Rats

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl and Red vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The Shires are the biggest selling UK country music act. Formed in 2013, they are the first country act to score a Top 10 album with their debut release ‘Brave’ in 2015 and its follow up ‘My Universe’ becoming the fastest-selling British country album of all time following its release in 2016. Paving the way for British country artists, Crissie Rhodes and Ben Earle were the first UK act to have received a highly coveted award from the American Country Music Association. 

Their new album ‘Good Years’ has been recorded in Nashville. The first single “New Year” is “a soaring ballad set around the festivities and the countdown, and how you wish you could be with your previous lover. It’s heartfelt, and thought provoking and really showcases Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes’ divine vocal harmonies.”

Ben says of the new album and tour: “Honesty and storytelling has always been such an important part of our songwriting. We’ve poured some of the incredible experiences and life we’ve lived into these songs. We can’t wait to hit the road next year and play these live across the country. The songs mean so much to us personally, but there really is nothing like looking out at our fans in the crowd and seeing how much of an impact they can have in someone else’s life. It’s truly a very special thing”.

Tracklisting: Lightning Strikes / On The Day I Die / Good Years / No Secrets / About Last Night / New Year / Only Always / Independence Day / Thank You Whiskey / People Like Us / Better Place / Crazy Days.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The Districts 4th album ‘You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere’ “is an unachievable promise,” says bandleader Rob Grote. “It’s about a dream for love to last forever and a yearning to postpone death. It is about wanting to escape everyday life while also craving time with one who’s present. It’s a plea to remain the same in the face of constant change, and the certainty of going nowhere fast.”

Written after playing nearly 200 shows over two years in support of their 2017 album, ‘Popular Manipulations’, The Districts’ new album almost never arrived. As they began to contemplate the record, Grote and his longtime bandmates Pat Cassidy (guitar), Connor Jacobus (bass), and Braden Lawrence (drums) faced a transitional period that was painful for both personal and professional reasons, and found themselves fatigued and disoriented as a group. Grote also felt unease from the anxiety-provoking state of the world today, while facing a daily battle with the dire health problems of his beloved dog.

The Districts were forced to rethink everything. “This album was written as an escape and as reassurance. I was falling in love with someone new and trying to juggle this desperate desire to escape with the need to show up in my life. It’s pretty damn hard to be present and completely checked out all at once,” Rob explains. “It felt like much of my world had reached such a pitch that all I could do was try to tune it out. I felt really uncertain about the future of the band and super detached from much of what I used to identify with, on a personal level and with our music. I was thinking, ‘Do I want to keep doing music?’ ‘Do I want to keep doing it in this context?’” Grote retreated to his bedroom and started writing with no objective other than to create. Free from expectations, and with an acoustic guitar, synthesizer, and drum machine at hand, he discovered a newfound creative freedom.

Tracklisting: My Only Ghost / Hey Jo / Cheap Regrets / Velour and Velcro / Changing / Descend / The Clouds / Dancer / Sidecar / And The Horses All Go Swimming / 4th of July

Label Review. 

2020 album. Afrobeat and horns. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Black Market Brass release their second album ‘Undying Thirst’. Founded in Minneapolis, USA in the spring of 2012, BMB came together when two guitar players discovered each other’s almost identical Craigslist ads aimed at starting a funk band influenced by, among other things, the sounds of Fela Kuti, K Frimpong, and King Sunny Ade. Over the next three years the band would relentlessly rehearse, fine tune, and develop their sound. What started as a funk band playing obscure covers eventually blossomed into a creative collective of musicians that writes, arranges, and performs original music that builds on the sounds of Nigerian Afrobeat by tastefully blending it with other styles. Their first album ‘Cheat And Start A Fight’ from 2016 was laden with endless polyrhythms driven by intricate percussion, intertwined guitar parts, and rock-solid bass and drums. And horns.

The bands press release says of the new record: “‘Undying Thirst’, is a noxious brew of diesel and bleach; a special long-player full of wasteoid rippers for skullduggerous hover-bike gangs peddling fugazi relics and snake oil tinctures. Hellacious guitars, nitrous-charged percussion, a brass section harsher than paint-thinner, and a special batch of short-circuited electronics and synthesizers will leave your head buzzing into the 31st century. Blasting ‘Undying Thirst’ from your home speaker system is like going over a waterfall in a rusted out oil barrel, long after the sun has boiled the falls dry.”

Tracklisting: Cheat And Start A Fight / N.B.T. / War Room / Into The Thick / Intro / Undying Thirst / So Who (pt 1) / So Who (pt 2)

Label Review.

2020 album.

Our Overview.

Since the release of 2018’s acclaimed, politically charged Breaks it Down, the Reverend - aka Shawn Amos, the American, singer, songwriter, producer known for his mix of blues, roots rock, country and gospel - has been on the road nonstop. 2019 saw him alighting in Texas, where the South begins, the West ends, and something else is taking shape - a world away, geographically and culturally, from his native LA. Here, he gathered together the Brotherhood, creating a sense of home in his rootlessness.

Now the American roots artist has announced the release of ‘Blue Sky’, his debut with the newly formed Brotherhood band. The new album is a full-circle moment for the Rev, featuring a group of masterful musicians that includes drummer Brady Blade (Dave Matthews, Indigo Girls), bassist Christopher Thomas (Norah Jones, Carly Simon, Macy Gray) and longtime Rev guitarist Chris “Doctor” Roberts. While his previous release, 2018’s politically-charged ‘Breaks It Down’, reckoned with the calamity of our current society, the new album looks inward as the Rev explores his own identity and embraces his singer/songwriter past.

“On this album, I wanted to connect the dots between my current love of blues and my singer-songwriter past,” says The Rev. “When I first started recording blues material, I pulled up the bridge behind my Americana catalogue. Five years into this blues journey, I was ready to revisit that terrain, but in the end, I really believe that blues music is roots music. Making this album has allowed me to bring both sides of myself as a writer together.”

‘Blue Sky’ marks a major step forward for The Reverend Shawn Amos, both sonically and personally. With a recent move from his hometown of Los Angeles to Texas, he found himself immersed in a world wildly different from his own, yet still somehow familiar. Surrounded by a variety of new sounds and genres, the Rev injects his bluesy, gritty sound with a revitalized creative energy while embracing a newfound sense of home. Glide Magazine described the new album’s debut track “Counting Down The Days” as “a blackened riff howl of workmanship blues and Texas boogie that never surrenders,” while Elmore said “this material showcases Shawn Amos’s songwriting like no previous Rev outing, alternately furious, vulnerable; crazy, forlorn and tender.”

The Rev is also embracing collaboration in a new way – unlike past Shawn Amos collaborations, the Brotherhood is in it for the long haul. Blade, Thomas, and Roberts provide not only musical, but also spiritual and emotional support for embracing new territory, artistically and otherwise. The material showcases Shawn Amos’s songwriting like no previous Rev outing; here furious, there vulnerable; here gadabout and crazy, there forlorn and tender; all buoyed by musicians emboldening a beloved family member.

Tracklisting: Stranger Than Today / Troubled Man / Her Letter / Counting Down The Days / Hold Back / The Job Is Never Done / The Pity And The Pain / Albion Blues / 27 Dollars / Keep The Faith, Have Some Fun

Label Review. 

2020 album. Blues rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

British-born, Canadian musician Sass Jordan is one of the premiere female rock singers in history, selling over one million albums worldwide. Her first blues album arrives in raw, earthy style on the magnificent ‘Rebel Moon Blues’, the eight-song album spotlights Jordan’s signature vox in a wholly-dedicated blues endeavour across seven diligently selected covers — plus one knockout original, “The Key”. Co-produced by Sass and D#, ‘Rebel Moon Blues’ serves as a watershed that charts a new course in Jordan’s musical voyage while tracing her love of the blues back to its source. All killer and no filler, the album features the inimitably raspy rock goddess jubilantly celebrating the songs, sounds and styles of everyone from old masters like Willie Dixon, Elmore James and Freddie King to younger, louder guns like Gary Moore and Rory Gallagher.

While she has touched upon Blues over her 40-year career, this is the first time she has focused exclusively on creating an album of songs in this tradition, that showcase her talent as a Blues singer. As Jordan acknowledges: “The blues has always been a huge part of my life. It’s a big part of what I grew up with. It’s been there through my entire career.”

More crucially, it’s also a watershed that charts a new course in Jordan’s musical voyage while tracing her love of the blues back to its source. The album features eight songs, freshly interpreted and given the Sass Jordan treatment with her band the Champagne Hookers: guitarists Chris Caddell and Jimmy Reid, bassist Derrick Brady and drummer Cassius Pereira, augmented by blues harp master Steve Marriner and keyboardist Jesse O’Brien.

The album release coincides with Sass’s participation in a 42 date world tour of “A Bowie Celebration” from January to April, bringing her to several markets she has not been to in years. National press and radio servicing across Europe and Canada International touring for album release through summer 2020.

‘Rebel Moon Blues’ will have an accompanying alcohol, “Rebel Moon Whiskey,” also being launched in 2020, through Dixon distillery.

A custom Smokey Blue vinyl will ensure each album pressed will be entirely unique.

Tracklisting: Leaving Trunk / My Babe / Am I Wrong / One Way Out / Palace Of The King / The Key / Too Much Alcohol / Still Got The Blues

Label Review. 

2020 album. Wayne & Steven from Flaming Lips with Julie & Lindsey from Deap Vally. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Deap Lips is Wayne Coyne & Steven Drozd from The Flaming Lips with Julie Edwards & Lindsey Troy from Deap Vally. This special collaboration came together after a friendship formed between the bands. The seeds of Deap Lips were first planted years ago, when Troy and Edwards each fell in love with the music of the Flaming Lips. The Lips’ 1999 classic The Soft Bulletin is one of Edwards’ top ten of all time. “You can listen to their entire catalogue and the experience is so intact, full of experiments, philosophy, hooks, and the sublime,” says Edwards. “There are very few artists who can offer the same experience on a decades-spanning deep dive.”

Flash forward to 2016 as Deap Vally were touring with Wolfmother and Coyne turned up at a show in Raleigh (Edwards was on maternity leave at the time). Wayne, in town scouting the best edible giant gummy props, came for the show and Troy and Coyne were introduced after the set.

After that chance meeting Coyne started following Deap Vally on Instagram and would tag them in random posts of the Lips in the studio, much to their delight and amusement. Deap Vally wondered: is Wayne hinting at a collaboration? They had this theme on the brain as Julie and Lindsey had recently embarked on a series of yet to be released collaborations with the likes of KT Tunstall, Peaches, Jamie Hince (The Kills), Soko, Jenny Lee (Warpaint), Jennie Vee (EODM), Zach Dawes (Queens of the Stone Age, Mini Mansions), and Ayse Hassan (Savages).

Tracklisting: Home Thru Hell / One Thousand Sisters With Aluminum Foil Calculators / Shit Talkin / Hope Hell High / Motherfuckers Got To Go / Love is A Mind Control / Wandering Witches / The Pusher / Not A Natural Man / There Is Know Right There Is Know Wrong

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Guitar pop. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

On her debut album, ‘Coasting’, Honey Cutt lulls you in with emotional personal stories that are refreshingly self aware and satirical. Her warmth and charm resonates throughout the catchy guitar pop record. While Honey Cutt has been writing songs since she can remember, it wasn’t until she was 21 that she started playing out at small bars in Orlando, Florida. Between working full time to make rent and studying full time at a small community college, Honey Cutt fell behind. When her grades dropped, she lost financial aid for school. Honey Cutt says, “Something clicked in me after that. I moved into my friends bedroom and shifted focus fully to writing and recording.” The result was an EP she released under the moniker Baby!, but the name quickly proved unsearchable so re-branded herself as Honey Cutt and readied her debut album, ‘Coasting’.

Honey Cutt’s love of indie pop and dreamy, surf pop guitar tones run throughout her debut album. ‘Coasting’ plays off nostalgia but tackles modern issues. On “Vacation” and “Fashion School” she teasingly confronts the wealthy art school scene of the northeast and the self-proclaimed “nice guys” that hang around in that community. She tackles her desperation to break out with the tongue in cheek “Suburban Dream”, and when she croons on “All I Have”, she is devastating and believable. On title track “Coasting”, she is outlining her determination to keep it together mentally while being part of a family that is struggling to cope with poverty. Honey Cutt is clever and never overstays her welcome while ‘Coasting’ is delivered with a vulnerability that is both bracingly fun and energizing.

Tracklisting: Vacation / Hung Up On Me / Suburban Dream / Fashion School / Judas Waltz / Coasting / All I Have / Orange Blossom Trail / Gentleness / Love Me, Still

Label Review. 

2020 debut album. Latest signing by Dan Auerbach (Black Keys). Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Early James, an Alabama native and the latest signing to Dan Auerbach’s (Black Keys) Easy Eye Sound roster, releases his debut album, ‘Singing for My Supper’. The album spans hard-charging blues, wistful folk, and ages-old pop crooning, anchored by the singer’s voice that oscillates from gravel-gruff shout to a honey-smooth whisper. James’ inspirations run from Fiona Apple and Tom Waits to the Southern gothic poets, as heard in the album’s darker themes and in the wry humour with which he writes about them.

The album includes first single “Blue Pill Blues”. American Songwriter calls Early an “emerging alt-folk star” and say of the song: ‘‘“Blue Pill Blues” is a stellar first track and one that showcases the unique — and quick — transitions that James’ vocals can make. He deftly switches from a melodic whisper to a gravely, if not guttural, growl to drive home his all-too-relatable lyrics.” Auerbach, who decided he needed to produce the singer’s debut album after watching just two seconds of a video of James performing, says: “Some people are good singers, and some people are better than good singers; they just have this great form of expression.”

Early James’ debut features ten wide-ranging songs and full of world-weary wisdom. “Blue Pill Blues” details a period when James, who was being treated for depression, quit his anti-psychotic medication cold turkey. “High Horse” is a lament of the ways his adolescent excitement faded with the arrival of the vices of adulthood, while “Easter Eggs” finds the songwriter coming to terms with some of the darker sides of his heredity.

As soon as he was old enough, Early James moved from Troy to Birmingham, Alabama, where he’s become an integral part of the city’s thriving music scene over the past half-decade. His diverse experience in the Birmingham scene has helped mould him into a singular talent whose sound remains uncategorizable. Mother Jones says, “Early James is the type of guy that might have walked into Sun Studios in the 1950s to record an unhinged rockabilly single with Sam Phillips. James sounds like an obscure, ribald 1920’s crooner time-warped into a 1990s heavy-alternative band.”

Coming out of a local music scene as first-rate as Birmingham has also helped sculpt James into a songwriter who obsesses over the craft and texture of every word he’s ever sung. “Every line has to mean something to him, personally,” says Auerbach. “It’s not good enough to just write a good song, it needs to have a deeper meaning. He’s unlike any person I’ve ever worked with. He’s not writing a song to be universal; he’s writing a song for him.”

Tracklisting: Blue Pill Blues / Stockholm Syndrome / Way of the Dinosaur / Clockwork Town / Easter Eggs / It Doesn’t Matter Now / High Horse / All Down Hill / Gone as a Ghost / Dishes in the Dark

Label Review.

94 tracks 1927-1935. JSP.

Our Overview.

‘Mississippi Hillbillies’ is a spectacular collection of early country music recordings. In the ‘Golden Age’ of sound recording (early 1920s to mid 1930s) brilliant rural musicians were recorded for all to enjoy for the very first time. These 94 sides provide a snapshot of their inspiring musical styles and are performed here entirely by Mississippi musicians. Enjoy Old-time musicians and record collectors alike have done a formidable job of preserving and passing down the wonderful “hillbilly” tunes of the great Magnolia State. This set represents an important slice of Mississippi rural music. It gives you the chance to peer through a sonic time portal and absorb the music of artists born as far back as the 1880s.

Tracklisting:

Disc 1: Indian War Whoop - Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers / Old Red - Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers / Sales Tax Toddle - Nations Brothers / Lincoln County Blues - Nations Brothers / Charleston No. 1 - Narmour & Smith / Carroll County Blues Carter Brothers & Son - Narmour & Smith / Give Me a Chaw Tobacco - Narmour & Smith / Leather Breeches - Narmour & Smith / Leake County Blues - Leake County Revelers / Lonesome Blues - Leake County Revelers / Jake Leg Wobble - Ray Brothers / Friday Night Waltz - Ray Brothers / Charleston No. 2 - Narmour & Smith / Carroll County Blues No. 2 - Narmour & Smith / Sullivan’s Hollow - Freeny’s Barn Dance Band / Don’t You Remember the Time - Freeny’s Barn Dance Band / Charleston No. 3 - Narmour & Smith / Carroll County Blues No. 3 - Narmour & Smith / Mississippi Breakdown - Leake County Revelers / Bring Me a Bottle - Leake County Revelers / Indian War Whoop (Alt. Take) - Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers / Old Red (Alt. Take) - Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers

Disc 2: Liza Jane - Carter Brothers & Son / Saddle Up the Grey - Carter Brothers & Son / Magnolia One Step - Nations Brothers / Bankhead Blues - Nations Brothers / Tupelo Blues - Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers / White Mule - Floyd Ming & His Pep Steppers / The Leake County Two Step - Freeny’s Barn Dance Band / Croquet Habits - Freeny’s Barn Dance Band / Leather Breeches - Leake County Revelers / Johnson Gal - Leake County Revelers / Mississippi Echoes - Ray Brothers / Tuscaloosa Waltz - Ray Brothers / Mississippi Square Dance Pt. 1 - Freeny’s Barn Dance Band / Mississippi Square Dance Pt. 2 - Freeny_s Barn Dance Band / Cotton Eyed Joe - Carter Brothers & Son / Nancy Rowland - Carter Brothers & Son / Going to the Wedding to Get Some Cake - Newton County Hillbillies / The Little Princess Footsteps Mississippi ‘Possum Hunters - Newton County Hillbillies / The Last Shot Got Him - Newton County Hillbillies / Rufus Rastus - Newton County Hillbillies / Molly Put the Kettle On - Leake County Revelers / Negro Supper Time - Nations Brothers / Rockin’ Yodel - Leake County Revelers

Disc 3: Mississippi Breakdown - Mississippi ‘Possum Hunters / Possum on the Rail - Mississippi Possum Hunters / Travellin’ Blues - Freeny’s Harmonizers / Podunk Toddle - Freeny’s Harmonizers / Give the Fiddler a Dram - Carter Brothers & Son / Old Jaw Bone - Carter Brothers & Son / Monkey in the Dog Cart - Leake County Revelers / The Old Hat Gene Clardy & Stan Clement - Leake County Revelers / Moonlight Clog - Leake County Revelers / Black Mustache - Leake County Revelers / Jenny on the Railroad - Carter Brothers & Son / Miss Brown - Carter Brothers & Son / Ray Brothers - Choctaw County Rag / Ray Brothers - Honeysuckle Waltz / Northeast Texas - Milner & Curtis with the Magnolia Ramblers / Evening Shade Waltz - Milner & Curtis with the Magnolia Ramblers / Dry Town Blues - Leake County Revelers / Good Fellow - Leake County Revelers / Got the Jake Leg Too - Ray Brothers / The Folks Back Home - Ray Brothers / Saturday Night Breakdown - Leake County Revelers / Uncle Ned - Leake County Revelers / Give Me a Bottle of I Don’t Care What - Newton County Hillbillies / Nine O’Clock Breakdown - Newton County Hillbillies / Georgia Camp Meeting - Leake County Revelers

Disc 4: Sweet Milk and Peaches - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Mississippi Waves Waltz - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Mississippi Breakdown - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Texas Breakdown - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Captain George, Has Your Money Come - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / The Sunny Waltz - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Avalon Blues - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Winona Echoes - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Heel and Toe - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Little Star - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Gallop to Georgia - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Kiss Me Waltz - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Texas Shuffle - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / Dry Gin Rag - Narmour & Smith (Okeh) / The New Charleston - No. 1 - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / The New Carroll County Blues - No. 1 - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / The New Charleston - No. 2 - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / The New Carroll County Blues - No. - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / The New Charleston - No. 3 - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / The New Carroll County Blues - No. - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / Sweet Milk and Peaches - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / Avalon Blues - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / Winona Echoes - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird) / Rose Walt - Narmour & Smith (Bluebird)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Glasgow’s hitmakers Deacon Blue release their new album ‘City Of Love’. They have enjoyed major worldwide success since their formation in 1985 and have since kept on that path of greatness. Their first album ‘Raintown’ was released in 1987 to massive critical acclaim and went on to achieve over a million sales. The album was quickly followed up with their number one, double platinum album ‘When The World Knows Your Name’. Since then, the band has sold over 7 million albums worldwide and their last three albums returned the band to the Top 20 of the UK album charts.

The cornerstone of the new album revolves around the singular belief that hope can prevail even in the darkest corners of life. Together they form a beautiful composition of the different silhouettes of life and are sure to be a hit amongst fans to sing along and indulge in. From the first song “City Of Love” right through to the closer “On Love”, the new album is filled with breathtaking compositions from Ricky Ross and Gregor Philip, among others. The smashing title track “City Of Love” includes an array of melodic guitar riffs and beautiful keys that perfectly fit into the intended message of love and serve as an anthem for hope.

Tracklisting: City Of Love / Hit Me Where It Hurts / Weight Of The World / Take Me / In Our Room / Intervals / Keeping My Faith Alive / A Walk In The Woods / Come On In / Wonderful / On Love.

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American singer songwriter Stephen Malkumus is releasing his third solo album (without the Jicks or Pavement) entitled ‘Traditional Techniques’ which is new phase folk music for new phase folks, with Stephen Malkmus as attuned as ever to the rhythms of the ever-evolving lingual slipstream. It’s packed with handmade arrangements, modern folklore and 10 songs written and performed in his singular voice. An adventurous new album in an instantly familiar mode, Traditional Techniques creates a serendipitous trilogy with the loose fuzz of the Jicks’ ‘Sparkle Hard’ (2018) and the solo bedroom experiments of ‘Groove Denied’ (2019). Taken together, these three very different full-lengths in three years highlight an ever-curious songwriter committed to finding untouched territory.

The versatile Malkmus is most renowned for the work he has done with his highly influential and critically acclaimed band, Pavement, but he has also participated in other side-projects that are notable. He was a former member in David Berman’s band Silver Jews, he has played in a band with Sonic Youth members Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, and most recently he has been performing his solo material with his band the Jicks. But his strengths lies in his ability to switch and evolve his music palette from indie, blazing guitar rock, 70s prog and psychedelia and now to his unique take on folk sound is encapsulated in ‘Traditional Techniques’.

Malkmus took on Traditional Techniques as a kind of self-dare. Conceived while recording Sparkle Hard at Portland’s Halfling Studio, Malkmus had observed the variety of acoustic instruments available for use. The idea escalated within a matter of weeks into a full set of songs, and shortly thereafter into a realized and fully committed album. When he returned to Halfling, Malkmus drew from a whole new musical palette--including a variety of Afghani instruments - to support an ache both quizzical and contemporary. The resulting Traditional Techniques is expansive and thrilling. Alongside gorgeous folk music, there are also occasional bursts of flute-laced swagger, straight-up commune rock (“Xian Man”), and mind-bending fuzz.

Centred around the songwriter’s 12-string acoustic guitar and informed by a half-century of folk-rock reference points, ‘Traditional Techniques’ is the product of Malkmus and Halflingengineer/arranger-in-residence Chris Funk (The Decemberists). Additionally, Matt Sweeney (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Chavez) plays guitar throughout, creating gorgeous folk music, with the occasional bursts of flute-laced swagger and straight-up commune rock.CD in printed inner wallet and 8-panel poster booklet.LP with 2-page insert and black poly-lined inner sleeve.

Tracklisting: ACC Kirtan / Xian Man / The Greatest Own In / Legal History / Cash Up / Shadowbanned / What Kind Of Person / Flowin’ Robes / Brainwashed / Signal Western / Amberjack

Label Review. 

2020 album. Rock. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Disq have assembled a razor-sharp, teetering-on-the-edge-of-chaos melange of sounds, experiences, memories, and influences. ‘Collector’ ought to be taken literally—it is a place to explore and catalogue the Madison, Wisconsin band’s relationships to themselves, their pasts, and the world beyond the American Midwest as they careen from their teens into their 20s. This turbulence is backdropped by gnarled power pop, anxious post-punk, warm psych-folk, and hectic, formless, tongue-in-cheek indie rock.

‘Collector’, like the band itself, is defined and tightly-contoured by the ties between the five members. Raina Bock (bass/vocals) and Isaac deBroux-Slone (guitar/vocals) have known each other from infancy, growing up and into music together. Through gigging around Madison, they met and befriended Shannon Connor (guitar/keys/vocals), Logan Severson (guitar/vocals), and Brendan Manley (drums)—three equally dedicated and adventurous musicians committed to coaxing genre boundaries.

Produced by Rob Schnapf, ‘Collector’ is a set of songs largely pulled from each of the five members’ demo piles over the years. They’re organic representations of each moment in time, gathered together to tell a mixtape-story of growing up in 21st century America. The songs are marked by urgency, introspection, tongue-in-cheek nihilism, and a shrewd understanding of pop and rock structures and their corollaries—as well as a keen desire to dialogue with and upset them.

Tracklisting: Daily Routine / Konichiwa Internet / I’m Really Trying / D19 / Loneliness / Fun Song 4 / Gentle / Trash / I Wanna Die / Drum In

Label Review. 

2020 album. Country record from R&B Legend. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Sorry You Couldn’t Make It’ is the long awaited “country album” from the legendary Swamp Dogg. Recorded in Nashville, featuring John Prine, Justin Vernon, Jenny Lewis, and others. Jerry Williams’ aka Swamp Dogg first love was country music, listening to it as a Navy family kid growing up in Portsmouth, Virginia. “My granddaddy, he just bought country records out the asshole,” Swamp remembers. “Every Friday when he came home from the Navy yard he’d stop off and get his records. His first time performing on stage, in fact, was a country song at a talent show when he was six years old: “I did Red Foley’s version of ‘Peace in the Valley.’”

While the 77 year-old Williams’ most enduring persona is the psychedelic soul superhero Swamp Dogg a musical vigilante upholding truths both personal and political since 1970’s immortal album, ‘Total Destruction To Your Mind’ he will tell anybody who will listen that he’s considered himself country this entire time. “If you notice I use a lot of horns,” Swamp says. “But actually, if you listen to my records before I start stacking shit on it, I’m country. I sound country.”

Swamp began his professional singing career as Little Jerry Williams back in the ‘50s before working as an A&R man for Atlantic Records in the late ‘60s. His biggest hit is actually a country song: 1970’s “Don’t Take Her (She’s All I Got)”, written with his best friend Gary U.S. Bonds. Following 2018’s critically acclaimed, Ryan Olson-produced ‘Love, Loss, And Auto-Tune’, ‘Sorry You Couldn’t Make It’ allows Swamp to finally dive into the sound he grew up playing. With the support of Pioneer Works Press, they recorded the album at Nashville’s Sound Emporium with Olson as producer once again, and backed by a crack studio band led by Derick Lee, a keyboard virtuoso who worked as the musical director of BET’s (Black Entertainment Television) Bobby Jones Gospel Show for nearly four decades. Nashville guitar firebrand Jim Oblon combusts his way through lead duties, while frequent collaborator Moogstar and special guests Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), John Prine, Jenny Lewis, Channy Leaneagh and Chris Beirden of Poliça, and Sam Amidon join the action throughout. A band of 14 players, including Vernon, Lee, Beirden, and Moogstar, among others, provides the background for Swamp’s devastating new take on “Don’t Take Her (She’s All I Got).”

Lead single “Sleeping Without You Is A Dragg” is one of Swamp’s most heartfelt songs to date and features Vernon on piano as well as backing vocals by Lewis and Leaneagh. He duets with country-folk legend Prine on two songs. Originally written and demoed in his forties, “Please Let Me Go Round Again” is a plea for one more chance at life, sung with acute emotional connection. “I was looking for a new way for Swamp Dogg to go,” he explains. “Apart from me singing and writing most of the songs, I didn’t participate—in other words, I told ‘em, ‘Don’t ask me, I wanna see what happens without my influence.’ It was hard for me to do, ego-wise.” ‘Sorry You Couldn’t Make It’ sees Swamp come full circle, and closes what has felt to him like unfinished business. “They didn’t have any blacks in country until Charlie Pride came along,” he says. “But in time, all things change and that’s what has happened to country music.”

Tracklisting: Sleeping Without You Is a Dragg / Good, Better, Best / Don’t Take Her (She’s All I Got) / Family Pain / I Lay Awake / Memories (feat. John Prine) / I’d Rather Be Your Used To Be / Billy / A Good Song / Please Let Me Go Round Again (feat. John Prine).

Label Review. 

2020 album with 2 bonus tracks. Nuclear Blast. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Swiftly reaching album number three are the Swiss quintet Burning Witches, an all-female band feverishly committed to the true, real, galloping thunder of traditional heavy metal. They are an inseparable unit, an alliance whose all-weekly Thursday rehearsal is their innermost sanctum. Their holiest rite that they simply never miss, with their rehearsal space being their cathedral.

“I simply wanted to have a band of close friends. Of people you can tell absolutely anything and you just want to spend as much time with as possible”, guitarist and founding member Romana Kalkuhl states. It wasn’t long before people began to notice this remarkable Swiss force: Their eponymous demo quickly gained accolades such as “Demo of the month” in major metal magazines like Metal Hammer and Rock Hard, and not long after their self-released debut they came to the attention of Nuclear Blast where they signed, without hesitation, and in 2018 released “Hexenhammer”, one of the strongest heavy metal albums of the 21st century.

Still, resting on their laurels never was their thing, really. “We always have the urge to go on. To be on the move. We don’t just want to look back and feed upon what we already achieved. We’re hungry for more, for every new day. We want to find out how far we can take it.” And after one listen to ‘Dance with the Devil’ we can safely assume: Far. Very, very far. Their third record is embodies the momentum of its predecessor and their countless live shows, propelling their sound onto a whole new level. The opening force of “Lucid Nightmare” is accelerates at breakneck speed, riff bombardment and double-bass fire; “Dance with the Devil” is a massively steel-plated stomper with bewitching melodies; the first single “Wings of Steel” sounds as massive as its name; “Black Magic” could have been written by Jefferson Airplane and the viciously thundering “Sea of Lies” simply is one of the best heavy metal songs 2020 will have to offer.

Track Listing: The Incantation / Lucid Nightmare / Dance With The Devil / Wings Of Steel / Six Feet Underground / Black Magic / Sea Of Lies / The Sisters Of Fate / Necronomicon / The Final Flight / Threefold Return / Battle Hymn (feat Ross The Boss & Michael Lepond) / Mansion In Darkness / Black Magic (Acoustic).

Label Review. 

2020 album. Alt folk. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The second album from Californian duo The Saxophones, following 2018’s ‘Songs of the Saxophones’. “It’s so easy to stay where we are; it’s a miracle anything ever changes”. Words you might not expect from somebody who has recently welcomed not just a second album but a second child into their world. Then again, change and movement come quite naturally to The Saxophones: this is a band who wrote their first album on board a boat, and who have called their second album ‘Eternity Bay’, fusing physical place with a spiritual sense of time.

The Saxophones’ band name, however, started out as a half-joke for the song-writing project of Alexi Erenkov, then a disillusioned jazz student who’d recently ditched the instrument. Jazz didn’t offer the room for self-expression that he sought. To song-writing he turned, its straightforward, limber form a liberation from the complex musical arrangements of his university studies. The solo project became a band when Alexi’s wife Alison joined the ranks on percussion. Their debut album, ‘Songs of the Saxophones’, pitched up just before the birth of their first son in 2018.

Written aboard the boat they lived on together, amid the incessant rain of a northern Californian winter, the record established The Saxophones’ style. Drawing from fifties exotica, west coast jazz, and seventies Italian lyricism, drama seeps into their deceptively simple sound, transforming dreamy surf pop into thoughtfully textured pieces, with a spaciousness at their core. But where ‘Songs of the Saxophones’ interrogates the nooks of interpersonal relationships, the gaze of ‘Eternity Bay’ is wider, as hinted by the album’s title. “My music has always grappled with mortality and the meaning of existence”, says Alexi, “but the birth of our first son and the imminent arrival of our second has greatly heightened my sensitivity to these themes.”

Tracklisting: Lamplighter / New Taboo / Forgot My Mantra / Take My Fantasy / Anymore / Zendo / Flower Spirit / Living In Myth / You Fool / Eternity Bay

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD and 2CD. 

Our Overview. 

The originators of Rap Metal, Body Count are back with their latest album ‘Carnivore’ lead by the legendary rapper Ice-T. This is the 30th anniversary since the band’s formation and they continue to issue uncompromising and yet critically acclaimed albums in pairing Ice-T’s angry and socio-critical lyrics with thick guitar riffs and nods to metal and hardcore greats like Slayer, Metallica, Pantera, Suicidal Tendencies and Rage Against The Machine.

Bangers like “Thee Critical Beatdown”, “The Hate Is Real” and the title track will please old school Body Count fans, while “Colors” is a killer metal version of Ice-T’s 1988 hit single of the same name. With Motörhead’s classic “Ace Of Spades” Body Count are again paying tribute to one of their major musical influences. “When I’m Gone” shows a new side of Body Count and features guest vocals by Amy Lee (Evanescence). Other guest musicians include Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer), Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed) and Riley Gale (Power Trip).

This isn’t your parents’ Ice-T, the mild-mannered star of television’s Law And Order: Special Victims Unit, who takes his charm to affable new heights while selling lemonade alongside precocious kids in a current Geico commercial. No, this is Body Count, the gangster-metal collective that made music fearsome to mainstream America, their renegade track “Cop Killer” sending politicians, parents and law enforcement officials into a proverbial tailspin when it was released unto the world a quarter-century ago. That’s not to say Ice-T and Body Count have been silent over the past 25 years, but as Ice is quick to point out, you can’t start a movement if people aren’t willing to move. “Music happens in climates,” the Body Count frontman says. “Groups like Rage Against The Machine and Korn were born when the world was in turmoil, then music went into this delusional period where hip-hop became about nothing more than poppin’ bottles. Now we have impending doom again, racism is at an all-time high and it’s our season again. This is the optimal time for a Body Count record.”

Tracklisting: Carnivore / Point the Finger / Bum-Rush / Ace of Spades / Another Level / Colors (2020) / No Remorse / When I’m Gone / Thee Critical Beatdown / The Hate Is Real

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview.

Jonathan Wilson, the American critically-acclaimed artist, multi-instrumentalist and producer (Father John Misty, Laura Marling, Dawes) spent most of 2017-18 on Roger Waters’ epic US+THEM tour as musical director, guitarist and vocalist, singing the David Gilmour leads. Following the tour, Wilson chose to temporarily leave his Los Angeles-based home and studio and head to Nashville to work with a revered group of musicians and co-producer Pat Sansone of Wilco, to create his new album ‘Dixie Blur’, his most personal, accessible and fully-realised work to date.

The North Carolina native, singer-songwriter and producer’s mellow style echos the Laurel Canyon sound of the late 60s. 15 years ago he moved to LA where he became an integral part of the music community as a respected artist and producer. It was there he recorded and played most of the instruments on his celebrated albums Gentle Spirit (2011), Fanfare (2013) and Rare Birds (2018), building each project over time, piece by piece.

Wilson chose a completely different path for Dixie Blur in both writing and recording. The songs hark back to his Southern roots, both musically and personally. The multi-talented artist went to Nashville to record at Cowboy Jack Clement’s legendary Sound Emporium Studio and worked with a core group of exceptional players that included Mark O’Connor (fiddle), Kenny Vaughan (guitar) Dennis Crouch (bass), Russ Pahl (pedal steel) and Jim Hoke (harmonica, woodwinds), Jon Radford (drums), and Drew Erickson (keyboards). Wilson and company recorded everything together live with very few overdubs, a full 360 from his past methods. Jonathan then mixed the record at Jackson Browne’s Groovemasters Studio. The result is a stunning album filled with warm, thoughtful, melody-rich songs that have an immediate impact upon first hearing and continue to grow with further listening.

Jonathan Wilson masterfully strikes a balance as he reaches back to the musical foundation of his upbringing while simultaneously moving forward by infusing the music with modern textures and aesthetic soundscapes, thus producing in the aptly titled, ‘Dixie Blur’.

Tracklisting: Just For Love / 69 Corvette / New Home / So Alive / Heaven Making Love / O' Girl / Pirate / Enemies / Fun For The Masses / Platform / Riding The Blinds / El Camino Real / Golden Apples / Korean Tea

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

In the latest of a series of albums that have mirrored the exceptional story of the band itself, British alt-pop group Cornershop return with their ninth album ‘England Is A Garden’ on Ample Play Records. It is an album that strides in an upbeat fashion, to deliver a full listening experience, bringing songs of experience, empire, protest and humour, steeped in the way only band leader Tjinder Singh would come with.

First single off the album “No Rock: Save In Roll”, that is to say that there is not one without the other, that rock, for all its focus on death is the saviour of life, offer the band. The anvil here is music itself, and a celebration of Tjinder’s birth place - The Black Country, which also gave birth to heavy metal that has gone on to influence the world to dirty rock, whether the streets are lined with pylons or palm trees, the Black Country has allowed us to see things differently. The sound here goes back to Englands’ Midlands with two thumbs up to the feeling of hearing heavy metal from the back of a stage, as we all ride on and await the female backing vocals of the song to come in.

“Many people have asked what does ‘England Is A Garden’ mean, what does it stand for?” they say on their website. “Well, as usual its thought provoker, and whilst you provoke thought it grows on you, whether you like it or not. Or is it that there are many types of garden, and the thought is about which – green and tendered or weed and London brick ridden? Maybe it is a garden with a door that leads you to other albums, for as usual the album is peppered with lines and words that have been used before?”

Tracklisting: St Marie Under The Canon / Slingshot / No Rock: Save In Roll / Everywhere That Wog Army Roam / King Kongs / Highly Amplified / England Is A Garden / The Cash Money / Morning Ben / I’m A Wooden Soldier / One Uncareful Lady Owner / The Holy Name

Label Review. 

Previously unreleased live recordings from his early 1977 tour. Official. Also available 2CD.

Our Overview.

In the years that have passed since Rory Gallagher’s death, aged 47 on June 14 1995, his true stature has become ever more clear. This soft spoken Irishman, characterised by his flowing locks and trademark working man stage clothes, was far from ordinary. Gallagher was a self taught virtuoso who forged a musical revolution in his native land, shunned the traps of fame and stardom yet became a universally acclaimed international folk hero.

Following on from the highly successful ‘BLUES’ album, Chess/UMC are proud to be releasing ‘Check Shirt Wizard- Live In ‘77’. Rory Gallagher’s most successful albums are his live ones, such as “Live! In Europe” and “Irish Tour ’74”. He was an artist that came alive when onstage and this album covers a previously undocumented live period. This 20-song, previously unreleased, set is culled from four shows (London, Brighton, Sheffield and Newcastle) during an early 1977 tour across the UK in support of Rory’s then latest album 'Calling Card'. Featuring fantastic live versions of tracks from that album as well as songs from the 1975 'Against The Grain' album and other live favourites.

This new album has been mixed from the original multi track tapes from the Rory archive, which were recorded by the Rolling Stones and Jethro Tull’s mobile studios and mastered at Abbey Road.

The cover painting is by a young Irish graffiti artist Vincent Zara who has stencilled Rory’s image across his home country.

His influence has and will continue to be immense. His legacy lives on.

• Johnny Marr “The man who changed my musical life was Rory Gallagher, I picked up a guitar because of him.”

• Slash “Rory didn’t sound like anybody else…He had a very individual, independent kind of tone and approach and everything. He’s always been a big hero to me.”

• Brian May “He was just a magician, he’s one of the very few people of that time who could make his guitar do anything it seemed. It just seemed to be magic. I remember looking at that battered Stratocaster and thinking “how does that come out of there?”

• Ritchie Blackmore “Rory was probably the most natural player I’ve ever seen. In all the gigs we did together I don’t think I ever heard him play the same thing twice… He was the ultimate performer.”

• Ed Sheeran “’A Million Miles Away’ was the first song I learned on guitar. The story goes that when Jimi Hendrix was asked how it felt to be the greatest guitarist in the world, he answered, “I don’t know. Go ask Rory Gallagher.”

• Eric Clapton “The man who got me back into the blues.”

• Jimmy Page “I really liked Rory, he was fine guitarist and singer and lovely man”

• Peter Frampton “When I was with Humble Pie and
we were all just beginning to feel like we were getting it together, Rory was the one 
to measure yourself against. To be able 
to play like that with such intensity was awesome and really the only other guitarist that had that ability was Hendrix.
I could never get a sound like that from 
my Strat no matter how hard I tried. 
He was a real credit to music and pushed it to another level altogether.”

• Alex Lifeson “It is truly remarkable how many guitarists over the years have cited Rory Gallagher as an influence.  I was introduced to his playing during the Taste years but it was during one of Rush’s early tours opening for Rory in the fall of 1974 that left the greatest impression.  He oozed passion in his playing and I envied his ability to transcend the moment.  I learned a lot from him as a guitarist but it was his character that touched me most.”

• Ace Frehley (Kiss) “Rory Gallagher he was a great player. I’ve seen him perform several times he just used to use a little Fender amp and that beat-up old Strat, but boy, he could make that guitar talk. He was another guitar player who never got the credit he deserved, it’s incredible.” • Joe Bonamassa “As soon as I heard Cradle Rock, I was hooked. I thought, ‘This is what I want to be when I grow up.’”

• Bill Wyman “There’s very few true blues people. Rory stood out because he did it all the way through his life, that’s what he did. Who else is there? I can’t think of anyone that stands out as a real true honest follower of the blues and singer of the blues as Rory was.”

• Larry Coryell “There’s blues players, you know some guys who play some blues licks but was like improvising with that scale. He was improvising on the quarter tones, improvising on the feedback, improvising on the vibrato. If you close your eyes and take out the rhythm section and hear him playing it’s right up there with avant grade jazz music. I see a strong similarity between the approach to improvising over the blues between Rory and Jimi Hendrix. They were both virtuosos who were able to manipulate even the minutest aspect of the blues and do things that had never been played before.”

• Bob Geldof “It’s not too much to say that what like Hendrix did for the electric blues, Rory did in an Irish context. You know Hendrix was the great originator, he sought of did field hollers for the pace age you know. But Rory absolutely injected some Irish thing into it.” •

Tracklisting:

SIDE B: Calling Card (Live At The Hammersmith Odeon, 18th January 1977) / Secret Agent (Live From Sheffield City Hall, 17th February 1977) / Tattoo’d Lady (Live From The Brighton Dome, 21st January 1977)

SIDE C: A Million Miles Away (Live At The Hammersmith Odeon, 18th January 1977) / I Take What I Want (Live From Sheffield City Hall, 17th February 1977) / Walk On Hot Coals (Live At The Hammersmith Odeon, 18th January 1977)

SIDE D: Out On The Western Plain (Live From Sheffield City Hall, 17th February 1977) / Barley & Grape Rag (Live From Sheffield City Hall, 17th February 1977) / Pistol Slapper Blues (Live From Sheffield City Hall, 17th February 1977) / Too Much Alcohol (Live At The Hammersmith Odeon, 18th January 1977) / Going To My Hometown (Live At The Hammersmith Odeon, 18th January 1977)

SIDE E: Edged In Blue (Live At Newcastle City Hall, 18th February 1977) / Jack-Knife Beat (Live At The Hammersmith Odeon, 18th January 1977) / Souped-Up Ford (Live From The Brighton Dome, 21st January 1977)

SIDE F: Bullfrog Blues (Live From The Brighton Dome, 21st January 1977) / Used To Be (Live At Newcastle City Hall, 18th February 1977) / Country Mile (Live At Newcastle City Hall, 18th February 1977)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

‘Manchester Calling’ boasts all the hallmarks of Paul Heaton’s beautifully bittersweet songwriting – effortlessly catchy melodies allied with an everyman’s biting exasperation at the modern world alongside some truly heartfelt love songs alongside Jacqui Abbott’s warm voice.

Produced by long time collaborator John Williams who produced both Housemartins albums and the previous three Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott albums the record was recorded at Blueprint Studios in Salford, Manchester. As is Paul Heaton’s habit the lyrics were written in various locations in North Holland and Belgium while the music was composed in a hotel in Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria and in Limburg An Der Lahn in Germany.

Says Paul: “I’ve lived in Manchester for 17 years now and recording an album here for the first time, was looking forward to cycling to work. That was never possible as Manchester is now being turned into a business centre for the rich, which I can’t stand. If there’s a theme to the record, it’s anti growth, anti greed, against the continuous tearing down of old buildings and sticking up soulless offices, and the disappearance of local accents on TV, along with the creeping spread of Americanese. So, some curmudgeonly moans, plus some hopefully uplifting love songs. Originally it was set up to be a double LP like ‘London Calling’ but alas the double album has also become a victim of time.”

Says Jacqui: “I’m so pleased and excited about the new album, it was wonderful to work on new songs and even more so that we did double what we have done for the last few records. It’ll be a joy to see others react to something we took such pleasure out of making.”

Tracklisting: The Only Exercise I Get Is You / If You Could See Your Faults / Somebody’s Superhero / Big News In A Little World / You And Me (Were Meant To Be Together) / The Outskirts Of The Dancefloor / So Happy / A Good Day Is Hard To Find / Fat Of The Land / All Of My Friends / The Prison / House Party 2 / He’s Got What I Had / New York Ivy / MCR Calling / My Legal High

Label Review. 

2020 debut album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Honey Harper - aka William Fussell - on his new album ‘Starmaker’ seeks to revitalise country music for people who don’t like country music, described as “Weightless in sound and heavy in feeling… owes as much to Spiritualized as it does to Merle Haggard” - Pitchfork. The name ‘Starmaker’ is inspired by the Joni Mitchell classic ‘Free Man in Paris’, which is an ode to the stresses of having to play the game of the music industry. Cowritten with his wife, Alana Pagnutti, the album is not a commentary on Mitchell’s words but it explores similar ideas about fame, fortune and failure. “I'm the starmaker,” he offers. “These songs are primarily about my journey to create them. The album as a whole, is about my relationship with my wife and loved ones in the search of this success and fame.”

The majority of songs on ‘Starmaker’ embrace contradictions and dichotomies in both subject matter and style. Love and sadness, melancholia and happiness, success and failure, come in and out of focus. ‘Something Relative’ is an elegantly simple ballad about a friend of Harper’s that died of an overdose. The sparse picked guitar contrasts the flowing, melodic strings as Harper hopefully sings about his lost friend. ‘Tomorrow Never Comes’, a Big Star meets The Eagles turned Krautrock instant classic, speaks to the early days of Harper and his wife’s long-distance relationship; the happiness of finding someone you love tarnished by the eventuality of having to say goodbye. In Dido Building Carthage, a tragic story of love and suicide is contrasted with the hope of building a new empire. The juxtaposition is mirrored in the surface of Tuner’s painting where classically-painted figures appear and simultaneously fade into a looser, more abstract handling of the landscape.

Born William Fussell in 1989 in Adel, Georgia (a small town near the Okefenokee Swamp) Harper’s family quickly relocated to Hollywood, Florida where he immersed himself in the arts more readily available in southern Florida: disco and country music. His father was an Elvis impersonator who introduced him to Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams and his mother watched ‘Grease’ with him every month introducing him to his lifelong style icon, Olivia Newton John. At the age of 10, Harper’s family returned to Georgia, this time to the suburbs of Atlanta, where he would spend his teenage years performing in both church choirs and punk bands. On the day of his eighteenth birthday, Harper left home, beginning his journey to become the Starmaker celebrated in his album’s title.

“‘Starmaker’ has classic written all over it” - Long Live Viny

l“Magical… Honey Harper drags country into the 21st century” – The Line of Best Fit

“A glimpse into another gorgeous dimension” - Clash

“Long story short: It’s fantastic.” - Stereogum

“A gorgeous kind of spaced-out country that’s anchored by the musician’s clean, androgynous voice. It seems right at home in a setting that feels hallucinatory by nature.” - FADER

“Honey Harper is on a country music mission […] this music transcends any sort of inherent Americanness associated with the genre.” - Noisey

Tracklisting: Green Shadows / In Light Of Us / The Day it Rained / Forever / Something Relative / Tired Tower / Suzuki Dreams / Vaguely Satisfied / Someone Else’s Dream / Tomorrow Never Comes / Strawberry Lite / Starmaker

Label Review. 

2020 album. Experimental pop. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The Welsh band Islet return with the release of their long-awaited new album. A Powys trio whose free-spirited invention and exuberant intensity flows through experimental pop: hypnotic, exhilarating and defiantly unique. ‘Eyelet’ was recorded at home tucked away in the hills of rural Mid Wales. It took form the months following the birth of band members Emma and Mark Daman Thomas’ second child and the death of fellow band member Alex Williams’ mother. Alex came to live with Emma and Mark, and the band enlisted Rob Jones (Pictish Trail, Charles Watson) to produce.

“Caterpillar” described by Emma as “a song for my unborn child”. It’s followed by syncopated lullaby “Good Grief” with its haunting keyboard hook and icy percussion thawed by Emma’s yearning vocals about the quiet strength of generations of women. With nods towards Arthur Russell and Jenny Hval, “Geese” is a mini symphony of driven electronica inspired by Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ novel People Of The Black Mountains. Young Fathers inflected rhythm can be heard on “Radel 10” that accompanies the multi-tracked variations of Emma and defiant lyrics that were inspired in part by The Good Immigrant - the landmark anthology of essays on race and immigration by BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) writers.

Tracklisting: Caterpillar / Good Grief / Treasure / Geese / Sgwylfa Rock / Radel 10 / Clouds / Florist / Moon / No Host / Gyratory Circus.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Fire! is a Nordic experimental supergroup formed in 2009 by the core trio of Mats Gustafsson (sax), Johan Berthling (bass guitar) and Andreas Werlin (drums) who joined together to develop a fresh approach to improvised music drawing on influences from free jazz, psychedelic rock, and noise. In 2013, the group went massive — cherry-picking 28 members from the Scandinavian jazz, improvisation, and avant-garde rock music scene to supplement the core band’s sound for a concert at Stockholm’s legendary Fylkingen venue which resulted in the first Fire! Orchestra record ‘Exit!’.

‘Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra’ was written by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki in 1971. This new, extended reading by Mats Gustafsson and Fire! Orchestra was commissioned by the Sacrum Profanum festival in Krakow, Poland in 2018. The idea was to place this classic piece in a contemporary setting, with a new approach and a new body of sound. However, the original score was used as a platform for the new reading, connecting history with the present. A score in this context is most often of a graphic nature to present reference points, visualized on the sleeve by Kim Hiorthoy’s cut-up adaption of Mats Gustafsson’s score. It’s also worth noticing that the instrumentation is more or less identical to that of 1971, the main difference being a tuba replacing one of the trombones. Finally, this new reading clocks in at 40 minutes, and is thus considerably longer than the 1971 version.

Tracklisting: Actions.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Thomas Oliver new album ‘Brightest Light’ is a combination of Soul, Roots, Folk and Pop, but it certainly carries some of the energy and diversity of Berlin. He says “I had set out to write a new record in New Zealand where I lived, but I had the distinct sense that I needed to change my surroundings in order to write music that was inspired in a different way. So I moved to Berlin, Germany, and set up a studio soon after completing a 19-date European tour. Berlin is unconventional, colourful, and sometimes challenging, which is what made it the perfect place to base myself while I wrote this music. I started writing songs as soon as I touched down; I couldn’t help it.”

Thomas Oliver represents the openness of the mind and the heart, both as a musician and as a human. He touches people’s lives in all corners of the globe as he draws a connection between various forms of music that could otherwise be considered polar opposites. His warm demeanor and story-telling on stage are as much a part of his musical identity as his unmistakable falsetto-singing range, his award-winning songwriting (he was awarded the APRA Silver Scroll (Song Of The Year) - award in New Zealand in 2016), his world-renowned touch on the lap-slide guitar, or his celebrated vocal contributions to the genre of Drum & Bass for which he was recently a finalist for the Best Vocalist Award at the Drum & Bass Arena Awards.

Label Review. 

2020 covers album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Pete Astor, the indie legend responsible for bands The Loft, The Weather Prophets, The Wisdom of Harry and Ellis Island Sound. returns with an album of other people’s songs. It was recorded with producer Ian Button and features Dave Tattersall (Wave Pictures) playing guitar and Andy Lewis (Spearmint, Blow Up) on bass and synth, with Pam Berry (Black Tambourine, Withered Hand), Sean Read (Edwyn Collins, Pretenders, and a mass of brilliant others) and Nina Walsh (Woodleigh Research Facility, Fireflies) joining on vocals.

From the pure pop ache of Gen X’s “Dancing with Myself” to the stoic heartbreak of Cat Power’s “Manhattan”, via the shadowy rider in Elvis Presley’s “Black Star”, to the teenage ’50s gangster of Richard Thompson’s “Vincent Black Lightning”, ‘You Made Me’ marks some of the way stations of a life in music, songs to make sense of time passing and what that passing time can mean. Pete Astor shares his thoughts on ‘You Made Me’: “Like everybody, my life has been sound-tracked by the songs I listen to and sing along with. And a bit like a collection of photographs, I’ve lost some while some never even got taken. Nonetheless, some really good ones did get through.”

Tracklisting: Dancing with Myself (Gen X) / Black Star (Elvis Presley) / Chained to an Idiot (Pete Astor) / Manhattan (Cat Power) / Nitcomb (Joe Strummer) / Vincent Black Lightning (Richard Thompson) / Solid Air (John Martyn) / Can’t Hardly Wait (Replacements) / Courage (Villagers) / Suffering Jukebox (Silver Jews) / One Man Guy (Loudon Wainwright III).

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Beat Poetry For Survivalists’ is the new collaboration between Peter Buck & Luke Haines. Peter Buck was the guitarist for R.E.M. Luke Haines was the guitarist for 1990s UK indie band the Auteurs. The press release says: “[R.E.M. were] ...the biggest band in the world. The Auteurs were not the biggest band in the world. They were pretty good though.”

Luke Haines also does paintings of Lou Reed. One day, Peter Buck bought one of Luke Haines’ Lou Reed paintings.They had never met before but decided that the fates had brought them together and they should write some songs together and make an album. ‘Beat Poetry For Survivalists’ is that album. With songs about legendary rocket scientist and occultist Jack Parsons, The Enfield Hauntings (of 1978), a post-apocalyptic radio station that only plays Donovan records, Bigfoot, and Pol Pot.

Buck’s last main project was his collaboration with Joesph Arthur as Arthurbuck in 2018. Peter says that the pair have a follow-up also lined up for release this year. Luke Haines meanwhile, although less well known than his new musical partner has a long discography starting with his 1990s outfit The Auteurs. Despite being critically lauded, they failed to garner more than a cult following in their native UK. He scored his only ‘hit’ in with the song “The Facts of Life” by his next group Black Box Recorder in 2000. Since 2001 Haines has released albums under his own name as well as publishing a few books and has a regular column in Record Collector magazine.

Tracklisting: Jack Parsons / Apocalypse Beach / Last Of The Legendary Bigfoot Hunters / Beat Poetry For The Survivalist / Witch Tariff / Andy Warhol Was Not Kind / French Man Glam Gang / Ugly Dude Blues / Bobby’s Wild Years / Rock ‘N’ Roll Ambulance

Label Review.

Re-released 2006 album.

Our Overview.

American musician and artist Houston Jr. - who calls himself ‘Black Cherokee’ - a raconteur and quick-witted wordsmith, has so much to say that when there is a groove, he doesn’t want to let it go but rather float around and experiment. Influenced by Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and the like, his strong voice and natural ability to use slogans give this album a cunning stance. Juxtaposed by the highly visible time stamp of mid-aughts DIY R&B production, ‘America’ sounds sometimes like worlds colliding, smooth improvisations, quick turnarounds and soul bearing truths.

Otis Houston Jr. can frequently be found making art, performance, poetry and social commentary at his long-held spot in New York City at the entrance to the FDR drive at 122 Street. Over the years, he has come to occupy and claim this marginalised stretch of the FDR as gallery, studio and public forum. Since 1997, following a period of incarceration and his mother’s death, Houston Jr. has set up shop weekly at this self-anointed soapbox under the Triborough Bridge, where he stages impromptu performances and displays an arrangement of signage, drawings and found object assemblages that critique racism, poverty and addiction and also celebrate health, education, happiness and freedom. As he says, “We not in the same boat, but we all in the water.”

The works of Houston Jr., are made primarily with discarded objects that he collects from the street and the dumpster at his job and creates in his East Harlem apartment of 30 years, or in the basement of the office building where he works in Midtown Manhattan.

Houston Jr. recorded the songs for ‘America’ in three locations around Harlem and the Bronx in 2006, the year the album was originally self-released on CD. Makeshift studios that no longer exist provide a telling context for his autobiographical storytelling. Pre-recorded beats made by studio owners were picked based on which suited his cadence-laden poetry best and often times on ‘America’ the songs repeat, with different lyrics, transforming themselves.

‘America’ opens with a song not written by Houston Jr. - the only song on the record penned by someone else. In ‘Soul Brother 27’, he explains “…It was given to me 30 years ago, 1975 by my cellmate… but has been such a part of me I wanted everyone to hear it”. He goes on to read this poem that sets the tone for his story laid out in 14 tracks. Songs about Incarceration for drug charges, his short stint as a boxer, getting shot, being in the hospital and his positive approach to life and desire for change in his community. In the song ‘The Children’ he spells it out: “We need to raise up a new generation. We need to use video, rap music, pop sounds and any and everything all around. We need to sing it, play it, sew it, picture it, draw it, wave it, and shout it everywhere.” This touching and unsuspecting underground classic finally gets the release it deserves.

Tracklisting: Soul Brother / The Children / Me / One More River To Cross / Who’s The Fool / This Real Man Black / Cherokee / My Books I Read / The Thang / Sugar Ray Get Out Of My Way / Thanking The Lord / I Like Where I Stay / AMERICA / My Name And My Word / Red-Yellow-Black-White

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The Orioles who hail from Halifax, UK are an indie band but in a way that reminds us that indie used to be something to aspire too. The trio: Sidonie B Hand-Halford (drums), Esmé Dee Hand-Halford (bass, vocals), Henry Carlyle Wade (guitar, vocals) are quite noughties: they do the girl-group-go-garage-rock thing that was de rigueur a few years back especially in Brooklyn, NY and there’s a chillwave glaze and surf pop shimmer over some of their tracks, but they’re also quintessentially indie reminiscent of the C86 scene.

Voyaging through cinematic samba, 70s disco, deep funk boogies, danceable grooves and even tripping on 90s acid house, ‘Disco Volador’ is set to propel The Orielles spinning into a higher zero-gravity orbit. Written and recorded in just 12 months, it captures the warp-speed momentum of their post-‘Silver Dollar Moment’ debut album success; an unforgettable summer touring, playing festivals like Green Man and bluedot and deepening their bond whilst witnessing the sets of their heroes Stereolab, Mogwai, and Four Tet.

‘Disco Volador’’s library catalogue vibes stem from a band lapping up and widening their pool of musical discovery whether nodding to Italian film score maestros Sandro Brugnolini and Piero Umiliani, or the Middle Eastern tones of Khruangbin and Altin Gün. “All the influences we had when writing this record were present when we recorded it, so we completely understood what we wanted this album to feel like and could bring that to fruition,” tells drummer Sid. “This is the sound of where we are at, right now.”

Returning to Stockport’s Eve studios where the band cooked together, went swimming, took walks and relaxed in the soundwaves of an occasional gong bath, Henry, Sid and Esme called a family reunion under the watchful whisker-twitching of studio cat, Adam (“He was probably a producer in a past life,” they say). With keysman Alex now adding texture through his classically trained know-how, they rejoined engineer Joel and producer Marta Salogni (Liars, Bj.rk, The Moonlandingz) - whose vast expertise of drones, delays and mad effects were so intrinsic to their ‘Disco Volador’ vision - sketched out by the band in Sharpie doodles on the studio wall.

Built from instrumentals around the concept of “boogie to space, space to boogie,” ‘Disco Volador’’s energy comes from the melodic fission of tension and release. Recurring motifs explore space, not only of earth’s celestial atmosphere but also what happens within the gaps and how sound manipulation has the power to carry, or displace, its listener. “We like throwing in wide curveballs by taking the music somewhere different then figuring our way back… like jumping off,” says Henry. “Jez from ACR taught us about pauses and that’s massive on this record; space can be the most beautiful part of a song.”

At times haunting and unsettling, ‘Disco Volador’’s film-like structure flows from fact to fiction. Its tales are culled from waking life as easily as they become a soundtrack for lucid dream sequences.Initial LP pressing on orange with brown blob coloured vinyl plus digital download code.

Tracklisting: Come Down On Jupiter / Rapid i / Memoirs Of Miso / Bobbi’s Second World / Whilst The Flowers Look / The Square Eyed Pack / 7th Dynamic Goo / A Material Mistake / Euro Borealis / Space Samba (Disco / Volador Theme)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Warrington and London combo Extradition Order launch their post punk/Motown album on the life of J Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb, with the aid of 5 associated indie labels. ‘American Prometheus’ is a co-release between the labels: Gare Du Nord, Blang, Jezus Factory, Helen Llewelyn Product 19 and I Blame The Parents.

“A Northern Soul album about the atomic bomb” is how the band have referred to it during its creation. After their astute post-indie dissection of the Kennedy dynasty on their previous album, the bands obsession with US politics and history turns to the life and career of J Robert Oppenheimer around the Manhattan Project and the development of the first A-bomb. The songs cover the science a little, but also Oppenheimer’s private and political life and legacy - the album concludes with the reminder that he was nominated for a Nobel Prize three times but never won it.

Musically the band have taken their often angular dramatic post-punk energy and concentrated it into concise indie beat music that has clear Motown influences, as well as some of the barely contained but danceable terror of bands like The Pop Group or more recently Black Country New Road. On top of that, the unisex lead vocals (Alastair Harper, Anoushka Kenley and Rosie Beard) can conjure up moments of sheer gothic rock and roll abandon - think The Rocky Horror Show meets the B-52s. The album is dedicated to Extradition Order founder member Nick Boardman who sadly passed away in 2018 but whose bass hooks and singing run through this record at its foundations.

Tracklisting: Daddy, Give Me Your Money / I Wanted More / Baby, What Have You Done For Me Lately? / A New Set Of Rules / America First / I’ve Got A Gang, I’ve Got A Club / Manhattan / Fat Boy, Thin Man / Pills And The Party / Do I Love You? / No Nobel

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

One of the best selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide, the exceptional American singer-songwriter James Taylor is releasing his new album ‘American Standard’.

'American Standard' marks Taylor’s 19th studio album and comes almost five years after the release of his album “Before This World”, which debuted atop the Billboard 200 to become the first US No. 1 album of his long and distinguished career. The new release has him reimagining some of the best-loved compositions of the 20th century, music in which he was steeped as a young man. The new album will feature 14 classic songs reimagined and adapted to fit Taylors’ stripped down guitar-centric style. The record features reimagined versions of timeless songs from throughout the 20th century, making them characteristically James Taylor. ‘American Standard’ will have fresh perspectives on classics like Oklahoma!'s "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top," Bing Crosby's "Pennies From Heaven," Audrey Hepburn's "Moon River" and many more.

“I’ve always had songs I grew up with that I remember really well, that were part of the family record collection - and I had a sense of how to approach, so it was a natural to put ‘American Standard’ together,” Taylor said in a press statement. “I know most of these songs from the original cast recordings of the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, including “My Fair Lady, Oklahoma”, “Carousel, Showboat” and others.”

“In terms of how they were performed and recorded before, we paid attention to the chords and melody, but we were interested in doing something new, and in bringing something new to it, we’ve reinterpreted the songs, that’s what makes it worth doing.”

Tracklisting: My Blue Heaven (Walter Donaldson-George A. Whiting) / Moon River (Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer) / Teach Me Tonight (Gene De Paul-Sammy Cahn) / As Easy As Rolling Off A Log (M.K. Jerome-Jack Scholl) / Almost Like Being In Love (Frederick Loewe-Alan Jay Lerner) / Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat (Frank Loesser) /  The Nearness Of You (Hoagy Carmichael-Ned Washington) / You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught (Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II) / God Bless The Child (Billie Holiday-Arthur Herzog Jr.) / Pennies From Heaven (Arthur Johnston-Johnny Burke) / My Heart Stood Still (Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart) / Ol’ Man River (Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II) / It’s Only A Paper Moon (Harold Arlen-Yip Hardburg-Billy Rose) / The Surrey With The Fringe On Top (Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II)

Label Review. 

This anthology includes everything that the Bretts, Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs and Jona Lewie recorded for Sonet (including 1993 CD ‘Boogie Street’, financed by Sonet UK’s later incarnation Habana Music), confirming that the bands had few equals in the Thames Delta country blues stakes, while Jona was an individual talent long before his late Seventies association with the Stiff label.

Our Overview. 

Their name may have made them sound more like rock’n’roll revivalists, but during the late Sixties and early Seventies, Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts were one of the most highly regarded of the grassroots British country blues bands. Led by virtuoso guitarist Graham Hine, and featuring pianist and occasional vocalist John Lewis (subsequently better known as eccentric popster Jona Lewie), the Bretts – as they were known to their coterie of admirers – regularly backed visiting American bluesmen as well as being a popular live act in their own right.

After two fine albums for the Sonet label, they scored an unexpected hit single with Lewie’s jaunty “Sea Side Shuffle”, which, credited to alter-ego Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs, reached the No. 2 spot in the summer of 1972. Lewis/Lewie then left, recording as a solo act for Sonet before joining Stiff, while his former band continued without him, issuing a third album and sundry stand-alone singles before gradually scaling down operations.

Containing all the band’s albums, single releases, studio outtakes and live recordings as well as Jona Lewie’s pre-Stiff releases, plus 36 page booklet this is the most comprensive collection of this group’s work and off shoots ever put together.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: Dust Me Broom / Too Many Hot Dogs / Haven’t Any Hay / Walking Blues / Eyesight To The Blind / Shave ’Em Dry / Drop Down Mama / Calcutta Got Beggar / Don’t Start Me Talking / Cincinnati Cream / Highway 61 / Hairy / Bye Bye Baby / Shave ’Em Dry (Single Edit) / Standing On The Platform

Disc Two: Take Your Money / I’m Coming / Southbound Lane / Love In Jest / Thoughts On You / I’m Ready / Milk Cow Blues / County Jail / Little Red Caboose / Come On In My Kitchen / Goin’ Back / Coming Back

Disc Three: Thunderbolt Rag / Bank Holiday / Bye Bye Baby / Wrong Man / Bay Roller / Drinking Song / She Walked Right Out Of The Blue / You Got Me On The Hook / Doo-Dah-Doo-Dah / The Clown / Make It To The Woods / Boys In The Band / Thunderbolt Rag (Alternative Version) / Caribbean Zob-Rock / Blow Me Down / Hawaiian Honeymoon / If You Need Somebody Call On Me

Disc Four: Roll And Tumble / Short Woogie / Nervous / Walking Blues / Don’t Start Me Talking / Cincinnati Underworld Woman / Milk Cow Blues / Come On In My Kitchen / Little Red Caboose / Take Your Money And Go Down The Road / I’m Ready / Hot Weather / Too Many Hot Dogs (A.K.A. Chicken A La Blues) / Walking Blues / Make It To The Woods / Spoonful / Phonograph Blues / Brian Matthew Trailer / Brian Matthew Intro / Goin’ Back / Too Many Hot Dogs

Disc Five: Crossroads / No Worries / Be Ready When He Comes / Hurry Up Train / How Many More Years / You’re Gonna Need Somebody By Your Side / Little Red Rooster / Big City Beat / Free Again / Phonograph Blues / Greedy Woman / Devil And The Deep Blue Sea / Lost Lover Blues / Tough Times / A Change Is Bound To Come / Big City Beat (Remix) / King Bee / Hurry Up Train / Miss You / Dust Me Broom

Disc Six: Sea Side Shuffle / Ball And Chain / On A Saturday Night / Going Round The World / She Left I Died / Too Self-Centred / Piggy Back Sue / Papa Don’t Go / The Swan / Custer’s Last Stand / Hallelujah Europe (Parts 1 And 2) / Come Away (Bate O Pe) / Cherry Ring / Rocking Yobs / After We Swun

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Color Theory’, the second album from Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, is a distillation of hard-won catharsis. The album confronts the ongoing mental health and familial trials that have plagued the 22-year-old artist since pre-pubescence, presenting listeners with an uncompromisingly honest self-portrait, and reminding us exactly why her critically-acclaimed debut, 2018’s ‘Clean’, made her a hero to many. Wise beyond her years, Allison is a songwriter capable of capturing the fleeting moments of bliss that make an embattled existence temporarily beautiful. With color theory, Allison’s fraught past becomes a lens through which we might begin to understand what it means to be resilient.

‘Color Theory’ investigates a traumatic past in exacting detail; in doing so, Allison finds inroads for healing through self-acceptance, and occasionally, humour. (“I’m the princess of screwing up!” she declares at one point.) This isn’t a quest to uncover some long-since forgotten happiness so much as it is an effort to stare-down the turmoil of adolescence that can haunt a person well into adulthood. Allison is a gifted storyteller, one who is able to take personal experience and project it to universal scale. On ‘Color Theory’, she beckons in outsiders, rejects, and anyone who has ever felt desperately alone in this world, lending them a place to unburden themselves and be momentarily free.

Tracklisting: Bloodstream / Circle The Drain / Royal Screw Up / Night Swimming / Crawling In My Skin / Yellow Is The Color Of Her Eyes / Up The Walls / Lucy / Stain / Gray Light

Label Review.

2020 album also avaiable on Double Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Following their critically acclaimed collaboration with John Grant on last year’s Creep Show project, American trio Wrangler announce their new album, ‘A Situation’, released via Bella Union. This collection of warm, reverberant, amped up tracks, that land somewhere between future music, synth pop, industrial dance, classic techno and rigid electro, captures the ambiguities of the group perfectly. Just as they use the ageing outmoded equipment that other people once chose to throw away in order to make tomorrow’s music, they are the paranoid group who (just about) dare to hope that things still might turn out OK. They cast a doleful eye across the hellscape of 2019 and state, if the end is truly nigh, then it’s never been more important to celebrate the little time we have left. And if a revolution to save ourselves is possible then we’re all in need of a revolutionary party, with a revolutionary soundtrack to match.

When Wrangler first formed they had a very simple modus operandi. The clue was in their name. Ben ‘Benge’ Edwards (The Maths), Stephen ‘Mal’ Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) and Phil Winter (Tuung) would get together with a very select kit list of careworn analogue synthesisers and vintage digital sequencers. Their task? To wrangle new music from the ancient equipment. These self-imposed restrictions helped produced two classic long players: ‘LA Spark’ (2014) and ‘White Glue’ (2016).

However, the times have changed and so have Wrangler. The coming decade, which looks set to be dubbed the Terrible Twenties, may be the last time that bands actually get to release albums. Ecological collapse, climate crisis, food shortages and the disintegration of the fabric of society will mean that the slow devolution of the musicindustry isn’t even one of the main things that musicians (or anyone else) should be worrying about, so the trio have thrown everything into their third (but hopefully not their last) album. The result - ‘A Situation’ - is simultaneously their bleakest and funkiest release to date.

Double LP pressed on 140g vinyl with digital download code.

Tracklisting: Anthropocene / How To Start A / Revolution / Machines Designed (To Eat You Up) / Mess / Knowledge Deficit / Rhizomatic / Anarchy Of Sound / Slide / A Situation / White Noise

Label Review. 

2020 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Grammy-nominated The Secret Sisters’ - Laura and Lydia Rogers - new album ‘Saturn Return’ sees the Muscle Shoals, Alabama based folk/country duo grapple with love and loss on their new album which was produced by Brandi Carlile and her frequent collaborators Phil and Tim Hanseroth. Also this new release also features the real-life sisters singing individually for the very first time instead of relying solely on their trademark soaring harmonies—something producer Brandi Carlile challenged them to do.

The elements that made listeners fall in love with the band’s 2010 self-titled debut album—sweet, strong voices, carefully crafted musical arrangements, and soul-baring songwriting—are still present, but there’s also newfound confidence and individuality.

Recorded in Carlile’s home studio in Washington state, Saturn Return heralds the arrival of a new era of The Secret Sisters, who both experienced their first Saturn returns while making the record. Carlile challenged the sisters to sing as individuals instead of relying solely on close harmony singing, and for the first time, Laura and Lydia performed separately in the studio. This is also the first album in which The Secret Sisters composed all the songs without any co-writers. 

With Saturn Return, The Secret Sisters have truly come into their own as artists, songwriters, and singers. “I’ve come to feel like this is what we were meant to do,” said Lydia. “That’s a really good feeling.”

The album is named after an astrological occurrence in which the planet Saturn returns to the same place in the sky that it occupied at the moment of a person’s birth. During this phase, which happens approximately every 29 ½ years, said Laura, a woman “comes into her own and has this awakening in herself about who she is as a person. It can also be a very traumatic time where your whole world just seems to radically shift.”

“As we age, we face obstacles that are beyond our control. Some forces are internal: insecurity, anxiety, fear. Some are external: the loss of loved ones, an unjust system and the fragility of time. Yet the mark of maturity is how you respond when you realize you’re not in control. Where do you find your resilience?

“This album is a reflection of us coming to terms with how to find our power in the face of an unfair world. These songs lead listeners past ‘where happy man searches, to a place only mad women know.’ We question our purpose, our relationships, our faith. Trading the fears of our youth for the dread that rages within us as mature women.

"With ‘Saturn Return’, our hope is that women can feel less alone in their journey through the modern world. We need each other more than we ever have; the less competition and the more inclusiveness and understanding, the better. We are southern women in the 21st century, convicted by our beliefs.” - The Secret Sisters.

Tracklisting: Silver / Late Bloomer / Cabin / Hand Over My Heart / Fair / Tin Can Angel / Nowhere, Baby / Hold You Dear / Water Witch / Healer In The Sky

Label Review.

2020 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Over the last decade, New Jersey band the Real Estate have crafted warm yet meticulous pop-minded music, specialising in soaring melodies that are sentimentally evocative and unmistakably their own. The bands fifth studio album ’The Main Thing’ dives even further into the musical dichotomies they’re known for—lilting, bright guitar lines set against emotionally nuanced lyrics, complex arrangements conveyed breezily— and what emerges is a superlative collection of interrogative songs as full of depth, strangeness and contradictions as they are lifting hooks. ‘The Main Thing’, delivers the band’s most inspired and self-aware set of songs to date, created over the course of a year at upstate New York’s Marcata Sound.

Following his work on 2011’s Days, engineer Kevin McMahon returns as producer and, for the first time ever, Real Estate have brought in outside instrumentalists and special guests like Sylvan Esso, whose vocalist Amelia Meath features on ‘Paper Cup’.Across the album’s 13 interrogative tracks - as full of depth, strangeness, and contradictions as they are lifting hooks - the band balances existential, environmental and political anxieties with fatherly sentiments, self-satirising lyrics, forever-lively guitar lines and shimmering strings.

Tracklisting: Friday / Paper Cup (ft Sylvan Esso) / Gone / You / November / Falling Down / Also A But / The Main Thing / Shallow Sun / Sting / Silent World / Procession / Brother

Label Review. 

The Elektra & Atlantic Recordings 1968-1969 remastered. Both albums: 'Ars Nova' & 'Sunshine And Shadows'. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

Formed in New York City in 1967 by two former students from the Mannes College musical conservatory, Wyatt Day (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Jon Pierson (trombone, vocals) and Maury Baker (drums). The line-up was expanded by the addition of Jonathan Raskin (bass, backing vocals, guitar) and Giovanni Papalia (lead guitar). After spending some time rehearsing in rural Vermont, the band added Bill Folwell to their ranks on double bass and trumpet. Coming to the attention of manager Arthur Gorson (who also managed Phil Ochs and Judy Collins) the band secured an audition for Jac Holzman’s Elektra label and secured a contract soon after.

The band’s self-titled debut album was recorded at Sunset Sound studios in Los Angeles and was produced by Paul Rothchild (noted for his work with The Doors, Love et al). The ‘Ars Nova’ album was certainly ground-breaking for its use of unconventional instrumentation and for taking influences from the worlds of rock, ethnic and classical music. One fan of the album was Roy Wood of British band The Move (who would record a cover of Ars Nova’s “Fields of People” on their 1970 album ‘Shazam!’) ‘Ars nova’ was issued in 1968 to much critical acclaim, but the band’s line-up made it difficult for the music to translate well on the concert stage. Appearances opening for The Doors failed to boost the band’s fortunes and the initial line-up of the band broke up soon afterwards.

With Jonathan Raskin joining the band Rhinoceros, Day and Pierson gathered together a new line-up featuring Sam Brown (lead guitar), Joe Hunt (drums and percussion), Art Koening (bass), Jimmy Owens (trumpet) and Warren Bernhardt (keyboards). This revamped version of Ars Nova would record their final album, the equally imaginative ‘Sunshine And Shadows’ for Atlantic Records in late 1968 in New York City. The album release was inexplicably delayed for nearly a year by Atlantic Records and any momentum gained by further critical praise was lost. Increasing management problems also took their toll and Ars Nova disbanded soon after the release of ‘Sunshine And Shadows’.

Tracklisting: 

Disc One:  Pavan For My Lady (Fall, Winter, Summer And Spring) / General Clover Ends A War / Enacte: Le Messe Notre Dame / And How Am I To Know / Enacte: Dancer / Album In Your Mind / Zarathustra / Fields Of People / Automatic Love / I Wrapped Her In Ribbons (After Ibiza) / Song To The City / March Of The Mad Duke’s Circus

Disc Two: Sunshine And Shadows / I Was Once / Temporary Serenade / She Promises Everything / Well, Well, Well / You Had Better Listen / Round Once Again / Walk On The Sand / Rubbish / Please Don’t Go Now

Label Review.

All four original studio albums remastered each with a bonus disc of remixes. Exclusive bonus disc of remixes by Frankie Knuckles and David Morales. DVD 1 featuring all the bands promo videos and a new interview. DVD 2 includes live performances (some previously unreleased) from 1993, 1994 and 1996 in their hometown of Manchester. 48 page colour booklet with images of the early line up through to later years and never before published images.

Our Overview.

‘Renaissance’, is a spectacular 11-disc M People career-spanning box set that features albums, remixes, rarities and two DVDs and includes bonus disc of remixes by Frankie Knuckles and David Morales, plus promo videos, band interviews, and previously unreleased live performances.

M People emerged out of the club scene in Manchester in the early nineties and became one of the world’s biggest dance acts selling more than 11 million records. With the unmistakable voice of Heather Small joining Paul Heard, Shovell and founder Mike Pickering, M People released 20 Top 40 singles, including 10 Top 10s including inspirational national anthems like "Moving On Up", "Search For The Hero" and "One Night In Heaven". They won two BRIT awards and a Mercury Prize and released four studio albums, the last being ‘Fresco’ in 1998. All of them are included, newly remastered, in this new box set and each comes with a bonus disc of remixes. The ninth CD in the package is an exclusive bonus disc of remixes by Frankie knuckles and David Morales.

The first of two DVDs features all the band’s promo videos (plus new interviews with members Paul Heard, Mike Pickering and Shovell) while the second features live performances.

This box set comes with a 48-page colour booklet and the exclusive edition comes with a print of a ‘Search For The Hero’ lyric sheet signed by Heard, Pickering, and Shovell (no Heather!). These are limited to 500 units.

CD1– NORTHERN SOUL: Colour My Life (Perfecto Mix) / How Can I Love You More? / Inner City Cruise / It’s Your World / Sexual Freedom / Kiss It Better / Tumbling Down / Landscape Of Love / Life / Someday / Excited (M People Master Mix) / Man Smart / Platini

CD2 – NORTHERN SOUL –REMIXES: How Can I Love You More? (Sasha’s Master Mix) / Someday (Sasha’s Full Master) / How Can I Love You More? (Edit) / Colour My Life (Edit) / Someday (Edit) / Excited (Radio Edit) / Colour My Life (Original Mix) / Excited (M People Remix) / Someday (Part One) / Colour My Life (Part One) / Excited (Judge Jules Remix) / How Can I Love You More? (Sasha’s Ambient Dub) / Someday (Sasha’s Dub) / Colour My Life (DJ’s Rule Mix) / Excited (MK T Mix) / How Can I Love You More? (Sasha’s QAT Mix)

CD3 – ELEGANT SLUMMING: One Night In Heaven / Moving On Up / Renaissance / You Just Have To Be There / Love Is In My Soul / Don’t Look Any Further / Natural Thing / ittle Packet / La Vida Loca / Melody Of Life / One Night In Heaven (Hi Gloss Mix) / Renaissance (M People Master Mix) / Moving On Up (Tee’s Freeze Mix) / Don’t Look Any Further (Danny D Mix)

CD4 – ELEGANT SLUMMING -REMIXES: One Night In Heaven (Master Edit) / Moving On Up (M People Master Edit) / Don’t Look Any Further (M People Master Edit) / Renaissance (Radio Mix) / One Night In Heaven (K-KlassKlubMix) / Moving On Up (NY Underground Mix) / Renaissance (Roger S Revelation Mix) / One Night In Heaven (The Chicken Head Mix) / Moving On Up (MK Mix) / Renaissance (John Digweed’s4AM Mix) / One Night In Heaven (Pharmacy Dub) / Moving On Up (Roger’s Harddub) / Renaissance (The S-Man’s Dub Lift) / One Night In Heaven (M People Dub)

CD5 – BIZARRE FRUIT: Sight For Sore Eyes / Search For The Hero / Open Your Heart / Love Rendezvous / Precious Pearl / Sugar Town / Walk Away / Drive Time / Padlock / .… And Finally / ItchycooPark (M People Master Mix) /Search For The Hero (M People Master Mix) / Love Rendezvous (M People Master Mix) / Search For The Hero (Dave Hall Remix) [aka ‘US Remix by David “Jam” Hall’]

CD6 – BIZARRE FRUIT –REMIXES: Sight For Sore Eyes (Radio Mix) / Open Your Heart (Radio Mix) / Search For The Hero (Radio Mix) / Love Rendezvous (Radio Mix) / ItchycooPark (Radio Edit) / Sight For Sore Eyes (Lee Marrow Remix) / Love Rendezvous (Paul Masterson Mix) aka (Wand’s Uptight Mix) / Padlock (Junior Vasquez Tribal Vocal) / Open Your Heart (LuvdupDouble Bangin’ Dub) aka (LuvdupDub) / ItchycooPark (HedBoys Post-Op Mix) / Love Rendezvous (Uno Clio Vocal Mix) / Open Your Heart (Armand’s Sour Cream Mix) / Sight For Sore Eyes (E-SmooveDub Mix)

CD7 – FRESCO: Just For You / Fantasy Island / Never Mind Love / Last Night 10,000 / Smile / Red Flower Sunset / Angel Street / Lonely / Rhythm And Blues / Believe It / Bohemia / Avalon / Testify (Radio Edit) / Dreaming / What A Fool Believes (Full-Length Version) / Baby Don’t Change Your Mind (Live)

CD8 – FRESCO -REMIXES: Just For You (Radio Edit) / Fantasy Island (Radio Edit) / Angel Street (Radio Edit) / Dreaming (Radio Edit) / Testify (Rae & Christian Remix) / Just For You (MM’s R&B Edit) / Fantasy Island (D-Influence Dimensional Mix) / Angel Street (Joey Negro’s Extended Disco Mix) / Dreaming (Genius 3 Underground Mix) / Fantasy Island (M+S Fantasy KlubMix / Just For You (Way Out West Remix) / Testify (Pablo’s Dub) / Dreaming (Jimmy Gomez 6AM Dub)

CD 9 - THE FRANKIE KNUCKLES & DAVID MORALES MIXES: ItchycooPark (Morales Classic Club Mix) / Just For You (Frankie’s Sanctified Anthem) / Fantasy Island (Classic Mix) / Dreaming (Morales Mix) / One Night In Heaven (The Heavenly Club Mix) / Fantasy Island (Def Club Mix) / Just For You (Hipshakers’ Delight) / ItchycooPark (Morales Beat Of Dubs) / Dreaming (Morales King Dub) / One Night In Heaven (The Late Night Dub)

DVD 1 – PROMO VIDEOS: How Can I Love You More? / Colour My Life / Someday / Excited / One Night In Heaven / Moving On Up / Don’t Look Any Further / Renaissance / Sight For Sore Eyes / Open Your Heart / Search For The Hero / Love Rendezvous / ItchycooPark / Just For You / Fantasy Island / Angel Street / Testify / Dreaming / How Can I Love You More? (1993 Version) / Excited (US Version) / Open Your Heart (US Version) / Excited (MK Mix) / One Night In Heaven (Morales Mix) / Coming Home (Mike, Paul and Shovellin conversation, 2018)

DVD 2 – LIVE:

Live at the Manchester Academy 1993: Moving On Up / Natural Thing / Love Is In My Soul / Someday / 1993 Interview (part 1/ 2/3/4) /

Come Again Live In Manchester 1994: Opening Montage / Love Rendezvous / Excited / Drive Time / Colour My Life / Walk Away / Little Packet / One Night In Heaven / Sight for Sore Eyes / Moving On Up

The Crowd Are On The Pitch: Live at Old Trafford 1996: Sight For Sore Eyes / Moving On Up / Search For The Hero / ItchycooPark / One Night In Heaven

Label Review. 

2020 album. Indie. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The third album from London-based, Tokyo-born experimentalist and former frontman of cult psychedelic-punk group Screaming Tea Party Koichi Yamanoha offers more than a hint of the famous Grimm brothers’ twisted fairy-tale folklore to ‘Ginormous’. Recalling a childhood with Humpty Dumpty and Mother Goose by his side, his latest offering marks the next chapter in a trilogy of self-discovery; a compendium of sonically astute storytelling where nightmares and dreams meet via French y -y and Casio beats.

An outlet for his fragile, haunted, otherworldly forays into baroque folk, futurist lyricism and electro-acoustic oddities, stories have always shaped Koichi’s world. Whether channelling the wonder of nursery rhymes from his youth to megalophobic thoughts of monolithic objects, ‘Ginormous’ turns to the next page of Koichi’s sonic journey so far; its lyrics and melodies culled from the notes on his phone whilst travelling alone on trains across Europe.

Between shows with Cate Le Bon, Simon Finn, Dinosaur Jr, Thurston Moore, The Undertones, Green Man Festival and Edinburgh Fringe, each note offers a monumental moment in time from every passing experience of Koichi’s emotional world; such as his feelings upon seeing the imposing Yugoslavian monuments of World War II (Spomenik’), or hearing from his many friends made along the way. The album was recorded in his room at home and Total Refreshment Centre in North/East London, Koichi enlisted award-winning producer Marta Salogni (Bjork, The Orielles) and Capital K’s Kristian Craig Robinson.

Tracklisting: Ginormous (Feat. Paz Maddio) / In A Glass Jar (Feat. Paz Maddio) / Kyowa Amenohidesu / The Ghost Of Madame Legros (Feat. Laetitia Sadier) / Something In Your Way / We’ve Never Been This Far Before / We Will Meet Again, The Cleaner Said / Death & Scenery / Hey Graeme, Pass Me The Rotten Gun / Spomenik / Oh! Omen

Label Review. 

2020 album 

Our Overview. 

Lisa Loeb releases her fifteenth record to date, ‘A Simple Trick To Happiness’, that finds her putting forth her most poignant and profoundly personal album in an exceptional body of work. For the entirety of her nearly three-decade-long career, globally acclaimed singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb has been exploring a variety of styles of music, moving seamlessly between creating family-friendly albums, including her 2018 Grammy-winning ‘Feel What U Feel’, and adult-focused studio albums like ‘Tails’, ‘Firecracker’, and ‘The Way It Really Is’.

Dallas native Lisa Loeb is a singer songwriter, touring musician and philanthropist who started her career with the platinum-selling Number 1 hit song “Stay (I Missed You)” from the film ‘Reality Bites’. A trailblazing independent artist, Lisa was the first pop musician to have a Number 1 single while not signed to a recording contract. She followed that remarkable feat with several hit singles and six albums, two which were certified gold. Not only does she also act, appearing in film and on TV with credits including ‘About a Boy’, ‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’, ‘King of The Nerds’ but often recognized for her iconic cat-eyed glasses, Lisa also has her own eyewear line. As an entrepreneur, Lisa oversees the business and eyewear design of Lisa Loeb Eyewear. And she still has time to write and record a new album!

Tracklisting: Doesn’t It Feel Good (feat. Michelle Branch) / Skeleton / Another Day / This Is My Life / For The Birch / Most of All / Shine / Sing Out / I Wanna Go First / The Upside / Wonder

Label Review. 

2020 album. Jazz. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

It’s Julia Biel’s voice and piano playing that feature on her fourth album ‘Black and White, Volume 1’ which is a solo recording that comments on the binary concepts of ‘black’ and ‘white’ in what she feels should by now be a post-’racial’ world. An award-winning original artist - singer, songwriter, piano player, producer, guitarist - whose neo mellow sound combines an indie jazz approach with art-pop sensibilities.

Using just the black and white keys of the piano and her mixed ‘black’ and ‘white’ heritage, the British-born dual British/German national with South African roots seeks to reach beyond the polarising concept of division along skin colour lines, to remind the listener of and to confront them with their own emotions - to take these two colours and transform them into a landscape of sonic colour in the process. “Because on the level of shared emotion is where everyone connects,” says Julia. “Skin colour, background, political persuasion or any other societal construct should have no bearing on our ability to empathise with each other nor should these things be allowed to deny someone their right to expressing anything less than the full spectrum of human emotion.”

Recorded in her own studio, produced by long-term partner Idris Rahman and mixed by Emre Ramazanoglu, the result is a set of intimate and raw solo recordings rendered spell-binding in large part due to hers being a voice like no other. Unhurried and unmistakeable, her unique tones wrap around deceptively simple songs dealing with confusion, pain, insecurity, joy and the power of words and love to uplift us but also to constrain us. All are imbued with her trademark poetic storytelling, revealing an ever-sharper perspective on life and love with repeated listens.

Tracklisting: Broken Little Pieces (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Diamond Dust (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Room With A View (Interlude 1) / The Wilderness (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Three Little Words (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Shhh... (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Licence To Be Cruel (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Little Girl (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / Onwards (Interlude 2) / Say It Out Loud (Solo Piano and Voice Version) / You Could Turn A Rainbow Grey (Solo Piano and Voice Version)

Label Review. 

Compilation of tracks by the Quatro sisters (including Suzi) recorded in the late 60s. Sundazed. 

Our Overview. 

The archetype for the ‘60s-era girl group was etched indelibly into stone, like a commandment: three pretty girls with matching outfits and bouffant hairdos would sing, with musical backing supplied by a bunch of guys standing in the shadows. The three Quatro sisters shattered that archetype forever with the Pleasure Seekers, an all-girl teenage rock & roll group who played all the instruments themselves and were fully capable of wiping the stage with any male band that crossed their path.

They never recorded a full length during their heyday but here is a compilation of various tracks they recorded some issued as singles at the time. “Never Thought You’d Leave Me” / “What a Way to Die.” released in March 1966 is now regarded as the greatest “girl garage” single of the era: “Dave brought lyrics, and we put the songs together quickly,” remembers Patti Quatro. “We felt very legit in making this record at a small local studio. Nan was the sexy voice on ‘Never Thought You’d Leave Me,’ and there was lots of laughter as Marylou added the screams on ‘What a Way to Die.’” Suzi Quatro remembers the recording as “very important and memorable”. Although the group never broke through in the end, following a band name changed to Cradle, Suzi was spotted by UK music producer Mickie Most who signed her to his label RAK in 1971 and before long she was a huge solo star.

Tracklisting: Intro By DJ The Lord / Gotta Get Away / Never Thought You’d Leave Me / Light Of Love / Good Kind Of Hurt / What A Way To Die / Elevator Express / Locked In Your Love / White Pig Blues / Brain Confusion / Where Have You Gone / Mr. Power

Label Review. 

2020 album 

Our Overview. 

‘Dream in Colour’ by Franc Moody is the experience of letting loose together. ‘Dream in Colour’ also explores the way in which modern life constantly oscillates between online and offline realities; from the world we navigate inside our phones to the one we explore each day with our physiological senses. Franc Moody see themselves as a collective, and have countless members once you include the musicians, guest vocalists, producers and animators that all play a part. But at the core of the band are the two ringleaders and songwriters: Ned and Jon. While Jon was born into a family of classical musicians and grew up on oboes, cellos and violins, Ned was musically educated by the stereo in his parents car, blasting old soul, 50s/60s New Orleans music, and the rock n roll sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Eddie Cochran. “I loved the melody and the groove of that music, but I think really I loved the energy of it as well,” explains Ned.

Like a Franc Moody live show, ‘Dream in Colour’ is a life-affirming experience. As a band who came up via the tight-knit warehouse rave scene of London, their performances are all about community and chaos. Each gig feels like a gigantic house party, packed with scenes of crowd surfing, mosh pits, mass sing-alongs and chants of “MOODY! MOODY!” This is where the band feel most at home and it informs one of the many themes running through their debut album, What separates our emotional experience of things like friendship, love and community online versus those we experience in real life “Sometimes,” says Ned, “that experience of switching between those two worlds can feel like changing from black & white to colour. We wanted to explore that phenomenon on this record.” A truly feel-good DIY success story, ‘Dream in Colour’ also perfectly encapsulates the phenomenon that is Franc Moody themselves.

Tracklisting: Dream In Colour / Terra Firma / Skin On Skin / Charge Me Up / Flesh And Blood / Night Flight / She’s Too Good For Me / Grin And Bear It / Night Flight Reprise / This Is A Mood / A Little Something For The Weekend

Label Review. 

2020 album. Electronic. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Cyan’ is the third full length LP from San Francisco Bay Area-based band The Seshen. Taking its name from a colour that is both strong and soft, the LP unravels the progression that has been made since 2016’s ‘Flames and Figures’, both as a band and as individuals “Since ‘Flames and Figures’, a lot has been taking place both internally and externally.” lyricist and vocalist Lalin St. Juste recollects, “we were on tour for the last album during the 2016 US election. There was an intense heaviness, a familiar one, one that extends generations and it just sunk in even further.” The battle to overcome this heaviness, felt as a result of political and social issues and through Lalin’s own experiences with combating depression, fuels ‘Cyan’. “I was at the edge of myself,” she confesses. “This album is about pulling back the layers of who I am in order to push through sadness and grab onto what’s underneath”.

From the opening lines of the album on “Take It All Away”, these ideas are displayed - “I think it’s been too long that I’ve been your puppet / Cut these strings, I don’t want any of it”, she sings. Led by exposed yet bold musical endeavours from bassist/producer Akiyoshi Ehara, the album sees The Seshen delve into uncharted eclectic realms; “I think that there’s a lot more rawness on this record” Aki muses. Anchored by Lalin’s sly, silvery vocals (which draw frequent comparisons to Erykah Badu) and cerebral yet playful rhythms from producer-bassist Aki, The Seshen’s music pulls from a deep well of electronic influences, R&B, and indie rock. Drummer Chris Thalmann, keyboard/synth player Mahesh Rao, percussionist Mirza Kopelman and sequencer Kumar Butler make the music three-dimensional, blending live and digital instrumentation for a mercurial, transportive sound. Since 2012, the Seshen’s live show has earned them critical acclaim and a dedicated fanbase on multiple continents, as they’ve shared stages with the likes of Hiatus Kaiyote, Petite Noir, tUnEyArDs, and Thundercat.

Tracklisting: Take It All / 4AM / Still Dreaming / Head To Head / Close Your Eyes / 1000 Lights / Faster Than Before / Don’t Answer / Can’t Pretend / Dive / Stones / Wander

Label Review. 

Contains the remastered albums Winds Of Change, The Twain Shall Meet, Every One Of Us, Love Is, & Winds Of Change (Mono) plus 10 bonus tracks. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

Eric Burdon And The Animals came together in December 1966 when the original Animals had ground to a halt. Vocalist Eric Burdon recruited Vic Briggs (guitar, piano), John Weider (guitar, violin, bass), Danny McCulloch (bass) and Barry Jenkins (drums) to form a new group which changed direction away from raucous Rhythm and Blues and embraced Psychedelic rock and the influences of the emerging counter-culture. Signing to MGM Records in the USA (where he became based) and teaming up with producer Tom Wilson (also famed for his work with Bob Dylan, The Mothers Of Invention and The Velvet Underground), the band’s debut single “When I Was Young” released in April 1967 was a powerful statement, featuring Weider’s violin and Briggs’ fuzzed guitar, becoming a hit in Europe, Australia and the USA. The B-side of the single “A Girl Named Sandoz” was a psychedelic ode to the Swiss pharmaceutical company which developed LSD.

The follow-up single, “San Franciscan Nights”, issued in August 1967, came hot on the heels of the band’s famed appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 and would be the band’s biggest hit, breaking the top twenty in the UK, Europe and the USA. The band’s debut album, ‘Winds Of Change’ was issued in October 1967 and featured the singles “San Franciscan Nights” and “Good Times”, along with an inventive cover version of The Rolling Stones “Paint It Black” and the psychedelic rockers “Yes, I Am Experienced” (a tribute to Burdon’s friend Jimi Hendrix) and “It’s All Meat”.

The album ‘The Twain Shall Meet’ was recorded in December 1967 but not issued until May 1968 and featured two further singles, “Monterey” and “Sky Pilot (Parts One & Two)”. Incredibly 1968 would see a further two album releases by the group in the USA and Europe; ‘Every One Of Us’, recorded in June and issued in August of that year, was a fine album which saw Zoot Money join the band on organ and piano, but inexplicably the album failed to gain a release in the UK. By the time of its release, Vic Briggs had departed to be replaced by Andy Summers (later with The Police) on guitar. This line-up recorded the double album ‘Love Is’ in Los Angeles in October 1968, issued only as a single LP in the UK, which featured imaginative cover versions of “River Deep Mountain High”, “Ring Of Fire” and Traffic’s “Coloured Rain”. Released in December 1968, it was to be the final album by the group. Burdon remained in the United States and joined forces with the group War in 1969.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: Winds Of Change / Poem By The Sea / Paint It Black / The Black Plague / Yes, I Am Experienced / San Franciscan Nights / Man – Woman / Hotel Hell / Good Times / Anything / It’s All Meat / When I Was Young / A Girl Named Sandoz / Ain’t That So / Gratefully Dead / Anything (Single Version)

Disc Two: Monterey / Just The Thought / Closer To The Truth / No Self Pity / Orange And Red Beams / Sky Pilot / We Love You Lil / All Is One / Sky Pilot (Part One) (Mono Single) / Sky Pilot (Part Two) (Mono Single) / Monterey (Mono Single Version)

Disc Three: White Houses / Uppers And Downers / Serenade To A Sweet Lady / The Immigrant Lad / Year Of The Guru / St. James Infirmary / New York 1963 –America 1968 / White Houses (Single Version)

Disc Four: River Deep, Mountain High / I’m An Animal / I’m Dying, Or Am I? / Ring Of Fire / Coloured Rain / To Love Somebody / As The Years Go Passing By / Gemini / The Madman (Running Through The Fields) / River Deep, Mountain High (Single Version)

Disc Five: Winds Of Change / Poem By The Sea / Paint It Black / The Black Plague / Yes, I Am Experienced / San Franciscan Nights / Man – Woman / Hotel Hell / Good Times / Anything / It’s All Meat

Label Review. 

2020 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

JUNO award winning Canadian folk-pop artist Rose Cousins is a vital part of the thriving East Coast Canadian music scene and she is interested in the juxtaposition of things. Her new album, ‘Bravado’ peers behind the kinds of doors we tend to leave closed, [for better or worse, or both]. It is the sound of a heart trying to open. It is a bold swagger, a vulnerable facade. 

'Bravado' is a record for those who struggle with loneliness and those wishing they had more time alone. It’s for those attempting to make their hearts go in more than one direction and those trying to make it go in just one. It’s for those who present a version of themselves to the world that doesn’t quite match how they feel inside. It’s for those who feel misunderstood or unseen. It’s for those who have a hard time saying what they feel, who hide or can’t let themselves off the hook. It’s for those asking, “is this it?” and questioning if the character they play in the movie of their lives is authentic or just a role they’ve accepted. It’s for those who have a hard time asking for help and for those desperate for and terrified of change.

“I think about how we're so disconnected. I get sucked into my phone and forget to go for a walk because of this sense of obligation that I have that convinces me to get as much work done as possible. It feels like we’re not connecting in person as much as we used to and that we may be the loneliest we've ever been. We're missing what's actually happening, like, the earth being on fire. We get caught in the spin of comparing our lives to social media depictions, false standards of a good life. I’ve been thinking about how we must be getting close to a breaking point."

For Cousins, this chapter is a personal and professional metamorphosis. She is in the producer chair, applying her years of experience, trusting her own ear and pulling thoughtfully from her network of talented colleagues.

‘Bravado’ is an exploration of self-worth and an investigation into the nuances of our tough exteriors - why we act brave while feeling afraid, how we appear impressive while privately questioning our worthiness, how confidence shares space with shame.’

Cousins’ last project, ‘Natural Conclusion’, received much acclaim, including a Grammy nomination, a JUNO nomination for Songwriter of the Year, and 3 wins at the East Coast Music Awards. Rose’s songs have appeared on Grey’s Anatomy, Supergirl, Reign, Nashville, and others. She has shared stages with heroic songwriters such as Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jann Arden & Ron Sexsmith.

Tracklisting: The Benefits Of Being Alone / The Expert / The Agreement / The Fraud / The Time Being (Impending Mortality Awareness Society) / The Din / The Return (Love Comes Back) / The Swimmer (To Be An Old Man) / The Lullaby (My Oldest Love) / The Benediction (A Good Woman) / The Reprise (The Benefits Of Being Alone) / The Truth (It’s Just Emotion)

Label Review.

2020 album. World. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview.

The trailblazing Indian-American, Sunny Jain is internationally recognised as a musician with a distinct and recognisable sound and his new album ‘Wild Wild East’ encompasses myriad facets of Jain’s identity both as a first-generation South Asian-American and as a global musician, from his own family’s immigration story to his eclectic musical upbringing. “Sunny Jain is no purist... he hasn’t been shy about pulling his experiences as a first-generation Indian American who studied jazz at Rutgers and listens to modern dance-pop into his music.” - Washington Post

Sunny is recognised as a lead voice in the burgeoning movement of South Asian-American jazz musicians.The dhol player, drummer, and composer’s seven albums have all received international acclaim for their "groundbreaking synthesis" ( Coda Magazine ), as he brings together the ancient sounds of his cultural heritage, America's greatest original art form and a host of other sounds.

In recasting the immigrant steeped in the courage to leave a familiar homeland for a new beginning as the modern-day cowboy and cowgirl, Jain sources musical inspiration from the scores of Bollywood classics and Spaghetti Westerns, Indian folk traditions, jazz improvisation, and rollicking psychedelic and surf guitar styles. Wild Wild East is an album rooted in the contemporary American soundscape, singing in a new voice, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Founder and bandleader of global party band Red Baraat, performing at Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD Festival, and the White House under Obama. Sunny has drummed with Peter Gabriel, Norah Jones, Dewey Redman, Martha Wainwrite, Vijay Iyer, and Tongues in Trees.

Tracklisting: Immigrant Warrior / Wild Wild East / Osian / Red, Brown, Black / Aye Mere Dil Kahin Aur Chal (Remembrance) / Aye Mere Dil Kahin Aur Chal / Baaghi / Blackwell / Hai Apna Dil To Aawara / Maitri Bhavanu

Label Review. 

2020 album. Johnny Lynch plays his unique brand of folk and electronica. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Pictish Trail’s new album ‘Thumb World’ is bold, weird, wild, wired, sonically luxurious yet never losing touch with its DIY-‘til-I-die roots, and is a voyage to the outer rings of Johnny Lynch’s mind at its darkest, funniest and most inventive – a plugged-in, fuzzed-out, fucked-up contemplation on, as he puts it, “life repeating and gradually degrading, the inevitable cyclical nature of things, and the sense of their ultimately being no escape.”

Expect alien abductions, thumping beats, Trump-haired pigs, paternal panic, astronaut sex, bad acid trips, worse hangovers, lashings of distortion and a lot of anthropomorphic thumbs. “Our opposable thumbs are the things that separate us from most other animals on Earth,” Pictish explains, of the fat digit symbolism, “they are also the things that we use to swipe on screens, to separate ourselves from our normal lives, but which in turn trap us within an artificial reality.”

Produced and mixed by Rob Jones, featuring string arrangements from Kim Moore and drumming from Alex Thomas (Squarepusher, Anna Calvi, Air), Thumb World is Pictish Trail’s most collaborative album to date. An audio-visual dialogue with Swatpaz, AKA Scottish artist Davey Ferguson – the man behind the Turbo Fantasy series and an entire episode of cult TV phenomenon Adventure Time – furnished Johnny with not just a graphic aesthetic for the album, but even helped him to shape the sound of the finished record. “I sent Davey a work-in-progress mix of the album,” Johnny says, “he came back with sketches in which he had reimagined Thumb World as an 80’s arcade game. Some of the songs are centered around specific visual images, inspired by Davey’s sketches.”

Tracklisting: Repeat Neverending / Double Sided / Pig Nice / Lead Balloon / Fear Anchor / Slow Memories / Bad Algebra / Heart Eyes / Turning Back / Thumb World

Label Review.

2020 album with 1 bonus track. Jewel case. Also available on CD+, and Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Grammy Winning, former frontman of Black Sabbath and solo vocalist and songwriter “The Prince Of Darkness” Ozzy Osbourne is releasing his first studio album in almost a decade ‘Ordinary Man’.

'Ordinary Man' was recorded in Los Angeles and features Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan on bass, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith on drums, and producer Andrew Watt on guitar. Beyond the core band, 'Ordinary Man'  features a who’s-who of Ozzy riends and collaborators including Elton John, Post Malone, and Tom Morello.

Of the new project, Ozzy said in a press release:

"It all started when [daughter] Kelly comes in and says “do you want to work on a Post Malone song?” My first thing was “who the fuck is Post Malone?!” I went to Andrew’s [Watt] house and he said we will work really quick.

"After we finished that song, he said ‘would you be interested in starting an album.’ I said ‘that would be fucking great, but now I am thinking I don’t want to be working in a basement studio for six months! And in just a short time, we had the album done. Duff [McKagan] and Chad [Smith] came in and we would go in and jam during the day and I would go work out the songs in the evenings.

"I previously had said to Sharon I should be doing an album, but in the back of my mind I was going ‘I haven’t got the fucking strength…’ but Andrew pulled it out of me. I really hope people listen to it and enjoy it, because I put my heart and soul into this album.”Ozzy added that ‘Ordinary Man’ is “quite possibly the most important album I have done in a very long time.” He also claims that the album is “a gift from my higher power.” ‘Ordinary Man’ is the follow-up to Ozzy’s 2010 solo LP ‘Scream’.

“It all just came together,” OZZY explains of the guest stars. “Slash is a dear friend of mine, as is Elton. When I was writing ‘Ordinary Man,’ it reminded me of an old Elton song and I said to Sharon, ‘I wonder if he would sing on it?’ We asked and lo and behold, he agreed and sings and play piano on the song.”

Tracklisting: Straight to Hell / All My Life / Goodbye / Ordinary Man (feat. Elton John) / Under the Graveyard / Eat Me / Today Is The End / Scary Little Green Men / Holy For Tonight / It's A Raid (feat. Post Malone) / Take What You Want (with Post Malone & Travis Scott)

Label Review.

2020 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Glaswegian formed quintet Spinning Coin release their second album, ‘Hyacinth’, via Geographic. This is indie music from its bowl haircuts to its dirty Converses. The two songwriters in the band have their different strengths. Jack Mellin draws more from the spikier end of things, with Tin sounding like a slightly less ramshackle Josef K song, while Sean Armstrong tends towards the more straight forwardly melancholic end of indie.

Throughout Hyacinth, there is joy in spades, but also melancholy, and a checked fury, threading the group’s political vision through their reflections on the personal and the interpersonal. Jack explains that the new songs “are about the need for love in an often very unloving world. Trying to find a balance of some kind between feelings of apathy, negativity, detachment and action, positivity and oneness.” Whilst Mellin’s songs were more pointedly political on Permo, here he has built more complexity into his writing. Elsewhere, Rachel contributes her first song to a Spinning Coin release, in the form of the beautiful “Black Cat”.

Hyacinth was recorded during a few days, by Peter Deimel at Black Box Studios in France, while the group were on a summertime tour. It was an idyll, a restorative respite. That carries through to the album, there’s a sense of society and collectivism at the heart of these pop songs, and a commentary on the optimism of the will, no matter how bleak things can get. Ultimately, on Hyacinth, the Spinning Coin ethos stays true to itself, as Sean expands about the experiences and the motivations behind the new music: “It’s trying to connect with other people on a human level, doing something that we love, and trying to embrace the unknown.”

A brave step forward, ‘Hyacinth’ is an album full of poetry, light and warmth of heart and presents a band holding nothing back. ‘Hyacinth’ registers a number of changes for the group since their debut album ‘Permo’ in 2017: personnel changes, geographical changes, a new context, an ever-changing world outside.

Tracklisting: Avenues of Spring / Feel You More Than / World Right Now / Get High / The Long Heights / Despotic Sway / Ghosting / Laughing Ways / Black Cat / Soul / Trader / Never Enough / Slips Away / It’s Alright / Thing Of The Past

Label Review. 

Contained here is some super deep 'Northwestern Soul' including three cuts making their inaugural spins 50 years after they were put to tape. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Pacific Northwest Juke Box’ is a treat for the ears and contains some blinding rare and unissued Pacific Northwest floor fillers! While soul music might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the music of the Pacific Northwest, Salem Oregon’s Garland Records was churning out high quality hip shakers along with their reels of garage & psych. Contained here is some super deep “Northwestern Soul,” including three cuts making their inaugural spins 50 years after they were put to tape. From the politically powerful “Freedom Train,” a pleasantly less polished version of a Motown staple, to a pair of energetic takes on some Bobby Blue Bland steamers. Some seriously unique takes on soul classics paired with some soul could’ve beens. CD includes two bonus cuts not available on the LP!

With Sundazed Music’s acquisition of the Garland Records catalog you’re in for a tidal wave of great garage rock, pysch, soul, and even some country. Here with Pacific Northwest Juke Box, you’re treated to floor fillers and even a couple for holding your special person close.

True to form for BeatRocket’s Garland Records collections is the abundance of original material. Sixties Salem Oregon was about as musically diverse as they come and BeatRocket is sorting through the Garland reels to prove it!

Tracklisting: Freedom Train - White Feather / Just One Time - Cornucopia / Reach Out I’ll Be There - Morning Reign / Findin’ My Own Kind Of Song - Crystal Teardrop / I Can’t Understand - DART / Mr. Love - Prince Charles & The Crusaders / Don’t Cry No More - DART / Dorchester Summer - Crystal Teardrop / Any Day Now - White Feather / It’s Alright - Baldwin Brothers / Lead Me On - DART / But It’s Alright - Morning Reign / Ticket To Denver - Baldwin Brothers

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Pat Metheny’s ‘From This Place’ features ten compositions by Metheny, who is joined by his long-time drummer, Antonio Sanchez, Malaysian/Australian bassist Linda May Han Oh, and British pianist Gwilym Simcock as well as the Hollywood Studio Symphony conducted by Joel McNeely. Meshell Ndegeocello (vocals), Gregoire Maret (harmonica), and Luis Conte (percussion) are special guests on ‘From This Place’, Metheny’s first album of new material since 2014’s Kin (←→). Metheny, Simcock, Oh, and Sanchez begin an extensive international tour in 2020.

“From This Place is one of the records I have been waiting to make my whole life. It is a kind of musical culmination, reflecting a wide range of expressions that have interested me over the years, scaled across a large canvas, presented in a way that offers the kind of opportunities for communication that can only be earned with a group of musicians who have spent hundreds of nights together on the bandstand,” says Metheny.

Over the course of more than three decades, guitarist Pat Metheny has set himself apart from the jazz mainstream, expanding and blurring boundaries and musical styles. His record-setting body of work includes twenty Grammy Awards in twelve separate categories and in an amazing streak was the only bandleader to win Grammy Awards for seven consecutive releases; a series of influential trio recordings; award-winning solo albums; scores for hit Hollywood motion pictures; and collaborations and duets with major artists like Ornette Coleman, Steve Reich, Charlie Haden, Brad Mehldau, and many others. Oh, and David Bowie.

Label Review.

2020 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Surrender Your Poppy Field’ is the new album for a new decade having release 3 albums in 2019, from the long-running and prolific American indie rock band - whose lineup has changed several times throughout the bands history - led by singer-songwriter Robert Pollard.

The new album will span 15 tracks. Starting off the year with a 100-song marathon in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, Robert Pollard set a mighty high bar for Guided By Voices in 2020. Following three acclaimed and stylistically distinct full-length albums in 2019, ‘Surrender Your Poppy Field’, is a head-spinning tour de force: a bit of everything… plus more! And hands down the most adventurous GBV album ever.

There are lo-fi four-track tape recordings, there are songs recorded with a single microphone in a basement, there are big studio fully-produced hook-laden pop songs, and there is a LOT in between.

Seemingly, the guiding concept of ‘Surrender Your Poppy Field’ was to make the songs sound as different from one another as possible: sudden shifts in mood, tempo and rhythm, unexpected chord progressions, false endings and codas, string orchestrations, mysterious voices… It’s an exhilarating and dizzying trip to an inventive world of strange characters: Andre the Hawk, Queen Parking Lot, the Cul-de-Sac Kids, the Hard Hitter, the Steely Dodger, the Stone Cold Moron, A Man Called Physician, A Man Called Blunder...

Not content with their usual mastery of the 4 P’s (punk, pop, prog, psych) Professor Pollard pushes the envelope on Poppy Field, and continues to redefine GBV from a myriad of angles. Anyone who thinks that he’s gotten complacent after 105 albums hasn’t been paying attention! Don’t miss out.

Speaking to Rolling Stone Magazine, Guided by Voices' Robert Pollard said of their new record, "I think Wizard of Oz came to mind when it was first conceived. I did a five-song EP about four or five years ago under the name Sunflower Logic and we included a mock catalog for the label name we used, Pink Banana Records. In it there are 50 or 60 fake band names with titles for 45s, EPs, albums and compilations and one of the songs was "Surrender Your Poppy Field". It stuck and I decided to give it a real home on a Guided by Voices album."

Tracklisting: Year of the Hard Hitter / Volcano / Queen Parking Lot / Arthur Has Business Elsewhere / Cul-de-Sac Kids / Cat Beats a Drum / Windjammer / Steely Dodger / Stone Cold Moron / Physician / Man Called Blunder / Woah Nelly / Andre the Hawk / Always Gone / Next Sea Level

Label Review. 

2020 album. Metal. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Creating ‘No Absolution’, old-school thrash metal revivalists, Finnish four-piece Lost Society spent two-and-ahalf- years finding their ultimate metal manifest, combining all the grit that has made them respected in the heavy community and padding in years of experience touring with the likes of Exodus and playing some of Europe’s biggest stages including Download Festival 2019.

Singles from the album - “No Absolution”, “Deliver Me” and “Into Eternity” (feat. Apocalyptica) have found a massive receptive audience and with the release of this album, Lost Society take their rightful place at the top table of heavy music. The band worked with fellow Finnish musician Joonas Parkkonen to co-write and produce several tracks on the new record while mastering was done by Svante Forsback (Rammstein, Volbeat, Ville Valo).

Following their appearance at Download 2019 in the UK, Lost Society have released three hugely successful singles - No Absolution, Deliver Me and Into Eternity, with global streaming figures over 1 million. This is their 3rd album. Promo teams retained in UK and Europe to secure Print, Radio, Online with substantial specialist airplay in UK, DE, FI, SE, US for the 3 singles released so far. European tour dates in Summer 2019.

Tracklisting: No Absolution / Mark Upon Your Skin / My Prophecy / Deliver Me / Into Eternity feat Apocalyptica / Artificial / Nonbeliever / Blood On Your Hands / Worthless / Pray For Death / Outbreak (No Rest For The Sickest)

Label Review.

2020 album also avaialble on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Five-piece indie rock band from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, Lanterns On The Lake new studio album, ‘Spook The Herd’ combines dreamy indie rock with luscious melodies and poignant storytelling.

It’s strange - not to mention fundamentally disconcerting - to live through turbulent times. Yet as many feel like the world is slipping out of control, artists are enlivened as they seek to make sense of the shifting sands. Hazel Wilde of Lanterns On The Lake is now a songwriter necessarily emboldened. On ‘Spook The Herd’, the band’s fourth album, her voice and preoccupations rise to the fore like never before. In tandem, the band break new ground on a set of songs that are direct and crucial.

Wilde does nothing less than dive headlong into the existential crises of our times. Beginning with the record’s title - a pointed comment at the dangerously manipulative tactics of ideologues - its nine songs turn the microscope to issues including our hopelessly polarised politics, social media, addiction, grief and the climate crisis.

The world is brought into focus but Wilde’s style is not declarative. She also proves herself a songwriter possessed of a rare talent for finding the personal contours to contemporary issues, fully inhabiting them to make them real. Recorded as live where possible, the band’s natural touchstones of gauzy dream-pop and monumental post rock still float in the air but listening to Lanterns On The Lake now feels like actually sitting in the corner of the room as they play. As guitarist and producer Paul Gregory says of approaching their fourth album, “There was a sense of release in terms of what kind of music we felt we could make. The idea of what kind of band you’re supposed to be really disappeared. It was great; you felt you could do whatever you like.”

The band is composed of Hazel Wilde, Paul Gregory, Oliver Ketteringham, Bob Allan and Angela Chan.

Tracklisting: When It All Comes True / Baddies / Every Atom / Blue Screen Beams / Before They Excavate / Swimming Lessons / Secrets & Medicine / This Is Not A Drill / A Fitting End

Label Review. 

2020 album. Pop. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Cape God’ will be the fourth studio release from iconoclastic pop darling Allie X - Canadian singer, songwriter and visual artist, aka Alexandra Ashley Hughes - and includes collaborations with Troye Sivan and Mitski. ‘Cape God’ is the follow-up to 2018's Super Sunset, which Nylon praised as the enigmatic artist's "most open effort yet, a semi-fictionalized account inspired by falling in love and her life amidst all the L.A. glitz and glamour.

Allie say of her new album: “In early 2018, I saw the documentary that started my journey to write this record. It’s an HBO doc called “heroine: cape god”. Though I’ve never done junk and don’t plan on trying it, in an abstract way I found myself relating to the film’s young interviewee’s. I’ve never spoken much publicly about this, but during high school, I was in and out of the hospital with physical illness. Often debilitatingly sick. To say it shaped my adolescence is an understatement.

“In multiple ways I related to the characters I saw in the documentary. Going into these feelings I had as a teenager was the perspective I chose to write this album from. It happened very naturally and without much thought - it became “Cape God”. I would say Cape God is a liminal space I created to explore my repressed feelings and perhaps create a different outcome. While in cape god, you are in limbo. you stay there until you die or come to life and while you are there you are somewhere in between.....”

The first single ‘Fresh Laundry’ was released in September 2019 and coincided with a series of tour dates supporting the likes of Charli XCX and MARINA across the US, UK and Europe.

Tracklisting: Fresh Laundry / Devil I Know / Regulars / Sarah Come Home / Rings A Bell / June Gloom / Love Me Wrong Ft. Troye Sivan / Super Duper Party People / Susie Save Your Love Ft. Mitski / Life Of The Party / Madame X / Learning In Public

Label Review. 

2020 album (Afghan Whigs). Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Despite a career that has lasted for over 30 years, Greg Dulli, frontman of The Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers hasn’t released a solo album, until now. ‘Random Desire’ started in the aftermath of the last Whigs record, 2017’s ‘In Spades’, which Pitchfork named one of the best rock records of the year, hailing it as a “heavy, menacing work of indie rock majesty…thrilling and unsettling.” Drummer Patrick Keeler was about to take a short sabbatical to record and tour with his other band, The Raconteurs. Dulli’s longtime collaborator, bassist John Curley went back to school, and there was the tragic death of the band’s guitarist, Dave Rosser.

In response, Dulli returned to his teenage bedroom roots, finding musical inspiration via the model of one-man-band visionaries Prince and Todd Rundgren. The Los Angeles-by-way-of-Hamilton Ohio native wrote nearly every part of the record from piano lines to drums to bass riffs. As always, the music came first and the lyrics were completed later. Recording and writing way stations included his home in Silver Lake, the village of Crestline high up in the mountains above San Bernardino, and New Orleans. But the bulk was finished amidst the arid beauty and stark isolation of Joshua Tree (at the studio of engineer Christopher Thorne). Dulli handled most instrumentation, but an all-star cast of characters appear across the track-listing including The Whigs’ guitarist Jon Skibic and multi-instrumentalist Rick G. Nelson, Mathias Schneeberger (Twilight Singers), pedal steel wizard, upright bassist, and physician Dr. Stephen Patt, and drummer Jon Theodore (Queens of the Stone Age, The Mars Volta).

Clocking in at a lean 37 minutes, Random Desire is a clinic put on by a veteran master operating at the height of his powers, offering evidence of the hard-fought and weary wisdom learned from setbacks and victories alike. A lucid, confident and self-assured document of the songs of experience, the perils of existence, and the possibilities that offer themselves anew with each breath. Another death and rebirth from an outlaw who has seen it all and somehow lived to tell.

Tracklisting: Pantomima / Sempre / Marry Me / The Tide / Scorpio / It Falls Apart / A Ghost / Lockless / Black Moon / Slow Pan

Label Review. 

63 tracks featuring Charlatans, Ocean Colour Scene, Saint Etienne, Lush, Spiritualized, Boo Radleys, Swervedriver, Slowdive, Sundays, Manic Street Preachers, Spacemen 3, The La’s and many more.

Our Overview. 

Following on from the compilations ‘C86’, ‘C87’, ‘C88’ & ‘C89’ comes ‘C90’, Cherry Red Records successful series of compilations charting the development of the UK indie music scene. Over a decade since punk rocked the British musical scene to its foundations and caused an eruption of independently produced records, the scene and a new generation of figurehead artists began to let ambition in and head overground, playing to increasingly large crowds, working with bigger budgets and selling more copies, finding a footing in the UK’s Top Forty, venturing into the USA and, ultimately, creating a mainstream audience now primed for credible, guitar-tinged pop. Meanwhile, an underground revolution in clubland began to push towards the commercial same space, resulting in an inevitable fusion of songcraft and dancefloor aesthetics.

‘C90’ captures perfectly the moment these tribes began to coalesce. From the opening, club-friendly rendition of The Charlatans’ “Polar Bear” to The La’s knowingly backward looking “Timeless Melody” and all in-between, this is the sound of a scene dropping the raincoats, dropping acid and aiming for domination. 1990 was the start of a new decade when the Indie scene was dominated by Madchester and the arrival of Shoegaze and with nods towards grunge and what would become known as Britpop, plus hints of a proto-laddism peering out from between the cracks in a post-Smiths aesthetic, the sound of 1990, it could be argued, set the tone for the remainder of the decade.

‘C90’ is a snapshot of a unique moment in time. A piece of history. The sound of a country putting the hard-biting 1980s behind it, embracing the Daisy Age and looking to move forwards.

Tracklisting: 

Disc One: Polar Bear - The Charlatans / Sway - Ocean Colour Scene / Perfume - Paris Angels / The Storm - World Of Twist / Only Love Can Break Your Heart - Saint Etienne / It’s On - Flowered Up / Get Higher - Moonflowers / My Rising Star - Northside / Wonderment – Thousand Yard Stare / Thoughtforms - Lush / Anyway That You Want Me - Spiritualized / Swansong - Boo Radleys / Juggernaut Rides – Swervedriver / Avalyn I - Slowdive / Half-Life, Remembered – Pale Saints / Something More (Ambient Version) - Chapterhouse / Can’t Be Sure – The Sundays / She Sings Alone – See See Rider / Please Let Me Go – The Popinjays

Disc Two: New Art Riot - Manic Street Preachers / Aim - Ned’s Atomic Dustbin / Pop Song - Th’ Faith Healers / Beam Me Up – New Fast Automatic Daffodils / To Kill A Slow Girl Walking – The Telescopes / Welcome To Dead Town – The Seers / Listen - Honey Smugglers / Seems To Me - Milltown Brothers / Big City (Waves Of Joy) (Demo) – Spacemen 3 / I Fell In Love Last Night – Heavenly / Sean Connery – James Dean Driving Experience / Take - Raintree County / Noah’s Ark – Brighter / Amnesia – Something Pretty Beautiful / Earthwheel - Sandkings / If I Could Shine - The Sweetest Ache / Mad As Love - Greenhouse / Crazy Mixed Up Kid - Mousefolk / These Things Happen – Action Painting! / Strange - All Over The Place / I Know - Bark Psychosis

Disc Three: Timeless Melody – The La’s / Highrise Love – The Darkside / Everything About You – My Jealous God / Sleep - Eternal / Potboiler - Penelope’s Web / Dead Like You – The Steamkings / Twenty-Fifteen – The Sunflowers / Beside The Sea – The Kennedy Pill / Little Valley Town - Jane From Occupied Europe / Sunday Never Comes Around – Po! / Good Morning – Jane Pow / Learning To Keep My Mouth Shut - How Many Beans Make Five / Lovesville Usa - Montgomery Clifts / She Made Everything Groovy – The Ogdens / Out Of My Mind – Avo-8 / Darkest Blue – Gentle Despite / My Heart Is Where My Home Is - The Chrysalids / When I Find You – Little Red Schoolhouse / Nothing In Your Heart – Life With Patrick / What Is More Than Life – Horse Latitudes / I Really Do Love You Penelope – Hey Paulette / Missing You – The Ammonites / Cheat On Me – The Emotionals

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The writer of classics “Since You’ve Been Gone”, “You Can Do Magic”, “New York Groove”, “So You Win Again”, “No More The Fool”, “Liar”, Russ Ballard releases his new album ‘It’s Good To Be Here’. Although this album was originally released in 2015 in very small quantities, Russ has re-worked the tracks for its proper release. His own first hit record was “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” (memorably turned into a global mega-hit by Kiss) with his band Argent in 1974, but his songs have been recorded by everyone from Rainbow to Hot Chocolate to America to Elkie Brooks to Three Dog Night and many, many more.

However, with this album, ‘It’s Good To Be Here’, Russ has saved some absolutely stunning material for himself – and also reworked those incredible era-defining classics “Since You’ve Been Gone”, “You Can Do Magic” and “New York Groove”. Packed with rockers and ballads alike, this album is blessed with the casually-worn but unerring musicality that underlines everything that this prolific songwriter does. This is the tenth Russ Ballard album and it showcases not only his uncanny way with melody and lyrics, but also his more thoughtful side. With this album he proves that the flame burns as brightly as ever; Russ Ballard may well say that ‘It’s Good To Be Here’, but a songwriter of such a calibre will never truly disappear, and his evergreen songs will play on forever.

Tracklisting: My Awakening / Time Machine / Kickin’ The Can / Annabel’s Place / Wasted (The Last Ride) / Colliding / Tidal Wave / The First Man That Ever Danced / The Misunderstood / Proud Man / New York Groove / Since You Been Gone / You Can Do Magic.

Label Review. 

2020 album

Our Overview. 

Julian Cope’s new album ‘Self Civil War’ heaves with unrest and the spirit of 2020. Pure Cope: compelling earworms of barbarian intelligence, crammed with songs that reach deep inside you, each possessed of its own micro-worldview, ‘Self Civil War’ showcases Cope’s songwriting at its most searching since ‘Jehovahkill’. Road-testing the zeitgeist with kitchen sink psycho-dramas like “A Dope on Drugs”, “Your Facebook, My Laptop” and “Billy”, ‘Self Civil War’ also showcases the insightful heroic ballads “Einstein”, “You Will Be Mist” and “The Great Raven”. In typical Cope style, the 13 songs of ‘Self Civil War’ brim with sound effects, enormous orchestral arrangements, timeless uprisings of Ur-folk and hefty near-Krautrock anthems.

It’s the first release in Cope’s ‘Our Troubled Times’ series, and he says it is “a fine temporary refuge from our daily bombardment by media luvvies and fuckhead world leaders who take us all for idiots.” Julian has now been carving his own unique brand of rock for 40 years now, starting with his band The Teardrop Explodes and further pop success on his own with the likes of “World Shut Your Mouth” and “Trampoline”. He quit major label acceptance in the 1990s and has since forged his own path with his label and website Head Heritage, releasing albums whenever he feels like it and pursuing his other passion as an antiquarian.

Tracklisting: That Ain’t No Way To Make A Million / A Cosmic Flash / You Will Be Mist / The Great Raven / Berlin Facelift / Immortal / Einstein / Billy / A Dope On Drugs / Your Facebook My Laptop / Requiemfor A Dead Horse / ‘Self Civil War’ / A Victory Dance

Label Review. 

1970 debut solo album remastered with his two solo singles for Reprise on CD for the first time: Heavy Heart, No Way Out, Beasts Of Burden, Uganda Woman. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

Peter Green made his name in the original line-up of Fleetwood Mac and his acclaimed guitar playing and writing graced several albums and a succession of hit singles before he departed the group in 1970. He embarked on the recording of his first solo album only a month after leaving Fleetwood Mac, enlisting the assistance of Zoot Money (keyboards), Alex Dmochowski (bass), Nick Buck (organ) and Godfrey Maclean (percussion).

‘The End of the Game’ is an entirely instrumental affair, quite different in feel from Green’s work with Fleetwood Mac. Released to very little fanfare, unjustly so as it was an imaginative work with Green’s instantly recognisable guitar playing. Essentially the album was edited together from one lengthy studio jam The following year saw the release of a single “Heavy Heart” which received some airplay and saw Green perform the song on Top of the Pops. A collaboration with Nigel Watson followed early in 1972 for Green’s final single for Reprise Records, “Beasts of Burden”. He then promptly disappeared before his late 1970s comeback, acquiring mystique and legend along the way.

This new and expanded Esoteric Recordings edition has been newly remastered from the original Reprise master tapes, with the four single sides appearing on CD for the first time. It also features a booklet with new essay and an exclusive interview with Zoot Money on the making of the album.

Tracklisting: Bottoms Up / Timeless Time / Descending Scale / Burnt Foot / Hidden Depth / The End Of The Game / Heavy Heart* / No Way Out* / Beasts Of Burden* / Uganda Woman*

*Previously unreleased on CD.

Label Review. 

2020 album. Blues. Also available on standard CD and Gold Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

“Sonny Landreth is probably the most underestimated musician on the planet, and also probably one of the most advanced.” Eric Clapton 

The Louisiana slide guitar icon Clyde Vernon “Sonny” Landreth will be releasing his new studio album, ‘Blacktop Run’ via Provogue/Mascot Label Group. ‘Blacktop Run’ follows his previous Grammy nominated album ‘Recorded Live In Lafayette’ (2017) and his back-to-back Blues Music Awards for Best Guitarist and Best Blues Album for ‘Bound by the Blues’ (2015).

His groundbreaking work has long mixed familiarity with experimentation, and his latest ten-song collection stretches from hard-edged electric instrumentals to wistful acoustic ballads. The project’s range is the fruit of a renewed collaboration. Producer RS Field– who helmed Landreth’s trio of breakout albums – joined the six-stringer and co-producer Tony Daigleto to finish the record.

 “His brilliance and creative energy recharged us,” Landreth said of reuniting with Field.Most of the tracks were recorded live at famed Dockside Studios on the Vermilion River south of Lafayette, LA. “We came up with new and better ideas, and that’s what you want,” he added. “It couldn’t have gone better.” 

After two Grammy nominations, multiple appearances at Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and wide-ranging acclaim from fellow players and fans worldwide, Landreth is looking forward to playing the new material live. “It’s all about telling the story,” Landreth says, “and as long as I can find my way up that path, I’m all in.” As the songwriter’s narrator sings in the title number of Blacktop Run, “A new day is dawning and I have never felt so alive.”

Tracklisting: Blacktop Run / Lover Dance With Me / Mule / Groovy Goddess / Somebody Gotta Make A Move / Beyond Borders / Don’t Ask Me / The Wilds Of Wonder / Many Worlds / Something Grand

Label Review.

2002 album remastered. Two bonus discs with additional studio material and demos. DVD features Making of documentary. Plus 100 page book. Kscope.

Our Overview.

The much anticipated deluxe edition of the iconic album by the British legends of experimental rock Porcupine Tree. Featuring remastered stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes, additional studio recordings, a disc of unreleased demos and a new feature length Lasse Hoile directed documentary on Blu-ray.

This new deluxe version of In Absentia provides an unrivalled insight into the context of the seminal album. The first CD features Steven Wilson’s 2017 remaster, which has considerably less compression and limiting for a more dynamic listening experience. The second CD includes all of the additional finished studio recordings the band made during the period. “Collapse (intro)”, “Drown With Me”, “Chloroform”, and “Meantime” were all recorded during the album sessions in New York, while “Futile” and “Orchidia” come from the post-album promo-only Futile EP. Radio edits of “Trains”, “Blackest Eyes” and “Strip the Soul” are also included. The third CD comprises over 70 minutes of demos recorded at Wilson’s home studio during the two years leading up to recording the album. Many of the selections differ from the final versions, with additional sections, alternate lyrics, and different arrangements. Also included are demos of three songs that were not subsequently recorded by the band, all released here for the first time: “Imogen Slaughter”, “Watching You Sleep”, and “Enough”. The Blu-ray features the new master of the original stereo mix, the 5.1 surround sound mix created in 2003 by legendary engineer Elliot Scheiner, plus the audio from the second CD, all in high resolution audio. It also boasts a new 109-minute feature length documentary film directed by Lasse Hoile, chronicling the making of the album with interviews and archive footage.

The 100-page deluxe hardback book is filled with exclusive content, including photography by Lasse Hoile, Carl Glover, Richard Barbieri and John Blackford from the recording sessions, subsequent tour and more, extensive biographical liner notes and track-bytrack commentary by Stephen Humphries, artwork drafts, and handwritten notes and lyrics. This deluxe reissue of Porcupine Tree’s best-loved album follows the release of Steven Wilson’s fifth solo album, To The Bone, which soared into the UK Album Charts at #3 and #2 in the German album charts and led to a sold-out tour including 3 shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Meanwhile Gavin Harrison is enjoying success touring the world with both King Crimson and The Pineapple Thief after performing on the latter’s latest album Dissolution, keyboardist Richard Barbieri recently released a box set collection of pieces Variants, and Colin Edwin issued the latest studio album with his band O.R.k., titled Ramagehead, featuring Serj Tankian of System of a Down.

Tracklisting:

CD 1: 2017 Remaster: Blackest Eyes / Trains / Lips Of Ashes / The Sound Of Muzak / Gravity Eyelids / Wedding Nails / Prodigal / .3 / The Creator Has A Mastertape / Heartattack In A Layby / Strip The Soul / Collapse The Light Into Earth

CD 2: Collapse Intro / Drown With Me / Orchidia / Chloroform / Futile / Meantime / Blackest Eyes (Radio Edit) / Trains (Radio Edit) / Strip The Soul (Video Edit)

CD 3: Demos: Drown With Me / Trains/ Imogen Slaughter/ Watching You Sleep/ The Creator Has A Mastertape/ Heartattack In A Layby/ Strip The Soul/ The Sound Of Muzak / Gravity Eyelids/ Enough / Wedding Nails / Blackest Eyes

CD 4: Documentary Film: The Making Of ‘In Absentia’ (109:45): 2017 Remaster 5.1 Mix: Blackest Eyes / Trains / Lips Of Ashes / The Sound Of Muzak / Gravity Eyelids / Wedding Nails / Prodigal / .3 / The Creator Has A Mastertape / Heartattack In A Layby / Strip The Soul / Collapse The Light Into Earth / Drown With Me / Choloform / Futile