Label Review.

2019 album. Featuring Nicholas Bullen founder member of Napalm Death. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘No You’ is the blistering and immersively menacing debut album from Rainbow Grave, featuring Nicholas Bullen (founder member of Napalm Death and Scorn) and John Pickering (founder member of Doom and Sore Throat), alongside James Commander and Nathan Warner. The Birmingham based four piece Rainbow Grave are putting a muddy, intense, psychedelic spin on punk and channel the blank despair of negative punk through layers of distorted psychedelic damage: dirty guitars, freeform pedal abuse and effected vocals coagulate around cyclic bass and drum rhythms in repetitive and minimal structures.

After a performance at Fat Out Fest in April 2017, God Unknown Records approached the group to record a split 7” single. Released in July 2018 as part of ‘Volume Three of the God Unknown Singles Series’, Rainbow Grave’s ‘Death Pyramid’ is a crawling mantric blend of heavy bass, psychedelic guitars, robotic vocals and hard drums described as “deeply hewn heaviness” (Shindig) and “congruent with the great scum rock purveyors of the late 80s” (The Wire).

Following the reception of the single, God Unknown invited Rainbow Grave to continue the relationship with the release of the ‘Sex Threat / You Are Nowhere’ 7” single in November 2018.

“Rainbow Grave are a Birmingham quartet whose sludge waffle sound is congruent with the great scum rock purveyors of the late 80s.” The Wire

“... nasty, grinding and hard, it’s a massive negative sound.” Louder Than War

“...a sludgetastic rumbler that out-Melvins The Melvins.” Shindig

Label Review. 

2019 album. Narration by Mick Jones of The Clash. Also available on CD.

Our Overview.

The inspirational American alt-rock, psyche pop, music fusion mixologists, The Flaming Lips are releasing their new album ‘King’s Mouth’ and as always from The Lips it is a deliciously weird and captivating studio album from the band that float in a wonderful sonic bubble all of their own.

‘King’s Mouth’ sees the iconoclastic outfit once again tread uncharted territory. These 12 new originals are threaded together by cinematic narration courtesy of The Clash’s Mick Jones. Additionally, the music parallels front man Wayne Coyne’s immersive art installation of the same name. Though ‘The King’s Mouth’ is rumoured to be a Coyne solo album in all but name and a stop-gap before a further Lips album next year, it finds the band more playful, melodic, cinematic and cohesive than they have since ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’.

Introduced in 2015, the installation has showcased its psychedelic visuals and soundscapes through North America in museums such as Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, NM, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, the Pacific Northwest College of Art Portland, OR and Wayne’s own creative space, The Womb, in Oklahoma City, OK. A true handcrafted marvel, it consists of a giant metallic head that welcomes spectators inside. Once inside of the foam mouth, an LED lightshow begins in tandem with music from the album. Now, the record doubles as the sonic companion to the exhibit and allows fans to experience the aural side at any time.

From their beginnings as Oklahoma outsiders - formed in 1983, when founder and guitarist Wayne Coyne enlisted his vocalist brother Mark and bassist Michael Ivins to start a band. Giving themselves the nonsensical name the Flaming Lips (its origin variously attributed to a porn film, an obscure drug reference, or a dream in which a fiery Virgin Mary plants a kiss on Wayne in the back seat of his car), the band made their live debut at a local transvestite club - to their mid-'90s pop-culture breakthrough to their status as one of the most respected groups of the 21st century, the Lips have rode the musical wave to become one of the more surreal and haphazard career trajectories in pop music.LP includes digital download album.

Label Review. 

Remastered. Sweet Baby James (1970) / Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon (1971) / One Man Dog (1972) / Walking Man (1974) / Gorilla (1975) / In The Pocket (1976). Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Between 1970 and 1976, James Taylor released six albums with Warner Bros. Records that became the foundation for his unparalleled career that includes five Grammy Awards, induction into the Songwriters and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame, and more than 100 million records sold worldwide. Although his biggest hits were interpretations of other people's songs he has penned scores of his own numbers, many of which have been covered by the likes of Willie Nelson, John Denver, & Marianne Faithfull. An accomplished guitarist, he has provided instrumental and vocal accompaniment on numerous records by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, & Steve Winwood. His considerable success might never had happened had he succumbed to the drug problems which plagued him before his musical journey even got off the ground. This was round about the time his debut album came out on The Beatles’ Apple label in 1968. It received some good reviews and led to him signing with Warners.

The first album from the label, ‘Sweet Baby James’ contained the big US hit “Fire And Rain”. The follow-up ‘Mud Slide Slim...’ featured what is probably his best known performance, the Carole King song “You’ve Got A Friend” which got to No.1 in the US and a big hit around the world too. His other big hit was another cover version, Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” which could be found on his 1975 album ‘Gorilla’. Following ‘In The Pocket’ in 1976, Taylor left Warners for Columbia Records, who he stayed with for the next twenty years where he continued to be a major draw on the live circuit and retaining a broad fanbase happy to lap up his latest albums.

Each album in the set has been remastered, a process overseen by Peter Asher, who signed Taylor to the Beatles’ Apple Records label in 1968, worked as his manager for 25 years, and originally produced several of these albums.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

British singer-songwriter and guitarist Darren Hayman - founder of indie band Hefner - pens music that always explores location and history and now Darren Hayman releases his 18th solo album, ’12 Astronauts’, on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 12 men have walked on the moon, and ’12 Astronauts’ includes a song for each of them, from Neil Armstrong to Harrison Schmitt and Gene Cernan (the Apollo 17 astronauts who quibble about who was the last man on the moon, was it the last person to set foot on the moon (Schmitt) or the last person to take his foot off the moon (Cernan)?).  The album itself is curious in its genesis as Darren conceived and started the album back in 2008 and only recently came back to complete it. Some of the vocals are recorded 10 years apart.

Always perfectly capturing the zeitgeist, Darren has always had an interest in space travel since 1977 when he saw Star Wars. Back in 2001 Hefner (Darren Hayman’s previous band) released a single called Alan Bean about the 4th man on the moon (an all new version is included on 12 Astronauts). In 2011 he contributed songs and pictures to Vostok 5, a London exhibition (and compilation album) about people and animals in space (he has also illustrated the cover of ’12 Astronauts’). In March 2014, as part of a year-long residency at Dalston’s Vortex, he played a set of his space-related songs supported by Robin Ince (this included the live debut of a number of tracks from 12 Astronauts). His record label, ‘Belka’, is named for one of the first two dogs to go into earth orbit and return alive, so it should come as no surprise that the ’12 Astronauts’ were in the back of his mind while he researched, wrote and recorded his classics about Thankful Villages, the Essex Witch Trials, Lidos, William Morris and British seaside resorts. 

The songs are works of historical fiction. Although Darren researched heavily he is essentially imagining himself as each astronaut and singing in the first person. The songs are not all set during the Apollo missions. Buzz Aldrin battles with his demons and fights for his marriage. Pete Conrad sympathises with his partner’s fear of an accident in flight. David Scott wonders what happened to his bodyguard on his press tour. Gene Cernan list every object he can think of that was left on the moon. Although the subject is big Darren has always written songs about small things and this album is no different. Darren collects together tiny moments from magnificent lives.'

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Sugar Drops’, is the wonderful new release from the Minneapolis based quintet who revive the energy and sound of the hot jazz/blues and flapper sounds of the 30’s: Davina And The Vagabonds. ‘Sugar Drops’ is the first album on Red House Records from the group and marks the first time singer/songwriter/pianist Davina Sowers entered a proper studio to record an album, however they have been creating a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, quality musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism and Davina Sowers’s commanding stage presence. 

With influences ranging from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits, the band is converting audiences one show at a time, from Vancouver to Miami and across Europe. The indomitable Davina has been compared to Etta James, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, and Betty Boop, but comparisons don’t suffice: Sowers is a true original.

‘Sugar Drops’ is distillation of bluesy bar room baritone and bravado, graveyard jazz grooves, and noir-ish confessional lyricism backed by boisterous piano, guitar, and strings. Eclectic, engaging and instilled with a deep respect and knowledge for the Great American Songbook, ‘Sugar Drops’ is the actualisation of longstanding intent for Davina. “It represents about 100 years of Americana; I did exactly what I wanted to do,” she says.

The Minneapolis-based artist holed up in Nashville’s Compass Sound Studio with producer (and Compass Records co-founder) Garry West, along with her trumpeter, string arranger and husband, Zack Lozier, and a rotating cast of powerhouse players including Todd Phillips (David Grisman, Robbie Fulks) on bass, Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt, Tom Jones) on guitar and Reese Wynans (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa) on Hammond B3.

Davina and the band are constantly on the road, touring throughout the world they’ve earned feverish acclaim from the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and more in addition to performing on BBC’s international favourite late-night program Later... with Jools Holland and appearing on PBS’s Bluegrass Underground.

Available on Deluxe CD with bonus tracks and LP.

“... part Bonnie Raitt, part Etta James and a little Amy Winehouse” Star Tribune

“Davina Sowers is a one-of-a-kind performer whose singing... has a sassiness bearing some comparison to that of heart-thumping blues queens Ma Rainey and Ida Cox.” Downbeat

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

British artist Emily Mae Winters, has been steadily gaining the acclaim she deserves on the Folk/Americana scene since the release of her debut album ‘Siren Serenade’, produced by award winning guitarist and producer Ben Walker. Now Emily returns with her sophomore album ‘High Romance’ which sees the critics once again reaching for superlatives to describe this fast sing stars rare qualities: "Vibrant and Experimental, sumptuously produced making it clear why Winters is gaining a following on both sides of the Atlantic." Songlines.

Described as having a voice that “stops you in your tracks” and “arresting, enthralling, tantalising” by Folk Radio UK, Emily combines straight-to-the-heart bittersweetness with her own unique passion and drama in performance. Emily Mae Winters’ exquisite songs which sit between the stormy seas of folk and country are influenced by artists including Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and Sarah Jarosz. 

To quote Emily: “In one of my favourite poems by the English romantic poet John Keats: ‘When I Have Fears’, he looks up at the night sky as his dying day approaches and sees ‘Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance’. He worries that he and his pen will not live long enough to trace them all. I’ve always been a ‘hopeless romantic’ but I think the older I get, the more the meaning of that phrase changes for me.”

'High Romance' was produced by award winning Americana producer Matt Ingram at Urchin Studios (Florence and the Machine, Lucy Rose, Laura Marling) The new album was recorded in December 2018 with a live band featuring BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winning guitarist Ben Walker, double bassist John Parker (Kate Rusby, Jackie Oates, Megson) and Matt Ingram (Drums/Percussion Piano) and mastered at Metropolis Studios.



Emily’s self-penned debut album ’Siren Serenade’ was released to critical acclaim, picking up plays on U.K. radio including the BBC Radio 2 Folk Show, BBC Good Morning Sunday as well as international folk and Americana radio in the U.S. Winters received a scholarship to showcase at Folk Alliance International in the U.S. The album was then selected in the International Americana Music Show’s top ten albums and featured in American Song writing Magazine’s reviews of the month as well as being shortlisted for the Fatea Debut Album of the Year and winning the Best Debut Album of the Year in the Laurel Canyon Music Awards.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

25 year old Londoner, singer-songwriter Freya Ridings is releasing her shiny new eponymous debut album, hot on the heels of her acclaimed 2018 single “Lost Without You” which hit the UK top 10 and has racked up nearly 200 million Spotify streams. Freya’s extraordinary, vibrato-rich voice is a gift to the listener and that’s undoubtedly one of the most powerful voices of her generation. Tthe female ‘voice’ of 2019, which has draw comparisons to the heady talents of Adele and Kate Bush. 

The album as a whole explores themes of doubt, pain, regret and vulnerability within songs of alchemical incandescence. Freya wrote all of the eleven songs that feature on the album which underpins her world class credentials as a songwriter. In an era in which hits are inevitably written by committee, “Lost Without You” saw Freya become the first female artist to have an entirely self-written Top 10 hit since Kate Bush’s “Running UpThat Hill” returned to the charts in 2012.

Studying at the Brit school in Croydon, Ridings spent four years playing open-mic nights across the capital before getting her break in the industry. Now she is touring so often - including a US tour last year - that she has not been able to officially move out of her parents’ “bohemian” north London home.

Freya - who describes herself as a “piano and song writing nerd” who spent summers practising rather than hanging out t festivals, is delighted to be playing Glastonbury and Wilderness, Latitude and the Isle of Wight festivals this summer. She said: “I’ve never been to Glastonbury before… It’s the first time I’m going to so many of these festivals, I’ve heard such legendary things from so many people. These are the festivals I wasn’t cool enough to go to as a teen, and now I get to actually play at them and it’s very, very surreal.

"I was the really uncool girl at school who wrote piano ballads, and now I’m playing Glastonbury. It makes absolutely no sense.” Oh it does Freya! We will watch your career grow and bloom! “

"The new Adele......Freya Ridings is the voice of 2019.” The Times.

“This singer brings classical precision and raw emotion to celestial pop.” GQ. 

“An extraordinary talent.” Sunday Times Culture.

“The most exciting rising talent in UK music......she’s a superstar in waiting.” The Sun.

Label Review. 

A Maid of Constant Sorrow (1961) Golden Apples of the Sun (1962) Judy Collins 3 (1963) Concert (1964) Fifth Album (1965) In My Life (1966) Wildflowers (1967) Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1968). Edsel. 

Our Overview. 

This collection gathers together the eight albums the American singer and songwriter Judy Collins recorded during the sixties. They were all made for Jac Holzman’s farsighted Elektra Records, a label she helped to shape in her first decade as a recording artist through her adventurous spirit. Her forte was imaginatively interpreting songs by her peers and, later with her own songwriting which first graced her seventh album ‘Wildflowers’ in 1967. That album also gave her a first major hit single in “Both Sides Now”, reaching No. 8 in the Billboard charts, which helped launch the career of that songs writer Joni Mitchell, who had no contract at the time.

Judy had by then established herself as an impeccable interpreter of the outstanding new songs by a welter of songwriters springing up in the early sixties, covering songs by Phil Ochs, Eric Anderson, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, Randy Newman, Jacques Brel, Donovan, Sandy Denny and Bob Dylan. Most significantly among the artists whose careers she helped develop, her 1966 album ‘In My Life’ is now celebrated as the first record to feature songs by Leonard Cohen.

The artwork has been put together by acknowledged Elektra collector Phil Smee. The albums are in CD sized facsimiles of the original sleeves, along with a booklet that compiles the credits and liner notes from those sleeves plus a note by Mick Houghton, author of “Becoming Elektra: The True Story of Jac Holzman’s Visionary Record Label”.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

The exceptional talent that is Terry Hanck - the award winning, American electric blues saxophonist, singer, songwriter and record producer - is releasing ‘I Still Get Excited’ described as one of the best albums of his career. The album is a perfect summer record for dancing, driving and being young at heart! And one that continues to demonstrate Terry’s unique ability to fuse various elements, soul, blues, ballads and boogaloo, into a cohesive whole.

Three-time Blues Music Award winner, Terry Hanck is in the modern pantheon of tenor sax greats. His sound is at the nexus of classic New Orleans R&B, Chicago blues and soul, West Coast honk and Memphis rock and roll. The guy has a voice that still make women swoon. His lyrics are ranked among the best in his idiom. Terrys five originals stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of his hand-picked favourites by Louis Jordan, Sam Lightning Hopkins, Bobby Charles, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson and Howlin Wolf on ‘I Still Get Excited’.

The album was co-produced with renowned player/producer savant, Chris Kid Andersen at Greaseland Studios in San Jose, the silver-haired fox gathered some famous special friends including harpman - Rick Estrin, piano/organ man - Jimmy Pugh, guitar master - Chris Cain, drummer - June Core and the legendary singer - Tracy Nelson to join in with his own brilliant bandmates for one of the best albums of his long career.

“Exciting, tenor sax-driven blues and soul. This Chicago native, now based in South Florida, is steeped in those genre’s traditions as a musician, singer and songwriter Hanck’s choice of material and his presentation are impeccable. He starts this album with Elvin Bishop’s “Right Now is the Hour,” and he does it proud. The slow burn of “T’s Groove” is hot enough to cook a thick steak on. Vocally, Hanck drips 1950s soul on the first half of “My Last Teardrop,” then punches it into overdrive. If soul/blues is your bag, grab this." -Bob Gottlieb, Elmore Magazine.

Terry Hanck’s music was “too bluesy for the funk crowd, and too funky for the rock ’n’ roll crowd,” of early 1970s California, but it was just right for Elvin Bishop, tried for years to lure Terry to his band before finally succeeding in 1977. A decade of world tours later, Hanck bid a fond farewell to that band and formed his own.

Today that band includes Bay Area monster guitarist Johnny Soubrand, long-time drummer Butch Cousins (younger brother to Robert Cray bassist Richard Cousins), and bassist Tim Wagar, a stalwart of the San Francisco blues scene and beyond (Lavern Baker, James Cotton, Jimmy McCracklin, Lowell Fulson, and Howard Tate).

Label Review.

2019 album. Produced by Joe Walker and Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard. Psych rock.

Our Overview.

‘BENT’ is the new album from all girl Aussie sibling psych-hard rock group Stonefield, the band who deliver tough but tuneful music, and also provide a caveat warning alongside their newly dropped record track “Sleep” “Administrator Instructions: Presentation of the following videotape must be preceded by the subject put into a stage two pre-hypnosis dream stage. Subjects are to be seated. Physical arrangements should be moderately comfortable and non-disturbing. Provisions should also be be made to prevent persons from entering the room once viewing is initiated”. It is an album that is immersive and delivers on all fronts.

Written largely on the road, the songs on ‘BENT’ are filled with reference and reflection, the kind that comes from months spent far from home, living on four wheels. The surreal isolation of trudging through white-out snow and snaking down deserted highways served as the perfect backdrop for the band to look inward. “It’s a culmination of experiences, emotions, and stories collected over time,” explains lead singer and drummer Amy Findlay, “A growth of honest, raw, energy that has been burning within us and waiting for its moment.”

“Sleep” opens the album with guitars covered in five inches of sludge and distortion and something that sounds like a far-off siren, or the high-pitched howlingof the wind. It serves as a warning, a call to arms, kicking things off with a next-level version of the massive, unholy racket the band has become known for over the course of their last three albums. “‘Sleep’ was inspired by the concept of floating in the inbetween,” explains Findlay. “An ode to the darkness of not wanting to cross to the other side.”

The heady Stonefield consists of sisters Amy (drums/vocals), Hannah (guitar), Holly (keyboards) and Sarah Findlay (bass). Since forming over a decade ago, they’ve released three excellent albums of expansive, rollicking garage-psych and hard rock: 2013’s self-titled debut, 2016’s ‘As Above, So Below ‘and last year’s impeccable ‘Far From Earth’. ‘BENT’, via Flightless Records, was produced by Joe Walker and Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, the album was recorded in-between tours in just five days.

Stonefield head out on a 37-date tour of Europe and the UK, after which they will be joining King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard and ORB for a North American tour.

Label Review.

2019 album. Azerbaijan by way of Turkey up to the Aegean waters through Tunisia and Southern Italy.

Our Overview.

‘Karsilama’ is a striking album from global musicians Abdo/Buda/Marconi who have infused vernacular music into one coherent offering. Born as a causal meeting of the Milanese guitarists Fabio Marconi and Manuel Buda, who were soon joined by the Kurdish musician, Ashti Abdo, the trio Abdo- Buda-Marconi, after two years of hard work and several concerts together, now present their first collaboration ‘Karsilama’.

Imagine this journey: A caravan departing from Azerbaijan reaches the Eastern parts of the Anatolian peninsula, then the Aegean Sea and the shores of Tunisia and Southern Italy. Greek dances perfumed of Otoman sensuality fast, obsessive Rom rhythms, Klezmer tunes w ith Balkan perfumes . Taksim and traditional Kurdish music in which echoes Caucasus and Persian sounds.

On ‘Karsilama’, the sound journey starts from Azerbaijan, to continue in the eastern part of the Anatolian peninsula (Turkey) up to the Aegean waters and go westwards,touching Tunisia and Southern Italy, among others, in a spontaneous and naturalmovement to signify the cultural homogeneity of a sea, the Mediterranean,which has connected co more than divided the countries. Simply evocative and seductive.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Soul. Also available on CD.

Our Overview.

‘The Wanderer’ is the spectacular groove laden debut album from new soul and funk sensation, the London based singer-songwriter Laville. Following on from the release of his stunning debut EP which featured singles ‘Easy’ and ‘Thirty One’, ‘The Wanderer’ is driven by a certain spirit, it’s almost as if after waiting so long Laville refuses to let this chance pass him by, bringing his intense sense of focus to the fore. A bold voice that adds something distinctly new to the tapestry of soul, Laville’s talent is too strong to remain a secret forever.

For a long time music was Laville’s biggest secret. As a kid growing up in North London his parents would throw wild house parties, with the sounds of soul, funk, and rare groove resonating from wall to wall. It seeped deep down inside, sparking a life-long love affair, but his voice, his songwriting, and those dreams were always something he kept hidden. Laville needed to live his life first. He studied, he travelled, and he worked – everywhere from top London venues to Michelin starred restaurants. Finding focus in his late 20s, his insight, raw talent, and drive pushed him forward, igniting a trail that leads to his glorious debut album ‘The Wanderer’.

His debut album ‘The Wanderer’ was steered by the expert hand of producer Tristan Longworth, built during the summer months with a crack team of musicians. Indeed, if ‘The Wanderer’ sounds fresh then that’s because it was, with Laville often using first takes. “It’s almost like the lights have come on,” he says. “I wanted it to be as pure as possible, really. I’ve made it now. And I love it.”

Fascinated by cinema and poetry, Laville’s lyrics have this narrative thrust that digs a little deeper than most. Citing the work of auteurs like Tarantino and Scorcese as a major influence, it’s intertwined with his own life, his own experiences. He comments: “The album is like a round up of a lot of things that have happened… from when I was really young to just now. Things I have felt forever.” The new single ‘This City’ rides a Studio 54 groove, and it owes a debt to the way Nile Rodgers and Chic would filter social commentary into their glorious disco hits. “I didn’t want it to just be a song about lights or dancing fast,” he comments. “I wanted it to be a proper disco song where there was a deeper meaning to the song and you’re not just dancing for the sake of it.”

‘Easy’ is a reflection on his gritty North London roots, and how that gave him his appetite to seek out something more than the everyday, while soulful standout ‘The Answer’ is about toxic relationships, where it becomes like “a drug – you know you shouldn’t but you do, and it feels good.”

Indeed love – or passion, or commitment – is a recurring theme on the album, with Laville moving from the super-smooth ‘Love Shine’ to the curiously infectious ‘Wavy Love’, amongst others. “It’s everything, isn’t it?” he comments. “It’s the strongest emotion that we can feel. Other emotions – like jealousy – are all rolled up in love anyway.”

‘The Wanderer’ is driven by a certain spirit – it’s almost as if after waiting so long Laville refuses to let this chance pass him by, bringing his intense sense of focus to the fore. “I’ve always needed to work, and work hard,” he says. “Even just working in retail – I had to get to the top. It’s the same with music.”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Blasting out of New Jersey, the the boy-ish septet Thank You Scientist’s new album “Terraformer” is an eclectic, vibrant and well-hydrated serving of progressive rock and with this, their third album, it sees the group at their most ambitious and most unpredictable to date, from a very unique sounding band - the fact that they are a progressive rock band that uses little to no keyboards (or live backing tracks), and includes a saxophonist, trumpeter, and violinist as full time members forms a pretty unique identity. - who thrive on great song writing centred around melodies and hooks while blowing you away with their superior musicianship.

The band: Salvatore Marrano - Vocals, Tom Monda - Guitar, Cody McCorry - Bass, Joe Fadem - Drums, Ben Karas - Violin, Sam Greenfield - Saxophone and Joe Gullace - Trumpet, has taken their experimental, genre-bending sound to the next level by delivering an extremely ambitious and constantly stimulating 84-minutes of experimental rock and roll music in the guise of ‘Terraformer’. Thank You Scientist bring forth their best mixed and produced album to date. The ability to have a traditional rock sound infused with violin and brass is something which is not new to the band. Their ability to compose music displaying fun and high musical skill matches their personalities. Every song has it’s moments of instrumental compositional genius and head banging goodness. With this album, they have now three consecutive official releases with some terrific songs and top notch musicianship.

Founded by guitarist and bandleader Tom Monda, the band self-released the ‘Perils of Time Travel’ EP in 2011, before signing with Claudio Sanchez’s label Evil Ink Records. Their 2012 full length debut, ‘Maps of Non-Existent Places’ made it onto the Billboard Hard Rock and Heatseekers charts, and was eventuallynamed “Album of the Week” by Revolver Magazine in 2014. They followed up in 2016 with ‘Stranger Heads Prevai’l, which cracked the Billboard Top 200 and co-starred on “Home Improvement” with Tim Allen. Thank You Scientist has spent the past several years touring internationally, both as headliners and as direct support for acts such as Coheed and Cambria.

Label Review.

2019 album. Stick In The Wheel harmony singer Fran Foote's debut album with her mother, Belinda Kempster.

Our Overview.

Belinda Kempster and Fran Foote are the refreshingly honest and humble mother and daughter duo from Essex UK, who sing traditional folk songs from their family and home county without frills or fuss. And Clay Hill Road, Basildon, Essex is the location which inspired their debut album title ‘On Clay Hill’ as they both have always lived near there.

Belinda began singing traditional songs in the 1960s: “Our family has a history of farming and working on the land; these songs come from that way of life - at work andat play”. She met her husband in a folk club, and Fran grew up immersed in the local folk scene, learning songs from her parents from a very young age.

Many of their songs were learned from Fran’s great uncle and farm labourer Ernie Austin, who was recorded for Topic’s ‘Voice of the People’ release ‘Flash Company’ in 1974. Austin lived and worked in the small village of Bentley, just outside Colchester, and sang songs related to his work and recreation. Stuff you’d sing down the pub. ‘Ernest Austin is now 83 years of age and he lives in a small village to the east of Colchester in Essex.

This collection of songs are made up of those taught to Belinda by Ernie and from private family recordings. Also included are personal favourites from Belinda’s repertoire: “we want our family’s music to be documented - this is the tradition of our family and singing these songs together feels like coming home”.

Label Review.

2019 album. Electronica.

Our Overview.

Becoming Real is a UK electronic producer based in Copenhagen, hailed as by Line Of Best Fit “Ridler has become an expert arranger. One of UK’s most promising young talents”. ‘Mist Face’ finds him further exploring the influence of grime, vapour wave, cyberpunk and ambient dream music, paired with detailed and engrossing sound design that conjures fragmented ghostly scenes in empty future cities.

Following the release of his debut album ‘Pure Apparition’, he took some time out of music to focus on the visual arts. ‘Mist Face’ is his most fully realised project yet.

“Becoming Real makes idiosyncratic mutant soul music, full of wild colour and weird texture” - Fact magazine

“A quality, crafted listen caught somewhere between Jon Hopkins, Rustie and HowToDressWell" NME

This album is for those of you out there that dig Arca, Burial, Four Tet, Varg, HKE, Murlo, Dream Catalogue and Actress. Since his first release in 2010 he’s dropped several well-received EPs and an album on Transgressive Records. His early promise earned him inclusion in The Guardian’s ‘New Band Of The Week’ and NME’s ‘Radar’ features, and saw him pick up radio support from Lauren Laverne, Huw Stevens, Mistajam, Rinse and Mary Ann Hobbs. Long may his reign in this genre continue.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

The Middlesbrough, UK. based singer-songwriter and producer Oli Heffernan records “pretty much constantly” for what he wryly terms his ‘Miss Factory’. His outpouring is fecund and his release schedule as hectic and varied as ever. ‘Rations’ is Oli Heffernan’s twentieth album in 7 years under his solo nom de plume of Ivan The Tolerable, now the main vehicle for his hallucinatory basement outpourings since the dissolution of the beloved Year Of Birds. Now Ivan has expanded into a full band and Ivan The Tolerable and The Elastic Bands, whose new album is over a sprawling double album.

After a constant flow of releases on labels like Third Uncle, Art Is Hard, Endless, Forward Fast, Ack! Ack! Ack! and more, he finally found his way to Stolen Body Records for this latest release. On ‘Rations’ he eschews his old group’s acerbic brevity for a sprawling double slab of time-dilating chug and wail. Joined by Tom Carter (Charalambides) on cosmic lead, Kevin Nickles (Ecstatic Vision/ Writhing Squares) on flute and saxophone and members of King Champion Sounds (with whom Heffernan plays bass and organ), the band ride the taut, rattling grooves out past Pluto every time and the free-floating and beautiful psychedelia to be found here goes much further into the astral plain than many are willing to venture.

‘Rations’ was recorded on three different planets during 2018 - Thomas House (Sweet Williams/Sloath/Haress) March 2019

Oli has released his solo material under the moniker of Ivan The Tolerable King Champion Sounds (a large and multi-national outfit) and Houseplants (alongside Leighton from Country Teasers) and Year Of Birds and Detective Instinct.

His output is prolific, in an interview with Narc Magazine he said “It’s partly out of habit, partly out of desire and partly out of self-preservation. I have zero interest in ‘making it’, have never wanted to be a full-time musician. People find this odd, but I honestly fail to see the fun in doing it as a job – I love proper work – but making music stops me from going mad. I’ve never had a dry spell that lasted longer than say a couple of weeks, but that was bad enough – it’s like the end of the world to me at the time, but when I look back its ridiculous really… I still aim to get a lot done, I have this weird attitude when it comes to releasing stuff (again, people don’t seem to understand it) but I’m of the opinion that everything is valid – I don’t see any difference between a band that has spent two months and thousands of pounds recording a song and getting it perfect, to someone who’s stuck a microphone in their kitchen and bashed out a song in five minutes – whether you like it, or hate it, they are both, in essence, the exact same thing: a recording of a song and so are therefore as valid as each other – I stick to this rule and therefore I pretty much release everything I record (at least 90%) and if people like it – nice one, and if people hate it, nice one – it doesn’t bother me. I do take exception to people saying things about the recording quality – these people are generally the sort of folks who write one song a year and spend two days in a studio making it sound so polished and ‘correct’ that it doesn’t sound like it was made by people.”

Label Review.

2014 album. New Digipak.

Our Overview.

‘Homo Eracticus’ was the sixth studio album by frontman of prog rockers Jethro Tull’s multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson and by many considered to be the most fully realised progressive rock concept album in the Jethro Tull repertoire, loosely connected to Jethro Tull’s ’Thick As A Brick’.

In 2012 Ian Anderson released ‘Thick As A Brick 2’, the follow-up to Jethro Tull’s legendary concept album. The album was a critical and commercial success, charting around the world. In April 2014 he returned with the UK top 20 album ‘Homo Erraticus’. The original ‘Thick As A Brick’ album, released in 1972, was based around the poem of disgraced child prodigy Gerald Bostock . For ‘Homo Erraticus’ Anderson is reunited with Bostock, using lyrics written by Gerald based on an old historical manuscript. The manuscript examines key events from throughout British history before going on to offer several prophecies for the future.

The phrase Homo Erraticus is Latin for “wandering man”, and the concept for the album builds tangentially upon the fictional narrative of Ian Anderson’s recurring character Gerald Bostock, a literary child prodigy. The general backstory underlying the album is that, in the year 2014, poet Gerald Bostock, now in his early fifties, has recently discovered in his town’s bookstore a “dusty, unpublished manuscript, written by local amateur historian Ernest T. Parritt, (1873 -1928)” which is entitled either “Homo Britanicus Erraticus” or “Homo Erraticus (The St Cleve Chronicles)”. Anderson claims that the album’s lyrics are Bostock’s resulting interpretation of Parritt’s “illustrated document which summarises key historical elements of early civilisation in Britain and seems to prophesy future scenarios too”. Suitably dramatised and exaggerated by Bostock as metaphors for modern life, he presented Anderson with ideas for 14 songs, which was then set to music. The result was ‘Homo Erraticus’.

Tracklisting:

1. Doggerland

2. Heavy Metals

3. Enter The Uninvited

4. Puer Ferox Adventus

5. Meliora Sequamur

6. The Turnpike Inn

7. The Engineer

8. The Pax Britannica

9.Tripudium Ad Bellum

10. After These Wars

11. New Blood, Old Veins

12. In For A Pound

13. The Browning Of The Green

14. Per Errationes Ad Astra

15. Cold Dead Reckoning

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Earth Tongue, the heavy psychedelic, fuzz duo from Wellington N.Z, describe themselves as “two human beings - Gussie Larkin and Ezra Simons who play loud, energetic, disorientating songs, often with space and/or occult themes.” And their debut release ‘Floating Being’ will not disappointment fans, who have been following their raucous gigs since they formed in 2016 and who draw influence from early 70s psyche and prog rock.

Sometimes music is supposed to feel weird and indescribable. It’s the moments of clarity within the dense, sonic mess that often feels the most satisfying. That’s the space that Earth Tongue occupy. At times, their songs are shrill and disorientating, other times their reverb-washed textures and instantly- familiar hooks can wrap you in a warm, loving embrace. The one consistent thread through their music, however, is the thick and all encompassing fuzz. Guitarist Gussie Larkin has become a master of the fuzz-smothered riff, and along with Ezra Simons’ off-kilter drumming, they’ve been sending punters into transcendental states since they began gigging in their home town of Wellington in 2016.

‘Floating Being’ will be released this June 21st. The album was pieced together throughout their travels of Australia and Europe, with the finishing touches being added in their hometown. The album contains songs they’ve been playing live for the past year, and it captures the raw, primitive energy that exists within their live performance. Earth Tongue embrace the imperfections in their playing and recording. The last thing they wanted was to create a shiny, over-produced record - with that in mind, they recorded the drums to an old 8-track Tascam reel-to-reel in a friend’s garage in Melbourne. The result is a punchy, raw and fuzzy journey into psych-rock with songs that weave between melodic and jarring. Unexpected twists and turns leave the listener in a disorientated yet satisfying haze.

Their debut ‘Transportable Shrine’ EP was self-released in New Zealand but Floating Getting is released this by means of Bristol (UK)  primarily based independent label Stolen Physique Records – dwelling of a load of cool international bands.

Label Review. 

Everything Changes (1974), Moon Bathing (1975), and Maybe It’s Lost (1977) plus 20 bonus tracks. RPM.

Our Overview. 

Lesley Duncan was arguably Britain’s first female singer-songwriter of any note, first signed as a jobbing songwriter by publisher FDH in 1962 on £7 a week, later releasing five solo albums from 1971-1977. A parallel career as a backing singer is how Lesley was better known in the industry, being part of what Beat Instrumental magazine called the British equivalent of the Wrecking Crew along with Sue & Sunny, Madeline Bell, Kay Garner, Vicky Brown, Kiki Dee and Liza Strike. The complete recordings of Lesley’s covering 1968-1972 was released on RPM’s 2CD anthology ‘Sing Lesley Sing’ which is still available.

Now comes ‘Lesley Steps Lightly’, the anthology of Lesley’s period with the (Billy) Gaff Management set up (managers of The Faces, Status Quo, Rory Gallagher, Greenslade at the time), releasing recordings on their GM label. To Lesley’s name were 3 LPs and 7 singles, all included here, from 1974-1978.

The albums ‘Everything Changes’, ‘Moon Bathing’, and ‘Maybe It’s Lost’, ninety per cent written by Lesley, are very largely chronicles of relationships both happy and troubled, most but not all of them about Lesley’s own; some songs are about friends rather than herself. Then husband Jimmy Horowitz produced all, and they assembled a stellar cast of studio players to back Lesley.

Additional material on Disc One is the 1974 BBC In Concert recording made at the Golders Green Hippodrome. Disc Two has an extra b-side plus the live cut of one of Lesley’s big song’s “Earth Mother” recorded live in 1973 at the Reading Festival. Disc 3 goes beyond the GM years and rounds up unreleased songs recorded with her second husband arranger/producer Tony Cox during the early 1980s, her final mainstream single in 1982 an acerbic delivery of Dylan’s “Masters Of War”, and the 1979 ‘live aid’ style charity single cover of Lesley’s song “Sing Children Sing” with Pete Townshend, Madeline Bell, Kate Bush, Joe and Vicki Brown, Billy Nicholls and Phil Lynott.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album also available on CD.

Our Overview.

‘Emotional Education’ is the debut album from London based IDER, the songwriting electro pop duo comprising of flatmates Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville. The album was mostly written in the band’s London flat - the culmination of six years of intense creative collaboration - and draws on themes of anxiety, identity, mental health, and the human condition run throughout. 

There’s been a buzz about IDER for a while now, who have astounded with a string of stunningly original left-field pop and indies singles since first appearing with the sky-scraping, emotive Sorry back in 2016. The album’s 11 songs - which include singles ‘Mirror’, ‘You’ve Got Your Whole Life Ahead of You Baby’ and ‘Brown Sugar’ - are consistently intricate and intimate, but draw from a multitude of influences, reflecting the multi-instrumentalists’ diverse tastes. ‘Emotional Education’ was produced by MyRiot and Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Sampha) in London and Los Angeles. 

To understand the symbiosis that exists between IDER, you need only learn how the London duo’s debut album got its name. “It came from a song that I had written,” says Megan Markwick, referring to the raw electro-pop anthem ‘Saddest Generation’, a beautiful examination of millennial malaise. “But then Lily had put in that lyric - ‘Where’s the emotional education we’re all looking for?’ And it was a penny drop moment. It’s such a perfect example of the way we work, this partnership that is all entangled.” “Emotional Education is what we give each other,” adds Lily Somerville, “and what we’re going to give you with this album.”

The North London duo have also been announced as support for Norwegian star Sigrid’s UK and Ireland tour, which kicks off in November. They’ll also embark on headline shows of their own across Europe, beginning with an Oslo show at the end of October.

Label Review. 

2000 album reissue. Special guests include Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Hubert Sumlin, Dr John, Joe Louis Walker & Honey Boy Edwards. Also avaible on CD.

Our Overview. 

Reissue of this 2000 album ‘Hot Foot Powder’ from the British Blues legend and former Fleetwood Mac leader and guitarist Peter Green is a blue’s lover’s must. ‘Hot Foot Powder’ was Peter’s second album made up entirely of covers of the music by the legendary Delta bluesman Robert Johnson containing 13 of Green's interpretations of Robert Johnson songs and joined by a host of contemporary blues stars.

The 29 songs that Robert Johnson recorded in various Texas hotel rooms in 1936 and 1937 are amongst the most significant and influential works in the history of Blues music. It was thus very appropriate that it was to these landmark songs that Peter Green turned to when recording the two albums that re-launched his career: 1998's the Robert Johnson Songbook and this album. Hot Foot Powder saw his Splinter Group joined by such Blues legends as Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Dr. John, Hubert Sumlin, Joe Louis Walker & Honey Boy Edwards.

Peter Green is widely regarded as one of the finest guitarists of his generation. His virtuoso blues playing was an integral part of the sound of the original Fleetwood Mac, which he founded in 1967, and his tortured lead placed him on a par with legends such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. In the early ‘70s, Green left the band and he was to spend much of the next three decades in the wilderness, battling a number of health issues.

He re-emerged in the late 1990’s performing with the Peter Green Splinter Group, and the second album of his remarkable revival, The Robert Johnson Songbook, is one of the greatest classic blues records and was the first British album to win the prestigious WC Handy Award.

The CD edition of ‘Hot Foot Powder’ is presented in digipack packaging complete with an 8-page booklet whilst the LP edition is released on 180gm heavyweight audiophile vinyl presented in single sleeve packaging.

Tracklisting: 

1. I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man (feat Otis Rush) 

2. From Four Till Late (feat Dr John)

3. Dead Shrimp Blues

4. Little Queen Of Spades

5. They’re Red Hot

6. Preachin’ Blues

7. Hellhound On My Trail

8.Traveling Riverside Blues

9. Malted Milk 

10. Milkcow’s Calf Blues

11. Drunken Hearted Man

12. Crossroad Blues

13. Come On In My Kitchen

Label Review. 

32 tracks. New songs, plus rarities, unheard tracks and remixes and a 48 page book. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Shakespeare’s Sister, burst into our aural radars in 1988, are releasing ‘Singles Party (1988-2019)’ a comprehensive singles collection containing two brand new tracks plus rarities, unheard tracks and remixes. The Brit-American pop/alt-rock duo formed of the deliciously evocative coupling of singer-songwriters Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey. The group was initially a solo project for Brit Siobhan and her first musical exploration since leaving Bananrama, until Marcella, the American guitarist and backing vocalist began working with Dublin born Fahey in 1989 and forging her musical influences into the duo’s offering, that is until 1993 when the pair had one of the most dramatic break ups in pop history. Lucky for fans Siobhan and Marcella have reunited and written music together for the first time in over 25 years, so this is a little sonic reminder, and hopefully a taster of what new albums are to come from Shakespeare Sister. We wait with bated breath!

The deluxe CD edition features 32 tracks over two CDs in bookpack style packaging with 48-page booklet of rare photos, new sleeve notes and lyrics. Including the huge hit singles ‘Stay’, ‘You’re History,’ ‘I Don’t Care’ and ‘Hello (Turn Your Radio On)’.

‘All The Queen’s Horses’ was produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire) and features members of The Bad Seeds.

In 1989 and 1992 respectively they achieved two Top 10 albums, ‘Sacred Heart’ and ‘Hormonally Yours’. ‘Hormonally Yours’ was certified double platinum in the UK and was a hit around the world. In 1992 their single ‘Stay’ was Number One in the UK for eight weeks. Their other Top 10 hits include ‘You’re History’ and ‘I Don’t Care’.

Fans will be pleased to know that the band are also touring the UK this winter.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

‘Telling’ is the debut album that has taken some 6 years to be realised from American band Friend Of My Youth, who originally formed in 2013 by guitarist/singer Indiana Laub and drummer Andy McCumber, living in Santa Barbara, CA. After six months of playing together, a self-titled tape release, and a handful of shows, Laub moved to Corvallis, Oregon and Friend Of My Youth went on a hiatus of sorts. The future of the band was just uncertain.

Fast forward several years and despite almost 1000 miles separating Laub and McCumber, they were able to travel back and forth, play more gigs, and write new music in borrowed practice spaces. More years passed, and with the help of newfound bassist Spencer Burnette-McGrath, Friend Of My Youth persevered. Although McCumber still lives in California and Laub and McGrath reside in Oregon, they’ve at last finished recording their debut album ‘Telling’.

‘Telling’ is about processing and reprocessing memory and trauma and weird feelings over and over until the point of feeling like an alien around everyone you know. It’s also about being obsessed with science fiction and alternate timelines. Many of the songs came out of the idea that maybe we have to repeat harmful and unhealthy cycles forever without even realising what we’re doing, across generations, or maybe we dont?

“Ancestral” is the first single from ‘Telling’. The song opens up with a moody, chameleon of a guitar riff. As the drums and bass guitar enter, they too are quickly revealed to be shape shifters. The structure reorganises as quickly as it is established. Guitar patterns transform from emotively straightforward into something busier and more twinkly. Both parts in the rhythm section follow suit; the meter is doubled as the song picks up its pace. This kickstarts the prevalent back and forth swaying demeanour throughout “Ancestral.”

Recorded and mixed by Nathan Lawson at our practice space. Mastered by Bill at Azimuth Mastering.

Label Review.

2019 album. Blend of sounds from China and Turkey.

Our Overview.

‘Gobi Desert’ by the Guo Gan Trio is an album release pervaded by a music with an immediate emotional grip, evocative of wide spaces and able to stimulate the imagination of the listener. The suggestive sound of the erhu and the bright one of thebaglama in an equal relationship collaborate the musical thread supported by percussion, never intrusive.

The collaboration of the musicians dates back several years and led them to a symbiotic musical understanding in which their instruments dialogue in the various compositions of the program (mostly of original pieces).

The musical explorations of Guo Gan, virtuoso of the erhu (characteristic Chinese bowed instrument) continue. Here he meets the baglama (long handle lute of the Anatolian music) played by Emre Gultekin and Levent Yildirim, considered one of the modern pioneers of percussion in the Middle East. Guo Gan, on the seventh CD with Felmay presents ‘Gobi Desert’ his trio formed with two Turkish musicians. In the opening piece, which also gives the title to the album, the atmosphere created by the lyrical sound of the erhu is supported by the percussions that create a suspended soundscape. The whole CD is pervaded by a music with an immediate emotional grip, evocative of wide spaces and able of stimulate the imagination of the listener. The dreamlike sound of the erhu and the bright sound of the baglama intertwine in an equalrelationship and collaborate in developing a logical thread, always supported by percussion, that never become predominant.

Label Review.

2019 album. Bluegrass.

Our Overview.

Lebanese singer guitarist Larry Sparks is one of the most respected and beloved figures in bluegrass music and has said that he is the “youngest old-timer around” and his new release ‘New Moon Over My Shoulder’ commemorates fifty years of Larry Sparks & The Lonesome Ramblers’ enduring legacy on traditional bluegrass music and features many of the attributes such as soulful singing, riveting guitar work, an engaging selection of songs that earned him induction into the IBMA Hall of Fame. He is known for his fine voice, his unique bluesy style of guitar picking and his uncanny knack for finding great material which encapsulates his love of country and bluegrass.

‘New Moon Over My Shoulder’ highlights Sparks’ ability to put his own spin on classic songs as well as find quality new material that complements his one-of-a-kind style. In addition, Sparks has included fresh takes of two popular gospel numbers that had been out-of-print for quite some time: New Highway and Green Pastures in the Sky.

Over the years he has stamped his name on an unusually large number of signature songs such as “John Deere Tractor,” “Tennessee 1949,” “Blue Virginia Blues” and many others. Despite his status as one of bluegrass music’s top headline artists, as an elder statesman and as an inductee to the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) Hall of Fame, Larry Sparks is an under-recorded entity.

It has been five years since his last studio album, the 50th anniversary “Lonesome And Then Some.” Larry’s new album commemorates another career milestone. While “Lonesome And Then Some” marked his 50th anniversary as a professional musician, “New Moon Over My Shoulder” coincides with the fifth decade of Larry as the band leader of his Lonesome Ramblers. He formed the group in 1969 after a successful three-year run as Ralph Stanley’s lead singer in The Clinch Mountain Boys.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview.

‘Heaven Is Humming’ is a soundscape of sonic bliss from Goon and the L.A. rockers debut too boot. The album is weird in its fearless abandon but it’s also comforting and familiar at the same time, taking the sounds of foundational groups like Pixies and Boards Of Canada and contextualising them through a modern lens, placing Goon alongside contemporaries like Forth Wanderers, METZ, Young Jesus and Partisan label mates Dilly Dally. Becker croons like Michael Stipe one minute and snarls like Frank Black the next but you never lose the sense of who these four guys are making a beautiful racket right in the here and now.

Written in periods of health and optimism, ‘Heaven Is Humming’ has been a long time coming. Three years coming, to be exact: singer / guitarist / songwriter Kenny Becker, singer / guitarist Drew Eccleston, bassist Caleb Wicker and drummer Christian Koons started work on the album in the summer of 2016, right around the time Goon’s debut EP ‘Dusk Of Punk’ came ripping in from the Los Angeles sky, spilling from the brim with monster riffs and deep hooks. After spending some initial time in the studio with Chris Lynch and Adam Rasmussen of Gardens & Villa in their space in the Frogtown neighbourhood of LA, the first Goon LP could have easily been rushed out. Instead the band chose to get it just right.

Goon have toured with and opened for And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Grandaddy, Lucy Dacus, Lemon Twigs and Starcrawler. And they have earned praise from 6 Music, The Fader, Noisey, Rolling Stone, Spin, NPR and Stereogum. Both Fader and NPR have named the band as “One To Watch”.

“Right down to its name, Goon captures the essence of ‘90s college radio.” NPR

“… pure stoned-Weezer goodness, an image of SoCal summer painted in golden sludge.” Rolling Stone

“Rising grunge-gaze heroes Goon have been bringing the scuzz back to LA guitar music for a good year now... the band and its sludgy, sprawling sound has been a relentless presence on stage and playlists alike.” Noisey

Label Review.

2019 live album.

Our Overview.

Described as a “breathtaking duet”, worldwide acclaimed musicians Tony McManus and Julia Toasper are releasing their ‘Live In Concert’ album which was recorded live during a German tour by the duo in the early part of 2019. Tony and Julia’s guitar treatment of traditional music is unique, and each supports the other in exploring the harmonic possibilities of these old and not-so-old tunes. Each of the pair both flatpick and fingerpick at the highest level but always at the service of the tune rather than a display of technique. Julia’s violin can effortlessly morph into a fiddle as she weaves from Italian madrigal to Scottish reel. Her songs go to the heart of love and loss, hope and survival and are inflected with a musical input from a wide and eclectic experience of musical life.

Tony and Julia’s arrangements are rooted in deep musicality and heartfelt expression. Having met over a conversation in Berlin about J S Bach, together they play and sing music that speaks to them and hopefully through them to a wider audience.

Tony McManus is the leading Celtic guitarist worldwide and has been listed as one of the 50 transcendental guitarists of all time by Guitar Player Magazine. While Tony is known as a soloist, his frequent collaborations with diverse musicians have always been a significant part of his work. Tony joined the Greentrax label in 1995 and Live In Concert will be the seventh Tony has released by Greentrax Recordings.

Julia Toaspern is a multi-talented musician from Berlin who combines classical training on violin and voice with a wide interest in genres such as jazz, baroque and traditional music. She has released two albums of original songs and performed in both classical and singer-songwriter modes on both sides of the Atlantic. On top of all this her skills as a guitarist are prodigious and make an exciting fit with Tony’s work. On this Live album she sings, plays guitar and violin. Greentrax extend a warm welcome to Julia.

The recordings were made by Rainer Ahrens of Felicitas Records, Berlin, who also mixed and mastered - and produced a final master which can only be described as brilliant in sound quality. The musicianship and the final master make this a rather special live album.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American, Portland based, post-punk rock band Summer Cannibals, fronted by Jessica Boudreaux are releasing their new album ‘Can’t Tell Me No’, which was the result of deciding to scrap an album, that had been finished for over a year and start from scratch, after escaping a manipulative personal and creative relationship. And this defiant release very existence is about taking back power. Jessica explains “We had to sacrifice an album we’d worked hard on so that someone abusive and manipulative couldn’t benefit from it,” says Boudreaux. “It was, in a matter of 24 hours, making the decision to start something new or let them win.”

Creation and determination prevailed; along with Cassi Blum, Devin Shirley, and Ethan Butman, Boudreaux wrote and recorded and mixed many of the new tracks during 14-hour days. She and Blum hunkered down in Boudreaux’s home studio, where they had been already been engineering records for other bands, and finished Can’t Tell Me No as Summer Cannibals’ first entirely self-engineered and produced album.

“Writing this record and making it ourselves was about liberation from the parts of an industry that have protected abusers for way too long, and about saying fuck you to the people who have invalidated my and so many others’ experiences of abuse,” says Boudreaux. “It’s really easy for people to condemn the government and figures we see on the news,” says Boudreaux, “but those same people often fail when it comes to standing up to and calling out the people in their lives who are just as evil.” Songs like “False Anthem” confront this cowardice; “Hate who they are, say you hate what they do,” snarls Boudreaux against an insistent, hard-charging guitar, “but you love all the things that they promise you.”

'Cant Tell Me No' is, as much as anything, about finding love and acceptance on the other side of pain. On a larger scale, the album stands up not just to a relationship or an industry, but to the people and constructs that have been trying to silence women and hold them down for so long. Its about doing the right thing, says Boudreaux, even when its terrifying.

Label Review. 

1999 album remastered. Also available on CD with 11 bonus tracks.

Our Overview. 

’Choochtown’ from American artist Hamell On Trail is getting the special ‘20th Anniversary’ release remaster and available on it’s first proper Vinyl worldwide release. Acoustic guitarist, singer-songwriter Ed Hamell aka. Hamell On Trial, not only records music, performs live, produces independent writing, he also paints. And his albums reflect all his inspirations, delivering records that are sonic melange drawn from a contemporary social tapestry. Hamell on Trial is a one-man punk band, engrossing the listener into (mostly) loud, fast music informed by politics, passion, energy and intelligence, played by a guy with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humour and ’Choochtown’ is no exception to the rule.

Born in Syracuse, NY, Ed Hamell started many a band before grasping the amazing appeal of autonomy: the solo musician’s ability to write a song and perform it the same evening. After freeing himself from the spiritual and financial burdens of a full band, he found himself with a bunch of new songs and a gig at a benefit concert. “I had never played solo before and never really listened to acoustic music,” he recalls. “Every musician in town was going to be there, so, knowing that I was going to be scrutinised, and also to differentiate myself from the James Taylors of the world, I decided to call it Hamell on Trial, figuring it would be a one-time deal. After the show, I was offered a record deal from a local label, something I had never come close to in my band years, so even an idiot like me realised I was on to something, and the name stuck.”

Ed Hamell on ‘Choochtown’: “I was living in Brooklyn, constantly on the road, and been dropped from my major label deal on Mercury/Universal. I really had nothing to lose and I was very inspired, if I remember, by the movie Pulp Fiction and the Biggie Smalls record: Ready To Die. I recorded anywhere I could. My friend Billy Nicgorski had an analog one inch studio inhis basement, his younger brother had a band and I would use them. I also did a bunch of it in my basement in Brooklyn which had a dirt floor and I set the recording gear up on plasticpaint pails. Used them as drums sometimes too. I released it on my own label Such-A-Punch and it got licensed to Evangeline in the UK where it got rave reviews and established my career over there. After all the press I got for my first two albums on a major I couldn’t get shit over here in the States, only that CMJ magazine which took their silliness pretty seriously who basically said, ‘We don’t know what it is but it’s art.’ Duh.

“I’m pretty proud of all my records, I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve always been able to maintain complete creative control but this one I was particularly proud of because every inch of it, from the recording which one track as you’ll see was recorded on my boom box, to the artwork, was all mine.”

Hamell On Trial reissue ‘Choochtown’ on CD and digital download album with 11 bonus tracks from the original recording sessions with Billy Nicgorski. ‘Choochtown’ will also see its first proper vinyl release worldwide. The vinyl version, pressed on coloured 150g vinyl, is a remastered version of the original album released in 1999.

“Amazing and entertaining and poignant” The Stereo Times Online Magazine

“High-spirited... manic energy.. artful” CMJ

Label Review. 

15 titles on 20 audio and 4 DVD discs document the 20 year history from 1987 to 2006 of one of the UK’s brightest, most travelled and best loved young jazz ensembles. Featuring Bill Bruford with Iain Ballamy, Django Bates, Patrick Clahar, Laurence Cottle, Tim Garland, Steve Hamilton, Tim Harries, Mark Hodgson, Mick Hutton, Gwilym Simcock. All audio, visual and print materials compiled and curated by Bill Bruford. Additional original artwork by award-winning illustrator, photographer and filmmaker Dave McKean. 8 bonus tracks.

Our Overview. 

Born in 1949, Bill Bruford is one the UK’s most celebrated drummers in the rock and jazz fields playing most notably with Yes & King Crimson and this new box set focuses on the band he started in 1986, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks which collects pretty much everything they did until he disbanded the group in 2008. The ensemble went through two distinct periods, the first of which featured Django Bates (keys, trumpet and horn) and Iain Ballamy (sax).

The first four discs cover the ‘Mark 1’ band. ‘Earthworks’, the group’s first offering in 1987, was named the “third best jazz album of the year” by America’s USA Today. Their third album ‘All Heaven Broke Loose’ was well received on its release. One review said: “Full of unpredictability, subtle mood changes, touches of eccentric funk and a surprisingly creative use of electronic rhythms...”. After a live album, ‘Stamping Ground’, the band broke up and Bruford returned to King Crimson (he played with them back in the 1970s) and also worked in the jazz and fusion fields.

He formed a new version of Earthworks in 1997 featuring Steve Hamilton (keyboards) and Patrick Clahar (saxophones), the band’s live work led to the release of the album ‘A Part and yet Apart’ in 1999. Electronic percussion made way for the warmer looser style of the more conventional sax-piano-bass-drums line up, and Bruford continued to bring the best of the young British players to the attention of a rapidly growing international audience. By the time Bruford ended the band in 2008 the line up was Gwilym Simcock (piano & keyboards), Tim Garland (saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute) & Laurence Cottle (bass guitar).

Bill retired from performing in 2009 to concentrate on writing his autobiography and a return to study and in 2016, Bruford earned a PhD in Music at the University of Surrey.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Also available on CD, and Cassette. 

Our Overview. 

‘Mantra Moderne’ by Kit Sebastian is a contemporary masterpiece that fuses Anatolian psychedelia and Brazilian Tropicalia with 60’s European pop and American jazz. The duo is formed of Kit Martin, who lives between London and France and plays all instruments on the album, and Merve Erdem, vocalist and multi-disciplinary artist from Istanbul, now based in London.

It was the 19th December 2018; the day after the Mr Bongo Christmas party. A grey, quiet and jaded office. Graham stumbled across an enticing email entitled “Anatolian-Lo-fi-Samba”: It said: “Hello, I’m a frequent buyer from your shop so just want to thank you and say what inspiration the music you have put out/sold has inspired me. I was wondering as a purveyor of great music if you could advise me on some labels/give me advice on where to go. I have an album, a music video, a live session to go in the style of Turkish Brazilian funk recorded all with analogue equipment. I would be most grateful if you gave it a listen and a watch and if there was anyone I could contact. Thanks, Kit”.

Cue Graham clicking on the link and being totally blown away and sending it everyone at Mr Bongo and immediately contacting Kit on all social media channels. No one actually gets signed from an ‘unsolicited’ demo, right? It might have taken 30 years to happen at Mr Bongo, but it did happen, and for a very good reason.

The album explores universal themes such as love, loss, decay, language and ideology, mixing three different languages: English, Turkish and French. It sounds like a vintage fusion of Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, Cortex, Khruangbin, Air, Arthur Verocai, Goat, Stereolab: everybody hears something different in this record.

Written and recorded by the duo - Kit composed all the songs and Merve wrote the lyrics - in rural France during 2018, each song was completed within a 12-hour window, pawning contemplation for spontaneity. Dubbed by Kit and Merve as ‘lo-fi-hi-fi’ in reference to the high-end tube equipment that helped it find itsway to 8-track cassette tape. The style owes its sound to narrow tape width, valve distortion, spring reverb, the mixture of high end gear with lo-fi equipment as well as a disregard to the norms of hi-fi studio techniques. All instruments were analogue and no samples were used. The instruments that are used range from tablas to darbukas, balalaikas to ouds, MS20 synths to Farfisa organs and a lot of cuica. The mixing techniques were done on the fly, tracking immediately to tape: compression, EQ, delay and reverb; meaning mixing could not be revisited.

Label Review.

2019 debut album.

Our Overview.

The pop and jazz songwriting dynamo Jesse Palter is releasing her full length, solo debut album ‘Paper Trail’. The Detroit born/LA based, prolific singer/songwriter, writer and performer’s new album features ten tracks of aggressive, piano pounding pop/rock in the soulful vein of Carole King, Sarah McLachlan and Sara Bareilles. But Jesse is no musical novice, she has been in the entertainment industry her entire life, she has written an astounding number of songs and began working with GRAMMY - winning production team the Bass Brothers (Eminem) at age 15. She honed her skill and passion for improvisational singing throughout Detroit with music greats such as Christian McBride, Geoffrey Keezer, Sean Jones, Marcus Belgrave and Avishai Cohen, and later headlined top venues across the country.

Jesse’s move from jazz to pop was seamless, with her eclectic musical upbringingand deep respect and admiration for great songs and songwriters. All of the songs on ‘Paper Trail’ were written by Palter, a multi-instrumentalist, and are autobiographical, capturing an intimate snapshot of her life. She focused on strengthening her creative muscles to explore what melodies, lyrics and chord changes worked best, allowing herself to be vulnerable, brave and brutally honest.

Jesse comes from a long line of creative genetics. Her great-grandfather invented iconic award-winning shoes, including the platform, the slingback and the peep-toe. Her great-grandmother was Estée Lauder’s interior decorator. And her grandmother is a notable New York opera prodigy. So it comes as no surprise that when this diminutive dynamo hits the stage, you’re in for a real experience. And like all great art, it’s autobiographical. Like an open book, she’s working out snapshots of her life onstage.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview.

Tearing up a sonic storm, the female led L.A. via London duo Bones are releasing their debut ‘Bones UK’, which has eagerly been awaited since the success and acclaim they have received since touring in the U.S and gaining a massive following off two singles “Beautiful Is Boring” and “Girl’s Can’t Play Guitar”. Forging their own distinctive sound with the help of vicious guitar, provocative lyrics and industrial electronic drum and bass, Bones UK - Rosie Bones (singer) and Carmen Vandenberg (guitar) - are aiming to create a huge impact on Modern Music.

For ‘Bones UK’, every song is a chance to speak their minds with total freedom, to shed light on the extreme disconnect between the status quo and the far more glorious world inside their heads. On their self-titled debut album, vocalist Rosie Bones and guitarist Carmen Vandenberg confront everything from the beauty industrial complex to toxic masculinity to music-scene sexism, embedding each track with choruses primed for passionate shouting-along. With their galvanising energy and relentless joie de vivre, BONES UK offer up an album that’s both provocative and endlessly exhilarating, even in its most outraged moments.

True to the L.A. based band’s anti-conformist spirit, Bones UK unfolds with an entirely uncontainable sound, a riff-heavy collision of rock-and-roll and rough-edged electronic music. In forging that sound, Rosie and Carmen worked in close collaboration with producer Filippo Cimatti, who shaped the album’s kinetic textures with lavish use of electronic bass. 

Bones UK create all of their own images, videos and luck, catching the attention and toured with the likes of: Highly Suspect, Band of Skulls, Kooks, Pvris, Skunk Anansie and Miyavi. And it’s easy to see why. They’re creating a new form of rock and roll, firmly placed in the 31st century.

Label Review.

2019 debut solo abum.

Our Overview.

Memphis’ Joe Restivo, member of beloved soul band the Bo-Keys, releases ‘Where’s Joe?,’ his debut album, on Blue Barrel Records (the non-profit label arm of Archer Records). Any given song on this album carries the evolution of jazz and blues guitar in a nutshell, from the classic LPs of the 50s and 60s, to which Joe and his band add their own brand of classicism. If Joe shows the tasteful restraint to stick with the pure tones of his amp, both clean and dirty, it's because he's working within time honoured forms, even as he stretches out within them. And spareness, with just tenor sax, bass, drums, and guitar, is the great virtue of this record. As Orson Welles once said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”

The album crystalises his interest in Memphis jazz music made at the intersection of jump blues, rhythm & blues, and jazz. This is swinging, fun music, jazz for hipster cocktail parties, which Restivo has been refining with his weekly residency at Lafeyette’s over four years.

Restivo calls upon bassist - Tim Goodwin and drummer - Tom Lonardo, a Memphis rhythm section that’s worked together and apart for over forty years, playing behind every major touring jazz artist. Lonardo is recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Memphis Musical Heritage Foundation and has worked with who’s who, such as Mose Allison, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Bo Diddley, The Charlie Wood Trio, Jim Dickinson, and Calvin Newborn. Art Edmaiston, a veteran of Gregg Allman and Bobby “Blue” Bland’s bands, adds his saxophone.

“One of the city’s truly special Memphis music experiences.” Bob Mehr, Memphis Commercial Appeal

With the Bo-Keys, Restivo has performed in venues and festivals all over the world including Lincoln Center, London’s O2 Stadium, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, as well as shared stages with luminaries in soul, jazz and blues including Syl Johnson, Newborn, Bobby Rush, and Carla Thomas. A graduate of the Jazz and Contemporary Music Program at New School University in NYC, Restivo has also played with rising soul singer Robert Finley. He spins Memphis jazz as a DJ on his weekly radio show on WEVL.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Featured artists include Damon Albarn, Blue May, Gruff Rhys, Georgia, Ghetts, Mr Jukes, Nick Zinner, Remi Kabaka, Otim Alpha and Pote as well as emerging and established stars of the buzzing South African music scene. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Hailed as the most revolutionary force in popular music for two decades, Africa Express was founded in 2006 and brings together musicians from different cultures, genres and generations to break boundaries and offer a new perspective on Africa and its music. Each record and event is unique, based upon on-the-spot collaboration and filled with unique moments of magic; the collective have hosted trips and concerts in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali and UK to date.

Africa Express travelled to South Africa in January of last year to complete an electronic album in just 7 days, a week of discovery, collaboration and music-making. The result is ‘EGOLI’ – 18 tracks capturing the fresh, joyous sounds of Afro Futurism, straight out of Johannesburg. As well as the artists listed above South African musicians including BCUC, Blk Jks, Dominowe, Faka, Infamous Boiz, DJ Spoko, Mahotella Queens, Moonchild Sanelly , Muzi, Morena Leraba, Nonku Phiri, Radio 123, Sibot, Sho Madjozi, Zola 7, Zolani Mahola (Freshly Ground) and Maskandi guitar legend Phuzekhemisi join in on the fun!

The idea for Africa Express began at a gathering in a Covent Garden bar, led by Damon Albarn in the wake the 2005 Live8 concert. The shows, which proposed to end African debt and poverty while finding room for only one African artist, Youssou N’Dour, on its bill. The condescension, the feeling that even musically Africa should sit still for hand-outs, rankled with all present and Africa Express was born soon after.

“Proof that music is a universally understood language. A celebration designed to bring joy.” Uncut Magazine.

Label Review.

Radio Broadcast. This set features all the audio from his six part BBC TV series recorded March and April 1969. Also included are the two pilot episodes from 1968.

Our Overview.

The revered American singer-songwriter Scott Walker, left us music fans a legacy of song to always be grateful for, when he sadly passed. From Pop teen idol to avant-garde music ambassador Scott contributed inspirationally to the music scene. ‘Scott Walker Live On Air 1968-1969’ transports us back to 1968-69. At the height of Scott Walker’s fame, the BBC invited him to host his own TV programme, with two 1968 specials being followed by a series in the spring of 1969. The footage has been wiped but the audio survives, finding him singing a variety of songs with orchestral backing, together with guest appearances from Blossom Dearie, Kiki Dee, Dudley Moore, Billy Preston and others. It has been mastered here to the best possible standard, and is presented together with background notes and images. Any live performances by Walker are rare, making these of especial historical value.

This release features:·        

Rare performances by the legendary Scott Walker on his very own television show·        

Includes BBC broadcasts of Walker’s two Pilot Specials, as well as his subsequent six episodes·        

Includes special guest appearances from Blossom Dearie, Kiki Dee, Dudey Moore, Billy Preston and many others.·        

Includes full colour 16-page booklet·        

Professionally re-mastered with background liners and many rare archival photographs.

Scott the pop teen idol of the 60’s, will be most renowned as founding member of The Walker Brothers with his vocal timbre to melt the knees of lovers - he will indelibly be remembered as the resonant, burnished baritone voice on some of the most dramatic singles of the era. The Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition Make It Easy on Yourself (1965) - also contributed to exploring the lesser none shores of avant-garde music with great aplomb signing to British label 4AD and producing works of experimental strangeness that dared critics to try to define them. Nonetheless they commanded the respect and even awe of other artists. “He’s been my idol since I was a kid,” said David Bowie, while Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Brian Eno and Jarvis Cocker were similarly inspired.

Walker, whose later work was more likely to provoke comparisons with Francis Bacon’s paintings than with other musicians, professed himself content to walk his own unique path.“I have long since stopped worrying about fitting in in any way,” he told the Observer’s Sean O’Hagan in 2008. “I’m an outsider for sure. That suits me fine. Solitude is like a drug for me. I crave it.”

The contrast between the almost invisible Walker of his later years and his early pop-star self could not have been greater. As a member of the Walker Brothers – three Americans who came to Britain in search of success – he scored three top 10 albums in the UK between 1965 and 1967, Take It Easy With the Walker Brothers, Portrait and Images. Long live Mr. Scott Walker!

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Until the Tide Creeps In’ is the sublime, guitar driven, indie pop debut release from Brighton, UK based foursome Penelope Isles. The band features songwriter siblings Jack and Lily Wolter who hail from the Isle of Man and completed by Jack Sowton and Becky Redford. The quartet have created an album that is quite simply “…a dreamy but biting piece of guitar pop…soaring, pastoral, highly intelligent songwriting.” As reviewed by Clash Music.

Formed around the chemistry between siblings and dual songwriters Jack and Lily Wolter, ‘Until the Tide Creeps In’ is an album deepened by shared experience. Born in Devon and raised on the Isle of Man, the Wolters’ bonds were strengthened by separation when Jack moved away to study art at university at 19, when Lily was 13. As he puts it, wryly, “By the time I moved home Lily was not so much of an annoying younger sister anymore and had grown up and started playing in bands and writing songs. We soon became very close. I had written some songs, so we started a band called Your Gold Teeth. We toured a bit and then Lily left for Brighton to study songwriting. A couple of years later I moved down and we started Penelope Isles together.” For every sibling band forged in rivalry, many others mount an unassailable genetic argument for keeping the music in the family. Jack added: "It's cool to have two songwriters in the band because I love her songs so much!"

Crisp and woozy, blissful and biting, ‘Until the Tide Creeps’ In is an album deepened by shared experience: experiences of, in Jack’s words, “leaving home, moving away, dealing with transitions in life and growing up. We are six years apart, so we had a different experience of some of this, but we share a similar inspiration when writing music.”

Double LP on pink vinyl with digital download code.

“Sweltering guitars scorch the earth [on “Chlorine”]… While summery synths and keys frolic in spaces left between the drum line and spiraling vocals, the riff phrases communicate nearly as much warmth and meaning as the lyrics do.” Stereogum

“There is a grandeur to their songs, big and swelling, ebbs and flows…The whole band is seriously talented, and…seriously rock, too.” Brooklyn Vegan

“Choppy guitar and thumping percussion combine to create a markedly DIY aesthetic throughout the video’s three minutes and five seconds of scrapbooked collage visuals. Said DIY aesthetic, both sonically as well as visually, operates as a self-aware style, one that brings an element of dirty garage rock to the haze of dream-pop flushes.” Paste

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American singer-songwriter and poet David Berman is best known for his work with indie-rock band the Silver Jews, whose classic run was made somehow finite in 2009, when the voice himself, David Berman, announced his retirement from music. But back to the here and now, with his nom de plume of Purple Mountains, he is releasing his new self titled LP.

‘Purple Mountains’ is also the name of what will be known as one of his greatest albums - full of double-jointed wit and wisdom, up to the neck in his special recipe of handcrafted country-rock joys and sorrows that sing legendary in cracked and broken hearts. The songs are produced impeccably by Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere and Jeremy Earle, buffed up like a hardwood floor ready to be well-trod upon for an evening of romance and dance.

The songs of Purple Mountains are a potent brew, stitched together from lifetimes, knitting the drift of the years with the tightest lyric construction Berman’s ever attempted. Honesty is archly in the air but lines of incredible bleakness somehow give way to playful distraction and the hiding of surprises for close listeners. Even still, as the songwriter once wrote, “every single thought is like a punch in the face.” It won’t take long after slapping the record on the platter for you to hear that this is one of those albums. There are breakup records. There are apocalypse records. Then there’s ‘Purple Mountains’.

Berman’s songwriter’s bone’s never been laid more bare - if redemption doesn’t come on the lyric sheet, the act of putting these songs into singing, dancing form allows themtheir finest end - to provide infotainment for others, embodying moments of life and truth via music that elevates with disarming warmth and a reassuring commonality, even as David himself stands outside the communal campfires.

Label Review. 

First official release of his unannounced performance at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles on 27th June 2007. This contains the complete show - 9 more tracks than the newspaper edition! Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

In 2007, “Macca” released his first album not on EMI, ‘Memory Almost Full’, the first shot at the company which then resulted in the struggling company losing the rights to the rest of his esteemed recorded catalogue two years later. As part of the promotion, Paul turned up at the famous Amoeba Music store in Hollywood on 27th June and performed a 20 song set to the lucky crowd. Half of the vibrant set was made up of Beatles songs whilst the rest was largely composed of songs from the new album and a handful of other solo tracks.

Four songs from the show emerged later that year on the ‘Amoeba’s Secret EP’ and was only issued the US. In 2010, a deal with the UK newspaper, The Mail On Sunday led to a 12 track selection being bundled with the publication. Since then, fans have been clamouring for the full show to be released. Finally, their dreams have come true with this album finally getting a proper release and joining his illustrious catalogue.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on 2CD. 

Our Overview. 

Pere Ubu first emerged in 1975 and their early career placed them right in the middle of the Punk/New Wave scene of the time but Pere Ubu were hard to classify; Art-rock? Post-punk? Or just Pere Ubu? To define their music, Pere Ubu coined the term “avant-garage” to reflect interest in both experimental avant-garde music (especially Musique concrète) and raw, direct blues-influenced garage rock. Frontman David Thomas has stated the term is “a joke invented to have something to give journalists when they yelp for a neat sound bite or pigeonhole”. The group broke up in 1982 but reformed later in the decade and for the last 15 years or so the line-up has been fairly steady featuring Thomas (lead vocals, keyboards etc.), Michele Temple (bass), Robert Wheeler (synthesizer), Steve Mehlman (drums) & Keith Moliné (guitar).

Their new album, ‘The Long Goodbye, comes nearly two years after their previous record for Cherry Red, ‘20 Years In A Montana Missile Silo.’ Named after Raymond Chandler’s novel, ‘The Long Goodbye’ is the end of a road. Thomas has long talked of their journey to Satisfied City: “This wraps up every song and story that Pere Ubu has been telling in different ways for the past forty plus years.”This Pere Ubu album sounds like no other. It boasts a large expanse of synths due to Thomas writing and arranging the songs alone with his collection of drum machines, synthesizers and a melodeon before sending to the other musicians to complete this unique fusion of techno meets trad rock meets… the avant garage.

The CD edition boasts a live bonus disc, recorded in December 2018. Former member Chris Cutler rejoined David Thomas, Gagarin and Keith Moliné to play the entire album to a packed theatre in Montreuil, Paris. The show also included the seminal Pere Ubu classic ‘Heart Of Darkness’ and Neil Young’s ‘Running Dry’

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American alt-indie rock singer-songwriter Kyle Craft is releasing his brand new album via Seattle based Sub Pop Records entitled ’Showboat Honey’ and his third for the label. Born in Louisiana, grandson of a bluegrass player Kyle spent his childhood going to a baptist church sneeking into the choir room to play the piano, then started writing music as soon as he could play the guitar at the age of 15. Now 28, the hipster troubadour recalls he’s really not sure that he ever thought of a so-called ‘career in music’. “The whole music thing has been a really strange cinematic sort of journey for me,” he says. “None of it really makes sense on paper.” Well his music certainly makes sense and ’Showboat Honey’ is a straight-up rollicking rock’n’roll album that traverses all the different nuances of the genre, proving Kyle has grown into a prodigious songwriter.

Kyle Craft and his now solidified backing band, dubbed Showboat Honey, reflect the “sturm und drang” of life with their self-titled album, the contemplative yet restless ‘Showboat Honey’. “This is basically an album centred around bad luck and good fortune hitting at the same time,” Craft explains “Then, out of nowhere, I find love. Everything went to shit except that. I guess that’s how life works.” The sticky-sweet title of the album is lifted from the brightly choral “Buzzkill Caterwaul”: “I wanted to make something that sounded like a raucous collision of Leon Russell and Patti Smith,” he says, “But ‘Buzzkill Caterwaul’ was the only tune that ended up showcasing that vision.”

Though aesthetics veer from song to song, ‘Showboat Honey’s’ steadfast formula remains the same. Drummer Haven Mutlz holds down the machine with a 60s/70s fast-molasses groove that locks in with the slinky rolling bass of Billy Slater. When Kevin Clark isn’t bouncing across the piano, his mellotron strings swell in and out of frame. Jack of all trades Ben Steinmetz’s organ parts well up from the deep of the songs, while lead guitarist Jeremy Kale’s solos rip through them like electricity. On top of it all, sits the tongue-in-cheek phantasmagoria created by Craft’s lyrics, in which perspectives shift to imbue life into a cast of intriguing, mysterious characters, à la Bob Dylan. (“There is not a single thing in my life that has affected me more than the first time I heard Dylan,” says Craft. “It immediately changed my life.” )

Kyle hails from the isolated Mississippi River town of Vidalia, Louisiana where his chops weren’t honed in a woodshed but rather an old, dingy meat freezer that was out of commission. After years of touring, two albums with Sub Pop Records and solidifying the band, he’s grown into a prodigious songwriter, to say the least. The band recorded ‘Showboat Honey’ - coproduced by Craft, Clark and Slater - at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. “We approached this record differently for sure,” Craft says. “I’d make a demo, and after putting the songs together, shoot it to the band for ideas.” Kyle and the members of Showboat Honey worked at such a feverish wine-fuelled pace that they actually ended up with two completely different albums. At the end of the day, they decided to combine the two into what is now ‘Showboat Honey’, a moonstruck rock ’n’ roll record teeming with reckless abandon.

Vinyl formats include digital download codes.

Label Review.

2019 release. Live album recorded at Manchester's Old Granada Studios 13th July 2017. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The seminal, post punk, synth pop, dance floor innovators New Order, returned to the stage at Manchester’s Old Granada Studios - where Joy Division made their television debut on Tony Wilson’s So It Goes programme in 1978 - in June 2017, for the celebrated ‘Σ(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes .. shows’ an event seeing New Order deconstructing and creatively reworking a wealth of material from throughout their career: familiar and obscure, old and new.

New Order formed in Salford, England in 1980 from the ashes of Joy Division, by the surviving members: Bernard Sumner; guitar, Peter Hook; bass, and Stephen Morris; drums, upon the death of lead singer and band leader Ian Curtis. New Order headily embraced the technology of the times — drum machines, samplers, sequencers, synths, and arpeggiators — and took cues from the burgeoning world of electronic dance before gradually learning to write pop songs. Where Joy Division records were occasionally sloppy and frequently noisy, New Order presented a polished package every time.

This special series of intimate shows took over Old Granada Studios’ Stage 1 for five nights in June 2017. Created in collaboration with visual artist Liam Gillick, who has previously presented solo exhibitions at venues such as Tate Britain and MoMA in New York; and orchestrated by composer-arranger Joe Duddell, a fellow son of Manchester and a frequent collaborator with the band, the live show was performed by the band with a 12-strong synthesiser ensemble from the Royal Northern College of Music.

Featuring tracks such as ‘Disorder’, from Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ (and not played live for 30 years), up to 2015’s ‘Plastic’ from New Order’s critically acclaimed Top 5 album ‘Music Complete’, this is the perfect document of those magical nights.

The album was recorded live on 13th July 2017 and includes the full show and encore plus three additional tracks recorded over the residency to give listeners a full representation of the breadth of material performed.

Triple album pressed on transparent coloured vinyl (disc one is red transparent vinyl, disc 2 is light green and the third disc is blue) packaged in individual sleeves into a hardback slipcase, all with spot gloss finish, 24 page 12” sized booklet with silk finish containing exclusive imagery and text relating to the legendary event plus high definition digital download of all 18 tracks.

1. Times Change

2. Who’s Joe

3. Dream Attack

4. Disorder

5. Ultraviolence

6. In A Lonely Place

7. All Day Long

8. Shellshock

9. Guilt Is A Useless

10. Emotion

11. Subculture

12. Bizarre Love Triangle

13. Vanishing Point

14. Plastic

15. Your Silent Face

16. Decades

17. Elegia

18. Heart & Soul

19. Behind Closed Doors

Label Review.

1973 live album.

Our Overview.

Re-issue of Jefferson Airplane’s 1973 live album, ‘Thirty Seconds Over Winterland’ - with the famous “Flying Toaster” cover - on sky blue Vinyl via The Summer of ’69 campaign. The quintessential San Francisco based rock group Jefferson Airplane, defined the sound of the Bay Area in the 1960’s and were one of the pioneering sonic architects of psychedelic rock and among the first bands to achieve national and international commercial success. Due to the acid rock guitar playing of Jorma Kaukonen and the soaring twin vocals of Grace Slick and Marty Balin they scored hit singles and regularly looked out from the covers of national magazines, however ‘Thirty Seconds Over Winterland’ proved to be their swan song album as a group.

The group epitomised the drug-taking hippie ethos as well as the left-wing, antiwar political movement of their time, and their history was one of controversy along with hit records. Their personal interactions mirrored those times; the group was a collective with shifting alliances, in which leaders emerged and retreated. But for all the turmoil Jefferson Airplane, was remarkably productive between 1965 and 1972.

By the summer of 1972, the Jefferson Airplane were on their final approach to the eventual evolution that would produce Jefferson Starship, arguably the most drastic difference being the absence of Jorma Kaukonen (guitar, vocals) and Jack Casady (bass), both of whom were several years into Hot Tuna, a project that began as a musical diversion for the pair and rapidly developed into a permanent roots rock unit.

Released in 1973, ‘Thirty Seconds Over Winterland’ (cleverly named after the Mervyn LeRoy-directed 1944 film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) would become the Airplane’s swansong. Included were seven tracks taken from the band’s last tour of the 1970s, specifically, August 24 and 25 at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago and the last two gigs the Bay Area combo played in its native San Francisco on September 21 and 22, fittingly held at the band’s longtime stomping grounds of the Winterland Arena. Only Kaukonen, Casady, and Paul Kantner (guitar, vocals) remained from the first lineup. They are joined by Grace Slick - who took over from Signe Anderson just prior to the recording of 1967’s landmark Surrealistic Pillow - and violinist Papa John Creach. Former Turtles and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young drummer Johnny Barbata had come aboard in the previous year, and the latest addition was Quicksilver Messenger Service co-founder David Freiberg, whose contributions at the time were primarily vocal.

The bulk of the effort was drawn from 1971’s Bark and 1972’s Long John Silver. Although they were still performing “Somebody to Love,” “Volunteers,” and “Wooden Ships” in concert, a cursory stab at “Crown of Creation” is the earliest cut on this package that harks back to their acid rock persona. Despite some questionable intonations from Kaukonen on “Have You Seen the Saucers,” the opener quickly establishes the Jefferson Airplane’s harder edge. Kaukonen’s “Feel So Good” is the jewel in this otherwise thorny rock & roll tiara. The tune stretches over ten minutes, spotlighting Casady’s quake-inducing contributions and Creach’s unmistakable fiddle. Speaking of Papa John, he shines on the propelling “Milk Train,” featuring a seminal lead from Slick. An outtake of note from the September 22 show made its way onto the 1992 Jefferson Airplane Loves You box set. Marty Balin returned for the one-off, albeit incendiary, “You Wear Your Dresses Too Short.”

Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound. They were headliners at the three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s-Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Altamont (1969)-and the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968) in England. Their 1967 break-out album Surrealistic Pillow ranks on the short list of the most significant recordings of the "Summer of Love". Two songs from that album, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", are among Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."

‘Thirty Seconds Over Winterland’ was well received by critics, earning 4.5 stars from Rolling Stone . The 1LP 180g sky blue vinyl.

Label Review.

2019 album. Punk. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Canadian post punk rock trio Metz are delivering a feast to fans worldwide with their new release - via Sub Pop Records - ‘Automat’, which is a blinding collection of the bands non-album singles, B-sides, and rarities dating back to 2009, available on LP for the first time, and including the band’s long out-of-print early (pre-Sub Pop) recordings. And ‘Automat’ is a chronological trip through the lesser known material of METZ. All tracks on ‘Automat’ have been lovingly remastered for maximum soundiness by Matthew Barnhart at Chicago Mastering Service.

Metz, Sub Pop’s own widely-adored and delightfully noisy Toronto based three-piece punk band have been laying waste to stages around the globe for over 10 years. During that tumultuous chunk of time Metz, comprised of Alex Edkins, Hayden Menzies and Chris Slorach, havecemented their reputation as one of the planet’s most exhilarating live acts and trusted providers of bombastic outsider rock.

Along the way, the band have earned enthusiastic support from The New Yorker, Mojo, NPR, The New York Times, KEXP, Pitchfork, Stereogum, The AV Club, Q, Uncut, Exclaim and a bunch of others. Referring to the trio’s tireless tour regime and unquenchable thirst to bring their music to the people, John Reis (Hot Snakes, RFTC, Drive Like Jehu) once said, “your ambition is really unflattering, chill out.” They did not listen. Instead, their love of the road and passion to create uncompromising and challenging music remains unwavering and has only grown over time.

Their recorded output to date, a cornucopia of pop-inflected noise punk and damaged fuzz anthems, includes three critically-acclaimed albums with Sub Pop, as well as a plethora of limited-edition releases, collaborations, covers and rarities. Which brings us to ‘Automat’, a collection of non-album singles, B-sides and rarities dating back to 2009, available on LP for the first timeand including the band's long out-of-print early (pre-Sub Pop) recordings.

Included here are the band’s first three 7” singles, recorded 2009-2010 and originally released by We Are Busy Bodies Records; a demo version of ‘Wet Blanket’, the explosive single from 2012’s ‘Metz’; two tracks from the limited-edition bonus single that accompanied preorders of ‘Metz’; ‘Can’t Understand’, originally released in 2013 by [adult swim]; and both tracks from the band’s 2015 single on Three One G.

Consumers of the vinyl formats of ‘Automat’ will be rewarded with a bonus 7” single that includes three additional tracks: a cover of Sparklehorse’s ‘Pig’, from a very limited 2012 Record Store Day split single originally released by Toronto’s Sonic Boom record shop; ‘I’m a Bug’, a cover of TheUrinals’ art-punk classic, originally released on YouTube (not an actual record label) in 2014; and Metz’s previously unreleased rendition of Gary Numan’s ‘M.E.’.

Metz are currently hard at work on their fourth full-length album which will be released on Sub Pop when they’re damn good and ready.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Serving up a melange of bouncy garage punk and indie-pop, the sizzling American group Bleached are making headways into our aural nerve systems with their new studio album “Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?’ The band which features the Clavin sister duo Jennifer and Jessica - formerly of Mika Miko - deliver their new release that sounds a little like a cheerier take on their former band.

The title of the album ‘Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?’ is what Jennifer Clavin asked herself when she hit a turning point in her life. Jessie and Jennifer Clavin’s first album written from a place of sobriety. That newfound perspective serves as the guiding force, yielding a courageous, honest and sonically ambitious album. It’s a record about fighting both literally and figuratively for your life - and the clarity born from that struggle.

Writing began in early 2018, both in a Los Angeles practice space and with friends and co-writers in Nashville. Producer Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells) helped open every door to experimentation, wanting to be exploratory while keeping the sound singularly Bleached.

The resulting album is explosive, grappling with the past; its twelve tracks mark some of the sisters’ most visceral, rawest songwriting to date - and some of their best. The work glimmers with inspiration found in touring with the likes of The Damned and Paramore. That arena-ready pop, incisively catchy, was a palpable influence helping to push Bleached’s sound in a new direction.

“Writing these songs while sober became somewhat of a spiritual experience,” Jennifer says. “Like I was connecting with a power greater than myself. I had to let go, trust theprocess, and allow an energy beyond my control to be present.”

First pressing on opaque cream vinyl.

Album produced by Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells, Carly Rae Jepsen, Rostam).

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Composer Umberto - aka Matt Hill, is a Los Angeles based artist whose work is distinctly cinematic - is releasing his Thrill Jockey debut ‘Helpless Spectator’. His performances and delicate compositions taken together have the cumulative ability to surprise and on this release Umberto makes masterful use of varied textures throughout the album, blending supernatural effects and grounded instruments to create distinct atmospheres. ‘Helpless Spectator’ is inquisitive and moving in equal measure, an album of somber elegance and delicate arrangements whose cumulative effect of unease is entirely unexpected.

Hill, whose Umberto moniker is an homage to director Umberto Lenzi, is an experienced and active film composer, most recently scoring the film ‘All That We Destroy”’ In addition to film and commercial work, Umberto has released a number of lauded solo recordings. Hill’s compositions stand apart as beautiful as they are impenetrable, with pulsing synths that hint at 80s slasher films while pensive string passages evoke emotions without being sentimental.  On Umberto’s Thrill Jockey debut ‘Helpless Spectator’, his haunting music is otherworldly and affecting alike, leaving the listener with an unsettling and profound air of mystery.

Umberto’s early recordings harken back to classic synth-driven sci-fi and horror soundtracks. ‘Helpless Spectator’ uses synthesizers in an entirely different manner. Cold, looming monolith tones are now warm, softer pads that envelope the listener while guitar, cello, banjo and pedal steel add movement and light. Still, Hill unsettles with his arrangements and melodic phrasing. As a composer, Hill has moved to more extensive use of live instrumentation. In addition to playing guitar, bass, and piano himself, Hill worked with fellow composer and recording artist Aaron Martin who played cello and bowed banjo on the majority of the album. “Idaho Joe” Winslow’s pedal steel guitar adds depth and subtle countermelodies to “The Higher Room” and “Leafless Tree.”

The name 'Helpless Spectator' is taken from the Julian Jaynes book ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.’ Hill was taken with the concept Jaynes set out to disprove that “Consciousness can no more modify the working mechanism of the body or its behavior than can the whistle of a train modify its machinery or where it goes.” The darkness and obliviousness inherent in this concept, the notion that while we perceive control, we are not in control, serves as a great metaphor for the contrasts of Umberto’s music. Warm tones and nuanced arrangements with cello and pedal steel are not typically the instruments of dread, yet Hill achieves a creeping undertone of dread with his deceptively complex pieces. Musical figures both melodically and rhythmically simple intertwine, build, and collapse upon one another. The dissonant tensions that steadily grow rarely completely resolve; rather they dissipate into a new set of questions. Unexpected shifts and turns in even the most tender movements of ‘Helpless Spectator’ are inflected with a contemplative melancholy and fragility.

LP pressed on virgin vinyl and packaged with free digital download card.

Label Review.

1977 album with 23 bonus tracks. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The moment the name Gregory Isaacs is mentioned, it invokes a fond nostalgia and transports the listener back to the era when the late Jamaican reggae star himself -responsible to be the founding father of Lover’s Rock and the artist - regaled us with his tunes and those vocals which ensured he was immortalised as an icon of sensuality and emotional liberation. And this classic re-issue ‘Mr Isaacs’ celebrates the birthday of the late singer. The album marks a pivotal time in the early relationship between Isaacs, producer Ossie Hibbert and VP Records.

So we are delighted to have this title in our mitts! First released in 1977 the ‘Mr Isaacs’ album established the template for Gregory Isaacs’ subsequent superstar status. Conceived by Gregory and Ossie Hibbert as an album project it contained three of the Cool Ruler’s greatest hits ‘Smile’, ‘Slave Master’ and ‘Set The Captives Free’.

‘Mr Isaacs’ status as one of reggae’s cornerstone albums was cemented when it was reissue in 2001 on the Blood & Fire label. Re-mastered by Kevin Metcalfe this deluxe 32 track 2 CD set includes more Gregory, DJ Cuts plus complete companion ‘Leggo Dub’ album plus the lethal ‘Mr Know It All’ version  ‘War Of The Stars’.  2CDs in 6 panel digi-pak with 16 page booklet.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

‘Before After’ is the magical and engrossing new album from German composer and experimental artists Marc Richter, under the guise of Black To Comm. Marc pushes the boundaries of audio design, his work combining acoustic instrumentation, samples and electronic manipulation, with sound sources ranging from crackly old records to droning organs. On occasion, he'll incorporate breakbeats or detached techno rhythms into his audio constructions.

‘Before After’ described by The Quietus as “An impressive balancing act evident of an artist in complete command of his medium” on this new release Black To Comm masterfully manipulates sound, his alterations rendering sources unidentifiable and serving as a sort of portal to new realities. Composer Marc Richter collapses the past, present and future of recorded music into kaleidoscopic pieces that transcend genre, bristling with detail, an intense sensory sonic experience.

The spectacularly other worldly ‘Before After’ charts a hallucinogenic journey through polar extremes of emotion and to the outer reaches of sound; a perfect companion to the darker ‘Seven Horses For Seven Kings’. The album was written during the same sessions that gave birth to Richter’s recent, highly acclaimed ‘Seven Horses For Seven Kings’. The intentionally crafted companion pieces mine similar raw sonic materials to yield radically different results. However, where ‘Seven Horses For Seven Kings’ was a dark work focused on anger and desperation, ‘Before After’ finds faint glimmers of hope in the same sources. By reappraising the past, Richter divines new futures, opening up parallel timelines and sonic universes.The album bookends the current phase of Richter’s output as Black To Comm, a decisive statement piece that leaves the future of the project tantalisingly open ended.LP pressed on virgin vinyl and packaged with free digital download card.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Looking Through The Shades’ is the shiny new, heady and seductive debut album from Glitterer, the rock band formed in 2017 by Ned Russin, a New Yorker, by way of Northeastern Pennsylvania, a 29-year-old bassist and singer who made his name in music by playing in a band called Title Fight. Up until this point, Russin has written, sung, and played every note of Glitterer's music, but now with ‘Looking Through The Shades’ he has brought collaboration into the fold: there are drums by his brother Ben Russin, a guitar solo by his brother Alex Russin, and production by Alex Giannascoli and Arthur Rizk. Resulting in an album fuelled with dopamine-releasing fuzzy guitars to go with the synths, the bass, and the voice.

The 14 song album contains Glitterer's best-yet sonics and songs; it has been constructed in such a way as to evince a spirit - co-operative, semi-schizophrenic, greater than the sum of its parts - that is proper to rock bands and that is inaccessible to even the least self-involved Soundcloud rappers and bedroom artists. Simply put, ‘Looking Through The Shades’ is the sound of a group of people playing music, together, in a room. Meanwhile, the lyrics are still reluctantly but rigorously self-aware, the choruses are still habit-formingly catchy, and the arrangements still carry not an ounce of excess fat. From the saturated distortion of the opener, “The Race” (“I wish I could look at your life and know it’s mine”), through the road-weary “1001” (“I sang 1,000 songs / didn’t want to sing again”) and the vox-and-bass-only Side B outlier “The News” (“I used to be original”), the listener is simultaneously satiated and left wanting more.

Glitterer have released two EPs ‘Glitterer’ and ‘Not Glitterer’. ‘Looking Through the Shades’ was recorded in the cozy carpeted basement of the Russin family home, in Kingston, Pa. and co-produced by indie-rock prodigy Alex Giannascoli (also known as (Sandy) Alex G) and the Arthur Rizk (Code Orange, Power Trip, Sumerlands, the 2018 Grammy Awards).

Label Review.

2019 album. Electronic. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Tycho the San Francisco based Grammy-nominated, Billboard topping electronic music project - led by primary composer and renowned graphic designer Scott Hansen – unveils a wholly new iteration of sound with the release of their fifth studio album ‘Weather’

The highly anticipated release of their new album is an exciting progression from their previous output, with most of the new tracks being vocal lead, while still retaining the signature Tycho sound. The sonic shift has been enhanced by the collaboration with exciting new vocalist Saint Sinner, who will be joining the live band following their time in the studio.

Hansen said in a statement: “With each Tycho album my goal is to evolve and broaden the sound. After The Science of Patterns (2002) and Past is Prologue (2006) -- two primarily electronic solo efforts -- I began incorporating more organic sounds and instrumentation.  Dive (2011) saw the addition of guitar and bass guitar while Awake (2014) took it a step further with guitars pushed to the forefront and the use of live drum performances for the first time. Epoch (2016) honed that sound further balancing the electronic and organic components that defined Tycho.” ‘Weather’ intends to reveal a more human side to the music, with the vocal and lyrical components adding a whole new dimension of warmth and life."

 In many ways, ‘Weather’ is the culmination of Tycho’s career as a whole – each prior step taken with intention to land on this new creative ground. The past 13 years have seen Tycho evolve from a part-time solo project of a graphic designer (Hansen is known internationally for his distinctive design work as ISO50) into a massively successful and world touring live band. The music, too, has fallen in line with this steep trajectory, and each release has introduced new elements to us, ever expanding into untouched sonic territory.

The band have performed at some of the most important world stages including Coachella, SXSW (Pitchfork showcase), Field Day, Primavera, Latitude, Bonnaroo, Outside Lands and more. Supported by the likes of Khruangbin, Todd Terje and Sylvan Esso and opened for an array of amazing artists like The xx, Alt J, Little Dragon, Skrillex and The Flaming Lips. And they have been remixed by the likes of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Bibio and, in turn, have done remixes for Little Dragon, Maggie Rogers and ODESZA.

The new album will be supported by an extensive world tour spanning 2019 and 2020 with dates to be announced.Longtime collaborators Zac Brown (bass/guitar) and Rory O’Connor (drums) and touring member Billy Kim (keyboards/guitar/bass) will join Hansen on the “Weather World Tour”. Saint Sinner will also join the live band on all dates as the first touring vocalist with Tycho, bringing a new energy to the show.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Montreal based band Pottery’s new debut 7 track EP ‘No.1’ feels like a collection of songs beamed in from a bygone era but in no way does it sound dusty or aged, Pottery sound fresh and vibrant, albeit with a vintage sounding twang.

According to Pottery’s Facebook page, the five piece want you to “get on your feet, feel sick and dirty.” ‘No.1’ is tightly wound enough to make you slide on those dancing shoes, given the extended player’s jaunty sound, whether it’ll make you “feel sick and dirty” is dependent on your appetite for its wanton quirkiness. If you were to take the jangly nuances from 60s pop, merge it with some trippy psychedelia, sprinkle in some surf and rev up the urgency, that’s ‘No. 1’s sonic cocktail.

Hailing from across Canada and the UK, Pottery consists of core writers Austin Boylan and Jacob Shepansky, along with Peter Baylis, Paul Jacobs and Tom Gould. Initially bonding over artists such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Devo, the band create a sound that combines eclectic traces of post-punk, pop and dance music, forming an unusualatmosphere that envelopes audiences.

While often shrill and jarring, Pottery’s songs simultaneously engage listeners into a hypnotic state. It’s this dualism that binds them together, uncovering harmony within discord. Hailed as one of the hottest acts at 2019’s SXSW and The Great Escape Festival, Pottery sound like an act untethered by current trends and the zeitgeist; a band marching to the sound of their very own drumbeat.

Pottery’s debut mini album ‘No. 1’, is available for the first time on Vinyl, via Partisan Records and contains a digital download card.

“This Canadian band are ones to keep an eye on”. The Fader

“Remarkable”. The 405

“Irresistible”. Consequence of Sound

“It’s a druggy stimulant, moving with a lo-fi mania, wired, jangly guitars, and yelping vocals.”. Stereogum

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Features Rachel Goswell (Slowdive). Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Eponymous album from British duo The Soft Cavalry: Steve Clarke and Rachel Goswell, and a debut that could be called a happy accident, a lovers story and a crisis of faith. For Steve Clarke, The Soft Cavalry’s self-titled debut album is equally a labour of love, and the first record he’s masterminded from start to finish, with invaluable contributions from his wife, Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, on co-vocals and spiritual/practical guidance, and Steve’s brother Michael, who produced the record. 

The Soft Cavalry is a rarity, a musical project that began life on an industrial site in Reading where Steve was introduced to Rachel. A year later, they were living together in Devon, before marrying in 2018. Rachel not only, “turned my world upside-down,” but unwittingly provided, “the catalyst,” for The Soft Cavalry. “I’d always had ideas but never felt that anything I had to say was worthy of anyone’s attention, let alone my own,” he says. “I wish that I could have done this fifteen years ago but, in reality, I simply couldn’t have. But I’m not one to overly wallow. I’d rather plough the various levels of confusion into songs.”

‘The Soft Cavalry’ is equally an exercise in creative and personal therapy, as can be said for numerous musicians before them. The band’s music is a particularly British brand of intense cinematic drama. Melodic and timeless, the album lands in the atmospheric dimensions between Pink Floyd, Talk Talk and Mansun. A record radiating midlife crisis but equally enormous elation; a helix of fear and hope, aching for resolution. A record Steve emphasises that he “needed” to make. Additionally, the album is a way of rewriting a man’s narrative, and proof that relative late bloomers (Steve was in his late thirties when he made the album) can make the record of their dreams.

‘The Soft Cavalry’ is something of a life’s work – a chance for redemption, a heart-to-heart with the self. ‘Bulletproof’ addresses, “struggle and fear, and making sense of it in your head.” ‘Only In Dreams’ admits, “accepting you’re not the finished article that you’d like to be.” Two brooding epics were fired by his Christian upbringing: ‘The Velvet Fog’ – “my doubts with faith, but not being able to shake off my past, even today” – and ‘The Ever-Turning Wheel’: “always trying to thumb my way back to something I had when I was younger, something simpler.”

If the album has a theme, reckons Steve, “it’s recovery versus new doubt. I’m there, in the middle. The word that kept coming back to me was ‘resilience’. With the right mentality and people around you, especially family, we get through, and find a level of hope.”

After he and Rachel finished their album, Steve found a name for it, out of thin air: The Soft Cavalry. “I can’t explain its literal meaning,” he says. “It just made sense.” Might Rachel be the cavalry? “Maybe! It would be subconscious, but that makes sense too, strangely.”

The Soft Cavalry will play live, starting around the album release. So, this happy accident, lovers’ story, crisis of faith, labour of love and therapy session is set to continue – Steve’s already got the next instalment written, titled ‘The Lost Decade’. Lost versus found. Recovery versus self-doubt. The Soft Cavalry has arrived.

Label Review. 

1968 show remixed and remastered. With all the original performances plus never before released performances by Taj Mahal and two newly discovered audio performances by The Dirty Mac band (John Lennon & Yoko Ono). Stunning 4k restoration, colour grading supervised by original cinematographer Tony Richmond BSC., ASC. First time on Blu-ray - now in Dolby ATMOS audio. Presented in original 4? aspect ratio and first time in Widescreen 16?. 48-page, perfect-bound, full colour hardcover book with foldout gatefold design. Includes essays by David Dalton, photos by Mike Randolph, film stills. Hi-Resolution Mix and transfer of Soundtrack, expanded with 8 bonus tracks, including newly discovered audio. Extras including backstage footage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono (over 3 hours of bonus content). Commentary tracks by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Taj Mahal, Yoko Ono, director Michael Lindsey-Hogg and others. On-camera interview with Pete Townshend. Also available on 2CD, and 3LP. 

Our Overview. 

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was originally conceived as a BBC-TV special and recorded in Decmeber 1968. Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, it centers on the original line up of The Rolling Stones -- Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman (with Nicky Hopkins and Rocky Dijon) -- who serve as both the show’s hosts and featured attraction performing six tracks including four from their then just released new album ‘Beggar’s Banquet’, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” their big hit from earlier that year and a new song: “You Can’t Always Get What you Want” which wouldn’t be released until their next album ‘Let It Bleed’.

The program also includes extraordinary performances by The Who, Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, Yoko Ono, and The Dirty Mac. A ‘supergroup’ before the term had even been coined, the Dirty Mac was comprised of Eric Clapton (lead guitar), Keith Richards (bass), Mitch Mitchell of The Jimi Hendrix Experience (drums), John Lennon on guitar and vocals plus Yoko Ono (vocals) and Ivry Gitlis (violin).

For various reasons, the film never saw the light of the day, the most popular story being that the Stones felt that The Who upstaged them seeing as the hosts had been off the stage for a couple of years whilst The Who were road hot. The subsequent sacking and death of Brian Jones, finally put the project on the shelf. It eventually got released in 1996 on CD and video.

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus soundtrack has now been expanded to 28 tracks, including material by the late concert pianist Julius Katchen, three additional songs by Taj Mahal and never before heard recordings of The Dirty Mac performing The Beatles classic, “Revolution” and the aptly titled track “Warmup Jam.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Californian singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop writes and performs in a diverse range of styles - from outsider folk to indie rock - and her new album ‘Stonechild’ is a culmination of life and musical experience, uncompromising in its vision and is described by Jesca as a “compassion project.” On the album Hoop refined and defined. Beautiful, subtle and stark, her fifth album, the follow up to 2017’s highly acclaimed ‘Memories Are Now’, is her best yet. 

Despite being a long term resident of Manchester, she has until now, returned to her native California to record. This time round however, “it was” according to Jesca “time to step out of my comfort zone, my safe place”, venturing south to Bristol to team up with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, This is the Kit). Parish’s minimal and purist approach helped clarify her in her ideas and subtly yet effectively realigning her sound. The simplified arrangements draw focus to the fundamental sophistication of the songs. 

While Hoop’s trademark finger-plucked guitar and ethereal textures remain, the songs and their presentation are ever more direct. Parish “was a gentle collaborator until he killed one of my darlings” she jests. “I’ve never been so brutally edited, and I wasn’t shy about expressing my discomfort at the sight of my work on the cutting room floor. He said, you will forgive me, and in some way I think I actually enjoyed that treatment…being stripped back to the bare basics…albeit painfully”. ‘Stonechild’ ventures further into fresh territory with other voices joining the narrative, with Kate Stables (aka This is the Kit) Rozi Plain and Lucius singing the choruses and expanding the sensual depth of the sonic bloom. Embedded in her song writing is an inherent unpredictability something she ascribes to being “guided more from instinct than study”.

‘Stonechild’, Jesca says, is intended to “wrap its arms around our human planet spinning in its increasingly precarious wobble”. These rich and curious songs derived from themes of our troubled times speak Hoop’s heart and mind from her empathetic yet tough loving centre point. With writing so fluid, so natural the result is an album where everything is truly meant.

Jesca spends the summer playing festivals in the US and Europe before embarking on an extensive UK and European tour in October.

Label Review.

2019 album. Blues.

Our Overview.

Chicago harmonica master Billy Branch is releasing ‘Roots And Branches - The Songs Of Little Walter’ and it is a must for any blues fans. The dynamic new album finds Branch and the band boldly reimagining the songs of the renowned Little Walter Jacobs; Jacobs was one of the principal architects of the Chicago blues sound and one of the most influential blues harmonica players who ever lived.

According to Branch, “We were determined not to make this a “typical” Little Walter tribute recording. We are proud to present an album with elements of soul, funk, and even a little bit of gospel. Our goal was to competently and respectfully produce a Little Walter-themed recording with a different twist, while preserving the integrity of Little Walter’s innovative style.”

‘Roots And Branches’, recorded in Chicago and co-produced by Billy Branch, Rosa Branch and longtime Sons Of Blues pianist Sumito “Ariyo” Ariyoshi, features 15 songs written by and or made famous by Little Walter. Each song is played with equal amounts of Branch’s deeply rooted reverence and up-to-the-minute innovation. The music is as timeless in Branch’s and The Sons Of Blues’ interpretations as in Walter’s feral originals. Along with Branch and Ariyoshi, the band features guitarist Giles Corey, bassist Marvin Little and drummer Andrew “Blaze” Thomas. At the end of the album, Little Walter’s daughter, Marion Diaz, shares a few anecdotes of life with her legendary father.

Blues giant Billy Branch is among today’s greatest harmonica players. With his inventive, deeply rooted playing and gritty, soulful vocals, Branch carries on the Chicago blues tradition that he learned first-hand from icons including Big Walter Horton, James Cotton, Junior Wells, Carey Bell, Willie Dixon and many others. His famous teachers made it clear to anyone who would listen that Branch was the heir apparent to the Chicago blues harmonica throne. With his instantly recognizable sound and his band, The Sons Of Blues, Branch has traveled the world, creating his signature brand of Chicago blues for over four decades.

“As heir apparent to the Chicago blues harmonica throne, Billy Branch is perfectly suited to shine a bright new light on the timeless music of Little Walter Jacobs, a transcendent artist revered by millions and an inspiration to every harmonica player who followed in his wake. Roots And Branches – The Songs Of Little Walter features 15 songs written by or made famous by the harp genius, each one brought to new life by Branch and The Sons of Blues as they blend elements of soul, funk and gospel into the proceedings while remaining true to the integrity of the originals. "A potent blend of rootsy integrity and exploratory zeal" —Living Blues

Billie Branch is a three-time Grammy nominee, multiple Blues Music Award-winner and for over 40 years the leader of one of the world’s premier blues bands, The Sons Of Blues. His deep love for blues traditions and the explosive, clich -free manner in which he makes them his own have earned him a worldwide following. Billy has released eleven records under his own name and played on over 250 more by artists like Willie Dixon, Keb’ Mo’, Johnny Winter, Koko Taylor and Taj Mahal.

In addition to his recordings, Branch is also a tireless educator. His Blues In The Schools program has earned him praise both inside and outside of the music world. Branch shares his knowledge of the music with students in Chicago and other cities around the world, where he teaches blues history as well as providing instrumental instruction to children. In 1996, members of his classes, with Branch at the helm, performed on the main stage at the Chicago Blues Festival, which was broadcast on NPR.

Label Review.

2005 album with 3 bonus tracks and 28pp booklet. Topic Records.

Our Overview.

John Tams has been a leading light in British Folk circles for decades, for his work as a solo artist, a member of Home Service and the Albion Band, so this release of ‘The Reckoning’ as a Deluxe CD with 3 bonus tracks is just a delight for fans old and new. Originally released in 2005, John Tams’ third and final album, ‘The Reckoning’ received produced a triple whammy at the following year’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, winning Best Album, Best Traditional Track (for Bitter Withy) and Folk Singer of the Year.

‘The Reckoning’ is a masterful collection of traditional and self-composed material including a spellbinding reading of ‘The Bitter Withy,’ a powerful reworking of ‘A Man Of Constant Sorrow’ and a magnificent set of sea songs including ‘Pretty Nancy’ and ‘A Sailor’s Life.’ The musical settings range from sparse acoustics to full-on band recordings with such musicians as Barry Coope and fellow Albion Band and Home Service alumni Graham Taylor and Roger Wilson.

John Tams was a member of Derbyshire folk group Muckram Wakes in the 1970s, then worked with Ashley Hutchings as singer and melodeon-player on albums including ‘Son of Morris On,’ and as a member of the British folk rock group Albion Band. Splitting with Hutchings in the 1980s, he formed Home Service.

Tams may be best known for playing a regular supporting role (to Sean Bean) in the ITV drama series Sharpe, as rifleman Daniel Hagman. He also co-wrote the music for the series alongside Dominic Muldowney. In 1996, Tams and Muldowney released the best-selling album,’ ‘Over the Hills & Far Away: The Music of Sharpe.’ This album has sold over 120,000 copies. He also worked as a music consultant on War Horse at the National Theatre - the most successful show ever staged by the National which received six nominations for the Olivier Awards, including one for the Best Sound, for Tams and fellow team members Chris Shutt and Adrian Sutton.

This new deluxe CD re-issue, as part of the new Topic Treasures series to celebrate the label’s 80th anniversary. The CD also includes 3 bonus tracks (2 previously unreleased) and includes a 28 page booklet with new sleeve notes by acclaimed journalist/Sandy Denny biographer, Mick Houghton and new intro by John Tams.

Tracks: Written In The Book / Safe House / Amelia / How High The Price ? / All Clouds The Sky / St. Hilda’s Waltz / Bitter Withy / A Man Of Constant Sorrow / Pretty Nancy / A Sailor’s Life / One More Day / As I Looked East, As I Looked West / Including Love / Sweet Home Oklahoma (Demo) BONUS TRACK / No Luck At All (Demo) BONUS TRACK / I’ll Fly Away BONUS TRACK

Label Review. 

2019 album. Americana. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Singer/songwriter Jeb Loy Nichols, the UK-based, Wyoming-born artist & songsmith, whose soulful style incorporates folk, blues, reggae, and country flavours, is releasing ‘June Is Short, July Is Long’ on Compass Records. 

Jeb has been putting out his own singular brand of smoky retro soul for over two decades, gathering a fervent cult following along the way and on this release he is backed by his touring band, the Westwood All-Stars. His new music is a record of his journey. Raised on bluegrass and country & western music, Nichols discovered southern soul when he was a teenager. From there it was off to New York City and hip-hop, then over to London and reggae and dancehall. It was this potent mix of genres - his love of classic American roots music and Jamaican reggae, dub and dancehall - that’s since been his signature.

‘June Is Short, July Is Long’ was recorded in Wales - where Jeb lives on a remote small holding in the Welsh hills - with The Westwood All-Stars for an organic, capturing-a-moment feel. “It was all done in five days,” he says of the sessions. “One day setting up, one day learning the songs, three days recording... it was great. The best music is a conversation, and this was a conversation between old friends.”

The resulting “musical conversation” has the lived-in, comfortable feel of a classic. It could sit comfortably alongside vintage albums by Ry Cooder or Van Morrison with its stripped-down, real-deal mix of joy and pain. “If you keep it simple,” he says, “there’s less to go wrong.” The resulting collection of songs proves his point. “You take a little country, some soul, some old friends and few good stories, and what can go wrong?”

Label Review.

1981 album released for the first time on CD. Reggae.

Our Overview.

Available for the first time on CD is the lost Jah Woosh album ‘Rastaman’, originally released in Germany 1981 - the Vinyl is long exhausted and sought after by Reggae fans all over the world! So all reggae fans old and new can breathe a sigh of relief: Because then the lost Jah Woosh album ‘Rastaman’, released in Germany in 1981, will finally be available again and wanted by collectors. So get it while you still can. ‘Rastaman’ is a timeless roots reggae album by the Jamaican DJ and top producer, who released many of his albums on the well-known Jamaican labels Trojan and Trenchtown.

‘Rastaman’ was recorded on Jamaica in the Channel 1 Studios and mixed in King Tubby’s Studio by dub specialist “King Jammy”. Besides the Reggae Star rhythm group Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Ansel Collins (Duo Dave and Ansel Collins, #1 UK hit 1971 with “Double Barrel”) on the organ and Eric “Bingi Bunny” Lamont (also with Jah Lloyd, Gregory Isaacs, Bunny Wailer) on the guitar were in the studio. They were joined by the wind players Vin Gordon and Bobby Ellis, Theophilus “Snapping” Beckford (The Boogie Cats, Trenchtown Ska) on piano and “Bongo” Herman on percussion.

Neville Beckford (1952–21 February 2011), better known as Jah Woosh was a Jamaican reggae deejay and record producer, primarily known for his work in the 1970s. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Beckford served an apprenticeship as a mechanic before forming a duo with Reggae George, Neville & George, and auditioning for Jamaica's top producers. Unsuccessful as a duo, they both went on to solo careers. Beckford became the resident deejay on Prince Lloyd's sound system, and was noticed by producer George Bell, who took him into the studio to record "Angela Davis", now under the pseudonym Jah Woosh. Although the single was not a hit, it prompted Rupie Edwards to produce the debut album, Jah Woosh, released in 1974 on the United Kingdom Cactus label. Chalice Blaze and Psalms of Wisdom followed in 1976, these three albums establishing a reputation in the UK. A string of albums and singles followed through the 1970s and early 1980s.

Woosh also contributed to Adrian Sherwood's Singers & Players collective and also worked as a producer, self-producing much of his work from 1976 onwards, and producing other artists such as Bim Sherman, Horace Andy, Larry Marshall, and his old friend Reggae George. He set up the "Original Music" record label, through which he has reissued some of his 1970s material.

Label Review.

1994 album re-release.

Our Overview.

The legend that is Gill Scott Heron, who was one of the great poet/vocalists singer-songwriters of a generation released ’Spirits’ in 1994. Now it is being re-relased on Vinyl in celebration of it’s 25th anniversary. And it still sounds as fresh and relevant in modern day society as it did then, just a treat for the ears from this great orator!

When ’Spirits’ was originally released Gill had been on a studio hiatus for 12 years and this album was a heady release for fans. Though the politically charged R&B singer's voice had deteriorated, much of his soulfulness comes through. His songwriting is consistently excellent, and songs ranging from "Message to the Messengers" (which advises young rap artists to use their power wisely) to "Work for Peace" leave no doubt that his sociopolitical observations are as sharp as ever. One of the most riveting cuts is "The Other Side," an extended remake of his early-'70s classic "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" (which describes a drug addict's struggle). The East Coaster had been battling addiction himself during his absence from recording, and this heartfelt song isn't for the squeamish. Gill had successfully dabbled in jazz over the years, and in fact, among the CD's many strong points are the lyrics he adds to John Coltranes “Spirits” in short the album is powerful listening.

Gill with this politically charged themes, was a musical novelist, a political commentator, his music depicting his involvement as a black American just living his life and reflecting on his journey through it seen through his eyes at that period in time. He wrote and produced a catalogue of timeless albums; a historical cultural and political diary of tunes, coming back to the same references that threaded through his enrapturing jazz and R&B polemics. An inspiration to many musicians preceding him, leading the way for rap and countless hip hop incendiaries, Gill had it all in spades producing music the critics could never quite ‘classify’ in his own words said upon a fan enquiring how to find his albums, he replied “You’ll find us in the ‘alternative section' of the record shop.”

Label Review. 

2019 live album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Manchester UK based quartet the Larkins have yet to release a debut album, but in the true nature of gigging bands who slowly build up a following these boys - band members Josh Noble | Vocals & Guitar, Dom Want | Guitar, Henry Beach | Bass, Joe Gaskell | Drums - are certainly getting noticed and drawing acclaim and justifiably so. As Music Crowns reviewed “ Trust us – Manchester guitar-pop collective Larkins are fast on their way to becoming your next favourite band.” And we concur, so we are delighted that this release of Larkins ‘Live At The Albert Hall Manchester’ is available.

The album was recorded at their landmark hometown show to 2000 rapturous fans. Regarding the live album frontman Josh Noble says, “We are very proud to present a recording from our live show at the Albert Hall in Manchester. It felt like everything we had done so far as a band had kind of led to this moment. We’ve played almost every venue in town over the past few years and we’d always joked about playing Albert Hall, half-expecting it to never happen."

“Our first show was in a pub to just 30 people just around the corner from the Albert Hall so to get to this point and to have so many people who want to see our music live is surreal. This tour has showed us what it means to be a part of this band and to finish at home was perfect. To every single person that came, we can’t even express how much we loved the show. What you hear is what we played on the night and hopefully this gives you an idea of what’s to come.”

Larkins are on a meteoric rise as one of the most exciting and in-demand bands to emerge from Manchester in recent times and are recording their debut album with producers Dan Nigro (A-Trak, Sky Ferreira, Lewis Capaldi) and Andrew Dawson (Kanye West, Fun, Kid Cudi).

“Manchester’s next arena act” - Manchester Evening News

”Manchester guitar-poppers Larkins make massive tunes with huge choruses made for the indie dancefloor” - Dork Magazine 

“Straight laced indie pop filled with anthemic choruses and heartfelt lyricisms” - The Line of Best Fit

Label Review.

Recorded on May 29th 1929. 

Our Overview.

Roy Henderson’s ’Delius Seadrift’, originally recorded in 1929, is a stunning limited edition LP set, a rare collectors piece that is housed in a beautiful, gold and black embossed 10” circular tin, which replicates the majesty of Deccas early label. It is strictly limited to 900 copies, arriving to coincide with the special celebratory 400-page book for Decca and the label’s return to its ‘Lost Studio’, it is a special product to cherish.

Recorded on May 29th 1929 at the Chenil Galleries in Chelsea, UK, the British baritone Roy Henderson’s record ’Delius Seadrift’ was Decca’s first release and was issued to coincide with the annual Delius Festival in July 1929.

Roy Henderson was a leading baritone in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s. He was best known as an interpreter of Frederick Delius, but his long and rich musical career included singing with Elgar, performing at the first Glyndebourne season and teaching Kathleen Ferrier. ’Delius Seadrift’ - a 24-minute piece - was Frederick Delius’ setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry to music, creating a shifting, gentle piece, that has always remained a firm favourite of fans of the composer.

Throughout the work, the motion of the waves is suggested by the orchestra. The chorus opens (the beginning of the poem, 'Out of the cradle...' is omitted) at 'Once Paumanok, when the lilac-scent was in the air...', two sections weaving the words to suggest the two birds. Then the baritone is the narrator, and tells ('And every day...') how the boy went and watched, and the chorus responds with the birds singing together ('Shine! shine! shine!'). The baritone interrupts ('Till of a sudden...') to tell how the she-bird disappeared, and the he-bird was left. The chorus gives the bird's cry, and the baritone responds with the lyrical passage describing how the boy listened to the song, 'Yes my brother, I know: The rest might not, but I have treasured every note...'

The remainder of the setting is from the text of the bird's song (somewhat edited), (beginning 'Soothe! soothe! soothe!') overlapping as the baritone sings 'Following you, my brother...': from this point on the baritone takes important sections of the bird's song ('You must know who I am, my love!'), with the chorus singing other parts of the text at the same time, interweaving, reinforcing, echoing and punctuating the singer's narrative. Love becomes the power which drives the effects of nature ('O madly the sea pushes upon the land,/With love, with love'). The choral phrases 'O rising stars! Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you' pivots between two passages where despair alternates with the delusional hope for a glimpse or an echo of the beloved. This culminates in the fortissimo 'O in vain!', repeated by the chorus as the climax, and then the long coda, mainly sung by the baritone ('O I am very sick and sorrowful'), lamenting the loss of their life together ('We two together no more'), and the words 'no more' echoed like the murmuring sea and wind by the choir, bring the work to a close.

By this blending of the narrator with the choir in the words of the bird's song, Delius has achieved the union of the boy's spirit with what he witnesses, in the way that is explained in the later part of Whitman's poem, and Delius does not have to tell us about the 'low and delicious word death.'

With the latest technology at Abbey Road, they present this historic recording to you twice: a ‘needle drop’ flat transfer of the original 1929 recording on the A sides of the 3 discs, and then a cleaned up as much as possible version on the B sides. Both sides will be available digitally on a download card. ‘Delius Seadrift’ is housed in a beautiful, gold and black embossed 10” circular tin, which replicates the majesty of that early label – a bust of Beethoven presiding over the bold claim ‘THE SUPREME RECORD’. Each set has a numbered fact sheet, and the records themselves are protected by die cut foam discs.

Label Review.

1968 remastered album. Sundazed.

Our Overview.

Fabulous re-release and remastered version of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band ‘In My Own Dream’ on red Vinyl. Chicago born Paul Butterfield was instrumental in bringing the sound of authentic Chicago blues to a young white audience in the mid-'60s, and although the band wasn't a particularly huge commercial success, its influence has been enduring and pervasive serving as a wakeup call for a generation of musicians.

Fresh from their triumphant appearance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band entered the studio to record their fourth album, ‘In My Own Dream’. It chronicles the evolution of the band, continuing to add elements of jazz and R&B to its traditional blues approach. The horn section, staffed by David San born, Gene Dinwiddie and Keith Johnson, was featured throughout the album, sharing the spotlight with guitarist Elvin Bishop and band leader Butterfields signature harmonica runs.

Lead vocal duties are split among the group, with Butterfield singing three songs, Bishop singing one, drummer Phillip Wilson on one and bassist Bugsy Maugh tackling two. Throughout the tracks, there is a spirit of a band being reborn and that exuberance jumps from the grooves with each listen. R

emastered from the original analog session tapes and pressed on highdefinition vinyl, this album shouldn't be in your dreams, it should be on your turntable!

Tracks: Last Hope’s Gone / Mine To Love / Get Yourself Together / Just To BeWith You / Morning Blues / Drunk Again / In My Own Dream

Label Review.

2019 album. Folk.

Our Overview.

Composer, instrumentalist and producer Ben Walker is releasing his highly anticipated debut solo album ‘Echo’ following last year’s critically acclaimed 2018 EP ‘The Fox On The Downs’. He was recently hailed as one of “the best acoustic guitarists in the world right now” by Total Guitar magazine and his new album is to be released via Folkroom Records.

Ben is an exceptionally versatile composer as well as a celebrated instrumentalist and his passion is putting old jewels in new settings, for bringing together traditional and contemporary music and for playing it like no-one else. In divided times, ‘Echo’ reflects centuries-old words back to us for today, reimagined in new music. Drawing on field recordings from the EFDSS library, the newly established Sussex Tradition archive and lyrics from the 18th and 19th centuries, with composition influenced by contemporary classical and electronic music and Ben’s trademark fingerstyle, ‘Echo’ combines original instrumental pieces, traditional songs and poems set to music.

After six critically acclaimed albums and a BBC Folk Award as a duo with Josienne Clarke and more than fifty records as a producer of other artists, Ben Walker’s signature style has been sought out from punk to Proms, from Rough Trade to the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Swiss groove kings ‘L’Eclair’ are releasing their 2018 album ‘Polymood’ on CD and it is an album that immerses the very soul of the listener. L’Eclair are prepared to make people dance! After a year working on these new songs and perfecting their Swiss Groove on any stage they could, L’Eclair took their guitars and shitty old synths to Jasper Geluks Tone Boutique studio in Haarlem, Netherlands, where he laid down the smooth sounds of the Allah Las, Jacco Gardner and Eerie Wanda.

Born out of hazy nocturnal walks around London during the Winter of 2015, L’Eclair initially took form as a duo consisting of Sébastien Bui and Stefan Lilov, who conceived of the band for months before coming back to their homeplace of Geneva, Switzerland where their muse was eagerly awaiting them. The groove was their aim but they needed a bigger band to accomplish it. Long times friends and brother, Elie Ghersinu and Yavor Lilov joined the band, respectively on bass and drums, and not so long after, Quentin Pilet on percussion and Alain Sandri on keyboards & cowbell rounded out the current lineup.

'Polymood' is a further expansion on L’Eclair’s quest to channel and honor their Afro-Disco, Kosmische, and early House 70s influences: an eclectic mix of funk, afro disco, jazz, psychedelic and krautrock. And what we end up with is a collection of timeless Swiss Groove™ music—inspired by William Onyeabor, French band AIR, Piero Picioni, Sly Stone and CAN’s ‘Future Days’—bringing euphoric dance to the human machine while it perseveres in its never-ending search for the soul. A must have for the collection!

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Alt pop singer-songwriter Australian born Olivia Bartley, the captivating, creative force behind Olympia, is releasing her glorious sophomore album ’Flamingo’, a record which Olivia describes as “exploring how grief and desire are intertwined”. The result is a collection of 11 engrossing tracks, beautifully penned tunes, resonating with lush, catchy, complex pop unspooling tracks, resonating across a vast lyrical scope and delivered with the confident animation of a world lit with familiar dreams and desires. Flamingo’ is a striking follow up to the debut ‘Self Talk’; an album that was nominated for an ARIA award, Award for Best Video, shortlisted in the Australian Music Prize and selected as triple feature album. Olympia fresh off the back of sold out shows across Australia, the UK, and Europe, ‘Flamingo will be released on Opposite Number Records.

“The record explores how grief and desire are intertwined. It’s referencing a personal tragedy – the addiction and loss of someone very close to me,” says Bartley. “But it’s not a project of catharsis – I chose to submit myself to this experience because I wanted to create from inside it, rather than explaining it. I’ve tried to borrow from my own grief to create its inverse: something joyous. Something beyond myself, something fantastic -something new.

“It’s the most personal I’ve ever been, but also the most confident. This album is a force.” Taking the stage as a curtain raiser for ‘Flamingo’ is brand new track ‘Hounds’, a shimmering, kaleidoscopic requiem about calling someone out on their bullshit, or rather, what it means to be human; to feel and to evolve. This song is pure emotional force. A compelling journey from the first beat which drives to ever-escalating releases within the song. Lyrics are immediate, addressing someone driven by dissatisfaction, chasing something they can’t name even to themselves: ’Your reinventions endless, I’ll keep belief suspended’; trying out multiple versions of themselves as though magic tricks: ‘Walking on water, cut in half’; and someone who falls for everything, they could even ‘drown in the sun’. The listener is rewarded at each lift within the song, as Bartley demonstrates masterful pop sensibility. Sonically we hear a deft balancing act between moments that touch on nostalgia, even facetious sonic hints at religiosity, with elements that are startlingly unique and their own. ‘Hounds’ is lush and imaginative, belying its rage. The intent behind chorus line ‘I just released a single hound’, on par with TV on the Radio’s ‘Wolf Like Me’, or the Walkmen’s ‘The Rat’. Instinctive, emotional and high energy.

Olivia Bartley aka. Olympia co-produced the album with long-time collaborator Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, DMAs).

Book Review.

368pp hardback. At 3 a.m. on Monday, 18 August 1969, the final night of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, four men armed only with acoustic guitars faced the gaping darkness of a vast open-air audience. An hour later, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had confounded and convinced their peers, and cemented their place in rock history. They had also made themselves, for better or worse, synonymous with Woodstock, and with the nebulous Woodstock generation which it inspired.

Between 1969 and 1974, CSNY were the most successful, influential and politically potent rock band in America. More than any of their peers, they channelled and broadcast all the radical anger, romantic idealism and generational angst of their era. The vast emotional range of their music, from delicate acoustic confessionals to raucous counter-culture anthems, was mirrored in the turbulence of their personal lives. Their trademark may have been vocal harmony, but few if any of their contemporaries could match the recklessness of their hedonistic and often warring lifestyles, as four stubborn, driven songwriters pursued chemical and sexual pleasure to life-threatening extremes. ‘Crosby Stills Nash And Young: The Biography’ is the first major biography of a band whose first two albums are undisputed rock classics, and which continues to attract a large and loyal following to their sporadic reunions. At the same time, Peter Doggett illuminates the pivotal years of 1960s counterculture through the story of four of its key protagonists, whose music, beliefs and relationships with each other chronicle both its trajectory and its legacy.

Our Overview.

Peter Doggett’s book is a must for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fans and the first biography to focus on rocks first ‘supergroup’ focusing on their formative and highly influential years, when they were the most successful, influential, and politically potent band in America, in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock and the formation of the band itself. 1969 to 1974 were true golden years of rock n’ roll, bookmarking an era of arguably unparalleled musical power and innovation.

Including full colour photographs, ‘Crosby Stills Nash And Young: The Biography’ chronicles these four iconic musicians and the movement they came to represent, concentrating on their prime as a collective unit and a cultural force: the years between 1969, when Woodstock telegraphed their arrival to the world, and 1974, when their arch-enemy Richard Nixon was driven from office, and the band (to quote Graham Nash himself) “lost it on the highway.”

Even fifty years later, there are plenty of stories left to be told about Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young—and music historian Peter Doggett is here to bring them to light in the meticulously researched CSNY, a quintessential and illuminative account of rock’s first supergroup in their golden hour for die-hard fans, nostalgic flower-children, and music history aficionados alike.

“An enthusiastic history of one of rock music’s most significant supergroups.” Kirkus

Label Review. 

2019 album (ex-Mostly Autumn). Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The new studio album from the former Mostly Autumn vocalist & co-songwriter, known for her magical, evocative voice and an ability to interpret and inhabit a range of styles with a mix of power and feeling, Heather Findlay is one of the finest vocalists working in music today. Prog Magazine lauded her, “Deliciously sultry vocals”, whilst Maverick magazine hailed her, “Pure, crystalline voice. She grabs your heart in an almost vice-like grip”.

The album is a blend of originality, while breaking new ground with nods to Americana & the music of India, the album echoes with a bounty of delving into the depths of the music Heather has always loved with flashes of diverse influences from Heart, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac and Queen, to Emmylou Harris and Neil Young, to George Harrison and Kate Bush.

Heather says: “Though I’ve been doing what I do for about 22 years; that is writing and singing, and as the years have gone by, playing and producing too, ‘Wild White Horses’ is actually my first full solo album. I was honoured to have the wonderful Luke Morley come in as my producer / co-writer on this album, which was written over a couple of years, and as you may already know, was recorded last summer at Rockfield Studios in Wales. I learned a lot from Luke, who raised the bar so high, that if I ever needed to find another co-pilot, there’d be an awfully large pair of shoes to fill...! Danny Bowes, vocal powerhouse extraordinaire of Thunder, sings with me on a duet called, ‘Just A Woman’. The mystical wonder of Troy Donockley of Nightwish and his Uilleann pipes feature on the track titled ‘I Remember’ and on the track ‘Winner’, a glorious guest appearance from non other than the Flute Father Himself - Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull graces the album”.

Label Review. 

Three discs of audio from Woodstock 1969! 42 tracks (includes announcements). Also available on 3CD, and 10CD. 

Our Overview. 

Between August 15-18, 1969, more than 400,000 people converged on Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in upstate New York for Woodstock. Thirty-two acts performed including some of the most popular and influential musicians of the era such as Joan Baez, The Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, and The Who.

This summer will be the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the defining event of a generation and one of the most iconic moments in popular music history. Despite its enduring cultural significance, no one has ever attempted to document the historic festival as it unfolded in real time. The original triple album released in 1970 to coincide with the film of the event, barely scratched the surface of the total recordings. Another selection was issued the following year and that was it. A 25th anniversary 4CD box set arrived in 1994 which complimented the material already issued but this collection was heavily remixed. Then in 2009, a 6CD set for the 40th anniversary saw the most complete collection of the festival recordings yet released.

Producer Andy Zax says he, sound producer Brian Kehew and mastering engineer Dave Schultz avoided interfering with the tapes as much as possible in order to preserve their authenticity, resulting in tapes which are the sonic equivalent of heirloom tomatoes - "slightly imperfect, but delicious.” Zax and Steve Woolard have combined 42 tracks across 5 LPs which are presented here in the ‘Woodstock – Back To The Garden – 50th Anniversary collection’. The Package is presented in a cigarette style box with single sleeve Stoughton jackets and a pocket for a book which features images and an editorial cut down from the Definitive box and Reel Art Press book. 

Label Review. 

2019 album

Our Overview. 

British folk rock group Steeleye Span have now been in business for 50 years - originally forming off the wave spearheaded by Fairport Convention in the late 60s/early 70s - indeed the group featured that groups Ashley Hutchings who left the band after their 1969 coach crash and wanted to pursue a more traditional sound. He teamed up with established duo Tim Hart & Maddy Prior. Hutchings had quit Steeleye Span by the time of their two hit singles in the mid-70s - the haunting vocal only track “Gaudete” and their best known song “All Around My Hat”.

When it comes to an album to mark Steeleye Span’s fiftieth anniversary, ‘Est’d 1969’ is exactly what you might have expected - a collection of songs that perfectly captures not only the band’s history but the spirit of the 2019 model. With all seven members contributing to the process, the album draws fresh inspiration from their template of traditional songs and consummate musicianship.

At turns emotional, raucous and upbeat, it reflects the personalities and experience of all involved. Unavoidably there are throwbacks to the past (Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull’s flute on ‘Old Matron’, the harmony vocals on Reclaimed, the characters who inhabit many of the songs), but this is undoubtedly a modern Steeleye Span record and one that is more than worthy of a place in their esteemed canon.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The Black Keys are back with their new studio album ‘Let’s Rock’. After teasing us fans with an single “Lo-Fi’ earlier this year the band stayed tight lipped about any new release, but at long last we have the long-awaited ninth studio album, which is their first in five years and it is a return to the straightforward rock of the singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney’s early days as a band.  Auerbach says, “When we’re together we are The Black Keys, that’s where that real magic is, and always has been since we were sixteen.” The album includes the hit single ‘Lo/Hi’.

‘Let’s Rock’ was written, tracked live, and produced by Auerbach and Carney at Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville and features backing vocals from Leisa Hans and Ashley Wilcoxson.  “The record is like a homage to electric guitar,” says Carney.  “We took a simple approach and trimmed all the fat like we used to.”

Since their last album together, both Auerbach and Carney have been creative forces behind a number of wide-ranging artists: 

Dan Auerbach formed the Easy Eye Sound record label, named after his Nashville studio, in 2017, with the release of his second solo album, ‘Waiting on a Song’.  Since its launch, Easy Eye Sound has become home to a wide range of artists including Yola, Shannon & The Clams, Dee White, Shannon Shaw, Sonny Smith, Robert Finley, and The Gibson Brothers; it also has released the posthumous album by Leo Bud Welch as well as previously unreleased material by Link Wray. 

Patrick Carney has produced and recorded new music with artists such as Calvin Johnson, Michelle Branch, Damns of the West, Tobias Jesso, Jr., Jessy Wilson, Tennis, *repeat repeat, Wild Belle, Sad Planets, Turbo Fruits, and more.  He also created the theme music for the Netflix TV show ‘BoJack Horseman’ with his late uncle, Ralph Carney.

Formed in Akron, Ohio in 2001, The Black Keys have released eight studio albums: their debut ‘The Big Come Up’ (2002), followed by T’hickfreakness’ (2003) and ‘Rubber Factory ‘(2004), along with their releases on Nonesuch Records, ‘Magic Potion’ (2006), A’ttack & Release’ (2008), ‘Brothers’ (2010), ‘El Camino’ (2011), and, most recently, ‘Turn Blue’ (2014). The band has won six Grammy Awards and headlined festivals including Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Governors Ball.

The “Let’s Rock” Tour will hit cities including Chicago, Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, and Austin. Special guests Modest Mouse will provide support on all dates, and Shannon & The Clams, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, *repeat repeat, and Jessy Wilson will each open select shows on the tour.  The band also headlines 2019’s Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas on September 21.

Label Review. 

2019 album. All female punk rock. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Hailing from Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Doll Skin are set to release their third studio album this summer. Blending punk rock with powerful messages, the all-female band are creating a safe, empowering environment through music, especially for young women. ‘Love Is Dead And We Killed Her’ reflects on the band’s experiences with traumatic or extraordinary events and how they’ve impacted their lives. Doll Skin are creating a voice for those without one.

The group expand on their new record: “This album was written about traumatic or extraordinary events that have impacted us as humans and wanted to share those emotions with people who can relate. We want to be vocal for those who may feel like they don’t have a voice. Lots of these songs tackled issues that upset us and we want to put out a message that we feel matters and to have a point behind all of our songs.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Blues. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Long live the King. Four years since the passing of the great B.B. King, his towering influence over the blues world - and beyond - remains undimmed. Now, as the men who walked alongside him every step of the way for over 35 years, The B.B. King Blues Band writes the next chapter, on an album that salutes King’s classic songs and showcases their own.

Boasting several world-class songwriters in their ranks, ‘The Soul Of The King’ finds the line-up supplying material that stands alongside their late leader’s catalogue - along with guests that include Joe Louis Walker’s soulful tribute on “Regal Blues” and Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s masterful solo on opener “Irene”. Meanwhile, as King’s faithful sidemen, this band of blues lifers have the great man’s music under their fingernails, and made a bracing return to his greatest cuts. There’s a heartfelt turn from Michael Lee on “The Thrill Is Gone”. Mary Griffin and Taj Mahal combine their vocal and guitar talents on “Paying The Cost To Be The Boss” - while Kenny Neal lends poignant vocals and licks to “Sweet Little Angel”.

“When we started this album, we wanted to let the world know the B.B. King Band is live and well,” explains executive producer Terry Harvey. “And that we are continuing B.B.’s musical legacy...”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Named after an extinct prehistoric carnivore, Dire Wolves are the brainchild of Jeffrey Alexander, who has over the years, run Secret Eye Records, been a member of Jackie O Motherfucker, Black Forest Black Sea, and managed to find a way to always remain genuinely excited about creating and performing music.

Recorded in Oakland, CA, USA during a two day stretch, the cosmic ‘Grow Towards the Light’ is Dire Wolves 4th official full-length album (not including the fifteen or so minor releases, bootlegs, and tapes they’ve put out over the years), and its the first without Lau Nau on main vocals. Taking over that role is the mystical Georgia Carbone, singing in her own invented language. Jeffrey plays guitar and moog here, joined by Brian Lucas on bass, Sheila Bosco (from Faun Fables) on drums and piano, Arjun Mendiratta (Village of Spaces) on violin, and Taralie Peterson (Spires that in the Sunset Rise) on saxophone. The track “Every Step Is Birth” features a dark, plodding groove. It sounds like the soundtrack to a sinister after-party in a place you suspect might actually be purgatory. Meanwhile the track “Spacetime Rider” sounds exactly as you’d expect with a steady beat, groovy bassline and interstellar sounds weaving in and out.

Jeffrey says “the album thematically tries to express the interconnectedness of all things, which makes perfect sense given even during some of the more unsettling jams and eerie melodies, this album always feels like a cohesive whole.” Stylistically this is really a broad, painterly album that comes together in a beautiful, unexpected way.

Label Review.

2019 album. South African Jazz. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The living legend that is Abdullah Ibrahim is releasing his first new studio album in over 4 years ‘The Balance’. Abdullah Ibrahim (who has also recorded as Dollar Brand) is one of South Africa's most famous musicians. His music is often referred to as representing freedom. And this 84 year old musical hero’s discography goes back sixty years, and although there are longer periods between his releases than there used to be, Ibrahim has retained all his grit and jubilance. The pianist and composer continues to make gloriously uplifting music steeped in its South African roots, in a style which still carries echoes of his formative overseas influences, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk. Ibrahim has played with everyone from Duke Ellington to Max Roach, John Coltrane to Ornette Coleman and is the father of underground rapper Jean Grae.

‘The Balance’, which is Ibrahim's first new album in four years, will delight anyone who has enjoyed landmark discs such as ‘Anatomy Of A South African Village’ (Fontana, 1965), ‘Water From An Ancient Well’ (Tiptoe, 1985) and ‘Yarona’ (Tiptoe, 1995). Nine of the ten tunes are Ibrahim originals, with Monk's "Skippy" the only cover. Ibrahim is accompanied on most tracks by Ekaya, the mid-size band he formed in 1983. The group has been through numerous personnel changes but Ibrahim's orchestrations have remained constant, blending the rugged beauty of township jazz, the positivity of African American gospel and sumptuous Ellingtonian flourishes. Encompassing Township-Jazz, solo piano, Highlife and plentiful modern jazz styles, this brand new studio album (recorded with his band Ekaya at RAK Studios in London) is a major return for a genuine living Jazz legend.

The Times once nailed Ibrahim's appeal thus: "There are few musicians in jazz who can make you feel that essentially all is right in the world." All is far from right in the world in 2019, but Ibrahim truly does make you feel otherwise."

His major anti-apartheid anthem ‘Mannenberg’ (released as ‘Capetown Fringe’ in the US) has come to be regarded as an unofficial national anthem in South Africa. He even performed at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration, where Mandela referred to him as “our Mozart.” His political engagement did not stop when in 1963 he exiled himself from apartheid South Africa, or when South Africa finally freed itself from apartheid—but he has always been energised by the injustices he sees around him and he raises the listener up alongside him. Ibrahim is an international treasure and ‘The Balance’ is one of 2019's standout releases.

Label Review. 

1982 album remastered. Also available on CD and Black vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Iggy Pop’s ‘Zombie Birdhouse’ is his sixth solo album. His career up to that point had already proven that he was not only one of a kind but indestructible. Starting his career in the sixties, initially as a drummer he became frontman of The Stooges, today seen as one of the earliest punk bands. Record sales were low but legend piled up behind them, especially after uberfan David Bowie produced their third album ‘Raw Power’ in 1973. The tour which followed was literally dripping with blood and violence and the band broke up in 1974 by which time Iggy was mired in a heroin addiction. Thankfully, he recovered and started his solo career in 1977, helped again by Bowie in Berlin and the two albums he released that year, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘Lust For Life’ though totally different, are classics featuring tracks such as “China Girl” and “The Passenger”.

After three albums for Arista Records Iggy next teamed up with Chris Stein of Blondie who not only produced this record but also issued it on his own label Animal Records in 1982. Although ignored at the time, ‘Zombie Birdhouse’ is something of a lost classic. A heady concoction of drones, Afrobeats and freeform lyrics, the album represents him at his freewheeling best. This is the first official reissue since it’s original release.Lead single ‘The Villagers’ is vintage Iggy, featuring one of his finest ever monologues. The CD format of ‘Zombie Birdhouse’ contains a previously unreleased version of “Pain and Suffering”, featuring Blondie’s Debbie Harry on backing vocals. The song was originally recorded for the groundbreaking animated feature film ‘Rock & Rule’. Iggy provided the voice of the Monster From Another Dimension and Debbie Harry the voice for the character Angel. Despite this iconic combination, the OST was never released.

Iggy re-emerged in the mid 1980s as a pop star with his cover of “Real Wild Child”. Since then he gained living legend status and despite getting older, still didn’t give a shit, always out to shock and has kept himself in shape in order to give 100% at his shows. In later years he hasn’t been afraid to try different genres, work with younger acolytes (like Josh Homme of Queens of The Stone Age) and even reform his old band The Stooges.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The Minneapolis band Night Moves are releasing their new album, ‘Can You Really Find Me’, and it positively pulsates and glows with the same sublime energy that radiated from breakout single “Carl Sagan” in 2016, however in the intervening years, John Pelant and Micky Alfano have grown up. The songwriting, while still steeped in super-catchy, velvety riffs and pure pop glaze, feels more sophisticated and modern. Since the pair met in high school, awestruck by such ear-candy wizards as Brian Wilson, Todd Rundgren, Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, they set off to craft their version of what sophisticated, emotional modern pop music can and should sound like. 2016’s Pennied Days was a breakthrough, and set a new bar for the members of Night Moves. After spending the subsequent two years on Can You Really Find Me, they’ve scaled new heights, where the sounds are still just as sweet, but now smarter, more evocative, and perfectly designed for a summer release.

So how did something that feels so warm and breezy – like the perfect summer soundtrack - emerge from the dead of a bleak and frigid Minneapolis winter? Pelant and Alfano sequestered themselves, dreaming their way out of the cold by writing songs like “Coconut Grove,” a whirly psychedelic love song, and “Ribboned Skies,” a blazing ode to guitars and syncopation. Minneapolis has always played a part in the creative process for these dyed-in-the-wool locals. Long heralded as local hot shots in the cold, desolate, land of Prince, Westerberg and Dylan, John and Micky have still never stopped working the grind; in donut shops, bakeries and restaurants, toiling to make ends meet yet trying find beauty in the mundanity, and in the tranquil midnights.

Pelant, as a writer, thrives in the gloom of isolation; a cold void, “I think it's this type of environment that helps me feel focused. Zero distractions. Focused in a way where I can tap into certain emotions. I think some of the best music transports you to a place in time where your memories become potent visualizations. When writing closed off like this, you can see the images easily and your brain will pick the right chords and tones and guide you where you ought to go. I think being alone during that type of hibernation season is a great space in which to create.”

'Can You Really Find Me’ was produced by Jim Eno (founding member and drummer of Spoon) out of Public Hi-Fi Studios in Austin, TX and recorded with live band members Mark Hanson and Chuck Murlowski.

Label Review. 

The Climax Chicago Blues Band, Plays On, A Lot of Bottle, Tightly Knit and Rich Man. Plus 18 bonus tracks.

Our Overview. 

Formed in Stafford, England in 1968 by the band (originally known as the Climax Chicago Blues Band) recorded their debut album in September & November 1968 with a line up of Colin Cooper (Vocals, Harmonica), Pete Haycock (Guitar, Slide Guitar, Vocals), Arthur Wood (Keyboards), Derek Holt (Rhythm Guitar, Bass, Organ), Richard Jones (Bass) and George Newsome (Drums). Issued early the following year on EMI’s Parlophone label, the album saw the band gain an audience in the burgeoning electric blues scene in Britain with their mixture of Chicago Blues songs and their own concoctions.

Shortening their name to the Climax Blues Band, the group recorded and released the follow-up album, ‘Plays On’, later that year. The band were broading their remit with jazz and psychedelic tinges entering their sound. Jones was the first to leave the band, to be replaced by at first Anton Farmer and then Peter Filleul. The core five man line up remained for the rest of the period covered by this set.

By 1970 the band had moved to EMI’s “progressive” label, Harvest, and issued their third album ‘A Lot of Bottle’ later that year. This one was a more simple harder rocking affair - their next album ‘Tightly Knit’ (1971) was arguably their best of this period. The band’s final album for Harvest was ‘Rich Man’, issued in 1972. The album made commercial inroads in the United States and was the launching platform for their success in that country over the next few years which made up for their lack of big following in their home country.

The band continues today although Colin Cooper - the mainstay of the band died in 2008. Three of the current line-up have been in place since the mid-80s and remain a solid draw on the live circuit.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Often referred to as one of music’s best kept secrets, internationally acclaimed Irish singer/songwriter Perry Blake’s new album ‘Songs Of Praise’ - his seventh studio album - is an unquestionable return to form and following a hiatus of some 13 years. With tinges of Goldfrapp and John Grant, it’s a fine example of Blake’s seductive and faultless songwriting. And as applauded by the Sunday Times “A fine songwriter with a great voice - a little Blake goes a long way”.

’Songs Of Praise’ is released by UK label Moochin’ About / PIAS and has traces of Perry’s previous heady work - not dissimilar to his debut Perry Blake. But this record is a major leap into 2019 and finds Perry at the height of his powers. Jason Lazell, head of Moochin’ About Records, although I was a fan from the outset, it was only while driving around Los Angeles listening to, appropriately, California - Perry’s 2002 album, I was first struck by the genius of Perry... Lazell said: “I regard Perry Blake as being one of Europe’s great unsung musical heroes. ‘Songs of Praise’ is a breathtaking record of high drama that we are absolutely thrilled to present and release. ‘Songs of Praise’ takes the listener to a higher plane - a great beyond. This is his greatest work to date.” 

His first eponymously titled album was released in 1998. Here was a rare package: an articulate songwriter with an exceptional melodic sense who understood, instinctively, the art of constructing a pop song. Citing influences as various as European cabaret, west coast funk, and 60’s & 70’s film scores, Blake compiled a collection of songs that uplifted with their melodic hooks as much as they saddened with glimpses into damaged lives of his characters. 

When Perry Blake first appeared on the scene in the late 90's his first two singles 'The Hunchback of San Francisco' and 'Genevieve' songs were chosen as singles of the week on Jo Wiley's BBC Radio 1 show. The eponymous debut album that followed went top 30 in France upon release and he went on to release four critically acclaimed studio albums, gaining him an almost fanatical fan base along the way. 

In his 21 year career Blake has developed a large cult following in Europe and has collaborated with, and written for French artists such as Francoise Hardy and Emilie Simon. He has also toured with former label mate Carla Bruni. 

Perry Blake has written extensively for Film & TV in Europe, released a live album recorded at Cirque Royale in Brussels with full orchestra, had a book of his lyrics printed in Portuguese and also wrote the children's book 'Gatos em Lissadell’. 

“One of music’s great untapped resources” - OHMusic

“Blake sounds like a cross between Bowie and Michael Nyman - only better” - Uncut

Label Review. 

2019 live album. Also available on CD+DVD, Blu-ray, Purple vinyl, and Blue vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

By the time the world hears the performances from these two shows, American Southern Rockers Gov’t Mule will have celebrated 25 years as a band, which is something they never could have imagined. It’s no easy task keeping a band together for 25 years. You don’t get to do that without having built, nurtured, depended on, and tested important relationships. In fact, with any band that’s stayed around that long, it’s all about relationships.

When the band decided to document where they are currently (musically speaking), it was immediately clear that, amongst other things, this release should be a celebration of those relationships. ‘Bring On The Music: Live At The Capitol Theatre’ is a commemoration curated with the audience experience at the forefront. “Without our audience, there would be no chance or reason for us to be around 25 years later,” says founding member and lead guitarist Warren Haynes. “They’ve stuck with us from the beginning, and this is our way of including them in the celebration of our 25 years together.”

The band originally began as a side project from The Allman Brothers Band: Warren Haynes (guitar) and Allen Woody (bass) were new members when the legendary group got back together in the late 80s. In 1994 the pair began jamming together when the Allmans were off the road and joined by drummer Matt Abts, Gov’t Mule, as they christened themselves released their debut album in 1995. As the new group took off, Haynes and Woody quit the Allmans to pursue their new band full time.

Sadly, Woody was found dead in a hotel room in 2000 and after a few years as a duo Haynes and Abts gradually recruited new members and since 2008 the line-up has been constant with Danny Louis (keys) and Jorgen Carlsson (bass).

Label Review. 

2019 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Kristian Matsson is a singer-songwriter from Dalarna, Sweden, who performs under the stage name of The Tallest Man on Earth. Matsson grew up in Leksand, and began his solo career in 2006, having previously been the lead singer of the indie band Montezumas. His music has often drawn comparisons to the music of Bob Dylan.

“I can’t write good stuff on tour, I can’t write about life on a tour bus.” Matsson laments. Ironically, ‘Fever Dream’ arrives as a focused and frequently lovely rumination on life lived on a tour bus. Songs unfold in hotel bars, on open roads, beneath vast blue bowls of rural sky. The rhythms of perpetual travel pulse beneath acoustic melodies that lie somewhere between Dylan and Sufjan—a few gentle, a few forceful. With depth and delicacy, Matsson explores the banalities and oddities of tour, like the phenomenon of performing for an adoring audience to whom you are a stranger.

Whilst most of the album sticks to his tried and trusted arrangements of guitar, banjo, and harmonica, these songs begin to veer into more adventurous territory. “Hotel Bar” introduces a horn section, and “The Running Styles of New York” is bookended by momentary blips of electronics. These new elements are deployed sparingly and selectively, a sprinkle of spice to draw new flavour from familiar sound.

Label Review. 

1989 album remastered with 5 bonus tracks (b-sides and remixes). Second disc contains live show from Texas 1990.

Our Overview. 

The B-52’s are best known for their ultra catchy and fun party track “Love Shack”, which first appeared on their fifth album ‘Cosmic Thing’ which gets it’s a 30th Anniversary reissue. The band were recovering from the death of guitarist and founding member Ricky Wilson who died during the making of their previous album ‘Bouncing Off The Satellites’ (1986). After some time off following the promotion of that album the band reunited after hearing the demos of Keith Strickland (originally bass but switched to guitar after Ricky’s passing). The album was produced by Nile Rodgers (of Chic) and Don Was (of Was (Not Was)) and came out in June 1989 after first single “Channel Z” introduced the band back into the scene.

With its contemporary late 80s pop sheen, the album took off after second single “Love Shack” hit No.3 in the US and went to No.1 in Australia where it remained for eight weeks! It became a hit in the UK too in early 1990. The next single “Roam” also hit big leaving ‘Cosmic Thing’ as the bands top selling album.

Of “Love Shack”, produced Don Was said :“When we handed it in, I don’t think there was a single person who said, ‘Hah! That’s the hit the B-52’s have been needing for the past twelve years!’ “

Label Review.

2019 live album. Jazz.

Our Overview.

Brazilian harmonicist Gabriel Grossi releases his first live album, ‘#motion’, on Whirlwind - a joyous celebration of his career to date, dedicated to those he loves, featuring his latest quintet: trombonist Sergio Coelho, pianist Eduardo Farias, bassist Andre Vasconcellos and drummer Rafael Barata. Guest appearances including celebrated fellow countryman Hermeto Pascoal.

The passion and energy in the performances of are as crystal clear as the sounds and atmospheres he produces from one of the smallest yet evocative instruments on the bandstand. Described by legendary Toots Thielemans as his successor, Grossi’s many collaborations have included Chico Buarque, Ivan Lins, Guinga and Snarky Puppy.

Captured in Brazil over two nights, Grossi describes this as a resum of around twenty years of icons and influencers who have been so important to him. “Each number pays tribute to a big name from my life story.”

The songs include the breezy “A Samba for Toots”, written and recorded for Thielemans when he was 92, was greatly appreciated by the great man and Hermeto Pascoal joins the quintet for his own “Latin Brothers”, full of characteristic unpredictability.

As a teenager, Grossi would take a weekly 18-hour round trip to be tutored by ‘second father’ Mauricio Einhorn, and his warm ‘Embracing Einhorn’ (“even your saddest notes would make me smile”) brings another moment of repose. Other tracks include “A Tribute to Bituca” for good friend Milton Nascimento (“the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard”).

The Band: Gabriel Grossi (harmonica), Sergio Coelho (trombone), Eduardo Farias (piano), Andr Vasconcellos (acoustic bass), Rafael Barata (drums). Special Guests: Mauricio Einhorn and Hermeto Pascoal.

Tracks: Prelude from the Bachianas Number 4 / A Samba for Toots / #motion / From the Bottom of My Heart / Latin Brothers / Play, Raul / Embracing Einhorn / Banzo / A Tribute to Bituca / Different Beat / Carinhoso

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Daughter Of Swords is American singer Sauser-Monnig and ‘Dawnbreaker’ her solo debut, began as the first phase of her return to music after stepping to the sidelines for the better part of a decade. Her college trio, Mountain Man, rose to quick acclaim for their peerless harmonies around 2010 but the friends slowly drifted apart, following their own interests to different coasts and concerns. While working on a flower farm as a farmhand, though, Sauser-Monnig realized that she missed the emotional articulation she found in writing songs and singing them and resolved to start again. She pieced together an album just as Mountain Man - now newly gathered in the fertile Piedmont of North Carolina - began to regroup for their second album, 2018’s aptly named ‘Magic Ship’. Working with Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, Sauser-Monnig shaped what began as quiet reflections into confident compositions, crackling with country swagger and a sparkling pop warmth. They were, after all, preemptive odes to the next phase of life.

Calling the ten tunes of ‘Dawnbreaker’ break-up songs is to hamstring them with elegiac expectations, to paint them as sad-eyed surrenders to loss and grief. Sure, there is the gentle opener “Fellows”, a hushed number that explores the turmoil of being unable to reciprocate the feelings of a wild and shy, tall and fine man. And there’s the blossoming country shuffle of “Easy Is Hard”, where Sauser-Monnig stands in the yard and sees her lover leave, his taillights fading into the night sky; she can’t sleep, so she gets up to turn the lights and stereo on, to “feel my soul coming down.”

Buoyed by the insistent patter of a drum machine and rich acoustic guitars, Sauser-Monnig finds herself in search of new thrills during “Gem”, whether pondering the fleeting nature of existence at a waterfall’s edge or watching the shapes of mountains seemingly dance beneath her headlights. The muted, harmonica-lined boogie of “Sun” begins with a vulnerable confession, a revelation of loneliness; it is, however, a low-key anthem for the open road, about giving oneself over to the infinity of solitude and an endless strip of asphalt. Sauser-Monnig captures these scenes with a painter’s eye and delivers them with a novelist’s heart.

At the start of “Human”, the undeniable climax of ‘Dawnbreaker’, Sauser-Monnig wakes up early and finds her lover in bed. She slips out of the room, watches the sun rise alone and has herself a long think amid nature’s frozen splendor. What does it mean to leave? What does it mean to stay? Is she wrong, and are they right? As the piano rises and her voice multiplies, coming in now from all sides, she admits something crucial to herself: “You can’t will a love to life/But you can do the loving thing: Make like a bird and fly.” It is a moment of reckoning with one’s own liberation, of realizing that sometimes a profound loss is the only way to gain something else. That is the lesson of ‘Dawnbreaker’, an intimate document of what it means to set oneself free.

Label Review. 

2019 live album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The Chameleons were an English post-punk band formed in Middleton, Greater Manchester. The band originally consisted of singer and bassist Mark Burgess, guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding, and drummer John Lever (replacing original drummer Brian Schofield). The Chameleons released their debut album, ‘Script of the Bridge’, in 1983. They released five more studio albums and one EP before disbanding in 2003. In 2009, Burgess and Lever reformed to play Chameleons back catalogue material, under the name ChameleonsVox, sadly Lever died in 2017, however Burgess carries ChameleonsVox on and they have gained even bigger audiences of late, touring as ChameleonsVox and playing out their classic albums.

Back in the day, ‘Strange Times’ was the Chameleons’ third album, originally released in 1986 on the Geffen label and praised by the critics who reviewed it. Melody Maker called it “a marvellous departure” from their previous work and “a wonderful record,” describing it as “the band’s most inventive and winning album yet and as a fine a record as any guitar band has made this year - it should delight just about anyone.”

Singer and bassist Mark Burgess later said “‘Strange Times’ is my favourite. Personally, I believe it was the best lyrical work I’d done with the band and some of the best vocal performances, and I think the Chameleons really began to mature and move forward with this album.”

Noel Gallagher was quoted recently as saying “I’d forgotten how much this album meant to me. It came out in ‘86. I was 19!! I’ve been listening to it every day since and I have to say it’s blown my mind… again! It must have influenced my early years as a song writer because I can hear ME in it everywhere!!” The Chameleons have long been named as influences on bands such as The Flaming Lips, The Killers and Smashing Pumpkins.

This live recording from Preston Guildhall was taken from their current tour, which continues across the UK and Europe throughout 2019, ending at Manchester Ritz in December, supported by The Icicle Works.The ‘Where In The World’ EP consists of four original Chameleons songs, rerecordedin 2017 - only available on 2LP format. As a feature of their current live set the songs were universally well-received by the fanbase and are presented here by popular request. ‘Dali’s Picture’ a discarded song written in 1981, ‘Ever After’ an unfinished demo from the ‘Strange Times’ session that produced the bands third album and ‘Denims & Curls’ and ‘Free For All’, which were demos for a fourth album that never materialized due to the band’s disintegration. Despite the years in between, all four songs feel fresh, vibrant and contemporary.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Heather Nova has made a beautiful, emotional ‘Pearl’ of a rock record. 25 years after her chart-topping breakout album ‘Oyster’. She’s managed to make another raw, beautiful, passionate piece of rock music, that no one can deny shows she is unexpectedly now at her peak. Who says rock n roll is only for the young? There have been eight studio albums in-between; all of them critically acclaimed, and many of them charting. She has toured consistently in those intervening years, maintaining a loyal fanbase; has played every major European festival, as well as intimate acoustic gigs in churches and opera houses, has had her music featured in major TV shows and Hollywood films, released a volume of her poetry and drawings, and has even been known to show up and play free at hospitals in between tour dates.

Heather says: “I didn’t plan to release an album on the 25th anniversary of Oyster. It just worked out that way. When I was ready to record a new album, I thought it would be cool to have Youth produce one or two of the songs, to revisit the vibe and sound we created back then. (Youth produced ‘Oyster’) I sent him my demos so that he could choose one or two. The message I got back was “Really beautiful .... I’d love to do them all ...can see the connection to Oyster, but the songs are better! Much stronger ..deeper insights ....still vulnerable but from a position of strength, Woah - I’m in!”. We discussed going back to a similar sound, while still keeping the record contemporary too. I think that, just naturally, the combination of each of our innate sensibilities once again came together to create that unique sound we got on Oyster. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

“My songs have always reflected my inner world. In the period I wrote this album, I got divorced after a 20 year marriage, spent a few years on my own, during which I felt a renewed sense of peace, independence, and a strong sense of my connection to nature. (The song “Re-wild me” came out of that) and then, to my complete surprise, fell madly in love.

"There are many love songs on the record, full of passion and a renewed lust for life, in particular the rocking “All the Rivers” and the exquisite, cello-infused “After all this Time” stand out. There are a couple of songs about divorce; The killer lead track “The Wounds We Bled” is more philosophical than bitter; it’s raw without being angsty, and sounds like something off Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”. “Some Things Just Come Undone” , with its punchy rock guitars, about having to tell her son that his parents are separating, is particularly heartbreaking, and will speak to anyone who has been in that excruciating position. Then there is the sublime “Over the fields”: A true full circle from “Island” on 'Oyster': “Last year the man I wrote “Island” about (who had abused me) was dying. When I heard that, I reached out to him for the first time in almost 30 years, to say that I forgave him. He wrote me an incredible letter of regret and apology for all the pain and suffering he had caused me. I felt there was a kind of closure. After he died, I wrote “Over the fields”; It’s a song of forgiveness and compassion for a troubled soul that never managed to find its way clear in this life; A hope for a second chance the next time round.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American singer-songwriter/guitarist Chris Staples - whilst known for indie rock bands Twothirtyeight and Telekinesis - is known for his songwriting on his more intimate solo material and we are pleased he is back with his new full length release, ‘Holy Moly’, which follows 2015’s beautifully written introspective album ‘Golden Age’. Chris on this album has embraced a cautiously optimistic outlook for his future and finds gentle melodies with his trademark stripped-back guitar, and also introduces new sounds by integrating keyboards for sonically lush arrangements.

But let us leave it for Chris to better explain his inspiration for his new release “I recorded Holy Moly in my garage all throughout 2018. I would work on it for a few months and walk away. I did this several times. Every time I came back I would have a fresh perspective and find that some of the songs were great and some of them I never wanted to hear again. I would pick the best songs of each two month period and eventually I had a record. In the spring my neighbors started building a house next door and the noise made it impossible to record during the day. I started working only at night from about 10pm until 4am. I was on a vampire’s schedule. I always feel more creative at night so it worked out fine.

“I quit drinking in 2018 and it sort of re-sensitized me to life. It reminded me of being a teenager. I used to write lots of songs and poems as a kid, it was how I coped. In my thirties, drinking sort of kept me from having to be inquisitive. Writing wasn’t as important. Since I quit drinking, my evenings are full of thoughts and questions. Writing became more frequent and automatic as I engaged with ideas in this way. There’s a popular notion in the arts that alcohol makes you creative but I’ve found the opposite to be true. Being sober put me back in touch with a creative energy that I had been hiding from for a long time. 

“My songs are sometimes morose and deal with depressing subject matter. We all carry this darkness around and no one should feel alone with that weight. I want my music to connect with people on that level. Beyond that, what I hope to communicate with Holy Moly is that a human life is full of possibility. There is so much goodness that you can will into existence. I feel like people are resigned to a type of inevitable hopelessness in our culture. Why rule out the possibility that things can get better?

“I’ve always thought it was crazy how a great song can make you feel joyous, alive, sad, and humbled at the same time. “World On Fire” was one of the first tracks that came together early in the writing process. It’s a song about how great music is a cocktail of all those things stirred into the same pot. It’s a medium that gives people a socially acceptable place to feel and express things that are hard to talk about. It also can can make you forget for a moment how dysfunctional the world is. This was my ode to music. 

“Horse and Saddle” is my favorite song title I’ve ever come up with. It’s about living a life in the arts. It can be life affirming one minute and demoralizing the next. Learning how to ride out these wild vacillations and stay committed is a necessary skill. It is guaranteed to never be a perfect experience. Probably similar to parenting, owning a business, or anything worth doing. 

“Holy Moly, as an expression, communicates a sort of disbelief. I feel like I see and hear a lot of things these days that I can barely believe. I find myself saying Holy Moly often.”

Available on CD and Limited Edition Blue Vinyl.

Label Review. 

Early versions recorded for their 1991 debut album.

Our Overview. 

Hailing from Reading in the late ‘80s / early ‘90s, Chapterhouse were leaders in the British Shoegazing movement. Rehearsing for well over a year before committing anything to demo for record companies, Chapterhouse quickly reached the top of their game with their peak arguably being a performance following Nirvana at the 1991 Reading Festival.

This release consists of the original Whirlpool recordings from VHF Studios Rugby, Sawmills Studio in Cornwall, Stoneroom Studios, London and Refuge Studios in Reading. Featuring five extra bonus tracks, including an alternative cover version of the Beatles “Rain”, a demo version of “Satin Safe”, a longer version of “Guilt” and covers of the Byrds “It Won’t Be Wrong” and the Velvet Underground’s “Lady Godiva’s Operation”.

The completed album with its mixture of reverb guitars and vocals, heavily inspired by the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Ride made No.23 in the UK charts and they were one of the premier ‘Shoegaze’ acts in 1991. However the huge success of Nirvana and the wave of American groups that followed in their wake saw UK indie switch preferances during 1992 and the bands follow up ‘Blood Music’ issued the following year would be their final album before they split up.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Brazilian party music. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The original Rio beach boy returns in style, with a new record of unabashedly feel-good Brazilian party music. Featuring Azymuth bassist Alex Malheiros (responsible for some of Brazil’s all-time funkiest low-end licks), a horn section including Valle’s go-to high-trumpeter Jesse Sadoc, and percussion master Armando Marcal, Sempre has all the masterful composition, exceptional musicality, and forward-thinking ideas you’d expect from the Brazilian titan, and it’s fresher than a fruity caipirinha [Brazil’s national cocktail] in the Copacabana sunshine.

Updating Marcos Valle’s seminal boogie-era sound, Sempre spans ecstatic disco, cosmic samba, and late-night jazz-funk, drawing obvious comparisons to some of Valle’s late-seventies and early-eighties output. “Estrelar” (1983), for example, an ode to the joy of exercise, has become one of the biggest Brazilian disco hits of all time. But lyrically the new album is more closely reminiscent of Valle’s progressive early seventies’ releases. Heralding love, tolerance and living in the present, while satirising political corruption, the new release recalls a time in which Valle, together with his brother Paulo Sergio, was writing subtly subversive lyrics in order to bypass the censorship imposed by the military dictatorship, which ruled over Brazil between 1964 and 1985.

The album marries compositional genius with pure pop perfection. From the blistering brass arrangements on up-tempo disco hit “Olha Quem ta Chegando” and the infinitely classy “Vou Amanhã Saber”, to the nine-minute synth heavy instrumental funk stepper “Odiss ia”, which gradually morphs into an interplanetary samba jam, the songs are tightened and given an extra coat of gloss, by London based producer Daniel Maunick (son of Incognito frontman Bluey). More moments of boogie delight come in the form of “Minha Roma” (a musical nod to the famed “Estrelar”), and the sunshine anthem title-track “Sempre”. Translating as “Ever”, “Sempre” is a testament to the continual drive for development and reinvention that has defined Marcos Valle’s astounding six-decade career.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The Alarm are one of Wales’ biggest rock exports and ‘Sigma’ acts as the sequel to 2018’s critically acclaimed ‘Equals’ and features musical contributions from original Alarm guitarist Dave Sharp and Billy Duffy from The Cult. The album includes the single “Brighter Than The Sun” and as Mike Peters articulates, it “is a lyric that tries to encapsulate how it feels when someone you love has survived an immense ordeal and come through to the other side brighter, stronger and more capable than before”.

Early in 2019 Mike Peters from The Alarm was awarded with an MBE by His Royal Highness Prince Charles Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace for his services to charity having raised thousands for cancer care projects in the UK and abroad and dedicating his life to giving hope for families affected by cancer The Alarm will be heading out on their Sigma LXXXV Tour in Summer 2019, and their charity Love Hope Strength (co-founded by Mike Peters), will be hosting bone marrow drives at each concert aimed at finding donors for people suffering from Blood Cancer who need a transplant for a second chance at life.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Supergroup and grammy award winning rock band The Raconteurs - Jack White, Brendon Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler - return with their third studio LP and first new album in over a decade ‘Help Us Stranger’, after teasing us in December with new tracks. The 12-song collection will feature the two previously released songs - "Sunday Driver" and "Now That You're Gone" - along with a cover of Donovan’s "Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)."

The album sees the mighty combo reassembled, stronger and perhaps even more vital than ever before as they continue to push rock 'n' roll forward into its future, bonding prodigious riffs, blues power, sinewy psychedelia, Detroit funk, and Nashville soul via Benson and White’s uncompromising songcraft and the band’s steadfast musical muscle. With ‘Help Us Stranger’, The Raconteurs have returned right when they are needed most, unified and invigorated with boundless ambition, infinite energy and a collectivist spirit operating at the peak of its considerable powers, once again creating a sound and fury only possible when all four of its members come together.

The album which follows 2008’s ‘Consolers Of The Lonely’ was written by White and Benson, with the exception of their cover of Donovan’s “Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness),” the group recorded the 12-song set at Third Man Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Produced by the Raconteurs and engineered by Joshua V. Smith, the album features contributions from keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Dean Fertita (The Dead Weather, Queens of the Stone Age) and sisters Lillie Mae and Scarlett Rische.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Dream pop. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

For the making of ‘Keepsake’, the Brisbane-bred musician otherwise known as Harriette Pilbeam recorded in a home studio in Melbourne and worked again with John Castle - the producer behind ‘Sugar & Spice’, a 2018 release that prompted Pitchfork to dub Hatchie the “dream-pop idol of tomorrow.” And while the album begins and ends with two massively catchy pop tracks - the brightly defiant ‘Not That Kind’ and the euphoric and epic ‘Keep’ - many songs drift into more emotionally tangled terrain, shedding light on experiences both ephemeral and life-changing.

Throughout ‘Keepsake’, Hatchie’s kaleidoscopic sonic palette draws out distinct moods and tones, continually revealing her depth and imagination as a musician and songwriter. On lead track ‘Without A Blush’, jagged guitar riffs and woozy rhythms meet in a sprawling piece of industrial pop, with Hatchie’s gorgeously airy voice channelling loss and longing, regret and self-doubt.

Another industrial-leaning track, ‘Unwanted Guest’, unfolds in wobbly synth lines and fantastically icy spoken-word vocals, along with lyrics about “being dragged to a party I don’t want to be at, then getting at a fight at the party, and kind of hating myself for it but hating everybody else too.” Meanwhile, on ‘Her Own Heart’, Hatchie presents a radiant jangle-pop gem that puts a singular twist on the post-breakup narrative. “I’d seen people in my life go through breakups and end up with no idea what to do with themselves,” she says. “I wrote that song from the point of view of a girl who winds up on her own and embraces having to figure out who she is, who doesn’t let her life get turned upside-down like that”.

On ‘Stay With Me’, Hatchie offers up ‘Keepsake’s most utterly rhapsodic track, all incandescent synth and unstoppable rhythm. “At first I thought I could never put that on my album - it felt too dancey and pop, and I figured it could really shine on someone else’s record,” she says. “But then I realised: I’m the one dictating what my sound is; what I put on my album is up to me.”

That self-possessed spirit infuses all of ‘Keepsake’, which ultimately serves as a document of a particularly kinetic moment in Hatchie’s life. “I’m not much of a nostalgic person when it comes to memories, but I do have a tendency to hold on to certain things, like tickets from the first time I went someplace on holiday,” says Hatchie in reflecting on the album’s title. “It made sense to me to call the record that, at a time when I’m going to probably end up with a lot of keepsakes - and in away, this whole album is almost like a keepsake in itself.”

Label Review.

2019 album. Regional music from North Brazil. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The history of “Jambú e Os Míticos Sons Da Amazônia” is the history of an entire city in its full glory. With bustling night clubs providing the best sound systems and erotic live shows, gossip about the whereabouts of legendary bands, singers turned into movie stars, supreme craftiness, and the creativity of a class of musicians that didn’t hesitate to take a gamble, Jambu is an exhilarating, cinematic ride into the beauty and heart of what makes Para‘s little corner of the Amazon tick.

The city of Belém, in the Northern state of Para in Brazil, has long been a hotbed of culture and musical innovation. Enveloped by the mystical wonder of the Amazonian forest and overlooking the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, Bel m consists of a diverse culture as vibrant and broad as the Amazon itself. Amerindians, Europeans, Africans - and the myriad combinations between these people - would mingle, and ingeniously pioneer musical genres such as Carimbó, Samba-De-Cacete, Siriá, Bois-Bumbás and bambiá.

It boasted a radio station, a recording studio, a music label and had a deep roster of popular artists across the carimbe, siri , bolero and Brega genres. Another important aspect in understanding how the musical tradition spread in Belem, are the aparelhagem sonora: the sound system culture of Para. Beginning as simple gramophones connected to loudspeakers tied to light posts or trees, these sound systems livened up neighbourhood parties and family gatherings. The equipment evolved from amateur models into sophisticated versions, perfected over time through the wisdom of handymen.Today’s aparelhagens draw immense crowds, packing clubs with thousands of revelers in Bel m’s peripheral neighbourhoods or inland towns in Para.

The music and tales found in Jambu are stories of resilience, triumph against all odds, and, most importantly, of a city in the borders of the Amazon who has always known how to throw a damn good part.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD and Black Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

The word 'supergroup' gets thrown around a lot these days, but truly, it doesn't get much super-er than Hollywood Vampires, who comprise the ‘Hollywood’ trio of Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and Johnny Depp, who return to dazzle us with their explosive second album - as the current line up - ‘Rise’.

In 1969, on the Sunset Strip at the legendary club, the Rainbow Bar & Grill, the Hollywood Vampires were born in the upstairs bar. It was a gathering place for the rock stars living in or passing through L.A. "To join the club, one simply had to out drink all of the members," says Alice Cooper, a founding member of the original Vampires. Cooper and good friend Johnny Depp got together and decided the spirit of The Hollywood Vampires should live again —minus the drinking. Cooper and Depp were joined by Joe Perry (Aerosmith lead guitarist), who is an old friend of both, and the recording began: a tribute to the original Hollywood Vampires. An environment was born for great artists to hang, laugh and play together. 

Seconds into the opening track “I Want My Now,” it’s clear this supergroup has created something special – the chemistry between the individuals is unmistakeable when they come together on stage or in the recording studio. Forget the star-studded lineup’s individual reputations, “Rise” is some of the purest, unapologetic and most enjoyable rock and roll of the year, made by masters of the craft and true fans of the form. 

Unlike their 2015 debut record, the new album ‘Rise’ consists mainly of original material, written by the band. There are however, in the spirit of the Vampires’ original mission, three covers of songs originally written and recorded by some fellow rockers who died far too young: an intimate and intense version of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” beautifully performed by Johnny Depp; the late Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died,” and Johnny Thunder’s “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory,” sung by Joe Perry. Raucous rock anthems like “The Boogieman Surprise” and “Who’s Laughing Now,” capture the natural, raw, celebratory attitude of Hollywood Vampires displayed in their rowdy shows around the world. But the album shows off their range as well with tracks like “We Gotta Rise” – a tongue-in-cheek politics song in the the tradition of Alice’s “Elected” – to the psychedelic gothic epic of “Mr. Spider.” 

“Rise is not only a totally different animal than the first Vampires album, it is unique to anything I’ve ever been a part of. I approached it very differently than I usually do when working on an album. Each of us; Joe, Johnny, Tommy and myself have written songs on this album,” Cooper says in a press release. “What is different though is that I didn’t try to change any songs to be more ‘Alice-like.’ Because each of us has different influences, the sound of this album is very cool. I think that with this album, we are establishing what the Vampires’ sound really is, whereas with the first album we were more tipping our hats to our fallen rock n roll brothers.”

“Rise came from pure creative energy, which is just like playing live with the Vampires,” cites Perry. “The record showcases everyone doing what they do best without anyone looking over our shoulders. There was no pressure or deadlines, allowing us to write and record an album that is one of the freest and most honest sounding records I’ve been part of. I can’t wait to perform some of these tunes live for our fans.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview.

Recorded following an intense personal journey of self-doubt and self-discovery, ‘Real Life’ marks a brand-new chapter for the British singer-songwriter with it a bold, confident and fearless new sound. It’s an extraordinary album and emblematic of an artist emerging defiant and powerful. Sandé says that her vision for Real Life is to give people hope and confidence: “Especially people who have been marginalised, forgotten or kicked down by this invisible oppression that’s always there. I just want to give people this incredible superpower every time they play the album. Like a battery pack – by the end of the album they’re going to feel restored.”

All lyrics on the new album were written by Sandé, who had worked on Real Life with such notables as Salaam Remi, James Poyser and Troy Miller, who produced every song. The album’s 11 tracks exude positivity, from the very opening track “Human”, which is followed by the acoustic guitar-led “Love To Help”. The soaring “You Are Not Alone” has the singer, flanked by a choir, marking a return to the anthemic sound that made Sandé a star. Lead single “Sparrow” is an empowering track showcasing the singer’s dynamic voice, as does the sermonic, R&B and gospel-flavoured “Survivor”. The piano ballad “Honest” is being described as one of the most emotive songs of the singer’s career, and is followed by the cinematic, string-led album closer “Free”.

“I feel grounded,” says Sandé. “With this album, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and do. I’ve came out the other side more confident, happier with more self-love.”

Label Review.

Including previously unreleased group & solo recordings from 1957 to 1971.

Our Overview.

‘Shout Sister Shout’ is a brand new collection Including previously unreleased group & solo recordings from 1957 to 1971, from the one and only and legendary Sister Rosetta Sharpe. Long before "women in rock" became a media catchphrase, African American guitar virtuoso Rosetta Tharpe proved in spectacular fashion that women could rock. Born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, in 1915, Tharpe was gospel's first superstar and the preeminent crossover figure of its golden age (1945–1965).

Sister Rosetta Sharpe was a trailblazer performer who influenced scores of popular musicians, from Elvis Presley and Little Richard to Eric Clapton and Etta James. Tharpe was raised in the Pentecostal Church, steeped in the gospel tradition, but she produced music that crossed boundaries, defied classification, and disregarded the social and cultural norms of the age; incorporating elements of gospel, blues, jazz, popular ballads, folk, country, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. Tharpe went electric early on, captivating both white and black audiences in the North and South, in the U.S. and internationally, with her charisma and skill. People who saw her perform claimed she made that guitar talk. Ambitious, flamboyant, and relentlessly public, Tharpe even staged her own wedding as a gospel concert-in a stadium holding 20,000 people!

This is a must have piece in your collection from this vibrant, yet nearly forgotten musical heavyweight whose long career helped define gospel, r&b, and rock music. A performer who resisted categorisation at many levels-as a gospel musician, a woman, and an African American-Tharpe demands that we rethink our most basic notions of music history and American culture. Her story forever alters our understanding of both women in rock and U.S. popular music.

CD 1: WITH BAND / Shout Sister Shout / That’s All / Didn’t It Rain / Down ByThe Riverside / Every Time I Feel The Spirit / Go Ahead / Jesus Is Everywhere/ How It Rains / Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho / Up Above My Head, I HearMusic / Precious Moment / This Train / Jesus Met The Woman At The Well/ Take My Hand Precious Lord / Sit Down / Peace In The Valley / When TheSaints Come Marching In

CD 2: He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands / Down By The Riverside / IsEveryone Happy? / Cant’ Sit Down / Didn’t It Rain / Go Tell It To The Mountain/ Jesus Met The Woman At The Well / Sometimes I Fell Like A Motherless Child/ Vacation In The Sky / Two Little Fishes, Five Loaves Of Bread / Travelin’ Shoes/ Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen / Can’t No Grave Hold My Body Down/ Mansions In The Sky / When Jesus Was Born

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The trio from Northern Ireland are back with their fourth album ‘False Alarm’ and it finds Two Door Cinema Club gloriously unshackled and creatively at the peak of their game. Across its ten tracks, ‘False Alarm’ wryly scans and satirizes the social and environmental woes of 2019 through the prism of wonderfully off-kilter pop, simultaneously borrowing from and warping elements of future pop, disco, rock, funk and soul. Produced again with Jacknife Lee, the record retains their 80s influenced sound.

“I love the pop thing,” frontman Alex Trimble explains. “I love experimenting and going to different places, I love doing things that are a little bit wonky and I love the idea of doing something we haven’t done before, why can’t we do all of those things at once? That’s what it was, doing whatever felt right… It sounds like Two Door Cinema Club - not a Two Door Cinema Club there’d ever been before but that’s what I love. We can always do something new but it always feels like something we’ve done.”

Label Review.

2019 album. Honky tonk. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

From Chuck Mead’s important work with the throwback country outfit BR549, to his long and productive solo career, to numerous causes and enterprises behind-the-scenes few catch wind of, Chuck Mead has on the front lines of helping to save country music for a quarter century. And now the Neo-traditional honky tonker troubadour serves up a Memphis-spiced hardcore country platter with ‘Close To Home’ and this one promises to have a distinct Memphis feel to it.

“I really delved into the Memphis music scene when I was living there for four months,” Chuck Mead says. “I got to know a lot of people in the scene, and I’d known producer Matt Ross-Spang for quite a while. At night the cast would record at the original Memphis Recording Service (better known as Sun Studios) and that’s where I first met Matt. He was very young but was the head engineer and really brought the old studio back into shape. I started hanging out with him, and he kept talking to me about cutting a record in Memphis.”

There was a reason Mead was spending so much time in Memphis, and why it was looming so large in his mind. At the time, he was working as as the Musical Director, Supervisor, and Producer of the hit Broadway musical “Million Dollar Quartet”, and later he worked on the well-received CMT drama series, “Sun Records”. These projects brought the stories of the birth of country and rock and roll out of Memphis to a new generation through the characters of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, and Chuck Mead was one of the people behind-the-scenes helping to make it all happen.

“I’ve recorded in some cool Nashville studios like the Quonset Hut, RCA Studio B, and The Castle,” Mead says. In fact his 2012 record was called, Back At The Quonset Hut. “But there was something almost supernatural about working at Phillips. You could feel Sam’s spirit. Matt wanted me to make a bigger record, something that was out of my box and I was all for it. So I turned it over to him and he took things in a direction I didn’t foresee. It’s probably the least-country record I’ve ever made, but at the same time, it’s really a country record.”

“I really wanted to make a record that was a little bit different from what I had been doing,” Mead says. “Looking back, I really have done that on every record I’ve made, because why make the same record every time?” 

Memphis is a hot spot of old school music right now. Dale Watson recently made a partial move there from Austin, and took his annual Ameripolitan Awards with him. And with the rising rents of Nashville and Austin, many musicians are heading to the city in hopes of greener pastures. Chuck Mead’s Close To Home will be another entry into roots music’s move to Memphis.

The 11-track collection recorded at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Studios in Memphis, TN was produced by acclaimed Memphis recording engineer and producer Matt Ross-Sprang (Jason Isbell, John Prine, Margo Price).

Over the course of the late ‘90’s and the early 21st century, Chuck has recorded seven albums with BR5-49 and spread the gospel of neo-traditional country music around the world, garnering the band a CMA award for Best International Touring Act and three Grammy nominations.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Nuclear Blast. Also available on vinyl, and vinyl picture disc. 

Our Overview. 

Since the early days of February this year, the smoke started to spread over Northampton, around 70 miles north-west of London. The machinery is well-oiled, the plan excellent – Memoriam are back in the studio! The speed that these Brits have been working at since their inception is incredible. In 2016, the band formed by front man Karl Willetts (ex-Bolt Thrower), Frank Healy (bass, ex-Benediction), guitarist Scott Fairfax (live Benediction guitarist) and drummer Andrew Whale (ex-Bolt Thrower) informed the public about their existence. And since 2016 the machines have never stopped ticking over. Memoriam write new songs, record them, hit the stage and then start the process all over again. They are tireless and ever advancing.

Shortly after the first rumours about their existence had started to spread, the British death metal troop showed the world where their journey would lead to. The Hellfire Demos hit the scene with its old-school death metal mastery, leaving jaws on the floor. The same followed for their debut full-length album ‘For The Fallen’, released in 2017 via Nuclear Blast Records, leaving listeners from all around the world impressed by the power of the songs – a historical moment in metal.

But as mentioned previously, there’s no standing still in the Memoriam camp. Meanwhile liberated from the other bands the musicians had been working on, they continued carving their unique path. While the first album was heavy, depressing and marked by grief, the second work ‘The Silent Vigil’ (2018) showed a relentlessly aggressive side. It was without question another great album, created by musicians who blindly understand their craft yet do not repeat themselves.

This also applies to the third and latest string to their bow ‘Requiem For Mankind’ which is unmistakably in the short, but impressive tradition of the previous Memoriam works. Once again, the groove is monstrous, the riffs are merciless, and the atmosphere is oppressive, paralyzing, even overwhelming. Willet’s aggressive vocals are rousing and relentless. The band states that they’ve been working towards this masterpiece from the very beginning; their previous outings testing the waters, so to speak. And they’re right.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

LA based singer-songwriter Azniv Korkejian aka. Bedouine is releasing her sophomore album ‘Bird Songs Of A Killjoy’ following on from her self titled 2017 release. When you listen to the love songs of Bedouine, you will be reminded of Karen Dalton’s world-wise voice or the breathy seduction of Minnie Riperton’s vocals, the easy cool of French ye-ye singers, and the poetry of Joan Baez. Her folk is nomadic, wandering across time and space, and on the likes of new song “Dizzy” meander into danceable jams. 

On first discovery you may ask whether they’re dated to 2019, or whether you’ve uncovered some forgotten classic. It makes sense that singer-songwriter Azniv Korkejian’s arrival – both musically and personally – on her second record has been influenced by her own wanderlust, displacement, and curiosity. “It’s called Bird Songs of a Killjoy, and I’m the killjoy,” she says. Azniv is based in LA, but is often travelling for the sake of musical inspiration. Her album title is something she’s still trying to decipher. “I’m figuring it out,” she says.

The twelve songs on ‘Bird Songs of a Killjoy’ contain several references to birds, which initially panicked Azniv. “Oh no! What a cliché!” she recalls. Azniv is a scrupulous student of the greats, and often quotes from books by Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell. In Mitchell’s biography, the songwriter talks about how she’d circle clichés in lyrics with a bold red pen and replace them. “That made me so self-conscious about how I go on and on about birds on this record,” she says. “But I have to step back and take a breath. These songs are just where I landed, and that’s OK.” When it comes to the “killjoy” of the title, Azniv describes the common perception of herself as a curmudgeon and a depressive. “Dare I say – a difficult women,” she continues, laughing. “I’m taking ownership of that stereotype, proudly.”

The music itself is the farthest from curmudgeonly or depressive as could be. It’s a soundtrack to Spring blossom, to warm air on skin, to the concept of possibility. Amazingly, despite the successes since her debut release, ‘Bird Songs of a Killjoy’ rejects any pressures to be some kind of grand evolution from before. When her self-titled debut came out in the summer of 2017, Azniv was entirely unknown, and wasn’t necessarily looking to change that. The album she wrote in her free time while dealing with some emotional trauma and locking herself away in her house, was an exercise in diarizing, in expression without expectations. Some of the songs on this sophomore effort were from that same time period of fruitful creativity. She continued her creative partnership with Gus Seyffert (Beck, Norah Jones) who produced them in his studio.

Azniv’s experience of life is extraordinary. She was born in Aleppo, Syria, and swiftly moved to Saudi Arabia where she did most of her growing up until the age of ten. She went to an American school and lived in an ex pat community. “It was a crazy mish-mash,” she recalls. There was MTV in the house, so she knew about Nirvana. “But I was also just exposed to what my parents were putting on,” she says. Her dad was a singer but Azniv didn’t make the connection in familial passion there until she was much older. He’d play traditional Armenian and Arabic music at home. Her mother put her in piano lessons from the age of five and she hated it. “My music sounds so traditionally American and I’m not sure how that happened,” she offers, recalling that it wasn’t until her twenties that she discovered ’60s folk music and picked up a guitar. 

And the rest is history as we are applauding this ladies talents and the music she shares.

“Just so beautifully human” The 405


“Strikingly beautifull… loose and reflective” UPROXX


“A gentle grandeur” Paste


“Blissful” The Evening Standard


“Floating somewhere between the calm of jazz and folk, the new song is just as lyrically striking as we’ve come to expect from Bedouine. It blossoms with strings that elevate her already heavenly sagacity in observing the ongoings around her. Her vocals, in both tone and enunciation, sound strikingly similar to Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto, only adding to this worldly sense of elegant consciousness that continues to shine through her music.” Stereogum

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

The Bristol UK based The Schmoozenbergs new album ‘Awaken’ conjures up the mood of 1930s Paris, fused with flavours of Eastern Europe and the energy of a campfire jam session, The Schmoozenbergs’ - Stan Stennett, Tom Brydon-Smith, Gina Griffin and Ron Phelan - have crafted a voyage of delight, a foot tapping whirl of expressive energy that captures the need for beauty in all its forms and the unseen delightful smile that recalls the positivity of good stimulated rousing. With two guitars, violin and double bass, they bring irresistible rhythms, lyrical melodies and joyful improvisation to create an upbeat and heart- warming sound.

The Schmoozenbergs formed in 2012 and their album ‘Awaken’ is an album of original instrumental compositions and a genre spanning journey through jazz, world, gypsy, acoustic and folk influences, which captures the distinctive, evocative and playful energy of the band. Carefree times during an era of repression and conflict are to be savoured. It would of course better for all concerned if moments in history had not been under the jackboot of tyranny and the rule of fear, however out of such times comes a rebellion, the people fight back the only way they can, with a mood of enjoyment, of bliss and the ability to dance under the spotlight and raise a smile which infuriates those with no humour or soul in their body.

In a way it is almost as if oppression breeds anarchy, the feeling of escape one revels in when hugged around a camp fire and the open air delight of a song is tested against the drudgery of the nine to five and the serial procession of blank eyes and convicted ties, we somehow let loose, freedom allows the ability to be uplifted and for The Schmoozenbergs that freedom is energy driven, improvised compositions in a journey that culminates in their brand new album.

The album was recorded at Real World Studios and the Schmoozenbergs have played live shows throughout the country, including festival performances (Glastonbury, Boomtown, Shambala, Green Man), dance events and national venue tours. This is their first release of original music, and has been made with the support of funding from Arts Council England.

Tracks: 1. Cortisol Swing 2. Runaway 3. P’tit Vin Rouge 4. The Long Road 5. Babyfoot6. Charmed Snake 7. Iseult’s Bees 8. Awaken 9. The Black Rock 10. The Wren 11. Finale

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Formed in 1992 in Georgia, USA, this rock quintet have three original members: lead singer and guitarist Ed Roland, guitarist Dean Roland & bass player Will Turpin. The current line-up have been together since 2014 with Johnny Rabb on drums and Jesse Triplett on lead guitar.

From their humble beginnings in Stockbridge, GA to the heights of playing to sold-out audiences all over the world, Collective Soul has cemented their place in music by creating indelible, smash-hits like “Shine”, “Breathe”, “December”, “The World I Know”, “Gel”, “Heavy”, “Precious Declaration” and more. The band’s new album ‘Blood’ is the culmination of a quarter-century of assessing not only where they’ve come from, but also where they’re going.

“I think ‘Blood’ expresses where we’ve been on this life journey,” observes frontman Ed Roland. “And we’ve done so with songs featuring piano and strings to those with a lot of guitar riffs. ‘Blood’ is an accumulation of all the different styles we’ve used over the years — but it’s still Collective Soul. I think it’s the best we’ve ever done.” From the hard-charging skitter of “Over Me” to the optimistic declaration of “Right As Rain”, the hopeful uplift of a man “Changed”, and the tender promise of “Big Sky”, ‘Blood’ delivers in full from stem to stern.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Indiepop. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Stanley Brinks is joined by The Wave Pictures for their fifth album together; and their first since 2015’s ‘My Ass’. That’s not to say either have been slacking in that time, both are notoriously prolific: The Wave Pictures have turned out five albums and Brinks seven since they last came together in the studio. Stan arrived at the studio with several CDs worth of unrecorded songs on a balmy North London night and instructed The Wave Pictures to pick out some favourites to jam during the following three nights of recording sessions.

To anyone familiar with Stanley Brinks’ huge discography - more than 100 albums - it might sound more raw in a way, less sophisticated than some of his other recordings. It’s still rich in jazzy sounds and original structures however, the songs looser and full of playfulness, with the lyrics carrying the essence of the songs. Tequila - the drink - was obviously the inspiration for the album. While writing, and while recording.

Stanley Brinks was born in Paris, France, in 1973. He studied a bit of biology and worked as a nurse for a while. Half Swedish, half Moroccan, strongly inclined to travel the world, he soon began spending most of his life on the road and developed a strong relationship with New York. By the late 90s he’d become a full time singer-songwriter – André Herman Düne – as part of three piece indie-rock band, Herman Düne. Several albums and Peel sessions later and after a decade of touring Europe, mostly with American songwriters such as Jeffrey Lewis, Calvin Johnson and early Arcade Fire he settled in Berlin.

The early carnival music of Trinidad became a passion, and in the early 21st century he became the unquestioned master of European calypso, changing his name to Stanley Brinks. Under this moniker he has recorded more than 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on several occasions, recorded and toured with traditional Norwegian musicians, and played a lot with The Wave Pictures.

The Wave Pictures are David Tattersall, Franic Rozycki and Jonny ‘Huddersfield’ Helm. Formed in 1998 when Franic and David lived in a village called Wymeswold, the band played with several drummers until Jonny became a permanent member in 2003 replacing Hugh J Noble. In the beginning the band learned to play together by covering Jonathan Richman songs but soon David was writing lots of original material. They have since released six studio albums to critical acclaim and played numerous sessions on BBC 6 Music, Radio 1 and Xfm. Interest generated from these recordings has enabled The Wave Pictures to play shows all over the world with artists including Jeffrey Lewis, Darren Hayman, Stanley Brinks, Freschard and Herman Düne.

Label Review.

2019 album. Jazz.

Our Overview.

‘Counterpart’ is the stunning collaborative debut album between Sean Foran and Stuart McCallum, which in effect has been maturing in the vaults for a while as it was recorded some five years ago. Located on different sides of the world, but sharing a similar musical pathway, ‘Counterpart’ is the collaborative album of the Australian pianist Sean Foran from the trio Trichotomy, and Manchester guitarist Stuart McCallum, (The Breath, and Slowly Rolling Camera).

Indeed, ‘Counterpart’ is an apt description for the similar lives and musical journeys these two artists take on opposing sides of the world, but their shared musical style and vision coupled with the uncanny ability to craft songs matching each musicians sensibilities results in an album of remarkable depth and beauty.

Ranging from lush cinematic textures to delicate piano and guitar improvisations, the album traverses sounds from modern classical, to new jazz, and ambient music. Deeply melodic, with rich textural interaction, the improvisations are captivating, Foran plays grand piano and synthesisers, while McCallum conjures a vast array of sounds from his acoustic and electric guitars.

This has the feel and touch of a Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays collaboration back in the day, a world away from the crash bang wallop of heavy groove and instead more a journey into dreamy soundscapes, delicate harmonies, and pastoral imaginings. There is clear empathy from Foran and McCallum, each finishing the other’s sentences where necessary. Boosted at strategic points by the drums of John Parker and bass of Sam Vicary above all this is an intimate journey, full of harmonic pleasures, the musicianship has a real quality to it and what is more the compositional flow goes somewhere and the melodies linger long.

Label Review. 

2019 album. "Urban folk". Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Band Of Holy Joy have gone through many incarnations of musical imagination, inspiration and output, without straying from their roots in poetic expressions of social observation and critique - and good tunes! As are their diverse spiritual brethren - The Mekons, Nightingales, The Pop Group - Johny Brown and compatriots are best in periods of social upheaval and rule by opportunistic, insipid demagogues, which is why Band Of Holy Joy, like the aforementioned bands, are in the midst of a powerful renaissance.

Johny Brown formed the band in London in 1984 and their early DIY approach was captured on a couple of self-released cassettes which brought them to the attention of the small indie label Flim Flam who issued some singles and a couple of LPs. They hit their peak in the late 80s when the big indie label Rough Trade picked them up. The collapse of the label in 1991 hit the bands fortunes and after one more album under the abbreviated moniker ‘Holy Joy’, Brown ended the group and moved into journalism and production. He re-started the group in 2002 and have been active ever since with an ever revolving line-up.

‘Neon Primitives’ stand-out track, “The Devil Has A Hold On The Land”, names the very forces of evil which have led to the ills of 2019. It’s unlikely any other song released this year will call to mind the insanity of the current crises when we dare to look back, some years from now. Not to diminish the power of the album as a whole, “Lost In The Night”’s palate-cleansing exorcism leads the way to “The Devil Had A Hold On The Land”. A surprise cover of Vincent Gallo’s “So Sad” is the drowsy Sunday morning hangover to “Ecstasy Snowbirds”’ woke realisation of a failed relationship. “Take Head Calumniators” is a call to arms against deceivers, breaking the introspection of the two previous songs.

The second side features four songs of loose optimism performed in a mixture of styles. “Some People Have Winged Fortune” fractures a version of the melody from Orange Juice’s “Upwards And Onwards” to a message of hope. “Urban Pilgrims”, lyrically reminiscent of Band Of Holy Joy’s early song craft, is a half-told tale of spiritual renewal in a landscape which would seem antipathetic to any form of rebirth. “Electric Pilgrims” links the process of aging to the nearness of satori. The epic closer “We Are Sailing To The Island Of Light” is a dark sea shanty championing the shambolic assortment of people who offer hope in dark times; a riposte to those forces of evil called out in “The Devil Has A Hold On The Land.”

Label Review.

Eight albums 1959-1964.

Our Overview.

A must have for fans from the legendary Wayne Shorter ‘Early Albums And Rare Grooves’ a bumper treat of eight albums. The celebrated American jazz saxophonist - often referred to as the greatest living composer - was an inspiration for hard boppers and fusionists alike. Wayne’s mastery is in knocking down the wall between jazz and classical. His music not only makes references to the Miles Davis Quintet of the mid-1960s, of which Mr. Shorter was a member, but also shows the stylistic influences of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Then, too, he helped create jazz/fusion, founding Weather Report with Joe Zawinul in 1970.

His roots in the music can be traced to the night in the late '40s when Mr. Shorter first heard Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker on the radio. He cut classes to listen to musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, eventually learning to play a used clarinet and starting his own band. The saxophonist Sonny Stitt offered him a job as sideman, but he declined because he had not yet finished high school.

Mr. Shorter has performed with legendary jazzmen, from the pianist Horace Silver to the bandleader Maynard Ferguson. The trumpeter Lee Morgan invited him to join Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. During his tenure with the group, Mr. Shorter wrote "Lester Left Town," "Children of the Night" and "This Is for Albert," dedicated to the pianist Bud Powell. In 1964, he left the Messengers and joined the Davis quintet. Miles Davis would later describe Mr. Shorter as being the group's "intellectual musical catalyst."Do not miss the chance to get your mitts on this beauty! It is a gem!

Label Review.

2019 album. Folk.

Our Overview.

Having originally met in the Edinburgh session scene in autumn 1998, with their first full show in 1999, Malinky began as four people with the shared idea of performing a Scots song based repertoire in an era dominated by mainly instrumental groups. Continuing on their distinctive mission as contemporary champions of traditional Scots song, Malinky return to launch their 20th Anniversary Album ‘Handsel’, produced by Greentrax Recordings.

A handsel is a good-luck gift, given to mark a special occasion. What could be more special for any band than to celebrate twenty years spent doing what they love? Malinky see the new album as their good-luck gift to all the people who continue to support their music, and to the singing tradition that continues to inspire them to sing up and sing out.

Although the Malinky line-up has changed over time - the band’s first two albums notably featured Karine Polwart - the line-up of Steve Byrne, Mark Dunlop, Fiona Hunter and Mike Vass has been together now for over a decade. Malinky’s belief in Scots song as a vital means of local expression has never changed and continues to motivate them twenty years on. Over the past two decades, the band has performed traditional songs the length and breadth of Europe, and from coast to coast in North America, releasing five albums and winning awards - collectively and individually - along the way.

The first CD consists of new studio recordings with guest singers Ellie Beaton, Barbara Dymock, Len Graham, Cameron Nixon, Hector Riddell and Dàibhidh Stiùbhard. Euan Burton guests on double bass, plus, of course, the Band’s three vocalists: Fiona Hunter, Steve Byrne and Mark Dunlop.

The second CD is a collection of selected tracks from the Band’s previous albums plus some ‘demo’ and ‘live’ tracks. This is quite a unique collection of songs and music which marks Malinky’s welcome return to the folk/music scene after a few years’ absence. CD 2 includes examples of the changing Malinky line-ups over the years. Always instrumentally very strong, the fiddle of Mike Vass has added a new dimension to the band.

CD 1: Begone Bonnie Laddie / The Forester / The Maid of Doneysheil / Sleepytoun (with Ellie Beaton) / True Lover John asz (with Len Graham) / The Braes O Broo / The Baron o Brackley (with Cameron Nixon) / Gie Me a Lass Wi’ a Lump o Land/The Tarbolton Lasses (with Barbara Dymock) / Lovely Armoy / The Hash o Bennagoak (with Hector Riddell) / The Lads o The Lindsay / The Groves of Donaghmore (with Dàibhidh Stiùbhard)/ Awa Wi Ma Laddie.

CD 2: Martimas Time (from a Demo) / Alison Cross (Live) / Whaur Dae Ye Lie? (previous release) / Billy Taylor (previous release) / The Lang Road Doon (Live) / The Trawlin Trade (Live) / King Orfeo (previous release) / Clerk Saunders (from a Demo) / Sean O Duibhir a’ Ghleanna (previous release) / Pad The Road Wi Me (previous release) / Son David (previous release) / Fisherman’s Wife (Live) / The Newry Highwayman (Live) / The Bonnie Lass o Fyvie/SilverSpear (Live).

Label Review. 

2019 debut album also available on CD.

Our Overview.

‘Black Pumas’ is the self titled debut album from Grammy Award-winning guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada and singer-songwriter Eric Burton, which has become one of the year’s most anticipated projects. Winners of Best New Band at the 2019 Austin Music Awards, Black Pumas were described as “Wu-Tang Clan meets James Brown” by KCRW and named one of NPR Music Alt.Latino’s best Latin Music Discoveries.

Their story is an interesting journey and melding of musical talent: Singer/songwriter Eric Burton grew up singing in a church in West Virginia, being moved by seeing how people responded to the power of the human voice, and after moving around the country with his family to California and subsequently New Mexico he finally settled in Austin almost in 2016, cutting his teeth while busking in the streets. Eric made an impression everywhere he played, guitar in hand, whether it was a coffee shop, a bar or a house party, even becoming the subject of a short documentary called “Street Music” by photographer Andrew Bennett. 

Fast forward to the early fall of 2017, and musician/producer Adrian Quesada found himself with some rare downtime and began to write and record a collection of soul leaning instrumentals with the intent of eventually making a full album. The only catch was he had no singer or lyricist for the songs, he needed the perfect voice for it and in a town with so many talented musicians it still was no easy task. He found himself putting out feelers for singers as far as LA and all over the country until local producer Bryan Ray, a mutual friend of Burton and Quesada, connected the two via email. One session led another and after completing more than an album’s worth of material in a few days, Black Pumas was born. 

The sound is at times psychedelic, funky, bold, cinematic, but above all, soulful and sincere. Quesada and Burton both return, over and over, to this almost mystical connection they felt from the beginning. It’s this sense of common purpose, of shared vision, that gives ‘Black Pumas’ its focus and power - and that points to great things ahead. 

“It’s so seamless, it’s like we’re musical brothers to some degree,” says Burton. “It feels so easy to meld together that what’s most important for us now is to continue to look for new sounds - to make sure we’re feeding ourselves the knowledge to continue to evolve. Every time we get together, it’s better than the last time.”

Label Review. 

15 tracks by the man himself that were hits for others. Includes “Manic Monday” and “Nothing Compares 2 U”.

Our Overview. 

Prince will forever be remembered as a commanding live performer, chart-topping recording artist, and music business revolutionary. Yet for all the time he spent in the spotlight over his four-decade-long career, Prince also worked tirelessly behind the scenes to nurture talent and pen songs for the rising artists he respected.

Sourced directly from Prince’s vast archive of Vault recordings, ‘Original’ is a brand new 15-track album featuring 14 previously unreleased recordings that illuminates the vital, behind-the-scenes role Prince played in other artists’ careers. These are more than just demos, the production quality has been kept high and the recordings resemble a pristine quality similar to that of “Nothing Compares 2 U” released last year.

By the mid-1980s, Prince was dominating the charts even as a writer/producer with songs he’d composed and recorded for others. In addition to releasing nine of his most commercially successful full-length albums, he also wrote and recorded endless reels of material for proteges The Time, Vanity 6, Sheila E., Apollonia 6, Jill Jones, the Family, and Mazarati. Several of the songs found on ‘Originals’ were considerable hits for the artists who recorded them.

Label Review. 

2019 album.Anarcho punk, hardcore and noiserock. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Bad Breeding announce their new album, ‘Exiled’. A group who hail from Stevenage, England, with a keen eye for social injustice and establishment venality, expressed in hollered tones over a full-throttle, enervating soundclash of anarcho punk, hardcore and noiserock. The new record was fuelled by the last 12 months in (primarily) British politics. As they say: “a nation circling the drain while forever eyeing the plughole.”

Topics on this 12-song, 32-minute album also include some hardy perennials of left-wing hardcore punk: war, imperialism, the police, and the press. Topics which, at a time where the political landscape could change tectonically between this being written and you reading it, maintain a grim relevance.

This is their first album for One Little Indian Records who issued last years ‘Abandonment EP’. As the press release from the label says: “The energy presented here doesn’t lie. Noise like this could only have come from the exiled and suppressed. Amongst a culture littered with modish attempts at ‘political’ music, egocentric performances of online outrage and compromised media commentary, Bad Breeding engage in an honest and attentive fury that avoids ulterior motive. True to themselves and where they come from, the band fix upon an irrepressible surge of agitation that is, in every sense, important at a time when ‘profit negates life’, when the neglected are ‘left to sink’ and when there seems to be ‘no end to disillusion’.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

British group Hot Chip release their seventh studio album, ‘A Bath Full Of Ecstasy’. their third album for Domino. This new record crystallising the sound they’ve become celebrated for - bridging euphoria and melancholy with colourful melodies, idiosyncratic vocalisations and pounding electronic pop rhythms.

Recorded in Paris and London, the album sees the group (Owen Clarke, Al Doyle Joe Goddard, Felix Martin and Alexis Taylor) open up to a more adventurous and collaborative songwriting process, choosing to work with outside producers for the first time: Philippe Zdar - the French maestro who’s shaped the magic of Cassius and Phoenix - and Rodaidh McDonald, the Scot who’s collaborated with The xx, David Byrne and Sampha, among others.

‘A Bath Full of Ecstasy’ is a fresh, invigorating and essential new chapter in the band’s career. Alongside the external producers, the album also finds Taylor stepping out of his comfort zone with his lyricism; though rooted in first person, here his storytelling becomes more bodily, and more open to new ideas. The record is a celebration of joy but recognises the struggle it can take to get to that point of happiness. You can hear the pleasure Hot Chip had in creating this album and they want to pass on that feeling to the listener. It is time to get lost in ‘A Bath Full of Ecstasy’.

Label Review.

2019 album. ECM.

Our Overview.

Led by nyckelharpa virtuoso Marco Ambrosini - Italian musician, composer and arranger extraordinaire - Ensemble Supersonus applies its unique instrumental blend, capped by the otherworldly overtone singing of Anna-Maria Hefele, to very wide-ranging repertoire. Building bridges between cultures and traditions, ‘Resonances’ sets compositions by Biber, Frescobaldi and Hildegard von Bingen next to Swedish folk music, Ottoman court music, and original pieces by each of the band members.

Ambrosini is one of very few musicians playing nyckelharpa outside the Swedish folk tradition. He was first heard on ECM on a pair of albums of lutenist Rolf Lislevand , then on a recording of music by Estonian composer Helena Tulve, and “If Grief Could Wait”, a collaboration between harpist Giovanna Pessi and singer Susanna Wallumrød . Most recently he was in a duo with accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier on Inventio, an album with similarly great imaginative reach to ‘Resonances’.

In recent years he has participated in numerous radio, television and CD productions (more than 150), as a solo artist, composer or member of ensemble Oni Wytars (Germany), Els Trobadors (Spain), Unicorn, Accentus, Clemencic Consort, Armonico Tributo (Austria), Ensemble Kapsberger (Rolf Lislevand-Norway), Camerata Nordica (Sweden), Holland Baroque (Netherlands), Lucilla Galeazzi, Ensemble La Chimera (IT), Vox Clamantis (EE), Jean-Louis Matinier, Michael Riessler and others.

The Band: Marco Ambrosini (nyckelharpa), Anna-Liisa Eller (kannel), Anna- Maria Hefele (polyphonic overtone singing, harp), Wolf Jansch (Jew’s harp), Eva-Maria Rusche (harpsichord, square piano).

Label Review. 

2019 EP. Rootsy americana. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

On the band’s 20th anniversary, stalwart roots collective Hackensaw Boys present a fresh batch of original songs with their new EP ‘A Fireproof House of Sunshine’. For the ever-evolving string band, the 5-song collection showcases their graceful maturation and feels more timeless than timely, in no small part due to frontman David Sickmen’s most deeply cultivated songwriting to date.

Energised by the band’s new fiddler ( Caleb Powers), upright bassist ( Chris Stevens), and percussionist/charismo player ( Beau Dodson), ‘A Fireproof House of Sunshine’ keeps Hackensaw Boys’ classic punk-fueled roots sound at the centre. Yet here the group further explores within genre, from the rollicking contemporary Americana of “Late Night Kitchen” and “Pass Unloving Eyes” to the country-blues working class anthem “Factory Blues,” all while maintaining a toe-tapping pop sensibility. ‘A Fireproof House of Sunshine’ opens the curtain on a new era for Hackensaw Boys, who continually prove capable of turning universal life experiences into music that fosters togetherness, community, and understanding.

Label Review. 

2019 album from Brian Dougans (half of Future Sound Of London). Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Built By Humanoid’ is Humanoid’s second album, a mere 30 years after the debut, though Brian Dougans claims the first album wasn’t really him anyway. Humanoid’s classic acid house single, “Stakker Humanoid”, highly regarded as one of the key tracks from the era (Richard James (Aphex Twin) sights the Stakker project as a major influence), enjoyed massive success in 1988. Reaching No.1 for 5 weeks in the UK dance charts, performances on Top of the Pops, a John Peel session for the BBC and European tours eventually led to an album deal.

Whilst all this was happening, Brian Dougans (one half of electronic legends Future Sound of London) claims he was returning to his squat in Kings Cross with no electricity or water. He not only became disillusioned with the business, but also became increasingly ill from the conditions he was living in. Around 6 tracks into the album, he left London and record label, Streetsounds, returning to Manchester to recover and regroup his thoughts. However, Steetsounds pressed ahead with the album and it was finished in Brian’s absence with guest performers.

Brian left Humanoid behind and went on to create FSOL with Gaz Cobain becoming leading lights in the burgeoning ambient scene, scoring a top 10 album ‘Lifeforms’ on Virgin Records. In 2003 Rephlex (Aphex Twin’s label) released a posthumous album of 1988 out takes compiled by Brian. Recently Humanoid tracks have been popping up on modern compilation albums signalling a possible return.

‘Built by Humanoid’ is a brand new nine track album of future acid cuts, breaks and electronics, a lot of which is credited to 2 synthesisers co-designed by Brian Dougans and English Electronics company Digitana. It is this innovation that has helped usher Humanoid back into the limelight and consequently the album has a rather new and unique sound and style. The track “Polymath” is created using a possibility / probability theory that results in a track which at no point repeats itself - 303 tinged acidic bubbles. Meanwhile “Traktion” is a break beat, pulse laden, bass heavy monster. “Fu*k It” is the future sound of 303. Fast, frantic and beat driven. Whilst “Post Humans” combines thumping 909 and 303 into an acid hallucination.

Label Review.

2019 album. ECM. Jazz.

Our Overview.

This hugely enjoyable and highly inventive album is dedicated to the late Italian writer Umberto Eco, a lifelong friend of accordionist Gianni Coscia and an ardent champion of this particular duo.

Eco’s ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna’, a meditation on the nature of memory, inspires Trovesi and Coscia on their own nostalgic and exploratory journey, referencing music mentioned in the novel and free-associating upon its philosophical themes. As ever, the Italians cast a wide net, playing songs associated with Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller and George Formby, paraphrasing Janacek, dipping into movie music, and improvising most creatively while keeping their dedicatee in view.

Repertoire revisits “Interludio”, a piece that Umberto Eco and Gianni Coscia collaborated on 70 years ago, and Gianluigi Trovesi crafts a new composition on the letters of Eco’s name. From multiple perspectives, a brilliant tribute.

Band Members: Gianluigi Trovesi (piccolo clarinet, alto clarinet), Gianni Coscia(accordion)

Tracks: 1. Interludio 2. Nebjana I 3. Basin Street Blues 4. Nebjana II 5. As Time Goes By 6. Pippo non lo sa 7. Fischia il vento 8. Moonlight Serenade 9. In cerca di te 10. Bel Ami 11. Eco 12. EIAR: I. Ma l’amore no 13. II. Silenzioso Slow 14. III. Tu musica divina IV. Bambina innamorata V.Mille lire al mese 15. Gragnola 16. Nebjana III 17. Inno dei sommergibili 18. Umberto 19. Volando 20. La piccinina 21. Moonlight Serenade (var.)

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Twenty years on the heels of their debut in 1999, established cornerstone of the French touch, the duo Philippe ‘Zdar’ Cerboneschi and Hubert ‘Boom Bass’ Blanc-Francard announce their fifth opus ‘Dreems’. This album will bring Cassius back to his original house, the one that has always fed their energetic DJ’s sets, after the sophisticated pop of previous albums.

Back to basics, then, both in the design and influences, they worked during long sessions spent at the Motorbass’ studio, where the disc was largely imagined. A magical place causing an organic heat into the sound power (with a new subtlety that the initiates will appreciate, the use of a Korg synthesizer, last acquisition of Zdar and Boom Bass).

The duo say: “With the release of our first album “1999”, to end the twentieth century and start a long adventure, we scoured the clubs and festivals that grew everywhere like weed. Two disc bags, a sampler, a keyboard, four ears, four hands and two friends. The whole thing had spent at least two hours in a boiling booth, in front of boys and girls swimming, dancing, and leaving their phones in the locker room.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The Blue Orchids first formed in Manchester, England, when Martin Bramah quit The Fall in 1979. They quickly signed to Rough Trade Records and they issued three singles and one album of an organ heavy post punk sound. Despite failing to make a national breakthrough they wound up backing former Velvet Underground singer Nico before Bramah made the band an occasional concern for the next three decades.

While recording 2018’s ‘Righteous Harmony Fist’, Blue Orchids messed about with a few covers of insanely obscure low-fi garage / psych tunes. The influence of drug-addled oddities from the previous generation’s underground has been apparent in the work of Martin Bramah since the start of The Fall, due in part to the influence of the real-life subject of “No Xmas For John Quays”, whose record collection was so packed with US garage classics that the song about him was borne of a sort of jealousy on Mark E. Smith’s part - with a collection like that, every day’s Christmas!

Few casual aficionados of rock music will know more than a song or two from this set - the likes of The Penny Saints and The Aardvarks and their kin not exactly being household names. In fact, of the seven ‘60s acts with songs covered here, none lasted more than a handful of singles. Complementing those songs are covers of songs by two more recent groups. The swirling keyboards of The Growlers’ “Pavement And The Boot” is distilled back to its fundamental garage essence, while Crystal Stilts’ two-minute original, “Love Is A Wave”, is slowed down and channelled back to the melodic pop wonder lingering beneath its Reid brothers buzzsaw and pays respect to the band, who’d themselves covered Blue Orchids’ “Low Profile” a few years back. Of special interest will be “Addicted To The Day”, the album’s key song, the words for which were recently found in a 1977 notebook of Bramah’s which at Mark E. Smith had borrowed and then scribbled down the ‘poem’ in thanks, to which Bramah added music. The haunting lines, “How could I have suspected my abysmal future / A doom which has haunted me / And turned me into a wreck and a parody”, are the centrepiece of the album, a concept compiled of bits and pieces of esoteric tunes, telling a tale of Faustian doom in a pact with forces of evil.

Martin and The Blue Orchids are already looking forward to the next album proper due in 2020. In the meantime this collection should keep fans swinging until then!

Label Review. 

2019 album. Straddling rock and roll, country, soul, folk and R&B. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The son of country legend Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson formed Promise Of The Real in 2008 after deciding to pursue his career in music full time. The first half of the 2010s saw the young band tread the boards not just on their own but also as Willie’s backing band and it was at Farm Aid 2014 that the Neil Young jammed with the group and selected them to be his backing band for his next album ‘The Monsanto Years’ and subsequent tour. Young was clearly pleased with his young chargers behind him and a live album (‘Earth’) and a second studio album (‘The Visitor’) followed. With the band firmly on the map Lukas added his name to the combo and they released their debut album in 2017.

‘Turn Off The News (Build A Garden)’, the poignant and timely title track from the new album is an uplifting and emotional song, with backing vocals from Sheryl Crow, and is a message of hope, positivity and activism. “We’re trying to encourage a lifestyle where people can be active in their local communities, and do something constructive, rather than glued to a device,” said Nelson. “It’s really about living your life with your heart leading the way.”

Inspired by their keen interest in the environment and association with organizations such as Farm Aid, the band has launched a video series called ‘Good News Garden’, encouraging fans to share their stories of hope, community gardening and local activism. In each new episode, their favourite letters will be read from the road via video. Fans whose submissions were chosen will receive special seed cards and other promo items.

Recorded at Shangri-La in Malibu and the Village Studios in West L.A., ‘Turn Off The News (Build A Garden)’ was co-produced by Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and John Alagia, who helmed the group’s previous, self-titled effort in 2017. The band: bassist Corey McCormick, drummer Anthony Logerfo, percussionist Tato Melgar, multi-instrumentalist Logan Metz and Lukas Nelson, worked fast recording 30 original songs during brief breaks between tours. They tracked straight to analog tape, keeping overdubs to a minimum while focusing on the live performances. Vocal and instrumental contributions from friends and family include Margo Price, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Micah Nelson, Kesha, Shooter Jennings, Randy Houser, Lucius, Madison Ryann Ward, Hunter Elizabeth and Neil Young.

Label Review. 

2019 album alson available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Calexico and Iron and Wine come together again to deliver us their stunning new collaborative album - and much awaited - ‘Years To Burn’. The eight-track effort, recorded by Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino with I&W's Sam Beam, will be released via City Slang. The three performers crossed paths often over the years following their first collaboration 2005’s ‘In The Reins’ and frequently talked about giving it another shot, but it wasn't until last year that their scheduled synched up and they were able to get over their preconceptions of each other's sound and find a way to fully weave their voices together. “In my mind, I was a guy who knew three chords and recorded in a closet,” said Beam in the statement. “They were playing big stages and were superb musicians."

The acclaimed collaboration introduced both acts to wider audiences and broadened Beam’s artistic horizons, but it was the shared experience of touring together in the tradition of Bob Dylan’s “Rolling Thunder Revue” that cemented the bond. Their metaphorical roads diverged in the years that followed, but they kept in touch and cross-pollinated where they could. Although they often talked about rekindling their collaboration in the studio and on stage, it wasn’t until last year that their schedules aligned.

'Years to Burn' can’t help but be different from In the Reins. Back then, Calexico entered the studio with a long list of previous collaborations (first in Giant Sand, then backing the likes of Victoria Williams and Richard Buckner) and the knowledge that they loved Sam’s voice and his songs, but wondered if his material was so complete and self-contained that it lacked a way in, so hushed and delicate that it might be overwhelmed. For his part, Beam had been intimidated by their virtuosic playing and their deep comfort in an encyclopedic array of styles. “In my mind, I was a guy who knew three chords and recorded in a closet,” Sam says. “They were playing big stages and were superb musicians.”

Those fears were dispelled quickly. Calexico was bowled over by Beam’s many talents: “The arranging, the writing, his sense of rhythm, the quality of his vocals—and then there’s the experimental side of Sam,” Joey says. “They were the perfect band at the perfect time for me,” Sam adds. “I loved all their different sounds. They’re musical anthropologists, not regurgitating but absorbing what they discover.” Nearly 15 years on, “coming back to the project has to do with acknowledging how much impact the first record had for me in my life.”

‘Years to Burn’ was recorded in Nashville with noted producer Matt Ross-Spang over the course of five days at Sound Emporium, a fabled studio founded in the sixties by Cowboy Jack Clement and the site of countless landmark sessions in country and rock over the ensuing decades. It features contributions from veteran Calexico trumpet player Jacob Valenzuela and Paul Niehaus on pedal steel, along with frequent Beam cohorts Rob Burger (Tin Hat Trio) on piano and Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing, Fiona Apple) on bass.

‘Years to Burn’ features ten new original compositions. While Beam wrote all the songs for In the Reins, this recording features contributions from both Beam and Burns as well as from Convertino and those featured on the record. While the two may have taken differing approaches to songwriting, the spirit of collaboration was alive and well in the studio; Sam shared demos ahead of time and was ready for the others to con-tribute with arrangement ideas and instrumental parts, while Joey spontaneous as ev-er, came in with concepts and an eagerness to improvise.  

“Life is hard. Awesome. And scary as shit. But it can lift you up if you let it,” Sam offers. “These are the things Joey and I write about now. And the title can encapsulate a lot of things. ‘Years to Burn’ could mean you’re cocky, you’ve got it made. Or, our life is ours to burn, to be inspired. Or you’re burned by life, brutalized. It’s an ambiguous title, because life is complicated. Let’s not talk like teenagers about love, desire, pain, ‘cause we’re not teenagers. And that’s not a bad thing.”

 “This project had to find the right time,” Joey concludes. “We’re all different people than we were in 2004, and music helps to bridge some of the gaps. For all the things going on in our world and in each of our lives, this connection, this friendship, this love that we have—this album is a vehicle for that bond. It’s a chance to see where we’re at, take stock and be there for our friends.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Bluegrass.

Our Overview. 

‘Pretty Little Horses’ is a dynamic album of full of modern bluegrass and tracks well-rooted in traditions or as the band puts it “proves that The Oldtime Stringband does what they like to do”. Whether they’re staples of the bluegrass repertoire, resurrected rarities or original penned songs, what each has in common is an incomparable authenticity, delivered by musicians with close harmonies, combined with gorgeous acoustic instrumentation which results in music that is warm, honest and captivating. The album was recorded in the studio of the renowned dutch singer songwriter Tim Knol, who owns a studio in the heart of his hometown Hoorn. Tim also took the helm for the sound engineering and album production.

The 8 track album kicks off with the old Appalachian tune “Cluck Ol Hen”, first recorded by Fiddlin’ John Carson, in 1923, sung here with the appropriate whooping by Shelly O’Day (Guitar, autoharp). They follow through and have some fun with Ruud Spil (Banjo) singing “Old Yellow Dog”, a tune which is known to have been used (with different lyrics) as a campaign song for Abraham Lincoln. The album’s title track “All The Pretty Little Horses” is an old American lullaby which is beautifully sung by Shelly and Lidewij de Vries (Fiddle). Following the instrumental tune ‘White Face, written by violin maker Joe Thrift, Lidewij steps up to sing the Papa Charlie Jackson song “Your Baby Ain’t Sweet Like Mine”, recently covered by Carolina Chocolate Drops. Double bassman Nico Druijf tackles “Old Man At The Mill” which was first covered by The Dillards in 1963 (Doug Dillard would go on to record two albums with Gene Clark). “I Truly Understand”, another traditional - best known as covered by Jerry Garcia - is sung by Ruud. The album wraps up with a gorgeous rendition of “Long Black Veil”, originally recorded by Lefty Frizzell but later covered by a long list of artists from the likes of Johnny Cash, The Band, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Cave, and many more, sung with delicacy by Shelly and Nico.

The Band (originally a sextet) got together in 2011 specifically to provide musical accompaniment to a documentary about the Dutch cow-painter Ruud Spil. Both the musicians and the audience enjoyed it so much that the band started what they called “a stampede of interest”, resulting in the collective self-producing their first album ‘Gotta Quit Kickin’ My Dog Around’ 2012. Since forming the group: current line up - Shelly O’Day: Guitar, autoharp, Cajun-triangle. Ton Knol: Guitar, mandolin. Ruud Spil: Banjo. Lidewij de Vries: Fiddle. Nico Druijf: Upright bass, singing saw - have performed extensively in the Netherlands and toured in America and Europe. So be sure to see them live if you get the chance you will not be disappointed as they’re a treat for Bluegrass fans old and new.

Also available on CD from The Oldtime Stringband: 'Chicken Crows For Day' (2014).

Label Review. 

1979 compilation remastered. Original tracklisting. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Buzzcocks were one of the first wave of UK punk bands but unlike the London based bands, this lot hailed from Manchester and were formed after two friends Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto read an NME review of one of The Sex Pistols earliest shows. The pair were so excited, despite not having heard a note, travelled to London to see the group in February 1976. They arranged for Rotten and co. to play in Manchester so they could support them but when their other recruits dropped before the show they had to wait until the Pistols returned to Manchester in July of that year when they realised their dream with the addition of Steve Diggle (bass) and John Maher (drums).

Buzzcocks were off and running and they next created their own cottage industry when they self recorded their debut EP and released it themselves on their own label: New Hormones. “Spiral Scratch” was a low-fi affair but bristling with energy and attitude and it quickly sold out of it’s pressing of a 1000 copies. They ordered more copies and it supposedly sold 16000 in the end, and inspiring many more groups and entrepreneurs to enter the record making game and creating the independent label movement which ended the near total monopoly of the major companies.

Ironically, Buzzcocks wound up siging to United Artists Records in 1977 after Devoto quit the group to form a new group: Magazine. Diggle switched to guitar and his bass slot was taken up by Steve Garvey. This line-up recorded a string of singles which are all featured here on what was the bands first and to be frank, best compilation covering both sides of the eight singles issued around their first albums between 1977-1979.

The opening track and bold debut single for the label “Orgasm Addict” was banned by the BBC for it’s lyrical content but after this all their singles made the UK charts - their cunning mixture of buzzsaw punk guitars, hummable melodies and Pete Shelley’s lyrics exploring relationships of an ambiguous nature. Along the way, “Ever Fallen In Love” almost made the Top 10 and remains their best known song.

This album was originally compiled for and released in the US prior to their tour there in late 1979. After the band split up in 1981, it gained a belated release in the UK where it became the standard starter pack for inquisitive music fans.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Western Stars’, Bruce Springsteen’s first new studio album in five years takes his music to a new place, drawing inspiration in part from the Southern California pop records of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The album was recorded primarily at Springsteen’s home studio in New Jersey, with additional recording in California and New York. “This record is a return to my solo recordings featuring character driven songs and sweeping, cinematic orchestral arrangements,” says Springsteen. “It’s a jewel box of a record”.

The 13 tracks of ‘Western Stars’ encompass a sweeping range of American themes, of highways and desert spaces, of isolation and community and the permanence of home and hope. Again, Bruce teamed up with Ron Aniello (who produced his last two albums ‘High Hopes’ and ‘Wrecking Ball’) who plays bass, keyboard, and other instruments. Patti Scialfa provides vocals and contributes vocal arrangements on four tracks. The musical arrangements include strings, horns, pedal steel and contributions from more than 20 other players including Jon Brion (who plays celeste, Moog, and farfisa), as well as guest appearances by David Sancious, Charlie Giordano, and Soozie Tyrell. The album was mixed by Tom Elmhirst.

Springsteen has spoken of ‘Western Stars’ previously, suggesting that it was recorded before his run in ‘Springsteen on Broadway’, which spanned from October 2017 to December 2018. “[The] record is influenced by Southern California pop music of the ‘70s, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, those kinds of records. I don’t know if people will hear those influences, but that was what I had in my mind. It gave me something to hook an album around; it gave me some inspiration to write.”