Label Review.

1991 album. Acapella.

Our Overview.

Originally released on Crammed in 1991, Zap Mama’s acapella debut album ‘Zap Mama’ has become a classic, and influenced hosts of vocalists and musicians around the world. And now it’s appearing here on vinyl for the first time.

Formed in the early 1990’s Zap Mama was the brainchild of founder and leader Marie Daulne, Zap Mama consisted at the time of five young women who, inspired by their mixed African/European origins and by the cosmopolitan environment of their hometown Brussels, created a wonderful acapella body of work incorporating influences drawn from Congolese pop, Arabic tunes, Pygmy polyphonics & more (including a touch of gospel and of medieval Spanish chants), guided above all by their wild imagination.

The beauty and freshness of their vocal harmonies, coupled with an entertaining and humorous live show generated tremendous enthusiasm worldwide. Audiences were conquered by their sound and personalities, by their formidable demonstration of the quasi-magical powers of the human voice, but also by the message which was implicitly conveyed: Zap Mama seemed to embody and glorify the virtues of joyful, creative and unfettered cultural blending. Zap Mama/Adventures in Afropea became one of Crammed’s all-time best-selling records. It was nominated for a Grammy and topped the Billboard’s world music chart.

Label Review. 

Official release of previously unreleased rare live and demo sessions. It is unknown where and when they were exactly recorded but they have been authorised for release by the band. The complete 1968-1970 set on 3CD. 

Our Overview. 

Two live recordings from 1968 and 1970 have recently been discovered of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and will be released as a 3CD Boxset that will include rare band images and a brand new essay plus additional previously unreleased demos. Not much is known about the live recordings. Discovered unlabelled and by pure luck in the US, their era has been authenticated by experts of the bands blues origins. The recordings were discovered in incredibly good condition considering they have been untouched for over 40 years. They have been restored and provide a vital insight into the very earliest incarnation of one of the worlds biggest bands.

Fleetwood Mac has given their full approval for the release of these tapes. Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac had a short but hugely prolific career, Volume One, the 1968 recording, contains early incarnations of some of the bands most loved and famous songs including “Madison Blues”, “I Need Your Love So Bad”, “Long Tall Sally”, and “Willie And The Hand Jive” from the Rock ‘n’ Roll College of Music. Volume Two will feature the 1970 recording and will also feature demos and rarities of classic tracks including “Oh Well”, “Green Manalishi” and the bands first UK number one “Albatross”.

Label Review. 

Recorded at McCabe's in Santa Monica, CA, on August 18th, 1973. CD has 1 bonus track not on the vinyl. 7a Records. Also available on vinyl picture disc. 

Our Overview. 

Recorded at McCabe’s in Santa Monica, CA, on August 18th, 1973, “Cosmic Partners – The McCabe’s Tapes” is a rare and previously unreleased concert recording featuring Nesmith and a small coterie of fellow musicians, including long time recording partner and pedal steel player Red Rhodes.

This recording is from a mini concert tour that was in support of what was to be Nesmith’s final record on the RCA label, ‘Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash’. The dates would reunite him with the remnant players from Nesmith’s Countryside label, under Elektra. Consisting of a rhythm section featuring Danny Lane on drums and Colin Cameron on bass, and the legendary O.J. “Red” Rhodes on pedal steel, this would be the last performance of its kind and the beginning of an almost Homeric journey for Nesmith.

On the heels of an inordinately successful Monkees TV show, the hangover from overnight celebrity, and the disappointments that so often follow such ascents, this forgotten and almost lost board mix in all its unvarnished glory (remastered here by Christian Nesmith, Michael’s oldest son) stands as a ready witness to the spirit of a man full of heartache, a performer bruised by the claws of the star- maker machine, and an artist whose songs have become touchstones for our lives. What you hear is exactly as it happened with no overdubs or audio mumbo jumbo. The perfection you hear is totally for real.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD+DVD.

Our Overview. 

Manchester based, British singer-songwriter, guitarist and collaborator, Jane Weaver creates captivating, hypnotic music that shifts between woodsy psych folk to dreamlike synth pop and her latest album ‘Loops In The Society is her best yet. Described by Drowned In Sound as quite simply “Startling”.

When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful. No-one told Jane Weaver that.

Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound.

That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones ; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conductive parts of the imminent album of the same name.

“(A) beguiling spiritual medium for immaculate psychedelia.” The Guardian

“With one eye on the dancefloor and another on those sprawling existential questions we may never truly answer.” Quietus

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Will Oldham, best known as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, is coming out with his first release since 2011’s highly acclaimed ‘Wolfroy Goes To Town’. But Bonnie Billy has not been sitting on his artistic laurels, he has been kept himself busy over the past few years with covers including Susanna Wallumrod (wolf of the cosmos), Mekons (The Curse), Merle Haggard (Best Troubadour) and a collaborative record with Bitchin Bajas (Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties). What has been missing is an album of originals, the last one being ‘Wolfroy Goes To Town’ released way back in 2011.

‘I Made A Place’ is a country jam, with elegiac moments that give way to jaunty roots-rock strides, and horn sections that soulfully chart the long rays at the end of the day as well as the first rays of the new rising sun, as they light on all our hopeful tomorrows.

As Will comments: “In recent years, the whole world of recorded music, in the way that such music is conceived, perceived, recorded, released and distributed, has been atomised. I tried holding my breath, waiting for the storm to pass, but this storm is here to stay and its devastation is our new landscape. What else is a person to do except what he knows and feels, which for me is making records built out of songs intended for the intimate listening experiences of wonderful strangers who share something spiritually and musically? I started working on these songs thinking that there was no way I was going to finish them and record and release them. This was a constructive frame-of-mind that protected the songs until this frightening moment when we let go of them and give them to you.”

The world has changed. Some things will never change. Some are gone forever. Thankfully, this isn't one of them: the wait for new Bonnie "Prince" Billy is now on a timer.

Label Review.

2019 album. Rock. Also available on Black Vinyl and Cream Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Out Of The Box’ is the long awaited for album - from Virginia based chief singer/songwriter Samuel J. Lunsford’s project - The Young Sinclairs, a release that will make you a believer, taking the vibe of 60's heroes and truly making it his own. Channelling timeless sixties influenced Folk-Rock with British Madchester / C86 indie pop influences like a modern embodiment of the Paisley Underground movement. His voice, multi-talented musicianship and world-class songwriting have remained a constant throughout the band's tenure, often handling all the instruments and vocals on their records himself (Oh yes - the records. So far The Young Sinclairs have released two LP's, three 7-inches, seven CD's, two cassettes, and appeared on numerous compilations).

Their latest LP, ‘Out Of The Box’, is a prime example of that innate desire for creative expansion and innovation. The album title itself refers directly to that quest for freedom, and a refusal to be confined to any specific style, form, or label. A melange of shoegaze, folk-rock, psychedelia, soul, breakbeats, drone, tough R&B, and bouncy pop awaits the listener within. Open up, embrace the vibrations, and liberate yourself.

The Young Sinclairs are much more than just the sum of their influences, or their record collections. What they do is distinctly their own. They're a Rock & Roll band, first and last.They have been engineering and producing their own recordings in their hometown of Roanoke, Virginia since 2005, led by chief singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Samuel Lunsford (also known as Stimulator Jones).

Although they display a fondness for tube amps, 12-strings, tambourines, spring reverb, and the analog sounds of decades past, The Young Sinclairs are far more than just a fleeting retro act. The group have successfully explored many styles and textures throughout their existence, and still continue to push themselves to evolve artistically. They are not merely a sum of their influences, or their record collections - what they do is distinctly their own.

“Coming from a band that could’ve easily satisfied its patiently-waiting cult with another serving of gentle jangle, Out of the Box reaps the unexpected benefits of thinking outside the box.” - Bandcamp

“An essential release for fans of more well-known groups like Triptides and Levitation Room.” - Record Turnover.

Label Review. 

2019 album. A live tribute album with guest vocalist Imelda May which was recorded at the Tivoli Theatre in Dorset on 13th November 2018. Contains CD, Vinyl, & artprint.. Also available on CD and Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

Ronnie Wood with His Wild Five are releasing ‘Mad Lad: A Live Tribute to Chuck Berry’ which sees the artist, author, producer and raconteur Ronnie Wood returning to his greatest love, music. As stated quite clearly in the title, the effort is a nod to one of Wood’s – and the Stones’ – biggest influences. The 11-track album was recorded at the Tivoli Theatre in Dorset, UK and is a loving nod to one of Ronnie’s musical heroes, Chuck Berry. The album features guest appearances from singer Imelda May and pianist Ben Waters. Featuring tracks including 'Tribute to Chuck Berry' written by Wood and 'Worried Life Blues' written by Maceo Merriweather, and with the album artwork hand-painted by Ronnie himself. 

The album will be the first in a trilogy to be recorded by Wood and the band in the coming years, each paying tribute to Ronnie’s musical heroes. Ronnie chose Chuck Berry for the first album as he has been a lifelong fan, has toured with him and also, to honour his sad passing just over two years ago.

The album is released as Ronnie is due to be honoured at the London Film Festival (12th October) with the premiere of the Mike Figgis directed Somebody Up There Likes Me, an in-depth documentary about Ronnie’s life and careers both in the Rolling Stones and in the art studio. The film will be released in early 2020.

Label Review. 

All five studio albums remastered plus an exclusive bonus 12-track disc - ‘Flexible Strategies’ comprised of non-album b-sides (including very rare remix of “Truth Hits Everybody”). 

Our Overview. 

Formed in London, England by Sting (bass/vocals), Stewart Copeland (drums) and Henry Padovani (guitars) although soon replaced by Andy Summers in 1977, The Police won a record deal with A&M the following year on the strength of their song “Roxanne” which failed to chart at its first attempt but by ‘79 they achieved their breakthrough and their debut album ‘Outlandos D’Amour’ began selling, finally making the UK charts six months after it was first released.

Originally classified as a New Wave act (infact they had punk credentials when they first started) they blended reggae into the pop/rock mix and the strength of Sting’s songs saw them become a singles chart force, collecting their first UK No.1 with “Message In A Bottle” in ‘79. “Walking On The Moon”, “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” & “Every Breath You Take” repeated this feat and No.1’s were scored around the world too with The Police correctly identified as the world’s biggest band during the first half of the 1980s. Following Sting’s successful debut solo album in 1985, The Police returned to the studio in July 1986 but gave up as Andy Summers recalled: “The attempt to record a new album was doomed from the outset.” A greatest hits set was issued instead and the band broke up. When they reformed for a massive world tour in 2007/8 it was the third biggest money grossing tour at the time.

The band released five albums between 1978 and 1983, all collected here with a bonus disc of non-album tracks: Dead End Job (1978) / Landlord (1979) / Visions Of The Night (1979) / Friends (1980) / A Sermon (1980) / Shambelle (1981) / Flexible Strategies (1981) / Low Life (1981) / Murder By Numbers (1983) / Truth Hits Everybody (Remix) (1983) / Someone To Talk To (1983) / Once Upon A Daydream (1983).

Label Review.

2019 album. Dream-pop, art-rock and electronica. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Dog In The Snow’ - the moniker of Brighton, UK based artist Helen Ganya Brown - releases her Bella Union debut album ‘Vanishing Lands’ and it is a jubilant and imposing release, comprised of a haunting and luminous collection of songs in the darker spaces between dream-pop, art-rock and electronica, lifted by euphoric melodies, ravishing vocals and absorbing lyrics.

‘Vanishing Lands’ was initially created at Brown’s home in Brighton before co-producer Rob Flynn helped her add shifting, impressionistic swathes of colour, from the ominous chords that open ‘Light’ to the vocal eddies that close ‘Dark’. Brown wrote 8 of the 10 songs in a 3-week spell after a period of “strange dreams”. She recalls: “Dreams in black and white. I found myself in a dreamland and discovered it was being destroyed. I chose ‘Vanishing Lands’ as an album title because it sounded suitably desolate, and lent the songs a feeling of cohesion.

”The themes of the two oldest tracks suit the ‘ruined world’ scenario. ‘Icaria’ is named after a utopian society established in the 1840s by a French socialist which only survived for 50 years. ‘Gold’ refers to America’s gold rush bonanza of the same era, when people searched for a better life, but instead created and faced catastrophe.

Born to a Thai mother and Scottish father, Brown was raised in Singapore from the age of five to eighteen, when she returned to the UK, making her home in Brighton. Learning guitar and subsequently Garageband software to construct broader sounds and styles of songwriting, she absorbed influences such as Sufjan Stevens, Scott Walker, David Lynch, Clint Mansell and Brian Eno: brooding, immersive, filmic universes through which Brown could escape her shy nature. But she has since stepped out, both as a commanding solo performer and one of the singers and musicians in the touring version of Lost Horizons, the collective co-founded by Simon Raymonde, Bella Union’s label boss.

Label Review.

Indiepop.

Our Overview.

The short lived yet influential American, Chicago indie group, The Springfields are set to release one old track from the vaults and their entire back catalogue ‘Singles 1986-1991’. When it comes to indiepop, few names are as respected as Ric Menck and Paul Chastain. Through years of collaboration in groups such as Velvet Crush, Bag O’ Shells, Choo Choo Train and The Big Maybe they just about *were* the entire US indie-pop scene, but it’s as The Springfields that they made perhaps their best, most beloved records. Released across four different indie labels over a five year period, theirs is hardly a prolific output but a flawless one that deserves to be reissued.

The Springfields is one of many acts that the Hollies and The Byrds influenced duo Ric Menck and Paul Chastain made together. Perhaps most notably, they made power pop under the name Velvet Crush and released 'In the Presence of Greatness' (1991) and' Teenage Symphonies to God' (1994) on Creation Records.

But even though The Springfields’ output is less than say Velvet Crush’s, it’s massively powerful and has a sound that feels entirely relevant given the popularity of the likes of London’s Ultimate Painting and California’s Allah La’s in recent years.

Poignantly, the release appears like a genuine labour of love if – something that's palpable if we consider Slumberland Records are releasing this to celebrate 30 years as a label as it’s The Springfields who were one of the main bands that sparked them into starting their brilliant label in the first place.

Taking their cues from influences like The Byrds and The Hollies they created a sound that was as jangly and melodic as their inspirations, but marked by a unique songwriting voice, excellent tunes, and sterling arrangements. ‘Singles 1986-1991’ collects the 5 singles they released on Sarah, Picture Book, Summershine and Seminal Twang and adds one extra tune, here on vinyl for the first time. From the Paisley Underground-aligned opener “This Perfect Day” through the perfect pop of songs like “Sunflower” and a clutch of savvy covers, The Springfields created a compact, flawless catalog that more than justifies its legendary status and this timely reissue

Label Review.

This 40th Anniversary 7 collection has been curated by Jerry Dammers, selecting his favourite 12 singles released on the label between 1979 and 1984. Presented with their original sleeve designs in a bespoke 1960s style carry case along with a Two Tone 7 slipmat and an art card signed by Jerry Dammers.

Our Overview.

Two Tone Records was created in 1979 by The Specials founder Jerry Dammers and now Chrysalis are releasing a special 40th anniversary Two Tone Records seven-inch box set that features 12 iconic singles, ‘2 Tone 7″ Treasures’ and fans this is is limited to 2,000 copies..The label spawned a youth movement and a number of well-known artists and singles through the its tenure including the aforementioned Specials with key singles ‘Gangsters’, the UK Number 1 singles ‘Too Much Too Young’ and ‘Ghost Town’. They also helped launch the careers of Madness with ‘The Prince’, The Beat with ‘Tears of A Clown’, The Selecter with ‘On My Radio’ and The Bodysnatchers with ‘Let’s Do Rock Steady’. The label ended its chart run of singles with ‘Nelson Mandela’ by The Special AKA. 

‘2 Tone 7″ Treasures’ has also been curated by Dammers. It features his favourite singles released on the label between 1979 and 1984 by groups such as The Specials, Madness, and The Beat. The singles are presented in their original sleeve designs and they come in a special bespoke 1960’s style carry case along with a Two Tone seven-inch slipmat and an art card signed by Jerry Dammers.

Label Review. 

1969 album. Contains the 2CD and 2LPs. Blu-ray disc with 5.1 mix plus bonus tracks. Seven inch replica of Rag Mama Rag / Unfaithful Servant single. Plus book. Also available on 2CD, and 2LP. 

Our Overview. 

This seminal album came in the wake of the group’s landmark debut, ‘Music From Big Pink’, at a time when the group of four Canadians and one American were still largely an enigmatic and mysterious collective. In their eponymous 1969 release, Garth Hudson (keyboards, piano, horn), Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin), Richard Manuel (keyboards, vocals, drums), Rick Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals) furthered their exploratory and innovative development of a revolutionary style of North American roots music.

The ‘Brown Album,’ as it would become lovingly known, featured such signature songs for The Band as ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,’ ‘Up On Cripple Creek’ and ‘Rag Mama Rag.’ If The Band single-handedly created Americana with their debut album, on their self-titled sophomore effort they honed everything that made Music From Big Pink so quietly epochal. Initially, the group relocated from their iconic Woodstock home to a New York studio in order to work up the 12 songs that formed their self-titled second album, but the pro facilities didn’t suit the group’s laidback, down-home approach. Packing up and heading west, they recreated the Big Pink vibe with what lead guitarist Robbie Robertson called “a clubhouse feel” in a house on 8850 Evanview Drive in West Hollywood.

Crossing the vast expanse of North America was apt: The Band was almost simply titled America, and its songs are populated with characters from the continent’s past; like the lucky hopefuls who set off west in search of the American Dream in the mid-1800s, The Band struck gold. Released on 22 September 1969, The Band would reach No.9 on the Billboard Pop Album chart and peak at No.2 in their Canadian homeland. Writing in The Village Voice, Robert Christgau, who’d been unmoved by Big Pink, praised the album as “an A-plus record if ever I’ve rated one”, and ultimately declared it to be the fourth best album of the year. Rolling Stone went one further, evoking the timeless nature of the record itself when it declared: “It has the sound of familiarity in every new line because it is ringing changes on the basic truths of life, you have been there before, and like the truths of life itself, it nourishes you.”

Label Review. 

Official round-up of Bowie’s recorded work during 1968/9. CD1: 23 Home Demos / CD2: The ‘Mercury’ Demos (with John “Hutch” Hutchinson) / CD3: Conversation Pieces (Mono). BBC Top Gear radio session with the Tony Visconti Orchestra, recorded 13th May 1968. BBC Dave Lee Travis Show radio session, recorded 20th October 1969. Single edits and other mixes and versions. CD4: Original mix of Space Oddity album with 5 bonus tracks.. CD5: Tony Visconti 2019 mix with Conversation Piece added to tracklisting plus 2 bonus tracks. 120pp hardback book. The new 2019 mix is also available on its own on CD and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Conversation Piece’ is a five CD box set tracking David’s early development throughout 1968 and 1969, via his home demos, BBC radio sessions, studio recordings with guitarist John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and the experimental music and mime group, Feathers. The collection also celebrates the 50th anniversaries of the release of the ‘Space Oddity’ single and David’s second album, David Bowie (aka Space Oddity).

The set contains twelve previously unreleased tracks/demos from the period as well as a brand new mix of the Space Oddity (aka David Bowie) album by longtime Bowie producer/collaborator Tony Visconti. The new mix of the album now features the title track of the boxset ‘Conversation Piece’ restored to the tracklisting in its initially intended position before it was originally dropped due to time constraints of vinyl.

The 120 page hardback book accompanying the box features exclusive memorabilia from the personal collection of David’s former manager, the late Ken Pitt, as well as from the David Bowie Archive®, and includes photos by Ray Stevenson, Vernon Dewhurst, David Bebbington, Ken Pitt, Alec Byrne, Tony Visconti and Jojanneke Claasen.

The sleeve notes have been written for the release by Bowie experts Mark Adams, Tris Penna and Kevin Cann along with contributions from David’s lifelong friend George Underwood, Tony Visconti, Vernon Dewhurst, Dana Gillespie and John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson.

Label Review.

2019 album. Jazz/post rock. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Detritus’ is the second captivating album from Brighton, UK based multi-instrumentalist and composer Marcus Hamblett featuring first single “Lost At Sea” (feat. Kate Stables). ‘Detritus’ is a technicolor collage of genres, absorbing elements of electronic music, jazz, post-rock and modern composition. Marcus earned his bread and butter as a session musician mostly touring internationally with folk/pop acts for many years prior to the release of his acclaimed debut solo album ‘Concrete’ of which Quietus said the album "could be called post-rock if it didn't also sound pre-rock, or maybe as if rock had never happened and folk, modern jazz and the classical avant-garde had merged into a stream of hip, innovative music to soundtrack the changes and discontents of the second half of the twentieth century instead, and Joe Meek had dug John Cage.”

‘Detritus’ features an all star cast of Hamblett’s musical accomplices including James Holden (with whom Hamblett plays in his band, The Animal Spirits), Kate Stables (who Hamblett plays cornet with, in her band This Is The Kit) and Colin Stetson (who Marcus just asked nicely by email!)

Hamblett is also a member of many other bands and has worked as a producer, arranger or instrumentalist with countless others including Villagers, James Holden & The Animal Spirits, Fear of Men, Laura Marling, The Staves, Lucy Rose, Rozi Plain, Bear’s Den, Willy Mason, Broken Social Scene, Wovoka Gentle and Christof van der Ven.

The lead single “Lost At Sea” was originally written back in 2006 for guitar, flute and clarinet, but the album version came about when Hamblett recorded album drummer Tom Heather playing in a soundcheck at The Lexington in London:

“This song is a sort of cornerstone of the record, the idea of detritus, all the broken off crumbs, dust, leftovers that ended up staying in. I’ve known Kate Stables for a long time, I think initially through her friends Rachael Dadd and Rozi Plain, and now I sometimes play brass occasionally electric guitar with This Is The Kit. I’m so glad she did the vocals for this so I could bury mine!”

Label Review.

2019 album. Brazilian.

Our Overview.

Brazilian musician, composer, producer and singer Lucas Santtana releases his seventh album, ‘O Céu É Velho Há Muito Tempo’, on French label No Format! (also home to the likes of Oumou Sangar & Melissa Laveaux). Described by The Wire magazine as an artist characterised by his “restless cosmopolitanism”, Lucas Santtana is one of the most interesting, dynamic and experimental singer-songwriter-producers from the ‘new generation’ of electro-rock-acoustic musicians.

‘O Céu É Velho Há Muito Tempo’ is the follow up to 2017’s ‘Modo Avi o’, an album (whose title translates as ‘airplane mode’) which probed ideas about the human experience & identity in an age of capitalism, consumerism & 24-7 digital connectivity.

The world is living through dark times - the far right and its reactionary ideas are gaining ground every-where, and Brazil hasn’t been spared either. A militia government has come to power in the country by dubious means, then proceeding to obstruct human rights by way of violence and censorship. And so, having made a name for himself with a string of richly inventive, polycultural albums suffusing nods to Brazilian cornerstones like Tropicalia & Bossa Nova with elements of everything from electronica to hip hop, for ‘O Céu É Velho Há Muito Tempo’, Santtana here pares back his palette to little more than the sound of his own voice and a guitar, for an album which unflinchingly zeroes in on this parlous machinery dictating the political, social & culturalbalance of his own country. “We’re living in a time in which everybody is talking loud’ he observes; “I thought the time had come to whisper into people’s ears”.

Whilst ‘O Céu É Velho Há Muito Tempo’ might operate with the gentlest of touches musically, the urgency of Santtana’s cautionary counsel is unmistakeable throughout.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

One of rock’s celebrated post punk era songwriters Nick Cave, along with his merry bunch of music men The Bad Seeds are releasing ‘Ghosted’. The Australian musician known for his literary style and baritone voice says the album - their 18th - is full of the most beautiful songs he has ever recorded. Like C.S. Lewis’ 'A Grief Observed', this devastating album is the work of an artist attempting to make sense of loss. "Peace will come," Nick Cave assures us, although it never really does.

'Ghosteen’s' album cover, a kitschy, fairytale landscape illustration that looks not unlike one of those leaflets Jehovah’s Witnesses hand out at shopping centres? His description of the album is also pretty gnomic: the eight songs on the first album are “the children”; the two lengthy tracks and spoken word piece on album two are “their parents”.

The result is perhaps the most straightforwardly beautiful set of songs that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have ever recorded, which fits with the album’s lyrical themes. When you listen to Ghosteen, the “children”/ “parents” description makes sense. Cave has talked about how his son’s death altered his work, how he found a way to “write beyond the trauma … to propel [myself] beyond the personal into a state of wonder”. And, despite the appearance of regular Cave themes – the first thing you hear is him invoking Vegas-era Elvis – Ghosteen appears to depict that process. For all the cinematic attractiveness of their arrangements and the title track’s opening meditation on the beauty of the world, the long songs on album two seem darker in tone, filled with sleepless nights, departures and desperate fantasies of escape: “I’m waiting for peace to come,” repeats one ambiguous line in Hollywood. The songs on album one, meanwhile, sound like the result of working through those emotions: lighter, calmer, concerned with empathy and faith. You feel the shift most clearly on Sun Forest, in which Cave does his patented apocalyptic thing – screaming horses, burning trees, hanging bodies, Jesus mad with grief – before the lyric suddenly flips – “the past pulls away and the future begins and I say goodbye to all that, / and the future rolls in like a wave… and the past, with its savage undertow, lets go” – and ends up exhorting the listener: “Come on, everyone!”

Most listeners seemed to take Nick’s last album ‘Skeleton Tree’ as an extended treatise on grief, ignoring Cave’s insistence that the songs predated the loss they were presumed to be about. In fairness, you could see why, given how bleak and disturbing it sounded. But if ‘Ghosteen’ is the album people supposed its predecessor to be, it sounds like nothing like you might expect of an album informed by tragedy. On one level, it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s as good as it is: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have been in a career-high purple patch since the last double album they released, 2004’s ‘Abettor Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus’. Nevertheless, listening to Ghosteen, it’s very hard indeed not to be taken aback.

‘Ghosteen’ is one of the most devastatingly accurate accounts of grief that you’ll ever listen to. Yet it’s also, astoundingly, one of the most comforting. Few mediations on grief manage to navigate despair and catharsis as well as this. Cave encourages us to candidly speak about grief, be it through wild imaginings, eerie hauntings or gentle longings. Only then, as he points out, can we find some sort of “peace of mind.” Whatever form grief takes, Cave encourages us to find beauty in pain, even when it might be difficult to do so. These are probably the most painful songs Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have ever recorded, but they’re also the most beautiful: it is a work of extraordinary, unsettling scope.

Label Review.

Documentary originally released in 2000. With bonus live CD from Winterland 1973.

Our Overview.

Songwriter, singer/guitarist Steve Marriot, was a mod icon and frontman for British hitmakers the Small Faces and Humble Pie and ‘Life And Times Of Steve Marriot’ is a compelling documentary about one of rock’s most dynamic, exciting and sadly unsung heroes of rock and roll, via the use of previously unseen photos, memorabilia, and home movies.

‘Life And Times Of Steve Marriot’ showcases revelatory interviews with Humble Pie’s Peter Frampton, Jerry Shirley and Greg Ridley, the Black Crowes’s Chris Robinson, Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick, John Waite, Bad Company/Free drummer Simon Kirke, Quiet Riot’s Kevin Dubrow, Ricky Byrd and Marriott historian John Heller Includes rare fiery performance footage of The Small Faces and Humble Pie, drawing the viewer closer to this wonderful and underrated artist.

Features a bonus concert of the 1973 Winterland show. This beautiful deluxe 3 disc digipack includes a Blu-Ray, DVD and CD.

Marriott is remembered for his powerful singing voice which belied his small stature, and for his aggressive approach as a guitarist in mod rock bands Small Faces and Humble Pie. Marriott was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of Small Faces. Marriott became a popular, often-photographed mod style icon through his role as lead singer and guitarist with the Small Faces from 1964 until the end of 1968. Marriott was influenced from an early age by his heroes including Buddy Holly, Booker T & the MG’s, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Muddy Waters and Bobby Bland.

Tracks: Tin Soldier / Itchycoo Park / Lazy Sunday / Paradise Lost / Take Me Back / Natural Born Woman / Alabama 69 / Sad Bag Of Shaky Jake / Stone Cold Fever / For Your Love / 4-Day Creep / 30-Days In The Hole / I Don’t Need No Doctor / Hot N’ Nasty / Black Coffee / Bigger They Come / I Won’t Let You Down

Label Review.

2019 album also available on 2CD and Purple Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Blue Eyed Soul’ is the much awaited twelfth studio album, and the groups first new album in four years, by British pop sensations - the sleek multi-million selling groove machine - Simply Red. Fronted by vocal powerhouse Mick Hucknall, since the band formed in Manchester in 1983 they have continually incorporated many influencing genres into there recordings, from reggae rock, new romantic and jazz. But what they have become synonymous with and perhaps the band’s biggest source of inspiration is soul music, frequently citing monolith artists like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye as influences, having incorporated many of their recording techniques into their sound. And ‘Blue Eyed Soul’ is the rawest, funkiest, dirtiest, brassiest and most purely 100 per cent soulful concoction of their stellar career.

‘Blue Eyed Soul’ features 10 tracks written by Mick Hucknall and produced by long time collaborator Andy Wright. “I wanted to push my voice a little harder, challenge it a little bit, give myself something to really sing to," said Hucknall. The album is said to have been inspired by classic funk and soul artists such as Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and Tower of Power. ‘Blue Eyed Soul’ is the sound of Simply Red firing on all cylinders.

"At this stage of my career, I could do one of those dark reflective albums looking back on my life and all that kind of stuff that people tend to do at a certain age,” Hucknall added. “But I thought sod that! I wanted to make something punchy. I want to have a good time.”

The album was recorded at Mark Knopfler’s British Grove studios in London, where the Rolling Stones recently made their acclaimed Blue & Lonesome.

Label Review.

2019 album now includes Sting's new live recordings from My Songs Summer 2019 Tour. The CD album will feature a remix added to the original My Songs album (total of 31 tracks) and bundled with a folded tour poster inside an O Card. My Songs Live 1LP features just the new live recordings. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Bassist and lead singer Sting - a nomenclature given when a fellow musician in the Phoenix Jazzmen caught sight of his black and yellow striped sweater - has forged his name in the annuls of rock history as both the principal songwriter and lead singer with the Police and for his successful, distinguished solo career. And now he is set to present his songs again with the release of ‘My Songs: Live.’

The 11-song set, recorded during his My Songs World Tour earlier this year, follows ‘My Songs’, a collection of revisited and revised versions of his solo and Police songs, which came out during May. The studio set features updated sonics, dynamics and arrangements based on the way the songs have evolved for him over the years. Sting told Billboard at the time that, "I'm constantly tinkering and I'm always wanting to make the songs as contemporary as they can possible be....The songs change every night when I sing them, and I'm always hearing something I haven't actually discovered there. It's discovery within that repetition, too...We just want to recontemporize the stuff."

Evidence of that can be found on ‘My Songs: Live’ most particularly in the livelier, polyrhythmic-flavored first verse of "King of Pain," which flows into an open, airier rendition of "So Lonely" and then a charged "Desert Rose." "Russians," meanwhile, flows into a delicately drawn "Fragile." "This is my life in songs," Sting writes in the live album's insightful song-by-song liner notes. "Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus."

The ‘My Songs’ exercise received a thumbs up from Police drummer Stewart Copeland, who similarly "deranged" the band's song for his movie Everyone Stares. "I thought it was very interesting," Copeland says. "There's nothing that says these songs can only exist in one form. It's fun to do different things with them. I think we all feel license to f*** 'em up if we want."

‘My Songs: Live’ features Dominic Miller and Rufus Miller on guitar, Josh Freese on drums, Kevon Webster on keyboards, Shane Sager on harmonica and backing vocalists Gene Noble and Melissa Musique.

As for future recordings, Sting told Billboard before ‘My Songs' release that, "I'd like to make something totally new. I don't know what that is, what it sounds like or what it looks like. I just have to trust that the muse will appear. I've written hundreds of songs, but I can't tell you how I should do it. I don't really know. I'm always happy when they materialize, but if I knew exactly where that button is that you press that suddenly makes that happen, then I'd keep pressing it. But, you know, it shifts all the time. You always think that the last song you wrote is the last song you'll ever write -- which is probably a good way to think."

Label Review.

1961 album. Jazz.

Our Overview.

‘Africa/Bass’ was the eight studio album by the American saxophonist and jazz virtuoso John Coltrane and his debut on the Impulse label. This 1961 Impulse album was particularly notable for Coltrane’s use of the expanded sound provided by a ‘big band’ with trumpets, trombone, baritone sax, Eric Dolphy’s bass clarinet and flute, and (most unusually) French horns, euphonium and tuba. Overlaying this backing is one of Coltrane’s great quartets with Messrs. Tyner (who, with Dolphy, did the arranging), Workman and Jones. The album’s centrepiece is the extended Coltrane composition, ‘Africa’. The tune’s luscious arrangement provides hints of Ellington, Gil Evans and even Charles Mingus in the brass harmonics and ensemble dynamism that Coltrane man ages to coax from these players.

Elsewhere, the other Coltrane original, ‘Blues Minor’, provides another trademark blast of tenor pyrotechnics from the man who hardly lets up for the tune’s seven-and-a-half minutes. By comparison, Coltrane’s version of Greensleeves is a relatively restrained affair, in effect, mimicking the man’s superlative version of My Favourite Things recorded the previous year, with its jaunty soprano sax theme, but given an added dimension with its ‘big band’ accompaniment. Finally, there’s ‘Song Of The Underground’, a traditional song recorded at the same session and included here as a bonus track.

All tracks orchestrated and conducted by Eric Dolphy. John Coltrane - tenor & soprano sax; McCoy Tyner - piano, Jimmy Garrison - bass: Elvin Jones - drums; Plus: Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard, Julian Priester, Eric Dolphy, Paul Chambers, Art Davis, and others, Recorded May and June 1961.

Tracks: Africa / Greensleeves / Blues Minor / Song Of The Underground Railroad

Label Review.

1972 album.

Our Overview.

Spectacular green Vinyl release of the influential German band Cans’ ‘Ege Bamyasi’. The eclectic and avant-garde group Can were founded in 1968 by Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit, forming a group which would utilise and transcend all boundaries of ethnic, electronic experimental and modern classical music. Can were at the forefront of the Krautrock movement combining rock trappings and funk-inflected rhythms that were always three steps ahead of contemporary pop scene of the 1970s. From their very beginning, their music didn't conform to any commonly held notions about rock & roll -- not even those of the countercultures.

‘Ege Bamyasi’ was Cans’ fourth studio album and was released in 1972, Often described as the "tense" Can album, ‘Ege Bamyasi’ drops the haze and hits with a sharp pang from the get-go. ‘Ege Bamyasi’ was bolstered in part by the success of its single ‘Spoon’ - the proto synth-pop (or synth-rock) song was the title theme to the popular German television show Das Messer.

"Pinch" is reminiscent of concurrent Miles Davis; a tough, dissonant take on rock, always kept sparse enough as to be unsettling. Likewise, "One More Night" was dry and efficient in the extreme, though, musically having more in common with Steve Reich than Davis. "Sing Swan Song" was Can's best ballad, while "Vitamin C" is still the best funk ever to come out of Europe which according to Pitchfork, is “still the best funk ever to come out of Europe.” The track has recently been heard in shows such as Preacher and The Get Down. The band would refine their sound even more in coming years, but they wouldn't really ever get better than this.

Cans' powerful influence has never diminished and their indelible mark is apparent in the bands who freely acknowledge their importance, from Portishead, James Murphy, New Order, Factory Floor, Public Image Ltd, Mogwai, Kanye West and Radiohead, as well as across other disciplines such as visual art and literature.

“Can are impossible to classify and it’s impossible to ignore their seismic influence on so many diverse musical paths” - Richard Hawley

“Can are the most revolutionary band ever” - Stephen Morris (New Order)

Label Review.

2019 debut album. Rock.

Our Overview.

The applauded - and one of the UK’s hottest rising trios - Bang Bang Romeo are releasing their eagerly awaited debut album ‘A Heartbreaker’s Guide To The Galaxy’. The ability to create a wonder-filled world of their own is one that hasbeen possessed by some of music’s most exciting and memorable artists, from David Bowie to Radiohead and many more in between.Doncaster’s Bang Bang Romeo are adding their name to that list with their debut album ‘A Heartbreaker’s Guide To The Galaxy’. Melding drama, dark euphoria, stratospheric tunes and cinematic finesse together to transport their fans away from everyday life. As acclaimed by Huw Stephens, BBC Radio 1 “They sound just like a Tarantino soundtrack”.

Frontwoman Anastasia ‘Stars’ Walker commented: “We would like to invite you to the first stop in our universe. To worlds of runaways and natural born astronauts. To favourite bad decisions under blood red skies, star crossed species and hurricanes gunning for war. The adventure begins…”  Stars – Bang Bang Romeo

Fronted by vocal powerhouse Anastasia Walker with Ross Cameron and Rich Gartland (guitar/drums), Bang Bang Romeo are a force to reckon with. The female-fronted band is on a quest to dismantle a male-dominated industry, confronting topics like femininity, body positivity, and sexuality, all served with a side of British wit and attitude. Walker, who goes by Stars, sends audiences into a frenzy with her “once in 20 years voice.” Their larger-than-life performance recently landed them on P!nk’s 2019 Summer UK tour, with other slots at major festivals and reviews from BBC Radio 1, Billboard, and NME to name a few. It’s Bang Bang Romeo’s world and we’re just living in it.

Bang Bang Romeo are the first UK signing to Eleven Seven Label Group and will be released on Allen Kovac’s Five Seven imprint.

Recorded in Birmingham, New York and Los Angeles, the band have worked with a roster of industry heavyweights on the album, including producers and co-writers Nick Furlong (Avicii, All Time Low), American Authors guitarist James Shelley and his production partner Michel Heyaca (Tinashe, Nick Jonas), New York’s Heavy (Goo Goo Dolls), and the UK’s Red Line Music team. Meanwhile, the record has been mixed by Grammy winner Mark Needham (The Killers, The 1975), and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Arctic Monkeys, Beastie Boys, The Clash).

Label Review. 

2019 album (Bloc Party). Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Kele is a founding member and lead singer of Bloc Party and ‘2042’ is his fourth solo album. “There is a history of black entertainers feeling that after they have achieved a certain level of success that they are above discussions of race but that idea is a delusion,” says Kele. “As a person of colour living in the western world, it does not matter how much wealth one accumulates, race will follow you wherever you go. With [the song] “Jungle Bunny” I wanted explore this idea: In a time of such rampant division and public racism, what is the responsibility of the black entertainer?”

Following 2017’s largely acoustic ‘Fatherland’ (released under his full name and featuring a duet with Olly Alexander from Years and Years), marks something of a return to the adrenalised electronics of his previous two solo records, ‘Trick’ (2014) and ‘The Boxer’ (2010), whilst broadening the sonic palette by bringing in elements of his work with Bloc Party and a litany of other influences and ideas.

As an artist, Kele Okereke has never stood still, relentlessly seeking new ways in which to present his luminous songs. Whilst sonically markedly different from ‘Fatherland’, lyrically ‘2042’ picks up a thread from that record whereby Kele’s life experiences and relationships suffuse the album with some of his most personal lyrics yet.

Label Review.

2019 album. Folk.

Our Overview.

Originally from Bettyhill on the far North Coast of Scotland, singer-songwriter Catherine Rudie has been named by BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction as ‘One to Watch’ for 2019 and on the strength of her debut album ‘The Möbius Kiss’, she does not fail to deliver. Catherine was originally a Gaelic singer and bagpipe player but has now turned all her attentions to creating contemporary folk music. ‘The Mobius Kiss’ was created in response to the twin losses of a long-term relationship and the dissolution of the creative world she had lived in for nearly a decade. As her home & studio were redeveloped into luxury flats and the related community of artists and musicians was broken up, she began to write songs which tried to make sense of the rapidly changing world she found herself in and that seemed to be rejecting her.

The name ‘Mobius Kiss’ comes from the title of a drawing by David Byrne, from his ‘Tree’ series. In the drawing, he lists many kinds of kisses and shows them in relationship with each other. The mix of very modern environments and instruments combined with Catherine’s childhood musical experiences in the remote North Coast of Scotland, playing the bagpipes in a community pipe band and singing traditional acapella Gaelic songs at local events, defines the unique sound of the album. The final production of the album was crafted in collaboration with Stephen Hodd (who has worked with Passenger and Lou Rhodes amongst others)

.“A message for our times” - Tom Robinson, BBC 6MUSIC

“We’re predicting big things in the year to come” - Nick Luscombe, The Late Junction, BBC RADIO 3

“It takes some self-confidence for any artist to lay her voice so bare on a recorded track. It is dynamic, distinct and really really impressive” - Neil March, Freshonthenet.co.uk

Label Review. 

1994 album with bonus live radio session disc. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Hailing from Tucson, Arizona, USA, Giant Sand, led by singer-songwriter Howe Gelb have been dishing out their unique blend of Americana since the mid-1980s although the bands roots stretch back to the late 1970s under the name Giant Sandworms. ‘Glum’ was the group’s one and only album made for Imago Records, shortly before they went out of business. The label was funded by BMG which means that ‘Glum’ was the only album by Giant Sand to be technically released on a major label.

Emotional and uplifting, and always thought provoking, the band’s line up of Howe Gelb, latter day Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino are joined by Victoria Williams, Pete Holsapple, Chris Cacavas, Pappy Allen and Lisa Germano, the whole shebang produced by Daniel Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn. A conceptual masterpiece, complete with a second disc capturing a classic KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic session just prior to the original album’s release in 1994. An epic windswept desert dry encounter with one of America’s greatest bands that traverses genres and styles to create a complete masterpiece. “Giant Sand move to the darker side of their emotional stew. Within is jazz, country, folk, blues even Glam, we’re led to believe the mainstay is downbeat but the result is monumental.” said Happenstance magazine

Label Review.

2019 debut album.

Our Overview.

‘Black Space Tapes’ is the uber sensational debut release from 20-year-old jazz prodigy Jamael Dean’s via Stones Throw Records. Pianist, producer, writer Jamael has already collaborated and performed with the likes of Kamasi Washington - at age 15 on Kamasi’s 2018 album ‘Heaven And Earth’ - Thundercat, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Carlos Niño.

Jamael’s music reflects the dual influence of his contemporaries in the Los Angeles scene and that of jazz ancestors including Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Herbie Hancock and soul jazz drummer Donald Dean - who is also his grandfather. The Los Angeles scene, he says, is “the only place I can go in the same day to a jam session with music from the 20s and 30s to another session with music in the 40s through the 80s, and after that play music with my friends from that era onwards."

‘Black Space Tapes’ is co-produced, compiled and sequenced by Carlos Niño, internationally celebrated producer, composer, arranger and DJ.

Label Review. 

55 tracks spanning whole career. Includes a very rare early recording of Computer Girl (1967) and a previously unheard/unreleased original version of Piss Off (2004) which would latterly be recorded with Franz Ferdinand and appear on their 2015 collaboration record FFS. The collection also features Check Out Time 11am (2017)¸ previously only available on a limited 7” Black Friday release. Also available on 2CD, and 3LP.

Our Overview. 

Brothers Ron and Russell Mael grew up in Los Angeles in the ‘60s, and were obsessed with rock and roll and pop culture. In 1968 the pair decided to form a band. They originally called themselves Halfnelson and signed with Bearsville Records and got Todd Rundgren to produce their debut album which flopped. A name change was agreed and their label suggested Sparks Brothers. From there it was a short edit to arrive at Sparks. Their debut was repackaged and re-released and sold roughly the same, though the single “Wonder Girl” did get airplay in Los Angeles. A second album followed causing even more subdued enthusiasm.

At this point Ron and Russell packed their bags and moved to England. Hooking up with producer Muff Winwood, they were signed to Island Records and formed a new version of the band with British players. The change was just what was needed. From 1974 through 1975, Sparks released the three key albums that most fans still consider a holy trinity of sorts. The single “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” was released in 1974 and shot to No. 2 on the U.K. charts. The unlikely hit struck a chord with its glam-affected guitars, triumphant rhythm and far from average vocal style of Russell. This was the first of eight Top 40 U.K. hits in a row for the band.

Sparks moved with the times travelling from glam to pop via big band and hard rock before crashing into both New Wave and disco along the way. By the early ‘80s, the Maels had moved back home to L.A. and formed yet another version of the band. This time around, they would find some success Stateside with songs like “I Predict” and “Cool Places” (which featured Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos).

As time moved on, Ron and Russell became more interested in, and reliant upon, electronics, making a series of more synth-pop albums. Though the music had changed, their sense of humor and wit remained intact. In 1997, they released the album ‘Plagiarism’, which featured re-workings of old songs with help from such varied sources as Faith No More and Erasure. Some of the songs used full orchestration, which would in part signal their next move. The ground breaking album Lil’ Beethoven was released in 2002 to much fanfare. Most fans and critics hailed it their best work since the mid-’70s.

Its success led to a renaissance of sorts which included another strong run of albums culminating in the 2008 series of concerts in London where the band performed every one of their albums in their entirety for a total of 21 nights, leading up to the release of their 21st album, ‘Exotic Creatures of the Deep.’

Label Review.

1956 album. Jazz.

Our Overview.

Limited edition in Mauve Vinyl of this 1956 Atlantic album ‘Pithecanthropus Erectus’ by the highly influential and revolutionary jazz musician, composer and arranger Charles Mingus. ‘Pithecanthropus Erectus’ is generally recognised as the man’s first attempts at recording music according to his principles of individual player improvisation within Mingus’ own defined framework, comprising bothmusical definition and, equally importantly, feel. What is also particularly notable about this album and, in particular, in its legendary title piece, is that it is possible to detect (in the composition and playing) Mingus’ conception and belief that all forms of music, in particular jazz and classical, should be fused into a single form, a concept that he would take to its ultimate conclusion on his later masterpiece, The ‘Black Saint And The Sinner Lady’.

According to Mingus’ liner notes, the title song is a ten-minute tone poem, depicting the rise of man from his hominid roots (Pithecanthropus erectus) to an eventual downfall due to “his own failure to realize the inevitable emancipation of those he sought to enslave, and his greed in attempting to standon a false security.” The song’s title translates into “Upright Ape-Man”, which holds a dual meaning with “upright”, referring to Mingus’ bass. Includes a live version of album track ‘Love Chant’ recorded at Cafe Bohemia in New York in December 1955.  

WAXTIME IN COLOUR LIMITED EDITION 180g COLOURED (MAUVE) VINYL +BONUS TRACK + UNIQUE STICKER.

Charles Mingus - bass & leader; Jackie McLean - alto sax; J.R. Monterose - tenor sax; Mal Waldron - piano; Willie Jones - drums. Recorded New York, January, 1956.

Tracks: Pithecanthropus Erectus / A Foggy Day / Profile Of Jackie / Love Chant / Love Chant (live Version)

Label Review.

2019 debut album. Indie. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Irish, bedroom pop, singer-songwriter Sorcha Richardsons’ album ‘First Prize Bravery’ is a welcoming introduction to her first record and the culmination of years of work. Richardson has been making music for nearly a decade, and she's perfected a delicate tightrope walk between hard-edged irony and gentle emotionality in her songwriting and she has been cultivating a cult fanbase for several years. Songs such as ‘Ruin Your Night’, ‘Petrol Station’ and ‘Can’t We Pretend’ are evocative vignettes of a moment in time which find the poetry in introspection, with a tangible nod to key influences such as Sharon Van Etten, Arcade Fire, Phoebe Bridgers and Julia Jacklin. She already amassed in excess of 22 million streams.

Now Richardson is preparing to release the biggest artistic statement of her career with her forthcoming debut album - ‘First Prize Bravery’. It’s a collection of lyrical snapshots of life as a twenty something, accompanied by the desires, doubts and developments that the decade delivers.

“It’s the hidden meaning in mundane moments,” she summarises. “Days that look like any other day and yet somehow you have this feeling that it’s one you’ll remember forever.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Americana. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Two Hearted Rounder’, the new album from the American - Birmingham, Alabama based - bluegrass singer-songwriter Sarah Lee Langford. With her debut album Sarah Lee is on a precipice. More specifically: A barstool - a place where life is messy, but the whiskey is neat. It’s here that one of her protagonists is given a proposition - one that has her reckoning the pain of her recent past against the thrill of newfound freedoms.

More often than not, Langford’s subjects take the ride - and each song displays a progressively greater confidence, strength, and almost savage commitment to a new life. It’s liberating in more ways than one.

Backed by a gang of Birmingham, AL’s greasiest rockers, including members of The Dexateens and Vulture Whale, ‘Two Hearted Rounder’ is blessed with loose limbs as well as deadly aim. Much like Langford’s own musical roots, these songs embody the best elements of the Old South and the New West via a well-crafted blend of Appalachian austerity, cosmic country, and honky tonk funk that should appeal to fans of Gillian Welch, Joni Mitchell, Loretta Lynn, and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

And while the grooves are satisfying, and the melodies indelible, it’s Langford’s incisive writing that will keep listeners coming back for more. Langford clearly knows Americana archetypes inside and out, but it’s her ability to imbue them with contemporary humour, beauty, and acidity that gives Two Hearted Rounder both a big heart and sharp claws.

Label Review.

2019 debut album. Rock. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Bristol boys Some Bodies invite you on a dreamlike, madcap trip with debut album ‘Sunscreen’, an adventure island surrounded by waves of nostalgia and built on a foundation of blissful, retro-centric rock, Some Bodies shape a world over the course of ten impeccably produced pop nuggets that’s distorted yet inviting, told from the point of view of a band looking back at their youth. Described as “A cool yet inviting cocktail that errs on the hookier side of indie” by Classic Rock.

The melancholy nature of ‘Sunscreen’ bares all the markings of a half-forgotten summer of freedom before life happens and we’re forced to look at the world without the rose-tinted glasses of adolescence. As such it’s both unforgettable in its melodies and delicately playful, but boasts some hefty modern subject matters such as virtue signalling, climate change, dead-end jobs, celebrity, religion, shame, social media and mental health.

“There are a lot of questions and no answers on this album” we’re told by guitarist and lead songwriter Fred Hickey, “It's fairly soul searching. Personally I was just shedding all the disguises of my early twenties and writing about them. It sounds like someone giving themselves a good talking to to me. The "grand conceptual idea" Tom and I would keep coming back to when we’re talking about the lyrics and imagery was this "shit holiday resort desert island”. We were just laughing at all of these characters being cooked by global warming surrounded by an ocean of plastic. But I guess we were those characters and making this record is all we had to protect ourselves from getting cooked. Hence "Sunscreen".

The album pulls in sounds from every corner of rock history, from the dulcet lo-fi harmonies of The Beach Boys and Sparklehorse to the contemporary psychedelic leanings of Tame Impala and Beach House. Opener ‘Tired All The Time’ recalls lazy, hazy afternoons before the poignant ‘TV Show’ hits harder with an aggressive krautrock riff and smoky delivery.

Elsewhere album highlights like ‘Higher Self’ and ‘Sunshine’ revel in their unabashed love for The Beatles, and if these tracks serve to lead you on a journey through the bands surreal fictional funfair then ‘Escape’ plays the role of haunted house, with its dark edge, jagged guitars and sinister garage-rock rhythm. Towards the end on ‘Aint Over Yet’ we’re given a healthy slice of Pixies charm, without cutting too close to the bone.

Forthcoming live shows include support tour with Once & Future Band in August / September, headline tour in November and Wild Paths festival. Previous dates include support dates with FUR, Trudy & The Romance, Sugar Candy Mountain and Champagne Superchillin’ and played Liverpool Sound City and live shows for Huw Stephens at The Social and Radio X’s George Godfrey.

“Fuzzing Ty Segall guitars with a wistful glance back to pop music past” - Bristol in Stereo

“A catchy as hell first offering.” - BBC Introducing in the West

“Mysterious late night vibe that shines with some beautiful old school harmonies” - We All Want Something to Shout For

Label Review.

2019 album. Alt-Folk.

Our Overview.

‘Face to Face’ is the first wholly self-produced record from Twelfth Day, and explores a wealth of urgent current issues through powerful multi vocal harmonies and layered strings. Why limit yourself to a label? That’s the mantra of Twelfth Day, the duo that has been challenging its broad spectrum of listeners with its genre-bending music for almost a decade. 

 Though Catriona Price’s violin and Esther Swift’s pedal harp remain the front and centre of their sound, and the mastery of their instruments is evident, Twelfth Day draws from a more expansive palette than the number of instruments might suggest, leaving a lasting impact on the listener.  

Catriona and Esther challenge each other to challenge us. It can be heard in the way that they push their vocals far beyond the boundaries of what may be anticipated from two young women with high voices. It can be heard in the way the violin and harp surprise each other to drive the track somewhere new. It can be heard in the lyrics that invite us to reassess, reimagine, reinterpret.  Though Twelfth Day wear their rich and varied experience with pride – their folk roots, their classical training – they are more than a simple product, an exponent, of their practice. It is their inherent curiosity, their need to understand through experimentation, that compels them to reach for new ways and means.

 It results in music that combines their technical proficiency and deep knowledge of their instruments with their desire to make soulful, meaningful and intuitive music thatyou would expect from musicians that have grown up learning music by ear, passing, trading and improvising with musicians from other genres, other cultures. 

Recorded at Scotland’s famous Castlesound Studios and the Reid Concert Hall in Edinburgh, the result is a varied and innovative compendium of well-crafted songs, which will inevitably draw comparisons to Hannah Peel, Stealing Sheep, Haiku Salut, Lisa Knapp, Bjork... There’s the radio-friendly catchiness and self-proclaimed respect for Beyonce; there’s the swagger and surprise of jazz and funk; there’s the precision and technique of classical.

The only label to truly hit the high note is ‘contemporary’: Face to Face could only be made now, and only by Twelfth Day.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Spearheaded by longtime Brian Jonestown Massacre bassist Collin Hegna, the Portland based American seven-piece ensemble Federale are releasing their new album ‘No Justice’. Spare yet sumptuous, distilling the lean, gritty essence of grindhouse anomie and wielding orchestral flourishes of widescreen delicacy, ‘No Justice’ feels like the defining statement of a band fully-realised – a sultry, restless storm cloud arising from the darkness at the edge of town to draw forth the fated reckoning.

Federale was conceived as an outlet to channel inspiration from ‘60s & ‘70s European soundtracks, particularly those from Italy made famous by the Spaghetti Western & Giallo genres.

As a mournful whistle carves through fevered melancholia, the first stirrings of No Justice’s title track evoke the mean streets and rusted prairies of a blighted small folk roiling with palpable desperation.

Embracing the enormous scope of orchestral cinematic production while subduing the bombast of electrified riffage, longtime Brian Jonestown Massacre bassist Collin Hegna has honed a taut, gleaming precision from his passion project’s signature sound. When his honeyed baritone waltzes with the operatic wizardry of bandmate Maria Karlin, the finely-etched lyrical depths fortify Federale’s cinematic sway. Spare yet sumptuous, distilling the lean, gritty essence of grindhouse anomie and wielding orchestral flourishes of widescreen delicacy, No Justice feels like the defining statement of a band fully-realized ‘ a sultry, restless stormcloud arising from the darkness at the edge of town to draw forth the fated reckoning.

Federale is: Collin Hegna Rick Pedrosa Colin Sheridan Maria Karlin Nalin Silva Brian Gardiner Sebastian Bibb-Barrett.

Label Review. 

1998 album. Only solo record from Talk Talk singer/songwriter. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Originally marketed as a synth pop boy band by their label EMI when they released their first album ‘The Party’s Over’ in 1982, today Talk Talk are best known for their progression from this debut offering to virtually inventing the genre ‘Post-rock’ with their fourth record ‘Spirit Of Eden’ (1988). The group was down to a trio by this point and only had one album left in them (‘Laughing Stock’ 1991) which saw them lose another member and move further into sonic abstraction.

Talk Talk effectively finished after this and the bands chief architect, Mark Hollis, fell silent, with fans wondering what he’d do next. That question was answered in early 1998 when his debut album, simply called ‘Mark Hollis’ was released. The album used space and silence to great effect with the first gently stroked piano chord on the opening track “The Colour of Spring” (named after Talk Talk’s third album) only coming in after about 15 seconds of room ambience. The whole album was recorded using acoustic instruments which was a first for Hollis. All eight tracks exuded a calm, restful quality and in the words of Phill Brown who engineered the album: “fantastically beautiful”.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Soul/funk. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American funkadelic cool cat, Allen Stone, returns with his new album - is first in 4 years since 2015s ‘Radius’ - entitled ’Building Balance’ which sees the soul vanguard taking his soul stirring R&B and funk to the next artistic level. Allen continues to draw inspiration from 70s funk and classic soul with current flexes, sitting amid D’Angelo in its sultrier moments, Stevie Wonder at its most melodic and the production of Mark Ronson at its most modern. The album features the most personal, lushly produced and gorgeously performed songs of this astonishingly talented singer-songwriters career. An album full of Allen’s catchy, soulful tunes that are full of heartfelt sentiment and foot-tapping grooves.

Recorded in a number of studios in Nashville with three producers: the acclaimed British artist Jamie Lidell, Grammy-winning producer Nasri and Jeremy Most (Emily King). The album is a textured amalgam of R&B and soul, a result of several personal cowriting sessions, collaborations with Emily King and Theo Katzman / Joey Dosik of Vulfpeck and lyrics by Allen.

Sentimental (‘Brown Eyed Lover’, ‘Consider Me’) and replete with nostalgic funk (‘Back To The Swing’, ‘Sweaters’), Allen’s third album shows an artist who has grown into his own and learned to balance and appreciate all parts of his life: the vices of the past and the gifts of the present, career and family, the brilliant highs and discouraging lows.

Label Review.

The first large scale collection of his early recordings. Some unreleased tracks. Resonance Records. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The incomparable Nat King Cole, was the smooth swing legend, the man with the soft baritone tone voice, who came to prominence as a jazz pianist but from the late ‘40s to mid ‘60s was a massive successful pop singer. ‘Hittin’The Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943)' is a ‘must get my hands on collection’ for fans old and new alike, full of his early recordings that lay the foundation to his great international success. Released in partnership with the Nat King Cole estate, Resonance Records’ ‘Hittin’ The Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943)’ is the first large-scale collection of the pivotal early recordings (1936-1943) of Nat’s 29-year recording career. Most tracks are receiving their first official release in this meticulously restored set of original live-to-disk recordings.

This definitive 7CD and limited-edition 10LP collection draws upon a wide range of sources, including many newly-discovered tracks unearthed for the first time from archives located all over the world, such as “Trompin” (jukeboxonly release for Cinematone, 1939), “What’cha Know Joe” (undocumented radio performance, 1940 - now the earliest known recording of Nat “on the air”), “The Romany Room is Jumpin’” (private recording, 1941) and “Beautiful Moons Ago” (longer alternate take, 1943).

Sessions include Nat at age 17, playing piano in his brother’s band in Chicago, 1936; the first King Cole Trio recordings from 1938, made for radio broadcdast only, for Standard Transcriptions; further radio transcription sessions for Standard, Davis & Schwegler, Keystone, plus his first (uncredited) session for MacGregor, with vocalist Anita Boyer; the Ammor Records Session (Spring 1940 - the first commercial-release sessions for the trio), the Decca Recordings(1940-41), the small-label sessions for Excelsior and Premier labels (1943), many previously-uncirculating Armed Forces Radio performances, and, with producer Norman Granz at the helm, early jazz sessions with Lester Young (Granz historic, first session as a producer) and Dexter Gordon, originally released on Philo and Mercury, respectively.

Boasting an extensive 60+ page booklet with rare photographs; essays by acclaimed author Will Friedwald and guitarist Nick Rossi (with a special focus on Oscar Moore); plus interviews and testimonials from Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Quincy Jones, Harry Belafonte, John Pizzarelli, Freddy Cole, Mi chael Feinstein and many others. ‘Hittin’ the Ramp’ features new remastering from original source disks transferred for this set from a number of personal collections and from the archives at University of California - Santa Barbara, The Institute for Jazz Studies at RutgersUniversity, the the CU Boulder American Music Research Center, and the Library of Congress.Celebrate Nat King Cole’s centennial in 2019 with this definitive early years multi-disc box set. This is the origin story of a great artist just as he was just “hittin’ the ramp,” launching a distinctive style that would quickly become famous the world over.

CD 1: Honey Hush / Stompin’ At The Panama (Skoller’s Shuffle) / Bedtime (Sleepy Moan) / Thunder / Mutiny In The Nursery / F.D.R. Jones / The Sheik Of Araby / The Blue Danube / Button, Button / Jingle Bells / Swanee River / With Plenty Of Money And You / Don’t Blame Me / Lullaby In Rhythm / Dark Rapture / The Wiggly Walk / Flea Hop / Chopsticks / Patty Cake, Patty Cake / Blue Skies / Liza / Three Blind Mice / Caravan / There’s No Anesthetic For Love / Dixie Jamboree / Ta-De-Ah / Riffin’ At The Bar-B-Q / Harlem Swing / I Lost Control Of Myself

CD 2: The Land Of Make Believe / That Please-Be-Mine-Able Feeling / Dancing In The Street / You’re So Different / I Wouldn’t Have Known It / Let’s Get Happy / Undecided / ‘taint What You Do / Do You Wanna Jump, Children? / Riffin’ In F Minor / Ol’ Man Mose Ain’t Dead / Blue Lou / Honey / Russian Lullaby / Georgie Porgie / The Limp / Snug As A Bug In A Rug / Liebestraum / Fidgety Joe / Two Against One / Some Like It Hot / Crazy Rhythm / Moonglow / Don’t Let That Moon Get Away / My Blue Heaven / I Was Doing Alright / I Can’t Get Started / Old Man Moon / Carry Me Back To Old Virginny

CD 3: Moon Song / Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home / Rosetta / Trompin’ / You’re My Life / Hoy Soy / Take ‘em / Scategoria / Rhythm Serenade / Rib Town Shuffle / Music’ll Chase Your Blues Away / I’ll Gather Up My Memories / A Fool’s Affair / Jump, Jack, Jump / I Knew A Time / Mine You’ll Always Be / Doin’ The Bow Wow / Lilla Mae / I Like To Riff / On The Sunny Side Of The Street / Black Spider Stomp / By The River St. Marie / Slew Foot Joe / 1-2-3-4 / Crazy ‘bout Rhythm / Off The Beam / King Cole Blues / Jivin’ With The Notes / Never Mind, Baby

CD 4: I’m A Perfect Fool Over You / Lovely Little Person / Love Me Sooner / Sentimental Blue / Goin’ To Town With Honey / Syncopated Lullaby / Fallin G In And Out Of Love / Let’s Do Thing / Jumpy Jitters / Nothing Ever Happen / What’cha Doin’ To My Heart / Bedtime / Honey Hush / French Toast / Vine Street Jump / B Flat / You Send Me / Love Is My Alibi / Pogo Stick Bounce / Whatcha’ Know, Joe? / Sweet Lorraine / Honeysuckle Rose / Gone With The Draft / This Side Up / Jumpin’ With The Mop / Jam Man / Let’s Try Again / Fudge Wudge / Smokey Joe / Windy City Boogie Woogie / Ode To A Wild Clam

CD 5: Let’s Try Again / Whatcha’ Know, Joe? / Lazy River / Georgia On My Mind / Rockin’ Chair / A Little Jive Is Good For You / You’ve Changed / Babs / Scotchin’ With The Soda / Slow Down / Early Morning Blue / The Romany Room Is Jumpin’ / This Will Make You Laugh / Stop! The Red Light’s On / Hit The Ramp / I Like To Riff / Call The Police / Are You Fer It? / That Ain’t Right / Hit That Jive, Jack / Indiana / I Can’t Get Started

CD 6: Tea For Two / Body And Soul / Vom, Vim, Veedle / All For You / Hip Hip Hooray / I Know That You Know / I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town / Pitchin’ Up A Boogie / I’m Lost / Beautiful Moons Ago / Let’s Spring One / Slender, Tender, And Tall / I’ve Found A New Baby / Rosetta / Sweet Lorraine / I Blowed And Gone / Solid Potato Salad / F.S.T. (Fine, Sweet & Tasty) / Got A Penny / Let’s Pretend / My Lips Remember Your Kisses / I’m An Errand Boy For Rhythm / Straighten U P And Fly Right

CD 7: Honey Hush / By The River St. Marie / I Like To Riff / Black Spider Stomp / Sweet Lorraine / Early Morning Blues / Gone With The Draft / Trompin’ / Sweet Lorraine / Gone With The Draft / Scotchin’ With The Soda / Gone With The Draft / The Romany Room Is Jumpin’ / Hit That Jive, Jack / Beautiful Moons Ago / Honeysuckle Rose / I Know That You Know / SolidPotato Salad / My Lips Remember Your Kisses / Straighten Up And Fly Right

Label Review. 

Outtakes from John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline plus the complete tapes from Bob’s session with Johnny Cash featuring Carl Perkins on guitar. Plus, Dylan doing Cash on his own during the early Self Portrait sessions in May 1969. Finally, a home tape with Earl Scruggs dating from 1970. Also available on 3CD. 

Our Overview. 

The latest chapter in Bob Dylan’s acclaimed Bootleg Series unveils 47 previously unreleased recordings, including outtakes from the albums ‘John Wesley Harding’, ‘Nashville Skyline’ and ‘Self Portrait’ plus the first release of the fabled Bob Dylan Johnny Cash 1969 Nashville studio sessions.

Disc One kicks off with Dylan in Columbia’s Studio A in Nashville recording alternate versions of compositions written for ‘John Wesley Harding’ (17th October and 6th November 1967). Until now there have been no outtakes issued from this album and nothing has surfaced on bootleg so the seven tracks presented here will be of particular interest to Dylan fans. ‘Nashville Skyline’ (13th-14th February 1969) is covered with seven alternate takes and one previously unreleased number: “Western Road”.

Discs Two and Three of ‘Travelin Thru’ are centered around Dylan’s collaborations with American music icon Johnny Cash including the much sought after Columbia Studio A sessions and on stage performances at the Ryman Auditorium (1st May 1969 for the recording of the premiere episode of The Johnny Cash Show (originally broadcast on ABC TV on 7th June 1969). The studio sessions were held over two days (17th & 18th February 1969) for possible release as a duo album. Instead, just one song, their take on the early Dylan song “Girl From The North Country” was released as the first track on ‘Nashville Skyline’.

Disc Three closes with tracks recorded on 17th May 1970 with Grammy Award winning bluegrass banjo legend Earl Scruggs for the PBS television special, ‘Earl Scruggs His Family and Friends’ (originally aired January 1971).

Label Review. 

2019 release. 7CDs, Blu-ray, 80pp book. Rick Smith and Karl Hyde's aim was to create and publish music and film episodically for 52 weeks and see where the journey took them. Also available on CD, Vinyl, and Coloured Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Underworld are Karl Hyde and Rick Smith who have been on their music making journey for the last 40 years. From their early synth pop dabblings as Freur in the mid-80s to the huge hit as Underworld in 1996 - “Born Slippy” they have constantly tried to find new directions for their particular brand of electronic music.

Their latest sonic trip began on 1st November 2018 when Underworld released the track “Another Silent Way” and set off with no map, no fixed destination and a simple mantra (“Drift is the opposite of ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ practice; we’ll do this until we’re dust.”) ‘Rick Smith and Karl Hyde’s aim was to create and publish music and film episodically for 52 weeks and see where the journey took them. Within a few weeks, the experiment found its own path, prompting the electronic pioneers to react to previous releases and create new works accordingly. Over time, the duo’s innate curiosity opened up a unique space in which they could experiment, learn and explore new frontiers - together and with others (including Tomato’s Simon Taylor, Australian improv-trance band The Necks, techno producer Ø [Phase], Japanese noise band Melt-Banana, economics writer Aditya Chakrabortty and members of Black Country, New Road). During the 52 weeks, five self-contained episodes were released (respectively in November, January, March, May and August) - collectively, they formed DRIFT Series 1.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Post punk. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘So Cold Streams’ is the fifth studio album from French post-punkers Frustration, featuring Jason Williamson, of Sleaford Mods. Right from the very first seconds of “Insane”, a humongous electro-punk monster that wouldn’t have been out of place on an 1988 EBM EP, you realise Frustration are once more pushing the envelope. The punk quintet could have easily played safe releasing a record basically identical to the previous one; intense, abrasive, honest but with no risk. They could have prepared their slow but inevitable exit. Instead of setting up a comfortable routine, Frustration recorded its fifth album as if it were the first, like a bunch of guys who've been playing together for six months, who have nothing to lose.

Of course, post-punk shenanigans is still there (martial drums, elastic bass, hitand- run guitars), but ‘So Cold Streams’ is full of a brand new energy, raucous lyrics and full-on audacity. Take a listen to “Brume”, an industrial nightmare with lyrics screamed in French. Or the poppy and intimate “Lil’ White Sister” sounds surprisingly like the Smiths or Echo & The Bunnymen. Or the insane “Slave Markets” on which the band invited Jason Williamson, half of Sleaford Mods - a band that was pivotal in Frustration’s newfound youth.

“Sleaford Mods is a band that, musically and humanly, gave us a real boost,” explains Fabrice Gilbert (vocals). They gave us a real sense of freedom, it allowed me to really say everything I wanted to say in my lyrics, to talk about extremely intimate subjects as well as much more general things, whether it be political or social. So Cold Streams is, paradoxically perhaps, our most disillusioned, energetic and free record.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Former lead singer of Bellowhead. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Chicago born and sheffield based folk artist Jon Boden has become the “stand out performer of his generation” (The Guardian), but one whose repertoire extends far beyond the boundaries of the genre, from leading progressive folk juggernaut Bellowhead to his work in Spiers & Boden and as an acclaimed solo artist. ‘Rose in June’ is Boden’s fourth solo studio album, following his acclaimed 2017 album, ‘Afterglow’.

“Since this band [The Remnant Kings] was debuted live at Cambridge Folk Festival on the mainstage in 2016 we’ve been able to tour the UK and play many festivals in this bigger line-up so it felt very important to get into the studio and record lots of the stuff that is central to the live set, but has never been committed to tape,” says Jon Boden on ‘Rose in June’, the new album recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios. Live favourites such as ‘Rose In June’, ‘All Hang Down’, ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Beating The Bounds’ have all been lovingly rendered here by producer and long-time collaborator, Andy Bell.

‘Rose In June’ captures Boden’s inimitable folk storytelling backed by The Remnant Kings after they’ve been hardened by months on the road, the songs constantly evolving as they were performed by a rotating cast of members. The resulting album finds both Boden and band at the top of their games.

Jon Boden is best known as the lead singer and main arranger of Bellowhead. After twelve years, a quarter of a million album sales, seven singles on the Radio 2 playlist and selling out hundreds of venues throughout the land and beyond. Widely respected as an interpreter of traditional song, his solo live shows showcase Jon’s instrumental talents on fiddle, guitar and concertina, as well as his trademark ‘stomp box’ which he and John Spiers introduced into to the world of traditional music in 2001. Through his solo work and his work with Bellowhead and Spiers & Boden, Jon has won eleven BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

His most recent album ‘Afterglow’ was released in October 2017 and continues Jon’s explorations of a post-oil world, this time following the course of two lovers over the night of a fire-lit city carnival. The first single from the album ‘All The Stars Are Coming Out Tonight’ was playlisted on BBC Radio 2. The release was followed by the launch of the 11-piece Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings which toured the UK in autumn 2017 and spring 2018. Summer 2018 saw the big band in demand for major folk festivals including Wickham Festival, Beautiful Days, Snape Proms and Shrewsbury Folk Festival. 2019 saw Jon touring with the three string players from the band and performing in both the 6 piece and 11 piece versions of the Remnant Kings.

Label Review.

2019 album. Rock. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Spinning Creature’ is the debut album from Cup, the duo of husband and wife team, Nels Cline, avant-garde guitar wizard and longtime Wilco member and Yuka C Honda, formerly the co-leader of the downtown New York ’90s-vintage cool-kid crew Cibo Matto.

Combining aspects of electronica, folk, improvisation, and some heated rocking, this debut recording ’perhaps predictably’ defies easy categorisation. But fear not! Contained within this package is a sometimes sweet, sometimes jarring, but always compelling excursion into what a shared sensibility sounds like, and after taking the journey that is ‘Spinning Creature’ it all feels just right as Cup’s music veers from the accessible to the abstract and back. This balance is what Cup music is all about. Nels and Yuka even sing a little here and there as they enter their singular sound world. And now you can enter it, too!

Cline and Honda spent three days recording ‘Spinning Creature’ in Brooklyn. They’ve got a whole process: They improvise in the studio together, and then Honda takes the sounds home, mixes them, and transforms them into songs.

You can hear a bit of that in the album’s title track, which has some way-out noises but which sounds like it’s been finely sculpted into a bubbly, comforting piece of laid-back quasi-pop. Cline and Honda sound great harmonising together on their wistful ba-ba-ba vocals, and Cline’s circular guitars pair nicely with Honda’s keyboard bloops. The track makes for a nicely off-kilter piece of bedroom-pop from two people who have been making accessible-but-experimental music for decades.

Label Review. 

1969 album. Limited edition hand-numbered box set / 2 x 180-gram LPs in stereo and mono with restored original album art / 2 x SACDs in stereo and mono housed in custom 12 inch sleeve / 7 inch single of Honky Tonk Women/ You Can't Always Get What You Want in mono with original picture sleeve / 80-page hardcover book with essay by David Fricke and never-before seen photos by Ethan Russell / Three 12x12 hand-numbered, replica-signed lithographs printed on embossed archival paper, housed in foil-stamped envelope / Full-colour (23 x 23) poster with restored art from original 1969 Decca package / Remastered audio by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. Also available on single CD and Vinyl. 

Label Review.

2019 album also available on CD+, Vinyl and LP+.

Our Overview.

The music legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician Jeff Lynne and his band ELO are releasing their shiny new album entitled ‘Out Of Nowhere’ their follow up to 2015’s ‘Alone In The Universe’. Just like it’s predecessor lynchpin Jeff Lynne plays almost every note on the record on guitars, bass, piano, drums and keyboards. He also sings the lead and layered harmony vocals. Engineer Steve Jay also adds percussion. The album news comes after Jeff Lynne's ELO recently wrapped up a successful tour across North America this summer.

Orchestral rock maestro Lynne, whose music has touched fans deeply across three generations now, has found himself in recent years at the peak of his powers as a songwriter, musician and producer. The very existence of the album is an unexpected joy, as much for its creator as for his fans. “‘From Out of Nowhere” — that’s exactly where it came from,” Lynne says. “That’s the first one I wrote for this album and it’s kind of like that.” It’s a song about hope and salvation. Lynne often found himself turning to a sense of optimism, which is a theme recurring throughout the album, saying “Everybody’s got to have a bit of hope.” This album builds on the energy and acclaim generated by the release of Alone in the Universe and the triumphant return to touring for the first time since 1985.

With more than 50 million albums sold, ELO ranks among the most popular acts of its era. Those totals cover four consecutive Top 10 albums and seven reaching the Top 20, as well as a remarkable string of hit singles — 20 reaching the U.S. Top 40 and a full seven of them lodging in the Top 10. Lynne’s reach, of course, has extended far beyond ELO, touching millions as a producer and collaborator, most notably as a member of the Traveling Wilburys alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. He also produced Harrison’s colourful Cloud Nine album and with Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr crafted full songs from John Lennon’s home tapes of “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.”

Label Review.

1962 album with 9 bonus tracks. Blues.

Our Overview.

Spectacular release of ‘Mr. Scrapper Blues’ a limited Edition of 500 copies, 6-panel digipak, includes comprehensive booklet with original and up-to-date liner notes. Francis Hillman Scrapper was an American blues guitarist and singer of the late 1920s and 1930s and an overlooked blues master, who was a contemporary of Robert Johnson and other Delta blues artists and known as half of the guitar-piano duo he formed with Leroy Carr. Scrapper Blackwell was a truly remarkable guitarist, Blackwell’s fluid acoustic single-note picking, in the Chicago blues of Piedmont blues styles, inspired a long line of musicians.

This essential release presents Blackwell’s complete LP, ‘Mr. Scrapper’s Blues’, recorded during the his early ‘60s comeback. The long-unavailable masterpiece was originally issued by the Prestige/Blues label in 1962.

These solo recordings, taped in Indianapolis in 1961, marked the return of the great country-blues guitarist, who had retired from the music scene in 1935 following the death of his close friend and partner, pianist Leroy Carr. In addition to the original album, this remastered Collector’s CD issue, contains 9 bonus tracks, including hard-to-find sides from the same period.

Tracks: Goin’ Where The Monon Crosses The Yellow Dog / Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out / “A” Blues / Little Girl Blues / George Street Blues / Blues Before Sunrise / Little Boy Blue / “E” Blues / Shady Lane / Penal Farm Blues Bonus Tracks / Blue ‘n Whistling / Soft Blues / Sally-In-The-Alley Blues / No Good Woman Blues / Back Step Blues / Blues Before Sunrise [1960 Version] / “E” Blues [1960 Version] / How Long Blues / Leaving You Blues

Label Review.

Funk punk from Leeds.

Our Overview.

‘Singles & Sessions 1979-1981’ is a must have for 80s post punk fans’ from Delta 5. Delta 5 were the epitome of post punk, they were a two bass guitar driven, 3 girl/2 boy outfit who managed to break all the Trad Rock rules and create a brave new pop that was beloved of the John Peel listeners of the time but strangely sounds like an almost mainstream pop these days as the rest of the world finally catches up.

The original members of Delta 5 - the highly influential, yet short lived early 80s post punk band - Julz Sale (vocals/guitar), Ros Allen (bass) and Bethan Peters (bass), formed the band “on a lark” in 1979, but soon became a part of the thriving Leeds post-punk scene, and later added Kelvin Knight on drums and Alan Riggs on guitar.

Part of the Leeds/UK art/music scene in the late '70s that launched The Gang Of Four and The Mekons, Delta 5 was signed to Rough Trade after only a few months in existence, the band combining feminist politics with a two-bass funk-punk sound (much in the style of another more famous Leeds band, Gang of Four) released in 1979 their debut single, “Mind Your Own Business”.

BBC host and producer John Peel requested the band do a "Sessions" gig for him and they were officially on their way. Relentless touring with The Gang Of Four, Echo And The Bunnymen, B52s, The Specials, The Teardrop Explodes, and U2 put the group on the map. They continued until various members departed in 1981, when they recorded one last single and broke up in 1982. This release contains long unavailable material as well as the never before released Peel Sessions. Kill Rock Stars. 2006. Comes with a poster!

Label Review.

2019 album from keyboardist, guitarist, and songwriter for A-ha. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

With a career spanning more than 35 years, former A-HA member, Norwegian musician and visual artist Magne Furuholmen is releasing his new album ‘White Xmas Lies’. 'White Xmas Lies' is Magne Furuholmen's 3rd solo-album, and as the title suggests, it is an album with a different take on Christmas - A melancholic winter-album consisting of 15 original new songs, as well as two surprising cover-versions. Furuholmen says he wanted to make an album as an “antidote to the schmaltzy Christmas-music which is spewed out every year… a seemingly never-ending stream of cheesy versions of existing Christmas songs’.

'White Xmas Lies' is a double-album with a rich blend of unusual and thoughtful Christmas material, ranging from brooding introspection and piercing observation, to hopeful, uplifting songs.

There is an urgent sense of yearning running throughout the album, with the lyrics at the centre of the project. At times cutting; (‘...family and friends, we lie and pretend, that nothing will come between us’, White Xmas Lies), and at times profoundly sad; (‘...for every Christmas Rose we’ve had, the heart has grown a thorn’, A Wintry Silence), they are also interspersed with surprising, dark humour (‘...out comes the Christmas Punch, and you just take it on the chin’, The Season to be Melancholy), the album is littered throughout with Furuholmen’s trademark word-plays (A punch-up on Boxing Day).

As a member of the iconic 80’s band a-ha, Magne Furuholmen has had an illustrious career in music spanning more than 35 years, sold more than 70 million records, toured the world over multiple times, and co-written many of the band’s hit-songs, including the decade-defining monster-hit ‘Take On Me’. Furuholmen has been awarded an Honorary Doctor’s Degree in Fine Arts (D.F.A.) at The University of Agder, Norway, and in 2012 he received a Knighthood from the Norwegian King for ‘Services to Mankind.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

South of France based foursome the Sunset Suns started out as surfers who loved making music, but for the Aussie-Brit indie group three hectic years of writing and recording, a BBC Sound Poll nomination and near non-stop touring - including supporting Imagine Dragons on 36 arena dates across Europe and Nothing But Thieves on their recent UK tour (inc Alexandra Palace) as well as selling out London’s Shepherds Bush Empire - has turned them in to seasoned musicians who have to squeeze surfing in on the side.

Still, you won’t hear them complaining. Swapping waves for stages and beaches for fields, playing well over 250 shows in three years has tuned Sunset Sons in to one of the UK’s most exciting live bands and garnered them an AIM nomination for Best Live Act. They are now poised to release their second album ‘Blood Rush Deja Vu’ on the Bad Influence label, and shows a more mature, dark and urgent side of the band, whilst keeping to their trademark festival anthemic rock and laid back dreamy beach retrospectives. The album has been produced by Grammy winning and ‘MPG Producer of the Year 2018’ Catherine Marks (Foals, Wolf Alice, The Amazons) and features 10 new tracks (including an exclusive track for physical formats only). Blood Rush Deja Vu was recorded between their adopted hometown, the surf commune of Hossegor on the south-west Atlantic coast of France and Kensaltown Studios in London.

Their acclaimed top 25 independent debut album, ‘Very Rarely Say Die’, and follow up EP ‘The River’ captured both the raucous spirit of those live shows and the carefree attitude that made the band friends in the first place.

Label Review.

2019 release. Live at O2 Indigo London in December 2018 featuring special guests David Gilmour and Van Morrison.

Our Overview.

‘The Final Bow’ celebrates 55 years of the legendary 1st wave R&B cult heroes The Pretty Things - one of the greatest band most people have never heard of - final electric performance recorded at the O2 Indigo London in December 2018 featuring special guests David Gilmour and Van Morrison. ‘The Final Bow’ captures The Pretty Things at their rocking and unique, mercurial best across 3 sets of classic tracks featuring special guest appearances from good friends David Gilmour and Van Morrison. This 2LP set features a selection of the evening’s live recordings presented in a gatefold sleeve featuring photography from Judy Totton and printed inner bags with liner notes written by Phil May of his life as the frontman of the ballsy and successful rock band. The audio was recorded by Ben McCusker, mastered by Gwyn Matthias and produced by Mark St. John.

Invaluable to the development of British music, The Pretty Things have been a critical success and a huge influence on artists as diverse as David Bowie, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Bob Dylan, The Sex Pistols, The White Stripes, Kasabian and many, many more - who site their outrageous behaviour, incandescent stage performances and astonishing catalogue of remarkable, ground-breaking recordings as fundamental in the creation of their own work. Still creating significant music today and with a rich catalogue including top-level albums such as ‘Get the Picture ?’, ‘S.F. Sorrow’ & ‘Parachute’, they remain a hugely significantartistic and creative force. They are a band to revere with no other firstwave artist but The Rolling Stones outselling their frontline recordings today and probably no artist at all outperforming them live.

This electric performance features all the youthful and incendiary vigour from their 60’s beginnings, showing off a technical prowess by performing tracks from their full range of styles: first wave R’n’B, psychedelic rock, and the blues. Led by founding vocalist and guitarist Phil May & Dick Taylor, the band was driven by their current line-up consisting Frank Holland, Jack Greenwood & George Woosey and featured returns from original recording band members Skip Allen, Wally Waller & John Povey. The evening was transformed from unmissable to sensational with the guest performances of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on classics including “Cries from the Midnight Circus” & “L.S.D.”, and legendary vocalist Van Morrison on blues classic “Baby, Please Don’t Go” & soul standard “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover”. ‘The Final Bow’ should be compulsory for anyone with the slightest interest in popular music and the youth and social revolution of the 1960’s.

LP 1: Mark St John “Introduction” / “Honey, I Need” / “Don’t Bring Me Down” / “Get The Picture ?” / “The Same Sun” / “Alexander/Defecting Grey”/ “Midnight To Six Man” / “Mr Evasion” / Mark St John “S.F. Sorrow Set - Introduction” / “Scene One” / “S.F. Sorrow Is Born” / feat David Gilmour “She Says Good Morning” / feat David Gilmour “I See You”

LP 2: feat David Gilmour “Cries From The Midnight Circus” / Mark St John “End Set Intro” / “Can’t Be Satisfied” / Phil May “Van Morrison Introduction” / feat Van Morrison “Baby Please Don’t Go” / feat Van Morrison “You Can’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover” / “Come See Me” / feat David Gilmour “L.S.D. / Old Man Going” / Mark St John “Encore - Introduction” / “Rosalyn” / “Phil’s Final Words” / “Loneliest Person”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Soul. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

British group Da Lata have been thrilling the music scene with their unique brand of soul - a sound that synthesises elements of traditional Brazilian music with European dancehall sensibilities - since the group formed in 1994 by Chris Franck and Patrick Forge and now we are treated to Da Lata’s highly anticipated fourth album ‘Birds’, which is a genre busting journey through London Afro-Brazilian soul music. The most homogeneous Da Lata record to date, Christian Franck has honed his craft and expanded his art to create a glowing testimony from the melting pot of the capital’s musical life.

Gathering his family of collaborators with diverse musical backgrounds in soul,jazz,and gospel as well as African and Brazilian forms, ‘Birds’ is an album that finally lays waste to that tired idea of World music. There are tracks that are inspired by Chris’ journeys to the source, there are elegant horn and woodwind arrangements recorded in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, there are lyrics in different tongues, but this is a London record.

‘Birds’ is an album of warm organic grooves infused with sophisticated funkiness and splattered with instrumental colour. From the Afro skank swagger of the low slung opener Mentality to the Beatles-esque pathos of the closing title track, it’s a record packed with soulful surprises and beguiling rhythms. The sound is both intimate and expansive, drawing the listener into Da Lata’s London tropicalia and out into the cosmos. Birds is an album about keeping doors open and conversation flowing, it’s about survival, hope, family, resistance, awareness, unity and love.

Label Review. 

1994 album. Original mix remastered & new 2019 remix with the guitars pulled back and the vocals pushed forward to create a more open sound and showcase often-revealing lyrics. Plus a whole disc of demos and double disc 'Live in Chicago 6/3/95 ? Monster 1995 Tour'. Blu-ray contains 5.1 mix, Road Movie film and 6 music videos. Also available on 2CD, Vinyl, and Double Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Having established a powerful legacy as one of the most enduring and essential rock bands in popular music history, R.E.M. pioneered the alt-rock movement of the ‘90s, influencing the likes of Nirvana, Pavement and Pearl Jam. Formed in 1980, the group enjoyed an extraordinary three-decade-long run of creative vitality and multi-platinum sales before amicably disbanding in 2011.

When ‘Monster’, their 9th album, was released in September 1994, the members of R.E.M. were at a crossroads in their career. Singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry were decompressing from the massive commercial and critical success of 1991’s Out of Time and 1992’s Automatic for the People. In just a few years, the Athens, GA, four-piece had become one of the biggest, most recognizable bands in the world, thanks to hits like “Losing My Religion,” “Man on the Moon” and “Everybody Hurts.” It had also been six years since the group had toured. By the time that work began on Monster, they were itching to end their self-imposed hiatus and get back on the road.

The band was also looking for a sonic shake-up. While R.E.M.’s last two albums were full of ballads, acoustic rock songs and intricate arrangements, the group was ready to record something grittier, brasher and highly playable on stage. In his liner notes, Perpetua writes that Monster “had no precedent in the band’s catalog,” adding that R.E.M had “never been this distorted and dirty, or this glam or this flirty.” Buck recalls, “We were trying to feel like a different band … We wanted to get away from who we were.”

In addition to having the chance to reflect on ‘Monster’, R.E.M. also had the opportunity to revisit the album creatively with their longtime producer, Scott Litt. Litt, who struggled with the original mix, recalls, “I had told the band through the years that if there was ever a chance to take another shot at mixing the album, I wanted to do it.” Now, 25 years later, he’s had the chance, and the results are striking. On some songs, according to Perpetua, Litt’s work features “Entirely different vocal takes and instrumental parts that were either buried or excised from the original album mix.” Mills adds, “I think as he listened to it over the years, he began to hear a different way to realize those songs.” Ultimately, with this reissue, fans will not only have the opportunity to re-discover Monster but also, perhaps, see the album in a completely new light.

Label Review.

2019 album. Rock. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Canadian indie rock band Half Moon Run are releasing their luscious new album and their third ‘A Blemish In The Great Light’ yet another atmospheric journey into the Montreal’s group signature songwriting that hearkens back to the time when an album was a collection of songs aiming for a cohesive experience, not a mish-mash of social media-released singles rolled together for the sake of meeting a record label contract clause.

The word everyone comes back to when describing Montreal indie rockers Half Moon Run is “complex” (The Guardian, Exclaim, et al.) Whether they’re billed as dreamy alt pop, bucolic alt-folk, or psychedelic indie rock, the four multi instrumentalists Devon Portielje (vocals, guitar, piano, percussion), Conner Molander (vocals, guitar, keyboard, piano, pedal steel, bass, harmonica), Dylan Phillips (vocals, drums, piano, keyboard), and Isaac Symonds (vocals, drums, mandolin, synth, bass) have built their name on cerebral, acrobatic arrangements and harmonies that lilt prettily till they turn feral.

Vocal harmonies sit atop skittering rhythms, weaving from dark keyboard loops to haunting guitar pop. But don’t be mistaken, HMR is not another sad bastard, mopey indie band. Instead, their songs are imbued with both optimism and lift. While so many bands that walk this path seem content to keep both feet — and eyes — firmly fixed on the ground, Half Moon Run sound more like they’re taxiing for take-off.

Their first album, 'Dark Eyes', placed two A-list singles on BBC Radio 1 and went platinum in Canada, earning them a nod as a Rolling Stone “band to watch.” They followed up with Canadian Gold Record 'Sun Leads Me On' (Glassnote), which had them touring furiously through Europe and North America and got them a Juno nod for Breakthrough Group of the Year in 2016.

‘A Blemish In The Great Light’ was produced by Joe Chiccarelli (The Strokes, Beck, Killers) andfeaturing the singles Then Again and Flesh & Blood. “A soaring return from the Montreal four-piece.” - CLASH. “Their immediacy and wide-screened encompassing sound is second to none” - SOS MUSIC.

Label Review. 

This collection gathers together the highlights of the four Greenslade albums originally issued by Warner Records between 1973 and 1975 and includes the rare live version of “Feathered Friends” recorded at the Reading Festival in August 1973.

Our Overview. 

Formed in 1972 by former Colosseum keyboard player Dave Greenslade, the band also featured former Web and Samurai member Dave Lawson (keyboards, vocals), former Colosseum bass player Tony Reeves and drummer Andrew McCulloch (formerly with King Crimson and Fields). The calibre of the members of Greenslade ensured that the group would be innovative, ground breaking and dynamic in their musical approach and would also be notable due to the absence of a guitarist within their ranks. Their self-titled debut album was released in February 1973 to much acclaim and featured such tracks as “Melange”, “Drowning Man” and “Sundance”. This was followed later in the year by the classic album ‘Bedside Manners Are Extra’, another fine work featuring the legendary title track and pieces such as “Time to Dream” and “Pilgrims Progress”. August 1974 saw the release of ‘Spyglass Guest’, the band’s most commercially successful and much-loved album, with compositions of the calibre of “Joie de Vivre”, “Spirit of the Dance” and “Melancholic Race”.

Following the release of ‘Spyglass Guest’, Tony Reeves departed the band and was replaced by Martin Briley, who was to feature on the band’s next album. ‘Time and Tide’ was issued in May 1975 and was the band’s final album of the 1970s and featured such excellent compositions as “Flattery Stakes”, “Waltz for a Fallen Idol”, “The Ass’s Ears” and “Gangsters” (a theme to a BBC TV play also issued as a single). ‘Time and Tide’ was the band’s final album of the 1970s and the last to feature Dave Lawson and Andrew McCulloch in the line-up.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

English singer-songwriter FKA twigs ends months of speculation by announcing details of her highly anticipated second album. ‘Magdalene’. The album is the follow up to FKA twigs’ -aka Tahliah Debrett Barnett - critically acclaimed Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominated debut ‘LP1’.

Created in a period where her confidence was knocked following heartbreak and laparoscopicsurgery, ‘Magdalene’ is the sound of twigs reconfiguring, emotionally and physically. As she sings on ‘Mary Magdalene’, the Magdalene album track that opened her highly-praised, sold-out live shows earlier in the year, “A woman’s time / A woman’s work / A woman’s time to embrace / She must put herself first.”

‘Magdalene’ is produced by FKA twigs and, as with ‘LP1’, the recording process has been directed by her at every stage. It was recorded between London, New York and Los Angeles over the last three years and features major contributions from Nicolas Jaar alongside a host of other collaborators.

FKA twigs launched her MAGDALENE world tour with two sold-out nights each at LA’s Palace Theatre and NYC’s Park Avenue Armory, continuing on to play headlining shows in Berlin, London, and Sydney, and performing at Primavera Sound, We Love Green Festival, and Afropunk. With these groundbreaking performances, FKA twigs solidified herself as one of the most creative and experimental artists, performers, and directors of her generation, with Billboard raving, “the show was complete with gravity-defying pole dancing, swords, intricate costumes and oozing theatricality,” and Rolling Stone observing, “it’s difficult for a larger-than-life performer to make themselves appear like an apparition – especially one whose lyrics are so corporeal – but in that moment twigs looked wholly otherworldly.” Throughout these shows, FKA twigs played never-before-heard music from her highly-anticipated forthcoming second album, and Consequence of Sound exclaimed, “FKA twigs is back and it’s beautiful.”

‘Magdalene’ sees FKA twigs creating a whole new artistic universe and it is, without doubt, her most masterful, innovative work to date.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Colorado’ is the first new Neil Young with Crazy Horse album since 2012’s ‘Psychedelic Pill’ and features 10 new Neil Young compositions. It includes several songs that Neil has been playing live in the past few months (eg: “Rainbow of Colors”, “Green Is Blue” and “Milky Way”), and the epic 13+ minute track “She Showed Me Love”. The vinyl version of the album comes with a bonus 7” single, featuring an album outtake “Truth Kills”. The 7” also includes a live, solo version of “Rainbow of Colors” from Portland, OR, on May 17, 2019 - the first time Neil ever performed this song live.

This incarnation of Crazy Horse is Neil Young on vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica and vibes, Billy Talbot on bass, Ralph Molina on drums and features the return of Nils Lofgren on guitar and piano, almost 50 years since he last appeared on a Crazy Horse album (1971). The album is produced by Neil Young and John Hanlon and was recorded in Colorado in April & May 2019. Neil says: ‘Colorado’, is dedicated to Elliot Roberts [Neil’s longtime manager who passed away in 2019]. Elliot loved this record. He said “It’s the songs.” Since the first Crazy Horse album, ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’, so many things have happened! Life is a gift to share with everyone. We are very excited. As we release this record, you will be with us in spirit. ‘Colorado’ is a very special one. Nils Lofgren is back in Crazy Horse again and the feeling is there”.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Thea Hjelmeland is an artist, composer, writer and multiinstrumentalist from Norway now based in France. She is now releasing her third album ‘Kulla’ worldwide. After huge success and a break from the public eye The Hjelmeland is back with her third album; KULLA. This time she brings us to the dance floor, where she takes a stand against the taboos around our bodies, the passive spectators in the society and the twisted beauty ideals. The result is a solid and strong pop album, from a multi-artist with control. The album is filled with playful and danceable pop, that magical sound Thea is known for.

Thea was raised in a little village, inside one of Norways deep fjords by an artist mother and a musician father where music was present before she could even walk. As far as she knows she has always been singing, and as the years passed by she picked up instrument after instrument. Growing up with rhythm & blues, soul music and world music, Thea started to create her own thing. She plays acoustic pop, but the influences of music and travels can be heard in her style and lyrics. Her voice can make even the toughest man cry, reaching from the highest to the deepest notes, powerful or soft. Her playfulness in music and her presence on stage gives audience a rare adventure.

In Norway she is known as an exceptional live artist with a unique, playful expression and soundscape: on her albums as well as on stage. ‘Kulla’ is an upbeat experimental pop album with a taste of soul, jazz, trip hop and electronics. The lyrics touch upon feminism, with a sarcastic and sometimes morbid sense of humour, but always contain depth and an underlying severity. Thea Hjelmeland is honest and energetic, as are her albums and concerts.

Thea is a 2 times winner of the Norwegian Grammy for best Indie album and 4 times nominee. She has toured extensively in Norway, Europe and Cuba since her teenage years; released three albums and also composes music for theatre, dance companies and movies.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Features Paul McCartney on the John Lennon composition “Grow Old With Me”. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Believe it or not, ‘What’s My Name’ is Ringo’s 20th album! It’s the latest in a series of heartfelt and homespun records that Starr has produced in his home studio and a distinguished, ever-changing yet often repeating cast of musical characters and friends playing along with Ringo. Those friends include Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Edgar Winter, Dave Stewart, Benmont Tench, Steve Lukather, Nathan East, Colin Hay, Richard Page, Warren Ham, Windy Wagner, Kari Kimmel and more.

For Ringo, the inspiration to record John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me” came when he ran into noted record producer Jack Douglas who had produced John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Double Fantasy’ album, among other classic recordings. “Jack asked if I ever heard The Bermuda Tapes, John’s demos from that time,” Ringo recalls. “And I had never heard all this. The idea that John was talking about me in that time before he died, well, I’m an emotional person. And I just loved this song. I sang it the best that I could. I do well up when I think of John this deeply. And I’ve done my best. We’ve done our best. The other good thing is that I really wanted Paul to play on it, and he said yes. Paul came over and he played bass and sings a little bit on this with me. So John’s on it in a way. I’m on it and Paul’s on it. It’s not a publicity stunt. This is just what I wanted. And the strings that Jack arranged for this track, if you really listen, they do one line from “Here Comes The Sun.” So in a way, it’s the four of us.”

Label Review. 

1969 album. 7 square x 3 deep, 2-part rigid card box containing: 4 x CDs, 4 x 7 singles, book, printed memorabilia, enamel badge. 4 x CDs: 2019 newly remastered stereo and mono versions of original Arthur album from HD sources / Mono and stereo single versions, B-sides, alternate mono/stereo mixes, demos, BBC mixes and Dave Davies' solo / 2 new recordings of Ray Davies with The Doo Wop Choir, including one previously unreleased track / 3 previously unreleased tracks written for Arthur, and recorded by the 'Come Dancing' Workshop Ensemble (1998) / New Ray Davies remixes of album tracks Australia and Shangri-La / 81 tracks total, comprising 5 previously unreleased tracks and 28 previously unreleased versions / 4 x Arthur related 7 singles (with reproduced original international artwork) / Drivin / Victoria / Shangri-La / Hold My Hand (Dave Davies solo). Also available on 2CD, and 2LP. 

Our Overview. 

To mark its 50th anniversary, The Kinks reissue their 1969 album ‘Arthur Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire’ which includes previously unreleased track “The Future”. Without doubt, the Kinks 7th studio album is one of their best, a near perfect example of Ray Davies’ incredible storytelling ability in what was an innovation in 1969: a concept album. It’s also poignant that a record based on the story of emigrating from the UK around its potential to enter the Common Market should hit its 50th anniversary right now. With Brexit on the horizon, the themes of ‘Arthur’ ring alarmingly familiar.

‘Arthur’ received unanimous acclaim on its release. Each of its 12 original album tracks is an absolute gem and all perfect examples of Ray Davies’ intrinsic ability to weave a story around a song. In what was a golden period for the Kinks, ‘Arthur’ followed another classic, ‘The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society’ when it was released on October 10th 1969. Rolling Stone wrote “Arthur is a masterpiece on every level, Ray Davies’ finest hour. The Kinks’ supreme achievement and the best British album of 1969”. Melody Maker was equally enthusiastic saying “Ray Davies’ finest hour... beautifully British to the core.”

“I started Arthur before the end of Village Green.” says Ray. “The albums piggyback one another because they are joined. I’d already written the song ‘Arthur’. I think I wrote “Australia” when I was still living at 87 Fortis Green so it was quite early on. I remember taking it over to Dave, he lived in Cockfosters at the time, and playing it to him. We were laughing at the irony in the line, ‘nobody’s got a chip on their shoulder’.”

In the midst of the ‘Arthur’ sessions, studio time was devoted to completing tracks for Dave Davies’ proposed solo album. The idea had progressed in staggered intervals since the initial success of Dave’s 1967 single, “Death Of A Clown” but, ultimately, never reached completion. “One of the reasons the album wasn’t finished was because I felt The Kinks’ management and record company were forcing me too much,” Dave reflects. “I felt very comfortable being in The Kinks and it seemed fulfilling to be part of a band. I didn’t really want for more. I couldn’t see the point.” Ray says; “Hearing Dave’s songs again after all this time, I found them quite moving because they were like the back story of what The Kinks were going through at the time.

Their label eventually scrapped the release by September 1969 and over the years, Kinks fans continued to obsess as to what Dave’s album - which some referred to as ‘A Hole In The Sock Of’, a working title Ray had jokingly thrown to a music journalist - might have contained. It now appears here on one of the bonus discs as ‘The Great Lost Dave Davies Album’.

Label Review.

Forty Five, Freaky Dancin', Tart Tart, 24 Hour Party People. All on coloured vinyl.

Our Overview.

Happy Mondays were the influential alternative rave rockers, who famously mixed dance music with hip-hop elements and who practically defined the ‘Madchester’ movement of the late 1980’s and this little box set beauty is a treat for fan old and new. This collection of EPs features very early, rare Happy Mondays tracks originally released on limited edition vinyl in the late 1980s by Factory Records. Included is the original version of ‘24 Hour Party People’ and ‘The Egg’ - with atmospheric eerie slide guitar and driving bass this is a stand out gem from the band’s back catalogue and transports you back in time to late 1980s Manchester.

All tracks remastered from original master tapes.

The EP will be launched with a new video for feature track ‘The Egg’ by UK animator Pete Fowler.

The band are touring the UK throughout the Autumn for the first time as the original line up in many years.

‘Forty Five’ pressed on translucent green vinyl in sleeve with 3mm spine. ‘Freaky Dancin’ / The Egg’ appears on translucent orange vinyl in sleeve with 3mm spine. ’Tart Tart’ is on translucent blue vinyl in 3mm spine sleeve. ‘24 Hour Party People’ on translucent yellow vinyl in sleeve with 3mm spine. All 4 EPs are gathered in a 300gsm carton slipcase.

Label Review. 

2019 album with bonus ‘Acoustic Daze’ disc. Both albums also available on vinyl separately: 'All Aboard The Skylark' and 'Acoustic Daze'.  

Our Overview. 

‘All Aboard The Skylark’ is Hawkwind’s 32nd studio album and a storming return to their space rock roots. Musically the solid quartet of Dave Brock (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Richard Chadwick (drums), Niall Hone (bass, keyboards) and Magnus Martin (guitar, vocals) have created a tight, psychedelic groove that runs through the spine of the album, but embraces each musician’s individual talents along the way.

Opener “Flesh Fondue” is a classic Hawkwind space rock number; alien creatures feeding on the inhabitants of planets, carried by Brock’s characteristic guitar and vocals and underpinned by Chadwick’s superb rhythm and hypnotic drum fills. “Nets Of Space” is a bass driven trip, complimented by swirling guitar loops and rhythmic drumming while the conceptual “Last Man On Earth” and “We Are Not Dead... Only Sleeping” leads us headlong into the free-spirited psychedelic groove of “All Aboard The Skylark”.

The contemplative ‘65 Million Years Ago’, with haunting Brock vocals is followed by the melodic lament, ‘In The Beginning’, which leads to the expansive and multi-layered ‘The Road To...’, and closes with ‘The Fantasy Of Faldom’, which is based on a Hermann Hesse fairytale. This is an exciting and unmissable addition to the Hawkwind canon.

Following a live tour, when Hawkwind opened their own shows with an acoustic set, the band went into the studio and recorded ‘Acoustic Daze’, acoustic versions of some classic Hawkwind tracks. Including “PSI Power”, “Down Through The Night” and “We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago”, this shows another fascinating side to the band.

Label Review. 

1975 album remastered with 7 bonus tracks (single sides).

Our Overview. 

After earning success as a performer and songwriter with The Move, The Electric Light Orchestra and Wizzard the supremely talented Roy Wood released his second solo album in December 1975. As one might have expected, given the eclectic nature of his previous work, ‘Mustard’ was diverse in style, but was also a masterpiece. Critics in some quarters hailed the record as Wood’s equivalent to the Beach Boys classic album ‘Pet Sounds’ and the eccentric nature of the album certainly drew on this influence, along with pieces that took inspiration from the producer Phil Spector to Led Zeppelin.

Remarkably, Roy Wood not only wrote and produced the album, but also played every instrument featured on the recordings. He was joined by guest vocalists Annie Haslam (of Renaissance) and Phil Everly on the songs “The Rain Came Down on Everything” and “Get On Down Home” respectively. Inexplicably, the album failed to chart in his UK homeland despite his Top 20 hit “Oh What A Shame” (which is one of the bonus tracks) coming out earlier the same year. This new re-issue will address the status of this forgotten classic!

Label Review. 

1972 album. Light In The Attic. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

American singer songwriter may not be a name you have heard of before, he was always just on the edge of success. Sullivan released his debut album, ‘U.F.O.’ in 1969 and played to devoted crowds at a regular gig in Malibu, California, in the early '70s. Despite hanging out with movie stars, fame eluded him. In 1975, he left Los Angeles, and his wife and son, to head to Nashville; he thought he could catch a break there. But Sullivan never made it to Tennessee - somewhere in the New Mexico desert, he disappeared, never to be seen again. His VW bug was found abandoned, his motel room untouched. Some think he got lost. Some think the mafia bumped him. Some even think he was abducted by aliens.

‘U.F.O’ was originally released in tiny numbers on a private label, it too was truly lost until 2010 Light In The Attic Records began a years-long quest to solve the mystery of Sullivan’s disappearance and to re-release the album and introduce the world to an overlooked masterwork - which won Jim posthumously (presumably) legions of new fans. Only one of those things happened, and you can guess which…

Forward to 2019 and Light In The Attic Records are releasing a lavish reissue of Jim’s 1972 sophomore album ‘Jim Sullivan’ plus for the first time a release of previously unheard 1969 studio session ‘If The Evening Were Dawn’.

The self-titled LP was originally released on Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner’s short-lived Playboy imprint. Horns sweeten this funky and bombastic session driven by Jim’s unmistakably larger-than-life voice and exceptional song-writing chops, alongside a cast of legendary session musicians including Jim Hughart.This is another LP you’ll rarely see in the wild, it is by no means the poor relation of ‘U.F.O.’, but rather a big stride into country, folk rock, and swampy blues, mesmerically finger-picked, brass-bedecked, and with that uniqueness of phrasing–part crooner, part jazz singer–that makes Sullivan such a rare performer.Each song could have been a bonafide radio hit, but with spotty promotion and negative connotations surrounding the Playboy name, the self-titled album suffered a fate known all too well and fizzled out. While Sullivan’s disappearance remains unsolved, his music endures and is finally gaining him the recognition he deserves, albeit long overdue.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

“It’s always the mindset of an artist to try and work on getting better with each album, an onwards and upwards kind of thing,” says Star Kendrick from the Australian dream pop duo Geowulf. In every possible way, that is the essence of Geowulf on ‘My Resignation’. The sophomore record from the London-via- Australia duo of Kendrick and Toma Banjanin is an effort of growth not just musically but personally. Their development from 2018’s ‘Great Big Blue’ to this point is as much a testament to their progression as artists as it is their blossoming as individuals.

With her confidence leading the way, Kendrick’s vocals have been pushed to the forefront as the music around them has tightened to better represent Geowulf’s live arrangements. Banjanin had opened a studio in London, giving the pair a stable space to perfect their sound. Unlike the last record’s piecemeal sessions, they were able to record all of ‘My Resignation’ during one three-week span trip to Melbourne.

Coupled with the fact that the bandmates are now also housemates (with his girlfriend/her sister), Geowulf have never been a stronger unit.Which is why this latest effort is truly the band at their best. They’ve resigned from their old ways of doing things, old ways of perception, and are better for it both subjectively and sonically. Their tale of self-improvement and acceptance is present in every note and lyric of ‘My Resignation’, rendered beautifully in pop perfection.

Label Review. 

Includes 3 brand new songs. Also available on CD and 2CD.

Our Overview. 

Formed in 2002, the Birmingham based English rock band the Editors have had the press raving across their six official albums and the band have achieved major success internationally, selling 2.6M albums worldwide, racking up Mercury nominations, multiple platinum and gold records, No 1s in the UK, Belgium and Netherlands and Top 10s right across the rest of Europe.

And now fans old and new are treated to Editors ‘Black Gold - Best Of Editors’, their first greatest hits compilation! The band began recording new tunes in February 2019, working with producer Jacknife (the same man who produced their sophomore album, ‘An End Has A Start’). Then, in late May 2019, the band debuted a new song called "Frankenstein" live. The studio version of the song was released as a single on June 14, 2019. The same weekend they premiered it live, frontman Tom Smith revealed in an interview that Editors were preparing a greatest hits album. He said that there would be a few new songs on it, and we safely presumed "Frankenstein" was one of them. Additional known song titles included "Black Gold" and "Upside Down."

On September 5, 2019, Editors made the big announcement: They will release ‘Black Gold: Best Of Editors’ which features 13 singles from the band's six albums: ‘The Back Room’ (2005), ‘An End Has A Start’ (2007), ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ (2009), ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ (2013), ‘In Dream’ (2015), and ‘Violence’ (2018). Additionally, the compilation features three new songs: "Frankenstein," "Upside Down," and "Black Gold." Deluxe editions of the album come with a bonus disc featuring 8 acoustic tracks. Finally, orders of the physical album (CD or vinyl) from Editors' official site come with a bonus CD: The Snowfield Demos, first released in 2003.

The album cover was shot by award winning photograper Nadav Kander and designed by Tom Hingston (Massive Attack, Young Fathers, Nick Cave).

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

English singer-songwriter, trip hop producer and DJ Fink is releasing his new album entitled ‘Bloom Innocent’ which is the gravity-defying, sky-scraping, stars-reaching sound of a man on a mission: to excite himself, to escape expectations, to thrust clear of all his previous achievements. It’s a spacious, capacious, eighttrack wonder glowing with delicate piano, ear-tingling guitar and Fink’s soulful, woody vocal.

His seventh studio album was largely recorded in Fink’s home studio in Berlin, aided and abetted by his regular touring musicians, with an ally available to him back in London: Flood - one of the world’s all-time greatest record producers (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey, U2, Foals, Warpaint, The Killers).

CD housed in a hardback bookpack sleeve. Comes protected by recyclable bio-based shrinkwrap. Half-speed mastered 140-gram white vinyl housed in a printed inner sleeve and a bespoke uncoated five-panel fold-out duplexed sleeve. Includes plantable wildflowerseeded digitsl download card. Comes protected by degradable bio-based shrinkwrap. Album artwork by RT Vrieze (Knorth Studios), who has previously worked with Bon Iver.

Label Review. 

1974 album remastered with 2 bonus tracks: Jarrow Song and In Times Like These (single versions).

Our Overview. 

First coming to prominence as a founding member and keyboard player of The Animals, Alan Price embarked on a solo career following his departure from the group in 1965. By the early 1970s he had adapted his musical approach to one of insightful and intelligent social commentary. His musical score for Lindsay Anderson’s classic 1973 film ‘O Lucky Man!’ and the resulting soundtrack album gained him much critical praise (as did his appearance in the picture).

Whilst “O Lucky Man!” was acerbic in its commentary, it was with Price’s 1974 album ‘Between Today & Yesterday’ that he took this one stage further (earning a UK album chart position in the process). A loosely conceptual work, the album was divided between songs reflecting “Yesterday” on one side and “Today” on the other, drawing on musical influences as wide as rock, blues and music hall. On works such as ‘Left Over People’ and ‘In Times Like These’ Price reflected on social commentary equal to anything written by his contemporary Ray Davies, but it was the track ‘Jarrow Song’ (a UK hit single) that saw Price capture this perfectly. The album’s second side was equally inciteful, particularly the superb ‘You’re Telling Me’ and the album’s title track. ‘Between Today & Yesterday’ is now regarded as the finest of Alan Price’s solo works.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Ambient pop. Also available on MC and CD.

Our Overview. 

Ambient pop collective Cigarettes After Sex return with their anticipated sophomore album ‘Cry’ via Partisan Records. The Brooklyn based group led by Greg Gonzalez recorded their new album during night time sessions in a mansion on the Spanish island of Mallorca, the album is a lush, cinematic meditation on the many complex facets of love - meeting, wanting, needing, losing... sometimes all at once.

“I’ve always avoided studios,” says Cigarettes After Sex frontman Greg Gonzalez. “There’s something special about recording out in the world, some kind of X-factor that comes from the character and atmosphere of wherever it is that you’re working that becomes essential to the feeling of the music.”

That marriage of sound and setting is the heart and soul of Cry, Cigarettes After Sex’s riveting sophomore album. Recorded in a stunning house on the Spanish island of Mallorca, the collection reflects the uneasy beauty, erotic longing, and stark minimalism of the space, all smooth lines and soft light. Energized by the fresh palette and setting, Gonzalez would write songs just minutes before recording them with the band—drummer Jacob Tomsky, bassist Randy Miller, and keyboardist Phillip Tubbs. He engineered and produced the sessions himself, with an emphasis on capturing live performances and exploring the material together in dialogue with the house and with each other.

Clocking in at nine songs, Cry is a compact collection, but its brevity belies its depth. While the band’s sound may be most associated with the romantic pop music of the late 50’s and early 60’s, Gonzalez pushes into more unexpected sonic territory on Cry, reaching back to his childhood in El Paso, Texas, to draw subtle melodic influence from 90’s Tejano stars like Selena and mainstream pop country artists like Shania Twain. Gonzalez pushes himself lyrically on the album, too, tackling sex with the graphic frankness of Henry Miller or Leonard Cohen as he renders unabashed, sometimes explicitly erotic scenes with a casual candor. Writing with a filmmaker’s eye, he captures tiny moments with a rich, cinematic detail that manages to locate the profound within the mundane.

The album was self-produced and engineered by Greg Gonzalez and mixed by Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

‘Cry’ comes two years after their self-titled debut, which has sold over 30k in the UK and over 600k worldwide. The single ‘Heavenly’ has been streamed over 4 million times across DSPs and the band have 750 million global streams across platforms.

Label Review.

2019 album (High Llamas) also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’ is Sean O’Hagan’s second solo album in 30 years. His first came out in 1990, titled ‘High Llamas’. Nearly 30 years down that once-was road, 10-12 albums of the extreme pleasures that High Llamas song craft and sonic obsessions have provided (counting a comp and a remix record), here’s Sean again, with his second solo opus. Sean - the Irish multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and arranger - continues to modify, adjust, turn and amend aspects of his unswaying beliefs to produce sound fresh and new.

In the past decade there have been two High Llamas albums. During that time, Sean’s day job has largely been in the studio, arranging and producing with other outfits - most recently, Mount Kimbie, Fryars, James Righton from Klaxons and Hockney. The ways of the new generation are reflected in the mix of ‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’, with bold latest obsessions side by side with the grand old traditions. As the parts old and new rotate inevitably back and forth in cyclical perfection, we are reminded of the beauty and craftmanship of the old cuckoo clocks; an ingenuity of cogs and gears to express perfect time as entertainingly as possible. Threaded in with exquisite melodies are hardpunching drum sounds, low rumbling synths, an extra-sharp dubby sound-design for percussion. In moments of this concision of old and new, Sean’s goal is honestly to conjure a new musical language.

Sean’s approach to lyrics reaches for the deft, tongue-in-cheek understatement of a LeCarre or a Philip K. Dick - and as fantasia melts into social portraiture into out-there sci-fi, we discover some of Sean’s most toothsome topics - ‘The Paykan (Laili’s Song)’ tells the story of one of the Shah’s servants masking a dash for freedom at the dawn of theIslamic revolution in 1979 Iran. ‘Spoken Gem’ and ‘Candy Clock’ use the lyric interventions of Sean’s former Microdisney vocal-partner Cathal Coughlan to free-associate the listener into fantastic, elastic, unknowable worlds.

Sean working with Cathal, or with his backup singers May Robson, Livvy O’Hagan and Kelsey Michael, brings their participatory energy - that of joy - to the mix and to our ears. And all this energy - derived from history, ambition, humour - is presented simply but effectively, sinking deep into our ears. ‘Radum Calls, Radum Calls’ reaches across time,curating details from wherever its fascination lands, then working them into the harmonic flexibilities of Sean O’Hagan. The album is a light delight and marks this place in time as a very pleasant stop on the way forward.

Label Review.

17 obscure Soca B-side versions, dubs, instrumentals and edits as well as vocal tracks influenced by disco, boogie, house-music, soul and the more conscious lyrics of roots reggae. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

17 obscure Soca B-side versions, dubs, instrumentals and edits as well as vocal tracks influenced by disco, boogie, house-music, soul and the more conscious lyrics of roots reggae. Owing as much to New York, Toronto and London as to the Caribbean cities of Port of Spain, Bridgetown and Kingstown this compilation traces the genre from its explosion in the late 1970s right up to the period just before contemporary soca became established around the end of the 1990s.

Compiled by Soundway Records label founder Miles Cleret and DJ/collector Jeremy Spellacey, Body Beat, as with many compilations on the label, explores the fringes of this often maligned (by outsiders) genre. Boiled down to the bare bones of the matter though: soca is party music.

Soca was originally a re-invention of Calypso music; a genre that in the 1970s was fast becoming usurped around the Caribbean by Jamaican reggae and American soul, funk and later disco. The originator of soca (or sokah as he called it), the calypsonian Lord Shorty, began experimenting and modernising on the formulation of calypso in the early 1970s. His first album featured a strong emphasis on East African rhythms and a punchier recording style that emphasised the beat, and introduced arrangements that often owed as much to American funk and soul as to calypso.

Filled with up-tempo tracks from start to finish, the compilation’s lead single “I Want Your Love” by Peter Britto is a soca-house number which originally came out on NYC-based label Hometown Music in 1998. It features the recognisable soca synth beat, along with Caribbean steel drums and horns - but with the obvious influence of New York’s booming house scene, making it an ultimate crossover track for club dancefloors and carnivals alike.

So here you go - seventeen slabs of soca crossover, rapso, electronic calypso, and Caribbean ‘soca-soul’ for your enjoyment - and bound to fit well into modern, open-minded DJ sets alongside the resurgence of burger-highlife, digi-reggae, soukous and zouk.

Tracks: Cito Jarvis - Fighting Soldier / Roger Bain - Stand Up & Rock Your Body (Instrumental) / *D* Ivan - Fire (Extended Dub Edit) / Bill Campbell - Body Beat / Brother Resistance - Move It (Version) / Adonijah - It’s Alright / Peter Britto - I Want Your Love / Juno D - Hotter And Hotter (Dub Edit) / Colin Jackman - D’Jab Jab Dance (Bad Lad Mix) / Disc 2: Levi John - S-O-C-A / Spiking - Liberation Train / Mohjah - Zion Gates (Dub) / Andre Tanker - Wild Indian Band / Touch - Touch Music (Edit) / D’ Reb

Label Review.

2019 album. Drum & Bass.

Our Overview.

Following six studio albums of funk-driven loungecore, Hospital Records’ head honcho Tony Colman aka London Elektricity embarks on the boldest musical adventure of his 30-year career with his seventh long-player ‘Building Better Worlds’. His latest body of work delves into uncharted depths for a very personal and expressive collection of tracks where drum & bass and live instrumentation meet. London Elektricity can be found showcasing this latest chapter with tours in China, Japan, the UK and Europe throughout 2019.

It began in a Forest Hill cafe in 2017 where London Elektricity adoringly browsed through a series of Benjamin Beech’s photography of perfectly untouched, derelict buildings and towns in Japan, Taiwan and China. “Many of the images show what has been, what could have been and what will be. The duality of beauty and melancholia within appealed to me immensely.”

Each track was married to a photo, to join the sights to sounds from each of his tales of ‘Building Better Worlds.’ Leading the voyage is the orchestral masterpiece ‘Final View From The Rooftops’, that’s been 13 years in the making and is the “most unusual piece of D+B” [he’s] ever made”, featuring the incredible operatic talent of Cydnei B. ‘Build A Better World’ is a smooth drum & bass sonnet with the vocals of Hospital family favourite Emer Dineen.

“The beauty of this song lies in its simplicity, but also its duality. I’ll leave you to work out what the lyrics are really about... They are some of the darkest lyrics I’ve come across in years.” Another special moment is the feature of London Elektricity’s youngest son, The Secretary-General. The talented nine-year-old takes no ‘Time To Think’ as he flawlessly flows through Inja’s lyrics with the ever-vibrant MC following suit, bringing the track full-circle across generations. London Elektricity is the mastermind behind classic Hospital albums such as ‘Pull The Plug’, ‘Syncopated City’, ‘Are We There Yet?’, and ‘Yikes’.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

In May of 2019, guitarist and singer-songwriter Jackson Stokes put the finishing touches on a striking inaugural effort, his self titled ‘Jackson Stokes’. For Jackson great musicians make great neighbours. Even as a youth weaned on classic rock- his first concert was Lynyrd Skynyrd- Stokes was unaware that living across the street from his St. Louis home was guitarist and singer-songwriter Devon Allman. Allman’s family tree is impressive as the son of Gregg Allman and nephew of Duane Allman of Allman Brothers Band fame. Yet, Stokes knew little of the legendary group. Encouraged by his father, and holding his guitar, the 11-year-old Stokes knocked on Allman’s door.

Allman, two decades his elder, heard something special in the young Stokes and encouraged him to continue learning and growing as a musician. Stokes dutifully attended Allman’s Honeytribe rehearsals, sitting quietly in the corner while the group worked up its repertoire. At 14, Stokes had developed into a prodigious firebrand with a passion for the blues, teaming with another area wunderkind, Marquise Knox, and performing his first professional gigs. Then in 2016 Stokes and Allman began discussing recording his solo debut.

‘Jackson Stokes’ is produced by Devon Allman, it is a lean and focused set of rock-and soul, including an ambitious Talking Heads cover, and a depth of original material ranging in style and subjects. From the Memphis stroll of the opening “Can’t Getcha Out” through the reflective acoustic closer, “Take Me Home”, this debut encompasses Stokes’ wide swath of influences and tastes.

Naturally, the nine-song record offers plenty of the fiery guitar that has been the calling card of Stokes’ career for this first decade showcasing the stellar reputation he’s earned sharing the stage with such icons as Robert Cray, The Wailers, Robert Randolph, Warren Haynes, Lukas Nelson and Marcus King. Yes, it’s a conspicuous emphasis on Stokes’ escalating songcraft that also shines as brightly on this debut.

“I really do enjoy playing guitar, but I also love songwriting. I love the whole process”, says Stokes. I think this album is very representative of a natural maturation, of how I’ve been viewing things on my journey. ”

Label Review. 

2019 compilation. Featuring choice tracks from the major albums, singles and B-sides. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Corduroy legend holds that having recorded the three ‘classic’ albums for Acid Jazz Records, our illustrious heroes parted with said company and released a further two albums on a ‘major’ record label, investigating themes, techniques and technologies previously unexplored; this period of the band’s brave journey became known as the ‘psy-fi -years’. Exhausted, Corduroy disbanded shortly after. Prophecy foretold that, two decades later, the group would reform and reunite with Acid Jazz; and furthermore that the fabled ‘psy-fi’ recordings would be compiled by the sister label, Well Suspect Records, into a twelve track, sky-blue-vinyl collection, featuring choice tracks from the major albums, singles and B-sides. This limited edition selection is entitled Winky Wagon.

Experimenting with exotic eastern flavours, easy-soul, yacht-pop, Brit-beats and amped-up funk, the compilation captures Corduroy expanding their signature thematic instrumental palette with melodic, irresistible and beautifully crafted songs.

Label Review. 

2019 album. DFA. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Larry Gus (real name Panagiotis Melidis) returns to DFA with ‘Subservient’, his fourth release for the label. ‘Subservient’ sees more pop-oriented than his previous albums, a lush combination of “crisis funk pop and trad Mediterranean grooves.” Lyrics sung in Greek and English address Larry’s overwhelming struggles with being a father, husband, artist, and human in 2019. In the artist’s own words, this album is about “trying to understand empathy and act with it on everyday life,” as well as “the imperative of empathy above everything else.”

‘Subservient’ is sample-free, a first for Larry, who plays every instrument himself: a drum kit, an SM57 microphone, a guitar, a bass, a TE OP-1 synthesizer and a Roland JV-1010 synth module. This is fourth-world power pop, as if Alex Chilton was produced by Eno and Hassell. The thoughtful, upbeat arrangements and gentle vocals are spacious and warm, and tend to offset whatever darker tone the lyrics might imply. Larry confronts more acute tensions, such as being a father in Greece during the crisis, and the parallels of a child’s sicknesses and adult ailments, as well as larger, moreexistential pressures - the grasp of nostalgia, the weight and meaning of making decisions, and the desire to move from hermeticism towards sociability.

The record graciously explores the nuance that can be found within delineated lines: pop and folk music, rooted in Greek tradition; internal anxieties and empathy expressed outward; the tightrope struggle of living in the present and wallowing in the past.

Larry will also be releasing a 7” single alongside the album, which features ‘Kerkis (Judas-Tree)’ and ‘Foreign Steps’ from the same recording sessions as Subservient. The single precedes an upcoming audio play, written by Efthimis and scored by Larry, to be produced with the Onassis Stegi (AKA Cultural Center). The audio play will be released on DFA in 2020

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Label Review.

2019 album. Folk.

Our Overview.

Singer and songwriter Maz O’Connor has been described by The Guardian as ‘one of folk’s brightest young talents’. Now based in London, her Irish roots strongly influence her lyrical story-songs, and her pure, clear singing style. Known for her captivating stage presence and her stunning voice, Maz is releasing her new album ‘Chosen Daughter’ to be released in 2019; a collection of darker story songs by an artist just hitting her stride.

After releasing three albums, being nominated for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Horizon Award twice, and performing at major festivals including The Cambridge Folk Festival, WOMAD and Glastonbury; Maz has spent three years writing and recording her latest album, ‘Chosen Daughter’, which explores the stories of her foremothers, and will be released in the Autumn of 2019.

Though Maz grew up in the wild Lake District of the Romantic Poets, her grandparents hailed from Ireland, and these roots shine through her music. She spent her teenage years singing in folk clubs, studied literature at Cambridge and has since settled in East London: these diverse influences work together to make Maz’s songwriting something unique.

After the release of her acclaimed album ‘The Longing Kind’ in 2016, Maz has been writing and collaborating extensively, as well as touring the U.K. and Europe, opening for such acts as David Gray, Thomas Dybdahl and Rosanne Cash. She’s been commissioned to write songs for UK Parliament and The Royal Shakespeare Company, and is now working on her own piece of music theatre.

After an intense period of writing throughout 2017 and early 2018, Maz released an EP of cover songs in July entitled 'The Undercover EP', which is a collection of some of her favourite songs by other artists, from Bob Dylan to Louis Armstrong, via Greenday. She toured in support of the EP in June 2018 including appearances at Henley Festival and How the Light Gets In, and a packed show at London's The Islington.

“Maz O’Connor’s ace, apart from her remarkable songwriting talent, is her captivating voice” - Q Magazine (4*

)“There is an inquiring intelligence as well as an emotional sensibility at work here. . . she plays and sings beautifully” - Songlines (5*)

“The perfect mix of youthfulness and gravitas - ****” (The Guardian)

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD, and Deluxe CD. 

Our Overview. 

Michael Kiwanuka’s third album ‘Kiwanuka’ is the follow-up to Michael’s number 1 album, ‘Love & Hate’, released in 2016 that resonated broadly both critically and in the public’s affections, netting the British musician his second Mercury Prize nomination and his second and third BRIT nominations too.

Recorded in New York, LA and London, Michael returned to the studio with Danger Mouse and Inflo, the same production team that combined so magnificently on ‘Love & Hate’, ‘Kiwanuka’ finds a new assuredness in Michael’s writing, and takes the basic sonic blueprint of that last record to a dizzying new realm. It sets off on a journey that evokes the psychedelic haze of its predecessor, but ramps up a very broad sense of scale. With his exquisite band of players, Michael channels an assortment of the late greats (a nod to Gil Scott-Heron here, Bobby Womack flecked there, and the ever present Otis Redding vocally) for a richly rewarding record that sits typically at odds with the notion and expectations of a successful British singer-songwriter in 2019, and moves even further away from the folk-imbued vintage soul of his debut album, ‘Home Again’, back in 2012.

Michael explains: “The last album came from an introspective place and felt like therapy, I guess. This one is more about feeling comfortable in who I am and asking what I want to say. Like, how could I be bold and challenge myself and the listener? It is about self-acceptance in a more triumphant rather than melancholy way. It’s an album that explores what it means to be a human being today.”

Label Review.

1969 studio session. 10 acoustic solo recordings. Light In The Attic. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

American singer songwriter may not be a name you have heard of before, he was always just on the edge of success. Sullivan released his debut album, ‘U.F.O.’ in 1969 and played to devoted crowds at a regular gig in Malibu, California, in the early '70s. Despite hanging out with movie stars, fame eluded him. In 1975, he left Los Angeles, and his wife and son, to head to Nashville; he thought he could catch a break there. But Sullivan never made it to Tennessee - somewhere in the New Mexico desert, he disappeared, never to be seen again. His VW bug was found abandoned, his motel room untouched. Some think he got lost. Some think the mafia bumped him. Some even think he was abducted by aliens.

‘U.F.O’ was originally released in tiny numbers on a private label, it too was truly lost until 2010 Light In The Attic Records began a years-long quest to solve the mystery of Sullivan’s disappearance and to re-release the album and introduce the world to an overlooked masterwork - which won Jim posthumously (presumably) legions of new fans. Only one of those things happened, and you can guess which…

Forward to 2019 and Light In The Attic Records are releasing for the first time a release of previously unheard 1969 studio session ‘If The Evening Were Dawn’ plus a lavish reissue of Jim’s 1972 sophomore album ‘Jim Sullivan’.

If The Evening Were Dawn contains 10 acoustic solo recordings that have never seen the light of day. Whereas U.F.O. was bolstered by legendary sessioneers The Wrecking Crew, this is Jim Sullivan on his own terms, stripped down and soulful as ever. Recorded at a Los Angeles studio circa 1969, the session contains acoustic versions of a handful of ‘U.F.O.’ tracks alongside a half dozen previously unheard songs. This, then, is the closest thing to those fabled Malibu bar performances at which Sullivan was first noticed.

According to his widow, Barbara, this was the album Jim always hoped to record. It serves as an unprecedented glimpse into the mysterious, larger-than-life figure who’s become the stuff of legends. While Sullivan’s disappearance remains unsolved, his music endures and is finally gaining him the recognition he deserves, albeit long overdue. This recording serves as an unexpected missing piece of the puzzle; this is Jim Sullivan’s true swan song.

Label Review.

2019 album (Pineapple Thief). Kscope. Also available on 2CD+DVD and Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Fresh from a run of successful albums and tours with The Pineapple Thief, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and frontman Bruce Soord began recording his second solo album in April 2019; and in a rich vein of creativity he produced a fine successor to 2016 debut ‘Bruce Soord’. Bruce’s new album, ‘All This Will Be Yours’, builds on Soord’s momentum gained by TPT’s multiple headline Europe and UK tours in support of 2018 UK No.1 Rock album ‘Dissolution’ and 2016 summer hit album ‘Your Wilderness’. A prolific musician, Soord has also previously collaborated with Katatonia’s Jonas Renkse on fan favourite album ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ and produced 5.1 mixes for the likes of Katatonia, Opeth & Anathema.

Taking elements from the recent musical developments with The Pineapple Thief, as well as an ambition to experiment with his own sound, ‘All This Will Be Yours’ is an album of acoustic and personal vision from Bruce Soord. Described by Soord as an observational record, it is inspired by the joy felt by the birth of his third child juxtaposed by the local deprivation in his hometown. Whilst on walks in Yeovil, Bruce took field recordings as he witnessed the ‘incarcerated souls’ shuffling to local drug den ‘number 158’, the screaming children on their commute to school, the incessant sounds of sirens, and an old man singing as he walked past his house.

The sound of ‘All This Will Be Yours’ features modern production elements, as well as acoustic guitars delicately layered with samples. Ever present are Soord’s familiar vocals, which deliver an emotive and accessible view into his contrasting feelings when writing about austerity whilst his tranquil new-born dozed in the studio. The audio has been recorded as two continuous linear pieces to replicate the pleasure of listening to an album on vinyl and was mastered by fellow The Pineapple Thief member Steve Kitch.

The 2-CD & DVD deluxe edition of ‘All This Will Be Yours’ features the new album on the first CD, acoustic re-workings and bonus studio tracks on the second CD, 5.1 surround (24/88 DTS) and hi-res (24/88 WAV) mixes of the stereo album, acoustic album & bonus studio tracks on the DVD.

 ‘He’s created something remarkable’ - Classic Rock‘

A journey that would please fans of Floyd and Steven Wilson’ - Total Guitar

‘Soord has genuinely created something truly outstanding’ - Prog

‘Deceptively simple, emotionally rich, this album shows Soord at the peak of his powers’ - Echoes and Dust

Label Review. 

2019 album. Aussie rockers. Also available on CD, Deluxe CD, and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

For their fifth studio album, ‘Boneshaker’, all-action Aussie rockers Airbourne decided to take the bolder path; to align with arguably Nashville’s Number One producer, Dave Cobb, whose credits include both Chris Stapleton and the ‘Star Is Born’ soundtrack, as a way of staking out new turf, not just for themselves but for the hard rock genre per se.

Relocating to historic Studio A on Nashville’s Music Row, Cobb’s natural home and one of Music City’s most prized creative hubs, the four musicians set themselves a challenge: to make a record cut from the same frayed cloth as those classic late-’70s recordings – from an age before technology was driving the show, when it was all about energy, spirit and on-the-spot performance; when tape machines still added that extra warmth an’ weight, and when the quest wasn’t for perfection, it was for tracks that connected on an emotional, primal, gut level – in-your-face recordings laying bare the raw, ragged glory of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, and if the levels sometimes peaked into the danger zone, well, all the better. Turn it up! Leave a mark!

When asked what he thought the album should be titled, Dave Cobb’s response was instant: “This is a f*kin’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Record!” There are no weird tangents here, no un-called for asides, no messin’ about. This is straight-down-the-line pure rock ‘n’ roll drama smelling of burnt rubber, spilt gasoline and valves glowing red hot. No ballads, no acoustic guitars, no keyboards. 10 tracks, 30 minutes of music. Everything lean an’ lethal, stripped to the bone, to those essential elements that rock ‘n’ roll requires to properly do its work: raging guitars, pounding bass ‘n’ bass, vocals packed full of real personality – the kind of passion that only comes from wilfully pursuing a life on the line.

At a time when the hard rock world is seeking a shot in its tattooed arm, Airbourne deliver a taut body of work cut with greater swagger, groove and conviction than ever before.

Label Review.

2019 album (Bombay Bicycle Club) also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Pity Party’ is the new album from English singer-songwriter Liz Lawrence the long-standing Bombay Bicycle Club collaborator/touring member and former member of Cash + David. The album came off the back of launching the first single from the album – the pop banger “Navigator” which made NMF in 10 countries and has since had radio support from Lauren Laverne, Huw Stephens and Jack Saunders.

Moments of self-awareness were the germs of the ideas of what would become ‘Pity Party’, Lawrence’s first album in seven years. Through a combination of personal experience and exploring what is happening around her, Lawrence has written, recorded and produced an unvarnished yet defiant snapshot of her world right now.

“I think almost every generation is scared that their generation is going to be the last one,” she says, adding, with a knowing pity party flourish, “but it’s quite hard to deny that it feels as if we’re hurting towards disaster.”

For ‘Pity Party’ Liz dug deep and discovered her own sound, taught herself how to produce and soon realised that she had become good enough to make her own music in the way she wanted to make it, on her own terms. She released the first fruits of this experimental labour throughout 2018, as a series of double A-side single releases: “Chainsmoking”, “Circling Numbers”, and “The Good Part”. But none of these singles are on ‘Pity Party’. “The point was to clear things out, reestablish what I was up to, and what I was doing,” she says. It gave her the space she needed to rediscover her own identity, and who she was as an artist.

The fruits of her labour are brought together for this new album. She wrote six of the songs in just five days (while holed up in a dilapidated friends’ house in Cornwall) - proving that forcing herself out of her comfort zone and embracing a solitary existence - for a short time at least- reaped huge benefits for her personally and musically.

Having embraced this new musical identity with both arms, and judging by the calibre of songs littering ‘Pity Party’, 2019 looks set to be an exciting year in the career of this determined and talented British artist.

2019 tour dates supporting Bloc Party, Lacy Dacus, and Snail Mail.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Folk. 

Our Overview. 

Bird in the Belly are a Brighton-based Folk group consisting of folk-duo Hickory Signals (Laura Ward and Adam Ronchetti), alt-folk singer-songwriter Ben Webb (Jinnwoo, Green Ribbons), and multi-instrumentalist and producer Tom Pryor. Together they collect little known and forgotten lyrics, poems and stories from around the UK, and set them to their own “hypnotically original compositions” (fRoots). Their sound is raw and bare-boned with “distinctively contemporary and earthy vocalising” (R2 Magazine) – and harks back to the 1960’s Folk Revival sound.

From The Margins say of the album: “Eight of the songs were mined from either the Roud Folk Song Index or the Bodleian Broadside Ballad Archive. The other two are self-penned, one each from Webb and Ward. All are remarkable - raw, vivid, magical music from the shadows of a nineteenth century back alley grog shop.”

Label Review.

A selection of albums for Palmetto Records. Jazz.

Our Overview.

Six-disc set includes five critically acclaimed Palmetto Records releases featuring Hersch, bassist John H bert and drummer Eric McPherson a band named Best Jazz Group in the 2019 DownBeat Critics Poll.

One of the most influential improvising musicians currently performing a “living legend,” per the New Yorker the pianist and composer Fred Hersch has made groundbreaking contributions in a staggering range of creative formats. DownBeat called his unprecedented cross-disciplinary theatre piece My Coma Dreams “a brave work of art that deserves to be seen and heard.” In the New York Times, the critic Nate Chinen wrote that “solo piano playing is one of the things that Mr. Hersch does best,” before explaining how he “combines the rigors of classical training with the disciplined freedom of improvisation and explores a richly varied repertory.”

Hersch has also ranked among jazz’s most renowned accompanists of singers, and his latest release, 2019’s ‘Begin Again’, is an acclaimed collaboration with the WDR Big Band under conductor-arranger Vince Mendoza.

Even Hersch’s 2017 autobiography, Good Things Happen Slowly (Crown Archetype/ Random House), has been uniquely vaunted, garnering rare mainstream praise for a jazz-related book by being named one of the year’s best memoirs in both the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American rock trio Fastball are releasing their blinding new album ‘Help Machine’ which follows on the heels of the bands acclaimed 2017 release ‘Step Into Light’. The new set, on the Austin’s TX trio’s own 33 1/3 label, once again demonstrates the distinctive songwriting, expressive vocals and inventive melodic sensibilities of Miles Zuniga and his bandmate Tony Scalzo. With drummer, Joey Shuffield completing the longstanding lineup, the trio’s time tested creative rapport is a potent as ever on such compelling tunes as Scalzo’s “White Collar,” “All Gone Fuzzy,” and “The Girl You Pretend to Be” and the Zuniga compositions “Friend or Foe,” “Holding The Devil’s Hand,” and the album’s enigmatic title track .

The trio - Miles Zuniga: Vocals, Guitar, Tony Scalzo: Vocals, Bass, Keyboards, Guitar, Joey Shuffield: Drums Percussion - new album features 11 new originals gain added sonic appeal from the production of Los Lobos member and versatile Grammy-winner Steve Berlin, whose studio resume includes work with the likes of Alejandro Escovedo, Faith No More, Rickie Lee Jones and the Tragically Hip. 

Recording at Austin's Treefort Studios with engineer Jim Vollentine, who'd worked on Fastball's 2004 release Keep Your Wig On, the band and Berlin maintained an organic creative atmosphere that allowed the group members to break out of their respective comfort zones. Scalzo didn't even play his usual instrument, bass, on the sessions, instead tackling new challenges on keyboards and guitar. The group brought in old friend Bruce Hughes (formerly of Cracker and Poi Dog Pondering) to handle the album's bass parts. Other guest players on The Help Machine include Austin legend Charlie Sexton, who adds guitar on "Girl You Pretended To Be"; Wye Oak member Andy Stack, who plays multiple instruments on a pair of tracks; and Band of Heathens members Gordy Quist and John Chipman.

"We had a great time in the studio, and the whole thing was a very creative experience," Scalzo notes. "When Fastball started out, we were almost like two different bands, and Miles and I tended to be careful to keep our hands off of each other's songs. But now, we just view them all as Fastball songs, and we generally feel free to mess with them. It works better that way." 

With nearly a quarter-century of music-making under their collective belt, the members of Fastball continue to extend and expand the band's widely loved body of work. The trio's catalog encompasses such memorable albums as their 1996 debut ‘Make Your Mama Proud’, their 1998 platinum breakthrough ‘All the Pain Money Can Buy’ (which spawned the Grammy-nominated Top Five hit "The Way"), 2000's ‘The Harsh Light of Day’, 2004's ‘Keep Your Wig On’, 2009's ‘Little White Lies’ and 2017's ‘Step Into Light’. 

"When I look at our catalog, there's not a bad record in there," Shuffield asserts, adding, "We've been through our ups and downs, but I think we've really found our groove over the last few years. We spent a lot of time on a major label, so initially the transition back to being an indie band was a little bumpy. But now it feels comfortable being responsible for everything ourselves, because that way we're more likely to get it right. We're all so into the music now, and I think you can hear that on the last couple of albums."

Label Review.

Recorded in Denmark 1959 through to the 1970s. Blues.

Our Overview.

Stunning 3-CD box set of recordings made by the legendary blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer William Thomas “Champion Jack” Dupree in Denmark, during his years spent in Europe from 1959 through to the ‘70s.

He always spoke very highly of the time he spent in Denmark, playing and recording with bands like Papa Bue’s Viking Jazz Band and Fessor’s Big City Band, and later the Kenn Lending Blues Band. He recorded for Storyville Records every time he was in Copenhagen, especially in the sixties. The music in this box set is from these great recordings.

After the war he moved to New York, where he made multiple recordings for many labels, including his legendary 1958 album for Atlantic Records, ‘Blues From The Gutter’. He went to England shortly thereafter, where he settled and got married. Through the sixties and the beginning of the seventies he lived in Halifax and briefly in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1975, after getting divorced, he moved to Hannover, Germany, where he lived until he died of cancer in 1992.

He toured constantly throughout his years in Europe, recording almost everywhere he went. he could be the bluesman with the most recordings in history. He invented songs for every recording he made - songs that in many cases he would only sing that one time. The first time he was recording for Rounder Records in New Orleans in 1990. They had booked the studio for two days, and after they were finished, there was material for at least three albums. After the first take, producer Ron Levy said, ‘Wow, that was great, Jack! Why don’t you do it again so we have an alternate take?’ ‘Oh, yeah’, Jack said, and then he did something else.

CD 1: Gravier Street Rag / New Vicksburg Blues / Old Woman Blues / Lonesome Bedroom Blues / I’m A Gamblin’ Man / Shake Baby / Whiskey Head Woman / Shirley May / In The Evening / Number Nine / 41 Highway / Blues Before Sunrise / Midnight Hour Blues / How Long Blues / My Baby’s Gone / My Mother Is Gone / Drive ‘Em Down Special / I Just Want To be Free / Drivin’ Me Mad / Back Door Special / Keep Your Big Mouth Shout / I Hate To Be Alone / T.V. Mama

CD 2: Storybook / Careless Love / Mama Don’t Allow / See See Rider / Woodpecker / You Can Make It / Sometimes I Feel Like A Millionaire / Unborn Child / When I Left Home / Cross Eyed Woman / I Lost A Good Woman / Things I Used To Do / Self Pity / Ain’t That A Hard Pillow To Swallow / Have You Ever Been Alone

CD 3: Automobile Blues / Alberta / Rocky Mountain Blues / Deep Sea Diver / Rock Me Mama / Big Fat Mama / Cryin’ Woman Blues / Schoolday Blues / Free And Equal / My Hearts Beat For You / Trouble / I Ain’t Got To Be Your Lowdown Dog / Daybreak Blues / Calcutta Blues / Please Don’t Dog Your Woman / Tee- Na-Nee-Na / Bad Dog Blues / Bus Station

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Whether or not you thought you knew Garcia Peoples’ music, ‘One Step Behind’ is something new and beautiful, for new heads and old. No matter where you stand - behind, beyond, or another plane altogether - ‘One Step Behind’ is ready. For those about to get on the Bus, we salute you. 

Welcome to the sound of Garcia Peoples at full speed. Without losing a ray of sunshine or a drop of dew, One Step Behind is the first major statement by the malleable Brooklyn sextet. The 32-minute title cut highlights the twin guitars and songwriting of Tom Malach and Danny Arakaki and, instead of pointing itself towards one possible future for the band, just zaps itself square into the thick of it. Encompassing a range of moods and scenes in one flowing arc (plus a coda), it’s less a piece of music to listen to than it is a zone to occupy, a portal for all open-eared heads. 

The band’s third album in a year-and-a-half, One Step Behind is unquestionably their boldest yet. Formed in New Jersey by Malach and Arakaki, the band took a few years to find their flying shape, solidifying into a lineup with Danny’s brother Cesar on drums and Derek Spaldo on bass by mid-2016. Ramping up their acceleration around the time of their 2018 Cosmic Cash debut, they’ve blasted through residencies and new songs and sessions and collaborations, leaving a trail of live tapes in their wake, along with the crashing power of 2019’s Natural Facts follow-up, and scaling ever upwards. It’s been a little dizzying to watch. You’re jamming with who? Even so, One Step Behind might still come as a surprise to those who’ve been keeping up with the tapes. 

Recorded and assembled at Black Dirt Studio with Jason Meagher (Jack Rose, Steve Gunn), “One Step Behind”--and One Step Behind--opens with the newest auxiliary Garcia: Tom’s father Bob Malach. A veteran sax player with a CV that includes Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Miles Davis, the Asbury Jukes, Arto Lindsay, Barbra Streisand, and Steve Miller to (seriously) name just a few, the elder Malach contributes twin overdubbed saxophone parts, channeling Terry Riley--soon joined by Tom and Danny in interlocking guitar bliss--before blowing it out at the end. In between comes Danny’s floating song, more jams, and wild organ by Pat Gubler, ascending from auxiliary collaborator to full-fledged Garcia, and providing a linkage from the Garcias’ millennial jams to the freaky lo-fi sound scenes of ‘90s Massachusetts. 

With a stash of live recordings accumulating at the Live Music Archive, Garcia Peoples’ music is very much a living entity. Since the release of their previous two albums, songs have started to expand, jam suites have grown, and experiments have been undertaken. The first part of 2019 has seen Garcia Peoples back Philadelphia guitarist Chris Forsyth (an expanded Solar Peoples Band has hit double-drummer overdrive several times now), and joined with guitarist Ryley Walker. They’ve improvised on WFMU, and jammed with the sounds of ocean waves and falling rain at strange late night happenings. Probably something else new and wonderful and weird has happened in the Garciaverse since I wrote this. 

“One Step Behind is not so much an album, as it is a world, one that doesn’t reveal itself in haste but rather unfolds over time and through multitudinous layers” - Uncut

“There’s a lovely fluidity to the playing throughout, with a crunching slow motion riff our ultimate destination” - Prog Magazine

Label Review. 

Two films featuring shows from 2018. 25th Meltdown Festival & Hyde Park, London. Plus full audio. Also available on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray+4CD. 

Our Overview. 

Steered by Robert Smith since 1976, his band The Cure not only are ‘Alt-rock’ pioneers but during their first 15 years or so scored numerous pop chart hits as well, successfully crossing the difficult boundaries between commercial rewards and critical acceptance. Smith has also had numerous collaborators and The Cure never really settled down with a consistent line-up. However apart from a three year gap, bass player Simon Gallup has been Smith’s main foil over the years. Ironically the current line-up has been unchanged for seven years - a record for The Cure - but have not released a new studio album in that time! However, one is in the works.

In 2018 The Cure performed two historic shows celebrating a 40-year career. ‘CURÆTION-25: From There To Here | From Here To There’: Captured on the tenth and final night of the 25th Meltdown Festival (curated by lead singer Robert Smith) at London’s Royal Festival Hall in June 2018. Smith, Simon Gallup, Jason Cooper, Roger O’Donnell, and Reeves Gabrels performed a song from each of their 13 studio albums in chronological order, displaying the evolution of The Cure’s music live on stage.

The second is ‘ANNIVERSARY: 1978-2018 Live In Hyde Park London’: The band’s acclaimed 29-song, 135-minute anniversary concert. Filmed in one of London’s Royal Parks to a crowd of 65,000 fans, The Cure presented a four-decade deep set on July 7, 2018, including “Just Like Heaven,” “Lovesong,” “High,” and “The End Of The World.” Adding to the experience, the band is back-dropped by giant screens displaying footage that complements the unique moods and emotive song writing that established The Cure as pioneers of alternative rock.

Label Review. 

Non-album tracks. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Singles Too’ is a complete collection of Screaming Females’ non-album recordings, gathering the band’s early 7’ singles, digital-only b-sides, rarities, and one pretty great remix. The digital version also gathers six cover songs, including the New Jersey trio’s re-works of songs by Neil Young, Taylor Swift, Sheryl Crow, and Patti Smith.

The tracklist - which is arranged chronologically - provides a roadmap of the band’s progress through 15+ years, seven albums, and countless tours. ‘On the first single we ever put out, there were mistakes that I made playing guitar that make me want to crawl in a hole and die,’ says guitarist Marissa Paternoster, recalling the sessions for ‘Arm Over Arm’ and ‘Zoo of Death.’ ‘At the time I didn’t know I was allowed to say, ‘Can I do that again and correct it? I was 19, giving it my all.’ On ‘Singles Too’, you can hear Screaming Females lay it down at Milltown, NJ’s post-apocalyptic recording-on-a-budget one-stop, The Hunt -- tin roof, flammable mixing board, DIY growlab housed in back of Marshall cab -- AND at posh Los Angeles hit-factory, East West Studios, where they convened with members of Garbage to cover ‘Because the Night.’

The b-sides included here also capture the breadth of the trio’s creativity, with compelling detours and tangents otherwise unrepresented in their catalogue -- from Sammus and Moor Mother’s re-work of ‘End of My Bloodline’ to the stripped down demo of Rose Mountain’s ‘Hopeless.’ And it doesn’t hurt that Singles Too is also full of hits, even though they’re other people’s hits, though -- much loved cover versions of classics by Sheryl Crow, Taylor Swift, Neil Young, Patti Smith, and more.

‘Singles Too’ is a rarities comp, yes, but it’s a very, very compelling one, gathering Screaming Females most obscure original material together with it’s bestknown performances of other people’s songs. A deep dive, an introduction, and a history lesson all at once. Formed in 2005, Screaming Females are Marissa Paternoster (guitar), Mike Abbate (bass), and Jarrett Dougherty (drums). They have released seven full-length albums and toured across the world.

Label Review. 

2019 album (Bauhaus/Love & Rockets). Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Missive To An Angel From The Halls Of Infamy And Allure’, the double solo album by David J (Bauhaus / Love And Rockets) is an intensely personal, self deprecating, confessional song cycle and ultimately a glowing tribute to his wife of many decades. It is intended as a cyclic swan-song, the last track, “I Hear Only Silence Now” being a new version of the song which was the first on J’s 1983 solo debut, ‘Etiquette Of Violence’.

The new album was recorded in Prague, Berlin and Los Angeles as well as Wellingborough, England when J revisited Beck Studios where his former highly influential band, Bauhaus cut their seminal classic, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” back in 1979. The album features contributions from Anton Newcombe (Brian Jonestown Massacre), Toby Dammit (Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds), Paul Wallfisch (Swans), Sean Eden (Luna), Rose McGowan, Asia Argento, Emily Jane White, Annabel (lee) and the great Czech violinist Karel Holas amongst others. J sees the album as the culmination of 36 years of solo / collaborative work. It is also a “coming home” of sorts as the label behind the release is the London based Glass Modern (the newly reactivated Glass Records) which originally released some of J’s earliest critically acclaimed works.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Psych rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Nova Scotia based garage psyche rock quartet are releasing their new album ‘Cool To Who’ via Outside Music. Walrus are here to play for the sake of the song. The Halifax based band’s signature sound is a fuzzed-out electric blanket of soul with a few unrepentant strands of authentic heaviosity.

Extensive studio experimentation can be heard throughout their sonically unique music, from varispeed warble to Spacemen-3 style saucer drone-attacks. Live, their low-key manner belies a depth and dedication to the craft. This band could be thrown on a bill betwixt Love and Sabbath and not embarrass the present.

Formed in 2012 by two brothers, Justin (vocalist and guitarist) and Jordan (drummer) Murphy, alongside two friends in Truro, Nova Scotia, the band cut their teeth in music via the traditional route of heavy touring. Intense bouts of gigging saw the quartet earn a reputation, not only for their frantic live shows but also for the way the treat the process - on one occasion managing to get banned from Avis Rental Car. Rental companies offer unlimited mileage on a vehicle for families renting a minivan to go to their cabin, Disney World or a family reunion. They don’t anticipate customers to rack up 18,000km in less than three weeks touring as band around the entire stretch of the continent.

‘Long, languid stretches of spacey meanderings eventually wind themselves up into tight knots that beg to be undone, to be free again’ Walrus bring about a magnificent explosion of noise and heat.’ - Consequence Of Sound 

’Thumping, synthing wonder’ mixes the best influences of the genre with the band’s own studio experimentation’ - (4/5) Stereogum

‘The band somehow mix gentle, Brian Wilson vocal melodies and orchestrations with out-of-the- blue punk thrash parts that keep listeners guessing. The high, winsome vocals and chiming 12- string Rickenbacker certainly conjured late ‘60s cloudy folk-pop, but the rest of the band infused the songs with sharp edges. Some of it recalled the Sadies, and the musicians in Walrus are certainly in the same league.’ - Exclaim!

‘Best bet for an acid flashback’ - Now‘Pristine, fuzzed-up jams’ - CLRVYNT

Label Review.

2019 album. Jazz.

Our Overview.

Diffracting through a greenwood canopy, the poetic words and music of vocalist/violinist/pianist and composer Alice Zawadzki illuminate her unique artistry and the concept behind ‘Within You is a World of Spring’ - the follow-up to acclaimed Whirlwind debut release ‘China Lane’.

London based Zawadzki has gained considerable repute as “a genuine original” (The Guardian), and a distinctive and individual presence on the creative European music scene. On ‘Within You Is A World Of Spring’ she leads an inspiring band of musicians and improvisers in realising her extraordinary, often moving, occasionally droll, original songs: Fred Thomas (piano, drums, percussion, banjo, organ), Rob Luft (guitar), Misha Mullov- Abbado (double bass) and Hyelim Kim (taegum). Integral to the impressive, layered detailing is the Amika String Quartet of Simmy Singh, Laura Senior, Lucy Nolan and Peggy Nolan, and engineer Alex Killpartrick.

Urgent portamento strings and intense drumming powerfully energise the title track, its words (‘When I feel done and done, your Spring returns to heal’) inspired by an Emil Aarestrup poem. Working in the ‘Calais Jungle’ proved lifechanging for Alice, witnessing the resilience, dignity and goodness of many people there. So “God’s Children” asks us not to forget their plight through diaphanous, tumbling phrases and anthemic affirmation. Near-operatic “Superior Virtue” recalls a beautiful, unfulfilled encounter, as violin, guitar and piano textures twinkle, while tongue-in-cheek romance “Es Verdad” jigs with infectious, whimsical abandon.

Fluttering bamboo taegum (Korean flute) evokes Zawadzki’s woodland discovery as ambient swirls cushion her path through a love poem to one who could not cry, yet finally... “The tears running down his face are more rare and precious than jewels”. The other tracks include the sumptuously soulful “Keeper” emphasises the thread of ‘change’ - described as “those moments where the passage of time refracts and bends, where the end is the start and the start is the end” - heightened by blissful blue guitar.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

In their 15 years of existence, Child Abuse have become much more than a jarring name. The NY trio has fused elements of Noise, Death Metal, Free Jazz, Modern Classical and Grind into something entirely their own, all the while becoming one of the most innovative, and polarising bands in New York. ‘Imaginary Enemy’, the band’s 4th full-length album, expands on their forays into previously uncharted musical territory, while remaining true to their unmistakable sound.

Child Abuse is bassist / vocalist Tim Dahl (renowned for his work with the likes of Lydia Lunch, The Flying Luttenbachers, Eugene Chadbourne and Tatsuya Yoshida), multi-instrumentalist Eric Lau, drummer / author Oran Canfield (whose Memoire: “Long Past Stopping ” was released by Harper Collins) - plus guest vocalist Eric Paul (of Psychic Graveyard / Arab On Radar).  

"Child Abuse? Well, what monster is in favor of that? Some victims of it will recoil at the phrase; others can deal with it just fine. The band Child Abuse has been around for a decade and plays a noisy, jazzy brand of metal. They’re not a bunch of juvenile fools, but rather a serious group who feature Tim Dahl, a member also of Lydia Lunch Retrovirus.  The thing is, provocative, puerile names have for decades inhabited punk and other styles of rock, as well as hiphop. And those of dainty sensibilities should probably never venture into extreme metal, where monikers like Anal Cunt, Goatwhore, and Napalm Death reign. These names usually serve as blatant code for a certain type of person who fancies him/herself a nonconformist, a connoisseur of shock..." - THE STRANGER  

‘The math-y riffs and beats could sound clinical (the band cites composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Charles Ives as influences), but the sweat and grime it takes to execute them is wisely left intact. Let your pupils dilate and your brain liquefy.’ - Pitchfork

‘’Keeping the “fuck you” spirit of punk rock alive, actualizing their very own genre defying, almost avant-garde psychosis.’ - Exclaim

"New York's Child Abuse is a gloriously confrontational band, mixing the incoherent glugs of death metal, the dissonant meander of 12-tone composition, the atonal squonk of free-jazz, blasts of ucky noise, and a wet gob of old fashioned punk rock.” - VILLAGE VOICE 

“The fits and starts and electronic buzzsaw effects are not unlike their labelmates HEALTH, and it lends the paradoxical appeal of being both grotesquely hardcore and liable for a Crystal Castles remix.” - POPMATTERS 

“The Brooklyn noise mongers blew me away opening for The Flying Luttenbachers and their full-length delivers the same relentlessly technical, bruising wallop of their live show. Imagine a combination of Foetus, Whitehouse and The Locust, and you will have a pretty vivid sense of the aural beating you're in for.” - BIG TAKEOVER 

Label Review.

2019 album. Electronic.

Our Overview.

There’s a difference between something entering your periphery and truly seeing it. ‘Sight’, the enveloping new album from Toronto based electronic explorer Brad Weber, aka Pick A Piper, is all about the latter.

The Caribou collaborator’s follow-up to 2017’s acclaimed Distance is a lucid dream of delirious synth shudders, pulsing beats, eclectic instrumentation and corroding digital noises that asks how often we fully lock attention on what’s around us: the real life people and places that exist beyond the bleaching glare of our phone screens.

Written alone at home, beginning many tracks on his family piano, it takes influences from ambient music, ‘70s Brazilian folk, ‘80s Bollywood disco, modern cumbia and much, much more. Weber calls it “a hopeful statement that encourages others to be as selfless as possible... an album about putting yourself second to others and finding solace and optimism in an increasingly fragmented world.” There’s a world outside your laptop screen. Sight might just help you see it.

Label Review.

2019 album. Americana-tinged folk.

Our Overview.

Birmingham-based songwriter Katy Rose Bennett (formerly known as KTB) continues to craft her idiosyncratic, Americana-tinged folk with the release of her fifth album, ‘The Meantime’ - an intimate collection of songs on the themes of parenthood, separation and self-acceptance. Kathy writes elegant songs about love, hope and the darker side of life, described as: “A sophisticated mix of folk, jazz pop and rustica” – The Independent

The 9 songs were all written by Bennett when her life was in a state of flux and the title reflects the idea of that time between two points - the time between what was and what will be. The album was recorded and mixed over the course of about 36 hours with Bristol-based composer and sound designer Jim Cornick as engineer. The recordings are mostly first takes in order to capture that feeling of a live performance: one voice and either guitar or piano with no overdubs.

Songs range from the simple, elegiac ‘Did you see?’ - a piano-led song of farewell; to the gently lilting ‘Shoulders & Boots’ - a song exploring the anxieties of being a gay parent; from the upbeat, light-hearted old-time country jaunt of ‘Hey Diddle-I-Doe’ to the lop-sided, semi-improvised ‘Round the Bend’.

The themes of her songwriting have developed over the course of her five solo albums: explorations of all kinds of love, obsession and depression; songs telling stories of people – both imagined and real; songs about the challenges and delights of being a parent and songs about the struggles of life with a mind and body which don’t always do what you want them to do. She writes at the piano and guitar, drawing inspiration from nature, from the people and places around her and from her lived experience in the world.

Part folk, part Americana, part pop, part jazz, all gorgeous, Bennett takes what in lesser hands would be the mere mundanity of everyday life and makes it joyous and uplifting.” (Americana UK).

“Tender and accomplished songwriting… deep, meaningful, rooted work.”(Karine Polwart).

“Strikingly original” – UNCUT

“Stunning…songs that encapsulate everything that is good about modern songwriters and modern song writing…heart-wrenchingly gorgeous” Northern Sky

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Exciting feminist punk duo Deux Furieuses, since their beginnings in 2013 have earned a reputation for uncompromising politically charged rock which has seen them championed by the likes of Q Magazine, Classic Rock, Louder Than War, and Radio X DJ John Kennedy, whose enthusiasm caught the attention of Frank Turner leading to the duo supporting him at the Roundhouse, London for Lost Evenings Festival 2017. And following hotly on the heels of their previous album i the much anticipated release of ‘My War Is Your War’.

The duo - vocalist-guitarist Ros Cairney and drummer Vas Antoniadou were raised on a fiery blend of Irish and Greek music, 80’s post-punk and 90’s alt rock, and bonding over a love of early PJ Harvey and Kate Bush, their music is a visceral and impassioned call to arms against the world’s inequalities and rising storms.

‘My War is Your War’ lyrically and musically expands on their 2016 debut album ’Tracks of Wire’. It takes the post-punk and Riot Grrrl influences of the predecessor and injects it with a darker rock sound, an angrier sonic energy representing the alarming rise of social injustices and right-wing power since the debut’s release.

Brooding post-punk opener Words of Warning and Let Them Burn, with its echoes of early PJ Harvey, are dark shades respectively inspired by a visit to Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin and the horrors of Greenfell. Title track My War is Your War is a wide-screen story of different worlds colliding powered by a driving loop that carries the sparse instrumentationto its devastating conclusion.

The album’s first single Year of Rage, Thorns and Wired toHate offer an exhilarating rock release from the tension. The former was penned on New Year’s Eve leading into the centenary of Votes for Women and celebrates the #MeToo movement. The accompanying video features a cameo and art direction from Alannah Currie (ex-Thompson Twins aka Miss Pokeno) whose Feel the Rage blog inspired the red flag imagery on ‘My War is Your War’ album artwork.

On songs like Civilians and Song for Kat brutalised riffs tackle the alarming rise of ’fakenews’ which negates not only the truth but also our humanity while the latter looks at suicide based on a personal experience of the band. ‘My War is Your War’ is a collection of blisteringly powerful songs with a visceral energy that perfectly soundtracks the frightening and unjust times we live in today, but with a message of empowerment and hope for change.

Second album by feminist-punk duo Deux Furieuses, produced by Rob Ellis (PJHarvey) and mixed by Mark Freegard (TheBreeders)

Label Review.

Disc 1 features White's 1960s revivalist recordings produced by John Fahey. Disc 2 contains an audiophile, pristine sounding concert by White. This complete performance was recorded in Bremen, Germany over 45 years ago.

Our Overview.

New 2019 2-CD compilation of the influential Delta Blues guitarist and singer, admired by Dylan, B. B. King, Led Zeppelin & Jeff Buckley. Disc 1 features White’s 1960’s revivalist recordings produced by John Fahey. Disc 2 contains an audiophile, pristine sounding concert by White. This complete performance was recorded in Bremen, Germany over 45 years ago. These recordings were released in the late ‘70s as a vinyl bootleg. It has been hard-to-find and never available on CD in any country.

Born in 1909, Booker was the son of a railroad worker. While serving time for assault, he recorded for the folklorist John Lomax. The few songs he recorded around this time became his most well known: “Shake ‘Em On Down,” and “Po’ Boy.” His 1937 version of the oft-recorded song “Shake ‘Em on Down,” is considered definitive; it became a hit while White was serving time in Mississippi State Penitentiary, commonly known as Parchman Farm. He wrote about his experience there in “Parchman Farm Blues”, which was released in 1940.

Bob Dylan covered his song “Fixin’ to Die Blues”, which aided a “rediscovery” of White . . Led Zeppelin’s ‘Hats Off to (Roy) Harper’, on their album Led Zeppelin III was based in large part on ‘Shake ‘Em on Down, ‘ while ‘Custard Pie’, on Physical Graffiti, also references ‘Shake ‘Em on Down.’ It was also brilliantly covered by the North Mississippi all Stars. ‘Parchman Farm Blues’ was recorded by Jeff Buckley, and posthumously on the bonus disc of, Grace.

CD 1 - Studio Recordings: Shake ‘Em on Down / I Am in the Heavenly Way / Atlanta Special / Drunk Man Blues / Army Blues / Aberdeen, Mississippi Blues / Baby Please Don’t Go / New Orleans, Streamline / When Can I Change My Clothes / Poor Boy Long Way from Home / Remembrance of Charley Patton / World Boogie / Midnight Blue / Old Man Walking Blues

CD 2 - Live In Germany: Black Rat / Way Out In The West / Mama Don’t Allow / Stuttart, Arkansas / Don’t Fuzz Blues / Big Boat Up The River / New Orleans Streamline / Everyday I Have The Blues / Aberdeen Blues / Midnight Blues / Poor Boy Long Way From Home

Label Review.

2019 album. Bluegrass.

Our Overview.

Some things have a magic all their own. The musical collaboration between Ronnie Bowman, Don Rigsby and Kenny Smith is one of these things. These three men made music together in the 1990’s as members of The Lonesome River Band (whose landmark album ‘Carrying The Tradition’ was released on Rebel Records nearly thirty years ago), the Band of Ruhks re-unite Ronnie Bowman, Don Rigsby and Kenny Smith, while adding former LRB banjoman Brian Fesler, to a band that straddles the line between bluegrass favourite and roots music trailblazer with ease.

The band’s second album (produced by Ben Isaacs), and first for Rebel Records, is a showcase of both the band’s love for bluegrass, while greeting the future with a sneaky grin. Appropriately entitled Authentic, the album is filled with nearly all originals, performed with sincerity and passion.

Label Review.

'Welcome To The Vault' is a blinding collection of 52 audio tracks and 22 performances on DVD. With 38 previously unreleased recordings, including 5 compositions that have never been heard before, and featuring alternate versions of classic songs, live performances and more. 70 page hard bound book of Steve's personal photos with a 7,000 word essay by David Fricke. DVD contains 22 performances including rare footage from the Monterey Pop Festival 1967, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert 1973, ABC In Concert 1974, Pine Knob Michigan-1982, Steve and Les Paul at Fat Tuesdays-1990 and Austin City Limits 2011. 10 Guitar picks with Steve's Pegasus logo.

Also available ‘Selections From The Vault’ on CD and Clear Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The exceptional Steve Miller has been one of rock and roll’s constants and now is opening up his voluminous archive of recordings for the first time ever. Steve has been a influential presence on the American music scene more than half a century. To begin with, he was a mainstay of the San Francisco music scene that upended American culture in the late '60s. With albums like ‘Children of the Future’, ‘Sailor’ and ‘Brave New World’, Miller perfected a psychedelic blues sound that drew on the deepest sources of American roots music and simultaneously articulated a compelling vision of what music - and, indeed, society - could be in the years to come.

Then, in the '70s, Miller crafted a brand of pure pop that was smart, polished, exciting and irresistible - and that dominated radio in a way that few artists have ever managed. Hit followed hit in what seemed like an endless flow: “The Joker,” "Take the Money and Run," "Rock'n Me," "Fly Like an Eagle," "Jet Airliner" and "Jungle Love," among them. To this day, those songs are instantly recognisable when they stream on the radio - and impossible not to sing along with. Their hooks are the very definition of indelible.

Running through Miller’s distinctive catalog is a combination of virtuosity and song craft. And that’s no accident. His parents were jazz aficionados, not to mention close friends of Les Paul and Mary Ford, so, as a budding guitarist, Miller absorbed valuable lessons from that musical tradition. When the family moved to Texas, Miller deepened his education in the blues with family friend T-Bone Walker. Miller then moved to Chicago, where he played with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, James Cotton and Paul Butterfield. That range of sources informs his music to this day.

In recent years, Miller has fully immersed himself in the blues and its many byways. As he has always done, he continues to find creative outlets for the full panoply of his musical passions.

In the course of his long, full career, Miller has sold tens of millions of records and his music has been streamed well over 2 billion times. With each listen the beauty and immediacy of his work, whether at its most playful or most serious, is palpable. As always, whether he was riding the top of the charts or traveling the endless blue highways of American music, you can hear him playing and singing with conviction and precision, passion and eloquence, making music that is at once immediately accessible, thrillingly alive in the present, and more than able to stand the test of time.

Label Review. 

2019 Freddie Mercury solo career Box Set. 10x10 hard slipcase to house: 3CD+DVD+Blu-ray. CD1: Never Boring (Brand new compilation 2019) / CD2: Mr. Bad Guy / CD3: Barcelona / DVD/Blu-ray: (Brand new promo video compilation of Freddie's promo videos upgraded to HD for the first time) / 120-page hardback book featuring unpublished and rare photos of Freddie and quotes about his solo career and life / Poster + Postcard / Limited Edition. Also available on CD and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The official Queen biopic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ released in 2018, was a huge success at the box office and the soundtrack album has been lodged in the upper echelons of the charts around the world since. What better time to remind music lovers that Freddie did release some solo records away from the band and a brand new best of has been put together to highlight his extra curricular hits.

It kicks off with his classic cover version of “The Great Pretender” originally a big hit for the 1950s vocal group The Platters. Also featured is his collaboration with opera star Montserrat Caballe: “Barcelona” which was a hit twice - when it first came out in 1987 and then again in 1992 for that years Summer Olympic games in that city. In 1993 a remix of the track “Living On My Own” from his first solo album ‘Mr Bad Guy’ was remixed and became a huge hit around the world making No.1 in several countries. A new version of the track ‘Time’ from the 1986 musical of the same name was released in 2019 when the shows producer Dave Clark discovered Freddie’s demo for the song. A new piano track was recorded to create a new version arguably more timeless than the 1980s sounding original.

This box set also includes his two solo albums 'Mr Bad Guy' and 'Barcelona' along with a DVD/Blu-ray and book.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Singer-songwriter Oscar Sheller is back with a spectacular new release ‘HTTP404’. However the musician is not calling it an album but the latest full-length project from London’s Oscar Scheller is ‘HTTP404’. Despite the obscure title the album this release is characterised by the incisive and witty lyrics we have come to know and love from Scheller and backed by melodies that will be jammed in your head all day long, ‘HTTP404’ is a honest to goodness 100% rush of smart, pop magic.

Since his debut full-length, ‘Cut & Paste’, Oscar has been very busy working as a writer and producer for other pop acts (Mae Muller, Lily Allen…). And as ably demonstrated by the two singles (‘1UP’ with Sarah Bonito and ‘Runaway’ with Tiffi) that have come since that debut, he has very clearly made a huge leap as both a songwriter and producer.

'HTTP404’ is a collection of 11 jaw-dropping pop songs, all bar one produced or co-produced by Oscar himself and all bar one collaborations with other musicians he has been working with or who he has been excited by on the scene (including Lily Allen, PAWWS, Vera Hotsauce, Jevon and Havelock, amongst others). The set of songs focuses on the importance of searching for something that no longer exists, not finding what you’re looking for. It’s philosophical and existential in places but there’s an underlying message across the board to stop thinking about things so much and just start living. Gone are the guitars that characterized his earlier sound and now in their place we find synths, samples and programming that pull the work of Oscar Scheller right into the zeitgeist.

Characterised by the incisive and witty lyrics we have come to know and love from Scheller and backed by melodies that will be jammed in your head all day long, ‘HTTP404’ is a rush of smart, pop magic.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

American indie band Big Thief had only just finished work on their third album, ‘U.F.O.F.’ - “the celestial twin” - days before in a cabin studio in the woods of Washington State. Now it was time to birth ‘U.F.O.F.’s sister album - “the earth twin” - ‘Two Hands’. With raw power and intimacy, ‘Two Hands’ folds itself gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive discography. This body of work grows deeper and more inspiring with each new album.

30 miles west of El Paso, surrounded by 3,000 acres of pecan orchards and only a stone’s throw from the Mexican border, Big Thief (aka Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik and James Krivchenia) set up their instruments as close together as possible to capture their most important collection of songs yet.

Where ‘U.F.O.F.’ layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, ‘Two Hands’ grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt. In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the ‘U.F.O.F.’ session, the southwestern Sonic Ranch studio was chosen for its vast desert location. The 105-degree weather boiled away any clinging memories of the green trees and wet air of the previous session.

‘Two Hands’ had to be completely different - an album about the Earth and the bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Born on the streets of Los Angeles, Starcrawler is a band possessed by the spirit of its own hometown - steeped in the city’s cultural history, particularly the myths and stories of Sunset Strip, the Chateau Marmont and Rodney’s English Disco - every movement charged with a manic electricity. Since forming in 2015, vocalist Arrow de Wilde, guitarist/vocalist Henri Cash, bassist Tim Franco, and drummer Austin Smith have gone from bashing out songs in the garage to winning the love of such legendary artists as Shirley Manson and Elton John. And now their remarkable sophomore album ‘Devour You’ is a record that dynamically captures the essence and aggression of their gloriously unhinged live shows. Produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, L7) at Sunset Studios, ‘Devour You’ takes the feral intensity of their 2018 self-titled debut and twists it into something grander and more gracefully composed.

With its more elaborate and nuanced yet harder hitting sonic palette, the result is a selection of songs radiating both raw sensitivity and untameable power and a record that the band’s Arrow de Wilde says “encapsulates all the blood, sweat, bruised knees, and broken fingers of a Starcrawler show.”

Label Review.

2019 album. Afro-Latin jazz house.

Our Overview.

Over the course of his successful career Gabriele Poso, the future Afro-Latin jazz house from Italian master percussionist, multi-instrumentalist and composer has gained support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and other syndicated international shows. With his organic sound and contemporary electronic language, Gabriele Poso keeps winning over audiences with each and every performance around the globe. And now Gabriele s releasing his new album ‘Batik’, featuring guest vocalists Nailah Porter, Nina Rodriguez, Quetzal Guerrero & Sofia Rollo.

Gabriele Poso was born on the 22nd of October 1978 in Sardinia, in the heart of the Mediterranean, but grew up in Lecce, the capital of Salento. Early in his childhood, he established a deep connection with music, and felt that he was truly born when he discovered his family’s vinyl collection comprised of the best jazz, soul and Afro-Latin music. With the passage of time, Poso has dedicated himself to the study of various instruments, paying particular attention to the guitar, an instrument he uses to give life to his best compositions.

Following a long-term collaborative partnership with Osunlade / Yoruba Records, as well as albums on BBE and Agogo Records, on ‘Batik’ Poso further develops and matures his sound - exploring his extensive roots in Afro-Cuban percussion, while delving into the realms of jazz and soulful house. Much of the album features Poso on not only vocals but many of the instruments - including percussion, guitar and kalimba.

With mixing by renowned Spanish DJ and producer Kiko Navarro, the lead single “Africa Linda” is an up tempo live take on Latin house, featuring American-born soul singer Quetzal Guerrero on vocals.

Label Review. 

2019 album from UK Acid House pioneers. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The dance floor kings Graham Massey & Andy Barker -aka 808 State pioneered Acid House Music back in 1987, making a name for themselves as embodying the sound of the future and over 30 years later they are still pushing boundaries while simultaneously embracing their decades-long history. And now the Mancunian electronic music pioneers are returning with ‘Transmission’ Suite, their first new album since 2002.

Outpost Transmission, the last original material from the band, came out in 2002. 808 State music has appeared since then in the form of remixes and the occasional edit and the band have continued to play live, but it wasn’t until last year that Graham Massey and Andrew Barker decided to reconvene with a view to working on a significant new tranche of material.

“We’re trying to make a future for other people to immerse themselves in. It feels a bit like an imaginary landscape. That’s always been a big part of 808 State, when you go back through the music: these kind of landscapes of futurism.” Graham Massey

‘Transmission’ was recorded in the former nerve centre of the Granada broadcasting empire in Manchester’s City Centre, some of its tracks are haunted by their home city’s industrial past - and, for that matter, the influence of classic Detroit techno - but the whole thing stays true to the band’s career-long focus on what comes next.

“The upcoming Initial Granada Report EP shows they’ve after a 16-year break from releasing material they have not lost that ability to tear up the dancefloor” - Analogue Trash

“Tokyo Tokyo is about getting people to dance. 16 years was too long to wait but it was worth it!” - Analogue Trash

“Always at the cutting edge, they’ve moved things forward once again. Brilliant stuff. - Backseat Mafia

Tokyo Tokyo reveals 808 State in robust mode, alive and well, and turns out to be a much satisfying and promising harbinger of the rest of the new music expected from the long serving band - Destroy / Exist

Label Review. 

2019 album. Nuclear Blast. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Europe’s hardest working rock band unearth their dark and twisted roots, once and for all defining their unique brand of retro rock, doom and proto metal. Aptly entitled ‘For The Dead Travel Fast’ after German gothic poet Gottfried August Bürger, their doomed fifth record is a perilous journey into the land of the dead, a foray into the bleakest corners of our minds. A heavy, slow-paced, throbbing force of guitar, bass and drums, preciously enriched by spooky synths and a brooding narrative reminiscent of the Victorian death-cult. Beware, this is Kadavar gone pitch-black! “Old horror soundtracks and Werner Herzog’s ‘Dracula’ had a huge impact on this album”, drumming maniac Tiger states. Think Hawkwind with old Pink Floyd melodies, eerily sung to you from the grave by guitarist/vocalist Lupus.

After their unique and liberating one-off show in Berlin’s Heimathafen in February 2019, which for the first time ever saw them taking to the stage with four guest musicians named The Cosmic Riders Of The Black Sun (which will be released as a bonus Blu-ray with the album), they went back into songwriting mode. They played and they jammed until, seemingly out of nowhere, there was that evil and menacing riff that has since then grown into the intense “Evil Forces”. They decided here and there to fully embrace the darkness that has been kept at bay in recent years. Fuelled and encouraged by the mind-broadening experience of their Heimathafen show and inspired by darkness itself, the trio set out for Transylvania. Just like the album cover, taken in front of Dracula’s alleged crib in Transylvania, mysterious Castle Bran, the whole album is drenched in superstition, Romanian folklore and the mysterious ways of our psyche.

“This is a record with a concept, with longer, more embellished songs not particularly drawn to ordinary song structures”, Lupus explains. “Something like this wouldn’t have been possible earlier in our career. Only now do we know each other well enough to pull off something like this.” Formed in Berlin in 2010, it took the trio a mere couple of years to conquer the world and to install themselves as leaders of the vintage pack. Not with being copycats. But with their working class ethos and their constant urge to liberate themselves from all guide book rules. With their blend of retro rock, occult imagery, doom and a decidedly antique patina, they released four albums in five years and relentlessly toured the globe with their lysergic frenzy of a show.

Label Review.

2019 album. Folk. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Canadian Folk music gem, the award winning singer-songwriter Catherine MacLellan, with her grace and charm captivates audiences with deep emotional connections through intimate lyrics as well as easy-going and light-hearted fun, and now she returns with her most anticipated seventh album ‘Coyote’. ‘Coyote’comprises of 14 songs recorded and self-produced at her studio in PEI, which are reflective and hopeful; a travelogue through heartbreak, loss and the joy of life. A corporeal experience from start to finish, the music of MacLellan comes in soft, smooth waves and feels like an eternal embrace to the body and mind.

Described by the Boston Herald as “A lyricist wise beyond her years and with a voice like honey dusted with gold she shares the gentle darkness of her lyrics which are sometimes countrified, sometimes lamentful and sometimes tinged with joy” Catherine is a musician’s musician, respected by her peers for her talent and dedication to the craft of songwriting; a craft she had a front row seat to at an early age, watching her father, the legendary Gene MacLellan. Seven albums and countless awards, including a JUNO for ‘aven’s Sun’, Catherine’s commitment remains at the heart of her work, evident to fans and industry alike.

Catherine MacLellan has become one of Canada’s finest and favorite singer-songwriters on her own merits. She’s kept away from the media circus and celebrity scene, preferring to live at home in rural Prince Edward Island. She’s worked diligently at her craft, releasing a series of remarkable, creative albums, culminating in the Juno Award-winning The Raven’s Sun from 2014, to go along with multiple East Coast Music Awards, Canadian Folk Music Awards, and Music PEI Awards. Most impressively, she has chosen to carve out her career path without trading on her family name.

Label Review. 

2019 debut solo album from Sonic Youth co-founder. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

With a career spanning nearly four decades and an exhaustive CV, Kim Gordon is one ofthe most prolific and visionary artists working today and now releases her new studio album ‘No Home Record’. Front to back, ‘No Home Record’ is an expert operation in the uncanny. You don’t just listen to Gordon’s music; you experience it.

A co-founder of the legendary Sonic Youth, Gordon has performed all over the world, collaborating with many of music’s most exciting figures including Tony Conrad, Ikue Mori, Julie Cafritz and Stephen Malkmus. Most recently, Gordon has been hitting the road with Body/Head, her spellbinding partnership with artist and musician Bill Nace.

The most reliable aspect of Gordon’s music may be its resistance to formula. Songs discover themselves as they unspool, each one performing a test of the medium’s possibilities and limits. Her command is astonishing but Gordon’s artistic curiosity remains the guiding force behind her music.

It makes sense that this “American idea” (as Gordon says on the agitated rock track ‘Air BnB’) of purchasing utopia permeates the record, as no place is this phenomenon more apparent than Los Angeles, where Gordon was born and recently returned to after several lifetimes on the east coast. It was a move precipitated by a number of seismic shifts in her personal life and undoubtedly plays a role in ‘No Home Record’s fascination with transience.The album opens with the restless ‘Sketch Artist’, where Gordon sings about “dreaming in a tent” as the music shutters and skips like scenery through a car window. ‘Even Earthquake’, perhaps the record’s most straightforward track embodies this mood; Gordon’s voice wavering like watercolor: “If I could cry and shake for you / I’d lay awake for you / I got sand in my heart for you,” guitar strokes blending into one another as they bleed out across an unstable page.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The bard of Newcastle, singer-songwriter Richard Dawson’s records always challenge the listener. His spin on British folk has spanned 6 solo albums, each delightfully unique with a heady mix of Richards own brand of shambolic psych-folk and experimental rock. And now the black humoured musician returns to release his sixth solo album ‘2020’, his first since the critically acclaimed, ‘Peasant’.‘2020’ is an utterlycontemporary state-of-the-nation study, that uncovers a tumultuous and bleak time.

Here is an island country in a state of flux; a society on the edge of mental meltdown. On 2020, dawson introduces us to grand themes through small lives. His are portraits of human beings struggling with recognisable (and dare we say it, relatable) concerns, conflicts and desires, each reminding us that tragedy and gallows humour are not mutually exclusive, and that the magical can sit next to the mundane. Lyrically it is by far dawson’s hardest-hitting and unflinchingly honest album to date. It is his poetic masterwork. within, we find disgruntled civil servants dreaming of better days, anxiety-addled joggers listlessly searching zoopla for houses they cannot afford in their spare time, amateur footballers who think they’re lionel messi and beleaguered pub landlords battling rising floodwaters. Here is life, in all its strange and wonderful ways.

Having released the album ‘Mogic’ with his band Hen Ogledd (‘the Old North’) in 2018, Dawson decamped to Blank Studio, Newcastle with Sam Grant of Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs and recorded all the instrumentation for 2020 himself. Nuanced and challenging, the ten songs also conversely feature Dawson’s most melodic moments yet.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon teams up with violinist and singer Petra Haden for a new LP called ‘Joey Always Smiled’. Along with Haden, it features contributions from Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, character actor Kevin Corrigan, regular Kozelek collaborator Ben Boye, and more to create what is shaping up to be another stunning record.

And following six originals with very Kozelekian song titles, the record closes out with a folky, beautifully spare cover of Huey Lewis & The News’ immortal Back To The Future soundtrack hit ‘The Power Of Love”.

Kozelek and Haden’s upcoming collaborative album ‘Joey Always Smiled’, features six original tracks. In addition to putting out ‘This Is My Dinner’ in 2018, Kozelek released a solo album titled simply Mark Kozelek. Just a few months ago, he shared ‘I Also Want to Die in New Orleans’, nodding to Suicideboys’ ‘I Want to Die in New Orleans.’

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Return To Us is the new album by The Lilac Time, the country folk band fronted by Stephen Duffy. The collection is their tenth so far and Stephen’s twentieth long-player in a career that has spanned four decades. Coming off the back of five-star rave reviews for the reissue of Stephen’s album ‘I Love My Friends’, ‘Return To Us’ was recorded by the three-piece of Nick Duffy, Claire Duffy and Stephen who have been the core of The Lilac Time since 1999.

The nine-track album was recorded in Stephen and Claire’s home and covers topics as diverse as The D-Day Landings (“March To The Docks”), auditory processing disorder and the difficulties in recognising and interpreting sounds (“King Kopetsky”), Italian Neorealism (“A River That Runs Both Ways”), life before the Internet (“The Simple Things”), not getting dragged back to a fictitious golden age (“Return To Us”), a Christmas song of sorts (“The Needles”) and needing ‘reassurance because the world went stupid’ (“(I’m) A Believer”).

Stephen Duffy: “This our first release on a major label since 1990. After a calamitous time with RCA around the recently reissued ‘I Love My Friends’ album I never considered it an option. But then after our last performance at Port Eliot in 2017, we were approached by BMG’s senior scout who suggested we send our new record to them after some time we did and here it is”.

Label Review.

2019 debut album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Indie rock quartet Dan Luke and The Raid showcase their debut album ‘Out Of the Blue’ an infectious concoction of Lo-fi, garage rock and 60s pop influences. Produced by bandleader Daniel Shultz's brother Bradley (Cage the Elephant), the album features of a series of songs that seem informed by the latter-day punky pop of the Strokes, the lo-fi pop energy of Guided By Voices, and the pure pop of the late 1960s. The music proves incredibly spontaneous, feeling as though it's still being committed to tape as we're listening.

‘Out of the Blue’ was scheduled for release earlier in the year but temporarily delayed after the death of guitarist Dylan Graves. The band recovered, moved forward and now present two songs from the LP, "Black Cat Heavy Metal" and "Last Goodbyes". Indicative of the album's direction "Black Cat Heavy Metal" is, according to Schultz, "The pinnacle of the record lyrically. The theme of that song is the theme of the whole album."

“It’s like a coming-of-age crisis,” says Shultz ,“It’s about being in that space in your 20s where you’re trying to get your shit together and figure things out in life. You’re dealing with your problems” - the singer, songwriter and guitarist pauses - “even as you’re going out and partying and getting into trouble all the time.”

Shultz and his Dan Luke And The Raid bandmates know a thing or two about the last part of that equation, as evidenced by the songs and subject matter on ‘Out Of The Blue’. Throughout the album’s 10 tracks people are passed out on curbs under neon signs (‘Black Cat Heavy Metal’), breaking hearts over rolled-up dollar bills (‘Exoskeleton’), leaving baggies lying in passenger seats (‘Money Mouth’) and faking smiles and feeling ashamed (‘Golden Age’). Legs are bleeding, faces are numb and Shultz declares his band to be the “diamond kings of smut.”

All the while, the music throbs and pulses and twitches and buzzes with the energy and enthusiasm and inexperience of youth, bursting with harsh, distorted guitar chords, blown-out synth squiggles and hopped-up rhythms - as well as, on occasion, moments of stunning and sincere melodic beauty.

With the weight and experience of events that have been at times joyful and sad, poignant and puerile, triumphant and tragic, Dan Luke And The Raid continue to carve out their future, one musical moment at a time. “What we want to do is create music, and create music in a way where people feel something,” Shultz says. “And when we see that happening it’s an amazing thing.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Acoustic Soul-Folk and electronic R&B. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Mariama was born in Sierra Leone but raised in Germany. ‘Love, Sweat And Tears’ is her second album and is inspired by her travels throughout Europe and Africa. Part of an ongoing search for artistic freedom and independence, the record’s fourteen songs create a beautiful sonic excursion, shifting from soft and melancholic melodies to vibrant, danceable songs that encompass acoustic Soul-Folk and electronic R&B.

Mariama is currently based in Paris and met most of the musicians who play on the album in the city, including drummer Georges Diémé (also a master of percussion instruments such as cajon, congas and udu), Abdoulaye Kouyaté (kora and guitar), Jean-Baptiste Soulard (keyboards and synthesizer), Wendy Milton (piano) and bassist Hilaire Penda (who has played on albums by Susheela Raman, Tony Allen, Salif Keita, Youssou N’dour and more). Additional contributing musicians include guitarist Sékou Bembeya (a living legend of Guinean musical heritage and also known as Diamond Fingers), Ballaké Sissoko (kora), Vincent Ségal (cello), German singer Soufian Tsunami (featured on the song ‘Never Mind’) and Berlin based beatmaker and pianist Jim Dunloop, who worked on two songs.

Label Review.

13 tracks. First time on CD.

Our Overview.

In 1978, legendary San Francisco Punk Rock Band The Dead Kennedys were formed and the rest is history. They became one of the iconic bands of the US Punk Rock revolution and recorded seminal punk classics “Holiday In Cambodia” and “California Uber Alles,” as well as many others that have become synonymous with Punk Rock itself.

Manifesto Records is proud to announce that on September 27, they will release a CD of the Iguana Studios Rehearsal Tape- San Francisco 1978. This is the beginnings of the Dead Kennedys, the original recordings from their early rehearsals that would lead to their classic recordings.

This collection was previously only available as a limited edition, Record Store Day only LP. It was very successful and actually charted on the Billboard top sellers list, but the demand from fans was overwhelming to release this on CD. The Dead Kennedys were and still are one of the most influential bands in the history of punk rock. They sold a lot of records, but even more importantly, they helped inspire a million people to start punk rock bands, they were the leaders in the revolution!

Label Review. 

40 track singles compilation - the first one to include their more recent tracks since reforming. Also available on 3LP, and Deluxe box set. 

Our Overview. 

In a career stretching over 40 years, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark are being blessed with a new all encompassing compilation which is the first to include material from since they reformed in 2006. Formed in the 1970s by school friends Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys in The Wirral, UK, they shared a distaste for “macho” guitar rock and inspired by groups like Kraftwerk who only operated synthesizers and electronics forged ahead with their synthpop vision and by the late 70s they were counted among a slew of like minded young groups who also had put guitars to one side.

They signed with Virgin Records and immediately starting clocking up hits in their native UK which are all included here: “Enola Gay”, “Souvenir”, “Joan Of Arc”, and “Maid Of Orleans” all went Top 10 with success arriving in Australia and throughout Europe too. By the mid-80s the group moved towards more straight forward pop arrangements and production and although the first album in this new direction continued their early success with hits like “Locomotion” and “Talking Loud And Clear”, subsequent albums saw their star fade in Europe but ironically they were getting more popular in the US with these records.

Their first best of released in 1988 was a huge seller and they seemed primed for a breakthrough in the world’s biggest music market. However, the band splinted leaving Andy as the only member of the group. He got some new members and returned in 1991 with the album ‘Sugar Tax’ and the hit singles “Sailing On The Seven Seas” and “Pandora’s Box”. Diminishing returns with their next two albums led to Andy bring OMD to a halt in 1996 and moved into management and production finding big success with the pop group Atomic Kitten.

In 2006 most of the classic line up got back together to firstly tour and then start writing and recording new material. In the 2010s they issued three brand new albums and the singles from these records are included in this latest package. A fantastic deluxe edition has plenty of unreleased material for the diehard fan whilst if you have a passing interest in OMD or 1980s pop music in general you will definitely not go wrong adding this set to your collection!

Label Review. 

In early September 1969 Buckley played five sets over two days at LA club The Troubadour, all of which were recorded and a set was released in 1994. Two new packages have been put together from the unreleased performances. Edsel. 

Our Overview.

‘Greetings From West Hollywood’ is a beautiful live performance of the legendary Tim Buckley in 1969, in concert with never before released performances to delight fans worldwide. 

Tim Buckley is one of the most influential singer/songwriters in history, with an angelic voice, folk-rock's most adventurous figure ranged from psychedelia to progressive jazz to blue-eyed soul before his tragic death. ‘Greetings From West Hollywood’ has been Re-Mixed and Re-Mastered from the original tapes Includes high quality packaging and 20 page booklet with extensive liner notes, archival photos and rare promotional material.

These performances captured Buckley’s improvisational raw energy of songs that stretch toward or past the 10-minute mark, the combinations of acoustic & electric guitars, Fender Rhodes piano & electric bass, drum set & congas - throbbing and brewing in a dynamic jazz-folk stew! Tim Buckley ‘s career and life were shockingly short, but his influence has only grown stronger as the years go by and even though these performances are nearly 50 years old, they are truly timeless

CD 1: Buzzin’ Fly / Chase The Blues Away / I Had A Talk With My Woman / BlueMelody / Nobody Walkin’

CD 2: Venice Mating Call / I Don’t Need It To Rain / Driftin’ / Gypsy Woman

Label Review.

2019 release. The first ever collection of remixes from the UK's leading jazz groove band.

Our Overview.

Contemporary smooth jazz, funk, and groove group out of the U.K Down To The Bone are releasing ‘Funkin’ Around: A Collection Of Remixes And Reworks’ which is the first ever collection of remixes from the UK's leading jazz groove band Down To The Bone.

Down To The Bone is Stuart Wade as producer , writer and mastermind behind the whole groove project .Set up at the tail end of 1993 when Wade decided to take a track from the soul band he was in at the time , Think Twice , and remix it to give it a more rawer and stripped down feel . The result was the Down To The Bone remix of the track ‘Joy Is Free’ which was in the top 10 playlist of Kiss FM for weeks on end and resulted in widescale DJ support in the U.K and Europe.The name also came about from a London club that Stuart went to at the time called ‘To The Bone’ at the Villa Stefano in Holborn, London, run by DJ’s Simon Dunmore , Bob Jones , Mark Webster , Bob Masters and a whole host of others playing funky grooves . The groups career took off in the US with the release of "From Manhattan To Staten", which went to No 2 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart.

This album of dancefloor and Latin-oriented remixes and reworks opens with DJ Spinna's take on "Electric Vibes" with guest Roy Ayers, while the Agent K (alias Kaidi Tatham) mix of "The Flow" features Brazilian jazz vocalist Flora Purim.

Other key cuts include Speedometer's rework of "Funkin' Around", the Afro Elements remix of "Wildfire Woman" and Daz-I-Kue's remixes of "Angel Baby" with Mark de Clive Lowe and US vocalist N'Dambi, the remix of "Right On Baby Yeah" by Hoops Havona (alias Ceri Evans, former Brand New Heavies keyboardist) and German act Beanfield's rework of "Black Choice".

CD 1: Electric Vibes (DJ Spinna Remix) Feat Roy Ayers / Electric Vibes (Harry Coade’s Dancefloor Mix) / Electric Vibes (DJ Spinna Dub) (feat Roy Ayers) / The Flow (Agent K Vocal Mix) (feat Flora Purim) / The Flow (Agent K Instrumental) (feat Flora Purim) / The Flow (Mr Gone’s Samba De Sueco Remix) (feat Flora Purim) / Right On Baby Yeah (Aim Mix) / Right On Baby Yeah (Hoops HavonaMix)

CD 2: Funkin Around (Speedometer Rework) / Angel Baby (Dax-I-Kue Vox Remix) (feat N’Dambi) / Angel Baby (Dax-I-Kue Dub Vox Remix) (feat N’Dambi) / Wildfire Woman (Afro Elements Jazzin Bossa Remix) (feat Jeremy Steig) / Black Choice (Beanfield Rework) / Watch Me Fly (Earth Sold Remix) (feat Imanni) / Brooklyn Heights (Kaidi Tatham Reinterpretation)

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD and Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

Penguin Cafe was founded by Arthur Jeffes in 2009, after bringing together a talented and disparate group of musicians including members of Suede and Gorillaz, to perform his father Simon Jeffes’ legacy of world-renowned Penguin Cafe Orchestra music, ten years after his untimely death in 1997. 2019 sees Erased Tapes present ‘Handfuls of Night’ - the highly anticipated follow-up to British avant-pop band Penguin Cafe’s much applauded 2017 album ‘The Imperfect Sea’ - inspired by the Antarctic, Arthur Jeffes’ journey following in Scott’s footsteps and our penguin friends that reside there. 

Using gut-stringed violins, viola, cello, bass, percussion, upright and grand pianos, synthesiser, harmonium and more, Arthur Jeffes and his cohorts have crafted a vivid series of panoramic sonic landscapes, that are as rich in cerebral poignancy as they are in emotional depth. Bookended by the atmospheric ambient piano pieces ‘Winter Sun’ and ‘Midnight Sun’, the album traverses glacial minimalism with ease, combining their signature contemporary classical panoramas, such as the melancholic yet upbeat lead track ‘At the Top of the Hill, They Stood...’ and the colossal cinematic piece ‘Chapter’, with the crystalline folktronica on ‘Pythagorus on the Line Again’ — a re-visiting and continuation of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s 1993 Union Cafe song on the principles of harmonics.

‘Handfuls of Night’ began life after Greenpeace commissioned Jeffes to write four pieces of music corresponding to four breeds of penguins, to help raise awareness for the endangered Antarctic seas. A fundraising evening at EartH in Hackney followed, where Penguin Cafe premiered the four songs named after their feathered counterparts to a sold out audience; the rousing contemporary folk inflected “Chinstrap“, the mournful and minimalistic “Adelie“, stoic and rhythmic “The Life of an Emperor“ and the wistful, string-laden “Gentoo Origin“. 

“This record started with a core of pieces I wrote specifically about penguins in the Antarctic for a project with Greenpeace in autumn 2018. There are four native Antarctic penguin species – each with their own individual characteristics and natures. I carried on from there to envisage a whole anthropomorphised world, where these penguins had narratives and adventures that we soundtracked”, says Jeffes. But both the album and Penguin Cafe as a project have origins that reach further back. 

“In 2005 I was asked to join an expedition re-creating Scott’s last Antarctic trip in 1911 for the BBC, using the same Edwardian equipment. I’m no explorer but I was keen, especially as there’s a family link – Scott was married to my great grandmother before she married my great grandfather. Antarctica by this stage being a protected environment, we swapped to the Arctic circle where we spent 3 months on the Greenland ice sheet, first dog-sledding and then man-hauling just short of 1000 km at 10,000 feet, across ice fields and glaciers. I had lots of time to ponder my life back home. It was then that I decided to get my Master of Music degree and focus on composing music, and also then that I realised that even in the most remote silent places, music can still be a huge part of one’s internal world and imagination. Whilst on the expedition. I spent days playing things back in my head and also writing new things, which I would then try and write down at the end of the day.”

‘Handfuls of Night’s’ tones, textures and melodies evoke otherworldly expanses, which at different junctures are either foreboding, awe inspiring or peaceful. There’s subtly morphing rhythmic repetition throughout, somewhere between minimalism, krautrock and the piano-cascades of label peer Lubomyr Melnyk. Jeffes creates a kinetic, circling motion, which drives the album forward in the form of a musical trip that mirrors the physical journey it was inspired by.

‘Handfuls of Night’ is released amid a string of Penguin Cafe UK live dates, before taking the album on a worldwide tour in 2020 with more dates to be announced.

Label Review.

2019 album. Post-punk world-beat, New Orleans jazz, afro-pop, electronic and gospel. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Bedouin Soundclash - the Canadian group that immerse the listener into their sonic concoction of rock, reggae, afro pop and funk - return, almost a decade since their last release, for their next thrilling soundtrip experience, in the form of their new album ‘Mass’. While pulling from their old catalogue of eclectic post-punk world-beat tendencies, the band journeys further into New Orleans jazz, afro-pop,electronic and gospel on their latest offering, reflecting a creative rebirth influenced by the cities and musicians that surrounded them.

“The coming together of many forces to create something greater,” says Jay Malinowski lead singer, writer, and one half of duo Bedouin Soundclash when describing their fifth studio album ‘Mass’) which sees the band coming back after a nine-year hiatus. “It was a long time since our last record,” he pauses, “So we decided we would start by going down to New Orleans and make ourselves new.” 

And so, in late July, Eon Sinclair (bassist) and Jay Malinowski (vocals/guitar) better known as duo Bedouin Soundclash headed down to the cradle of American music to find rebirth. When they arrived, they found themselves baptized in the hottest, stickiest Louisiana weather of late summer. “It’s the kind of heat where you’re dripping with sweat, even at two in the morning.” Eon Sinclair remembers.

The band set up shop in an old speak-easy jazz club converted into a studio and filled it with musicians for three weeks. “It was a huge gathering——hard to manage at times. There was agony. There was ecstasy. We literally sweat ourselves to the bone” Jay laughs, “and the result was something bigger than ourselves. Something we could never have done alone. That was MASS—both physical and spiritual, the coming together of so many disparate forces of people and energies, distilled into something new.”Their musical comrades-in-energy included Preservation Hall Jazz Band on horns, Mike Dillon (Les Claypool) on vibes/marimba, Rick Nelson (Afghan Whigs, Polyphonic Spree) on strings, Chuck Treece on drums (Bad Brains, McRad), The Asylum Chorus Choir, and Vancouver’s St. James Music Academy Children’s Choir. The album was co-produced by Bedouin Soundclash and legendary Philadelphia House DJ King Britt and recorded at Marigny Studio’s in New Orleans with additional vocal tracking done later in the St. James Church in the downtown East Side of Vancouver. ‘Mass’ is a dense sonic journey. From the jangling Big Band swing-pop of Clock-work, the post-punk-soca of Salt-Water, the New Orleans second-line inspired Full Bloom, the apocalyptic Brian Wilson-esc Born Into Bad Times, the Talking Heads-channeling of When We’re Gone and the dubbing afro-pop gospel of Holy that features Mike Dillon distorting his marimbas into another sonic dimension, MASS shows not only the eclectic post-punk-world-beat tendencies of Bedouin Soundclash but also the city that surrounded them.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Rachael & Vilray’ is the debut album by Lake Street Dive singer-songwriter Rachael Price and composer, singer, and guitarist Vilray. Their duo grew from their shared reverence for the pop music of the 1930s and 40s and its breadth of emotions. Playing original songs and forgotten treasures, their sound recalls both the warmth of radio's golden age and the intimacy of parlour concerts in a time before recordings. The twelve-song set features ten originals by Vilray, along with two covers from the era that inspired him: Cuban composer Pedro Junco Jr.’s 1943 ‘Nosotros’ and Milton Drake/Louis Atler’s ‘I Love the Way You’re Breaking My Heart’, first popularised by Peggy Lee. 

Price and Vilray, who began performing together in 2015, recorded the album with Lake Street Dive pianist Akie Bermiss, a rhythm section, and a small complement of horns, plus a guest performance from pianist Jon Batiste on ‘Go On Shining’. The duo first met in 2003 as students at the New England Conservatory of Music. Vilray formed a couple of bands with Price’s soon-to-be bandmates in Lake Street Dive, Mike Calabrese and Mike “McDuck” Olson. Even then, Price recalls, he had a nimble mind and quick wit when it came to lyrics: “They would do random clicks on Wikipedia and when they found something interesting, they would write a song about it — say, the cold-blooded rat of Somalia. Vilray was able to take any subject and write excellent poetry about it, funny rhymes, and he would sing the songs. I thought he was so good — he could just apply himself to anything.”

But at school, says Price, “I didn’t know that Vilray and I shared a love of this particular time period of jazz. It was all I liked to listen to before I got there and everyone at school was listening to more avant garde, free stuff that I had yet to be exposed to. So I hid my love of traditional jazz music. I didn’t know then that he played it perfectly.”

It was more than a decade later that Price and Vilray began to collaborate. He had been on the road much of each year with Lake Street Dive and he had been developing his own solo act, just voice and guitar. Though Vilray had kept up with his composing after graduating from the conservatory, he had fallen out of performing and playing his guitar. But when he broke a finger at his day job he realised what had been lacking in his creative life:

“That slapped me awake and made me realise I only had so long on planet Earth with ten fingers. A friend ran into me on the street when I was in the cast and said to me, ‘You seem really bummed.’ I talked to him a little bit about not playing guitar. He said, ‘I’m going to book you for a show a month or two after you are out of the cast so start thinking about the music now. Once you are out of the cast, you can reclaim that part of your life.’ So I played a couple of shows at this series he was running at Bar Below Rye in Williamsburg, and Rachael came to one of them.”

Price remembers that night vividly: “It was a very moving show. There was dead silence while Vilray was playing. It really tugged at my heart because I missed singing this style of music. I had never really even performed it, even though I was a jazz singer. My repertoire was from a bit later. But I was obsessed with the big band singers of the thirties and forties. I asked Vilray if he would let me do that gig with him, and then he gave me one of his songs to learn. No one knew it wasn’t a standard. That got the ball rolling for him on the writing. He started sending me songs constantly. We quickly went from peppering in his songs with obscure ones from the thirties and forties to all Vilray songs.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Reggae / Dub. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

By day Mike Pelanconi is a sought after recording engineer and by night the British record producer becomes ‘Prince Fatty”. Renowned for flexing his studio muscle with some of the freshest and versatile dub sounds around, Prince Fatty’s blending old-school reggae with his own eccentric, futuristic twist, have turned industry heads for decades and ‘In the Viper’s Shadow’ is no exception. This album is 10 tracks of reggae goodness, produced to perfection in a melting pot of influences that span from multiple eras and stretch to just about every corner of the planet. 

After dropping ‘The Clone Theory’ in 2015 production connoisseur Prince Fatty has been paving the way for something very special ever since. 2019 sees him release his second solo album ‘In the Viper’s Shadow’. Featuring a whole host of reggae and dub royalty, this project boasts a who’s who of global talent including the likes of Cornell Campbell, Tippa Irie, Big Youth, George Dekker, Shniece McMenamin, Earl 16, Winston Francis, Marcia Griffith and Horseman.

Prince Fatty has worked with everyone from Lily Allen, Hollie Cook, Graham Coxon (Blur), Mungo’s HiFi, The Last Poets, The Skints, Gregory Isaacs to name a few. After moving from Brighton to live in Sao Paulo, Los Angeles and Thailand, he’s taken inspirational sounds from across the globe and has built up a reputation of being one of the go-to producers of recent times. With a knack for selecting the perfect collaborators, whether it’s an up and coming artist or a genre-defining hero, his ability to showcase foundation laying percussion skills, mesmerising vocalists, bass-heavy triumphs and everything in between has resulted in some of the most expressive sounds around, and ‘In The Viper’s Shadow’ is the perfect example of his commitment to the cause.

Blending old-school reggae with his own eccentric, futuristic twist, Prince Fatty hasn’t taken his foot off the gas this year. He produced an exclusive Record Store Day release with Earl 16 and gave The Last Poets’ ‘Understand What Black Is’ a complete dub overhaul; the latter received praise from Record Collector, Uncut, The Arts Desk, DJ Mag, Long Live Vinyl and many more. Kickstarting the summer, he released the first single from this album ‘Get Ready Ft Big Youth & George Dekker.’ The Smokey Robinson cover received spins from David Rodigan (BBC 1 XTRA), Ed Adoo (BBC Three Counties) and was described as the “gold standard of dub production” from Rootfire.

Label Review.

2019 album. Blues.

Our Overview.

Canadian blues guitarist is a veteran performer, whose work has had an influence on many western Canadian blues musicians and now Big Dave’s newest songs, on ‘Pocket Full Of Nothin’’ joyously communicate several musical flavours while keeping the integrity and continuity of the recording intact. Plus he is finally getting his recognition, at an age when the rest of us are getting around to contemplating retirement because the release of ‘Pocket Full Of Nothin’’ coincides with the thrilling announcement that Big Dave will receive an appointment to the Order of Canada award for his contributions to the nation’s cultural life.

The first thing Big Dave McLean will tell you about ‘Pocket Full Of Nothin’’, is that it isn’t a straight-ahead blues album. For, even though Dave has been playing the blues since he first heard John Hammond perform at the Mariposa Folk Festival fifty years ago, he’s always been open to a variety of musical styles and approaches to presenting a song.  As Dave puts it, ‘Music is just music and when it’s good, you forget about the genre or whatever label you want to put on it, and just appreciate the beauty of what you’re hearing.’ Truer words were never spoken. It doesn’t matter if he’s playing country, folk, rock, R&B or blues. It all sounds right and true when Big Dave sings it. 

 ‘Pocket Full Of Nothin’’ was never envisioned as a simple blues album. With an assembled group of Black Hen regulars including Steve Dawson on multiple stringed instruments, Jeremy Holmes and Gary Craig handling bass and drums, and Chris Gestrin on piano and organ making up the nucleus of the band, what sets this recording apart from his previous efforts is the addition of a fully realized horn section. It was then a thrill and a pleasure when Steve brought in Jerry Cook on Baritone sax, Dominic Conway on tenor sax and Malcolm Aiken on trumpet. This truly made Big Dave’s sound complete as the ensemble dug right in and recorded the album mostly live off of the floor in just a few days.

A few well-chosen cover songs are included to complement Big Dave’s original compositions, but on every track, Big Dave’s bellowing, prairie storm of a voice conjures smoke and fire as he delivers the most impassioned performances of his career. Big Dave explains, ‘you just have to be open. The Blues is a feeling, and you should play it the way you feel it.’ 

Label Review. 

2019 album. Jazz duo. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

This stand-out, intimate jazz duo recording features the haunting vocals of Siril Malmedal Hauge - a 25-year-old sensation from the small island, Sula, on the Norwegian North-West peninsula. And the guitar artistry of Jacob Young, internationally known and critically acclaimed for his work with his groups on three releases for ECM Records.

If you like Melody Gardot, Eva Cassidy, Ella Fitzgerald or Chet Baker - chances are you will dig this too. “Last Things” is an album with a mix of original songs, covers and standards - all from different popular music areas and different times in music history. Songs from genres as diverse as the epic 1970’s rock ballad “Little Wing” - a cover of Jimi Hendrix’ tune - to the Cole Porter masterpiece “So In Love” from the 1950 musical “Kiss me Kate”.

Two original song written by Jacob Young “Bounce With Me” and the title track of the album “Last Things” - a song that features Jacob Young’s voice in duet with Siril Malmedal Hauge, as well as multiple acoustic and electric guitars. The production of the album is sober and transparent, showcasing the strength of Siril’s phrasing and delivery of intertextual meaning - or storytelling. The songs are centred around the lyrical arrangements of Jacob Young’s guitar work. He is not afraid of using multiple layers and textures to elevate certain moments in the arrangements. Siril Malmedal Hauge’s sensual voice floats on top and in-between the musical lines of the songs. The duo impresses both as interpreters and improvisers.

Label Review.

2019 album. Electrifying Japanese pianist/composer.

Our Overview.

Electrifying Japanese pianist/composer Hiromi reflects on a decade of musical growth and evolution on her dazzling second solo piano album. ‘Spectrum’, presents the vibrant panorama of colours in Hiromi’s music. “I see colours when I play music, and I find it interesting that limitless colours emerge from simple black and white keys," Hiromi says of the album. "The concept of this album is ‘colour’ and the idea of the title track ‘Spectrum’ is the following: various colours connect and expand, just like the musical notes.”

When she recorded her solo piano debut, ‘Place to Be’, in 2009, Hiromi was on the eve of her 30th birthday. She realised that the album would offer a snapshot of the chapter just ending, the ways in which her experiences and personal growth had shaped her sound over the course of her 20s. She decided then that she would revisit the solo format at least once a decade, building a sonic portrait of her evolution and artistry.

’Spectrum’ celebrates the maturity and depth that have enriched Hiromi’s composing and playing over the course of her 30s, years in which she’s crisscrossed the globe thrilling audiences and embarked on collaborations with some of jazz’s most inventive artists, including Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Michel Camilo, Anthony Jackson, Simon Phillips, Steve Smith, Akiko Yano and Edmar Castañeda.

As a whole, ‘Spectrum’ is a vibrant tour of the rainbow panorama of Hiromi’s sound; in contrast with ‘Place to Be’ it’s an enthralling encapsulation of her musical maturity. “I feel I’m a little closer to the piano,” Hiromi concludes. “All the pianists that I really respect not only love but are loved by the piano, and that’s the relationship that I would love to build through my life.”

Label Review.

2019 album. Original vocalist in Santana and Journey.

Our Overview.

When you’re a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, you don’t have a lot to prove. But legendary singer-songwriter and keyboardist Gregg Rolie , who holds that rare distinction as a founding member and original lead vocalist of both Santana and Journey , and who has also been a mainstay of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band since 2012, demonstrates that he’s at the top of his game with the release of Sonic Ranch (Megaforce Records), his first feature-length studio album in 18 years.

A wide range of Rolie’s illustrious musician friends contributed to Sonic Ranch - among them are his onetime Santana mate Michael Shrieve on drums, as well as bass extraordinaire Alphonso Johnson. And he features not one, but two guitar heroes: Steve Lukather, who plays on the gutsy blues rocker “They Want It All” and the stunning album opener, Give Me Tomorrow,” and fellow Journey alum Neal Schon, who appears on the soulful ballad “Breaking My Heart” and the sinuous groover “Lift Me Up."

Sonic Ranch’s first single is “ What About Love.” The thunderous sing-along epic sees Sean Rolie displaying his own formidable guitar chops. “The song inspired by Ringo Starr and his message of peace and love,” Rolie explains. “I had started writing it, and I would and play around with it at soundchecks with Ringo. It sounded really good, so I took it home, found the bassline, and Sean produced and engineered it. Rolie wrote all of the 13 tracks on the album, with the exception of “They Want It All,” which he penned with Andre Pessis and Kevin Chalfont, and the piano-driven show stopper “Look into the Future,” which he co-wrote with Diane Valory and Neal Schon - the song originally appeared on Journey’s album of the same name in 1976.

Label Review.

2019 album. Rock.

Our Overview.

Molly Drag, the solo project of Michael Charles Hansford, started in Autumn of 2014. Encouraged by dear friends and driven by a desire for expression through music and the hope to create emotionally connecting and healing art, Hansford began releasing music online as Molly Drag. And now has just announced his forthcoming new studio album ’Touchstone’.

Each release is self-created, recorded and produced and is an act of honest, and often raw expression; a true catharsis for artist themself and listener alike. The music of Molly Drag creates a sense of wistful longing, heartache and noble beauty; like exploring the rooms of your childhood home, long since abandoned, light timidly filtering through dust-covered windows, illuminating all the memories that once filled its walls.

Molly Drag on ’Touchstone’: “While I was recording this album I started thinking about my hometown a lot, the small places within, the parks where I would smoke with my friends after school, the water that surrounded us always. I then contacted my high-school art teacher Ila who was an immense mentor for me, we rekindled our friendship.

"She said that I was always one of her “touchstone” students, immediately I asked her if I could use one of her paintings as the album cover. She said yes, and I also knew that it needed to be called touchstone. This album really is about growing up and how my great role models and teachers were the 3 women that taught me love, but also strength. This album is for my Mother, My Grandmother, and Ila... my art teacher.” Molly Drag