Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

For Robin Trower, the next great song is always right there at his fingertips. For five decades, the British bluesman has written the same way. The valves glow in his Marshall amplifier. Those fabled hands roam the neck of his Fender Stratocaster. Then the music starts to flow: raw and real, played with fire and skill, untainted by commercial aspirations, accompanied by lyrics that get to the guts of the matter. “The songs always come when I’m playing the guitar,” explains Trower of his creative process. “Everything starts from there…”

So too began Trower’s latest studio album, ‘Coming Closer To The Day’. It’s rare to find a ’60s legend still on trailblazing form in their eighth decade. But while Trower’s peers recycle the old hits or retreat from view, the 73-year-old guitarist finds himself in a golden late-bloom of creativity. In recent years, his solo output has been championed by both press and public, with the impact of 2014’s ‘Something’s About To Change’, 2016’s ‘Where You Are Going To’ and 2017’s ‘Time & Emotion’ setting up some of his best-attended US dates since he conquered that continent with ‘Bridge Of Sighs’ in the mid-’70s. “I had two really excellent tours in ’17 and ’18,” he reflects. “A really great turnout, great response from the crowd. It’s been wonderful, really.”

Even at this career pinnacle, Trower admits he “just can’t stop”. And with ‘Coming Closer To The Day’, his songcraft and soulful performances have never sounded more alive – even on an album whose title track acknowledges that life is short and time precious. “I’m saying that I’m nearer the end than the beginning,” he explains. “But that doesn’t scare me. Not at all. If I went tomorrow, I’d feel like I’d been blessed with being able to achieve an incredible amount as a musician.”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

Alt country band from Tennessee Lambchop who blend genres including country, rock and lounge are releasing ‘This (Is What I wanted To Tell You). Lambchop are a band that can be described as anything other than ordinary. They defy the very conventions of what a band is with something as fundamental as their line up. They have never had a core selection of musicians, instead Lambchop has consisted of a number of musicians that have come and gone over their career with the only real constant being the band's creative epicentre, frontman Kurt Wagner. They began with a somewhat traditional country sound before merging this with genres including post-rock and soul.

In recent years, the band has become a more personal vehicle for Kurt Wagner. Anchored by him and framed by bassist Matt Swanson and Wagner’s incorrigibly grinning foil, the pianist Tony Crow, the Lambchop of this decade has become more pliant and adaptable, opening itself to unexpected collaborators that give Wagner’s thoughts and feelings the shape they need for each new album. That was the idea for 2012’s engrossing ‘Mr.M’ (placed on Pitchfork's 50 Best Albums of the Year) and 2016’s ‘Flotus’ and it remains the approach for ‘This(Is What I Wanted To Tell You’.

Kurt Wagner has been described as a gifted lyricist and innovator of genre. A write up in American Songwriter Magazined described the frontman's lyrical style as "witty and deeply insightful." So far they have released eleven albums since their career began in 1994, and despite the absence of chart success from their discography, their live show is something of a cult phenomena. The sheer volume of work and devoted tour schedule won them praise from publication AllMusic who stated that the band are "arguably the most consistently brilliant and unique American group to emerge during the 1990s".

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Jenny Lewis has confirmed her highly anticipated return with her fourth solo album, ‘On The Line’ - the follow up to 2014’s critically acclaimed ‘The Voyager’ The 11 all new original songs were written by Lewis and recorded at Capitol Records’ Studio B, and feature a backing band of legendary talent including Beck, Benmont Tench, Don Was, Jim Keltner, and Ringo Starr.

Lewis has had a long a varied career starring as a child actor, largely in TV roles but occasionally some films including ‘Troop Beverley Hills’ (1989). She wound down her acting career after forming the band Rilo Kiley in 1998 and the group proceeded to gain commercial traction during the ‘00s. Initially trading with a country rock they developed a more indie rock sound by the time of the breakthrough album ‘Under The Blacklight’ (2007) which would prove to be their last. Jenny went solo and her last album became her first US Top 10 hit.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

Strand Of Oaks was born Timothy Showalter and his new release ‘Erasurland’ as he declares of the new album “This record wasn't supposed to be here. I had thought for a moment Strand of Oaks might be over until a text from my friend, Carl Broemel, changed all that. Unbeknownst to me, four members of My Morning Jacket and Kevin Ratterman booked studio time to record songs I didn't think I’d ever write. But they believed I could and pulled me back from the brink. At last, the songs came–and quickly morphed into everything I've ever worked toward as this band.  

These ten songs are about existing and continuing on, a testament to the hope that even if we feel like we are disappearing, there is that glimmer of light. You may not come out the same person you started as, but that'sokay. I'm glad this record is here now for whoever chooses to find it. Welcome to Eraserland, where we all can start again.”

Writer-producer Timothy has always used the highs and lows of his own life as the source material for his gut punching rock songs. Each of his experiences examined, mediated on and crafted into confessional albums for the world to share. The therapeutic experience of making art this way was often short lived, leading Showalter to bouts of depression and after 2017’s ‘Hard Love’, he found himself spent. Empty and determined that he would never write songs again, dark thoughts crept in and Showalter, concerned for his own well-being decided to go on a spiritual pilgrimage – to the Jersey Shore.

During this time, the members of My Morning Jacket, good friends of Showalter’s had gotten word of the terrible state he was in and decided to take things into their own hands. Carl Broemel messaged Showalter and informed him that Bo Koster would be soon be on a two week break from his tour with Roger Waters and they would all be free to meet in Louisville to make the next Strand of Oaks record. Divine intervention or forceful ultimatum, it was the opportunity Showalter needed. He spent the following weeks on the beach doing a mental tearing down-to-the-studs. What emerged was ‘Eraserland’, a thrilling and monumental turn for Strand of Oaks.

Label Review. 

2019 compilation to tie-in with official documentary. Also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

The iconic Mötley Crüe are releasing ‘Dirt’ a compilation to tie in with the documentary about these rock legends. Mötley Crüe is one of The World’s Biggest and most notorious rock bands. They laid the foundation for their inimitable career in the '80s with their genre-bending music and relentless reputation, typifying an excess never before seen in modern music. They continued to evolve through the '90s and beyond, redefining what it meant to be storytellers in music, with the release of their NY Times Best-selling book, The Dirt, in 2001. This page-turning rock epic offered a glimpse into The Crüe’s iconic lives and has now become a Netflix original movie, giving fans a chance to reconnect with the band they know and love in an unprecedented way. 

As a band they have released nine studio albums, seven of which are certified platinum or multi-platinum, selling over 100 million copies worldwide; 22 Top 40 mainstream rock hits; six Top 20 pop singles; a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; three Grammy nominations for Best Hard Rock Performance; and countless sold-out tours across the globe during their 30 plus years on the road, playing to millions and generations of fans. Besides their hook-filled, groundbreaking music, Mötley Crüe’s image pioneered an attitude, fashion sense and lifestyle all of which are portrayed throughout the film capturing the nostalgia.

1 of 4 new tracks by Motley Crue will be featured on the album. “The Dirt (Est. 1981) features Machine Gun Kelly who is featured in the film. - Over 100 million records sold worldwide - Six Top 20 pop singles including hits “Kickstart My Heart”, “Dr. Feelgood”, “Girls, Girls, Girls”, and “Home Sweet Home” - Seven platinum / multi-platinum album certifications - Three Grammy nominations for Best Hard Rock Performance - Five NY Times Bestselling books to date, including ‘The Dirt’, one of the first tell-alls written by a band - "The Dirt" is one of the bestselling rock music biographies of all time NY Times Best Seller, over 1M copies sold worldwide - 35+ years of successful sold-out tours across the globe, playing to millions of multigenerational fans - Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - Pioneers of the Las Vegas rock residency - Death-defying stage production - Genre-bending music and fashion contributions to pop culture - ‘The Dirt’ audiobook release to coincide with the movie - Release date 3/22 - Netflix film release 3/22

Label Review. 

2019 album with 3 bonus tracks. Also available on CD and Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

‘Singing To Strangers’ is Jack Savoretti’s stylish new album and his most ambitious to date, his sixth studio effort is a lush, orchestrated, shamelessly romantic opus that doesn’t hold back. It’s 12 years since Savoretti released his debut album ‘Between The Minds’ and Jack puts his new album’s vibe down to his European background and all the passionate blood coursing through his veins. “It’s atmospheric, it’s melancholic . . . it’s my Italian DNA,” he says“I also think it’s to do with me growing up by the sea. I wanted the songs to have gravitas so I started listening to a lot of cinematic Italian and French music including Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson.”

Two co-writes on the album are amongst the highlights. “Touchy Situation” was co-written with Bob Dylan. Yes you read that right, Bob Dylan! A contact of Jack’s American manager had some old Dylan lyrics and he was fine with Jack writing music to them. It may have been because he’d heard Jack’s cover of the Dylan rarity ‘Nobody ‘Cept You’ on ‘Written In Scars’ – a song Jack found in Jackson Browne’s studio. The other collaboration was the Kylie Minogue cowrite "Music’s Too Sad Without You" which appears as a live version recorded in Venice.

‘Singing To Strangers’ was produced by Cam Blackwood (George Ezra), the album follows Jack’s last two gold discs ‘Written in Scars’ (2014) and ‘Sleep No More’ (2016) and was recorded in Rome at Ennio Morricone’s studio, the 12 track album features Jack’s acclaimed live band: guitarists Pedro Vito and Sam Lewis; bassist Sam Davies, drummer Jesper Lind and musical director Nikolai Torp on keys.“Lucikly Morricone’s studio is in the basement of this huge church so it was cooler,” Jack says. “And the atmosphere down there was essential and that was captured on ‘Candlelight’, which became the calling card of the album."

As for the title track Jack explains it’s origin: “That’s my job: I sing to strangers. That’s what I’ve spent most of my life doing. Singing to friends and family and fans; they’re already onside, so you can, to some extent sing anything. Strangers need convincing, touching, connection.”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

Brit pop band Sleeper are releasing “The Modern Age’ their first album in 21 years. The band: Louise Wener, Andy Maclure, Johnathan Stewartand Keiron Pepper, spent summer 2018 recording The Modern Age with their long-time producer, Stephen Street – a relationship that clicked into place again right away. They tracked live at Metway studios in their adopted city of Brighton, before decamping to Street’s studio in West London to add the finishing touches.

'The Modern Age' is the outward looking sound of a band revitalised and refreshed. Covering subjects from motherhood and social media to personal loss and, inevitably, relationships. 'The Modern Age' retains Sleeper’s classic pop sensibilities with a shiny, new, contemporary feel. However the album wasn’t meant to happen. In fact, the band had promised each other it never would.

“We had no plan to get back together. Sometimes life throws you a massive curve ball. You end up jumping off the cliff, just to see what it feels like.”: Singer, Louise Wener.

Sleeper enjoyed huge critical and commercial success in the mid-90s: achieving 8 Top 40 singles across 3 Top 10 albums with well over 1,000,000 sales. Their music was characterised by astute, observational lyrics and big, hook driven melodies. Wener was an iconic front-person, heading up a movement that brought women centre stage in guitar music.

Sleeper split In 1998 and walked purposely away from the limelight. Wener carved out a career as a successful novelist. Drummer Andy Maclure and John Stewart – Sleeper’s guitarist – both became lecturers in music studies. Sleeper’s current line-up are joined by former Prodigy bassist Kieron Pepper.

Label Review. 

O2 Academy in Leeds on 9 December 2017.

Our Overview. 

In 2017, The Wedding Present played a series of concert dates to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of their classic debut album, ‘George Best’. With its bittersweet, breathtakingly honest love songs immersed in whirlwind guitars, ‘George Best’ struck a chord with outsiders across the indie universe. Suddenly, here was David Gedge; a geeky pied piper for our youthful missteps. 30 years on… we have laughed, loved and lived along with The Wedding Present but are we any different to the way we were during those first meanderings into love? Gedge’s words are still golden… and we will always remember our favourite dress. The NME described ‘George Best’ as “an unmitigated delight” upon its release and included it in its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” Allmusic says “It would be nearly impossible to name the standout tracks, since... every tune is so solid”.

The album has achieved legendary status in the hearts and minds of alternative music fans everywhere. The final concert in the 30th anniversary series took place at the O2 Academy in Leeds on 9 December 2017. This was, of course, hugely appropriate because Leeds was the city where The Wedding Present were born and where ‘George Best’ was written, arranged, rehearsed and partly recorded. Appreciating the significance of the event, David Gedge decided that this Leeds show would be the last time that The Wedding Present would play ‘George Best’ live... ever!

Label Review. 

1998 album remastered with Tom Baker voice over outtakes. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Mansun were one of the most innovative British bands of the late 90s. Having signed to the legendary record label Parlophone they released four albums - ‘Attack of the Grey Lantern’ (1997), ‘Six’ (1998), ‘Little Kix’ (2000) and the compilation ‘Kleptomania’ following the band’s split - as well as a popular and now rare series of EPs. The label Kscope, having now acquired this impressive catalogue, are running a thorough reissue series that delves into a treasure trove of previously unreleased audio and visual material, including the much awaited 21st anniversary remaster of their experimental Top 10 album ‘Six’ (#6 UK charts).

Tearing up the expectation laid by their smash hit #1 debut album ‘Attack of the Grey Lantern’, Mansun followed up in 1998 with their leftfield cult classic ‘Six’. The music is a unification of numerous ideas and inspirations, with elements of pop, electronica and progressive rock. They included a Tchaikovsky sample interlaced with electronic drums and spooky synth lines, references to religious scepticism, Winnie the Pooh,Stanley Kubrick, Marxism and spoken word from the legendary fourth Doctor Who - Tom Baker. Its varied sounds result in dynamic switches mid-track to seemingly new songs, making the album a timeless record and it’s not short on strong individual tracks with the singles “Legacy”, “Being A Girl”, “Negative” and “Six”. NME said of the album at the time: “A twisting maze of prog, glam and early-’80s guitar pop... No-one has done northern angst on LSD quite like this”.

Label Review. 

1969 album on white vinyl. A near precise replica of the 1969 pressing, down to the vendor who made the original boxes filled with souvenirs of John and Yoko's nuptials: photographs, a copy of the couple’s marriage certificate, both Lennon's and Ono's drawings, a picture of a slice of wedding cake and more. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Originally released in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Wedding Album’ was the couple’s third experimental album length record and one of the most remarkable of the duo’s testaments to an intense romantic and artistic partnership that would last fourteen years, until Lennon’s tragic passing in 1980.

On March 20, 1969, John and Yoko were married in a civil service in Gibraltar. To celebrate the event, in lieu of a conventional honeymoon, the newlyweds spent a week in bed at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam, inviting members of the press into their room for interviews and photo sessions and using their fame and the publicity generated by their ‘Bed-in’ to call attention to their campaign for world peace.

With ‘Wedding Album’, John and Yoko created an enduring snapshot of a vibrant pop-cultural moment, with the hostilities of the Vietnam War as its bracing backdrop. It captures the humour, earnestness, and spontaneity that marked the early years of the ‘Ballad of John and Yoko’ era.

‘Wedding Album’’s innovative, original packaging, created by graphic designer John Kosh, included a box filled with souvenirs of John and Yoko’s nuptials: photographs, a copy of the couple’s marriage certificate, both Lennon’s and Ono’s drawings, a picture of a slice of wedding cake and more. Now, with a faithful recreation of ‘Wedding Album’ on special edition white vinyl LP, as well as compact disc, Secretly Canadian are making one of the most unusual and emblematic recordings of the Sixties available again - fifty years after John and Yoko were married - to mark the Golden Wedding anniversary of two of the 20th Century’s most emblematic cultural figures.

Label Review.

1998 album with 11 bonus tracks. Also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

This 21 year anniversary reissue includes bonus tracks selected by Adrian Sherwood. By the time they recorded ‘Rafi’s Revenge’ in 1998, Asian Dub Foundation were primed to explode. Having initially emerged from East London’s grassroots Community Music project as a largely studio based collective, the band had galvanised themselves into a riotously exciting touring machine by the late Nineties. Their extraordinary live shows around this period were electrifying to witness, kinetic and dynamic, incendiary and euphoric, confrontational yet celebratory. For sheer roof-raising energy, they were unrivalled.

‘Rafi’s Revenge’ originally peaked at Number 20 on the UK Albums Chart and was shortlisted for the 1998 Mercury Music Prize, with Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream) hailing them at the time as “the bes tlive act in Britain.” NME (1997) reported “Right here, right now ADF are the most important band inBritain.”

Of course ADF have evolved enormously over the last two decades but their breakthrough album remains a fascinating chapter in the real, complex, unwritten history of Britpop. Expanded and enlarged for this anniversary edition, these multi-layered musical treasures still dazzle and delight with their grandiose ambition and riotous energy.

Double CD version features second CD with tracks selected by Adrian Sherwood. 3-panel digisleeve printed on reversed cardboard with 24-page booklet.

White double vinyl format includes a CD featuring the bonus material inserted in the packaging. Gatefold sleeve and innersleeves printed on reversed cardboard. 4-page 30cm insert.

The Band are to play ‘Rafi’s Revenge’ gig at Rich Mix in London on the 28th of March in celebration of the anniversary.ADF will also be part of the major Music & Immigration exhibition in Paris and London.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD and Vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Cinematic Orchestra return to delight our ears with their first new album in 12 years ‘To Believe’ and this definitive new album that explores a timeless question of vital importance in 2019 - what to believe? In 2019 it is easy to see the bands influence, jazz is all around us, London and LA have recently produced scene’s more prolific than anyone expected; Kamasi Washington has been nominated for both Grammy and Brit Awards, Sons Of Kemet a Mercury Prize, BADBADNOTGOOD provide jazz soundtracks to high fashion shows and Kendrick Lamar has put the jazz palette at the top of the charts. When The Cinematic Orchestra released their critically acclaimed debut album “Motion” it helped pave the way for this moment, incorporating as it did an interpretation that had been lacking in the oeuvre and encouraging a new generation of musicians to break rules. “To Believe” doesn’t shy away from this ethos - its articulation of the band’s unique sonic language, encompassing not only jazz but the sort of transcendental orchestration combined with the elegant electronics of artists like Ólafur Arnalds and Floating Points, artists they have helped forge a path for, has never been more cohesive and compelling.

Since “Motion”, The Cinematic Orchestra have sold hundreds of thousands of albums, generated almost half a billion streams and enjoyed critical support from the likes of Pitchfork (8.6 for second album “Every Day” which featured two collaborations with legendary Art Ensemble of Chicago singer Fontella Bass), The Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, Resident Advisor, Fader, Mixmag, NME, Crack (whose Simple Things festival the band headlined in 2016), Rolling Stone, Gilles Peterson, Benji B, Jason Bentley, Zane Lowe, Annie Mac, Lauren Laverne, KCRW and Mary Anne Hobbs. ‘To Build A Home’ has been synced to dozens of films and TV shows including the Orange Is The New Black finale and This Is Us, adverts include Burberry, Armani, Nike and Apple. The ‘To Build a Home’ short film was directed by Andrew Griffin and stars Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, Harry Potter).

The band have also been touring, consistently performing to larger and larger audiences and selling out the likes of London's Royal Albert Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Rome’s Auditorium Park Della and the Sydney Opera House. Coachella, Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, Montreux and Sonar have all played host to the band’s much loved live performances. Beyond the obvious they have also appeared at the Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Awards for Stanley Kubrick and New York’s Summerstage with the legendary Majavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin, they curated a series of events at London’s prestigious Barbican Centre featuring commissions from the prodigiously talented Austin Peralta (RIP) and seen the likes of Dorian Concept, Thundercat, Moses Sumney and Gilles Peterson support them on stage over the years. They scored Disney’s feature length nature documentary “The Crimson Wing” including the track ‘Arrival of the Birds’ which featured in the closing scene of the Oscar Winning Stephen Hawking biopic "The Theory of Everything". They also released a Late Night Tales compilation featuring music from Flying Lotus, Burial and Björk.

Founding member Jason Swinscoe and longtime partner Dominic Smith have enlisted album contributions from collaborators old and new: Moses Sumney, Roots Manuva, Heidi Vogel, Grey Reverend (vocalist on Bonobo’s 'First Fires’), Dorian Concept and Tawiah (Mark Ronson, Kindness), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (Flying Lotus, Anderson Paak, Thundercat, Hiatus Kaiyote) features on strings and photographer and visual artist Brian “B+” Cross collaborated with Swinscoe and Smith on the album’s concept. The record was mixed by multiple Grammy winner Tom Elmhirst (David Bowie, Frank Ocean, Adele) in Jimi Hendrix’s legendary Electric Lady studios. The album artwork comes courtesy of The Designers Republic™ (Aphex Twin).

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Joanne Shaw Taylor has been quietly amassing a big fanbase over the last few years with her brand of blues rock and her last album 2016’s ‘Wild’ cracked the UK Top 20. This breakthrough brought her to the attention of the majors and she recently signed with Sony for her new album ‘Reckless Heart’.

Joanne says of the record: “I decided for this album I wanted to go further back to my roots. A large part of that was my decision to work with Al Sutton. Al’s been a good friend of mine since I moved to Detroit in 2008 and I’ve always been a big fan of his work with the Detroit Cobras, Thornetta Davis and most recently Greta Van Fleet. Working together was something we’d always discussed and in particular that he’d like to hear me do something more raw and live. Therefore, I wrote with that in mind: 15 or so original tracks as well as one song I’d written in Nashville with James House whom I wrote most of Wild with.

“I tried to keep the subject matter as honest as possible. I just wrote about things I’ve been through in the last two years since we recorded Wild, as I always think I perform the best when it’s something I really feel. Then we cut them all live. The other main reason for recording in Detroit was the calibre of musicians in that town, and we were lucky enough to score some of the best in Ron Otis, James Simonson, Phil Hale and Chris Codish.”

“I couldn’t be happier with it; we managed to incorporate my love of soul, blues and rock into the album and I think it’s probably my most honest work to date. I just hope my fans enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it”.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Brian Jonestown Massacre burst into 2019 with the release of their 18th full-length album, just seven months after their last one. The self-titled 9-track album is released on Anton Newcombe’s A Recordings on 15th March 2019. It was recorded and produced at Anton’s Cobra Studio in Berlin.

The album was originally going to be released in September, but due to a hugely successful global tour – taking in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe the release was delayed.The album features Sara Neidorf on drums, Heike Marie Radeker (LeVent) on bass, Hakon Adalsteinsson (BJM / Third Sound & Gunman & Holy Ghost) on guitar and Anton Newcombe on multiple instruments. Also making a guest vocal appearance on ‘Tombes Oubliées’ is Rike Bienert who has sung on previous BJM albums. The band performed songs from the album throughout the European leg of the 2018 tour.

Anton Newcombe has been a very busy man these past five years, having released four critically acclaimed Brian Jonestown Massacre albums and an EP, one soundtrack album and two albums with Tess Parks. All releases were fully recorded and produced at Anton’s studio.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

American troubadour Tom Russell, regarded as one of the finest songwriters of his generation, returns with ‘October in the Railroad Earth’ via Proper Records.The new studio album comprises ten original Tom Russell songs, including the title track from the Irish film Small Engine Repair and features Bill Kirchen on lead electric guitar, Eliza Gilkyson on backing vocals. The Grammy Award winning Texmaniacs appear on “Isadore Gonzalez,” about a Mexican cowboy who died in England during a performance of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

The record contains nine other originals, including the title song from the Irish film Small Engine Repair, and a cover of the traditional “Wreck of the Old 97.” Russell describes the songs and sound as: “Jack Kerouac meets Johnny Cash... in Bakersfield”.

Label Review.

Radio Broadcast. Sports Arena on 20th October 1968. Red and purple marble Vinyl. Also available in CD.

Our Overview.

Cream were the British Rock trio that oozed talent from every musical angle, albeit they were only together for two years their influence was immense. They could be considered as the first supergroup to become superstars and the first top group to truly exploit the power trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s. All three of the musicians yearned to break free of the confines of the standard rock/R&B/blues group, in a unit that would allow them greater instrumental and improvisational freedom, somewhat in the mould of a jazz outfit. Eric Clapton’s stunning guitar solos would get much of the adulation, yet Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker was at least as responsible for shaping the group's sound, singing most of the material in his rich voice. He also wrote their best original compositions, sometimes in collaboration with outside lyricist Pete Brown.

Creams short lifespan however, was in hindsight unsurprising given the considerable talents, ambitions, and egos of each of the band members. ’Live In San Diego’ shows Cream at their finest during their Farewell Tour. Worn out by touring and personal disagreements, Cream agreed to disband after a farewell tour in October 1968. Recorded in outstanding fidelity for broadcast on KPRO-FM, this outstanding gig features a cross-section of their best-loved material and clearly indicates why they were regarded as the pre-eminent rock band of their day. It's presented here together with background notes and images.

Tracklist

1. White Room

2. Politician

3. I'm So Glad

4. Sitting On Top Of The World

5. Sunshine Of Your Love

6. Crossroads

7. Train Time

8. Toad

9. Spoonful

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Rock maestro and Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus releases his new album ‘Groove Denied’ -the secret electronic album that he has been telling everyone about sees the light of day. When Stephen Malkmus first arrived on the scene in the early Nineties, as frontman and prime creative force in Pavement, the area of music with which he was associated couldn’t really have been further from the techno-rave sounds of the day.

Fast forward to the present and here comes Malkmus with a surprising new project that embraces the very digital tools and procedures he’d have once gone out of his way to avoid. ‘Groove Denied’ – Stephen’s first solo album without his cohorts the Jicks since 2001 – was made using Ableton’s Live, a software sequencer and “digital audio workstation” that is the preferred tool of discerning techno producers and deejays worldwide. Instead of a human-powered rhythm section of electric bass and drums, Malkmus’s arsenal further includes drum machines, along with a host of plug-in FX and “soft synths” (digital simulations of vintage electronic hardware that inhabit your computer rather than take over your entire living room).

That said, ‘Groove Denied’ is not a plunge into EDM or glitch-city. In fact, there aren’t any purely instrumental tracks on the album. Every song is precisely that: a song, featuring Malkmus staples like an artfully askew melody and an oblique lyric. ‘Groove Denied’ is Stephen playing hooky from his customary way of going about things, jolting himself out of a comfy routine. As Malkmus commented recently in a recent video interview, “It’s kind of funny to mess with stuff you’re not supposed to mess with.”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD,

Our Overview. 

Dwight Trible returns with his masterpiece ‘Mothership’. This Los Angeles native who is described as the godfather of the LA sound has worked with everyone from Bobby Hutcherson and Charles Lloyd to Harry Belafonte. He is the vocalist with the Pharaoh Sanders Quartet and is also the vocal director for the Horace Tapscott Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a Los Angeles institution with a history stretching back forty years and an active engagement in the city's Black community since the Watts Uprising. Like his mentors, Dwight is not content to use his music to just entertain people, although he is a dynamic performer. He uses his music to bring people together, to bridge the gap between the races, and to heal the human heart.

One of the world’s greatest living jazz vocalists ‘Mothership’ does not fail to disappoint, timeless, yet made for our times, this is an album of spiritual jazz, soul, gospel and psychedelic rock.

Recorded at LA’s Sunset Sound and backed by a band of legendary musicians (including Kamasi Washington), this is a work of true beauty. A tour de force that reveals Dwight’s kinship with spiritualism.

“It was such an honor to play on Dwight Trible's album. His singing has inspired me since I was 15 years old. He has a way of bringing such a unique life and feel to every song that he sings.

“His voice has power, soul, and beauty, qualities that all us horn players strive for. Thank you Dwight for having me on this masterful piece of art” - Kamasi Washington

“Thrillingly ecstatic” - The Guardian

“Mellifluous of voice and cosmic of soul… Gorgeous” - Evening Standard

Label Review.

2019 debut album also availble in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Eric Brandon Pulido the frontman of Texan legends Midlake embraces both past and present times for his glorious debut solo album ‘To Each His Own’, under his new enigmatic alias E.B. The Younger.

‘To Each His Own’ is a deeply personal record rooted in Pulido’s love of warm, glowing rock, folk and country hues that came of age in the 1970s woven with contemporary recalibrations: guitars ripple, sigh and sizzle alongside gliding keyboards over crisp, choppy and becalmed rhythms. Pulido’s lyrics equally look back and forth, philosophising about his place in the world, the choices he’s made, and where they have taken him.

Or, as he describes ‘To Each His Own’, “an eleven-song journey through the life and times of a wayward Midlaker seeking to find purpose in an uncharted land. Will he find his way? Listen, and ye shall find.”

Pulido’s “wayward” phase began in 2014 with a break from Midlake, “to invest time in kids and musical projects less physically demanding”, he says. His first project was the transatlantic collective BNQT, a self-described ‘poor man’s Travelling Wilburys’ featuring Pulido, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Fran Healy (Travis), Jason Lytle (Granddaddy) and Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand) who recorded the 2017 album BNQT – Volume 1. But To Each His Own is all Pulido – or rather, E.B. The Younger.

“It’s an antiquated way of naming a younger member of a family,” he explains. “I’m expressing, simply, that something greater came before me. It’s countering the idea in today’s culture that everything revolves around ourselves, that we’re the most important thing in the world. I feel that humility is a lost virtue – you only have to look at America’s current leader to see just how lost – which I want this record to represent. Honesty, empathy, love.” 

With Pulido on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, he drafted in Midlakers (and BNQT contributors) Joey McClellan (electric guitar), McKenzie Smith (drums) and Jesse Chandler (flute), who dovetail with Scott Lee (bass), Daniel Creamer (keyboards) and Beau Bedford (keyboards) from local country-funksters The Texas Gentlemen to form an empathic ‘alt.Wrecking Crew’ of session players. Bedford is also the album’s principal producer, while studio engineer and Centromatic drummer Matt Pence acted as the overarching producer, alongside Pulido, as well as adding percussion and occasional drums.

Label Review. 

1984 album. 1985 US mix remastered / 1984 UK mix remastered. Also available on CD, 2CD, & 6CD+DVD. 

Our Overview. 

Whitesnake scored its first platinum-selling album in 1984 with 'Slide It In', a release that has sold more than four million copies worldwide thanks to hard-rocking songs like “Love Ain’t No Stranger,” “Slow An’ Easy” and the title track. The classic album turns 35 this year and Rhino is celebrating with several new versions, including a double-CD Deluxe Edition including the newly remastered U.K. and U.S. mixes expanded with a selection of bonus tracks. There is also a single CD version which is the same track listing as Disc One below, and the double-LP Deluxe Edition featuring the newly remastered U.K. and U.S. mixes.

After releasing Saints & Sinners in 1982, Whitesnake reconvened the following year in Germany to begin recording songs for what would become the band’s sixth studio album, Slide It In. At the time, band members included Coverdale, guitarists Micky Moody and Mel Galley, bassist Colin Hodgkinson and keyboardist Jon Lord. The album was initially released in 1984 in the U.K., where it climbed into the Top 10.

Soon after, the band’s line-up changed. Lord left to rejoin Deep Purple and Moody and Hodgkinson were replaced by guitarist John Skyes, and Neil Murray, who was Whitesnake’s original bassist. Prior to its U.S. release in 1985, Slide It In was remixed while newly recorded parts by Skyes, Murray and keyboardist Bill Cuomo were added, resulting in two distinct versions of the album, both of which are included in this set.

We spoke to Hugh Gilmour (exclusively for Keymailrecords) who has been working with the band for the past few years on their album artwork, stage backdrops and merchandise: “...the first track I heard from ‘Slide It In’ was when “Guilty Of Love” was in the charts in August 1983. [I] moved abroad at the end of 1983, so it took a while for me to finally hear ‘Slide It In’, which was probably my brother’s cassette, which came with an extra track. I have lots of favourites, but ‘Slide It In’ is definitely near the top. I’m also working on the new album, 'Flesh And Blood' (due May 2019). And it’s not just the artwork, but all things visual, from the backdrops & scrims on stage, David's stage shirts, the tour merchandise… I’ve even just finished a new ladies shirt for Valentine’s Day.” http://www.gilmourdesign.co.uk/case-studies/whitesnake-art/

Hugh is also the bass player and songwriter in the band Pig Iron and their back catalogue is exclusively through Keymailrecords! Available here.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Award winning singer-songwriter and guitarist James Morrison returns with his new album ‘You’re Stronger Than You Know.’ A title more than apt as it’s arrival comes after a time of personal turmoil that saw Morrison leave his label, lose his natural songwriting instinct and go through a tough time with his long-term partner Gill. His band, meanwhile, hit that life-affirming sweet spot between rambunctious energy and tight musicianship. While the album possesses some darker moments, the overriding feeling is that it offers a beacon of positivity in a climate of bad news. You wouldn’t guess that these songs emerged from such a turbulent time in his life.

This is the first new material since James released 2015’s ‘Higher Than Here’ and it also marks the first time in his career that he’s recorded with just one producer, in this case the legendary Mark Taylor who has worked with artists such as Tina Turner, Lady Gaga, Lionel Richie, Rod Stewart, Hall & Oates, Cher, Kylie Minogue and Jennifer Loppez just to name a few on his CV. Mark Taylor which infuses it with a cohesiveness that’s a hallmark of all of the classic albums. British Grove Studios in London provided the perfect location for recording with a balance between vintage equipment and modern technology. The core of the album was recorded within a week, before a second was spent adding the finishing touches – overdubs, backing vocals and horns.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

North Carolina-based ensemble Chatham County Line will return with their eighth studio album this spring titled Sharing The Covers. The album is, at its core, a tribute to those whom Chatham County Line hold dear, and a chance for the group to perform modern and traditional classics in the bluegrass-style they’re known for best. On the 13-track collection, CCL takes the familiar and adds a touch of originality to create a wholly new and inventive roster of covers by Tom Petty, Alton Delmore, John Lennon, The Louvin Brothers, Beck, James Hunter, and more.

They pay homage to Wilco on the first single “I Got You (At the End of the Century)” for which the band gives the song a bluegrass vibe complete with a splash of banjo. Dave Wilson of the band said: “...[Wilco’s “I Got You (At the End of the Century)”] is a prime example of how ‘Sharing the Covers’ pulls cover songs directly from our setlists through the years. We had performed this tune back in 2005 at the release show celebrating our second album, ‘Route 23’, and hadn’t really revisited it since. When we were setting up in the studio to record some new material, the engineer asked us to test the levels on the microphones and somehow this song came out. We are still in awe of the great job Wilco does in creating moments in the studio… they are a great inspiration for any band attempting to weather the years.”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

American alt rock icons of the 90s Weezer who have a maintained a devoted cult for decades are releasing ‘The Black Album’ which is hot on the heels of their most recent ‘Pacific Daydream’. River Cuomo (lead vocals. lead guitar. keyboards) says that the idea was to make material for the Black Album befitting its name. “It’s real challenging for me. I don’t gravitate towards super dark music. There’s always got to be something triumphant about it in the end. So, I’ve been struggling trying to figure out how I can do a ‘Black Album’ as a writer.” Cuomo explained how Pacific Daydream “kind of materialized” while they were working on The Black Album: “I had two folders on my Dropbox: one was the ‘Black Album,’ and it didn’t get filled as quickly as this other folder, which I temporarily titled ‘New Folder.’ That one filled up with ten songs that were definitely different, but not quite as different as the ‘Black Album.’ So we put a name on it — Pacific Daydream — and put that out first.”

Back in October, Cuomo described the music of this upcoming record as “a lot more modern and electronic and not-90s sounding.” ‘The Black Album’ was produced by TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek, with whom the band worked for the first time. The album's songs were entirely written on piano by frontman Rivers Cuomo for the first time in Weezer history, creating some of the most satisfyingly awesome songs in the entire hits-filled Weezer catalogue. With band members switching up instruments in the studio, and choruses filtered through Sitek's own encyclopedic musical references of everything from Gorillaz to Can to Pink Floyd, Weezer. ‘The Black Album’ is the bold next step in the winning streak of acclaimed albums they've released since 2014.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and choir. Featured artists are Alfie Boe (Psalm 142 and Agnus Dei) and Paul McCartney (Blackbird). It was written by composer Rachel Fuller (wife of Pete Townsend [The Who]). “Blackbird” is the original version from the Beatles White Album but with a new orchestral backing.

Our Overview. 

‘Animal Requiem’ is the brainchild of composer (and wife of Pete Townsend), Rachel Fuller. An animal lover, she has written a musical work with the intention of celebrating, remembering and honouring all the animals we have loved and lost.

As a long-time animal rights supporter Paul McCartney was also keen to be involved, and has granted permission for the Beatle song “Blackbird” to be included. It’s apparently the original White Album recording (featuring McCartney’s vocal and guitar), but now accompanied by an entirely new classical arrangement performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Choir of London, conducted by Robert Ziegler.

Rachel Fuller said, “I composed the Animal Requiem for all of us who have lost a much beloved pet – the pain we feel is equal to the love we felt for them. With this music, I honour and remember all the animals I have loved and lost. All their lives have had an extraordinary impact on mine and I am forever grateful.”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

A very healthy dose of rock ’n’ roll overload coming right at ya with the veritable sonic feast that is Jim Jones and the Righteous. Rising from the ashes of the Jim Jones Revue, the band paint from a broader sonic palette.

‘CollectiV’ is the bands sophomore album made from only the finest ingredients including rock’n’roll, chain gang chants, mutant soul and gospel, as well as the band’s own heavy lounge, this is the best release yet from Jim Jones and the Righteous Mind.

Giving weight to the album’s name is a stellar cast of guest musicians. These include guitarist Little Barrie, soul singer Sister Cookie, Urban Voodoo Machine’s Paul-Ronney Angel, Future Shape of Sound's Stuart Dace and opera singer Vesna Petresin. ‘CollectiV’ also finds Jim Jones re-uniting with guitarist Ray Hanson and drummer Phil Smith, his comrades from Thee Hypnotics, for the first time in over 20 years.

Joining the band in spirit is The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, whose 1964 Gibson Hummingbird – the very guitar on which ‘Street Fighting Man’ and other classics were written and recorded – made its way into Jim Jones’ hands and within the grooves contained on ‘CollectiV.’

Label Review. 

2019 live album. Also available on triple vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Flight of the Conchords are the comedy duo of Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement who formed in New Zealand in the late 1990s. Several years of gigging led to a BBC radio series and then an HBO TV series which ran for two seasons and generated two albums as well. Their first EP ‘The Distant Future’ won a Grammy in 2008 for best Comedy Album. They retired Flight of the Conchords at the height of their fame and continued their careers in TV and film separately although occasionally working together on numerous projects.

They reformed their original act for touring purposes and this album was recorded at London’s Eventim Apollo in 2018. The 22-track album boasts two songs edited out of the HBO special for time, “Carol Brown” and “The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)”. Fan favorites sit alongside seven new songs premiered during the duo’s “Flight of the Conchords Sing Flight of the Conchords Tour”, including the previously released “Father and Son”. The other new songs are “Summer of 1353”, “Stana”, “Seagull”, “Back on the Road”, “Bus Driver”, and “Iain and Deanna”.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

This is the sound of the sixties wrapped up in the perfect package of the very modern Durand Jones & The Indications proving that this sound will never go out of fashion and their sophomore album ‘American Love Call’ is a fierce album reckoning with how to balance love and fury of modern day America. The band conjure the dynamism of Jackie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions.

The Indications’ 2016 self-titled debut was the product of friends who met as students at Indiana University in Bloomington, In., recorded for $452.11, including a case of beer. ‘American Love Call’ is instead the record the Indications dreamed of making, fleshed out with strings, backing vocals and a newfound confidence in songwriting. A sprawling and limitless equation; grand and cinematic, yet focused on fleeting details.

Helmed by foil vocalists Jones and Frazer, and rounded out by Blake Rhein (guitarist), Kyle Houpt (bassist), and Steve Okonski (keyboard), The Indications released their self-titled debut album to much acclaim on renowned Midwestern soul label, Colemine Records. The album quickly picked up steam on the back of the band’s booming live show and the enthusiastic recommendation of independent record store clerks across the country.

Recorded at Brooklyn’s Studio G earlier this summer, American Love Call is an expansion of the band’s sound, making a leap forward in both style and songwriting. Pulling influence from a variety of sounds like R&B, gospel, early folk rock, and classical music, the Indications’ second effort has a newfound confidence, with Jones’ bellowing voice and Frazer’s soothing falsetto filled out by backing vocals and instrumentation. Thematically, the album covers tough ground, like the danger of simplifying and romanticizing the past, but it also attempts to reconcile, searching for unifying commonalities. Brooding, bold, and pensive, American Love Call is the result of the band fleshing out its craft and elevating its dreamy, old-soul sound.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Into The Red’ is the excellent follow up album to Fews 2016 debut ‘Means’. And the Anglo/US/Swedish noisenik’s are cranking up the volume and intensity with their sophomore album which boasts a heavier, innovative though nonetheless catchy dynamic than the blueprint of their debut record.  

As band co-founder Frederick explains “Making these songs is by far the most personal thing I’ve ever experienced. We wanted to make an album that actually meant something and take it to the next level, no restrictions or limits. With these songs I wanted to see how honest I can be with myself without it getting too uncomfortable. (Fellow co-founder) David said ’Into Red’ is like a lorry going 300 kph on ice almost losing control, which sums it up pretty great.”

Working with friend and producer Joakim and the resultant work pushing FEWS harder than ever before Fred add’s “we developed it cohesively and Joakim has seen us live a lot and knew instinctively what mood we wanted to achieve. It felt super natural with him and was an amazing partnership then James (Dring) provided the icing on the cake, he made everything pop in a way we couldn’t even imagine”.

Of Paradiso Fred proffers “whilst touring last year I was joking around with the guys going like Hey I’ve got a new song!" even though I really hadn’t. I just played an open E for them and yeah, they just left the room. Later we headed to Amsterdam and had two days-off - one day to party and one day to write.  We got booked into Q-Factory studios and by accident I did the same joke and added 'D-B-G’, this time everyone took notice - we worked all day and finished it. Nameless, we decided to try it out at Paradiso, the venue we were playing in Amsterdam. Having made its debut someone yelled 'PARADISOOO!' so the name stuck cause it was born there.”

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

70’s Southern rock ’n’ roll nostalgia in perfect sound and motion from the spectacularly current Quaker City Night Hawkes and their new album ‘QCNH’. The last time we heard from the Quaker City Night Hawks, they were traveling the country in support of their Lightning Rod Records debut, ‘El Astronauta’, an album that mixed the greasy strut of 1970s rock with doses of down-and-dirty Texas blues, science fiction and Bible Belt boogie. The guys were Texans by birth but their music whipped up its own geography. With its spacey, southern stomp, ‘El Astronauta’ could’ve been the soundtrack for a road trip across the American desert… or even the house music for a weekend night at the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Arriving two years later, 2019’s ‘QCNH’ ramps up that diversity with 10 new songs rooted in vintage R&B grooves, Stax-worthy funk and guitar fuelled psychedelia.

“We’ve always been a rock & roll band,” says Sam Anderson, who spits the band’s singing, songwriting and guitar-playing duties with David Matsler. “There’s a big ‘70s influence and a strong Southern element to everything we do. With this record, though, we’re exploring the sounds we’ve haven’t touched upon as often. It’s the deepest we’ve ever gone into our influences, and the widest range of sounds we’ve ever tied together.”

LP pressed on ‘custom opaque creme blend’ coloured 140g vinyl.

“Quaker City Night Hawks make a feast of combining hard rock riffs and country twang.” - NPR Music

Label Review.

Re-Released 1982 album.

Our Overview.

Here is a fabulous chance to get your mitts on this little beauty Gary Numan’s ‘I, Assassin’ restored from the original analogue tapes, presented on HD audio and pressed on dark green vinyl. ‘I, Assassin’s heavily percussive approach led to several tracks becoming unexpected intruders on American dancefloors, notably the 12” single of ‘Music ForChameleons’ and a specially remixed US version of ‘White Boys And Heroes’. And as Gary enthused - twenty years later - “I still think it’s one of the best albums I’ve made.” 

Numan recorded and wrote most of the music between January and March 1982, following his infamous round-the-world trip in a light aircraft and a near-death crash onto a British road while co-piloting a spiralling Cessna.  Three of the album’s songs made it into the UK top 20. According to Numan, who was still only 24-years-old at the time, “the round-the-world flight, the plane crash, these were big things that helped me shape a new opinion of myself. Those experiences gave me a self-confidence, a genuine strength that I hadn’t had before.”  

Originally released in 1982, ‘I, Assassin’ is Gary Numan’s sixth studio album and fourth under his own name. Combining fretless bass with heavy rock drumming, Numan further refined his dark, sparse, funky-electro style, mixing it with impenetrable, slurred vocals.

‘I, Assassin’ stands out as a record fiercely propelled by powerful rhythms in songs laced with an earthy cynicism.

“‘I, Assassin’ also utilizes the warped elasticity of fretless bass lines underneath his customary monotone vocalising and abstract lyricism. Highlighted by the upbeat synthetic unk of ‘We Take Mystery To Bed’ & ‘White Boys’, ‘I, Assassin’ is an in-depth examination of genuine dance music roots.” - URB Magazine

Label Review.

27 recordings, 19 of which have never been released, the other 8 being his ultra-rare early singles with the Ozark Mountain Trio. Licensed directly from the John Hartford estate, the set features three live radio cuts from 1964, and 16 beautifully rendered 1965-1969 songwriter demos, including 5 Hartford newly-uncovered originals never heard before. Real Gone Music.

Our Overview.

If all John Hartford had done was to write “Gentle on My Mind”, his legend would be sealed as a songwriting giant. But his talent as a singer and instrumentalist catapulted him to fame not only as the banjo-playing sidekick on the Glen Campbell Good Time Hour TV show of the late sixties, but also as an in-demand studio sideman (the Byrds’ fabled Sweetheart of the Rodeo, James Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim, and countless others). In the midst of this, he formed the band that made Aereo Plain, the 1971 record that defined newgrass before the progressive new style had a name. Or any other practitioners. That bold, singular approach was actually years in the making. Starting his professional life as a St Louis banjo player obsessed with Flatt & Scruggs’ history-making bluegrass, John Hartford seemed at the outset to have set out on a conventional country music path, complete with a white cowboy hat, pickin’ and singin’ on the radio, and pressing up singles of his bluegrass group, inching slowly and inevitably towards Nashville. Along the way, he picked up some new influences, including Bob Dylan and Roger Miller. And he recorded every step, every song of his musical sojourn.

‘Backroads, Rivers & Memories’ collects 27 recordings, 19 of which have never been released, the other 8 being his ultra-rare early singles with the Ozark Mountain Trio. Licensed directly from the John Hartford estate, the set features three live radio cuts from 1964, and 16 beautifully rendered 1965-1969 songwriter demos, including 5 Hartford newly-uncovered originals never heard before. Fan favorites include “This Eve of Parting” (from the recent indie hit filmLady Bird), the iconic “Gentle on My Mind”, and a brief recording of the first rehearsal of the bluegrass classic “Steam Powered AereoPlain.”

Complied and notated by musician and Hartford scholar Skip Heller, mastered by Kevin Chubirka at Haven, and graced with photos from the Hartford family archive, this collection is destined to be one of this year’s most talked-about country/bluegrass releases.

Label Review.

2019 album (Go Betweens) also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster - who made his name with Australian indie-pop legends the Go-Betweens - is releasing his first solo album since 2015 entitled ‘Inferno’ which is his second album over the last eleven years.

Forster only makes records when he feels he has the songs on ‘Inferno’ he has nine he totally believes in. Says Forster: “I had nine songs I believed in, and I wanted to take them out of hometown Brisbane and record them somewhere else. Somewhere exotic. And producer/engineer Victor Van Vugt had a studio in Berlin. Perfect. The album title relates to Brisbane, as the summers are getting brutal hot. Inferno fits that and the fevered mood of the LP…” The songs range from the exhilarating top ten pop of “Inferno (Brisbane In Summer)”, the beach shack groove of “Life Has Turned A Page”, via 'Remain's 1977 New York strut, to finish in a way that this concise, brilliant, drama and wit filled album only can - on the big build epic “One Bird In The Sky.”

‘Inferno’ was made in Berlin in 2018, during the hottest German summer in decades. Noted producer/engineer Victor Van Vugt: Beth Orton ‘Trailer Park’ 1996, PJ Harvey's ‘Stories From The City’ 2000, recorded the album the first time he and Forster had worked together since Van Vugt engineered Forster's debut solo album classic ‘Danger In The Past’ in Berlin in 1990.

‘Inferno’ in its making is a perfect mix of the familiar and the new. Also working with Forster again, are Brisbane based multi-instrumentalists Scott Bromley and Karin Bãumler and new recruits are drummer Earl Havin (Tindersticks, Mary J. Blige) and keyboardist Michael Muhlhaus (Blumfeld, Kante). Four musicians from the corners of the world, who, with Van Vugt's bold and beautiful production, sound like a band of the ages. In front of them, Forster delivers the best vocal performances of his career.

Label Review.

Re-released 1994 album.

Our Overview.

Mother Earth’s second studio album ‘The People Tree’ originally released in February 1994 is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary with the release of this 180g green vinyl reissue, mastered from hi-res transfers of the first generation master tapes. This is the first time the album has been available on vinyl for 20 years.

It is a veritable treat for anyone nostalgic for the golden age of acid jazz and the long gone rare groove phenomenon of the early-to-mid- 90s. Unashamedly retro at the time of its release in 1994, Mother Earth revelled in their enthusiasm for all manner of vintage funkiness and strictly analogue vibes. Mother Earth were part of the second generation of Acid Jazz groups and were fronted by Matt Deighton who would later go on to have a critically acclaimed solo career as well as playing with Paul Weller and for a short time becoming a member of Oasis.

‘The People Tree’ was produced over a year by Acid Jazz boss Eddie Piller and it showed a love of both soul and the sort of bucolic rock music made famous by the likes of Traffic in the late 60s. It featured incredible songwriting that manifested itself in band favourites ‘Jesse’ and ‘Apple Green’. Guests on the album include Paul Weller, DC Lee and The Brand New Heavies’ Simon Bartholomew.

The album was a huge success, charting in the UK and going on to sell over 100,000 copies worldwide. It is an album that all involved remain incredibly proud of. While the original album was dedicated to the memory of Steve Marriott, in his sleeve notes to this edition guitarist and vocalist Matt Deighton extends the dedication to the memory Marriott’s songwriting partner Ronnie Laine. It’s a nice touch, complementing the comprehensive repackaging.

Label Review. 

Early 4AD band who only issued one EP in 1980. A collection of tracks from the bands archive plus the original EP with other tracks from the sessions. Also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

40 years after disbanding comes ‘Fond Reflections’, the debut album that never was from cult 4AD band Rema- Rema. 

Rema-Rema featured former members of The Models and Siouxsie and The Banshees and their much-loved ‘Wheel In The Roses’ EP (1980) was among the first records to be released on 4AD. Their only contribution to the label’s storied history, they split-up before its release, going on to form or join bands as diverse as Renegade Soundwave, The Wolfgang Press, Mass and Adam and the Ants.

The debut album that never was, ‘Fond Reflections’ comes almost forty years after their debut EP and has been culled from the band’s rich archive of reel-to-reel and cassette recordings, with member Gary Asquith and mixing engineer Takatsuna Mukai painstakingly working on them to make the album as cohesive as possible.

The ten tracks pretty much reflect the band’s live set and is the closest to what their debut album could have sounded like. Worth noting too that although all their 1980 EP tracks are present on the album, they are all from different recordings.

The 2CD edition comes with a second disc entitled ‘Extended Wheel In The Roses’. As its title suggests, it’s the four EP tracks as they were plus ‘Entry’ (taken from the same studio session as the EP’s A-side of ‘Feedback Song’ and ‘Rema- Rema’) and ‘No Applause’ and ‘Murdermuzic’, two more tracks recorded at the same 1979 Albany Empire, London show as the EP’s B-side, ‘Instrumental’ and ‘Fond Affections’.

Label Review.

Previously unreleased 1973 album with bonus seven inch single.

Our Overview.

The fabulous re-release of Stumpwater’s ‘Motel In Saginaw’. A few years back Galactic Zoo Dossier / Galactic Zoo Disk Svengali Plastic Crimewave stumbled on a colourfully-labelled 1975 Aurora, Illinois private press single by StumpWater, featuring the tunes ‘White Washed Afternoons’ / ‘Watcher’s Brawl’. There was a vibe here - rural folk rock that’d make David Crosby’s ’tache bristle; latenight unwashed laments that even poor, jaded Phil Ochs could groove on. A search surprisingly yielded immediate results, as StumpWater were still active and gigging. Peppering their concerts with CSN covers, StumpWater were still performing live, doing acoustic and electric sets (with a drummer, rock style) at the same gig (like the aforementioned supagroup would do back in the day) and still playing their 70s originals.

Crimewave interviewed the band members Joe Gloor and Dan Berg (Dan Haligas sadly passed shortly beforehand) and got their story for his Secret History of Chicago Music column in the Chicago Reader and some Earth-shattering info was gleaned: StumpWater had an unreleased 1973 LP.

It’s a concept LP about the characters populating a smalltown hotel (think Lee Hazlewood’s ‘Trouble Is A Lonesome Town’ maybe) called ‘Motel In Saginaw’ (a place Mike Nesmith seemed to know too). To say the homespun album was a revelation is putting it lightly - gorgeous tunes about death that’d have Simon & Garfunkel crying in their cappuccinos, creepy Dylan-esque tales that David Blue would liked to have written, maudlin hearts of gold in every groove - basically a hazy, sepia-stained song cycle for all the Judy Blue Eyes in the world to get lost in while rolling a dirtweed joint.

The deluxe package includes an inner sleeve with photos and info, a cracking mastering job by wunderkind Carl Saff and an original copy of their original private press single. The complete StumpWater at last.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

The GRAMMY® Award-winning maverick channels his signature sense of soul from the crossroads of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, jazz, hip-hop, reggae and punk. Clark’s most accomplished songwriting and virtuosic performances to date; ‘This Land’ delivers socially relevant, transcendentally ambitious, and musically rich declaration as unapologetic, undeniable, and unique as he is. He emerges with a body of work that is dynamic in every sense, embodying an ever-evolving sound that transformed him into an artistic force anointed by everyone from President Barack Obama to the late Prince.

To sum up Gary Clark Jr. is more challenging every day. He’s a musical universe unto himself, expanding at a nearly immeasurable rate, ever harder to define - as a mind-blowing guitarist, a dazzling songwriter and engagingly soulful singer. He became the first artist ever recognized by the Recording Academy with Grammy Award nominations in both the rock and R&B categories for the same album in the same year, winning the latter: Best Traditional R&B Performance” - “Please Come Home” (from the album ‘Blak And Blu’).

Rolling Stone dubbed Clark “The King of the Summer Festivals” as he captivated audiences from Coachella to Glastonbury, Lollapalooza to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, from Metallica’s Orion Festival to Jay-Z’s Made in America, and of course his hometown Austin City Limits Festival, where he his band set a daytime attendance record.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Les Claypool and Sean Lennon will issue their sophomore full-length album ‘South Of Reality’. And ‘South Of Reality’, The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s epic new album, might be just the antidote this sick world needs. Music so potent it could repel an asteroid impact from space, these seasoned warriors of psychedelia have crafted timeless songs that may as well be chiselled in stone.

Grab your goggles and a month’s supply of Kool- Aid or other available beverages because The Claypool Lennon Delirium are about to take you for a ride on a rock ‘n’ roll rocket ship and frankly you may never come back.

‘South Of Reality’ was produced by both Claypool and Lennon and engineered and mixed by the Primus bassist at his Rancho Relaxo facility in California’s Sonoma County. The pair wrote and produced the album over a two-month period.

The Claypool Lennon Delirium will embark on a three week tour starting April 10, 2019 in support of their upcoming record, "South Of Reality'. The tour will start off April 10th in Toronto, CN and finish up in Detroit, MI on April 27th.

Label Review. 

Curtis (1970) / Roots (1971) / Back to the World (1973) / Sweet Exorcist (1974). Remastered. Also available on 4CD. 

Our Overview. 

In honour of the legendary Curtis Mayfield, his first four studio albums are to be released in the new boxset Keep on Keeping on: Curtis Mayfield Studio albums 1970-1974 over 4CDs all newly remastered, marking the 50 years since Mayfield’s prolific solo career started.

A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honouree, Mayfield’s early solo career includes a collection of newly remastered versions of his first four studio albums: Curtis (1970), Roots (1971), Back to the World (1973) and Sweet Exorcist (1974).

Mayfield left the Impressions in 1970 and launched his solo career with his debut album, ‘Curtis’. The album reached the Billboard Pop Albums Chart Top 20 and was certified gold. It features “(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go,” a hit in the U.S., and “Move On Up,” which charted in the U.K. In terms of cultural significance, the album’s potent combination of socially conscious lyrics and soul/funk music helped blaze a trail for later albums like Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Innervisions’.

Curtis went on to release more successful albums such as the R&B classic ‘Roots’ , 1973’s ‘Back to The World’ and finally ‘Sweet Exorcist’ in 1974 which all span hits such as “Future Shock”, “Can’t Say Nothin’” and “If I Were Only A Child Again”.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Phenomenal debut by Pom Poko entitled ‘Birthday’ and indeed it is their birthday with this new release. Pom Poko are Ragnhild (lead vocals), Ola (Drums), Jonas (Bass) and Martin (Guitar). The four met whilst all studying at the Trondheim Music Conservatory in Norway and quickly garnered interest from a wider audience as they began playing and writing together.

The group cite a range of influences for their unique sound, including “(West)-African music like Oumou Sangaré and Ali Farka Touré; indie bands like Vulfpeck, Palm and KNOWER; noisy high-energy bands such as Hella and Death Grips; and music with interesting lyrics such as Jenny Hval and Nick Drake.” One would struggle to pin them down to one or two forebears however, given their resistance to anything resembling a prescriptive approach.

Speaking about the origin of their name, which taken from one of the more vigorously outré films by Japanese animation visionaries Studio Ghibli, the band explain, “The Pom Poko film captures a lot of what we’d like our concerts to be: high energy, fast pace, lots of stimulus for eyes and ears - and most importantly, really crazy and fun. The movie is basically the time of your life for two hours, and afterwards you’re in some state of exhausted ecstasy. Plus the raccoons in the movie, and raccoons in general, are really badass.”

Between the quartet’s sweetly punky melodies and discofried art-rock eruptions, a spirit of free-firing, balls-out individuality courses through this exhilarating debut.

LP includes digital download code.

Label Review.

2019 album. Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. Also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Better Oblivion Community Center are a brand new band comprising the formidable talents of Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, two of the most lauded American songwriters of the past several years.

Written and recorded in Los Angeles during the summer of 2018, their self-titled debut album is released on Dead Oceans.

The pair first collaborated on Bridgers’ 2017 single, ‘Would You Rather’, taken from her acclaimed debut album ‘Stranger In The Alps’. They teamed up again for a recording of Oberst’s ‘LAX’ in 2018.

Co-produced by Bridgers, Oberst and longtime Oberst / Bright Eyes collaborator Andy LeMaster and mixed by John Congleton, ‘Better Oblivion Community Center’ features the work of several talented friends, including Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Carla Azur (Autolux, Jack White) among others. Bridgers and Oberst are currently putting together a live band to begin touring in March.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Invincible’ is the new studio album from Michigan’s greatest outsider combo Half Japanese. An inspiration to Kurt Cobain, post grunge deep thinkers and veterans of the “Can’t Play/Will play” fraternity. Pop music for those outside of pop music. Songs for those still bedevilled by one liners and abrasive melodies. Thematically succinct tales of puppet people, vampires and the walking dead juxtaposed with discerning love songs and eternal affection. 

An off-kilter classic that shouldn’t sound right but ultimately does, in the best tradition of The Residents, Richman, Johnston, Brain Wilson at his most bamboozled and any number of out there talents. Uncategorizable, joyous, detuned, quizzical, alluring, childlike, charming, innocent, questioning – invincible.

“Half-Japanese are a respected institution. They've been making noise since the late '70s.” Pop Matters

“Innocent abandon is still at the heart of the band” Pitchfork.

Label Review. 

Lines is a trilogy of song cycles, with very different subjects but each inspired by poetry and focused on a different female perspective. Also available on vinyl. 

Each volume is also available separately. 

Our Overview. 

Part One: Lillian Bilocca. These songs were originally written and performed by The Unthanks in 2017 for the promenade site specific theatre piece The Last Testament Of Lillian Bilocca, written by Maxine Peake and directed by Sarah Frankcom, for Hull City Of Culture. Lillian Bilocca and the women of Hessle Road in Hull campaigned, successfully, for improved safety at sea for fishermen, following the triple trawler disaster of 1968, in which 58 men lost their lives. Armed with 10,000 signatures collected in 10 days, she led a delegation to present a charter to the government and received a meeting with Harold Wilson, resulting in one of the biggest and most successful civil actions of the 20th century. While initially heralded for her achievement, ‘Big Lil’ quickly became vilified for meddling in ‘men’s work’ and became a scapegoat for the fishing industry’s decline. She received death threats and lost her job. Blacklisted from the fishing industry, she was reduced to cleaning toilets in a nightclub, before dying of cancer at 59. In her theatre piece, Maxine Peake wanted to explore how “when a woman puts her head above the parapet and speaks out, she is more than likely victimised”. The words to the songs on this record were written by Maxine, set to music by Adrian McNally.

Part Two: World War One. These songs were originally written in 2014 for a project marking the opening year of the World War One centenary. The Unthanks decided to record and release them in 2018, the final year. The first track features Sam Lee who spent time researching personal stories from rural communities in the South West of England. The second is written by the singular Scotsman and beloved North East resident, Tim Dalling. The rest is poetry from the WW1 period that we have turned into song, with a focus on the lesser known female voices from the time.

Part Three: Emily Bronte. This record is a collection of Emily Brontë poems, turned into songs by Yorkshire-born Unthanks pianist and composer Adrian McNally. It was performed and arranged with Rachel and Becky Unthank and commissioned by the Brontë Society to mark her 200th Birthday. The songs were written and recorded on Emily’s own piano in the Parsonage in Haworth where she lived and worked. Emily’s piano was lovingly and expertly restored by Ken Forrest. It’s a rare example of a 5 octave cabinet piano probably made in London between 1810 and 1815. It must be played very gently, and has many creeks and idiosyncrasies, many of which are present on these recordings.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The musical project of Jake Webb, Methyl Ethel have always been a surrealist outfit - a dark and obscured expression of life set to the backdrop of dream pop hooks.

The monster that is the new Methyl Ethel album ‘Triage’ is a vivid, compelling and mysterious creature, all sinewy, curvaceous pop nuggets and enigmatic currents. But ask its leader Jake Webb to explore those enigmas is met with a little resistance. “Ideally, I want the music to speak for itself, rather to present myself,” he explains. “When I was making music alone, before I had the band, it was genderless and without a paper trail of information about my past.”

That paper trail leads back to Perth, the capital of Western Australia, where Webb imbibed the cassettes that he’d hear in his parents’ car - “doo-wop, the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, Del Shannon, the Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson,” he lists his favourites. “All my knowledge of songwriting is the old way. But I play with the form, to try and push the boundaries.”

Taking a musical alias from father’s work in fibre glass - made using methyl ethyl ketone peroxide, before Webb changed ‘ethyl’ to ‘ethel’ “in order to create an identity, a personality with a name,” he explains – the early Methyl Ethel bedroom recordings realised two EPs – ‘Teeth and Guts’ – released in quick succession in 2014. A standalone single ‘Rogues’ won Pop Song of 2014 at the WAM (Western Australia Music) Awards, likewise ‘Twilight Driving’ in 2015, both of which were part of the debut Methyl Ethel album ‘Oh Inhuman Spectacle’, self-recorded in a remote coastal town south of Perth.

Label Review. 

1974 album. Soul Jazz Records. Also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

Soul Jazz Records are re-releasing the exceptional keyboardist Eddie Russ’s seminal debut deep jazz album ‘Fresh Out’ as a new edition on CD, LP with digital download code (initial copies on coloured vinyl) and digital download album.

Eddie Russ was an important figure to emerge from the vibrant underground jazz scene that thrived in Detroit in the early 1970s, existing in the cultural and economic desolation of the city after the departure of Motown in the late 1960s. This scene included the musical collective Tribe (including members Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave, Phil Ranelin, Harold McKinney and Doug Hammond) and Kenny Cox’s Strata Records.

Eddie Russ’s ‘Fresh Out’ was first released in 1974 on the independent Jazz Masters record label.As well as including the classic jazz dance cut ‘The Lope Song’, Eddie Russ’s ‘Fresh Out’ featured the debut of the group The Mixed Bag who subsequently recorded for both Tribe and Strata Records.

Eddie Russ released two further classic jazz funk albums in the late 1970s, ‘See The Light’ and ‘Take A Look At Yourself’. One for any collection.

Label Review. 

2019 covers album also available in CD and Black Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

Ninth studio album and an album of covers by alternative rock back the Lemonheads.The Lemonheads follow up the critically acclaimed ‘Varshons’ from nearly ten years ago with another eclectic collection of covers.

‘Varshons 2’ is a hokey jukebox filled with unique versions of Yo La Tengo, Nick Cave, The Bevis Frond, NRBQ, The Eagles, Paul Westerberg, The Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams and John Prine. Like Hank Williams slumped in his car between gigs, strumming and hollering, reasoning and weeping, humming it on over, Evan and his Lemonheads make every tune their own. Including some obscure beauties like Florida Georgia Line’s ‘Round Here’, Natural Child’s ‘Now And Then’, The Eyes’ raucous ‘TAQN’ and The GiveGoods’ gorgeous ‘Unfamiliar’ – a tune Dando penned with former Smudge man Tom Morgan.

Produced by Matthew Cullen and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Beastie Boys, Nirvana, The Ramones), their tenth studio album brims with the slowly-matured vocal of Evan Dando as he lures a host of personal faves to his melodic lair. He really has become one of the great expressive singers of our time.

What they said about Varshons:

“Gram Parsons, Wire, and GG Allin: You’d be hard pressed to find three more disparate rock acts, yet on ‘Varshons’ they all sound like the Lemonheads – boppy, overcast alt-rock delivered at a fast clip and sung in a whiskey tenor.” Pitchfork.

Label Review.

1969 psych folk album. Finders Keepers Records.

Our Overview.

A mythical and misplaced masterpiece of lost soft rock and acidic folk funk by a one-hitwonderer lost in the wilderness for four decades. From the producer of Margo Guryan, writer behind Wool, Gerry Mulligan collaborator, Tarantino soundtracker and Wendy & Bonnie confidant, ‘Paint A Lady’ now emerges from folkloric obscurity, to bring a wash of soft psychedelic colour to your vinyl collection and quench the repeat requests of a thirsty new found audience waiting for the rain.

Within certain record collecting circles, especially those who gather under the umbrella that covers fragile niches like ‘acid folk’ and ‘soft rock’, it’s difficult to imagine a time when the legendary Susan Christie album didn’t exist. When Finders Keepers Records first shared the unheard 60s songs like ‘Paint A Lady’, ‘For The Love Of A Soldier’ and ‘Echoes In Your Mind’ with a wide-eyed audience thirsty for organic soul and festival friendly acoustic funk, Susan’s new found fanbase instantly felt like they had known these songs all of their lives. Which is why it’s hard to believe that the music on this lost 60s acetate was only pressed 12 years ago.

As the label’s lucky seventh release in an international discography that now surpasses the 100 mark (and one of a small clutch of English language recordings on the label), ‘Paint A Lady’ has slowly become one of Finders Keepers’ most requested re-releases and with this 2018 edition it is technically accurate to say that this pressing is the first ever reissue of this elusive and essential album.

The oft overused term ‘mythical’ applies to this album on many levels. Perhaps it’s the woozy nostalgia found within the pop craft of ‘Paint A Lady’ that has led to false rumours that original 1960s copies used to exist on the collectors market, or the bizarre claim that songs like the head-nodding title track and the acid-drenched sound effects on ‘Yesterday Where’s My Mind’ were just a product of a contemporary studio band trying to create a fake folk funk red herring. As a result, Susan Christie and her producer and husband of 40 years, John Hill, have happily taken the repeated phrase ‘unbelievable’ as a compliment to their songwriting skills and foresight.

In all fairness, with a decade to ponder, the original 1969 song titles alone do seem custombuilt for the nostalgia market: ‘No One Can Hear You Cry’ might lament the unrequited yearning for a record deal which never quite followed Susan’s won one-hit wonder novelty hit ‘I Love Onions’; similarly, ‘When Love Comes’ might allude to the subsequent 35 year wait for the right label to eventually come along.

‘Echoes In Your Mind’ and the aforementioned ‘Yesterday...’ could easily allude to the haunting melodies that sat in the can on John Hill’s studio shelf while his projects for Margo Guryan, Wool and Pacific Gas & Electric sat proudly in record racks before benefitting successful French cover versions or making their way on to Quentin Tarantino soundtracks. The track ‘Paint A Lady’ itself, complete with its future-proofed sample-worthy rhythm section, seems like the perfect title for a mock rock pseudo psych contender, at which point you eventually step back and see the bigger picture.

These guys were simply one drop too far ahead of their time; a family force of experimental pop perfection that late 60s America simply wasn’t ready for. It is just over 12 years since champion record rustler Keith D’Arcy (who you’ll meet on the inside sleeve) stumbled upon one of the original acetates that led to the final release of ‘Paint A Lady’ and it’s almost a longer 50 years since Susan and John added their final touches to these recordings that tragically went into hibernation for over four decades.Whether this album has been on your wish-list for what seems like a lifetime, or you are taking your first plunge into this deep puddle, when the needle drops on the first track you’ll find that Susan Christie, John Hill and Finders Keepers have been saving up for a very rainy day.

Beautifully remastered from the original source material and featuring both updated and original liner notes.

Label Review. 

Rare 1968 soul album reissued for first time also available in CD.

Our Overview.

Barbara Howard's ‘On The Rise’ is more than just another rare soul LP. It's a love story. It's a dream. It was an attempt to break through. And although Barbara certainly never became a star, one song did become a staple in rare soul and funk DJ sets, keeping interest in Barbara Howard just under the surface. And as fate would have it in 2016, a sealed copy of the LP would find its way into Plaid Room Records in Loveland, OH and kick start the revival of her story and her music. 

In 1968, as an outgrowth of a community movement and talent search program called "Operation Step-Up", Steven Reece wanted to take his community movement to the next level. This is when the idea of founding an independent label came to mind. The idea was to self-produce quality records and through successful sales attempt to land major label distribution. Steve identified Barbara Howard as the talent and set to producing her record. The idea was to produce an LP with a variety of tracks that could b e marketed to a variety of radio formats and markets (gospel, pop, soul, jazz, etc.). And while the record fizzled shortly after its release, Steve and Barbara ended up getting married shortly afterwards making this possibly the most romantic production of a record is soul music history.

Label Review.

2019 album. Also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Robert Ellis is releasing his new album under his later ego ‘Texas Piano Man’. The man himself says of new recording ““Hello. I’m Robert Ellis, The Texas Piano Man. I wanted to take a moment to say a few words about this record and what you might expect from it. ‘Texas Piano Man’ is a collection of songs specifically written for my piano driven Rock & Roll band from the great state of Texas. Myself and the guys bring these songs to you in the very spirit of Texas itself; loudly, confidently, over the top, larger than life, at times deadly serious and yet always with a wink and a smile. We invite you to come on in, stay a while, and when you leave take with you the spirit of these songs, the spirit of Texas, and the spirit of The Texas Piano Man himself. Adios!” - Robert Ellis

“Dressed head to heels in a white tuxedo, Robert Ellis has now fully embraced his role as Texas troubadour, putting a little Gram Parsons-style honky-tonk into the bedazzled piano-pop of Elton John” NPR Music

"Only the truly exceptional artists, with the right mix of confidence and wit - Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Tom Waits—dare to scrap the template that first won them acclaim and basically start over, with a new, often sideways approach to their craft. That’s exactly what Texas native Robert Ellis has done with his latest album, Texas Piano Man." Men's Journal

"In an arrangement filled with oohs and ahhs that cross both Abbey and Yellow Brick roads, Ellis posits our hearts' toil in the everyday insanity of the world, so that maybe the only sane approach to life is recklessly falling in love.” NPR Music

“...on his forthcoming album, Texas Piano Man, he dives deeply into a new persona: a white-suited, blue bonnet Elton John determined to challenge expectations of what it means to be a musician residing in the Lone Star State.” Rolling Stone Country

“Ellis can do shit kicking honky-tonk just as well as he can inhabit an ivory-tickling Lone Star State of Mind." Rolling Stone Country

“Texas Piano Man...is pure raucous fun, eleven tunes that demand to be played at full volume while dancing around the shuffleboard table at your favorite dive.” Texas Monthly

“On Texas Piano Man, Ellis displays his mastery by blending the barrelhouse stylings of pioneering Texas musician Moon Mullican with the staccato rhythms of Elton John. The resulting sound feels like it would be at home in both a West Texas saloon and a Long Island piano bar.” Texas Monthly

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Eighteen years after their last studio album ‘Pound For Pound’, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema are back having first reunited in 2015 for shows and a live album. Hagerty started out in Pussy Galore with Jon Spencer (later of the Blues Explosion) before electing to pursue his own musical vision with his girlfriend Herrema. They released their first album as Royal Trux in 1988, a self-titled and low-fi affair which attracted very little attention. Their second: ‘Twin Infinitves’ (1990) saw them head in a much more experimental direction and it would not be wrong to say there isn’t another record that sounds like it with lashings of heavy reverb and laser gun sounds.

The early 90s saw the duo making more accessible music with their next albums ‘Royal Trux’ and ‘Cats And Dogs’. The latter saw the introduction of a proper rhythm section on some tracks and after four albums on the Chicago based label Drag City scored a major label deal with Virgin Records. Teaming up with Neil Young’s producer David Briggs, the group turned in ‘Thank You’ (1995). Despite creating a solid rock record and expanding their fanbase they remained on the cult fringes and quickly fell out with Virgin who put zero effort into promoting their next album ‘Sweet Sixteen’ (1997) probably not helped by the cover artwork which featured a toilet bowl filled with offal!

The duo returned to Drag City (Domino in the UK) who issued another three albums and a couple of EPs between 1998-2000 before Neil and Jennifer split and continued on their own projects - Hagerty with The Howling Hex and Herrema attempted to keep the Trux split alive with her new group RTX. They finally got back together under the Royal Trux banner in August 2015 and after a couple of years of gigs issued the live album ‘Platinum Tips + Ice Cream’ in 2017. They have signed a new deal with the Mississippi label Fat Possum who have also taken control of the bulk of their back catalogue for the US market. The first singles from the new album show that Neil and Jennifer haven’t fucked with the Royal Trux formula and who knows, maybe some long overdue recognition may emerge.

Label Review.

2019 mini album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Into The Iris’ features six new songs from Los Angeles punk trio Flat Worms, this new release follows their 2017 self-titled debut album. ‘Into The Iris’ is filled with anxiety and angst and the band summon perseverance in an apocalyptic era, passing through decrepit strip malls and surreal headlines.

Featuring Tim Hellman (Thee Oh Sees), Justin Sullivan (Night Shop, Kevin Morby) and Will Ivy (Dream Boys), Flat Worms have consistently churned out murky garage punk with an energy level that parallels an eight-year-old with a sugar rush. Their zippy ripper of a new single is a call to keep your eyes on the prize in an era of relentless distraction and nonsense—after all, social media really is just a glorified, public avenue for people to shout at walls. With a wave of twitchy, heavily distorted guitars, lead vocalist Will Ivy exudes a stark, smirking calmness amongst the electrifying storm.Into The Iris was recorded by Ty Segall in his home and, according to a press release, “is a persistent, determined response to an apocalyptic era, one that sees deserted strip malls and surreal headlines.”

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Scottish folk pioneers Lau release their new album ‘Midnight And Closedown’ their first new music since 2015’s ‘The Bell That Never Rang’. Lau have pushed at the boundaries of modern folk music with each successive release, curation and concert tour. And now comes this bold, progressive new statement. The enigmatic album title could suggest that the new album is Lau’s swansong. But Midnight and Closedown, Lau’s finest artistic statement to date, could equally prove to be the opening of a brave new chapter.

Producer John Parish, widely celebrated for his recordings and collaborations with P.J Harvey, Eels, Sparklehorse, This Is The Kit, Aldous Harding, Rokia Traore, M. Ward, Giant Sand and many more, has captured the essence of Lau’s songwriting: tender, bewitching and mournful, uplifting, experimental and political. These are new sounds still rooted in the traditional music that brought together the UK’s three finest folk artists.

"Lau. Cool band. Don’t sound like anybody else. I could describe the instrumentation : treated fiddle, guitar and rich baritone voice, an electronic ship in a bottle. A beautiful set of songs and instrumentals. In touch with their roots but not bound by them". - John Parish, October 2018.

The trio are clearly excited about getting out there to share their new music saying in a statement… “Kris has, at last, got the plectrums out from when he dropped them into the guitar at the end of the last tour, Aidan has given the fiddle its annual tuning, and Martin has found the van keys behind the microwave. It must be tour time!”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Re-imagining of Gentry's second album released in 1968. A different vocalist appears on each track: Norah Jones; Lucinda Williams; Beth Orton; Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval; Laetitia Sadier, formerly of Stereolab; Marissa Nadler; Margo Price; Susanne Sundfor; Phoebe Bridgers; Rachel Goswell (of Slowdive); Carice van Houten; Vashti Bunyan with Kaela Sinclair. Also available in CD.

Our Overview. 

‘Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited’ is Mercury Rev’s committed and affectionate resurrection of an album that anticipated by three decades their own pivotal expedition through transcendental America, 1998’s ‘Deserter’s Songs’.

From their recording lair in New York’s Catskill Mountains, the founding core of Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper with Jesse Chandler (previously in the Texas group Midlake) honour Gentry’s foresight and creative triumph with spacious invention and hallucinatory flair.

Gentry’s stories and original resolve are brought to new vocal life and empowerment by a vocal cast from across modern rock and its alternative paths: among them, Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval; Laetitia Sadier, formerly of Stereolab; Marissa Nadler; Margo Price, the fiery new country star with a punk rock heart; and Norway’s Susanne Sundfør, who cuts through ‘Tobacco Road’ with arctic Nico poise. Phoebe Bridgers, whose first record was a softly stunning 2015 single for Ryan Adams’ PAX AM label, hovers through the acid-western suspense of Gentry’s ‘Jessye Lisabeth’ with floating calm, like a comforting angel.

180g vinyl format includes digital download coupon.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Kentucky born Emarosa’s new album ‘Peach Club’ makes the most of their eclectic influences, marking their sixth studio effort as their most pop-laden and personal album to date. So bid farewell to the old Emarosa, the group’s trading thick, post-hardcore guitar riffs and eccentric time signatures for saxophone solos and contagious pop hooks laced in 1980s influence.

It’s a direction that’s been brewing with Emarosa since singer Bradley Walden’s first writing session, he told Forbes. Walden joined the group in 2014, debuting on the group’s third full-length, Verses.

“We’ve all wanted to do it,” Walden said. “We had to do it for ourselves.”On departing fully from a post-hardcore sound that’s filled parking lots for a decade on the (now extinct) Warped Tour, he explained: “This band hasn’t been post-hardcore in a long time. … The post-hardcore Emarosa is so dead. I dare anyone to listen to this new record, ‘Peach Club’, and try to think we’re anything but this alternative band.”

The group wrote a majority of the record on the east coast, but retreated to Los Angeles to track the 11-song ‘Peach Club’ with producer Courtney Ballard, who’s worked with 5 Seconds of Summer and Jessie J.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Legendary Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown releases ‘Ripples’ his first solo material in a decade since ‘My Way’ 2009. ‘Ripples’ will be his seventh solo album. The 10 song collection was produced by Brown himself, and features three songs Brown co-wrote with his sons, who play “a multitude of instruments” on the record. The album also includes covers of songs by Jamaican reggae figures Barrington Levy (“Black Rose”) and Mikey Dread (“Break Down the Walls”).

The album was recorded in Liverpool and enhanced in the Beatles room at Abbey Road Studios, before being mixed by long-term collaborator Steve Fitzmaurice. The record was digitally mastered by Bob Ludwig in New York, while the vinyl was mastered by Chris Bellman in LA.

News of Brown’s upcoming solo effort comes more than a year after the Roses’ reunion seemingly fizzled out after five years with one last performance in Glasgow, at the end of which Brown announced to the crowd, “Don’t be sad it’s over. Be happy that it happened.”

Label Review.

2019 album also availble in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Exploding Head Syndrome’ is the 11th studio album from The Telescopes, their third for Tapete. Consisting of eight new songs and incantations that form a series of sonic convulsions stretching the parameters of intuitive composition to the point of auditory illusion.

Conceived in 1987, The Telescopes emerged as innovators in the field of melodic noise, becoming a crucial inspiration to a multitude of artists and listeners alike. The group has consisted of a revolving line up centred around lead protagonist and founding instigator Stephen Lawrie.

With the exception of Until The End* ‘Exploding Head Syndrome’ was created entirely by Lawrie himself while immersed in solitude deep in West Yorkshire. As the title suggests, this is the sound of a triggered mind reaching into the depths of his own inner turmoil on a personal quest for basic clarity. Whereas previous albums for Tapete have set a parallel course between song based structures and freeform impressionism, ‘Exploding Head Syndrome’ employs almost traditional song writing techniques to achieve a melodic swirl of simplistic refrains capable of lulling the listener into vast sonic dimensions.

‘Exploding Head Syndrome’ is a snapping into consciousness, a synaptic charge of analogue dissonance saturated through a complex undercurrent of pulsing minimalism, profound in its simplicity. A static haze of electronic distortion drifts in and out of lucidity to a sure propulsion of stone age repetition and heady bass vibrations, the momentum held on a thread of acoustic tension. As warm organs drone around the oscillating bones of enchanted melodies, an electric hive of enclosing guitars encircle Lawrie’s trance induced visions, which hang suspended, fractured at the core, until completely enveloped by the gathering swarm.

Exploding Head Syndrome (EHS) is the name given by John. M. S. Pearce in 1989 to a phenomena described by Robert Armstrong-Jones in 1920 as ‘snapping of the brain’. It is a condition in which a person experiences unreal noises.

The front sleeve holds an image of a blank sheet blowing in a breeze. A natural light phenomena occurring at the time the photograph was taken gives the illusion of a face.

Label Review. 

2003 album remastered. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Originally released as a Paddy McAloon solo album in 2003, the totally original, spellbinding ‘I Trawl The Megahertz’ is now remastered and reissued as a Prefab Sprout album with new artwork and captivating liner notes written by Paddy McAloon. ‘I Trawl The Megahertz’ was conceived and recorded after Paddy was diagnosed with a medical condition that seriously affected his vision. Not surprisingly the album is a testament to the healing power of music.

Paddy says: “In 1996 after recording Andromeda Heights, I started to work on a new batch of songs for an album I wanted to call ‘20th Century Magic’. After sidelining ‘20th Century Magic’ I started to consider another project. The title song of this new project, ‘Doomed Poets’, was a moody little number and a sort of forerunner to ‘Megahertz in terms of mood.

“One spring morning in ’99 just for the hell of it, I entered a few random notes into the sequencer of my (even then) ancient Atari computer. I recorded a couple of further layers without listening to what had gone before. By pure good luck, when I played them back they formed a few chords that filled me with a strange sort of nostalgia for something I couldn’t name or get close to. At some point a picture started to form. That’s how Megahertz started.

”Though the record originally appeared as a solo album, it seems fitting to now classify it as a Prefab Sprout project. “I thought we could do anything”, Paddy says of those heady Prefab days. “And Megahertz is true to that spirit. The music here is of a piece with everything I’ve ever written. It’s from the heart.”

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

One of the biggest bands of the 2-Tone movement The Beat are releasing their new 10 track album ‘Public Confidential’. The Beat are known the world over for a string of hit singles in the 80’s including "Mirror in the Bathroom", "Too Nice To Talk To", "Can't Get Used To Losing You", "Hands off She's Mine" and "Best Friend".

Fronted by vocalist Ranking Roger, the band is very much as before but this time even more of a family affair with Roger’s daughter Saffren providing vocals as well as Beat stalwart Ranking Junior on toasting duties. Completing the line-up are Fuzz Townshend (drums), Chiko Hamilton (Sax), Andy Pearson (Bass), Andy Perriss (Gtr) and Bobby Bird (Gtr).

Expected to delight 2-tone fans, who endured a 30-year gap before ‘Bounce’ (2016) between albums, ‘Public Confidental’ continues to showcase the band at their joyful skanking best with 10 brand new songs. Produced by Mick Lister and Ranking Roger, ‘Public Confidential’ will be available digitally and on cd, black heavyweight vinyl, blue transparent vinyl and black/white half & half vinyl.

Roger is also finishing his autobiography “I Just Can’t Stop It” (co-written with Daniel Rachel) which is being prepared for publication by Omnibus Press in June 2019.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Portland Indie rockers The Dandy Warhols are releasing their tenth studio album ‘Why You So Crazy’ to kick off their 25th Anniversary and the band are as eclectic-sounding as ever on the forthcoming album.

The album will see The Dandy Warhols return in singularly freewheeling fashion, careening through classically off-kilter psych-pop (‘Be Alright’), country-fried Americana (‘Motor City Steel’), and gothic piano-propelled rumbas (‘Forever’). Packing in references as far flung as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Don MacLean’s Chevy, and the church of Bowie’s ‘Modern Love,’ these 12 songs reflect the band’s surrealist visions of an alternate reality. Offering an escape from a culture driven to the brink, The Dandy Warhols are progressing into the next chapter of their self-described “25 year act of sonic rebellion.”

“We’ve always been driven to create art with emotional clarity,” concludes Taylor-Taylor. “That’s what the world needs more than ever right now. I’ve never felt so strongly that people are losing their minds, and it’s more of them than ever before. Local politics, international politics, news programs, sitcoms, and our president all feel like the heat got turned up. It doesn’t feel like a natural progression of insanity, it just happened. Most people are behaving in a manner that can only be described as batshit crazy.”

With the future stretching out ahead of them, and an impressive back catalogue behind them, 2019 promises to be both a celebration of the past and a glimpse into the unknown of what’s yet to come.

Label Review. 

2019 album.  Also available on CD+DVD, and double vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Following the tremendous success of 2017’s ‘The Night Siren’, legendary former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett will release his new studio album ‘At The Edge Of Light’. The album which features ten songs, sees Steve unite a vast amount of styles ranging from guitar driven rock to epic orchestration, from world music to the reflective and atmospheric all brought together in Steve Hackett’s unique style.

Steve says: “In these dangerous times, deep shadows feel even sharper than usual and we find ourselves standing at the edge of light... The contrast between dark and light weaves its way throughout the album in many ways, from the sense of good fighting evil through to the interplay of dark and light opposites magically combining in cultures, including the heartbeat of India and primal tribal rhythms. Ultimately, this album embraces the need for all musical forms and cultures to connect and celebrate the wonder of unity in this divided world.”

‘At The Edge Of Light’ was mainly recorded in Steve’s own studio but also around the world. The album features international artists, including Durga and Loreley of Pink Floyd vocal fame with drummers Nick D’Virgilio and Simon Phillips from USA, Sheema on sitar from India, Icelandic drummer/percussionist Gulli Briem, tar player Malik Mansurov and Swedish bass player Jonas Reingold. This album also features Paul Stillwell on didgeridoo, Rob Townsend on sax, bass clarinet and duduk, Amanda Lehmann on vocals, John Hackett on flute, drummer Gary O’Toole, Roger King and Ben Fenner on keyboards, Dick Driver on double bass, violinist and viola player Christine Townsend. All magically honed and engineered by Roger King.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

California rockers Rival Sons are releasing their sixth album ‘Feral Roots’. The follow-up to June 2016’s ‘Hollow Bones’ was recorded at Nashville's famed RCA Studio A and the equally legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Having officially formed in 2009, Rival Sons evoke the bluesy rock of bands like Led Zeppelin and the Black Crowes and now are closing in on 10 years as a band, with their bluesy brand of hard rock powered in large part by singer Jay Buchanan’s powerful pipes and guitarist Scott Holiday’s hefty riffs. Rival Sons caught international attention as the sole support act on Black Sabbath’s lengthy farewell tour.

Just like ‘Hollow Bones’ the artwork, the eye-catching ‘Feral Roots’ cover is the work of esteemed artist Martin Wittfooth. Speaking about being signed to Atlantic Records, singer Scott Holiday told Planet Rock Magazine: “It’s kind of romantic to be at this big, legendary record label.

“And f*** all the rock n’ roll bands – if you want to get really romantic look at all the soul acts they signed, like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. We’re talking about the bedrock, soul and blues, some of the most important recordings in the history of the world.

“But I’m a pragmatic person. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’ve made five records and we’ve had some success, but hopefully signing to Atlantic we’re going to have a little more.”

Known far and wide as a powerhouse live act, Rival Sons will celebrate ‘Feral Roots’ with a worldwide tour schedule, including a headline European run set for early 2019. North American dates will be announced in the weeks to come.

Label Review.

2019 live album also available in CD+ and Vinyl.

Our Overview.

’25 Live @ 25’ is the new release from the iconic Skunk Anansie to celebrate 25 years of unparalleled influence showcasing their incomparable live presence over a career-spanning collection, to be released on 25th January 2019 via Republic Of Music. Featuring recordings of the band’s incendiary live sets over the years, and sequenced as one unique concert set by Jeremy Wheatley, a long-time collaborator with the band, ’25 Live @ 25’ is both a celebration of Skunk’s unmatchable career and their importance as a musical and cultural force. Their exhilarating live shows are a hurricane of energy, noise and personality, an exhortation to become part of something much bigger that’s impossible to resist.

Formed in 1994, the band exuded a strong sense of individuality from the start, shunning the Britpop mould of white 20-something men with guitars for a glorious mix of race, gender, sexuality, culture and music influences. Untethered by any scene allegiances, they powered ahead, forming their own wild sound and image: agile, gritty, politically-charged “clit rock”; a throw-away term coined by lead vocalist Skin.

“As a black female singer, it was hard to get accepted in many ways,” says Skin. “And then I was onstage, doing exactly what I envisioned in my dreams. And I felt for the first time that I was accepted.”

“London in the 1990s was a mish-mash of people,” adds guitarist Ace, “But bands weren’t – it was always four blokes with identical haircuts. We were a band of people who were real. That’s why we were radical.”

Their notorious live presence earned them a record deal on just their second gig, and later on saw them become the first international multi-racial band to tour South Africa, where they played three sold-out arena shows. Their first Glastonbury slot came just over a year since formation, and only four years later the band were invited back to headline the festival.

Establishing themselves as one of the most unique rock bands of the past three decades, their career has seen them score numerous Top 40 singles and Top 10 albums, sell millions of albums around the world, share stages with David Bowie and U2, and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Nelson Mandela with Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and Michael Jackson.

While scenes rise and fall, and sounds come and go, outsiders like Skunk Anansie have continued to enjoy a special kind of longevity, standing the test of time as a thrillingly singular act, enjoying a spectacular international career as trailblazing, multi-platinum-selling, award-winning Brit rockers. Twenty-five years after they exploded from the backrooms of London, Skunk Anansie are more potent and more essential than they’ve ever been.

“Everything that is good that has come out of Skunk Anansie has come out of being a live band,” says drummer Mark Richardson. “We’ve always thought that nobody could defeat us. ‘Come on, try and beat us. You won’t.’”  

“We come alive onstage,” agrees bassist Cass. “That’s where we bare our teeth.”

And ’25 Live @ 25’ is a living, breathing, in-your-face document, proving that there is and always will be only one Skunk Anansie.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Red Vinyl and Yellow Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Tomb’, the third full length album from Thousand Oak, CA’s Angelo de Augustine, and the record is a significant shift from his earlier home recordings, such as previous album ‘Swim Inside The Moon’. It was recorded at NYC’s Reservoir Studios with his friend and renowned musician Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), whose credits include work on albums for Sufjan Stevens, Glen Hansard and Rhye.

‘Tomb’ is a beginning for Angelo, both emotionally and in his career. It’s a motion towards positivity, addressing lost love, the worthwhile cost of honesty, and the ramifications of regret. ‘Tomb’ isn’t about burying or hiding something away, it’s about opening the seal and letting something new emerge. The album’s title reveals these sentiments: “Throughout our lives we bury many dead things in our hearts and minds,” says Angelo about the record. “There they go to rest and hopefully are reborn as something beautiful for the world to behold.”

‘Tomb’ is a musical breakthrough for De Augustine, with Bartlett’s artful production spotlighting his increasingly impressive songwriting.The simple strength of songs like ‘Time’, ‘You Needed Love, I Needed You” and “Kaitlin’”will remind listeners that De Augustine is among the best of the rising crop of young, emotionally compelling singer songwriters.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

British alternative rock legends Swervedriver are to release their brand new album ‘Future Ruins’. In 1990s the band were originally associated with "shoegazing", however their heavier rock & roll style also related them to the grunge genre coming from the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Some music writers considered them to be Britain's answer to this sound. Regardless of labels, the band's mix of storming and swirling guitar experimentation often crossed into psychedelia, coupled with mystical lyrics that often praised the nihilism of sports cars, racing and the open road.

“Space travel rock’n’roll” – that’s how the band initially self-identified their sound. This was back in the 1990s, before the aspirational dreams of the computer age collided with reality. Across the four-album arc of their first era – ‘Raise’ (1991); ‘Mezcal Head’ (1993); ‘Ejector Seat Reservation’ (1995); ‘99th Dream’ (1997) – Swervedriver made music that was all about the journey: songs called “For Seeking Heat”, “Planes Over The Skyline”, “Juggernaut Rides”, “93 Million Miles From The Sun And Counting”. Swervedriver simulated the thrill of propulsion, the euphoric arrival, the anticipation of going back again (or not)… of moving on. 

And move on they did. During 10 years in absentia, the band’s legend grew. Sages spoke mistily of these four desert rock horsemen of the apocalypse who came from Oxford and were shunned as exiles in their own land. In 2005, a two-disc anthology was compiled with the band’s involvement, and foretold a resurrection. Sure enough, the trip resumed in 2008, with Swervedriver encountering the acclaim they ought to have enjoyed a decade earlier. A fifth album, ‘I Wasn’t Born To Lose You’, emerged in 2015, a mere 17 years after its predecessor, and trumpeted some eternal Swervedriver virtues: the intricate, fissile guitar patterns of Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge, baked hard then dispatched in giant monolithic waves by the tactile rhythm section. As the opening song “Autodidact” had it: “Holy fuel forever spilled”. 

So much for the resurrection, now for the reckoning. The new Swervedriver album ‘Future Ruins’, a two-word précis of its dread thrills. “There’s a lot of foreboding with regard to the future on this album,” agrees Adam Franklin. “Space is in there a lot too. In the first song, the character is a spaceman who’s trying to remember what life is really like. Also, it could be about somewhere in the world where winter isn’t like the winter here. A sunny place, but it’s December or January and you’re trying to remember winter. Something’s going on.”

That something began in October 2017, with a two-week stint of tracking at MAKE Records Studio in Los Angeles. There quickly followed a further 10 days’ vocals and overdubs at Seaside Studios in Brighton. Stoking the creative energies was engineer TJ Doherty. A Grammy winner for his work on Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born, his diverse credit list also includes Lou Reed and Steely Dan, Stephen Malkmus and Joanna Newsom, Sonic Youth and Selfish Cunt. The final 10 tracks were then mixed in spring 2018, as the band toured Europe – again, infusing the recordings with road-slick fumes. Future Ruins exhibits Swervedriver’s fabled widescreen escapism, but with a tension that echoes a sleeve image of Coney Island in skeletal monochrome, like a post mortem photograph of a failed utopia. ‘Future Ruins’ presents a band moving with real time/real life vitality. It showcases new tricks and classic hallmarks.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl and Orange Vinyl+.

Our Overview.

‘Survivor Blues’ is the new album from the phenomenal Walter Trout. Trout is no ordinary artist and this is no ordinary covers album. From the day he conceived the project to the moment he counted off the first song in the studio, he had a bolder plan for this release. Trout shares. “I’m riding in my car sometimes, and I’ve got a blues station on – and here’s another band doing Got My Mojo Workin’. And there’s a little voice in me that says, ‘Does The World need another version of that song?’ So I came up with an idea. I didn’t want to do ‘Stormy Monday’ or ‘Messin’ With The Kid.’ I didn’t want to do the Blues greatest hits. I wanted to do old, obscure songs that have hardly been covered. And that’s how ‘Survivor Blues’ started…”.

Over the course of the last several decades, Walter Trout has been a prolific artist. He’s regularly released offerings from the studio, so this moment of offering a covers album is somewhat of a curveball. His 2017 all-star release, ‘We’re All In This Together’, shows no sign of burning out and continues to receive accolades and sales on a global basis, alongside four awards for Blues Rock Album Of The Year and being Walter’s first #1 Billboard Blues album. He reflects, ”It’s really overwhelming. How do I follow that up? I’ve always respected guys who went out on a limb, like Neil Young or Bob Dylan. You never know what they’re gonna come out with.”

Likewise, long-standing fans have given up trying to second-guess Trout’s next move. The track listing of ‘Survivor Blues’ is a window into the 67-year-old’s fast-moving backstory, chronicling a five-decade career whose one constant is his deep love of the Blues. The roll-call of artists might be eclectic, but there’s a cohesion to ‘Survivor Blues’. From the outset, Trout made it his mission to harness the power and spirit of the originals, while stamping his inimitable musical personality onto each new take. He offers, “My idea was to do these songs like me, to arrange them for my band and style – not to just copy the originals note-for-note.”

The roll-call of artists might be eclectic, but there’s a cohesion to ‘Survivor Blues’. From the outset, Trout made it his mission to harness the power and spirit of the originals, while stamping his inimitable musical personality onto each new take. He offers, “My idea was to do these songs like me, to arrange them for my band and style – not to just copy the originals note-for-note.”

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Atlanta indie rockers Deerhunter are releasing their new album ‘Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?’ on 4AD. This is Deerhunter’s first full-length release since 2015’s excellent ‘Fading Frontier’.

Deerhunter’s eighth album is a science fiction album about the present. How do you describe an album out of time, concerned with the disappearance of culture, of humanity, of nature, of logic and emotion? Why make this album in an era when attention spans have been reduced to next to nothing, and the tactile grains of making music have been further reduced to algorithms and projected playlist placement. Why wake up in the morning? Why hasn’t everything already disappeared? 

‘Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? forgets the questions and makes up unrelated answers. It gets up, walks around, it records itself in several strategic geographic points across North America. It comes home, restructures itself and goes back to bed to avoid the bad news.

From the opening harpsichord and piano figures of ‘Death in Midsummer’, it is impossible to tell where the record came from. Is ‘No One’s Sleeping’ an outtake of an aborted Kinks recording session in 1977 Berlin with Eno producing? No. That is nostalgia. If there is one thing Deerhunter are making clear it is that they have exhausted themselves with that toxic concept. 

What they spend their time doing instead is reinventing their approach to microphones, the drum kit, the harpsichord, the electromechanical and synthetic sounds of keyboards. Whatever guitars are left are pure chrome, plugged straight into the mixing desk with no amplifier or vintage warmth.

The result is as thrilling, haunting, and unpredictable as anything in their roughly 15-year career. 

Deerhunter have made a science fiction album about the present. Is it needed right now? Is it relevant? Perhaps only to a small audience. DADA was a reaction to the horrors of war. Punk was a reaction to the slow and vacant 70’s. Hip Hop was a liberated musical culture that challenged the notions presented wholesale about the African-American experience. What is popular music today a reaction to?

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Fronted by Texan native Danny Lee Backwell, ‘Myth Of A Man’ is Night Beats’ fourth studio album and their second for Heavenly Recordings, following the release of ‘Who Sold My Generation’ in 2016. Night Beats play pure psychedelic R&B music that spikes the punch and drowns your third eye in sonic waves of colour. Theirs is a bastard blues, contorted and distorted into new shapes for 21st century wastoids — once tasted never forgotten. This is music to melt your sorry little minds.

While Blackwell has always fed off the musical legacy of his Texas roots - Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Red Krayola, The Black Angels and more paving the way for the napalm-coated psych-rock headtrip of past albums - ‘Myth Of A Man’ has him pulling from the surrogate wellspring of Nashville, Tennessee.

In short, it’s an album that holds its own next to the classics, less of the bloodshot acid trip of ‘Sonic Bloom’ (2013) and ‘Who Sold My Generation’ (2016 here, Blackwell has recalibrated them, slowed them down just enough and allowed them the space to breathe and exist as something new. It’s the same book, just a different chapter.

Written during a particularly destructive period of the band, the album is populated by fallen angels, blood-sucking wanderers and vindictive lovers - sketches of people the band has surely come across during their cosmic roving through the underground - but the character most present is Blackwell himself. “‘Myth Of A Man’ can be summed up as a personal display of vulnerability and guilty conscience,” he explains, “Destroying the mythos of what it means to live and function in society.”

With its bold steps forward, ‘Myth Of A Man’ serves as both a takedown and reintroduction of the band as we know it - the strongest evidence that you’ll never be able to pin Night Beats down.

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Manchester based Lost Under Heaven are releasing their sophomore album ‘Love Hates What You Become’. A startling, thought-provoking record, ‘Love Hates What You Become’ follows the bands 2016 debut, ‘Spiritual Songs For Lovers To Sing’. Shot full of incisive social commentary, ‘Love Hates What You Become’ captures the Manchester-based audio/visual duo - comprised of Dutch artist Ebony Hoorn and British vocalist Ellery James Roberts (former WU LYFer) - at their most musically raw and visceral.

The band wrote the album in Manchester before traveling to Los Angeles to record with producer John Congleton, known for his Grammy-winning work with St. Vincent, Swans, Explosions In The Sky and Sigur Rós. Congleton also introduced the band to Swans drummer Thor Harris, who plays on the record. “We were without a drummer or a real band,” explains Ellery. “I just concentrated on writing the songs rather than making a sound. We turned up in LA with that as our starting point, this collection of Guitar & Piano demos that I’d sent through.”

Those demos included some of the most accomplished songwriting of his career to date, such as momentous album closer ‘For The Wild’. “I started writing that song years ago almost as a pastiche of trying to write real this rock ’n’ roll saviour,” he reminisces. “The rock ’n’ roll revolutionary feels such a culturally irrelevant cliché now, we’re living in a mechanised world seemingly indifferent to the longings of the human soul.”

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

West Palm Beach, Florida’s Afterlife will be releasing their new album ‘Breaking Point’ their debut via Hopeless Records, - the group were previously signed with Attila frontman Chris Fronzak‘s Stay Sick Recordings label.

Afterlife, made up of vocalist Tyler Levenson, guitarist Andrew McGuire, drummer Luke Walkinshaw and bassist Tristan Edwards-emerged from West Palm Beach, Florida at the tail end of 2016 with a clear vision of what they wanted to bring to the world with their music. "We talked about what we find in music that's nostalgic and memorable and implemented that into what we felt was true to us and just started from there," Levenson says of the band's formation.

Following up their fast and in-your-face Vicious Cycle EP ’Breaking Point’ ambitiously tackles a variety of impactful topics from mental health and domestic assault to political apathy and the weight of guilt over the course of 10 unique tracks that blend influences like Slipknot, Linkin Park and modern hip-hop.

The band dropped the first single from the upcoming album, "Throat." The song is very personal, diving into vocalist Tyler Levenson's journey with mental health. "I felt at times that I was controlled by the anxiety, that it was dictating everything I did," he reflects. "Everything I did, I had some type of doubt in my mind because of it."

On the new single and signing announce, the band shares, "'Throat' is one of our favorite songs from the record and right after it was recorded we knew that we wanted this to be the first song the world got to hear from our upcoming record 'Breaking Point' out on January 11th, 2019. Hopeless is synonymous with some of the best artists in the music world and we couldn't be happier being a part of the Hopeless family!"

Label Review.

2019 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Toronto, shoegaze/dream pop band Tallies are releasing their debut album ‘Tallies’. The band includes Sarah Cogan (vocals, rhythm guitar), Dylan Frankland (lead guitar), Cian O’Neill (drums), and Stephen Pitman (bass). The band’s self-titled debut comes out Jan 11th via Fear of Missing Out Records, January 11th and was co-produced by Frankland and Josh Korody at Toronto’s Candle Recordings, a hot spot where locals like Metz, Dilly Dally Austra, and Weaves. It’s also where Frankland works as an engineer/producer.

Sara Cogan started music lessons at a young age, learning simple piano melodies and guitar chords that she could sing and write lyrics over. Frankland has also been immersed in music for most of his life, growing up with a music-obsessed father who introduced him to greats like The Smiths, The Sundays, Aztec Camera, and Cocteau Twins. He subconsciously carried these influences into Tallies, which is evident in the Johnny Marr stylings of his guitar riffs and the Robin Guthrie-tinged shoegaze textures of his production. “While writing this album, we were listening to The Sundays Reading, Writing and Arithmetic a lot,” says Frankland, adding, “Harriet Wheeler’s soft-spokenly sweet melodies has a major influence on where Sarah sometimes takes her writing to.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

'Kirsty Bertarelli announces that her new studio album ‘Sweet Summer Rain’ will be released on 14th December via Caroline International.

‘Tick Tock’ is the second track taken from her forthcoming album ‘Sweet Summer Rain’. Kirsty’s passion for music evolved far from her childhood poetry and local theatre performances. This desire to create music lasted well into adulthood, resulting in her writing of ‘I Wouldn’t Wanna Be’ which became the hit ‘Black Coffee’ for legendary pop group All-Saints. Since then, she has continued her musical journey collaborating with the likes of Armin van Buuren and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and has supported Simple Minds, Robbie Williams and Jools Holland live.

In Kirsty’s own words, she says ‘For me, a most important journey has been my musical one, and the wonderful people I have known through music.’

Label Review. 

1968 album remastered. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Released in late 1968, the second Pearls Before Swine record continued to deliver music with a preternatural sense of what the youth of America wanted to hear. ‘One Nation Underground’ had been a surprise hit when released in 1967 by the hipster free jazz indie label ESP, receiving an incredible organic response, with continuous underground radio play and sales. Coming from obscurity in Florida into a position of speaking to people everywhere, Tom Rapp and his bandmates felt emboldened to embark upon an evolved piece of record making.

The music of ‘Balaklava’ strips away the manic, post-garage band diversity of the first album, instead grounding the production around Tom Rapp’s guitar and singing, with the touches of instrumental colour all the more dramatic and striking. Producer Richard Alderson utilized breathy sweeps of reverb, sound effects, tape manipulation and spoken word recordings along with an array of instrumental overdubs including banjo, marimba, organ, clavinet, flute, English horn and strings (played by the band along with New York jazz session players Bill Salter and Al Schackman, plus The Fugs’ Lee Crabree and legendary saxophonist Joe Farrell, with Selwart Clarke and Warren Smith contributing string arrangements) to reach for the universal space sought in Tom Rapp’s meditative, existential songs.

Tom Rapp passed away while this album was being readied for re-release. While he spent the majority of his life working as a lawyer who practiced humanist, equal rights law - “60s law,” as he put it - for the benefit of many under represented people, his name will best be remembered and will forever be synonymous with the music of Pearls Before Swine. We are grateful to help in pushing this music forward toward the eternity it deserves. It goes without saying that this anniversary restoration of ‘Balaklava’ is dedicated to Tom’s memory. May he rest in peacefulness and live in the positivity that Pearls Before Swine bring to all who hear their music.

Label Review. 

2018 live album. Springsteen on Broadway is a solo acoustic performance written and performed by Bruce Springsteen under the lights of Broadway. It is an intimate night with Bruce, his guitar, a piano, and his stories. Also available on 4LP.  

Our Overview. 

Springsteen himself said of the performances “I wanted to do some shows that were as personal and as intimate as possible. I chose Broadway for this project because it has the beautiful old theaters which seemed like the right setting for what I have in mind. In fact, with one or two exceptions, the 960 seats of the Walter Kerr Theatre is probably the smallest venue I’ve played in the last 40 years. My show is just me, the guitar, the piano and the words and music. Some of the show is spoken, some of it is sung. It loosely follows the arc of my life and my work. All of it together is in pursuit of my constant goal to provide an entertaining evening and to communicate something of value”.

Label Review.

2018 album also available on CD+ and Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘What Is Love?’ is the second studio album from the British electronic and pop trio Clean Bandit and it is the fruit of the past three years’ work and an exciting new chapter for the band and their follow-up to the two million-selling and uk top 3 debut ‘New Eyes’. On announcing the new album the band tweeted "We can’t wait to share new music with you very soon!" And it features a a plethora of prominent artists like Charlie XCX, Ellie Goulding, Sean Paul, Demi Lovato, Luis Fonsi and others. 

The album will come four years after their debut studio album ‘New Eyes’, which featured the breakout hits "Rather Be" and "Real Love" with Jess Glynne. Clean Bandit's more recent succesful singles "Rockabye" featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie, "Nowhere" featuring Rita Ora and KYLE, and "Symphony" with Zara Larsson are all set to appear on the second album.

‘What iIs Love?’ is a home to Clean Bandit’s inventive, eclectic multi-genre catalogue – a collection of gigantic upbeat megabops married with emotive lyricism. a band that thrive on being a true collaborative endeavour.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” we are told and in the old tradition, Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert invite you to gather round the fire for ‘Ghost Stories For Christmas’, billed as "an alternative view on the Season to be Jolly".

The album began with an idea for a song - ‘A Ghost Story For Christmas’. Originally intended as a one-off, seasonal release, it proved such fun to write that soon they had enough songs for an EP. “Then, on a nice, sunny, summer morning, I phoned Hubby and suggested we just do a whole album,” says Moffat. "We were really enjoying it – there’s something pleasantly perverse about recording Christmas songs in summer clothes – so we just kept going," says Moffat, who draws inspiration from the likes of Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Dickens.

The album also features their cover of Yazoo’s synth classic ‘Only You’, already a popular number in their live set. The cover versions are topped off with a sombre rendition of Mud’s 1974 hit, ‘Lonely This Christmas’.The album features Moffat's long-term collaborator Jenny Reeve on violin and vocals, Emma Pollock on choral duties, clarinet and flute from John Burgess, and the band's live drummer David Jeans.

The album is available on CD, digital download and heavyweight white vinyl LP with the download card doubling up as a personally signed Christmas card from the duo themselves.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Van the Man is back huh his 40th studio album, quite a feat itself. This fourteen track album follows a recent run of hugely acclaimed albums (‘Roll With The Punches’, ‘Versatile’ and ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’), each of which has delved deep into the musical styles that have continued to inspire Van throughout his life – vocal jazz and R&B. Here, Van takes on a series of unarguable classics by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke and Solomon Burke (among others) and makes them unmistakably his own. Alongside these reinterpretations, ‘The Prophet Speaks’ features six phenomenal new Van Morrison compositions.

Van Morrison says of ‘The Prophet Speaks’: “It was important for me to get back to recording new music as well as doing some of the blues material that has inspired me from the beginning. Writing songs and making music is what I do, and working with great musicians makes it all the more enjoyable.”

‘The Prophet Speaks’ again finds Van working with the incredible multi-instrumentalist Joey DeFrancesco (the artist co-credited on ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’) and his band (including Dan Wilson on guitar, Michael Ode on drums and Troy Roberts on tenor saxophone).

Label Review. 

1998 album remastered. Also available on expanded 3CD. 

Our Overview. 

The Manics fifth album saw the band under immense pressure after the massive success of ‘Everything Must Go’ their 1996 album which not only saw the band finally crossing over to mainstream popularity, but also was their first record without Richie Edwards who disappeared in 1995. Although the remaining trio considered splitting up, instead they rose like the phoenix and scored four Top 10 hits and then grabbed a couple of Brit Awards for their trouble in ‘97.

Sticking with producer Mike Hedges who midwifed the previous album, they continued to move towards a lush musical backdrop, away from their earlier hard rock sound. After sharing lyric writing duties with Edwards, Nicky Wire had to write all the words for their new album for the first time.The first single from the album: “If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next” gave the band their first No.1 single and the album followed it to No.1 in the albums chart a few weeks later, also their first. Subsequent singles also performed well and the album sold as well as the last one, including increased across Europe and Asia. More Brit Awards and sold out tours followed in 1999, consolidating their position as one of Britain’s biggest bands.

Label Review.

2018 album also availble on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Richard Swift believed in and sought real beauty. Therefore, even at its most caustic and sardonic, his masterpiece swan song ‘The Hex’ is beautiful. Conceived in pieces over the last several years and completed just the month before his passing, ‘The Hex’ is the grand statement Swift acolytes have been awishin’- and-a-hopin’ for all these years. After a career of sticking some of his finest songs on EPs and 45s, here are all his powers coalescing into a single long-playing statement.

Fearless exploration defined the work of Richard Swift as a producer and collaborator. Working mostly at his National Freedom studio in Cottage Grove, Oregon, he guided singer/songwriters toward their most otherworldly music (Damien Jurado, Kevin Morby) and helped more whimsical acts evolve into wilder forms (Foxygen, the Shins). The records he released under his own name, though, were more straightforward and solitary, if not necessarily somber. Playing nearly everything himself and singing through stoned, self-deprecating asides, Swift cracked jokes about his record collection, his frustrations with the industry and how his Quaker upbringing might have doomed him from the start. Swift’s immersive and ornate indie pop suggested he saw himself as a tragic soldier facing a battle larger than himself. Since his death in July at the age of 41, the lyric that’s echoed in my head rings like an epitaph: “My name will go missing/But the songs will be here.”

Richard Swift believed in and sought real beauty. Therefore, even at its most caustic and sardonic, his masterpiece swan song ‘The Hex’ is beautiful. Conceived in pieces over the last several years and completed just the month before his passing, ‘The Hex’ is the grand statement Swift acolytes have been awishin’- and-a-hopin’ for all these years. After a career of sticking some of his finest songs on EPs and 45s, here are all his powers coalescing into a single long-playing statement.

At its core, ‘The Hex’ is an aching call out into the void for Swift’s mother (‘Wendy’) and his sister (‘Sister Song’) whom he lost in back-to-back years. You hear a man at his lowest and spiritually on his heels. The pain fuelling Swift’s cries of “She’s never comin’ back” on the absolutely gutting standout ‘Nancy’ is some sort of dark catharsis for anyone who’s ever lost a loved one to the cold abstraction of death. Over a slow Wall of Sound kick and a warbling synth, Swift’s cries climb higher and higher into what may be his most devastating vocal performance on record. A cry of pain so real and so raw Swift had to treat the performance with just a little studio effect, without which the recorded grieving might be too much to bear.

‘The Hex’ is presented here as ‘The Hex For Family and Friends’. An obsessive fan of Wall of Sound doo-wop, early Funkadelic, Bo Diddley, Beefheart and Link Wray, Swift gives them all a moment with the flashlight around ‘The Hex’ campfire, one moment to make a strange shadow-cast face for us, his family and friends.

Conceived in pieces over the last several years and completed just the month before his passing.

A close collaborator and performer with The Shins and The Black Keys and producer of some of the most loved independent releases of the last 10 years.

Label Review. 

1970 album with previously unreleased instrumental backing tracks. This was his final album for Capitol.

Our Overview. 

‘Earth Rot’ is visionary composer / arranger / producer David Axelrod’s third album, and the last of his Capitol trilogy. Recorded as a concept album about the decrepit state of the environment in 1970 Los Angeles, and scheduled for release on the first Earth Day, it features choral vocals and marks a departure for Axelrod’s signature sound, which would take on a jazzier feel in the 1970s.

This definitive version of ‘Earth Rot’, overseen by Now-Again’s Eothen Alapatt in conjunction with Axelrod’s Estate, fulfills a request Axelrod made while alive – to see the instrumentals of this album, never before released, issued. They see release here as the second half of a deluxe CD reissue. This is an audiophile reissue, with the vocal version transferred directly from Axelrod’s original master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster. The master was approved by Axelrod’s son Michael, who adapted ancient lyrics for the album in one of three collaborative projects he did with his father.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Nick Saloman is a true hero, a musician's musician. A cult entity, his work as The Bevis Frond - which now totals an almost incalculable number of albums, singles, and EPs - blends artfully British songwriting with fuzzed out elements of the American underground.

Nick Saloman continues to fly the psych freak flag! His 2018 delivery 'We're Your Friends, Man' is a 90-minute blast of buzzsaw guitars and the liberating songcraft of The Beatles, presented with a jagged edge, intense swathes and swerving changes that give the material a transatlantic propulsion. Saloman's lyrics, as always, bristle with incisive wit and poignant observations.

Lauded by Teenage Fanclub, his work has charmed J Mascis, a singular catalogue that, despite being vast, is actually forever welcoming. The new album 'We're Your Friends, Man' arrives on December 7th through Fire Recordings, and it's billed as a stellar return from a true iconoclast.

To the point, on the money ‘We’re Your Friends Man’ is dramatic, plucking at the heart strings, spilling one liners, milking the past and crafting something completely new. Every song that the Frond’s front man Nick Saloman writes has the effect of little orchestras tuning up in your head, sketching the scene and filling in the blanks – a feat explained in the cunningly titled ‘Little Orchestras’, no less. And there’s more personal realisations on offer for sure – ‘Growing’, ‘A Hard Way To Learn’ and ’Young Man’s Game’ make for a strident midfield in this 20-track squad.

But doesn’t every Bevis Frond album do that? Sure… The man writes great songs, he knows his way around a verse and chorus as well as he knows the best route around a guitar, he also has his tongue firmly in his cheek throughout.

Label Review.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Splendor In The Grass (1961) The Young Savages (1961) The Arrangement (1969) Pull My Daisy (ft Jack Kerouac) (1959) Isnt It Delicious (2016) On The Waterfront (Broadway production 1995) After The Fall (Broadway production) (1964) Echo Of An Era (documentary short subject featuring Cecil Taylor) (1956).

Our Overview.

‘Jazz On Film: Classic American Film Scores 1956 - 2016’ the latest release on Moochin’ About’s ‘Jazz On Film’ series features a rare and unique 5CD collection from the multi-instrumentalist classical composer and author David Amram.

Using the music from his own personal archives, the box set includes highlights from seven of his film scores and two Broadway productions, celebrating a career spanning 60 years. All of these scores have been re-mastered and the included 60 page colour booklet has been written by David Amram.

Beginning in 1956 with a rare short film ‘Echo of An Era’, a story about the history of the Third Avenue El and the ever changing nature of New York, this excerpt gives a glimpse of the creativity of Cecil Taylor on piano - his first ever recording opportunity - and a hint of what Amram has done since.

The box set concludes with a score to Michael Patrick Kelly’s film ‘Isn’t It Delicious’. It features Latin legends Paquito D’Rivera, Candido, a bevy of great contemporary jazz artists like Slide Hampton, Jimmy Owens and Earl McKintyre and classical chamber music instrumentalists Harumi Rhodes and a group for the Copland Center.

Amram, rightfully hailed as a Renaissance man of American Music, plays more than 35 instruments and with Julius Watkins, was a pioneer in introducing the French horn to jazz more than sixty years ago while a member in the bands of many of the 1950s jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Kenny Dorham and Oscar Pettiford. He also developed friendships while jamming or recording with Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Charlie Parker, Betty Carter, Stan Getz, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Nina Simone, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Arturo Sandoval, Paquito d'Rivera, Candido, Ray Mantilla, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Thad Jones, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Odetta, Jack Kerouac, Richie Havens, Steve Martin, Pete Seeger, Sir James Galway and Johnny Depp.

“David Amram has done a magnificent job. The score is exactly what I wanted for the film. The music is almost sane sometimes… as the story is almost sane sometimes... And at other times, the music is in the trees, just like the movie. It is a great score!” - Frank Sinatra (star & co-executive producer ‘The Manchurian Candidate’)

“David Amram is one of the most versatile and skilled musicians America has ever produced” - Washington Post“A Godsend to those who believe in the power of music to change lives and inspire” - Wynton Marsalis (Artistic Director Of Jazz at the Lincoln Center)

Label Review.

2018 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Farai’s debut album - a collaborative project between London based vocalist Farai Bukowski-Bouquet and musician and producer TONE - via Big Dada, documents a process of recovery. ‘Rebirth’ weaves together South East London landmarks, the bare-bones ethos of post-punk and the experience of being part of the African diaspora, continuing the themes of their 2017 debut EP, ‘Kisswell’.

The lyrics of eponymous vocalist Farai are coloured by the different cities she’s lived in, including London. Having met TONE via Shop Floor Sessions, recording and writing followed in Hackney, Lewisham and a shared studio with Mica Levi aka Micachu. TONE laid down synthesisers and guitar to Farai’s poetry and drums were recorded with Marc Pell from Micachu & The Shapes. The result is Farai’s alternative vision of pop; distinctive and many-sided at once, poised between punk directness and flourishes of soulful warmth.

For fans of Young Fathers, Mica Levi, Tirzah, King Krule, Sleaford Mods, Mount Kimbie.

Carbon disc CD with softpack card wallet. LP on yellow vinyl housed in a 3mm spined outer sleeve with printed inner, plus digital download code. Artwork by Haribo Cosmo Jones. Layout by Sofia Lucarelli.

Farai performed live at Uniqlo Tate Lates to coincide with the highly successful ‘Soul Of A Nation’ exhibition celebrating black American artists. She performed with Zezi Ifore, Mark Godfrey and Jade Montserrat.

Label Review.

2018 live album and film. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The awesome Bay Area producer DJ Shadow (Josh Davis) releases ‘Live In Manchester: The Mountain Has Fallen Tour’. Recorded at a sold out Albert Hall in Manchester, England, the release (out 13th July on Mass Appeal Records) is now on vinyl, CD, and digitally.

‘Live In Manchester: The Mountain Has Fallen Tour’, documents DJ Shadow’s most ambitious, extensive worldwide tour yet - surrounded by stunning visuals, he blasts through classics and more obscure cuts from his discography.

Josh Davis was catapulted to prominence thanks to his landmark debut album, ‘Endtroducing’, acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the first LP created entirely from samples.  Since then, Shadow has continually moved forward releasing innovative albums and collaborating with the likes of Thom Yorke, Massive Attack, Jason Newsted (Metallica), Mike D (Beastie Boys), Zack de la Rocha and several others.  Live In Manchester: The Mountain Has Fallen Tour continues an exceptional couple of years for the producer: in 2016 he unleashed innovate new album The Mountain Will Fall, which birthed his biggest single yet, Nobody Speak featuring Run The Jewels; a massive worldwide tour followed - The Mountain Has Fallen Tour - plus an EP featuring collaborations with Oscar-winning film composer Steven Price, rap maverick Danny Brown and hip-hop hero Nas. 

Label Review. 

1973 album remastered with 18 bonus tracks. CD2 contains reconstruction of the original double album idea. CD3 with 17 bonus tracks. DVD1: Music Videos / James Paul McCartney TV Special / Live And Let Die [Live in Liverpool] / Newcastle Interview. DVD2 & Blu-ray: The Bruce McMouse Show plus 5.1 mixes. 128pp book containing many previously unpublished images by Linda McCartney, expanded album and single artwork from the archives and story behind the album including new interviews with Paul McCartney, and key album personnel and track-by-track information, written by Amanda Petrusich. 64pp photo book capturing 'Wings In Morocco'. Folio containing Paul McCartney’s original character sketches and dialogue sheets for The Bruce McMouse Show. Also available on 2CD, 2LP, and Special 2LP. 

Our Overview. 

Paul McCartney formed ‘Wings’ in 1971, following his second solo album ‘Ram’. His first band since the break-up of The Beatles, issued it’s first album ‘Wings Wild Life’ in late 1971 before heading out on the short ‘University Tour’ in the New Year. A European tour followed later in that year. Three singles were issued in ‘72, two of which made the UK Top 10: “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Hi Hi Hi”. Sessions for the bands second album continued throughout the year and the original plan was to make a double album.

EMI had other ideas, and considering the first album got a lukewarm reception and sales to match, they were non-committal to a double record and McCartney was forced to cut it down to a single album. However, the single released ahead of the album “My Love” was a Top 10 hit and the resultant record restored some of Macca’s commercial standing. It helped that the record was billed as ‘Paul McCartney & Wings’ as would his next album, the sales busting ‘Band On The Run’.

The original double album concept is reconstructed as part of this new deluxe edition of the album which has been out of print on CD for nearly ten years.

Label Review.

2005 album.

Our Overview.

King Creosote, aka Kenny Anderson, is the co-founder and figurehead of Fife’s wonderfully eccentric and frequently brilliant Fence Collective, a loose group of purveyors of “skewered folk, folkadelica, nonsensical, bluedoh and swampguff.

Following up from the excellent, if patchy, ‘Kenny And Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides’ now available for the first time on Vinyl (a mix of a decade’s worth of King Creosote CD-Rs), ‘Rocket D.I.Y.’ is a more coherent, more controlled effort. Written and recorded in the space of a few weeks, it also offers a clearer picture of Anderson the man – witty, romantic, mournful and faintly mystical.

‘Rocket D.I.Y.’ is the home-recorded follow up to 2003’s ‘Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides’. Instead of a collection of songs spanning several years, ‘Rocket D.I.Y.’ contains 12 new songs, all written and recorded over a period of weeks. Acoustic guitar and piano based songs have been embellished with accordion, banjo, electronics and a smattering of samples. Collective drummers OnTheFly and Captain Geeko deliver an altogether new punch, with Pip Dylan’s pedal steel adding that final twang. ‘Rocket D.I.Y.’ can best be described as a recollection of a hectic year. From the cosmic highs to the lunar lows come world weary themes of age consciousness and humdrum household chores sitting alongside wide eyed travel adventures and far-fetched yarns. With its scratchy sentiments, anthemic yearnings and downright nonsense, ‘Rocket D.I.Y.’, like ‘Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides’ before it, takes you on a Neukian journey possibly not as far as the stars but one you’ll want to take again.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The phenomenal Jeff Tweedy releases ‘Warm’. A solo album of all new material on November 30th via dBpm Records. ‘Warm’ was produced and recorded entirely by Jeff at Chicago’s now legendary studio, The Loft (with help from some of his usual collaborators – Spencer Tweedy, Glenn Kotche and Tom Schick). ‘Warm’ follows the acoustic retrospective release, Together at Last (2017), and Wilco’s 2016 album, Schmilco. 

The incredible liner notes for ‘Warm’ were written by George Saunders and are available to read in full at The New Yorker.

“Certain lyrical flowers sprout up with regularity across the ten song-yards that are this record. A son who has lost a father sings to his wife, his sons, that father. There are apologies, and mirror-twins; threats to enemies (‘I’d love to take you down / and leave you there’) and entreaties (‘Let’s go rain again!’) and dreamy challenges (‘I wonder how much freedom we can dream’) and ornery morphings of language that serve a simple function: they make the listener love language again.” – George Saunders, Liner Notes for Jeff Tweedy’s ‘Warm’.

In conjunction with album announcement, dBpm presents lead single, “Some Birds,” and its accompanying video directed by Seth Henrikson. "When I got the call to collaborate with Jeff on the video for ‘Some Birds’ it was a thrill and an honor,” comments Henrikson. “The concept for the video naturally highlights Jeff’s amazing song writing and lyrical genius. However, it also exploits another of Jeff’s gifts -- his uncanny sense of men’s fashion and hairstyles. I’m excited to share it with Tweedy fans!” 

Jeff describes the song as “like a lot of songs on ‘Warm’, being a confrontation between self and shadow self simultaneously feeling I'm to blame and not to blame, present and gone, and utterly confused, but determined to hold someone accountable.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Daniel Romano’s new album, ‘Finally Free’, could stand alone as being pivotal if it were only its profound and breath-taking prose on paper. Writing now like an agnostic Whitman in his prime, Romano explores and uncovers new language and meaning for old sentiments grown tired, stating, “these poems are most certainly my finest and most principled efforts to date.”

‘Finally Free’ marks Daniel Romano’s eighth long playing album in the last eight years. He has had what understatedly would be considered a prolific output of incredibly entrancing, poignant and creative records in this span of time. Recording, producing, designing and landing his records into the minds and hearts of scores of fans the world over. He has been called a shapeshifter, contrived, a chameleon, a charlatan, the best living songwriter, an asshole and a genius. His last record, ‘Modern Pressure’, received outstandingly high acclaim and praise from every notable publication out there and was acknowledged by a plethora of voguish year-end lists. Despite being the bronze placeholder in most of these dogfights, he is most often noted as a person of astounding influence on all of his musically economic successors.

“No matter what he does, everything he puts out is better than anything else being put out by anyone else.” - Unnamed Subjugate

‘Finally Free’ sings like a radical revelation, exploring the concepts of music as a celestial being, flora as a consequential ancestor and singing, no matter its quality or sound, as the endmost important output of our species. This record contains a vivid religious articulation despite its clear condemnation of a god as a singular ruling white male. New words have replaced old words for new meaning and the definitions have been left up to interpretation.

Label Review. 

Remastered. Aerial, Director’s Cut, 50 Words For Snow, Before The Dawn, 12” Mixes, The Other Side 1, The Other Side 2, In Others’ Words.

Our Overview. 

After ten years out of the limelight, Kate’s return in 2005 with the single “King Of The Mountain” was welcomed by her fans, starved of new product. The parent album ‘Aerial’ was a double album too and proved that Bush had not lost her musical touch since ‘The Red Shoes’. Six months later when David Gilmour released his new album ‘On An Island’ no-one noticed the coincidences between the two records. Both albums were on EMI, and both artists previous records (in Gilmour’s case it was Pink Floyd’s ‘The Division Bell’) were issued twelve years after their last! See our review of Box Set One for the other Bush-Gilmour connection!

There was another long wait (six years) before more material arrived from Kate and this time there were two albums! The first was ‘The Director’s Cut’ which saw Kate revisit certain tracks from ‘The Sensual World’ and ‘The Red Shoes’ to make an all new album. ‘50 Words For Snow’ appeared six months later and this was composed of all new material and at the time of writing remains her last studio album. In 2014, Kate surprised her fans again by announcing her first live shows in 35 years. Booking the Hammersmith Apollo for 22 nights and selling out the lot, the audio document of the shows was issued two years later as ‘Before The Dawn’ which focussed largely on ‘The Hounds Of Love’ and ‘Aerial’ along with some other later period songs. Nothing from her first four albums were performed during the residency.

This remastered box set also contains several bonus discs. '12” Mixes' is self-explanatory, the two 'Other Side' discs contain a selection of non-album b-sides whilst ‘In Other’s Words’ features cover versions that Kate has recorded over the years.

Label Review.

2018 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The Bryan Ferry Orchestra release ‘Bitter Sweet’. “Make it new” rang the rallying cry of modernists in the early twentieth century. To be modern in the 1920s, or postmodern in the 1960s, demanded destruction—of conventions, traditions, expectations, representation, even beauty itself. A drawing by Paul Klee captured the rebellious spirit of the age just after World War I. A scribbled stick-figure angel, dubbed “Angelus Novus” (New Angel), stares out, wings aloft, flattened crudely against the page. Pierced by the gaze, philosopher Walter Benjamin imagined the figure to be the Angel of History looking at the debris of the past, looking at us while blown backwards into the future.

Ferry too looks out upon the debris of the past, but with a deep affection and real sympathy that escaped the modernists. He follows a different prescription: not “make it new,” but “make it newly beautiful.” And here beauty lies in bittersweet remembrance, rather than youthful rejection. This art recognizes that the past was once our present, even our future, and this moment too shall melt away into the past.

The art of the past that Ferry embraces includes ragtime, blues, and jazz as well as the clean lines of Art Deco, the heady glamour of early cinema, and the modishness of the 1960s. Jazz in the 1920s was the soundtrack of popular culture—itself a modern invention. Think of swing, the Ziegfeld Follies, Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin. Remembering them evokes a sense of nostalgia. “It’s still the same old movie that’s haunting me,” Ferry once said. So what are we watching on this album? What are we hearing?

“Reason or Rhyme” calls to the ear the dark reed timbres and baleful trumpets of Duke Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy”, with a gesture, perhaps, to the tenor saxophone sound of Coleman Hawkins. (Ellington and Hawkins played together on an essential album from 1962.) “Sign of the Times” includes a swinging trumpet solo and a veiled allusion, in the concluding section, to Eddie Lockjaw Davis. “While My Heart Is Still Beating” throws a bridge between the clarinet and alto sax duo of Sidney Bechet and Johnny Hodges to the edgier sound, on the sax, of Benny Carter. An even more haunting transposition of the 1920s is Boys & Girls, which again recalls Bechet and Hodges, now processed through a modernist sensibility. The vibrato in the saxophone line is crisper and more classical, less sensual than cerebral, more like the imitations of jazz that became fashionable among modernist composers.               

Thus Kurt Weill’s “Pirate Jenny”, from his iconic “Threepenny Opera”, influences the texture of “Alphaville”, which is also the title of a New Wave film by Jean-Luc Goddard. (The past really does pile up.) The title track, “Bitter-Sweet”, makes the Weill homage more explicit, and even includes lines in German. Dance Away begins like a Scott Joplin Rag, but “New Town” is pure Ferry. He doubles his voice in a song with a slow Charleston feel, yet the harmony, disorienting throughout the album, is here otherworldly.

Ferry returns his great songs to their roots, but they are stranger for it. Thus he captures the uncanny essence of nostalgia—of the familiar made strange, the pang of returning to your childhood home or grade-school classroom. This is an album in the truest sense, like a photobook or scrapbook, and so engages our musical memories. Throughout, Ferry’s dusky, poignant voice shades the meaning of the music like chiaroscuro shadowing in a Renaissance painting (just the kind of details the modernists would eliminate, but Ferry now restores). Horns inhale deeply, dreamily; castanets click in reference to the Romani goddess Carmen; and solo instruments sink, despairingly, casually, in a delirious blend of swing and tango and fantasy. The arrangements, created by Ferry with his long-time music director Colin Good, at once suggest the childhood of jazz in the 1920s and capture its more recent echoes, including those from Ferry’s album ‘The Jazz Age’. The reverb is soggy, the piano lines clean, and the forms prove more complicated than those by the bandmasters of yesteryear.

“Bitter-Sweet” accomplishes what the modernists of the past, in their youthful enthusiasm, could not. Ferry’s music embraces the artifice of art as well as the artlessness of emotion so that the “sad affair” described at the start leads you to “break down and cry” by the end. Thus we are transported to the Berlin of the “Tacheles” club and the “Chamäleon”, to the zeitgeist of that jazz-friendly metropolis in the young 20th century - the hedonistic world of “Babylon Berlin”.

Label Review. 

Official release of his legendary headline set at worlds biggest festival. Also available in CD and Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

David Bowie ‘Glastonbury 2000’ documents Bowie’s legendary Sunday night headline performance on 25th June at the most famous festival on earth. The legendary full performance released for the first time including many of David’s greatest hits and never before seen footage.

The package includes the full 21 song greatest hits set and for the first time, a DVD of the entire show (only 30 minutes of which has ever been broadcast on TV) including the Glastonbury performance of ‘Heroes’, a highlight of the record breaking ‘David Bowie Is…’ exhibition and the only track that has been previously released. 

All formats feature David’s diary, originally written for Time Out, which documents him preparing for the show in his own inimitable manner. In addition to newly mastered audio and upgraded video DAVID BOWIE ‘GLASTONBURY 2000’ features new artwork from Jonathan Barnbrook (who worked with Bowie on the sleeves for Heathen, The Next Day & ★) and notes from the renowned author and Bowie fan Caitlin Moran who reviewed the show for The Times. 

The package features photos of Bowie resplendently dressed in a 3/4 length one-of-a-kind Alexander McQueen frock coat, the pattern of which was made to echo the hat (the famous ‘bipperty-bopperty hat’ mentioned in the song Queen Bitch) and worn by David at his Glastonbury Fayre debut in 1971.

Label Review. 

Finally released under its original title (thought as too controversial by the label a half century ago), Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills restores the band’s vision and intent in an essential new collection of 30 rare performances, including 29 studio outtakes (25 previously unreleased) from the mythic 1968 sessions that generated Big Brother & The Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills, the breakout album that introduced Janis Joplin to the world. This release debuts a previously unreleased live performance of “Ball And Chain”, recorded live at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12th 1968. Includes liner notes penned especially for this commemorative release by Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick and and Big Brother & The Holding Company drummer David Getz. Double CD set includes 30 songs. Also available on double vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills’ includes liner notes penned especially for this commemorative release by Jefferson Airplane front-woman Grace Slick and Big Brother & The Holding Company drummer David Getz. “Then I heard that voice,” writes Slick. “Good Lord–spontaneous explosions of every emotion–no holds barred… Janis had no trouble sliding from the apron clad fifties into the no bra sixties. We all took every advantage of the new freedoms, and it was reflected in the music… This album, because of its worldwide success, made it possible for everybody to hear the phenomenon that was previously limited to the San Francisco Bay Area. Now, a new generation gets the ‘Cheap Thrills’ experience to enjoy”.

Originally released on August 12, 1968, Cheap Thrills was an out-of-the-box smash, a #1 album that–building on the heat she’d generated at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival–established Janis Joplin as rock’s foremost primordial psychedelic soul singer, a musical archetype whose influence has never waned. ‘Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills’ revisits those 1968 sessions and shines a new light on the genius of Janis Joplin and the incredible chemistry she shared with her bandmates in Big Brother & The Holding Company.

Of the 30 tracks showcased on the 2CD edition of Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills, only five have been previously released: “Summertime (Take 2)” (on 1993 Janis compilation); “Roadblock (Take 1)” (on 1999 Cheap Thrills reissue); “It’s A Deal (Take 1)” and “Easy Once You Know How (Take 1)” (both on 1999 “Rare Pearls” disc in Box of Pearls set); and “Magic Of Love (Take 1)” (from the Columbia/Legacy Record Store Day release, Move Over!).

The original Cheap Thrills featured dubbed-in crowd noise to create the sonic illusion of a live album, though only “Ball and Chain” was actually recorded in concert. An alternate live version of the song–recorded at The Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on April 12, 1968–is included on Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills. The album was the culmination of several years of hard work for the psychedelic quintet, consisting of Joplin on lead vocals, Sam Andrew and James Gurley on guitar, Peter Albin on bass and Dave Getz on drums. In 1967, a year after recruiting Joplin, they released their self-titled debut album while continuing to build a devoted fan base in their native San Francisco and the Bay Area.

A performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 earned Big Brother national recognition, with Joplin’s unrestrained full-tilt delivery bringing audiences to their feet. Clive Davis, president of CBS Records, attended the group’s performance and signed Big Brother & The Holding Company to Columbia Records. Produced by John Simon, Cheap Thrills was the pure distillation of the band’s raw talent and bleeding-edge instrumental prowess, with compelling originals (“I Need a Man to Love”, “Combination of the Two”) as well as covers of jazz and blues favorites (George and Ira Gershwin’s “Summertime,” Big Mama Thornton’s “Ball and Chain”, and, notably, “Piece of My Heart”, a now-classic soul ballad, penned by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns, that became one of Janis’ signature songs and her top charting single during her lifetime).

Label Review.

2018 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Doubtless Dauntless’ is the new album from Matt Deighton a multi-talented singer and songwriter of rare repute. Idiosyncratic and blessed with an ear for melody, he stands alongside the likes of John Martyn, Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake for his ability to craft songs of beauty and power. Illumined in the modern musical firmament, 2018 sees him stepping forward once again with a new 10-track solo album.

Recorded in Monnow Valley Studio in Monmouthshire in September 2016, the pastoral setting for ‘Doubtless Dauntless’ proved perfect for an intensely artistic get-together of some of the most feted musicians of the past 40 years, the record’s personnel including piano maestro Steve Nieve (Elvis Costello), Linda Lewis, Gary Carpenter (associate musical director on The Wicker Man, 1973), Ben Trigg and Matt’s ex bandmates in The Family Silver, Steve White (The Style Council, Paul Weller) and Damon Minchella (Ocean Colour Scene, Richard Ashcroft).

First hitting the airwaves with Mother Earth in the early '90s, Matt enjoyed early success with the release of a clutch of albums that included The People Tree (Acid Jazz Records, 1993). After Mother Earth’s disbandment in 1996, Deighton joined Paul Weller’s band on lead guitar and vocals and temporarily replaced Noel Gallagher in Oasis when Gallagher quit in the middle of touring in 2000.

But his back catalogue speaks for itself. As a solo artist, he distilled his art into four soulful folk-tinged albums (‘Villager’, 1995; ‘You Are The Healer’, 2000; ‘The Common Good’, 2002; and ‘Wake Up The Moths’, 2004), followed more recently (2017) by a compelling collaboration with Chris Difford, the resurrected album called ‘Kids Steal Feelings’. Matt has recorded and played with Paul Weller, Oasis, Bill Fay, Brian Auger, Carleen Anderson, Roger Daltrey, Chris Difford of Squeeze and many others and with ‘Doubtless Dauntless’ he proves he’s getting better with age.

‘Doubtless Dauntless’ is a perfect pop synthesis of folk, rock and soul that, in equal measure, is both compelling and impossible to pigeon hole, Matt possessing the rare songwriting ability – or, some might say, the dying art – of being able to winnow existential truths from modern life, writing with an economy of lyrical gesture, his lyrics deft and weighted, figuratively precise.

Label Review. 

All of the existing audio and video from the show, including the original album, both “sit-down” and “stand-up” performances, rehearsals and sessions recorded with the Wrecking Crew in June 1968, including outtakes. The video content is only available on Blu-ray. Original show, unedited music performances from 27th & 29th June, all takes of If I Can Dream show closer and other outtakes plus more.

Our Overview. 

Elvis Presley – ‘68 Comeback Special (50th Anniversary Edition) is the definitive chronicle of one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll performances ever televised: Elvis Presley at the peak of his powers. For the first time ever, all previously-released audio and newly-restored video from the taping of the special will be available in one package – including unused performances and studio outtakes that spotlight the real Elvis. The package contains an entire disc showcasing the legendary sessions for the special recorded with Elvis and the Wrecking Crew.

The ‘68 Comeback Special (at the time titled “Singer Presents…ELVIS”) aired on December 3, 1968 and was a pivotal broadcast event that upped-the-ante on Elvis’ career, the evolution of pop culture and the history of television. By 1968, prior to the broadcast, Elvis was no longer seen by the mainstream as the atomic-powered rock and roll pioneer. Since his discharge from the United States Army in 1960, Elvis’ career path careened through a string of low-budget (though often successful) formulaic films while the rock music scene was exploding with innovation, experimentation, and an urgency to complement the turbulent era. Elvis hadn’t performed in public since 1961 and hadn’t appeared on television since 1960.

The special, recorded over several sessions in June 1968, presented Elvis in a variety of settings, from spectacular production numbers (“Nothingville,” “Saved,” “Guitar Man,” “Little Egypt,” “Big Boss Man,”“Let Yourself Go”) to the intimate “sit-down” performances of classic Elvis hits, reuniting the artist with Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, the guitarist and drummer who’d played alongside Elvis on his earliest records and shows. The black leather “sit-down” and “stand-up” sequences provided a retrospective of Elvis’ career to that point, highlighted with the new song “Memories,” written by Mac Davis specifically for the show. The special’s transcendent closing number was Presley’s now-classic, emotionally fueled performance of “If I Can Dream,” an anthemic new song penned especially for Elvis and the special byW. Earl Brown.

The special was the most-viewed television program in America the week it aired and firmly re-established Elvis as a major musical and cultural force. “I think the ‘68 Special gave him the confidence to get on the road again, knowing that people accepted him,” said Priscilla Presley. “That show was so successful that he just knew this is what he wanted to do, go back and be with an audience.”

Label Review. 

Official release of live solo acoustic tracks from his November 1976 tour. Also available on double vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Songs For Judy’ is the debut release on Shakey Pictures Records, Young’s own imprint. ‘Songs For Judy’ is thoroughly engaging collection of live acoustic performances culled from Neil’s November 1976 solo tour and features twenty-two songs recorded at various cities along the tour. This song cycle of live recordings is particularly powerful and unique. Young had spent much of the year traveling around the world on tour with Crazy Horse. When touring on his own, he recharged and focused on songs that would not surface in recorded form for several years. Of the albums many treasures, “No One Seems To Know” would not see the light of day until now and it remains unreleased in any other iteration.

The raw versions of the tracks found on Songs For Judy reflect an artist completely unvarnished and unafraid to allow the songs to breath and to find their own shape when performed in a solo setting. Songs written in that era would come into focus and then seemingly disappear only to re-enter Young’s orbit somewhere down the road. “White Line” and “Give Me Strength” are such examples of finding the light in 1990 and 2017 respectively. It’s also fascinating to hear Young revisit early gems such as Springfield’s “Mr. Soul” (‘67), “Here We Are In The Years” (‘68), and “The Losing End” (‘69) from some of his earliest solo recordings which remain as timeless as ever.

Label Review. 

In celebrating 50 years of Neil Diamond as a singer songwriter, Capitol is releasing a 6 disc retrospective spanning his entire career. The collection features 115 tracks and contains beloved hits alongside demos, rarities and 14 previously unreleased tracks. Housed in an attractive book.

Our Overview. 

Neil Diamond’s unique connection with audiences the world over is evident all throughout the breadth of material presented on this box set. Witness the folk-rock reverie of “Solitary Man,” the unbridled exuberance of “Cherry Cherry,” the sweet acoustic twang of “Forever in Blue Jeans,” the pure Americana swing of “Kentucky Woman,” the eternal sing-along sunshine of “Sweet Caroline,” the raw emotionality of “I Am…I Said,” the welcoming arms of “America,” and the deeply expressive heartlight that’s on full display in his chart-topping duet with Barbra Streisand, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” for just the tip of the iceberg of Diamond’s artistic achievements.

A full disc containing 12 unreleased songs, including recently unearthed gems such as “Sunflower,” (written and recently updated by Neil Diamond, originally recorded by Glen Campbell), “Before I Had a Dime” and “C’est La Vie” a song that Neil co-wrote with friend Gilbert Bécaud. Meanwhile, the original demos of two of Diamond’s most indelible tracks, “I Am…I Said” and “America,” give listeners further insight into the creative process behind a pair of his best known songs.

Throughout his illustrious and wide-ranging career, Neil Diamond has sold over 130 million albums worldwide and has dominated the charts for more than five decades with 38 Top 40 singles and 16 Top 10 albums. He has achieved record sales with 40 Gold albums, 21 Platinum albums, and 11 Multi-Platinum albums.

Label Review. 

The fourth volume in the series of his yearly round-up’s, Jon’s selections for this year oscillate between soul, funk, Americana, pop-psych and hard-edged rock. 1965, 1966 and 1967 still available. Ace.

Our Overview. 

A genre-spanning 2CD mix of hit singles, slow burners and lost gems, including the first-ever official release of the preview pressing of ‘Kick Out The Jams’ by the MC5. The 45s that defined 1968 and crystallised author Jon Savage’s memories of the year.

1968 began with business as usual in the pop charts, but the year would see convulsive political and social changes. This turmoil would be replicated in the music industry, where the effects of 1967 were seen in a proliferation of musical styles and social attitudes. The old days of a unified, central Top 40 were gone, and in its place came a new energy that transformed pop into rock, ska into rocksteady and early reggae, and soul into funk.

Jon’s selections for this year oscillate between soul, funk, Americana, pop-psych and hard-edged rock. With the loss of pirate radio after March, he heard of many of these either by scouring the record bins in central London or picking up tips from the music and the underground press. Some are later discoveries but the aim is to construct an ideal playlist that simulates a top radio show, without all the populist choices and extraneous filler – a more radical and faster-moving soundtrack for an inflammatory year.

Label Review. 

Over 100 tracks of home recordings featuring demo versions of many songs which went on to be released and others which didn’t. Some of the tracks were issued on vinyl in 2018 whilst the fifth volume is exclusive to this CD box set. Easy Action. 

Our Overview. 

An amazing insight into the workings of the late and very great Marc Bolan, here are over 100 tracks from Marc’s home of his own personal home recordings. Marc purchased the best tape recorders of the day as early as 1970 to record his ideas on. Included are work in progress versions of many tracks that went onto become global hits such as Get It On, Jeepster, Metal Guru, Telegram Sam, The Groover, Truck On (Tyke), Thunderwing, Sunken Rags and many, many more. Nearly all of the other tracks were never issued during Marc’s lifetime.

Presented in a clam shell box with a booklet featuring full liner notes by Andrew Gardner of the Bolan Society and designed by Bolan fan and top designer Les Clark. Most of these recordings were stolen from Marc & Gloria’s home literally the day after Marc died. It is with great pride that we are returning these recordings to the family and the audio restored and mastered by Anders Peterson at Ghost Sound in Sweden, royalties from sales of this set will help fund the Marc Bolan School of Music through Gloria’s charity The Light of Love Foundation. 4 of the discs have been issued on limited edition vinyl pressings but disc 5 remains exclusive to this box set.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Ed Harcourt is releasing ‘Beyond The End’, his eighth studio album, and his first for Point Of Departure which follows ‘Furnaces’, his 2016 album for Polydor, sees Ed Harcourt add another new string to his multi-faceted musical bow.

Ed is a much acclaimed recording artist who released his Mercury Prize nominated debut, Here Be Monsters on Heavenly Records in 2001, in recent years his has gained acclaim for his songwriting for a variety of artists. ‘Beyond The End’ is something of a left-turn after its busy, big-screen, somewhat under-appreciated predecessor, it sees the supremely versatile singer, writer and all-round instrumentalist bravely eschew vocals and lyrics and create a soft-spoken yet emotionally loquacious group of piano-led instrumentals, as if sound-tracking an as yet invisible film, or responding to today’s ferocious shouting match of a planet with a mesmerizing, meditative calm. “The world that we live in, we’re exhausted by the internet, social media, the sheer barrage of news and vomit being rained down us on a daily basis. You can’t avoid it, and it’s tiring. So this record came from taking a step back – it’s something that’s trying to be beautiful. My hope is that people might choose to swim amongst this music when it all gets too much.”

Talking about the gestation of the album, which was written and recorded at his ‘Wolf Cabin’ studio in Oxfordshire Harcourt said, “I knew I wanted to buy a new piano. Eventually I found this 1910 Hopkinson Baby Grand, which is exactly the same make and era as my grandmother’s piano which I started learning on and wrote my first three records on. I felt at home again. I needed a break from singing and lyrics so I began writing instrumental music. I grew up listening to and playing Debussy, Satie, Mozart, Grieg, as well as modern composers like Max Richter, Philip Glass, Arvo Part. I also loved Warren Ellis (with whom Harcourt worked on the new Marianne Faithfull album) and Nick Cave’s score for The Assassination Of Jesse James… 

Label Review.

Afro-Centric Jazz, Street Funk and the Roots of Rap in the Black Power Era 1969-75. Soul Jazz Records also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

‘Soul Of A Nation: Jazz Is The Teacher, Funk Is The Preacher’ is a powerful new collection of radical jazz, street funk and proto-rap made in the era of Black Power (1969-75).

This is the second ‘Soul Of A Nation’ album released by Soul Jazz Records to coincide with the exhibition ‘Soul Of A Nation - Art In The Age Of Black Power’, critically acclaimed and enormously successful when it opened at the Tate Modern in London last year (as was Soul Jazz Records’ accompanying first album ‘Soul Of A Nation: Afro-Centric Visions In The Age Of Black Power 1968- 79’). The blockbuster international exhibition is now at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, travelling to Los Angeles in 2019.

This new album features a number of important and ground-breaking African-American artists - The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Don Cherry, Funkadelic, Gil Scott-Heron and more - alongside a host of lesser-known artists all of whom in the early 1970s were exploring new Afrocentric poly rhythmical styles of music - radical jazz, street funk and proto-rap - while at the same time exploring the Black Power and civil-rights inspired notions of self-definition, self-respect and self empowerment in their own lives.

During this era African-American jazz musicians ripped up traditional definitions - rejecting the term ‘entertainer’ to redefine themselves instead as ‘artists’. They worked outside of the mainstream music industry perceiving this artistic relationship to be fundamentally exploitative and politically flawed. Artists instead formed their own pan-arts community-centric collectives, set up their own record labels, ran concerts in alternative performance spaces - art galleries, parks, lofts, community centres - all as a way of taking control of their own creative destinies.

At the start of 1960s jazz musicians had embarked on an intense period of musical experimentation as artists John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry sought to dismantle the traditional definitions of jazz by creating new music that broke free from its establishment shackles. By the end of the 1960s, forward-thinking African-American jazz musicians had absorbed the ideas of this radical and avant-garde path but also began to introduce many new elements - not just civil rights concepts of freedom but also black power ideas of self-respect, righteousness and anger.

Their music developed into a radical and intense Afrocentric mix of jazz, funk, soul and street poetry, all in search of a new musical language that could better represent artistic African American cultural expression.

All of the featured artists here were involved in this search in different ways; A shared sense of Afrocentric collectivism joined the dots between the deep avant-garde experimentalism of The Art Ensemble Of Chicago (here featuring soul singer Fontella Bass singing the powerful ‘Theme de Yoyo’) to the hyper funk psychedelia of George Clinton’s Funkadelic.

The poetry of Gil Scott-Heron and Sarah Webster Fabio performed with a backdrop of street funk and heavyweight percussion laid down the template for the birth of rap. The Har-You Percussion Group, a group of young Harlem teenagers, showed how government-sponsored social initiatives helped create great art and music. Gary Bartz and The Oneness of Juju offer spirituality and cosmology. Collectives like The Pharaohs and Detroit’s Tribe add deep jazz and street funk in equal measures.

Influenced and radicalised by Black Power and civil rights, all these artists were involved in creating - in the words of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago - ‘Great Black Music: Ancient To Future’.

This album is available as a digital download album, as a heavyweight triple vinyl LP (with free digital download), full and extensive text, exclusive photography with house inners and as a deluxe CD with slipcase, 40-page outsize booklet and jewel case.

Label Review.

2018 album also available as CD+.

Our Overview.

Rita Ora will release her long-awaited second album, ‘Phoenix’, November 23rd. ‘Phoenix’ arrives six years after Ora’s 2012 debut, Ora. Over the past few years, Ora has released several singles that will appear on the record, including “your Song”, “Anywhere” and “Girls” which featured Cardi B, Bebe Rexha and Charli XCX.

Speaking to Esquire Middle East, Rita admitted she feels like she's starting again as she readies herself for the release of her first album in six years. 'I feel like a brand new artist,' she said. 'I didn’t really know where I stood as it had been so long since I had released some music, but I’m doing things differently this time. 'I am trying to modernise the way music is going today, and because of online streaming there really aren’t any rules anymore.'

In a statement, Ora said of ‘Phoenix’, “One of the most liberating feelings for me is performing and creating music. This album is a true labour of love, and it was important for me to do it my way. I’m so appreciative of the love and support from those who worked with me on the record and allowed me to create something I’m really proud of. They gave me the space and freedom to create something from my heart. Both challenging and euphoric at times, I am really proud of and grateful for the journey that the making of ‘Phoenix’ has taken me on.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Jacco Gardner is releasing his new album ‘Somium’. Jacco has been known to create swirling psychedelic pop boosted by his rich, resonate and baroque voice but on his third album ‘Somium’, his vocals are gone and in their place is an equally seamless melodic exploration but an instrumental one, with a synthesised occult edge.

‘Somium’ is a nod to the novel of the same name, written in 1608 by Johannes Kepler and is regarded as the first ever science fiction novel. “This book fascinates me because it was basically Kepler travelling in his mind to a non-existent world while describing it, and his journey, with amazing detail. Many of his imagined sensations are actually really what happens when one travels into space, which happened almost four hundred years later. You could call it a vision of the future through his dreams, and I find this aspect very mysterious and powerful.”

This form of mind travel is what Jacco has set out to create in a sonic, almost alchemic, capacity. Hence the reason for his vocals to be left out of this spiritual journey. “I deliberately removed my voice from the experience, as it made it more difficult for me to achieve the intended state of mind. I think it makes the journey more interesting, more deep, and more intimate. I didn’t feel the need to show my face while one drifts away into thought. ‘Somium’ is a visionary experience. The album is more than just a trip, it is about contact with a deeper - hidden - reality.”

If the concepts behind this record sound otherworldly and intricately woven then Jacco has also succeeded in making a record that does the same. Analogue synths hum and glide pristinely, bass lines dance buoyantly, dense atmospheres build and form and thoughtfully crafted melodies come and go, floating around as though in space. There are nods to early pioneers of such dreamlike ambience and cosmic exploration - Bo Hansson, Vangelis, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Eno and Oldfield (the album was mastered by Simon Heyworth whose production credits include the latter three, including Tubular Bells) - but it also exists as a futuristic pursuit, one that is chasing something ahead as well as exploring the past. This is because to Jacco both are equally valid. “The past has always felt very much alive to me and so full of mystery that I have to conclude that the present and the future are probably no different.”

Now living in Lisbon and immersed in literature, cinema, philosophy and with new winding streets to wander, Gardner's ideal listening scenario is to take the album for a walk yourselves, consume it complete and without interruption. “Somnium could be seen as a tribute to the album, a dying format in today’s fast-paced society. It can often be difficult to enjoy a meaningful uninterrupted moment. This album is where true mystery and wonder is waiting to be discovered.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Hippo Campus are four Minnesotan boys making music that is infectious, joyful, and thematically soaked with the sense of cynicism accompanying the youthful search of self-meaning.

‘Bambi’ is the bands sophomore album and is shaped by the impact of toxic masculinity, the #Metoo movement and mental health issues, ‘Bambi’ sees Hippo Campus open up more than ever before. As audibly quirky and sprightly as ever, the band express their vulnerabilities through their most honest lyrics and moving melodies to date. On ‘Bambi’, Hippo Campus do a superb job of balancing their vivacious sound with much more sensitive and openly fragile lyrical content.

Throughout ‘Bambi’, Hippo Campus match their relentless self-examination with a joyfully adventurous sonic approach, ultimately transforming the emotional experience of the problems they're exploring. One of the band’s greatest hopes for ‘Bambi’ is that the album might help others in dealing with their own pain. “I’ve always considered the responsibility of art to be representing your specific experience,” says Sutton. “We’re saying, ‘This is what I’m doing now, this what I’m living like.’ It’s about sharing what you’re going through, so maybe someone else will feel less lonely.”

LP pressed on coloured vinyl. Also includes digital download code.

Label Review. 

2018 album. Three years since their last album, following the birth of their son, and over a decade since the release of their debut as the song writing partnership behind hotly-tipped southeast London indie-folk pioneers Indigo Moss, the duo have produced yet another beautifully crafted and delicately delivered gem that will delight fans old and new. This is their first album in seven years to be available ‘in the shops’ after they only sold the last two albums through their website and at shows. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

After breaking away from Indigo Moss, the band which gave them their initial breakthrough in 2007, husband and wife team Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou joined Danny & The Champions Of The World on tour and on (their first two) records. This led them to releasing their debut album as a duo on Loose Music (the label Danny and his combo were also on) in 2010. With its low-key production, folky overtones and their idiosyncratic vocal blend the album created enough of an impact for them to step up to Heavenly Recordings for their second album ‘Quality First, Last Forever’ in 2011. Aside from a couple of full ‘rock’ band concessions (no doubt for commercial label requirements) the record saw the duo expand their sound palette and fanbase.

However, the duo elected to decamp to France to self-produce their third album ‘La Ferme De Fontenaille’ and on their return, self-release it too. The record was cut on their trusty four-track cassette recorder and the results saw a stripped back sound which let their vocals and song-writing shine through. It was therefore a surprise that they turned to celebrated producer Ethan Johns for their next records, 2015’s ‘Expatriot’. Their most rounded and accomplished album to date it raised the bar for their next record for which they returned to the 4-track.

Trevor says: “I’ve never really liked studios. The first one we ever stepped foot in was Olympic as teenagers, the same room as Hendrix, Zeppelin, The Stones. I didn’t really enjoy it. It felt like a space ship, like a factory. I want records to come from somewhere. I like to limit the possibilities. 4-tracks are more than enough. It forces you to push what you do to the limit, focusing on the songwriting and the performance.”

Label Review. 

17 track career retrospective with Soundgarden, Temple Of The Dog, Audioslave, and solo tracks. Also available on 4CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Chris Cornell’ commemorates his life and legacy not only as a singer, but as a poet and one of the most prolific writers and greatest voices of the modern rock era. His wife Vicky worked extensively with Chris’ bandmates and friends to compile a collection of material from the late artist’s expansive career, showcasing his contribution to music history with selections culled from the deep catalogs of his three influential bands - Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Audioslave - as well as songs from his solo career. She turned to producer Brendan O’Brien, who was a trusted partner to Cornell over the years and Jeff Ament who created the packaging for Chris Cornell.

Vicky says: “Since Chris’ sudden passing I have put all my efforts and energy into sharing his music and legacy with his fans from all over the world. I felt we needed to create a special collection to represent all of him – the friend, husband and father, the risk taker and innovator, the poet and artist. His soaring vocals found their way into the hearts and souls of so many. His voice was his vision and his words were his peace. This album is for his fans.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Mumford & Sons are Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane, and Winston Marshall and are releasing their fourth album ‘Delta’, along with a huge sixty-one date arena tour starting later this year.

 ‘Delta’ will be released on the 16th November through Island Records/Gentlemen of the Road. It was recorded at The Church Studios in London, and produced by Paul Epworth.    

Since the release of Wilder Mind in May 2015, and the collaborative Johannesburg EP in the Summer of 2016, Mumford & Sons have found a rich, prolific vein of form in the writing for ‘Delta’. Where Wilder Mind harnessed a widescreen electric sound that seemed custom built to be belted back to them from the festival main stages, ‘Delta’ loses none of that sense of scale, but couples it with an intimacy and jubilance that has so successfully combined to make Mumford & Sons one of the biggest bands of recent years. Guiding Light is the perfect example of that – a dizzying folk-rock song that builds, builds, explodes and then explodes again. An emphatic return. 

‘Delta’ is a record of differing shades, colours and textures. A record that finds Mumford & Sons, no longer young lads caught in a whirlwind, exploring that sense of adulthood and responsibility that comes of turning thirty and re-evaluating priorities. It’s a tender listen, introspective and reflective but is married with those ecstatic stadium-sized dynamics. It sounds like a career-defining body of work. 

2019 welcomes the tenth anniversary since debut album Sigh No More’s release. It’s a record that lit the fuse on what has become an incredible decade for the band, littered with highlight upon highlight. Yet for all the awards they’ve since won across the globe, and the multiple numbers one records notched up in a variety of different countries, it’s taking their songs out on the road that continues to define them. The announcement of ‘Delta’ coincides with a huge sixty-one date arena tour, kicking off in November. Full dates are listed below.

 ‘Delta’ is a substantial, exciting record by a British band in the form of their lives.

Label Review. 

Remastered. Kick Inside, Lionheart, Never For Ever, The Dreaming, Hounds Of Love, The Sensual World, The Red Shoes.

Our Overview. 

Considering Kate Bush has only issued three studio albums and one live document since ‘The Red Shoes’ in 1993, she hasn’t felt the need to asset strip her fans by pumping out retrospective product. Her early albums in particular have never been reissued since they first came out on CD in the 1980s. Finally, Kate has remastered her entire catalogue with esteemed engineer James Guthrie, best known for his work with Pink Floyd. Of course, Floyd’s David Gilmour helped Kate get a contract with EMI in the mid-70s so a nice connection there.

Kate’s debut single “Wuthering Heights” cleaned up in early 1978 giving her a No.1 single. It featured on the debut album ‘The Kick Inside’ which sold consistently for about a year, helped along with the second single “The Man With The Child In His Eyes”. A hastily recorded second album ‘Lionheart’ appeared before the end of the year and material from both albums were performed during her first tour in 1979. The second album wasn’t as well received as the first and the two singles also struggled compared to the previous hits. However, the tour went down well and Kate consolidated her early promise with third album ‘Never For Ever’ in 1980 for which she was rewarded with her first No.1 album. This contained the top ten hit “Babooshka”.

Fourth album ‘The Dreaming’ arrived in 1982, which had taken nearly two years to produce. The lack of a discernible hit single (only “Sat In Your Lap” which hit No.11 was issued a year before the album) and the overall experimental nature of the record led to her lowest selling album to date. Kate disappeared after this until she re-surfaced in 1985 with the smash hit “Running Up That Hill”. It was taken from the fifth album ‘Hounds Of Love’ which proved to be Kate’s biggest selling album of her career and was largely recorded at her newly constructed home studio.

There was a four year gap to the next album ‘The Sensual World’ which featured one of her best loved tracks “This Woman’s Work”. Another four year wait was required for Kate’s seventh album ‘The Red Shoes’ which featured more of a band sound. This raised hopes that Kate might tour again as her 1979 jaunt proved at that point to be her only live work. Instead the opposite happened. Once the promotion for the album concluded in 1994 she then slipped out of view for ten years, primarily to focus on starting a family. All seven of rthese albums from 1978-1993 are featured in this box set.

Label Review. 

2018 album. Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Tony Allen & Simon Tong. Also available on Deluxe CD and vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Merrie Land’ is the second album from the band known as The Good, The Bad & The Queen. They began life as the acclaimed 2007 album of the same name, a heartfelt tribute to London described by The Observer in a 5 star review as –“One of the most surprising and magical records for which Damon Albarn has ever been responsible”.

The record traced a journey from the English music hall tradition to West Africa and Afrobeat, zigzagging through the West Indies and its reggae and dub, back to England and London’s punk scene, all the while taking in a strand of British beat music from the ‘50s right through to Britpop. The result was a record specific to a place and mood but with a background that was geographically wide-ranging. Now the four musical storytellers are back.

Produced by Tony Visconti and The Good, The Bad & The Queen the album was completed in London and Wales this year (2018), during the current ongoing period in which the UK is preparing to leave the European Union, ‘Merrie Land ’is a questioning good-bye letter, a series of observations and reflections on Britishness in 2018. Even though it has been over 10 years since the band last released a record, the timing could not be more apt – there could not be a more perfect band to untangle the optimism, disorientation and confusion in the atmosphere today.

With ‘Merrie Land’, the band taps into a creative symbiosis of past and future, drawing inspiration from their shared glittering musical histories and wrapping the hybrid results in a brilliantly postmodern yet thoroughly British package.

The album sees the band’s focus move beyond London with a beautiful and hopeful paean to the Britain of today - an inclusive Britain - and the possibilities of the future. In the band’s own words, Merrie Land is a ten song lament of Anglo-Saxosentialism marking the reluctant end of a relationship, and about picking up the pieces and seeing what can be salvaged. The band set a beautifully muted palette and lustrous finish to bring out a mood that is bruised yet unapologetically defiant and optimistic, and carries the underlying message: we will survive.

In times of metaphysical trauma, the people need to forge ahead and wear armour. Here it is, set to the mood music of a nation about to be broken yet undefeated.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in 2CD and Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Global superstar Michael Bublé is scheduled to release ❤, pronounced ‘Love as his first studio album in two years on November 16th following a two year break from public life to spend time with his family. The Canadian singer-songwriter returned to the studio with a new perspective on life and a renewed commitment to honouring the music he has always loved. 

"I didn’t anticipate returning to recording or performing and I was fine with that. My entire world view has changed completely these last few years. I wanted to spend all my time with my wife and kids. That was my focus. During that time, I also learned how much love and humanity is out in the world from the prayers and good wishes we received. But slowly, along with understanding what my priorities in life are, I began to feel a new commitment to express the emotions and lessons I’ve embraced. Whether I am the narrator, the observer, the main character, the dreamer, the broken hearted guy at a bar or having the night of a lifetime, I have stories to tell on this record. It’s all there in the songs. I have had so many blessings in life and one of them is that I hold the torch to keep these songs alive for generations to come. I take the responsibility very seriously.  My end game for the new record was to create a series of short cinematic stories for each song I chose and have it stand on its own. I’m so proud of what we accomplished,” commented Bublé.

Bublé co-produced his new album and brings new love to several rich classics from the American Songbook. The album opens with the idealistic and dreamy “When I Fall In Love.” It also includes a haunting take on another Rogers & Hart standard, “My Funny Valentine.” Other standouts are an ebullient “When You’re Smiling,” a swinging “Such A Night” as well as Bublé’s hand-picked favorites including “Unforgettable,” “Help Me Make It Through The Night,” and “I Only Have Eyes For You.” Two standout tracks are Charlie Puth’s swinging “Love You Anymore” and an achingly poignant “La Vie En Rose” –a Bublé duet featuring singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. A touching Bublépenned original ‘Forever Now” demonstrates his songwriting skills, which were previously shown in such Bubléwritten hits like “Home,” “Haven’t Met You Yet” and “Everything.” The album closes with a show-stopping version of “Where or When.” 

❤ was produced by David Foster, longtime collaborator Jochem van der Saag and Michael Bublé. The trio brought Bublé’s visions to life with luscious arrangements surrounding his rich vocals. Michael Bublé has sold over 60 million records worldwide, performed hundreds of sold-out shows around the globe, and won four Grammys and multiple Juno Awards during the course of his extraordinary career.

Label Review.

2018 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The debut studio album from Tyla's Dogs D'Amour. 'In Vino Veritas' is a blistering, guitar-driven rock album containing 12 incendiary, new, 111% proof R&R songs. Classic song-writing at its best. After a few well-documented stumbles, it’s now 35 years since The Dogs D’Amour exploded into existence. “Their second album, 'In the Dynamite Jet Saloon', is one of the greatest rock’n’roll records ever made. Ever.

Simply speaking, they were the coolest band that ever was. They were the swaggering, stumbling, hobo kings of rock’n’roll’s back alley. They could out-drink, out-fight, out-fuck and out-rock any outfit you can think of. They wrote about life, and liquor, and love – the real stuff, the kind that tears a good man asunder, and the graveyard of empty bottles it often leaves in its wake. They were the real deal, in a decade when real was lost and presumed dead forever.” (Classic Rock) - In 2016, a box-set re-release of the early Dogs albums re-ignited interest not only in the band & their songs but in their main man – singer, songwriter, guitarist and front-man Tyla. Despite a lifetime in the fast-lane & mishaps aplenty, he is still alive and kicking. Still incendiary. Still stirring up conflict with his art, music, live performances and writing.

He’s a renowned 21st century poet and modern-day troubadour who has never stopped writing, recording, painting and drawing. A travelling man whose home is where his he(art) is. Despite a world in conflict, 2018 is a good time to be alive. A good time to say what you feel and feel what you say. A good time to say it like you mean it and play it like your life depends on it. A good time for another Dogs D’Amour – Tyla’s Dogs D’Amour. 111% proof R&R… Tyla has put together an incendiary new band and he’s recording a brand-new Dogs D’Amour album – 'In Vino Veritas". New songs, new attitude, new power & new urgency. The time is now! Why wait for tomorrow?

The band have also recorded a10-song covers album 'In Musica Veritas' only available with the limited-edition double CD version of 'In Vino Veritas'. 'In Musica Veritas' is a special collection of songs that mean something to Tyla - an homage to his musical heroes and influences over the years. When you listen to the songs and read his stories behind them, you won’t be surprised that you’ll be surprised – it’s more tales of the unexpected. In Musica Veritas: The limited edition, double-CD version of In Vino Veritas contains an extra CD In Musica Veritas. A special 10-song covers album containing a collection of songs that mean something to Tyla. It’s an homage to his musical heroes and influences over the years. “There are so many songs that have influenced me in so many different ways over the years. For In Musica Veritas I've chosen a few from my childhood (from listening to the radio & to my sisters record collection) & a few from just after I left home at the ripe old age of 17. I was a Rod and the Faces teenager, and a Be Bop Deluxe and Thin Lizzy fan. 'Summertime Blues' I’d hear on the radio and love as a youngster. Usually I’d hear it on Sunday mornings while me Mom was cooking Sunday Roast. It was the same with 'Waterloo Sunset' and 'Remember Walking In The Sand'. If I remember rightly, it was a requests show. The troops abroad would choose songs for their loved ones back home in Blighty or vice versa. After I left home I got into the likes of The Cars. I loved their guitar sound, along with the 'Get it On' T Rex sound, and that's what I base my own guitar sound on now.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Chicago experimentalist Ryley Walker reimagines Dave Matthews Band’s lost 2001 album ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’ in full for a new era. Walker delivers a powerful, heartfelt meditation on the twists and turns of an individual’s musical journey across a life of enthusiastic and curious listening. Through his thoughtful performance and rearrangement, with frequent collaborators Andrew Scott Young and Ryan Jewell, he submits that perhaps DMB is justly due the reassessment it’s slowly been granted in the pop zeitgeist as of late. He transforms DMB’s loping and goofy Lillywhite Sessions lead-off track “Busted Stuff” into a buoyant and breathy jazz-tinged post-rock that recalls Chicago heroes The Sea & Cake.

On ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’, Ryley Walker and the similarly indebted trio of drummer Ryan Jewell and bassist Andrew Scott Young cover Dave Matthews’ infamously abandoned 2001 art-rock masterpiece of the same name, a record where he and his band indulged a new adult pathos and a budding musical wanderlust.

With a delicate rhythmic latticework and vocals that ask you to lean in, ‘Busted Stuff’ recalls Jim O’ Rourke’s golden Drag City days. Emerging from a wall of distortion, ‘Diggin’ a Ditch’ becomes a power trio wallop . la Dinosaur Jr, shaking off existential malaise like twenty-something pals writing rock songs in the garage. Walker’s ‘Grace is Gone’, the most faithful take here, is a testament to his unflagging love for the music that helped make him a musician.

This end-to-end interpretation of youthful fascination is a collective reminder that we are all just kids from somewhere, reckoning with our upbringing the best we can. Walker has stepped through the door long ago opened by the Dave Matthews Band to find a world teeming with musical possibilities. On ‘The Lillywhite Sessions’, he has, in turn, created his own.

Label Review. 

Official release. Recorded 25th November 1994 at Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami. Previously released on video but this is now unedited and the songs in the correct order. Plus extras. Also available on DVD, Blu-ray, 2CD+Blu-ray, and Triple vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Voodoo Lounge’ from 1994 was the Stones first new studio album in five years and was the first without Bill Wyman who departed the band the year before. They hit the road in August 1994 for a years worth of shows and the show issued here came out on video in late 1995 to coincide with their ‘Stripped’ live album. The original video received a DVD release a few years later.

‘Voodoo Lounge Uncut’ features guest appearances by Sheryl Crow, Robert Cray and Bo Diddley. The film conveys the audio-visual mastery of the Stones at their best, with stunning, futuristic staging that set a new benchmark for stadium production values. The new version of the film has been recut and remastered rom the original rushes and includes newly remixed and remastered audio. The band’s millions of devotees will also be delighted to know that it reinstates the ten tracks that were cut from the original video release in the 1990s and which appear here in their original running order for the first time.

The performance came some three months into the Voodoo Lounge tour, which the band launched around the release of their 20th UK studio album of the same name. The tour spanned some 56 weeks, four legs, 134 shows and six continents. The show in Miami took place the night after Thanksgiving Day and grossed $2.5 million.

In the film, we see the Stones take the stage to “Not Fade Away” and delight the massive crowd with a set featuring all of their adored hits as well as “You Got Me Rocking”, “Sparks Will Fly” and “I Go Wild”, all of them from the then-new album. The show builds to a mighty finale of “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”. Five additional songs from the tour’s Giants Stadium show in New Jersey are also included.

Label Review. 

2018 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Josephine raises a stained-glass lamp and shepherds us spelunking the depths of spirit in this four-part double album. Following the fame of her voice are choruses of winged entities (and a space shuttle) that ascend and descend a maze of spirituals: ritual prayers, blues laments, vestal hymns and jubilant benedictions. The edges of the natural world are revolving backdrops from which our narrator perches upon symbolic precipice or saunters desolate snow-blanched forest, exploring eternal themes of mortality and morality, beneath the moon and in occasional dialogue with a mysterious lord of love, an ambiguous mystical figure.

Accompanying herself on guitar, piano, organ, harp & autoharp, this cycle of 18 new songs hearken back to various facets of Foster’s anachronic oeuvre (the esoteric balladry of This Coming Gladness, native rhythms of Blood Rushing, somnambulist waltzes of I’m a Dreamer, the Shaker primitivism of Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead you). Celestial humor and devastating innocence are delivered with contributions from Victor Herrero (lead guitars), Gyða Valtýsdóttir (cello), Chris Scruggs (pedal steel), Jon Estes (bass), as well as cameos by members of The Cherry Blossoms and others. Recorded, engineered and mixed by Andrija Tokic at his Nashville Bomb Shelter Studio, mastered by John Baldwin, and produced by Josephine herself.

Label Review. 

The comprehensive, individually numbered 7-disc collection features: CDs 1 & 2: 2018 stereo album mix. CD3: Esher Demos. CDs 4, 5, 6: Sessions - 50 additional recordings, most previously unreleased, from 'White Album' studio sessions; all newly mixed from the four-track and eight-track session tapes, sequenced in order of their recording start dates. Blu-ray: 2018 album mix in high resolution PCM stereo / 2018 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 album mix / 2018 Dolby True HD 5.1 album mix / 2018 direct transfer of the album’s original mono mix. Plus book and original inserts. Also available on 3CD, 2LP and 4LP variants. 

Our Overview. 

On 30th May 1968, The Beatles commenced work on the follow-up to the previous years ground-breaking ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ long player which had been released almost exactly a year prior. Much had happened in the interim: The “All You Need Is Love” single and satellite broadcast, the death of Brian Epstein, the recording and filming of the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ project, the “Hello Goodbye” and “Lady Madonna” singles, their trip to India to study Transcendental Meditation and the launch of their label, Apple Records. Phew!

All the band members had new songs stockpiled and many were demoed at George Harrison’s house in May 1968. They block booked Abbey Road and for the next five months recorded these tracks and many more new ones whilst at the same time, the fab four’s interpersonal relationships began to unravel with the individual members recording alone sometimes on their own songs.

Despite the sidelining of their esteemed producer George Martin who found himself unwanted by the band for long periods and even the brief departure of Ringo for a few weeks, the fact that the group managed to pull the disparate strands together into a cohesive albeit wonky double album which stands today as some fans favourite album by the band is a testament to their abilities to overcome their issues to still put out great work. To add to the albums mystique, artist Richard Hamilton in collaboration with Paul McCartney put the two records in a plain white sleeve, an antidote to the elaborate front cover for ‘Pepper’. In the words of Bobbi Flekman from Spinal Tap: “The White Album? What was that? There was nothing on that god damn cover”.

Label Review. 

18 recently unearthed and unreleased tracks from the recordings that Campbell made between 1964 and 1968 for Elvis Presley. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

‘Sings For The King’ features 18 recently unearthed and unreleased tracks from the recordings that Campbell made between 1964 and 1968 for Elvis Presley. The pair’s friendship stretched across three decades, from their first meeting during Elvis’ rise to fame to the days when both were adored worldwide. Initially intended for Elvis’ ears only, these recordings were fully fleshed out studio versions of songs written by the team of Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne; Weisman is noted as the composer with more songs recorded by Presley than any other, with a total of 57.

Glen Campbell was asked to bring his perfect pitch and ability to match Presley’s vocal pitch and style, so that the songs could be presented to ‘The King’ for his recording consideration. Glen also brings his unrivalled guitar virtuosity to the material. Twelve of the 18 tracks on the album were indeed subsequently recorded by Elvis, including the title songs from his movie vehicles such as ‘Spinout,’ ‘Clambake’ and ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’.

Campbell undertook the sessions in between others during his time with the famed studio ensemble the Wrecking Crew, as a touring member of the Beach Boys and on his own recordings. The album opens with a digital duet between Presley and Campbell, the gospel song “We Call On Him”, and features a variety of styles ranging from the country-tinged “Any Old Time” via ballads like “I’ll Never Know” to the rockier “I’ll Be Back”. Campbell begins “I Got Love” in his own style but subtly changes the delivery to Presley’s tone.

Campbell later recalled: “Elvis and I were brought up the same humble way, picking cotton and looking at the north end of a south-bound mule. I saw him in the rough. He was so electrifying.” In 1960, Campbell moved to Los Angeles to find work as a session musician and landed a regular gig at the Crossbow Club, where Presley and his friends would sometimes visit to watch the entertainment from a small private room upstairs.

Long before his own stardom, Campbell was unrivalled as a session guitarist, playing on nearly 600 sessions in 1963 alone. His one appearance on a Presley recording was the memorable guitar on ‘Viva Las Vegas.’ Even after his own breakthrough in 1967, Campbell continued to record songs for Weisman and Wayne in his increasingly limited spare time.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in CD+ and in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Muse are back with a new album ‘Simulation Theory’ which is the bands eighth studio album to date. The eleven-track record was produced by the band, along with several award-winning producers, including Rich Costey, Mike Elizondo, Shellback and Timbaland. Each of the album’s songs will be accompanied by a video.

Recent singles, ‘Something Human’, ‘Thought Contagion’ and ‘Dig Down’, as well as brand new track ‘The Dark Side’, are all available immediately as a download when you pre-order the album. ‘The Dark Side’ is instantly recognisable as a classic Muse track, featuring Matt Bellamy’s unmistakable soaring vocals and blistering guitars and the driving rhythm section of Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard that have become a hallmark of Muse’s stadium-filling sound.

‘Simulation Theory’ follows ‘Drones’, released in 2015. Since then the internationally acclaimed three piece have toured extensively, taking the ground breaking ‘Drones World Tour’ to fans across the globe. This concert was filmed and released in cinemas worldwide for ‘One Night Only’ in July 2018.   

Muse is Matt Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme. Their last studio album, ‘Drones’, was released in June 2015 and debuted at No. 1 in 21 countries around the world including their first No. 1 album in the United States.  The album went on to win the Grammy Award, their second, for Best Rock Album in February 2016.  Since forming in 1994, Muse have released seven studio albums selling in advance of 20 million albums worldwide. 

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

J Mascis best known as the frontman of indie trio Dinosaur Jr. is releasing his new album ‘Elastic Days’ the follow up to his 2014 full-length ‘Tied To A Star’.

Near the end of Reagan’s first term, the Western Massachusetts Hardcore scene coughed up an insanely shaped chunk called Dinosaur. Comprised of WMHC vets, the trio was a miasmic tornado of guitar noise, bad attitude and near-subliminal pop-based-shapeshifting. Through their existence, Dinosaur (amended to Dinosaur Jr. for legal reasons) defined a very specific, very aggressive set of oblique song-based responses to what was going on. Their one constant was the scalp-fryingly loud guitar and deeply buried vocals of J Mascis.

A couple of years before they ended their reign, J cut a solo album called ‘Martin + Me’. Recorded live and acoustic, the record allowed the bones of J’s songs to be totally visible for the first time. Fans were surprised to hear how melodically elegant these compositions were, even if J still seemed interested in swallowing some of the words that most folks would have sung. Since then, through the reformation of the original Dinosaur Jr line up in 2005, J has recorded solo albums now and then. And those album, ‘Sings + Chant for AMMA’ (2005), ‘Several Shades of Why’ (2011) and ‘Tied to a Star’ (2014) had all delivered incredible sets of songs presented with a minimum of bombast and a surfeit of cool.

Like its predecessors, ‘Elastic Days’ was recorded at J’s own Bisquiteen studio. Mascis does almost all his own stunts, although Ken Miauri (who also appeared on ‘Tied to a Star’) plays keyboards and there are a few guest vocal spots. These include old mates Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession) and Mark Mulcahy (Miracle Legion, etc.), as well as the newly added voice of Zoë Randell (Luluc) among others but the show is mostly J’s and J’s alone. “The biggest difference with this record might have to do with the drums. I’d just got a new drum set I was really excited about. I don’t have too many drum outlets at the moment, so I played a lot more drums than I’d originally planned. I just kept playing. [laughs] I’d play the acoustic guitar parts then head right to the drums.”

There is plenty of drumming on the dozen songs on ‘Elastic Days’ but for those expecting the hallucinatory overload of Dinosaur Jr’s live attack, the gentleness of the approach here will draw easy comparisons to Neil Young’s binary approach to working solo versus working with Crazy Horse. This is a lazy man’s shorthand but it still rings true. ‘Elastic Days’ brims with great moments. Epic hooks that snare you in surprisingly subtle ways, guitar textures that slide against each other like old lovers, and structures that range from a neo-power-ballad (‘Web So Dense’) to jazzily-canted West Coasty post-psych (‘Give It Off’) to a track that subliminally recalls the keyboard approach of Scott Thurstonera Stooges (‘Drop Me’). The album plays out with a combination of holism and variety that is certain to set many brains ablaze. J says he’ll be taking this album on the road later in the year. He’ll be playing by himself but unlike other solo tours he says he’ll be standing up this time. “I used to just sit down and build a little fort around myself - amps, music stands, drinks stands, all that stuff. But I just realized it sounds better if the amps are higher up because I’m so used to playing with stacks. So I’ll stand this time.” I ask if it’s not pretty weird to stand alone on a big stage. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s weird sitting down too.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Larkin Poe - the Nashville based sister duo Megan and Rebecca Lovell have announced the release of their fourth album ‘Venom & Faith’, the followup to their critically-acclaimed album ‘Peach’ which was nominated for a Blues Music Award for Best Emerging Artist Album, ‘Venom & Faith’ was produced by both the band and their long-time engineer Roger Alan Nichols.

“It’s a celebration of American roots music as translated by two sisters who are playing the blues in a modern age,” said Rebecca, one half of the duo, whose powerhouse vocals pair perfectly with sister Megan’s slinky lap steel to create an outlaw sound entirely unique to the two.

Still writing on their experience of the American South, the band keeps a strong outlaw mentality and defy expectations of roots rock in their fourth endeavor, this time using electronic elements, hip-hop production techniques and non-traditional percussion methods such as slammed doors and dresser drawers.

The album includes two covers—”Sometimes” by Bessie Jones and “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” by Skip James—though it’s otherwise all original material from the Lovell sisters.

Label Review.

2018 album. The record features contributions from friends like Bob Weir, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Taj Mahal, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and many more.

Our Overview.

The 1960s Bay Area psych-rock band Ace of Cups will release ‘Ace Of Cups’ their debut album via High Moon Records. Although the group shared the stage with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, they never recorded a proper album and called it a day in 1972.

An all-women ensemble that could flip from barbershop-style harmonies to mind-bending psychedelic jams at a moment’s notice, Ace of Cups didn’t find commercial success in their day. This was partially due to their uncategorisable presence in the rock n' roll boys’ club; back then, label suits would routinely ignore the band to schmooze with and sign their male peers. Or, as original guitarist Denise Kaufman puts it to Billboard - “They would just look at us and go, ‘What are you?’”

There were other, simpler reasons for the split, too; most of the band had become new mothers by the end. With no tangible commercial success on the horizon, the Ace of Cups began to make less sense on a practical level. The five musicians - Kaufman, bassist Mary Gannon, organist Marla Hunt, lead guitarist Mary Ellen Simpson and drummer Diane Vitalich - amicably went their separate ways in the early ‘70s, with each working various supplemental jobs. But crucially, no member of the Ace of Cups ever lost touch with the other nor hung up their instruments.

Instead of being lost to rock history, the Ace of Cups have enjoyed a spectacular - and highly improbable - second act 50 years later. A collection of rehearsal demos, TV soundstage audio and other ephemera from their brief run resulted in the great compilation “It’s Bad For You So Buy It!” and renewed interest in the long-defunct band. And when George Wallace, head of the ‘60s and ‘70s rarity label High Moon Records, initially approached the band to release more of those tapes, it turned out to be a no-brainer as to what the Ace of Cups’ next move should be: finally making a record.

And what a debut it is, brimming over not only with great songs, but a formidable guest list from the band’s ‘60s peers Bob Weir, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Taj Mahal and more. It’s the sound of four maximum-eclectic musical lifers, unfettered by old frustrations in the biz and purely ready to jam.

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl. 

Our Overview.

Indie rock band The Glands from Athens Georgia, released only two albums of weird, irascible, irresistible indie rock before band leader Ross Shapiro died in 2016: ‘Double Thriller’ 1996 and ‘The Glands’ 2000. The band went their separate ways after that, frontman Ross Shapiro opened a record store in Athens for a time, though they got back together in the early ’10s to play a few reunion shows, and there was a promise of new music on the horizon. Shapiro died in 2016, though, from lung cancer, and the rest of the band went about compiling Shapiro’s demos and recordings from the last two decades into a new, final Glands album. The Glands first two albums established Ross as an unlikely and maybe even unwilling cult artist; you could argue that not enough people bought ‘Double Thriller’ and ‘The Glands’, but everyone who did became avid fans for life.

Eighteen years after its last record, there couldn't be a better time to fall in love with The Glands. Not only are 1996's self-released ‘Double Thriller’ and 2000's self-titled gem of a masterpiece getting stand-alone vinyl reissues (the latter adds five rare songs and a new track sequence), but we're also getting deluxe box set titled ‘I Can See My House From Here', which includes an unreleased third album.

That third album, ‘Double Coda’ was cobbled together from two decades worth of Shapiro's demos and recordings, with final production overseen by founding member and drummer Joe Rowe, bassist Derek Almstead and Glands producer David Barbe. Like Double Thriller, like The Glands, every single one of these 23 tracks is a hit, and a testament to Shapiro's warped-yet-grounded sensibility.

We get two new songs today. There's "So High," featuring Ross Shapiro's falsetto croon over a soulful and slanted, Tom Petty style Southern rocker, warbly organ and distant la la las. That comes paired with a video shot at the 40 Watt in Athens, where The Glands would often perform. But the real gift is in "Electricity," which imagines an alternate world where Shapiro produced head-nodding trip-hop with an ear towards granular beats and quiet turntablism, but looped around an irresistible melody and guitar hook.

“As a fan of the music and as a fan of Ross, it was a labour of love to get this set out, to get as much of the music out as possible and into the ears of the people who loved him,” the band’s Derek Almstead said in a statement. “A lot of the material came from CD’s he’d give us at band practice, like ‘Here’s some stuff I’m working on.’ It might have the vocals buried or it might not be finished. I found the best versions of the songs and put together a three-CD set, something like sixty songs. We whittled that down to what ‘Double Coda’ is.”

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Leila Moss is releasing her debut solo album ‘My Name Is Safe In Your Mouth’. “The act of making this record has felt truly exotic for me by way of its minimalism,” says Liela Moss, and the album lives up to Moss’s promise of fresh, bold adventure.

As Liela puts it, “I was in my own modest studio, surrounded by deep rural Somerset, and building the album bit by bit over a year with just my producer and partner Toby Butler – with whom I co-wrote all the music. We worked to our own schedule and across all seasons. Staring out of the window singing, I would watch the changing natural phenomena around me and sing to the forms outside. My window-view outside was like an umbilical cord; I was receiving little messages from the nature beyond and the songs were growing inside the studio, transmitting back.”

In 2017, Raymonde said this of Moss: “Outrageously talented as she is, I still think her best is yet to come.” Offering full affirmation on both fronts, My Name Is Safe in Your Mouth is a haunting snapshot of an intuitive artist seeking new ways to work without safety nets, a quest spurred forwards by her move to Somerset in 2014. As Moss puts it, “Whilst the tentacles of city started to loosen their grip, I began amassing vocals that I felt cut a stark silhouette, and I didn’t want to share with big drums and distorted guitars. I work on a few projects at a time, and the contrast of having disparate musical worlds to step into makes me feel more satisfied. But with this record, I’d gone way deeper than anything merely gratifying. I’d gone into that wordless-sparse-Haiku-what-the-fuck-silent-personal-revelation zone!”

Label Review.

Original album and bonus tracks remixed in stereo by Steven Wilson / Live BBC sessions recorded in 1968 / Original mono mix and original 1968 U.K. stereo mix / Original album and bonus tracks remixed by Steven Wilson in 4.1 DTS and AC3 Dolby Digital surround and 96/24 LPCM stereo / Flat transfer of the 1968 stereo remix / Presented in a case-bound DVD book filled with an extensive history of the album, track-by-track annotations by Ian Anderson, plus rare and unseen photographs.

Our Overview.

After several name changes, Jethro Tull played its first show as Jethro Tull in February 1968. Months later, Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Glenn Cornick and Clive Bunker released the band’s debut – This Was. The album debuted at #10 on the U.K. album chart, but more important, it was the first step in a 50-year (and counting) journey that made Jethro Tull one of the world’s most successful progressive rock bands. To celebrate the album’s upcoming 50th anniversary, a special deluxe edition will be released which features:-         

* Original album and bonus tracks remixed in stereo by Steven Wilson        

* Live BBC sessions recorded in 1968          

* Original mono mix and original 1968 U.K. stereo mix          

* Original album and bonus tracks remixed by Steven Wilson in 4.1 DTS and AC3 Dolby Digital surround and 96/24 LPCM stereo          

* Flat transfer of the 1968 stereo remix        

* Presented in a case-bound DVD book filled with an extensive history of the album, track-by-track annotations by Ian Anderson, plus rare and unseen photographs.

Recorded during the summer of 1968, This Was is the only Jethro Tull album to feature guitarist Mick Abrahams, who left the group shortly after the album came out to form Blodwyn Pig. The title of the album refers to the band moving away from its early blues-based sound, which was referenced in the original liner notes: “This was how we were playing then – but things change – don’t they?” The album includes songs that have been in and out of Jethro Tull’s live show for 50 years, like “My Sunday Feeling” and “Beggar’s Farm.”  Also featured are several bonus tracks:  “Love Story,”  “A Christmas Song.”  “Sunshine Day” and “Aeroplane.”    

In 1968, BBC Radio featured the band twice on its award-winning program, “BBC Top Gear Session.” Both of those performances – nine songs in total – are featured on the second disc, including live versions of “Serenade To A Cuckoo,” “Love Story” and “My Sunday Feeling.” Rounding out the disc are b-sides, outtakes, radio advertisements, and an unreleased mono mix of “Someday The Sun Won’t Shine For You” (Faster Version). The final CD features the album’s original U.K. stereo mix and its original mono mix. 

The DVD features the original album and bonus tracks remixed by Steven Wilson in 4.1 DTS and AC3 Dolby Digital surround and 96/24 LPCM stereo. There are also 5.1 surround versions of “Love Story” and “A Christmas Song.” Also included in 96/24 LPCM stereo is the 1969 stereo mix that was released in the U.S.

Label Review.

Collection of his first five Xmas EPs.

Our Overview.

For over a decade and almost every Christmas, Sufjan Stevens recorded a Christmas album that he gifted to friends and family. The recording process took place every December, for one week, usually at home, provoking collaborations with friends, roommates and musical peers. In 2006, Stevens’ label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, released ‘Songs For Christmas’, a CD boxset compiling the first five of these albums, Volumes I-V. And in 2012, the label released ‘Silver & Gold’, a CD and vinyl boxset compiling of Volumes VI-X. However, the first five volumes have never been released to vinyl.

This holiday season, Asthmatic Kitty Records are finally releasing ‘Songs for Christmas’ (Volumes I-V) as a 5xLP vinyl boxset. The boxset includes fan favourites like ‘Sister Winter’, ‘That Was The Worst Christmas Ever’, ‘Only At Christmas Time’ and ‘Put The Lights On The Tree’.

“Hardly a straight-ahead Christmas album, then... Whatever, it’s Sufjan Stevens. He’s a modern wonder, and now he's just made Christmas better as well!” - BBC

“The season’s most thrilling holiday release.” - Entertainment Weekly

“There are moments of quirky holiday splendour - moments akin to some of the best material on ‘Greetings From Michigan And Illinois’ - that make plowing through the entire five-EP set a pleasure.” - Allmusic

Label Review.

2018 album also available in Vinyl.

Our Overview.

'No Tourists’ is the new album from The Prodigy and their seventh following ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ released 2015. In a career approaching 30 unpredictable, uncompromising years, The Prodigy have become that rare artist whose influence can be felt across all walks of life. Continually defining (and re-defining) electronic music, the band have clocked up a staggering 6 number 1 albums, played to many millions around the world, and remain as relevant and respected as ever.

Though much has changed in the musical and social landscape, what remains a constant is The Prodigy's resolute focus on following their own path, their own way. This, perhaps, is the true meaning of 'No Tourists', and in 2018 the anger, urgency,and irrepressible spirit of The Prodigy has no doubt never been more needed.

‘No Tourists’ was written, produced and mixed by Liam Howlett at his London’s Kings Cross studio. Though this is very much a band album. Maxim and Keef are very much present and correct, each supplying their legendary vocal skills and whilst there are one or two collaborators, but fundamentally this is the sound of the Prodigy.

Label Review.