Label Review. 

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

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

Tracklisting:

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

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

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

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

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

Label Review. 

2020 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

Label Review. 

Official release recorded 19th December 1974 featuring songs from his first two solo albums. Hardback book package.

Our Overview. 

Bryan Ferry needs little introduction as the smartly attired singer and instrumentalist who not only was the head honcho in Roxy Music from 1972-82 but also ran a solo career initially concurrently with his main band. His debut solo album ‘These Foolish Things’ was released only one month before Roxy’s third: ‘Stranded’ at the end of 1973. The following year Ferry issued a second album: ‘Another Time Another Place’, again prior to another Roxy LP. Bryan used these two albums to expressly record cover versions and before Christmas 1974 he performed songs from both albums at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The setlist consists of fan favourites including the likes of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, “The ‘In’ Crowd”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, and “I Love How You Love Me” and spans his influences from the 30s, 40s and 50s, including the records that shaped him growing up and throughout his formative years. The recording of this show is now being made available officially for the first time.

Tracklisting: Sympathy For The Devil / I Love How You Love Me / Baby I Don’t Care / It’s My Party / Don’t Worry Baby / Another Time, Another Place / Fingerpoppin’ / The Tracks Of My Tears / You Won’t See Me / Smoke Gets In Your Eyes / A Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall / A Really Good time / The ‘In’ Crowd / The Foolish Things

Label Review. 

2020 album. Former member of Silver Mt. Zion. Constellation. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Rebecca Foon, the composer and musician behind Saltland and Esmerine (and former longstanding member of Silver Mt. Zion) presents a new album entitled ‘Waxing Moon’. While best known as an incomparable cellist crafting textural soundscapes and instrumental chamber-rock in the aforementioned projects (and more recently recognized for her creative and organisational work as cofounder of Pathway To Paris), this new collection of songs finds Foon emphasizing piano and voice with striking intimacy and elegance, showcasing a captivating evolution in her always resplendent songwriting.

The climate crisis has profoundly framed Foon’s political and artistic life for many years now, and ‘Waxing Moon’ finds her writing and singing her most arrestingly direct yet poetic words, tapping universal and personal heartbreak in both despair and hope. With ‘Waxing Moon’, Rebecca sets side the Saltland moniker - her electronically-tinged string-centric project from the past five years - to release this more personal new work under her own name.

The album’s ten songs are predominantly minimal and delicate, immersive and hauntingly beautiful - with vocal-driven tracks booked-ended by piano-based instrumentals, along with one up-tempo guitar-driven number (“Wide Open Eyes”) that closes out Side One. While piano figures most prominently on the record, Foon continues to play cello on several tracks, complemented by gentle touches from a close coterie of musical guests including Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) and Mishka Stein (Patrick Watson) on acoustic and electric basses, Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You Black Emperor) on violin, Jace Lasek (The Besnard Lakes) on electric guitar, and Patrick Watson as co-vocalist on the dreamlike “Vessels”. ‘Waxing Moon’ is Rebecca Foon’s first eponymous release: a sublimely stunning, bracingly intimate, glimmeringly full-hearted new chapter in her celebrated musical catalogue.

Tracklisting: New World / Pour / Another Realm / Ocean Song / Wide Open Eyes / Waxing Moon / Dreams To Be Born / Vessels / This Is Our Lives / New World Reprise

Label Review. 

2006 live album from Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson (Black Crowes) also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

After a long hiatus that lasted for much of the first half of the 2000s, Chris and Rich Robinson started to reunite the Black Crowes in 2005, but before the full-fledged reunion really took flight, the siblings took off on a 2006 tour billed as Brothers of a Feather and releasing an album of the same name. 

Compiled of highlights from their three-night stint at the Roxy in Los Angeles, Brothers of a Feather does distinguish itself from the growing list of official live Black Crowes-related projects just by its intimate nature: hearing the brothers Robinson alone (it’s not quite acoustic, since Rich often plays an otherwise unadorned electric) is unique and surprisingly revelatory, illustrating that both Chris and Rich can be sensitive interpreters when stripped down to the bone. But even if there are many soft, almost folky moments -- including a good cover of John Martyn’s “Over the Hill,” Rich’s solo spotlight “Forgiven Song,” and a winding version of “Driving Wheel” -- there’s plenty of grit and good vibes here, best heard on the roaring opener, “Hosehead,” and a down-n-dirty “Darling of the Underground Press.” 

Most of Brothers of a Feather works a middle ground between the ruminative and the rowdy, whether it’s on a beautiful reading of Lowell George’s “Roll Um Easy” or an epic take on their own “Thorn in My Pride,” which proves that they can find a new spin on their old warhorses. And that sentiment applies to Brothers of a Feather as a whole: it’s familiar in its sound yet fresh in its approach and certainly worth a listen for Black Crowes fans, no matter if they’re hardened hardcore fans or fans who are a bit less dedicated yet no less enamored of the Robinsons’ old-time rock & roll. Never before available on vinyl. 

Tracklisting: Horsehead / Cursed Diamond / Over The Hill / Magic Rooster Blues / My Heart’s Been Killing Me / Forgiven Song / Someday Past The Sunset / Roll Um Easy / Cold Boy Smile / Driving Wheel / Leave It Alone / Polly / Darling Of The Underground Press / Thorn In My Pride

Label Review. 

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

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

Tracklisting: 

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

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

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

Label Review. 

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

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

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

Label Review. 

2020 album

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

Label Review.

2020 album also availble on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Synth electro-pop pairing Pet Shop Boys are releasing their new album entitled 'Hotspot'. The bands 14th studio album 'Hotspot' was mostly recorded in Hansa Studios, Berlin, and mixed in The Record Plant, Los Angeles. It was produced and mixed by Stuart Price and features ten brand new Tennant/Lowe tracks including the single “Dreamland” featuring Years & Years, which was released in September. ‘Hotspot’ follows Pet Shop Boys’ 2016 album ’Super’, which featured single “The Pop Kids” and appeared on Rolling Stone‘s 20 Best Pop Albums of 2016 list.

One of the songs, “Burning the heather”, features Bernard Butler on guitar and was recorded at RAK Studios in London. Pet Shop Boys say: “We’ve written much of our music over the last ten years in Berlin and it was an exciting experience to work on this album in the legendary Hansa studios there and add a new dimension to our sound.” The album is the last instalment of the trilogy of PSB albums produced by Stuart Price, following “Electric” in 2013 and “Super” in 2016.

The band have also announced a tour of the U.K. and Europe for May and June 2020. The tour, dubbed Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live, kicks off May 1st at Berlin’s Mercedes Benz Arena and includes stops in London, Glasgow and Stockholm. More worldwide dates will be announced soon.

Trackisting: Will-O-The-Wisp / You Are The One / Happy People / Dreamland (Featuring Years & Years) / Hoping For A Miracle / I Don’t Wanna / Monkey Business / Only The Dark / Burning The Heather / Wedding In Berlin.

Label Review. 

Massive career retrospective with 13 CDs, 52pp book, and 7 inch single. All six albums (on CD and vinyl picture discs) with 4 discs of live material including radio sessions and acoustic sets. 2 discs of b-sides, remixes and rarities and one disc of demos, out-takes and oddities. Also available as a 'best of' on CD and vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Formed in 1993 in Oxford, UK, originally comprising Gaz Coombes (vocals, guitar, sideburns), Danny Goffey (drums) and Mick Quinn (bass), within two years they had a contract with EMI and took the pop world by storm with their debut album ‘I Should Coco’ and their big hit “Alright”. They gained credibility with their stunning musicianship coupled with songwriting and arranging chops that far belied their age (Gaz was still a teenager when they hit big in 1995). They had racked up 5 consecutive UK Top 10 hits by the time of their acclaimed second album ‘In It For Money’ released in 1997. With this record they continued to find the balance between classic pop/rock songwriting and excellent musicianship whilst still selling huge amounts of records.

They were largely a British phenomenon although they gained a big following in Australia and New Zealand and were able to tour Europe to sizable audiences too. The USA sadly remained out of reach probably due their fairly rigid ‘English’ sound. As their career continued into the 2000s they started to experiment with different sounds while still writing great pop songs. Their audience was becoming more selective and after a cool response to their sixth album ‘Diamond Hoo-Ha’ in 2008 they called a break and Gaz went solo maintaining critical respect with his output which blended electronic sounds into his musical palette.

Now in control of their back catalogue the band have reformed and this ‘best of’ is a fantastic reminder of their classic tunes! For the dedicated fan they have produced a very deluxe box set which contains a trunk load of rarities.

Tracklisting. 

CD/LP1 'I Should Coco': I’d Like To Know / Caught By The Fuzz / Mansize Rooster / Alright / Lose It / Lenny / Strange Ones / Sitting Up Straight / She’s So Loose / We’re Not Supposed To / Time / Sofa (Of My Lethargy) / Time To Go

CD/LP2 'In It For The Money': In It For The Money / Richard III / Tonight / Late In The Day / G-Song / Sun Hits The Sky / Going Out / It’s Not Me / Cheapskate / You Can See Me / Hollow Little Reign / Sometimes I Make You Sad

CD/LP3 'Supergrass': 'Moving / Your Love / What Went Wrong (In Your Head) / Beautiful People / Shotover Hill / Eon / Mary / Jesus Came From Outta Space / Pumping On Your Stereo / Born Again / Faraway / Mama & Papa

CD/LP4 'Life On Other Planets': Za / Rush Hour Soul / Seen The Light / Brecon Beacons / Can’t Get Up / Evening Of The Day / Never Done Nothing Like That Before / Funniest Thing / Grace / La Song / Prophet 15 / Run

CD/LP5 'Road To Rouen': Tales Of Endurance (Parts 4, 5, & 6) / St. Petersburg / Sad Girl / Roxy / Coffee In The Pot / Road To Rouen / Kick In The Teeth / Low C / Fin

CD/LP6 'Diamond Hoo Ha': Diamond Hoo Ha Man / Bad Blood / Rebel In You / When I Needed You / 345 / The Return Of... / Rough Knuckles / Ghost Of A Friend / Whiskey & Green Tea / Outside / Butterfly

Extras (Tracks to be announced)

4CD set: Live (5 hours of previously unreleased, career-spanning performances: radio sessions, full live shows and acoustic sets).

2CD set: Remixes, B-sides, acoustic versions and other rarities.

1CD set: Demos, out-takes and oddities (all previously unreleased).

7" single: Caught By The Fuzz / Richard III 2020 Remixes.

Label Review. 

CD1: Sam Cooke (mono) (1958) / CD2: Encore (mono) (1958) / CD3: Tribute To The Lady (mono & stereo) (1959) / CD4: Hit Kit (mono) (1959) / CD5: The Wonderful World Of Sam Cooke (mono) (1960)

Our Overview. 

Finally, the first official collection of his early years, 'The Complete Keen Years' collects Sam Cooke’s early body of work as a secular artist after a glorious six-year run fronting the Soul Stirrers. His voice had become the dominant force in the gospel sales prior to the release of "You Send Me" and "Summertime". He was destined to become a major force in pop just as he had been in gospel. While this newly re-mastered collection includes standards and hits that had been associated with artists who came before Sam Cooke, Sam’s fresh approach made the repertoire his own and helped shape his own song-writing skills in a very tangible way. Within this period, Sam Cooke defined himself as a voice ahead of his time.

His album debut 'Sam Cooke' (self-titled, also known as 'Songs by Sam Cooke') was released in 1958, 'Encore' followed quickly. They were absent of any Sam Cooke originals and the cover of 'Encore' depicted Sam swinging with jazz musicians behind him, an honest depiction of what was in the grooves of the LP within. Cooke’s 1959 album 'Tribute To The Lady' is just that, a tribute to Billie Holiday, a/k/a ‘Lady Day.’ This session was recorded in stereo and reimagines Billie Holiday’s catalogue as Sam’s own. 'Hit Kit', also released in 1959, is a collection of his hits from this period, most of which were originals. Cooke’s fifth album from this prolific time, 'The Wonderful World of Sam Cooke' contains the original hit recording of "(What A) Wonderful World", from his last session for Keen.

Sam Cooke found his voice not by imitating popular singers but, rather, by his own singular interpretations of songs made notable by others. The thoughtful essay by Michael Corcoran that is included with this collection underscores this fact and suggests that 'Tribute To The Lady' specifically offers an essential look at how Sam Cooke found his voice: "Like Lady Day, Sam had a pretty voice too honest to be cute, sending the words on paper through a spiritual journey before coming out of a mouth fluent in both sorrow and triumph. But he didn’t sing songs her way. Sam Cooke put every note in a place all his own."

Tracklisting. 

Disc 1: Sam Cooke: You Send Me / The Lonesome Road / Tammy / Ol' Man River / Moonlight In Vermont / Canadian Sunset / Summertime (Part 2) / Around The World / Ain’t Misbehavin' / The Bells Of St. Mary’s / So Long / Danny Boy / That Lucky Old Sun

Disc 2: Encore: Oh, Look At Me Now / Someday / Along The Navajo Trail / Running Wild / Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive / Mary, Mary Lou / When I Fall In Love / I Cover The Waterfront / My Foolish Heart / Today I Sing The Blues / The Gypsy / It's The Talk Of The Town

Disc 3: Tribute To The Lady [Mono & Stereo]: God Bless The Child / She's Funny That Way / I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues / Good Morning Heartache / T'aint Nobody’s Business (If I Do) / Comes Love / Lover Girl (Man) / Let's Call The Whole Thing Off / Lover Come Back To Me / Solitude / They Can't Take That Away From Me / Crazy She Calls Me

Disc 4: Hit Kit: Only Sixteen / All Of My Life / Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha / Blue Moon / Win Your Love For Me / Lonely Island / You Send Me  / Love You Most Of All / (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons / Little Things You Do / Let's Go Steady Again / You Were Made For Me / Lonely Island (single version) / Win Your Love For Me (stereo) / Almost In Your Arms (Love Song From "Houseboat") (stereo) / Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha (stereo) / Little Things You Do (stereo) / Only Sixteen (stereo) / Let's Go Steady Again (stereo) / With You (stereo) / Ee-I-Ee-I-Oh aka Ee-Yi-Ee-Yi-Oh (stereo)

Disc 5: The Wonderful World Of Sam Cooke: (What A) Wonderful World / Desire Me / Summertime (Part 2) / Almost In Your Arms (Love Song From “Houseboat”) / That's Heaven To Me / No One (Can Ever Take Your Place) / With You / Blue Moon / Stealing Kisses / You Were Made For Me / There I've Said It Again / I Thank God / Steal Away (album version) / Deep River / One Hour Ahead Of The Posse / Ee-I-Ee-I-Oh aka Ee-Yi-Ee-Yi-Oh / So Glamorous / Steal Away (single version)

Label Review. 

2020 album. Doom jazz. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

German darkjazz cult band Bohren & Der Club of Gore have announced their new album ‘Patchouli Blue’ It’s the group’s first new album in six years and their ninth overall. The band have built a loyal international fanbase on the back of their trademark ‘Doom Jazz’ sound and count musical icons such as Mike Patton and Stephen O’Malley among their fans. Strictly instrumental, this band and their sound have the healing power to survive these hectic modern times.

In a statement the band said “Dear friends of music where hardly anything happens, BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE is happy and proud, to announce their new album. You may have already given up hope, but miracles happen: PATCHOULI BLUE - instrumental, slow, uneventful - as always. Love it, hate it, listen to it.”

The current roster of band members in Bohren & der Club of Gore’s German outfit include Christoph Clöser (saxophone/piano/Fender Rhodes electric piano/vibraphone), Robin Rodenberg (bass guitar/double bass) and Morten Gass (synthesizer/mellotron/organ/Fender Rhodes electric piano/8-string bass/vocoder). Bohren & der Club of Gore’s Patchouli Blue, released courtesy of IpecacRecordings and it’s the band’s follow-up to 2014’s Piano Nights, and the outfit’s fifth album to arrive via the San Francisco-based label.

The band played two sold out shows in London’s Round Chapel recently (2019) and will tour the UK again in 2020.

Tracklisting: Total falsch / Verwirrung am Strand / Glaub mir kein Wort / Patchouli Blue / Deine Kusine / Vergessen & Vorbei / Sollen es doch alle wissen / Tief gesunken / Zwei Herzen aus Gold / Sag mir, wie lang / Meine Welt Ist schön

Label Review. 

2020 album. Singer songwriter. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘Skeleton At The Banquet’ is the new album from two-time Grammy award winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Gill Landry. Landry was originally from Louisiana and started out as a busker on the streets of New Orleans before becoming a contributing member of the band Old Crow Medicine Show with whom he recorded 4 albums and toured from 2004 to 2014. He’s released 4 solo albums to critical acclaim, featuring such artists as Laura Marling, Brandi Carlile, Klara Soderberg (First Aid Kit) and Karen Elson among many others. Landry has toured extensively internationally in his own right, and has also supported Mumford & Sons, Brandi Carlile, Ben Harper, Laura Marling, Ben Howard and Bruce Hornsby.

‘Skeleton At The Banquet’ is Gill Landry’s fifth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s Love Rides A Dark Horse (Loose/ATO). “This album is a series of reflections and thoughts on the collective hallucination that is America,” he says. “With a love song or two thrown in for good measure. I wrote it from within the refuge of a small flat, in a small village in western France where I spent last summer. I found it to be a good place for seeing the forest through the trees, so to speak.” The album was recorded and produced in Los Angeles by Gill and Seth Ford-Young (Tom Waits, Edward Sharpe). It features Landry on vocals, guitars, pedal steel, keys & harmonica, Seth Ford-Young on bass, Josh Collazo on drums, Stewart Cole on trumpet and Odessa Jorgensen on violin.

Tracklisting: I Love You Too / The Wolf / A Different Tune / Nobody’s Coming / The Refuge Of Your Arms / The Place They Call Home / Angeline / Trouble Town / Portrait Of Astrid (A Nocturne)

Label Review. 

28 tracks. This new compilation has identical tracklist to the last one from 2008. New artwork. BMG. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

The Dave Clark Five for a brief period in early 1964 were seen as genuine competitors to The Beatles when their single “Glad All Over” knocked the Mop-tops “I Want To Hold Your Hand” off the top spot in the UK. The follow-up “Bits And Pieces” just fell short of the No.1 spot but after this the band from Tottenham didn’t trouble the upper echelons of the chart until “Everybody Knows” in 1967. However, the “DC5” were chart regulars throughout the 1960s not only in the UK but in the USA too where the band were undoubtably bigger.

Although the group were signed to EMI Columbia in the UK and Epic in the USA, bandleader and drummer Clark was a shrewd businessman as well who negotiated not only production credits but also ownership of the band master recordings. Since the band split up in the early 1970s, their tracks have only been available on a handful of occasions and in the CD age only in 1993 and 2008 has a greatest hits album been briefly available, licensed to major labels. And now they are available again, hopefully the rest of the DC5’s output will finally get reissued on CD and vinyl.

Tracklisting: Do You Love Me / Glad All Over / Bits And Pieces / Can’t You See That She’s Mine / Everybody Knows (I Still Love You) / Don’t Let Me Down / Any Way You Want It / Wild Weekend / Catch Us If You Can / Because / I Like It Like That / Reelin’ And Rockin’ / Over And Over / Come Home / You Got What It Takes / Try Too Hard / Everybody Knows / I’ll Be Yours My Love / Nineteen Days / Look Before You Leap / ‘Til The Right One Comes Along / All Night Long / Good Old Rock ‘N’ Roll (Medley) / Sha-Na-Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye / Here Comes Summer / Put A Little Love In Your Heart / Everybody Get Together / Universal Love

Label Review. 

The show in Moscow on 28th May 1979 with Ray Cooper was broadcast on BBC radio in the UK. This release is taken from the original broadcast masters, which have been remastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. Official. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Heavily bootlegged over the years, this show from 1979 is finally getting an official release from the master tapes. The tour came two years after Elton John announced his retirement from the road citing burnout and exhaustion. It was a stripped-down show in support of his new album ‘A Single Man’; he was backed only by percussionist Ray Cooper. It was a commercially disappointing release, but it became the first Western pop album officially released inside the Soviet Union. This came at a time when the Soviet government was slowly lifting cultural restrictions and it led to John becoming one of first major Western pop stars, following Cliff Richard, to tour the country.

The set featured a cross-section of songs from John’s entire career, including “Daniel,” “Candle in the Wind,” “Skyline Pigeon” and “Take Me to the Pilot.” Russian authorities made the mistake of telling him not to cover the Beatles’ “Back In The U.S.S.R.,” so of course he played it at every show!

Tracklisting.

Disc 1: Daniel / Skyline Pigeon / Take Me To The Pilot / Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time) / Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me / Goodbye Yellow Brick Road / Candle In The Wind / I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Disc 2: Funeral For A Friend / Tonight / Better Off Dead / Bennie And The Jets / Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word / Crazy Water / Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)-Pinball Wizard / Crocodile Rock-Get Back-Back In The U.S.S.R.

Label Review.

2020 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Yorkston / Thorne / Khan - James Yorkston (guitar/nyckelharpa/vocals), Jon Thorne (doublebass/ vocals) and Suhail Yusuf Khan (sarangi/vocals) - release their third album, ‘Navarasa: Nine Emotions’.

At the heart of YTK’s transporting new album is the subcontinent’s navarasa; the nine (nava) emotions or sentiments (rasa) of the arts, and each song on YTK’s new album is connected to one of these emotions.

A bricolage of diverse cross-cultural elements is apparent across the trio’s creations. James Yorkston weaves in Scottish folk, sangster and literary strands. Jon Thorne is grounded in jazz and groove. What the New Delhi-based, eighth-generation hereditary musician Suhail Yusuf Khan brings to this feast of pulses and cycles is northern Indian classical, light classical (thumri, for example) and Sufi devotional musical and literary forms. What binds these diverse musical strands together is, in James’ phrase, “a dark happiness.”

Tracklisting: Sukhe Phool / The Shearing’s Not for You / Thumri Bhairavi / Westlin’ Winds / Song for Oddur / The North Carr / Twa Brothers / Waliyan Da Raja / Darbari