Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

English singer-songwriter, frontman of The Only Ones and record producer Peter Perret is back with his new album ‘Humanworld’ and the band includes his guitar and bass playing sons Jamie and Peter Jr, drummer Jake Woodward, Jenny Maxwell (Microkorg synthesiser, viola, BVs) and Lauren Moon (keys, drums, BVs) - a tight-knit bunch who have honed this album and the previous one with choice live performances here and in Europe.

Peter resurfaced in 2017 with ‘How The West Was Won’ and was one of the recent past’s most unexpected comeback stories. ‘How The West Was Won’ an album that saw him chart in the UK, star on BBC Newsnight, sell out rooms at Electric Ballroom and Islington Assembly Hall and collect accolades across the board.

In this new chapter, Peter continues to dissect romance and politics with his trademark sense of sardonic wit and wry humour, if not with more vigour even and a palpable sense of immediacy.

He is not unshackled from his past, however: “I would say that power within is positive but that pessimism has heavy connotations. I have to look for duality in everything. No matter how bad things are there is always salvation in any given situation. There used to be a part of me, maybe still is, that doesn’t give a fuck about anything; hence my escapist nature. But having children has changed that. Hence the name of the album. You have to look for the good in the world. A romantic belief perhaps.” “I’m fully aware there are a lot of people who never even thought I’d get to make another album, let alone two, in such a short time.”

‘Humanworld’ features a production credit for Peter’s son Jamie who also contributes a song to the album (‘Master Of Destruction’) and the story of knitting a family back together, following a history of chaos and addiction, now takes a step closer to centre stage.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

John Floreani - frontman of Austrailian punk rock outfit Trophy Eyes - is releasing his first full length solo album entitled ‘sin’, which is his first release since his 2016 solo single “Cleveland, OH” and hot on the heels from Trophy Eyes promoting their latest record ‘The American Dream’ 2018.

Talking about his solo project which will no longer go by the name Little Brother and instead just John Floreani, the young vocalist said, “This project serves as an authentic, deep knee jerk reaction to the shallow lyrical themes of modern pop.” An album on which John explores the acoustic, melodic, and eccentric side of his songwriting in this emotional collection of songs. With powerful vocals and catchy melodies, ‘sin’ celebrates the beauty in romantic tragedy.

With musical influences ranging from indie pop/alt rock to folk/Americana, the 8-track album is the highly anticipated follow up to Floreani’s previously released EP ‘Terrace’ (2014). It’s a lyrical deep dive into heartache, addiction and self-loathing, stylistically portrayed as Johnny Cash dipped in Neon.

Floreani dropped the first single and music video from sin for fans to enjoy. “Echoes” is a cinematic anthem full of string arrangements and unique percussion that build into massive choruses. On the track, Floreani shares “Echoes is about the memories, love and emotion one leaves behind in a home after moving on. My partner and I lived in North Sydney for a while, and when she moved back to Texas, I had to go and clear the house of our furniture and belongings. As I walked through the house, I could see her dancing in the kitchen, drinking wine on the couch and inviting me to bed from the hallway.”

Recorded and mixed by Shane Edwards (Trophy Eyes, Hans Zimmer), the 8-track album is the pursuit of happiness and all that is good, built on a foundation of vice and evil-doing. “This project serves as an authentic, deep knee jerk reaction to the shallow lyrical themes of modern pop” shares Floreani on the upcoming album.

Label Review.

1967 album with 7 bonus tracks. Digipak.

Our Overview.

The legendary British 60s R&B band The Pretty Things were cult heroes who created some of the most exciting and innovative records of the sixties and early seventies. “The Pretty Things always made ‘The Stones’ look tame, and I think the time has come for their renaissance” - Dave Gilmour, Pink Floyd.

Winners of the Hero award at the 2009 Mojo Honours, the band have been a massive success and a huge influence on artists as diverse as David Bowie, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Bob Dylan, The Sex Pistols, The White Stripes, Kasabian and many, many more. The 1967 release 'Emotions' bridged the gap between the R’n’B era of The Pretty Things and the psychedelic Sergeant Pepper and Pink Floyd era of their ‘68 release ‘SF Sorrow’. The album is almost an exact snapshot of swinging London at its purest.

The Pretty Things were formed by Phil May and guitarist Dick Taylor in 1963. Taylor was hot from the first days of the Rolling Stones, the band he formed with Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, but left because it was time to go to art school; May was a hooligan disguised as a fellow student; and the rest of the band just picked things up from there.

Other bands played R&B, of course... the Kinks, the Yardbirds, even the Beatles tried their hand at it. But none of them played it like the Pretty Things. Their hair was long, their music was greasy, and they genuinely did not understand how to turn down the volume on their amplifiers.

“David Bowie worshipped Phil (May) - Phil had to write his telephone number in David Bowie’s book, and it was under ‘G’ for God!” - Dick Taylor, The Pretty Things.

2018 saw the release of a 50th-anniversary ‘S.F. Sorrow’ box set and the band’s final and extensive UK & European tour, which included a performance of ‘S.F. Sorrow’ in full at the Isle of Wight Festival.

Tracklisting:

1. Death Of A Socialite

2. Children

3. The Sun

4. There Will Never Be Another Day

5. House Of Ten

6. Out In The Night

7. One Long Glance / Growing In My Mind

8. Photographer

9. Bright Lights Of The City

10. Tripping

11. My Time

12. A House In The Country (Bonus Track)

13. Progress (Bonus Track)

14. Photographer (Bonus Track)

15. There Will Never Be Another Day (Bonus Track)

16. My Time (Bonus Track)

17. The Sun (Bonus Track) 1

18. Progress (Bonus Track)

Label Review. 

2019 album. Breezy pop songs captured with the timbre of old-time recording techniques. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Sadgirl the LA trio who craft exciting new takes on classic Americana, refreshing its clean-cut codes with eerie lo-fi energies and surf punk tunes are releasing their anticipated debut ‘Water’. There’s an enclave of the punk world where the music still sounds like an austere distillation of America’s forlorn dream. It’s the sound of an old jukebox spinning a Ronettes 45 through a broken speaker, the kid in the garage figuring out the 1-4-5 progression on guitar, the thump of the kick drum banging in 4/4 time through a dilapidated PA. LA’s SadGirl sound a lot those early American punks—the miscreants that preceded the nihilists. Their songs sound more rooted in the wake of Motor City soul and Pacific Northwest surf rock than in the formula laid out by The Ramones, but there is still something in their reverb-and-tremolo pop that feels like a reminder of America’s decay.

“If you want to learn about water, go to the desert.” It’s a little nugget of wisdom imparted from SadGirl’s recording engineer and friend Max Garland, but it made an impact on guitarist/vocalist Misha Lindes. “Here we are in Los Angeles, a desert, ping-ponging between drought and El Niño. This record is just an attempt to share a very small portion of my experience growing up and living here,” Lindes says about the album. “It’s basically just about the fluidity of water and its power and importance.” But Water isn’t a musical adaptation of a Frank Herbert novel, it’s a collection of breezy, upbeat pop songs captured with the timbre of old-time recording techniques. 

Songs like “Little Queenie” touch upon the cadence, yesteryear reverberations, and soulful longing of a Ken Boothe ballad. It’s a song for afternoons in the sun, not reflections on our mortality. Similarly, a classic tormented love song like “Miss Me” nearly transports the listener back to wholesome slow dances at a previous generation’s sock hop, only to be subverted by a chorus of “miss me with that bullshit.” It’s as if guitarist/vocalist Misha Lindes, drummer David Ruiz, and bassist Dakota Peterson want to conjure an idealised past only to remind us of our loss of innocence.

Before frontman Misha Lindes began making tunes for Sadgirl he was winging his way through Nirvana covers in the seventh grade battle of the bands. Born in London before moving to Southern California at the age of seven, Misha was raised by an American father (a musician who played guitar in Dire Straits) and British mother. After his high school battle of the bands earned serious seventh grade glory, Misha began more seriously devoting himself to music. He switched from bass to guitar, studying Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones solos with neighbourhood pal Dakota Peterson (SadGirl's bassist). 

Years later, he ditched art school in London and began working as a graphic artist at a screen printing shop back in LA, where he met Paul Caruso — a fellow printer who ran a small press operation out of his garage. "One time we were hanging out and Paul mentioned he played drums, but I kind of forgot about it. When I hit him up a couple months later to jam, we hit it off really well even though we'd never properly hung out." SadGirl was born right then and there. "We've played together every week since," says Misha. But Misha says it was his parents fondness for early rock that shaped his musical direction listing Little Richard, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Zeppelin, David Bowie, and the girl group compilations lining his dad's car — "Phil Spector stuff like The Crystals and The Ronettes" — as chief influences.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Philadelphia based foursome Big Nothing are releasing their debut album ‘Chris’. Big Nothing - Spraynard, Pat Graham, Liz Parsons and Chris Jordan - who have been playing around Philadelphia for the last two years, after releasing a 7” on Asian Man Records, are hardly new to the D.I.Y. punk scene.

Their members cut their teeth in Leigh Valleys Spraynard (Jade Tree), Gainesvilles Young Livers (No Idea) and New Jerseys Casual (Dead Broke) but all found themselves in Philadelphia in 2016 without a band. After taking in their 7-inch on Asian Man Records, it became perfectly clear this right here was more or less a super group without the pretentious tag of really being super. However, if it's one thing that is super is the music Big Nothing churns out.

Big Nothings debut is eleven tracks of indie-rock and pop-punk thats inspired as much by the power pop records of Teenage Fanclub as the straight ahead big choruses of Superchunk. With three songwriters taking turns seamlessly, ‘Chris’ is an easy listen full of big hooks and smart lyrics.

While almost every single song is a buzzy, '90s alt/indie rock singalong, Pat's just a rotating vocalist in a band that sticks to its simplicity and its strength, spinning the wheel to near perfection. It’s easy to get lost in the melodic, fist-pumping propulsion of “Chris,” but beneath the surface layer strengths there is a lyrical framework that the entire album is constructed upon, making this a band who knows how to approach songwriting from all sides of the build.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

The unassailable force that is Michel Camilo is releasing his new album ‘Essence’ , which will also mark his 25th in total. The artistry and virtuosity of - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic born creative, whose career spans three decades and two hemispheres - Michel Camilo bridges the genres of Jazz, Classical, Popular and World music. He is a composer and pianist extraordinaire. He is a bandleader, lecturer, and visiting professor. He is a chart-topping producer; a Grammy, Latin Grammy and Emmy award winner. He is the recipient of his native country's highest civilian honours.

Michel Camilo is all of these things and more, wrapped in a human being of boundless enthusiasm, musical passion, and love of life. He is a pianist with a brilliant technique and a composer who flavours his tunes with the spice of Caribbean rhythms and jazz harmonies.

Says Michel of his latest title “'Essence’ marks my 25th album. This milestone recording is a celebration of the flowing dynamic creativity and interactive energy between my rhythm section and a top-notch horn section, as we explore together the challenging virtuoso passages and exciting unexpected turns in some of my most well-known compositions which are now here presented in a larger format. The exhilarating “ensemble tightness” captured on these superb performances have always been an important signature element of my musical stylings. Recording this special project was BIG FUN and I am really thrilled to share it with all of you!”

Michel has developed a reputation as one who enjoys breaking barriers. His compositions have been performed by some of the top Jazz and Latin Jazz artists ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to The Manhattan Transfer, from Paquito D’Rivera and flamenco guitarist Tomatito to Classical pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque. Camilo has performed with many of these artists as well. He was featured in the award-winning Latin Jazz documentary film Calle 54 and has recorded for various film soundtracks.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Korean music. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Jambinai announce their new album ‘ONDA’, released via Bella Union. When the three founders of Jambinai decided to “communicate with the ordinary person who doesn't listen to Korean traditional music,” few outsiders anticipated an extraordinary fusion with metal, post rock and noise. “Most people expect Asian traditional music to make something smooth for yoga or meditation,” says band spokesman Lee Il-woo. “We wanted to break all of that.”

The first big wave arrived in 2010 after traditional music students Lee (guitar and piri, a bamboo oboe), Kim Bo-mi (the bow-stringed haegum) and Sim Eun-young (geomungo) joined forces and released the ‘Jambinai’ EP. The trio’s debut album ‘Différance’ won Best Crossover Album at the 2013 Korean Music Awards, triggeringseveral overseas tours and the second wave of Jambinai - an international deal with Bella Union and a second album, ‘A Hermitage’. At the time, Lee cited the influence of bands like Metallica, Mogwai and Sigur Rös but such was the trio’s energy levels, they seemed to draw more on thunderstorms, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, blizzards and desert winds - a force of nature more than a band.

It’s hard to believe but ‘ONDA’ is even more dynamic and rhythmic, with the permanent addition of Jaehyuk Choi (drums) and B.K Yu (bass), fixtures of Jambinai’s live band since 2017. The way the quintet “sticks together like gears of a clock or machine,” says Lee, is celebrated on ‘Square Wave’, a breathtaking example of Jambinai’s ability to alternate between ambient serenity and molten ferocity.

Label Review.

12 tracks including 2 unreleased tracks from 2013. Topic.

Our Overview.

British folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player Nic Jones, was one of the most acclaimed artists to emerge from the British Folk Revival, Nic’s sensibility and approach to the arrangement of traditional folk songs has been a major influence on the folk scene since the early 1970’s. An ‘An Introduction To’ is a definitive 12 track entry point to this classic English folk singer and includes two exclusive, previously unreleased 2013 studio tracks; extensive sleeve notes by Colin Irwin (Roots, TheGuardian) and an introduction by Nic himself.

Not only is Nic Jones credited with a fine body of solo work and being the inspiration for countless bedroom guitarists to attempt his indefinable style, he’s also won awards galore and played alongside the likes of June Tabor, Martin Carthy, Richard and Linda Thompson, Peter Bellamy and Shirley Collins, to name but a few. 1980 saw the release of his classic Topic Records album, ‘Penguin Eggs’ but less than two years later, a disastrous car crash left him with virtually every bone in his body broken. The battle to rebuild his life was long and tortuous. Surely a return was impossible?

Except, eventually – almost thirty years later - he did return. Encouraged, protected and inspired by his wife, Julia, he was able to put the pieces back together again. Firstly, lured to play a few festivals and then in 2013, with the help of his son Joe Jones and Belinda O’Hooley (of Yorkshire folk duo, O’Hooley & Tidow ), to record a handful of new studio tracks - two of which (‘I Only Spoke Portuguese’ and ‘Now’) appear here for the very first time.

Nic insisted on compiling this introduction to his work, a mix of material from the Topics remarkable ‘Penguin Eggs’ and ‘Game Set Match’ albums. The tracklisting here includes the seminal ‘Humpback Whale’, ‘Seven Yellow Gypsies’,‘Dives of Lazarus,’ in addition to the two magical, beautiful, never-before released 2013 studio recordings.

“Nic Jones has been and continues to be one of the most influential English acoustic guitar players of all time. His playing is a benchmark in the history of the development of accompaniment of English song.” – Martin Simpson

“As an interpreter of ballads Nic is sans pareil” – June Tabor

1. Courting Is A Pleasure

2. Hamburger Polka

3. Isle Of France

4. Billy Don’tYou Weep For Me

5.  Dives And Lazarus

6. Barrack Street

7. Farewell To The Gold

8. Rufford Park Poachers

9. Seven Yellow Gypsies

10. Humpback Whale

11. I OnlySpeak Portuguese

12. Now

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl and 2LP.

Our Overview.

‘Ascension’ is the debut album from duo Samana, a band born out of their nomadic existence. Each song is written with it's own distinct weight and significance, born from the interpretation of dreams, the philosophies of ancient rituals and personal experience of love, loss and death. The album offers ruminations of solitude on the isolation of nature. Each song is a meditation laid to tape, forming an album of a natural order of thought and feeling to take us to great heights and sonic wonderment.

Samana was realised in the heart of an Austrian forest surrounding a secret lake 3000 meters above sea level, during a journey the pair undertook across the natural wildernesses and distant cities of Europe; unaware of when they would return or where the road would take them. The name Samana provides an insight into the many conceptual layers that make up the band. As an ancient Sanskrit term, it speaks of one ‘who abandons the conventional obligations of social life in order to find a way of life more in tune with the ways of nature.’

Between themselves, Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett are multi-disciplinary artists. Franklin crafts the instrumentation, recording, and production of the music to tape, whilst Rebecca Rose is the visionary behind the conceptual imagery, artwork, lyrics and film. The process by which all works are recorded is of great importance to Samana, who compose their art in their analogue recording studio and darkroom in the remote mountains of Wales.

Samana’s music offers a direct passage into the essence of ourselves, removing ones veneer, with threads of poetical sincerity, emotional honesty and direct openness. Each song is written with its own distinct weight and significance, born from the interpretation of dreams, the philosophies of ancient rituals and personal experience of love, loss and death. Through their rare and honest appreciation of dichotomy, their music emerges almost hauntingly, to lead us into the realms of the unassociated and unknown.

Label Review.

1999 album. ECM.

Our Overview.

‘Voice In The Night’ is to be released for the first time on Vinyl from the exceptional Charles Lloyd. The album originally released in 1998 - his sixth ECM album - was both a departure and a homecoming for the Memphis-born and California based tenor saxophonist, introducing new music and revisiting archive favourites - including the epic “Forest Flower”.

By the time of this record, he and drummer Billy Higgins had had a history stretching back to the mid-1950s. Bassist Dave Holland and guitarist John Abercrombie were mixed recruits—Holland having shared a festival stage or two with Lloyd, Abercrombie fresh on the boat. Abercrombie had been especially astonished by Lloyd’s depth and phrasing and the introduction of the former to the latter’s milieu was a masterstroke.

This album bears prime witness both to Lloyd’s songcraft and to the wonders it inspires in his band mates. His restless arpeggios are more than just that. Like emotional tics he can’t (and need never) shake, they constitute a grammar all their own, each a subtle unpacking. ‘Voice In The Night’ is also a melodic tour de force for Lloyd on which his is a clarifying presence that brings lucidity to the current with so much vision, it’s almost blinding. James Farber’s rounded engineering gives us the clearest sense possible of the importance of space in the tenorist’s songcraft. The result is lyrical music-making at its best. Classic to the bone.

With his “Scandinavian” band currently on hold, this is as close to an all- American unit as any band Lloyd has led since the 60s. (Dave Holland qualifies by now as an honorary American). ECM veteran John Abercrombie is in strong form throughout and the joyous beat of the great Billy Higgins keeps everything dancing, from the roots music of “Pocket Full Of Blues” to a sublime cover of Strayhorn’s “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing”.

“Lloyd responds with some of his finest playing in years...He is aided enormously by his musical companions, an all-star ensemble if ever there was one... As musically appealing as it is commercially viable” - Don Heckman, L.A. Times

Band members: Charles Lloyd (tenor saxophone), John Abercrombie (guitar), Dave Holland (double bass), Billy Higgins (drums, percussion)

Tracklisting:

LP1:

1. Voice In The Night

2. God Give Me Strength

3. Dorotea’s Studio

4. Requiem

5. Pocket Full of Blues: Island Blues

6. Little Sister’s Dance

7. Shade Tree

8. Mud Island

LP 2:

1. Homage

2. Forest Flower: Sunrise/Sunset

3. A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Memphis bred soul, blues and R&B outfit Southern Avenue are releasing their new album ‘Keep On’ which follows their acclaimed 2017 self titled and boundary breaking debut that sparked a one-band music revolution creating a sonic fusion that reflects the bands international roots, the album subsequently was honoured with a Blues Music Award for “Best Emerging Artist Album. On their album ‘Keep On’, the band never let up with a churning blend of horns, gospel-tinged harmonies and rhythm section. On this album the young quartet brings a refreshing approach to soul/blues/R&B for these contemporary times. They’ve got diverse musical interests, have absorbed some lessons along the way, attracted the interest of legendary guests like the legendary William Bell and noted Memphis musician Gage Markey who plays bass on most this recording. Also, they’ve called on the horns of the Bo-Keys – Art Edmaiston and Marc Franklin.

Southern Avenue runs from East Memphis due west, where it turns into E. McClemore Avenue, home of Soulsville, better known as Stax Records. This young Memphis group named themselves and their self-titled debut release, Southern Avenue, in a deliberate undertaking to continue and expand upon the soul, blues, and gospel tradition associated with this fabled city. 

Fronted by the vivacious and vigorous vocalist Tierinni Jackson, the band has the recognizable throwback sound of Stax, but also adds a distinctive contemporary essence, giving them a razor sharp modern identity. Originally started by guitarist Ori Naftaly as a blues band, they morphed into their current lineup with the addition of Tierinni's sister Tikyra Jackson on drums, Daniel McKee on bass, and keyboardist Jeremy Powell. The Jackson sisters sang and played in the local churches, tuning them into the inherent qualities required to perform soul music in Memphis; the other members proving just as proficient in their capabilities. 

Southern Avenue has only been together for a short time, but are paying their dues the old fashioned way, continuously gigging at clubs and festivals, and by entering and winning numerous band challenges. Coupled with substantive original material, they were spotted and signed by Stax Records, with high expectations, a contract which they accepted with professional obligation. This is a band that based on their collective talents and powerful live performances, is garnering an increasing audience base, and this record should catapult them into the international spotlight.

Label Review.

2019 blues album.

Our Overview.

One of the most in demand guitarists in North America, Canadian, guitarist, vocalist and singer-songwriter from Ontario Kevin Breit, takes a break from backing up the greats (Norah Jones, K.D Lang, Serena Ryder, and many more) to bring us a unique musical experience, all on his own. ‘Stella Bella Strada’ The album title is the namesake of Breit’s custom guitar built by master Luthier Joseph Yanzuiello. Armed with this product of elite craftsmanship and 2 busloads of Kevin’s most trusted musical companions, Breit has managed to create a genre bending masterpiece that he hopes you will listen to and love.

And as Kevin further explains about his exceptional new album “Stella Bella Strada loosely translates to ‘beautiful star of the road’ and is aptly named for a new guitar built by master luthier and grand friend, Joseph Yanuziello. Did I want a one-of-a-kind instrument that could offer a fiery tone and is capable of fitting in many genres? Yes. Did I want an instrument that was lightweight and didn’t require a chiropractor after every show? Yes. Did I want Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren peeking out from under the Mojo pickup grills? Yes. Did I want it to light up when it was in high gear? Yes. Did I want my initials on the tone and volume controls? Why not? So, this is where the road trip starts.

“Andy McNeill, longtime friend, supplied me with some all time groovy Chamberlin and Optigan drum loops, which, in themselves, ooze so much character and vibe. I knew I wanted to make a large ensemble, slide guitar recording, so my writing would have to support such a treatment and contain all the u-turns and detours I associate with this type of music. My fellow travellers would include the quartet I have been a member of for the better part of a quarter century, the Sisters Euclid ( Ian DeSouza, Mark Lalama and Gary Taylor). Riding shotgun is drummer, Davide DiRenzo, another longtime friend. He is on all 10 tracks and was integral to the overall sound. My brother Gary was also a big part of the ride, sitting behind the Wurlitzer and AceTone organ to provide that Las Vegas strip feel. The horn section consisted of the ever fantastic, Rebecca Hennessy, Perry White, Tom Richards and Vincent Henry. William Lamoureux, a young Quebec born violinist, weaves throughout the recording with much taste and musicality. There are 2 busloads of my musical friends playing and singing on Stella Bella Strada and it brought me great joy to have them all aboard. Like my previous recording, Johnny Goldtooth and the Chevy Casanovas, I wore several hats..producer, engineer, mixing and mastering. What I know of these things really is somewhat laughable but I loved every crazy second of it. This is the plain old truth. I loved it. I am hoping for this… when you listen to Stella Bella Strada, at the very least, you will hear me smiling.”

Label Review. 

2019 album. Canadian alt-country. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Rutledge is releasing his new album ‘Passages’ and he has been a busy man during the writing of his latest title .The Juno Award winning artist, NOW Magazine Toronto Songwriter of the Year, CMFA Album of The Year winner and multi Polaris nominee recorded ‘Passages’ in-between getting married to HGTV Canada star Sarah Keenleyside and his acclaimed performance in the Montreal run of the Tony Award winning musical, “Once”.

Justin Rutledge is a special kind of songwriter. He counts country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons among his key influences and hangs out with Tragically Hip guitarist Rob Baker. Yet he also feels comfortable in conversation with some of the great names of Canadian literature. Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje is a friend and collaborator. On ‘Passages’ Justin teams up with Baker who he became friends with five years ago whilst recording ‘Daredevil’ an album of Tragically Hip covers. At first, Rutledge reached out to members of the Hip to make sure they approved of the project.

"Rob wrote back a very cool email stating that he had all my records," Rutledge says. "It turns out he was a fan. We forged a little relationship, just hanging out. We weren't playing music at the time. I was in Prince Edward County and he was in Kingston, so I would go out to his place for dinner. We'd meet up. We became good friends."

When it came time to record 'Passages,' Rutledge asked Baker if he'd like to add some guitar on one or two tracks. "He ended up coming to the studio in Toronto and bringing all his gear," Rutledge says. "And, yeah, he played on the whole record. It's so flattering to have him on the album and to hear that sound on it. I grew up with the Hip and I'm such a big fan of every element of that band." 

One of the songs on the album — "Boats" — is a collaboration with Canadian literary giant Ondaatje. "I needed some help with the lyrics so I went over to Michael's place one day and he helped me out with it," explains Rutledge, who majored in literature while attending the University of Toronto. "It was quite a quick and educational experience to watch him work ... "I still get star struck, much more so around novelists than I do musicians," he adds.

In many ways, however, Rutledge approaches songwriting like a novelist and has been hailed as as strong as Neil Young in his prime along with the Toronto star proclaiming Rutledge can spin a yarn just as well as Bruce Springsteen.

Label Review. 

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

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

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

Label Review. 

2019 album alson available on CD.

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Label Review.

Brazilian Jazz funk fusion. Demos (1973-75) Volume 1 available on Vinyl. Demos (1973-75) Volume 2 available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Far Out Recordings proudly presents two albums of previously unheard Azymuth demo recordings: ‘Demos (1973-75) Volumes 1 & 2’. Since their debut album release in 1975, Azymuth have risen to rank alongside the world’s greatest jazz, funk and fusion artists. As young men in Rio de Janeiro, they stood out for both their exceptional talent as musicians, and their wild rock ‘n’ roll antics in the predominantly middle-class worlds of bossa nova and jazz. Their signature ‘Samba Doido’ (crazy samba) sound ruptured the tried and tested musical structures of the day, resulting in what can only be described as an electric, psychedelic, samba jazz-funk hybrid.

But before they became Azymuth, Jose Roberto Bertrami (keyboards), Ivan ‘Mamão’ Conti (drums), Alex Malheiros (bass) and Ariovaldo Contesini (percussion) played backing band to just about every major artist in Brazil. Bertrami was also contracted as an arranger and songwriter at some the biggest labels of the era: Polydor, Philips, Som Livre, and EMI being just a few. Azymuth’s name can be found on record sleeves by the likes of Jorge Ben, Elis Regina, Marcos Valle, Ana Mazzotti and countless others. But at the dawn of the seventies, fascinated by developments in improvisational music - from jazz in the US, to progressive rock in the UK and of course samba, bossa and tropicália on home turf - the energetic young group were inspired and ready to move forward.

Any spare moment in which they weren’t in sessions and writing music for other artists, they would be carving out their own sound.

These previously unheard recordings took place between 1973-75 at Bertrami’s home studio in the Laranjeiras district of Rio de Janeiro. At the time of recording, there was nothing in Brazil, less the world that sounded anything like them, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that when Bertrami presented his demos to the record companies he had been working for, he was turned away, and told in effect that the music was ‘wrong’.

One of the demos ‘Manhã’ would be picked up by Som Livre and Azymuth released their seminal debut album in 1975. Throughout the late seventies and eighties, the group released a series of now classic albums for Milestone Records, before taking an indefinite hiatus to pursue their individual careers.

When English producers Joe Davis and Roc Hunter arrived in Brazil in 1994 to record the first Azymuth album in over a decade, Bertrami dug out the demos which had sat virtually untouched for over twenty years. Joe recalls how he was “blown away by the freedom and intensity of the music, as well as the genius of the ideas musically.” Beginning a long and fruitful relationship, ‘Prefacio’ would be the first track Azymuth recorded for Far Out Recordings and was released on the Carnival album (1996).

Along with ‘Manhã’ and ‘Prefacio’, only a handful of these demos were ever professionally recorded and released, making this the first opportunity to hear many of these early Azymuth compositions in their raw, original form.

On every track the frenetic energy in the studio is palpable, giving the recordings a beautifully personal feel and a sense of the phenomenally creative vision Bertrami, Malheiros and Conti were realising at the time. Fifty years on, Azymuth’s earliest recorded music retains an ineffable, futuristic quality, standing amongst their most captivating and moving work.

Label Review. 

2019 album. (Ex-lead singer of The Black Crowes). Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Chris Robinson was the vocalist supremo with The Black Crowes, America’s premier retro roots n roll band of the 1990s scoring big time with their first two albums ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ & ‘Southern Harmony And Musical Companion’. The band continued to get better and better, in our opinion peaking with their fourth album, ‘Three Snakes And One Charm’ (1996) which saw the group coming into their own and leaving very few reference points for their organic sonic mix. The group only lasted another couple of albums before splitting - Robinson recorded two solo albums in the early 00s before the Crowes reformed for two more studio sets only to split again. This time Robinson pulled a new band together: Chris Robinson Brotherhood - with the proviso to jam, stretch out and record and tour whenever they want.

‘Servants of the Sun’ (The band’s 7th full length album since forming in 2011) bursts into the clear blue air with the funky upper atmosphere bubbling of vintage keyboards and driving rhythm. A gateway swings wide open to a universe that the Chris Robinson Brotherhood has been tirelessly constructing for eight years through extraordinary musicianship, endless touring and a roving, seemingly bottomless wizard’s chest of sonic delights.

The major themes of ‘Servants of the Sun’ are experienced in a constant swirl within the CRB sound. There’s the up-tempo ramble and strut of “Comin’ Round the Mountain” juxtaposed against the surreal on “Venus In Chrome.” There’s redemption through love on “The Chauffeur’s Daughter” set alongside the ominous poetry of “A Smiling Epitaph.” “Dice Game” is an exquisite slice of blue country, while “Let it Fall” sashays with fond homage to the slinky rhythms and stoned, but sizzling energy of Little Feat and New Orleans soul-funk.

The album captures Robinson and company hurtling between the fire and mania of Saturday night and the bruises and rain-on-the-bus-window reflection of the cold Sunday morning dawn. Beyond the bullet holes, red-eyed angry angels, alchemy, praying mantises, hangovers, and all other manner of cosmic debris gone lyrically airborne love is lost, new love is found, relationships are bent and broken by distance and time or by unrelenting proximity and timelessness. All the while, the line between autobiography and psychedelic fantasy is completely blurred.

It is to the credit of the Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s musical naturalism that such a ferris wheel of themes, tones and characters can exist in the same fast moving air. With ‘Servants of the Sun’ they’ve conjured yet another authentic statement free-flowing from their essential expression. In the effortless stream of storylines, hornet-stung emotions, and Kodachrome snapshot images rushing by, the listener hasn’t just landed in the CRB’s world and the joys and sorrows of their lives, they’ve also awakened in their dream. And as Chris Robinson sings, “sometimes a dream is to be believed.”

Label Review. 

2019 album with bonus disc also available on CD and on Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

The sonic storyteller himself Mr Neil Hannon, returns with his 12th studio album ‘Office Politics’ following The Divine Comedy’s 2016 acclaimed album ‘Forever Land’ and it’s a fantastic 16 track tour de force from one of the UK’s indomitable singer-songwriters. Plus the deluxe CD includes a bonus disc featuring the 15 track album ‘Swallows & Amazons: The Original Piano Demos’: Neil Hannon's original demos for the stage musical adaptation of 'Swallows and Amazons.' The songs from the show have never before been released. 

The album was written, arranged and produced by Neil Hannon and features guest vocals from Chris Difford of Squeeze, Cathy Davey and Pete Ruotolo and who better to explain about his new title than the Neil himself:

“To whom it may concern,

I told you I would make a double album one day! Nobody believed me. Jeff Lynne, eat your heart out…

It has synthesisers. And songs about synthesisers. But don’t panic. It also has guitars, orchestras, accordions, and songs about love and greed. Phew…

It is peopled with a shiny new cast of my imaginary friends (and enemies): East Anglian lovers and historical re-enactors, Norman and Norma. Sir Hillary Oldmoney, a complete banker if ever there was one. The outrageously selfish ‘Opportunity’ Knox. He jumps queues, annoys party goers and would kill for a promotion. Christine, who makes excellent photocopies but whose office romance has gone south. A pair of furniture removers and part-time minimalist composers named Philip and Steve. Even a certain Billy Bird has squirrelled his way back into proceedings.

But the central characters in Office Politics are the machines. Machines that do this, machines that do that. Machines that will smother us all in our sleep. Perhaps the raging battle of instrumentation and musical genres on the album is a subconscious reflection of this conflict. Perhaps this increasingly crazy world has sent me scurrying to the new wave and synthpop of my youth for comfort. Perhaps I was just bored.

I’m sorry it’s all so crazy. I do try to make normal pop records. But it always seems to wander off into odd territories when I’m not concentrating.

All I can say is…

I told you I would make a double album one day!!!

Signed: Neil Hannon, Head Of Communications”

The album is released on deluxe CD with bonus disc featuring the 15 track album ‘Swallows & Amazons: The Original Piano Demos’, coloured double vinyl, standard CD and both deluxe (includes the bonus CDmaterial) and standard digital download albums. (2LP includes digital download code for the deluxe digital download album.)

The Divine Comedy announced an 11 date UK and Ireland tour for October, including a show at theEventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London. Tickets are already on sale and dates are selling out fast.

Label Review.

2019 album. Australian Psych Rock. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - having spent 2018 slaying sold-out audiences in US, UK and Australia with their blistering live shows - the band have thrown down the gauntlet with their new album, ‘And Now For The Whatchamacallit’. Thundering over the horizon out of Perth, Australia, the psyche-rock capital of the Universe, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are taking the World by the horns.

The new album marks an exciting new chapter for Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. Recorded between frontman Jack McEwan’s bedroom and Tone City Studios in Perth, mixed by Michael Jelinek (Gunns)and mastered by John Davis (Gorillaz, The Killers), And Now For The Whatchamacallit is representative of the development in the band’s huge sound, and their most anticipated release yet.

“The original concept was to take a 1930’s carnival that had been re-imagined for future generations, a collage of Punch and Judy, Carousels and coconut shy’s that progresses in musical concepts and travels with the listener. Then as we started traveling I was swept off into my own kind of circus, the odyssey of touring life. Large nights out, larger characters, drunken recollections of foreign cities and rabbit hole-ing into insanity.” Says Jack Ewan.

The 10-track record is punctuated by the singles ‘Social Candy’, ‘Keen For KickOns?’ and ‘Bill’s Mandolin’, all perfect slices of manic Psychedelic Porn Crumpets fury. This new album positions them more than ever as a band ready to explode with exciting energy and is a continuation of the musicianship fans have seen bolden over live shows and recent releases.

Says jack of the new single “Bill’s Mandolin” - another slice of manic Psychedelic Porn Crumpets fury. A continuation of the musicianship fans have seen grow and bolden over the band’s last year of releases, this new single positions them more than ever as a band ready to explode with exciting energy - “When we were in the U.K on our last tour I was given my Grandad’s old mandolin/lute thing which I remember playing as a kid. It was such a nice gift that I had to take back to Australia, the only problem was it didn’t have a case and we had an entire tour in front of us which spanned most of Western Europe plus Australia. I carried it through plenty of customs, slept with it, took it out to pubs, navigated the streets of Amsterdam and passed out with it. It became the tour emblem and once I got back to Perth I felt like I’d done the old girl justice. I wanted to write an Ode to Bill and the travels with the mandolin that summed up the tour and sounded as chaotic as the adventures that ensued.“ 

“Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are pretty much unlike any other band out there. A truly unique live proposition.” Clash Magazine

Label Review. 

2019 album. Japanese high octane rock n roll! Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Guitar Wolf! They are the keepers of all blasted, hard, manic songs, building a whole life on the bedrock of hyperactive RNR exhilaration. This Japanese power-group has been stupefying audiences at home and on the road since the late ‘80s and finally are back to unveil their capital-L loud jams.

‘LOVE & JETT’ is full of Guitar Wolf’s sweet, sweet love songs, all recorded in Japan. While each song’s words (apart from a handful of song titles, 1-2-3-4s plus a clever cover of Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’”) are in English everything else is punched out in their native Japanese. The energy explodes on the scene with the title track’s opening 1-2 bass-snare piston-fire and truly does not let up at any point on the full album. Seiji, Toru, and Gotz shine especially bright on “Sex Jaguar”, barely clocking in just over 2 minutes with chorus catchphrases and feline roars.

Guitar Wolf claim to be the No.1 “Jet Rock n’n Roll” band in Japan. Front man Seiji explains: “I love jet plane. I love noisy music, too. So... There were records... many records... every record have no big sounds. So... easy to listen. I hate that! So! I add jet sounds. Bwaaaahng! Explosion!”

Label Review. 

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

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

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

Label Review.

13 blues tracks recorded in 1928.

Our Overview.

Early American country blues legend, guitarist and singer John Smith Hurt - aka Mississippi John Hurt - with his beautifully refined guitar fingerpicking style and gentle voice, had a truly unique interpretation of the blues which was rooted in the bygone songster and ragtime traditions.

Leaving behind a legacy of great songs, these beautifully remastered 1928 recordings show why he influenced many great musicians during the folk/blues revival in the 60’s including Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk and Taj Mahal. And many more have recorded his songs: Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Beck, Doc Watson, John McCutcheon, Taj Mahal, Bruce Cockburn, David Johansen, Bill Morrissey, Gillian Welch, Guthrie Thomas and Rory Block.

Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar age nine. Singing to a a leodious finger-picked accompaniment, he began to play local dances and parties whilst workingas a sharecropper. He first recorded for Okeh Records in 1928, but these were commercial failures. Hurt then drifted out of the recording scene, and he continued his work as a farmer. Tom Hoskins, a blues enthusiast, would be the first to locate Hurt in 1963. He convinced Hurt to relocate to Washington, D.C., where he was recorded by the Library Of Congress in 1964. This rediscovery helped further the American folk music revival which had led to the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt's era. Hurt entered the same university and coffee house concert circuit as his contemporaries, as well as other Delta blues musicians brought out of retirement. As well as playing concerts, he recorded several studio albums for Vanguard Records.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest and most influential of all of the pre-war country blues artists, this collection includes the legendary murder ballads ‘Stack O’ Lee Blues’ and ‘Louis Collins’. Mississippi John Hurt is forever immortalised in these classic country blues recordings.

Tracks:

1. Frankie

2. Louis Collins

3. Stack O’ Lee Blues

4. Ain’t No Tellin’

5. Spike Driver Blues

6. Avalon Blues

7. Nobody’s Dirty Business

8. Candy Man Blues

9. Blessed Be The Name

10. Big Leg Blues

11. Got The Blues, Can’t Be Satisfied

12. BlueHarvest Blues

13. Praying On The Old Camp Ground

Label Review.

2019 album. 2019 album. Pearlescent Iridescent coloured vinyl. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview.

American quartet Perpetual Groove are releasing their self titled album and it has been a wait for fans of the veteran jam acts fans. In the tumultuous decade that followed the release of their last last full length album 2009 ‘Heal’ Perpetual Groove caught everyone by surprise in 2015 when they returned to the stage after a two-year hiatus. The band performed eight weekends that year, over multi-night runs, to sold-out shows in some of their favourite cities across the America, thus ringing in a new chapter for Perpetual Groove. The band resolved to make a big change by taking the time to craft, and bring to focus, music that stays true to their creative vision. 

That change is here on their new self-titled album. The band recruited producers Jason Kingsland and Tim Friesen to help them accomplish the most engaging and sonically-gratifying Perpetual Groove album to date. While recording at The Fidelitorium in Kernersville, NC and Studio MG in Roswell, GA, the band and producers engineered an album that will define Perpetual Groove for years to come. Seven new songs were written by the band specifically for this album representing all that life brings—loss, redemption, and hope.

Hunkering down for all of 2018 in recording studios in North Carolina and Georgia and forgoing the usual road test for new material, the Athens based collective - lineup of guitarist Brock Butler, keyboardist Matt McDonald, bassist Adam Perry and drummer Albert Suttle - emerged in the new year with seven songs that represent all that life brings. The inimitable lyrical style of Brock Butler and Adam Perry focus on loss, redemption, hope and is balanced with a sonic cerebral and emotional undertow. Perpetual Groove’s 2019 self titled offering just might be the band redefining itself for the next generation.

Perpetual Groove continues to create a cultivated, unique experience for each live show. This new chapter for Perpetual Groove showcases the continuing evolution of their music and performances. This is a band that is fully realised and ready to bring their new sound, storytelling, and live experience to the masses.

Label Review.

Two Peel sessions from 1994 & 2004. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Chicago, Illinois post-punk rock trio Shellac, formed by Steve Albini are releasing ‘The End Of Radio’ a collection of previously unreleased recordings they made for BBC Radio’s Peel Sessions.

The first LP contains four songs the band cut in July 1994 on BBC Maida Vale Studio 3’s 24-trakck console, the same year they put out their debut, ‘At Action Park’. That record’s “Crow” was among the recordings they recorded that day, and they also did three songs that would later appear on 1998’s ‘Terraform’ and 2007’s ‘Excellent Italian Greyhound’: “Canada,” “Disgrace” and “Spoke.” They mixed them to stereo that day.

They recorded the second disc in 2004 for a “live From Maida Vale” session in front of an audience in Studio 4; it aired that December. The record contains several songs that would later appear on Excellent Italian Greyhound, including the song “The End of Radio.”

Steve Albini along with his studio work for Nirvana and the Pixies, Steve Albini has carved-out a place as one of music's most confrontational artists while fronting Big Black, Rapeman, and with Shellac, his lyrics have long reveled in transgression, degradation, and the repressed rot at the heart of Middle American existence. Accordingly, his music is not pretty. From Big Black’s drilling shrillness to Shellac’s blunt-force post-rock, his body of work has mutated slowly over the decades, but it’s never fundamentally changed. His head is full of worms; he puts them into song.

Although Shellac have no upcoming shows booked, the ‘End of Radio’ announcement came with a note that it will “continue to play shows or tour at the same sporadic and relaxed pace as always.” It added that people should assume that album releases and touring are unrelated. “There will be more new material in the future,” the band added.

Label Review.

2019 blues album.

Our Overview.

Florida based blues guitarist, singer-songwriter Albert Castaglia is releasing his new album ‘Masterpiece’and once again his is stamping his mark on the music world. “It may be a bit premature to crown Albert Castiglia America's newest King of the Blues, but there's little doubt that he at least deserves the title of heir apparent.” -- Miami New Times. As most artists will attest, the most unexpected circumstance can spark artistic inspiration. That’s a fact that hasn’t been lost on singer, songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire Albert Castiglia.

With his latest album, Albert aptly names his new album ‘Masterpiece’, as he celebrates an unforeseen triumph -- a connection with a daughter he never knew he had. The result is a work that’s both personal and provocative all at the same time. Castiglia calls this the most meaningful album he’s ever made. “My daughter finding me and opening up my world to an additional family, including two grandchildren, brought out the deepest material I’ve ever created,” he notes, “along with my wife, they were my muses.” Indeed, songs such as “Keep On Swinging”, “Masterpiece” and “Bring on the Rain” address the unexpected emotions that infused his psyche with the discovery of a family he never knew.

Co-produced by longtime friend and colleague Mike Zito, and released on Zito’s own label, Gulf Coast Records, on May 24th, the album also finds Castiglia reflecting on the disappointment and disconnect that’s gripped the nation in the past several years. Several songs, “Heavy” and “Love Will Win the War”, deal with the dilemma that has impacted the those forgotten as the result of this modern malaise. “Heavy” brings those ideas to the fore. “It was inspired by people who live in this country and feel alienated, unappreciated, demonized and shunned by society,” Castiglia reflects. “The homeless, the vets, immigrants, people of color, teachers, the LGBT community...they were on my mind the whole time I wrote this tune.” “Love Will Win the War” goes even deeper into the horrors and violence that have shaken the very pillars of the nation’s faith and fortitude. Castiglia says it was inspired by the mass shootings that were all too prevalent in recent years. “Those horrific events got me thinking, ‘What goes through my daughter's mind when she drops her kids off at school? Does she think the worst or hope for the best? I really have a hard time playing this song without choking up, because I have my grandchildren in mind when I play it. It's sad, but I believe it's also hopeful.”

The tone of the album underscores both its mood and its message, from the forthright stance of “Bring on the Rain,” the frenzy and fury of “Keep On Swinging” and the driving determination of “Catch My Breath,” “Thoughts and Prayers” and “Red Tide Blues,” to the rustic reflection of “Love Will Win the War,” the confidence and contemplation of the title track and the somber and sobering “I Tried To Tell Ya.” By Castiglia’s own admission, the sound is raw and unfiltered, little wonder since he and Zito play all the instruments between them.

“I think blues is a wide open net,” Castiglia once told a reporter. “There are a lot of different ways to do it...I’ve taken a lot of heat for what I do. Some people think I’m too edgy to be considered a blues artist. On the other hand, I don’t think that people like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf would have wanted me copying them and redoing their stuff. There’s no point in doing that. They would want me to do my own stuff."

Of course, Castiglia should know. The Miami-raised musician served an apprenticeship while backing legendary blues musician Junior Wells. He later went on to work with singer Sandra Hall. Never content to allow himself to be confined to any particular category, he embarked on a solo career that’s yielded eight critically acclaimed album and consist kudos for his exceptional instrumental prowess, his searing vocals, and live performances that have dazzled audiences from coast to coast.

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Matt Surfin and Friends are releasing the self titled album. Matt Surfin and Friends is the project of New Orleans musician, producer, and part-time pizza delivery guy Matt Seferian. Born in D.C. and raised in Houston, Seferian moved to New Orleans in 2011 and threw himself headlong into the city’s famously robust music scene. Almost immediately, Seferian and his friends found themselves playing a vital role in the New Orleans DIY music scene, booking bands and throwing innumerable house shows, as well as touring nationally with the bands Donovan Wolfington and Pope.

“What I love about music is the act of creating with other people,” says Seferian, “becoming intimate as friends, and the bond that forms between musicians. It’s the best feeling in the world. I started this band because I wanted more of that. For me, it was all about celebrating my musical community and connecting with the people I love.”

Seferian envisioned Matt Surfin’ & Friends as a malleable collective, a sort of collaborative anti-band comprised of various members of the New Orleans music community that could change and take shape as needed. It would be a band for friends, by friends He began writing songs in earnest, and for each one he had specific musicians in mind. Seferian’s fellow New Orleans pals appear on every song (along with a few folks from other cities), with more than a dozen musicians contributing, including members of Ratboys, Sharks’ Teeth, Video Age, and Bent Denim. The self-titled record was recorded over a year by Seferian at his old warehouse studio and completed at The Palace. A true passion project, Seferian put everything he had into the self-titled record, and he brought out the best in his peers.

Just as Seferian put the finishing touches on the mixes, the record was almost lost for good when a break-in occurred at the studio. “It was unbelievable,” says Seferian. “They took my computer, all my backups, everything. I was devastated.” But Seferian is not the kind of person to get down for too long. After viewing security footage, he recognised the thief’s shoes as belonging to a neighbour. Seferian and Saladis followed the neighbour to a stash house, where over $30k in purloined gear was stored. Within a few days, Seferian had his record back, and the whole experience just made the record even more meaningful to him.

That generosity of spirit is all over Matt Surfin’ & Friends. The songs crackle with a joy that feels almost palpable, an enthusiasm and delight that can only come from doing what you love with the people you love. It’s a celebration, a record about facing problems headlong and refusing to give up.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Sacred Paws are ramping up the fun propelled by boundless punk idealism, DIY principles, and pure, unadulterated joy with their new album ‘Run Around The Sun’ the follow up to 2017’s ‘Strike A Match’. The duo - Rachel Aggs: Guitarist and Eilidh Rodgers: Drummer - based between Glasgow and London deliver an album brims with upbeat reflections on growing up and looking back. Shimmering guitar riffs dance between snappy beats and swooning melodies that will have crowds committing to far more than a simple head-bob. “I think we’d get bored if it was too slow,” Eilidh says. “We’d never want to play something live that people couldn’t dance to. It would feel really strange to us. It’s kind of the whole point.”

Since forming five years ago the Sacred Paws’ sound spreads far beyond the length of the UK, putting sunny Ghanaian highlife guitar through a laid-back filter, while their call-and-response vocals echo early Sleater-Kinney, and Rogers’ antic percussion channels post-punk originators the Raincoats, who they recently supported. Named in partial tribute to Rogers’ cats, Sacred Paws are by far the most colorful band on Mogwai’s otherwise pleasingly dour label, Rock Action.

The indie pop punk duo have also aired the album's opening track "The Conversation", beginning with a scream of guitar, it includes all the hallmarks of a classic Sacred Paws song—where intricate guitar work and complex drumming collide with pop smarts and the dual vocals of Rachel Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers. The track was written about a long-forgotten argument between friends, composed in the band’s traditional unplanned approach, each member’s thoughts and feelings slaloming through the other’s. “You’re all wrong, you’re walking away / Why would we even try to have this conversation?” the song asks before resolving to move on: “I’m running, I’m hiding out, resisting / I’m keeping this to myself….” The argument that inspired it is long forgotten but the feelings remain.

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Dutch indie. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Dutch musician Pip Blom is releasing her eagerly anticipated debut album ‘Boat’ - following a very exciting and busy year for her, she released her fast paced and energetic EP ‘Paycheck’ and was supporting the likes of Garbage, Franz Ferdinand and The Breeders - all which grew her fan base and deservedly so. Pip presents a head-on attitude which characterises everything she does and it’s an absolute joy to behold - whether that’s witnessing her band’s powerfully impressive live show or listening to her honest, heart-onsleeve approach to writing songs on record. ‘Boat’ is emblematic of that - an open book of Pip Blom, delivered via her undeniable knack for writing a hook-laden, 3-4 minute song; planting it in your head and making it stay there looping days after first hearing it.

There’s the kinetic combination of guitars from herself and brother Tender Blom, the effortlessly captivating vocal range which can be authoritative and intent like in the driving album opener ‘Daddy Issues’, or soothing and warm as heard in melodic middle track ‘Bedhead’. Then there are the choruses that seem to stop songs in their tracks and lift them into a different stratosphere.

The album’s earworm quality is something that has been connecting across the waters from her home country of the Netherlands, aside from the aforementioned 6 Music playlists, landing an impressive amount of spins across US college radio and a spot on the coveted Triple J playlist in Australia. Listening through, it’s not hard to understand why. The album is wrapped up in a certain energy that, while evident the band put everything into recording it, would indicate they had a blast doing so - its infectious and, most importantly, wholeheartedly believable.

Dave McCracken bottled up that energy while overseeing the recording at Big Jelly studios in Ramsgate, with the album then mixed by Dillip Harris in a shipping container on the banks of the Thames in East London. The result is ten songs that, alluding to the album’s title, ferry you through Pip’s headspace via expertly crafted songs gelled together through their unassuming depth.

LP format includes digital download code.

Label Review. 

Another showcase of recent vinyl finds and favourites from their DJ sets and radio shows. Also available on CD. Vol.1 and Vol.2 also on site and blinding! 

Our Overview. 

Volume Three in the Mr Bongo Record club series. Another showcase of recent vinyl finds and favourites from our DJ sets and radio shows. This is an extra special one however, as it lands in 2019, the year that the record label celebrate 30 years since it all began way back in 1989 and they’re releasing brand new music from punk-reggae superstars, The Skints; the previously undiscovered 25-year old master composer & arranger, Kit Sebastian; and crossover UK hip hop live show dons Jungle Brown this year.

Compiled by David Buttle and Gareth Stephens, assisted by Graham Luckhurst and Gary Johnson.

Tracks:

1. J.B. De Carvalho E Seu Terreiro - Fui A Umbanda 

2. Trio Ternura - A Gira

3. Alcione - Figa De Guine 

4. Impacto 5 - Longe Daqui Aqui Mesmo 

5. Abaete - Pisa No Taboado 

6. Tobias - Coisa Sentimental 

7. Os Flippers - Estrelar

8. SpaceArk - Don’t Stop (Unreleased Long Version) 

9. Pure Release - I’ll KnowIt’s Love For Sure 

10. Luther Davis Group - You Can Be A Star 

11. Marumo - KhomoTsaka Deile Kae? 

12. Splash - Peacock 

13. Gyedu Blay Ambolley - Highlife 

14. Harari- Senyamo 

15. Kaleidoscope - Let Me Try 

16. Elias Rahbani - I Want To Be 

17. TokyoAcademy Philharmonic Chorus Group - Taharazaka 

18. Cesar Roldão Vieira – ZéDo Trem 

19. Elias Rahbani - Dance Of Maria 

20. Galt MacDermot - Coffee Cold

Label Review.

Modern Soul rarities and crossover classics includes a number of collectors items appearing on compilation for the very first time.

Our Overview.

14 stunning tracks celebrating the spirit of the Northern Soul all-dayer. A breath-taking compilation featuring modern Soul rarities and crossover classics includes a number of collectors items appearing on compilation for the very first time.

The All-Dayer has been a part of the Northern Soul scene since the early 70s. It evolved at a time when rare club soul was moving away from its roots in Detroit and experimenting with a new beat that coalesced at the legendary Manchester Ritz. The Ritz reigned supreme as the country’s most forwardthinking All-Dayer, attracting the top DJ’s including its founder Neil Rushton, Richard Searling, Colin Curtis and Ian Levine.

Curtis and Levine had wholeheartedly embraced, and came to define, the Modern Soul movement at Blackpool Mecca’s Highland Room. They brought to the Ritz their own unique music blend and their loyal following. Searling had an equally upfront music policy but continued to mix it up with the best of his Northern discoveries which attracted the Casino faithful to the Ritz. This created a melting pot of the very best of the underground soul scene,attractive to a wider, younger audience, leading to a national interest in Soul All-Dayers, and eventually heralding the rave era.

All 14 All-Dayer tracks on this newly curated compilation have been remastered from analogue tapes and original vinyl. It is pressed to audiophile heavyweight 180g vinyl housed in a single sleeve complete with new liner notes. All-Dayer joins a growing catalogue of premium music on the Club Soul imprint - including crossover hits compilation ‘Shades of Soul’, and newly compiled LP’s that celebrate the clubs of the original Northern Soul Scene - ‘The Scene Club’, ‘The Twisted Wheel’, ‘Wigan Casino Soul Club’, ‘The Catacombs’ and the forthcoming ‘The Golden Torch’.

Tracks:

1. Ann Sexton & The Masters Of Soul “You’ve Been Gong Too Long”

2. SamBaker “It’s All Over”

3. Razzy Bailey “I Hate Hate”

4. Gene Townsel “There’s No Use Hiding”

5. Nina Simone “Touching And Caring ( 7” Edit )”

6. Steve Dixon “All That’s Left Are The Memories”

7. Tony Love “Crying Time Is Over”

8. Eldridge Holmes “Lovely Woman”

9. Cliff Holmes “I Need Ya’ Baby”

10. Brief Encounter “Human”

11. Gregg Jolly “Love Is”

12. Bliss “If You Need Somebody”

13. Touch Of Class “Love Means Everything”

14. Veda “You Make Me Feel So Real”

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The triptych marks a new chapter in the collaboration between Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith, who first worked together on ‘Killer Road’ in 2016. ‘The Peyote Dance’ is the first in a triptych of albums to be released by Bella Union over the next year titled ‘The Perfect Vision’, which take their inspiration from the writings of three emblematic French poets: Antonin Artaud, Arthur Rimbaud and René Daumal and their necessity to travel to different lands to acquire a new vision and perspective on themselves and artworks. Perhaps a perfect vision, it is one that allowed them to transcend forms and borders, both physical and mental.

Recorded in the Sierra Tarahumara of Mexico, Abyssinian valley of Ethiopia and Himalayan Summit of India respectively, the central idea is that each landscape holds sleeping memories that are the witness of human passage. Each album retraces the poets’ footsteps, channelled through on-location recorded soundscapes and musicalities, with Patti Smith revisiting the words that have been inspired by the landscapes.

‘The Peyote Dance’ focuses on a brief part of Artaud’s life, when he travelled to Mexico City in early 1936 to deliver a series of lectures at the University of Mexico on topics including Surrealism, Marxism and theatre. In the summer, he travelled by train towards the Chihuahua region and by horse to the Tarahumara mountains with the help of a mestizo guide, which the album’s opening track, recited by Gael Garcia Bernal, evokes. Artaud was drawn to the story of the Rarámuri: Native Indian people who live in the Norogachi region of Mexico’s Copper Canyon, the Sierra Tarahumara. One of Artaud’s goals was to find a peyote shaman who could heal him; allowing him to recover from an opioid addiction. During his stay, encountering the Rarámuri Indians and peyote shamans of Tarahumara and engaging in ceremonies, Artaud had a transcendental experience which resulted in the book ‘The Peyote Dance’. For the eponymous album, Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith revisited writings from the book and other texts written after Artaud’s return to France, where he remained in a mental asylum in Rodez undergoing electric shock therapy. During this dark period, the encounter with the Rarámuri stayed with him as his last significant, happy experience. The final track on the album is a poem written by Patti Smith in homage to Artaud’s last hours in Ivry.

Double LP includes booklet with photos / interview and digital download code.

Label Review.

2019 jazz album.  

Our Overview.

Self titled astonishing and totally immersive new album from The Swiss Jazz Orchestra & Guillermo Klein. The Swiss Jazz Orchestra, founded in 2003, has created a fabulous collective ensemble that has found a way to play regularly every Monday night in Bern, Switzerland since the ensemble’s inception. But the truly remarkable thing about the ensemble is its dedication to the presentation of new works by visiting artists and composers. The orchestra's origins lie in the Big Band of the Swiss Jazz School, the oldest college for jazz music in Switzerland (which has been part of the Art School of Bern Hochschule der Künste Bern since 2003.)

Celebrated composer and pianist Guillermo Klein has been a regular collaborator with the Orchestra for the past few years and the ‘Swiss Jazz Orchestra & Guillermo Klein’ presents the tremendous work the pairing has allowed to flourish. The connection between the Orchestra and Klein was apparent right away, as it was clear that this was a dedicated ensemble, a true band that was excited to delve into difficult music. Klein continued to visit Bern regularly, widening his repertoire and writing new pieces for the highly capable ensemble. It was a year later that the idea of recording an album of Klein’s work sprang to life.

Guillermo wrote and revised a number of pieces to suit the instrumentation of the Orchestra, whose wide breadth of tonal possibilities is truly astounding. Klein also took inspiration from a former resident of Bern, the brilliant Albert Einstein, and a famed landmark, the beautiful Zytglogge watchtower (which also played a part in the inspiration of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity), to write a number of pieces especially for this album.

The recording was made at the famed Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg, Germany in December 2018. The pieces are wonderfully performed and engineer Andy Neresheimer captured the moving music tremendously.

Orchestra members:

Adrian Pflugshaupt - alto, soprano sax, flute

Reto Suhner - alto, soprano sax, clarinet, flute

Cédric Gschwind - tenor sax, clarinet, flute Jürg

Bucher - tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet

Matthias Tschopp - baritone sax, bass clarinet

Dave Blaser - trumpet, flugelhorn

Johannes Walter - trumpet, flugelhorn

Lukas Thoeni - trumpet, flugelhorn

Thomas Knuchel - trumpet, flugelhorn

Vincent Lachat - trombone

Stefan Schlegel - trombone

Andreas Tschopp - trombone

Jan Schreiner - tuba Samuel

Leipold - guitar

Philip Henzi - piano

Lorenz Beyeler - bass

Rico Baumann - drums

Guillermo Klein - Fender Rhodes electric piano, composer, arranger

Label Review.

2019 album. An international musical summit meeting of three world renowned virtuosos: Antonio Forcione (Italy), Seckou Keita (Senegal) and Adriano Adewale (Brazil).

Our Overview.

AKA Trio are releasing their collaborative new album “‘Joy’. A wonderfully uplifting and celebratory album created by three great musicians, all virtuosos in their own right. Coming from three different continents - Europe, Africa and South America - Antonio, Seckou and Adriano grew up in three different landscapes, speaking three different languages, and were formed by three different cultures and musical traditions. All these differences have converged in AKA Trio, and the product is ‘JOY’.

Italian guitarist-composer Antonio Forcione has been travelling the world for over two decades, releasing twenty albums and collaborating with many major artists along the way, including such names as Charlie Haden, Trilok Gurtu, Angelique Kidjo and the Bulgarian Voices, amongst many others. Seckou Keita from Senegal is one of the world’s foremost kora players, involved in many international projects including his ground-breaking duo with Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, Africa Express with Damon Albarn and his Transparent Water project with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa . Brazilian percussionist and composer Adriano Adewale has collaborated with Bobby McFerrin, Joanna McGregor and Benjamin Taubkin and has composed music for orchestras and dance theatre.

”Delightful shape-shifting melodies...” - Rhythm Passport

”The most epic trio of musical perfection I have ever come across...mesmerised” - Three Week

"...prepare to be astonished" "Album of the year contender" - Michal, The Morning Star

“A palpable sense of rapport and delight in their music-making" - The Scotsman

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Seattle based mainstay musician and frontwoman for bands Chastity Belt and Childbirth, Julia Shapiro is releasing her first solo album ‘Perfect Version’. Throughout the record Shapiro tries on different ways of living, all thematically centred around the idea of what it would be like to be a perfect version of yourself and she recorded all but one of the instruments on the album herself.

When Julia Shapiro flew home from a cancelled Chastity Belt tour in April 2018, everything in her life felt out of control. Dealing with health issues, freshly out of a relationship, and in the middle of an existential crisis, she realised halfway through a tour supporting her band’s third album ‘I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone’ that she was going through too much to continue. “I was really struggling; I was really depressed. I felt like I couldn’t sing or be a person,” Shapiro recalls. “At that point I couldn’t even imagine playing a show again, I was so over it.” 

Returning home to a newly empty Seattle one-bedroom apartment, Shapiro had wanted for a long time to learn how to record and mix her own music, and out of the uncertainty of the future of her music career and her health, she began to record the songs that would become ‘Perfect Version’, her solo debut for Hardly Art. What she created in the space of ten songs is an intimate and beautifully self-aware examination of feeling lost in the life you’ve created for yourself. It’s an album of shimmering guitars and layered vocals that feels vast in the emotional depth it conveys and masterful in the way each song is intentionally crafted and recorded. 

Over the course of a tumultuous year of trying to find stability amidst depression and surgery, Shapiro ultimately rediscovered the parts of music that she loved through the process. Her perfectionist qualities create an album that shines in tiny lyrical moments and meticulous guitar parts. “When the rest of my life felt out of control, I felt like this was my chance to be in control of everything,” says Shapiro. 

She plays all the instruments (save for a mouth trumpet solo by Darren Hanlon and guest violin by Annie Truscott) and after recording and mixing the first batch of four songs at the Vault studio with Ian LeSage decided to record the final six tracks alone in her apartment, adding drums in the studio later and learning to mix them with the help of her friend David Hrivnak. ‘Perfect Version’ is a fully realised vision from a gifted songwriter finding a more intimate voice. “So what comes next?” she questions on the album closer “Empty Cup” which explores the quiet satisfaction of being alone with yourself and creating a blank slate. “A lasting sense of self,” she concludes.

Label Review.

2019 album. Irish / Norweigan folk trio.

Our Overview.

The debut album from the Snowflake Trio ‘Sun Dogs’ delivers the same variety as in their live concerts, and their first album is in itself a thing of gorgeous, stirring variation.The music of Snowflake Trio - accomplished musicians: Irish flute player, singer & composer Nuala Kennedy, Norwegian accordionist Frode Haltli and fiddle player Vegar Vårdal - encompasses both a fine-boned delicacy and a rugged spontaneity and just as every snowflake is different the trio deliver a sound utterly unique and wonderful.

To best capture its spirit, they recorded a live album, featuring carefully selected pieces of traditional music from Norway and Ireland and interwoven them with freely improvised sections and newly composed melodies. Snowflake Trio was founded in Dundalk, Ireland in 2009 when they came together as part of a larger project organised by Louth Contemporary Music Society. Building on an immediate musical rapport, they have continued to collaborate and develop our repertoire; touring in Norway and Ireland as well as performing at international music festivals such as Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Celtic Colours Festival in Canada and Telemark Festival in Norway. Nuala has said that when they came together the music just ‘clicked’, despite it being the first time the Norwegian musicians had worked with an Irish flute and first time Nuala had worked with a hardanger fiddle. That, now 10 year, connection is very evident on ‘Sun Dogs’.

‘Sun Dogs’ weaves together a rich diversity of cultural references ranging across place, poetry in different languages, traveller song, and lullabies. The song and tune combinations are as varied as the music itself, which takes Irish and Norwegian tunes and brings them together in sets that flawlessly mix those different traditions. Each track sounds at the same time completely natural and completely distinctive. The album was recorded live a small lakeside cottage in Norway and the band describe leaving space for freely improvised sections, which you can hear in the midst of each carefully crafted piece.

Snowflake Trio’s first album has delicate, intricate playing but plenty of grit and earthiness when it fits. The stitching together of many-faceted parts into impressively cohesive whole musical pieces is key to its brilliance. Sun Dogs contains a wealth of diverse, nourishing music and is an all-round thing of beauty.

”The energy fuelling some exceptional recent collaborations between Irish, Scottish and Nordic musicians is at the heart of this beautiful collection from Snowflake Trio...A treasure trove.” - **** The Irish Times

”Snowflake Trio’s first album has delicate, intricate playing but plenty of grit and earthiness when it fits. The stitching together of many-faceted parts into impressively cohesive whole musical pieces is key to its brilliance. Sun Dogs contains a wealth of diverse, nourishing music and is an all-round thing of beauty.” - Folk Radio

DVD Review.

Documentary about Thunders final hours. Film on both DVD and Blu-ray plus bonus audio soundtrack.

Our Overview.

Ultra Multi-Media package includes Blu Ray, DVD and bonus audio CD soundtrack. This documentary is inspired by true life events surrounding the mysterious death of former NY Doll guitarist Johnny Thunders.

In the film, Johnny Thunders arrives to New Orleans to begin a new chapter of his life by following a new musical sound, and staying clean from drugs in order to see his kids again. After he settles into the St. Peter’s Guest House Hotel, things go awry. His room is robbed which contained the last of his money and his only methadone supply. Johnny’s journey to recovery quickly turns dark when he takes desperate measures to get better, all which propel Johnny deeper in chaos that ultimately leads to his unexplained mysterious final hours.

“Room 37 – The Mysterious Death Of Johnny Thunders”, is a supernatural horror-thriller written and directed by the Cordero Brothers – Vicente Cordero and Fernando Cordero Caballero. The film features Leo Ramsey, Devin McGregor Ketko, Timothy Lee-Priest, and Jason Lasater, and includes the infamous Johnny Thunders song “Born to Lose,” along with a vocal appearance by legendary New York Dolls member Sylvain Sylvain. Produced by Shanti Whitney, the film was executive produced by Brian Perera, Yvonne Perera, and co-produced by Tim Yasui. Soundtrack format packaged in a gorgeous, six-panel Digipak on May 24th, 2019. The soundtrack includes performances by the real Johnny Thunders as well as his former bandmates Walter Lure and Sylvain Sylvain.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Darkthrone, the Norwegian Black Metal legends mark their return with ‘Old Star’, a sublime new slab of relentless riffing in the true spirit of the underground. Over the course of 30 years, Norway’s Darkthrone has become a staple of the global black metal genre, forging a legacy as one of the most renowned and influential bands in its illustrious & often infamous history. In their formative years, Darkthrone initially started making their mark with a strong concoction of thrash & then death/doom metal experimentation, before the debut album ‘Soulside Journey’ was unleashed in 1991. Never ones to follow convention or stand still even then, the band soon embraced a much darker, more primitive form of expression with the second album ‘A Blaze in the Northern Sky’, and by the time of their third ‘Under A Funeral Moon’ the band, now down to a duo had fully embraced the ‘black metal’ sound.

Now, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto return with their first studio album since 2016’s hugely popular ‘Arctic Thunder’ opus, in the shape of ‘Old Star’. With a mastery and endless dedication to the art of the riff, the Norwegian legends cut through six new epic tracks, taking in the best of the old school of heavy & extreme metal plus a large dose of doom-laden riffing, & channelling it through the grime of the underground. Engineering and production duties were all carried out by vocalist/guitarist Nocturno Culto, complemented with a perfectly organic mix courtesy of Sanford Parker (Voivod) at Hypercube Studios, & mastered once more by Jack Control at Enormous Door.

Fenriz says of the new album: "Again we are here with THE RIFFS! A while after our previous ‘Arctic Thunder‘ album it became apparent that we would continue in that same style, BLACK OLD HEAVY METAL with slow thrash, classic doom and slow death metal...We feel that ‘Old Star‘ is the big brother of ‘Arctic Thunder‘. More solid and with even better riffs.”

Label Review.

2019 album.

Our Overview.

Toebow unleashes their Cartoon Psych Pop LP, ‘Themes’, on the heals of 2018’s debut EP, ‘Spirit Mane’. Wacky by nature but severe in execution, Toebow artfully straddles the border between sincerity and goofiness .Toebow was formed a few years back by veterans of the NYC music scene, including members of BOBBY and Zula. The Brooklyn-based psych-pop band showcases a tapestry of positive, upbeat sounds that are at times odd and unexpected but remain palatable and accessible. Quirky guitar lines flutter over bouncy bass and rumbling percussion, while smooth male-female vocal harmonies, lush synth lines and the occasional drum machine tie the gentle chaos neatly together.

Toebow (pronounced tō-bō), who have been marinating and simmering their music in the New York music scene for a few years now, is not only a band, it is a state of mind and a world of its own. Toebow is playful and lighthearted, yet also severe—a progressive cartoon rock soundtrack forged from the inner goofs of the human soul. Originally formed in 2013 by close friends and alumni of defunct indie dream-pop group Bobby, Toebow has evolved from a casual guitar project to a formidable five-piece band with a large arsenal of songs. The music is a tapestry of duelling guitar lines, rumbling drum parts, nebulous synth tones, and lush vocal harmonies.

The former members of BOBBY in Toebow include Martin Zimmermann and Maia Friedman. Zimmermann provided guitar, vocals, drum programming, drums and synthesiser while Friedman added synthesiser, vocals and organ. The other three members are Jo-Anne Hyun (bass, vocals and synthesiser), Nate Ulsh (guitar, vocals and synthsesiser) and Charlie Kessenich (drums, vocals, guitar, glockenspiel). Hyun recently contributed to Zula’s latest release, 2019’s ‘Stepping’ EP.

Label Review.

2019 live release. Blues guitarist.

Our Overview.

Experience the phenomenal blues legend that is Mr Joe Louis Walker and see and hear the Blues Hall of Fame guitarist and singer/songwriter and his band storm through 10 smoking tracks live in concert at the Boulder Station Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in front of an adoring audience. Directed by Brent Backhus, this stunning 85-minute concert was captured in all its glory at the infamous casino last summer during Walker's 2018 U.S. tour.

This stunning live performance is captured in all its glory on DVD and complimentary audio CD companion, packaged in a beautiful four-panel digipack. Bonus features include an exclusive interview with Joe Louis Walker filmed backstage at the Boulder Station concert venue and a rare behind-the-scenes slideshow.

Joe Louis Walker's career has spanned nearly six decades - and 24 studio albums - since first picking up the guitar at his childhood home in San Francisco at the young age of eight. Joining the local musicians' union in his early teens enabled young Joe to perform publicly with the likes of John Lee Hooker, Buddy Miles, Thelonious Monk, Willie Dixon, Nick Lowe, John Mayall, Muddy Waters and even Jimi Hendrix. By the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Walker had already collaborated with and performed with multi-Grammy Award winning artists such as B.B King (on King's Blues Summit album) and James Cotton (on Cotton's Deep In The Blues album) as well as enjoying the rare honour to perform at the Presidential Inauguration of President George H. Bush. In 2013, Walker was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, later being nominated in four categories for a Blues Music Award. In 2015, his album Everybody Wants A Piece was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Contemporary Blues Album" category.

A stand-alone, limited-edition coloured 12" Vinyl LP version of the concert will be released separately this summer.

Tracks:

1. I’m Not Messing Around

2.Young Girls Blues

3. Sugar Mama

4. Do YouLove Me

5. In The Morning

6. Soldier For Jesus

7. You Don’t Love Me Girl

8. Black& Blue

9. Too Drunk To Drive Drunk

10. Like It This Way

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview.

‘The Big Freeze’ is New York-based singer songwriter Laura Stevenson’s fourth solo album and first full-length in four years. Recorded in her childhood home during the dead of winter, the record - named for the universe-chilling opposite the big bang - is a departure for Stevenson. Though her pedigree is in punk, ‘The Big Freeze’ has little in the way of distortion. Laura has traded her rougher punk edges for a much slower, smoother, more orchestral production on her new album. 

But that's not to say there's no bite. Stevenson's creative, assertively DIY spirit is still there — found in her ability to go beyond constraints of genre and traditional song structure, as well as in the often stark bravery of her lyrics. Her voice and guitar are in clear focus, embellished with sparse arrangements that flatter the organic beauty of her melodies. It is quiet and haunting. Easily her darkest record, but without a doubt her most powerful.

‘The Big Freeze’ revolves around themes of isolation and loneliness; carefully crafted layers of sound and echo-y harmonies evoke that distance and simultaneously bring comforting warmth. Add Stevenson's languid, sweetly meandering vocals, and the album can feel a bit like running through molasses at times. This is broken up a in a few places through songs like the poppier (yet lyrically dark) "Dermatillomania," or even the short little treat "Hawks," which allows a breath of clear air before heavier skies move back in. Also a treat throughout ‘The Big Freeze’ is Stevenson's delicate guitar work, which weaves and sparkles to support her voice. 

Stevenson writes evocative lyrics, from descriptions of an abandoned waterpark in the devastatingly vulnerable "Value Inn" to finding aching power in the seemingly mundane in "Living Room, NY." 

'The Big Freeze’ is an album that invites listeners to "lay back, arms out" to experience its richness. It will perhaps be a surprising listen to fans expecting more upbeat material, but if you can surrender to the slower, weightier swells of this album, you might just find yourself floating.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Duff McKagan is releasing ‘Tenderness’ his second* solo album, following on from his second album with his band Walking Papers: ‘WP2’ 2018. The busy Guns N’ Roses bassist began working on new music for his solo project last year during gaps in GNR tour schedule, with singer-songwriter and producer Shooter Jennings - son of country icons Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. McKagan said in December that much of his new lyrics are inspired by experiences he had during his travels over the past few years with GNR and seeing the world change around him. McKagan’s in-the-works solo album is a “musical follow-up” to 2015s tome ‘How To Be A Man (and Other Illusions).

"The real point of this record, and the lyrics for “Tenderness” is not for me to be some damn politician or some other voice to add to what is already way too much noise," McKagan said in a statement. Regarding the new single, McKagan called it a "song of unity and peace... and I want this record to be a meditation and to bring maybe some healing, if that is not too high-handed or lofty of a goal." The bassist suggests that the new track is a reaction to political and social friction in America today. But it's not a political song; it's a song about acceptance.

“We’re becoming divided at a time when we need each other most,” says Duff. “When huge industries get replaced because of modernisation, it’s time to retrain and bolster up those who get swept aside. Homelessness and drug addiction are avoidable in this country if we come together and get private and public cogs turning together in a positive direction. We can at least try to tackle mental illness while we’re at it. But alas, we stump and lie, point fingers and divide. We’re way better than this. As a father, I must say and do something now because I love my girls and my wife, and I love my country, and I feel I must be strong and use my voice now, do it while I’m able or perhaps never get a chance ever again”.

McKagan also recently told Billboard about the musical direction of Tenderness: “I’ve been dabbling with this kind of songwriting for the last 20 years. I’m good friends with guys like Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli, and both of those guys have influenced me tremendously. The thing is right now we have this huge rock band going [with Guns], so I don’t feel the need to peel off a rock record right now. It is the perfect time for me to do a record of whatever the f_k I want. I mean, I could have done it at any time.

“I’ve done a bunch of cool stuff in the past like Walking Papers and the Neurotic Outsiders, but it was more like aggressive punk rock. For this one, though, I really took my time with Shooter to get the right arrangements and the right instrumentation. It didn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t want any part of this record to be perfect; I wanted it to be real.”

The record sees Duff hook up with Shooter Jennings, John Schreffler, Jamie Douglass and Aubrey Richmond, along with guests including Mark Lanegan, written and recorded at Station House studios, located in Echo Park, California.

*Actually his third album. His second album 'Beautiful Disease' (1999) was caught in the merger of Polygram and Universal Music and it was dropped from the release schedule and never released. Duff later re-recorded some of the songs with his band Duff McKagan's Loaded in 2001.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Steve Marino - American singer songwriter - is releasing his debut in his own name entitled ‘Fluff’. For over ten years Steve Marino has recorded multiple solo albums (as Moor Hound), been in countless bands, and toured the country consistently, but his newest full-length, 'Fluff', is the first collection of songs he's released in his own name. In that sense it's his "debut" album. One might expect such a transition, from the artifice of a band name to the intimacy of one's given name, to be born of some newfound, inward focus. It makes sense; it's a story of an artist going back to basics, getting real. It's also not what happened.

Recorded, produced and mixed by his Bloomington fella Ben Lumsdaine, by Ben Lumsdaine at Russian Recording and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Musicthe 8-track project is all about “home, and one’s place in it, love, and intimacy”. One might expect such a transition, from the artifice of a band name to the intimacy of one's given name, to be born of some newfound, inward focus. It makes sense; it's a story of an artist going back to basics, getting real. It's also not what happened.

‘Fluff’ is an album about home, and one's place in it, love, and intimacy, and it's the result of Steve marrying his direct, honest songwriting with a deeply collaborative process. He developed the record with fellow Bloomington, Indiana resident, and standout producer Ben Lumsdaine (Kevin Krauter, Major Murphy, Juan Solorzano) and together they open up the songs, giving them tangible depth.

The title track, "Fluff", with its precise drums, layered guitars, and visceral, emotive vocals, captures the power of this collaboration. It's a song that is delicate, yet driving, lyrically opaque, yet emotionally direct. It is, like the rest of the album, in perfect balance. Steve explains, “Fluff is about an ex’s dog kind of sung from the dog’s perspective. She was involved in a fight with another dog and ended up biting my ex’s arm, which resulted in a hospital visit..”

"Musically, ‘Fluff’ is melodic and intentional, but the deep-rooted emotions that underpin the song feel like a primal gut-punch that couldn’t have been artificially manufactured." Paste Magazine

Label Review. 

Official Sony Legacy boxset with all five professionally recorded dates on the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour: 29th October - Seacrest Motel Rehearsals, Falmouth, MA; 19th November - Memorial Auditorium, Worcester, MA; 20th November - Harvard Square Theater, Cambridge, MA. Plus two discs of rehearsals at SIR Studios 19th & 21st October plus a bonus disc of rare performances from other dates on the tour. A selection of tracks are on 3LP vinyl set. 

Our Overview. 

After his 1966 world tour, Bob Dylan didn’t hit the road again (barring a handful of one-off appearances) until his return to the stage in January 1974 with his US tour backed by The Band. It would be only eighteen months until his next set of shows and this time he had something different in mind. Launched in the fall of 1975, ‘Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue’ flaunted the touring conventions of the time by featuring an eclectic cast of characters and playing small and unusual venues with little advance notice. The shows would often stretch to more than four hours long, generating some of the artist’s most dramatic and dynamic on-stage performances ever. Dylan debuted the new songs he’d written for his forthcoming ‘Desire’ album (which became one of the most acclaimed and popular in his canon) with a fire and intensity that Dylan had reached ten years earlier with his incendiary tours with musicians who became The Band. He also took wild, interpretative rides through his back catalogue and broke-out some unexpected covers.

Dylan gathered amazing friends and collaborators for his ensemble – dubbed Guam for the tour – that included T Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bobby Neuwirth, Scarlett Rivera, Ronee Blakley, Steven Soles, David Mansfield, Rob Stoner, Howie Wyeth and Luther Rix. Poet Allen Ginsberg and Joni Mitchell also brought their talents to the show’s encores. Dylan, the consummate band leader, managed to take these musicians from various backgrounds and sensibilities and mold them into a tight musical unit on stage.

Five shows were professionally recorded. Some were filmed as well along with hours of other footage, backstage and elsewhere, to be used for a film Bob had in mind. The tour was relatively short: it commenced on 30th October and finished on 8th December and only covered the North East of the U.S. with four dates in Canada. A second leg of the Revue took in the rest of the U.S. the following spring, after the release of ‘Desire’. A TV special and a live album ‘Hard Rain’ came from this period but the common consensus was that this tour wasn’t as hot as the first one. It wasn’t until 1978 that Bob’s film ‘Renaldo & Clara’, a four hour marathon of seemingly unconnected scenes with nearly all the musicians, interspersed with live footage from the first leg was released. It got a carpeting from US critics but in Europe the film was lapped up until Bob himself withdrew the film from circulation in the mid-80s.

This collection features 148 tracks in all from the 1975 leg, with more than 100 of those never previously released. Included in the box set is a 52-page booklet featuring rare and never-before-seen Rolling Thunder Revue photos and a revelatory essay by novelist/musician Wesley Stace. Concurrent with the release of the 14CD box set will be a reissue of The Bootleg Series Volume 5 on vinyl, back in print for the first time since 2002 as a 3LP set with a 64-page booklet.

'The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings' serves as a companion piece to the new film, ‘Rolling Thunder Revue - A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese’. Every one of Bob Dylan’s performances in the movie can be found in this boxed set.

Label Review.

This deluxe seven inch box set collection gathers faithful reproductions of the first ten 45s that showcased his work in the UK, each pressed on high quality vinyl and presented in specially created card sleeves.

Our Overview.

The indomitable pioneer of dub music and one of reggae’s greatest producers, the one and only Lee Scratch Perry releases ‘People Funny Boy - The Early Upsetter Singles’, which gave the UK audience exposure to his unique sound. This fabulous box set - of 10 7 inch discs - will be an instant collector’s item and features within this stylishly designed collection a fold-out poster-sized insert, featuring a detailed essay on Perry by the producer’s official biographer, David Katz.

The prolific Jamaican reggae king was originally nicknamed “Little Perry” interference to his height of 4’11”/1.5m. Lee cut his first ska record way back in 1959 and has not stopped since, whether producing his solo work or influencing and working with a variety of renowned musicians and producers.

In the late spring of 1968, after years spent making his mark within the Jamaican music industry as an artist and jobbing producer, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry unveiled his own Upsetter Records label. Over the months that immediately followed, his exceptional talent was repeatedly reinforced with the release a series of popular 7” singles, the most successful was his ground-breaking hit, ‘People Funny Boy’ which was a direct attack on Joe Gibbs of Wirl Records.

By the summer of ’68, the recently launched Trojan Records had acquired exclusive rights to Perry’s productions, issuing the best of his work on the company’s flagship label, prior to creating a British version of his Upsetter imprint, early the following year.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Rocket Recordings. Also available on standard Black Vinyl and CD.

Our Overview.

‘Mu!’ is the fabulous new album from Russian band Gno0mes - who are back with their sonic fusions of pop, psychedelic stargaze , kraut techno and indie rock - make this release their third album with Rocket Recordings. MU! has been part recorded in the same old soviet radio station where the band recorded ‘Tschak!’ part in a professional studio and then part at home. This was to ensure the best capture of Gnoomes live assault. The results brim with a magnitude and sense of coherence that belies some of the environment it was created in. Fuzz-driven guitars shift in engulfing waves, resembling shoegaze giants at their most ferocious, whilst elsewhere layered vocals stack on top of one another, weaving between pristine melody and augmented discordance. Whilst the glacial electronics and coldwave tendencies that soaked much of their previous album may be more absent here, this record pulses with an electronic tinge that bubbles more subtly under the surface of immersive guitars.

Since the release of their last album ‘Tschak!’ the three piece has turned into a quartet with synth player Masha Piankova joining the band. And it was the success of their tours in the UK and Europe that subconsciously created a template and tone for where the band would go next with this new album; to capture that surging drive and throbbing assault of their pulverising live shows. “We decided to make this record more live and less electronic,” Sasha, singer and guitarist from Gnoomes said. “We were thinking about how to make it sound more dynamic.” Masha’s introduction was a key one, with her replacing Sasha on synth bass whilst he moved over to second guitar to add a fuller and more impactful sonic crunch. 

The title ‘Mu!’ has Japanese origins and comes from Zen Buddhism – something Sasha began to practise during past trying times - meaning both “no” and “nothingness” and the understanding that the acceptance of this concept can lead to enlightenment. “For me personally it’s a spiritual record,” he says. Although any sonic warbles of new age blandness couldn’t be further from the end results here. This is a cleansing record, no doubt, but one that washes over you with both brutal force and deft subtleness. 

With the completion of this album, it also wraps up a trio of records all connected via punctuation – ‘Ngan!’ ‘Tschak!’ ‘Mu!’ - but with one each distinct in its own tone and sense of evolution. From Bowie to the Cure to Moderat, musical history is peppered with great musical trilogies and now Gnoomes’ Exclamation Mark Trilogy can be added to that. 

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The highly influential UK post-punk underground band The Membranes have dropped their shiny new album - which is another compelling, multi layered adrenaline rush of sonic fusions - ‘What Nature Gives Nature Takes Away’ is the follow up to the critically acclaimed, universe-explaining 2015 album ‘Dark Matter/Dark Energy,’ which received rave reviews and radio play and is the bands bestselling album in their recent history. The new album, ' ‘What Nature Gives Nature Takes Away’ is a double album, using the band’s own 20-piece choir to juxtapose their dark drones and melancholic epic power across sixteen songs about the beauty and violence of nature. The album features guest appearances from the likes of Chris Packham, Shirley Collins, Jordan and Kirk Brandon, all dealing with various themes of nature. 

A diverse work with songs that vary from dark, brooding and cinematic choir-driven post-punk that seethe with nature, sex and death, the album has been described as sounding like Hieronymus Bosch paintings; discordant wild songs about crows, demon flowers, strange perfumes, voluptuous petals, voluminous oceans and treacherous seasons - the poetry of life and death. Musically it shifts from seething musical pulses to epic choir driven post-punk, from dark dub workouts and throbbing dirty disco dark wave, grinding bass driven apocalyptic visions to choir driven dark opera and brooding classical.

Inspired by the DIY aesthetic of punk rock and Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP, Membranes formed in Blackpool in 1977. They created their own distinctive bass driven post punk that was big influence on the underground scene and were John Peel and music press favourites before splitting in 1990. When one of their former support bands, My Bloody Valentine, asked them to reform for a festival in 2010 the band returned and recorded their most acclaimed and bestselling album - 2015’s ‘Dark Matter/Dark Energy’ and played at festivals across the world.

Throughout 2019 the band will be touring the UK and have many festivals lined up in the UK, Europe and Mexico. Can’t wait!

Label Review. 

2019 album. Damaged Goods. Also available on CD.

Our Overview.

Johnny Moped formed in 1974 by a group of school friends from Croydon, Johnny Moped were the band fronted by, and named after the enigmatic Paul Halford (aka Johnny Moped). By 1977 the group found themselves at the heart of the burgeoning punk scene in London and for a brief moment even looked like contenders. This is Johnny Moped's first album since 2016’s ‘It's A Real Cool Baby!’ and it is 14 wholesome tracks on lovely Vinyl and Digipak CD! 

Time flies! It's three years since the band's last album, ‘It's A Real Cool Baby’, but the band have been busy in the meantime. Following the amicable departure of founding member Dave Berk, they welcomed Marty Love as their new drummer - and way back when both Chrissie Hynde and Captain Sensible as past members. Since then the band have had successful tours of the UK, Germany, Holland and Scandinavia. They've had prestigious slots at Blackpool's famous Rebellion Festival, recorded radio sessions for Marc Riley's BBC 6Music Show, and played a storming set at Damaged Goods 30th Anniversary show at London's Koko last September along with touring with The Damned and a headline Christmas show at The Lexington. 

A biography of the band is currently being written. More details to follow on that nearer to publication date. There's even talk of gigs in the US and Japan in the not too distant future. Fingers crossed eh? So what can we tell you about the new LP? Well it has 14 tracks including recent sold out single 'Catatonic'. There's a guest appearance from none other than Captain Sensible, a longtime friend and champion of the band. The original Mopeds Johnny and Slimy Toad have been joined by long time members, Jacko Pistorious , Rock N Roll Robot (also know as Rob from legendary Ska/Punk band ‘Case’) and Marty Love for the new album. It was recorded at Panther Studios, Reigate and produced by longtime associate Dick Crippen.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Chicago instrumental rockers Pelican return with ‘Nighttime Stories’ which is the cult bands first studio album in six years as the majority of the bands output after 2013’s ‘Forever Becoming’ consists of live recordings. The quartets singular vision of heavy music eschews classification and the eight track album is the first release written front to back with guitarist Dallas Thomas, who took over guitar duties upon founding member Laurent Schroeder -Lebec’s departure in 2012. In the process of writing the album, the quartet endured a slew of realizations, tragedies, and glimmers of optimism that guided the creative process to the most potent work of its 19-year career. Though the new material veers towards the darker tone characteristic of Pelican’s early songwriting, it's hard to imagine a previous incarnation of the band writing songs as meticulously crafted and detail-oriented as those within ‘Nighttime Stories’ where the compositions recall everything from the triumphant call-to-arms of classic Discord, to the vicious troglodyte battery of the Melvins, to the dynamic interwoven melodies of bottom-heavy indie cult heroes Chavez.

Pelican has always excelled at vacillating between the savage sounds of various niches of metal underground and the more delicate and nuanced sounds of Midwest's cerebral indie community, proving that they can make either end of the spectrum more vibrant and compelling through the art of contrast. With ‘Nighttime Stories’ the pendulum has swung back to the angst and ire of their younger years while delivering it with the nuance and wisdom that's come with nearly two decades of writing and performing.

Per a statement, a sense of loss and tragedy permeates ‘Nighttime Stories’. Thomas’ album opener “W.S.T” is a tribute to his late father, while the record’s title was taken from a project guitarist Trevor de Brauw and Larry Herweg were prepping with their other band, Tusk, when that group’s lead singer, Jody Minnoch suddenly died in 2014.

Label Review. 

2019 album (Ex-Arab Strap) also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Scottish singer songwriter, guitarist Malcolm Middleton is best known for his work with post-folk indie band Arab Strap and for his work with Aidan Moffat and for his subsequent solo career, writing and producing. Malcolm is back, again, with his seventh studio album ‘Bananas’, this time on the East Neuk of Fife’s Triassic Tusk Records. 

On ‘Bananas’ Malcolm has teamed up with the acclaimed not-jazz trio (David Jeans: Drums, Stevie Jones: Double Bass and Graeme Smillie: Piano) to produce an album that is both scathing and nice. Malcolm continues to report back from the depths of the everyday, whilst simultaneously attempting to monetise hell. Adding a dose of saccharine to the mix are the Samaratinesque choir of Kenny Anderson (King Creosote), Jenny Reeve (Bdy_Prts) and Dan Willson (Witherd Hand).  

Recorded and Mixed by Paul Savage (Mogwai, Delgados) at Chem19 Studios in Glasgow. Malcolm will be on tour in Europe during Autumn 2019. 

“Right up there with Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash” - Sunday Telegraph 

“Middleton shows off impressive acoustic guitar skills oddly reminiscent of a young Paul Simon” - The Times 

“Achieves ABBA-like moments of pop greatness” - Mojo 

“Malcolm has a warm, immediately engaging voice that makes even his saddest songs sound strangely joyful” - The Guardian

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Singer songwriter Atlanta born Faye Webster releases her new album ‘Atlanta Millionaires Club’ following on from her self titled LP in 2017. On ‘Atlanta Millionaires Club’, the omnipresence of pedal steel eschews bluegrass trappings, flexible under Webster’s genre-bending direction. Webster didn’t set out to make her new album sound like any artist in particular – in fact, she says the recording process was the opposite, trying to avoid sounding like any contemporaries – but she cites Aaliyah as her main musical inspiration for how she uses sound.

“That’s where I first heard, ‘Oh, there’s this weird guitar that’s bendy and it could totally be in a country song,’ but the way she’s using it is what makes her music so special to me,” Webster explains. “I try to do that. I try to change the way pedal steel is supposed sound, to use it differently than its traditional sound.”

Pulling from a familial lineage of folk storytelling and time spent in Atlanta’s hip-hop scene, Webster’s work is a study of duality, weaving through her own introversion and heartbreak; it’s an idiosyncratic sadness punctuated by fleeting observations and an unexpected, sly sense of humour. Webster lifted the Atlanta Millionaires Club title from the name her father used for his group of up-and-coming friends in grad school that went on to become a sponsored club that competed in 5k races and donut eating contests for charity, the name a showy, stark contrast with the friends’ reality.

As both an artist and a person, Webster is made up of contradictions. Like the way she takes the traditional instrumentation of Americana and flips it into something else, she uses her own calm, laid-back demeanour to assert that you can be confidently and unapologetically yourself in a quiet way, too.

Across ‘Atlanta Millionaires Club’, Webster’s feather-light vocals unfurl like a sigh, her voice and slinking hues of sleepy R&B acting as sonic through-lines on an album stitched together by intimate songwriting about lonesomeness in spite of Webster’s connection to a larger community. “There’s a lot of lonesomeness in Atlanta Millionaires Club,” Webster explains. “Sure, I can sing love songs, or songs about doing nothing, literally, but they all kind of go back to me being alone all the time.”

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Flying Lotus after a hiatus of nearly five years is back to thrill us with his new album - crammed with 27 spectacular tracks - ’Flamagra’, which follows his grammy nominated album 2014’s ‘You’re Dead’. Steve Ellison - aka Flying Lotus - comes from a high pedigree of musicians, his great aunt was the jazz pianist Alice Coltrane married to saxophonist John Coltrane, so music courses through his veins and influences his acclaimed blend of experimental electronic vibes with jazz flavoured hip-hop. And and Flying Lotus’ stock has never been higher.

Since he released ‘Your’e Dead he interim years have seen him collaborating with Kendrick Lamar on the classic ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’, directing and writing the Sundance-premiered ‘Kuso’ movie and producing much of Thundercat’s ‘Drunk’.Flamagra’ encompasses hip hop, funk, soul, jazz, global dance music, tribal polyrhythms, IDM and the LA Beat scene but it soars above a specific vortex whose coordinates can’t be accurately charted. Other than to say that it is a Flying Lotus record, perhaps the definitive one. "I'd been working on stuff for the past five years, but it was always all over the place," says Flying Lotus in a statement. "I'd always had this thematic idea in mind -- a lingering concept about fire, an eternal flame sitting on a hill. Some people love it, some people hate it. Some people would go on dates there and some people would burn love letters in the fire."

Flylo's first single is a spoken track titled "Fire Is Coming" and features David Lynch, with the visual helmed by David Firth and Lo himself. The visual features Lynch speaking to a group of wolf children. Lynch -- who appears as a half wolf/half human -- finds his face distorting during the telling of his story. The horror-filled narrative brings fear to the children, especially after Lynch's eyes become engulfed in flames. "The fire is coming, the fire is coming," he barks continuously. 

As for Flylo, thuis album is a bulky one, including 27 tracks. The project features Solange, George Clinton, Tierra Whack, Anderson .Paak, Thundercat, Little Dragon, Shabazz Palaces, Toro Y Moi, Denzel Curry and more. There will also be a tribute track dedicated to the late Mac Miller titled “Thank U Malcolm.”‘Flamagra’ features (in order of appearance) Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Little Dragon, Tierra Whack, Denzel Curry, David Lynch, Shabazz Palaces, Thundercat, Toro y Moi, Solange and more.

Flying Lotus will be touring North America, Europe and Japan in the autumn.

Label Review.

2019 debut album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Exploding out of Australia, Melbourne’s most exciting group, Amyl And The Sniffers - following much acclaim on the music scene - are raving up the excitement and releasing their self-titled debut album. It features tracks ‘Got You’ and ‘Monsoon Rock’. The record was recorded in Sheffield with Ross Orton towards the end of 2018 and captures the garage punk, 70s sharpie-esque ferocious live energy for which the four-piece have become renowned.

“Got You" is about that feeling you get when you first start seeing someone and you’re excited to see them, no matter what shit they got. You just see them at the pub and it feels like the most exciting thing in the world, like you’re so lucky they’re even there. It’s definitely one of the ‘sweetest’ songs on the album, and less punky.It was kind of inspired by Split Enz. We worked with Melbourne director Triana Hernandez for the video and we decided to make it less like a love song and more cheeky. We wanted to play with the power dynamics a bit and turn ‘I got you’ into ‘I literally own you’, just to make it a bit more dark. It’s obviously not a healthy relationship but that kind of thing is easy to slip into, too.” - Amyl And The Sniffers

“The single most exhilarating rock’n’roll show I’ve seen in years” - The Guardian

“They left audiences slack-jawed” - New Yorker

“We are bearing witness to a Rock Star. For Amyl is without a shadow of a doubt, a fucken Rock Star... I can see why Amyl And The Sniffers have signed to Rough Trade, why folk in the UK are going ape-shit.” - Everett True.

Amyl And The Sniffers are Amy Taylor (vocals), Gus Romer (bass), Bryce Wilson (drums) and Declan Martens. They formed in Melbourne, Australia in early 2016 and wrote, self-recorded and released their debut EP, 'Giddy Up' all in a span of twelve hours. Their second EP, ‘Big Attractions’, was released in February 2017, then re-released as a 12” double EP with ‘Giddy Up’, through Homeless Records in Australia and Damaged Goods in the UK. Both PBS FM and Triple R FM in Melbourne made the record Album Of The Week and the band went on the sell out multiple Australian headline shows. 2018 saw limited edition vinyl copies of ‘Giddy Up’ / ‘Big Attractions’ fly off the shelves, pushing Amyl And The Sniffers into the Top 40 on the UK Vinyl Charts.

The band made their international debut at The Great Escape festival in May followed by sold out shows in London, before flying out to the Los Angeles to join King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard on a 22-date tour of the United States. Return trips to both the UK and US followed later in the year, where the band played to packed houses and rave festival reviews. They were also nominated as Best New Act at the Q Awards and won the $30,000 Levis Prize.

Label Review. 

First three albums - 'Happy Families' (1982), 'Mange Tout' (1984) and 'Believe You Me' (1985). Each gatefold 2LP release includes the original album (remastered), plus B-sides, extended versions, remixes, previously unreleased tracks and demos. Digital download card included. Also available on CD - 9CD. 

Our Overview. 

‘The Blanc Tapes’ is the much awaited and long overdue release of the vinyl versions of 80’s British synth pop duo Blancmange - first 3 albums. The band burst onto the scene with the singles “Living On The Ceiling” and “Blind Vision” which was a masterclass in catchy and addictive delicious tunes of that period. 

Now we have the beautiful box set of Blancmange’s first three albums - ‘Happy Families’ (1982), ‘Mange Tout’ (1984) and ‘Believe You Me’ (1985). Each gatefold 2LP release includes the original album (remastered), plus B-sides, extended versions, remixes, previously unreleased tracks and demos. Digital download card included.

As Moby (musician and producer) commented “Listening to Blancmange obsessively. Probably the most under-rated electronic act of all time.” So now you have a chance to relive and basque in their unique sound.

‘Happy Families’ feels like a fully-formed electronic pop classic. Highlights include ‘Living On The Ceiling’ (a striking No.7 hit in 82 thanks to its mix of electronics with tabla and sitar), the melancholia of ‘Waves’, ‘Feel Me’s call-and-response electro-funk, the intense ‘I Can’t Explain’ and ‘God’s Kitchen’, which is an early example of Neil Arthur’s gift with images and wordplay.

Blancmange’s second album, ‘Mange Tout’, reached No. 8 in the UK Charts in 1984 and spawned more hits - notably ‘Blind Vision’ (No.10), ‘Don’t Tell Me’ (#8) and their fantastic cover of ABBA’s ‘The Day Before You Came’ (much loved by ABBA, who let them use footage from their original video for the Blancmange promo). It signals another change for the band’s music, now increasingly built around deep, propulsive dance grooves.

The third and final Blancmange album of the 1980s, ‘Believe You Me’, was released in 1985 and features bitter-sweet pop songs such as ‘Lose Your Love’, ‘Don’t You Love It All’ and ‘What’s Your Problem.’Blancmange will tour UK from April to May 2017.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Canadian, Vancouver based psychedelic rock band are releasing their new album ‘Destroyer’ - their first new material in three years - and the rock quintet’s fifth studio album to date. The album is structured around that first time behind the wheel of a hot rod. The fat, charging ‘Living After Midnight’ riffs of opener ‘Future Shade’ is, according to McBean, “Straight outta the gates. FM radio cranked.” He ain’t kidding. The song, and all of ‘Destroyer’ for that matter, seems to exist at that crucial nexus of the early-to-mid 80s Los Angeles when a war between punk and hair metal was waged. Black Flag’s ‘My War’ tried and failed to keep the peace. But in the trenches, some hybrid ghoul was beginning to form in bands like Jane’s Addiction and White Zombie. The heavy extended player ‘Horns Arising’, with its ‘Night Rider’ vocals and golden, climbing ‘Blade Runner’ synths, is a fill-up at a desert gas station just in time to see a UFO hovering near a mesa.

Other songs, like the serpentine ‘Boogie Lover’, are a cruise down the Sunset Strip. You pull into The Rainbow Bar & Grill to take the edge off - doesn’t matter what year it is, Lemmy’s there in flesh or spirit. To continue the teenage theme, there’s also a sense of youthful discovery to these cuts - ‘High Rise’ is a foray into Japanese psych, rounding the bend to a careening, while ‘Closer To The Edge’ feelslike falling in love with Yes. ‘Licensed To Drive’ would easily be the most exhilarating and dangerous ripper on a titular film’s soundtrack, a dose of heavy right before the muscle car’s wheels fly off going 100 mph on the freeway.

Shacked up in his rehearsal space, McBean found an old chair in an alley, spray painted ‘Producer’ on the back and pressed record. Friends from the endless rock’n’roll highway were invited over and 22songs were brought to life. While some were laid back into shallow graves to dig up once again at a later date, the remaining skeletons were left above ground - given organs, skin, eyes and theopportunity to grow their hair real long and greasy. Some of these zombie hesher jams were sent on a journey to Canada where longtime band member Jeremy Schmidt, slipping on the OfficialCollaborator satin jacket, had at them with his legendary synth arsenal. As he added long flowing robes, sunglasses, driving gloves and medallions, the undead songs began to transform into the newbreathing creatures that make up ‘Destroyer’. Schmidt’s work with these songs turned out to be the transformative glue for this new era of Black Mountain.

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Weird Omen are a dark, mysterious and exceptional refreshing french trio that sings explosive indie rock from the left field and France’s psych rock trio return to thrill the world - and drag you begging for more into their world -  with their third album ‘Surrealistic Feast’. Martin Daccord (guitar/vocals), Fred Brissaud (sax), and Remi Lucas (drums/vocals) create sounds that would be party music for the dead. Though dark and eerie sounding, their lyrics talk about inside jokes, interesting characters, and things they all like to bullshit about. This combination of spooky and uplifting creates vibes so confusing that it just makes sense! Balancing between a gloomy psychedelic atmosphere and fast-paced punk energy, Weird Omen manage to make some new with the old, imposing their own unique style. Refusing to succumb to one genre only, the band bravely blends garage, exotica, rockabilly, and psych.

After meeting in Lyon, France, Daccord, Brissaud, and Lucas came together to fuse their different musical interests and created Weird Omen. Each gravitate towards different eras of music they tend to enjoy more; Brissaud leans towards the melodic rock of the ‘50s, Daccord jams long and hard to ‘60s and ‘70s bands, and Lucas, being the youngest, brings the garage and grunge of the ‘90s. They explain that growing up in France and trying to be angsty teenagers was actually a difficult task. “When I was a teenager there was just one place to buy CDs, and it was a cheap clothing shop, so the music I could find was totally vintage,” Daccord says. “What influenced us is that rock’n’roll is far [from us] and you have to reach for it in France, more so than if you were in the U.S. or the U.K.”.

Weird Omen choose to sing in English - without the hint of a French accent - because in the current state of rock’n’roll, and even the past of rock’n’roll history, the best songs were sung in English—and that’s what they aim to produce, the best rock’n’roll music! “It’s also easier to write our songs in English, because most of the rock’n’roll we listen to is in English,” Brissaud adds. “If we listen to a French band it’s mostly punk from the ‘80s or something, but really straight ’50s rock’n’roll music is hard to find in French.”

Weird Omen defies the current trends of garage; or more exactly, builds upon its foundations to make something completely different out of it. The band have just served up a new 7" ('Girls Are Dancing On The Highway' b/w 'A Place I Want To Know') single to wet the thirsty whistles of the garage-punk intelligentsia; paving the way for a European tour behind their forthcoming full-length LP.

“This French band’s last single barely stopped spinning, and they have already followed it up with a full length album. Though this is a different take from the single, “A Place I Want To Know” still has the trademark sax taking up the bass duties, and then some, in order to take you into a strange and magical world to get lost in. Still, Weird Omen’s psychedelia is quite subtle in the way their words and repetitive rhythms rather than effects alter your thoughts on “Wild Honey,” until they let the cat out of the bag at the end.” Metronome Magazine

Label Review. 

40 Years of Childish! Career-spanning compilation! Damaged Goods. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The indomitable Billy Childish, punk rocker - Godfather of Kent punk - painter, novelist, poet, film maker and self professed outsider of the contemporary world is releasing a “must get your hands on’” career spanning compilation: the Billy Childish Story 1977 - 2017 , 40 years of Childish ‘Punk Rock Ist Nicht Tot’.  Few performers in rock history have been as ferociously prolific as Mr Childish However, most have never heard of him, or heard one of the over 50 recordings he's made either solo or with one of his many bands Pop Rivets, the Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesars, the Delmonas, Thee Headcoats and the Natural Born Lovers), or read his over 40 books of poetry and assorted scribblings, or possibly seen his exhibited paintings at art gallery’s. Billy Childish is a relentless and talented restless creative in every sense.

Playing a rough-and-tumble, punk-inspired approximation of what is normally called garage rock. Not one for elaborate production techniques, the consistent element of Billy’s music is that all of it sounds as though it was recorded and mixed in about an hour. He values immediacy and intensity, and frequently seems itching to move on to the next song, or, more specifically, the next band. A truly primitive talent (due to his learning disability - dyslexia, he has had little formal education) who -- à la Jad and David Fair of Half Japanese - eschews technical ability for pure emotion, Childish occupies an artistic role somewhere between mad genius and bratty goofball. Unfailingly sure of himself and his vision, his music is as honest and emotionally direct as one is likely to hear. Billy is still producing material at an amazing rate, epitomizing the endurance and drive of an artist who in many ways is the archetypal rock outsider.

Track Listing

LP1

1. Whatcha Gonna Do About It (Live) - The Pop Rivets Kray Twins (Demo) - The Pop Rivets 

2. Love Can Lose - The Milkshakes 

3. I'm Out of Control - The Milkshakes 

4. You Make Me Die - Thee Mighty Caesars 

5. The Double Axe - Thee Mighty Caesars 

6. Come Into My Life - Thee Mighty Caesars 

7. Cowboys are Square - Thee Mighty Caesars 

8. I feel Like Giving In - The Delmonas 

9. Brimful Of Hate - Jack Ketch And The Crowmen 

10. Davey Crocket - Thee Headcoats 

11. Girl From '62 -Thee Headcoats 

12. All My Feelings Denied - Thee Headcoats 

13. Punk Rock Ist Nicht Tot - Thee Headcoats 

14. An Image of You - Thee Headcoats 

15. Evil Thing - Thee Headcoatees 

16. Wild Man - Thee Headcoatees 

17. Hurt Me - Thee Headcoatees 

18. I'm Hurtin' - Thee Headcoats 

LP2

1. Step Out - Billy Childish and Holly Golightly 

2. Upside Mine - Billy Childish and Holly Golightly I Don't Like The Man I Am - Billy Childish And The Singing Loins 

3. Muscle Horse - Billy Childish and Sexton Ming 

4. This Wondrous Day – Kyra 

5. Rum and Coca Cola - Wild Billy Childish And The Blackhands 

6. Mr Hitler - Wild Billy Childish And The Blackhands Archive from 1959 - The Buff Medways 

7. Troubled Mind- The Buff Medways 

8. Unable to See the Good - The Buff Medways 

9. Strood Lights - The Buff Medways 

10. The Man with The Gallows Eyes - The Chatham Singers 

11. The Angel of Death - The Chatham Singers 7/Medway Wheelers - The Buff Medways 8/You Piss Me Off - The Buffets

LP3

1. Joe Strummer's Grave - The Musicians of the British Empire 

2. Snack Crack - The Musicians of the British Empire 

3. Christmas 1979 - The Musicians of the British Empire Polygraph Test - The Guy Hamper Trio 

4. We Spartan Dreggs (Be Fine) - The Spartan Dreggs Headlong Fly the Achaeans - The Spartan Dreggs 

5. A Shropshire Lad - The Spartan Dreggs 

6. A Song For Kylie Minogue – CTMF

7. In A Parallel World – CTMF 

8. Something's Missing Inside – CTMF 

9. All Our Forts Are With You – CTMF 

10. Cadillac - The Dear Watsons 

11. It's so Hard to be Happy - The Shall I Say Quois 

12. CTMF – CTMF

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

Label Review. 

Newly remastered versions of the albums ‘Phaedra’, ‘Rubycon’, ‘Ricochet’, ‘Stratosfear’, ‘Encore’, ‘Cyclone’ and ‘Force Majeure’ all drawn from the original first generation master tapes, and new Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound mixes of ‘Phaedra’ and ‘Ricochet’ by Steven Wilson. ‘In Search of Hades’ includes 8 CDs of previously unreleased material; 3 London concerts in full (Victoria Palace Theatre in 1974, The Rainbow Theatre in 1974 and Royal Albert Hall in 1975) along with the previously unreleased full soundtrack to ‘Oedipus Tyrannus’, recorded in July 1974 and remixed in 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo by Steven Wilson. Also includes 2 CDs of previously unreleased outtakes from the Phaedra sessions at The Manor Studios, Oxfordshire in November 1973 and the surviving 35-minute live recording from Coventry Cathedral in October 1975. The box set features 2 Blu-Ray discs featuring the 5.1 mixes of ‘Phaedra’, ‘Oedipus Tyrannus’ and ‘Ricochet’, along with a 1976 German TV performance and BBC Old Grey Whistle Test broadcast of Tangerine Dream at Coventry Cathedral. Plus hardback book.

Our Overview. 

Loved and revered worldwide for many decades, Tangerine Dream were true pioneers of ambient and electronic music. Their influence is massive – and the albums they recorded for Virgin Records between 1973 and 1979 remain classics. This box set is the definitive statement of this period in their history.

They came to Richard Branson’s attention when their fourth album ‘Atem’ was pronounced ‘Album of The Year’ by John Peel in 1973. He signed the group to his new Virgin Records label and ‘Phaedra’ was the tenth album to be released by the company. It became a hit in the UK making the Top 20. The follow up, 1975s ‘Rubycon’ went even better cracking the Top 10 but their commercial prospects slipped after this but their legion of fans kept the band in the charts for the rest of the decade.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD. 

Our Overview. 

Their first new album in 5 years, and their first on Sargent House Records. Commemorating thirty trips around the sun as one of metal’s most monolithic bands, Earth’s ninth studio album, ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’ is a purge of the embellishment and panache from previous releases. It intimates Earth’s commitment to the minimalism of their primordial days. Deconstructing the tried-and-true dynamic consisting of Dylan Carlson on guitar and bass and Adrienne Davies on drums and percussion, ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’ taps into the Platonic ideal of Earth - an incarnation of the long running band bolstered by the authority of purpose, where every note and every strike on the drum kit carries the weight of the world.

In addition to scaling back the flourishes of their hulking, drone-driven opuses, ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’ was composed sans narrative, relying instead on their collective subconscious to hone in on the overarching muse as the songs developed. The record was engineered, mixed, and mastered by long time associate Mell Dettmer at Studio Soli. Showcasing Carlson’s sepia-toned Bakersfield Sound guitars and Davies’ death knell drums, ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’ mines for the expressive, nuanced, and tonally rich components of Earth’s arsenal of sound. And indeed, anyone that’s followed Earth on their journey will bask in the unadulterated hums, throbs, and reverberations conjured by Carlson and Davies.

“I feel like this is the fullest expression and purest distillation of what Earth does since I re-started the band”, Carlson says in reflection of the album. And indeed, anyone that’s followed Earth on their journey will bask in the unadulterated hums, throbs, and reverberations conjured by Carlson and Davies.

Label Review.

2000 debut album.

Our Overview.

Having been on a hiatus since 2010 and with the recent news of the Doves reforming, gigging and writing new material together, the Doves are releasing their first 3 albums - ‘Lost Souls’ 2000, ‘The Last Broadcast’ 2002 and ’Some Cities’ 2005 - on limited edition coloured Vinyl.

Hailing from Manchester the scene that brought the defining sounds of the Smiths, Stone Roses, Oasis, James and the Charlatans indie rock band the Doves excuded depressing lyrical imagery and embryonic soundscapes that made the Mancunian circuit so popular throughout the '80s and '90s. Gloriously basking in the ethereal ones before them, their debut ‘Lost Souls’. ‘Lost Souls’ was released in April 2000 by three gruff Mancunians who, notably, all turned 30 that spring. Seven years earlier, you'd have found them prancing around the Top of the Pops stage, knee-deep in dry ice, miming along to the giddy house-pop rush of ‘Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)’ the hit they made as Sub Sub. Having shared a musical epiphany on the Hacienda's dance floor in 1989, the two Williams brothers and their old schoolmate Jimi Goodwin must have felt they were at the beginning of something very exciting.

The album is a shoegazing twist of emotional bliss. Music hasn't sounded so heavenly since Radiohead and The Verve. The 12 songs surge, swell and peak in the same way that good dance music does. Only rather than carefree euphoria, the feelings driving it are loneliness and regret. NME claimed it to be the best debut album since Oasis’s ‘Definitely Maybe’.

Label Review.

2002 album.

Our Overview.

Having been on a hiatus since 2010 and with the recent news of the Doves reforming, gigging and writing new material together, the Doves are releasing their first 3 albums - ‘Lost Souls’ 2000, ‘The Last Broadcast’ 2002 and ’Some Cities’ 2005 - on limited edition coloured Vinyl.

’The Last Broadcast’ is the sophomore album by the Mancunian British indie rock trio the Doves. Released on 29th April 2002 by Heavenly Records it went straight to No.1 on the UK Albums charts and followed the highly acclaimed ‘Lost Souls’ and dispelled any prior notion that the band were melancholy ‘miserablists’. The ‘Last Broadcast’ sees Doves frontman Jimi Goodwin and multi-instrumentalist brothers Andy and Jez Williams soaring to new grandiose heights. The album is a liberating and crafted follow up to ‘Lost Souls’ that happily combines the uplifting anthemic essence of dance with good old rock & roll.

With ‘The Last Broadcast’ the band prove to the world that they belong in that class of groups with Radiohead, U2, Oasis and all the rest where everything they do justifies attention and the praise heaped upon them from the beginning. As NME said of the album in 2002 “ …something fresh and new. It’s a euphoric experience..and one that finally reveals what a great band the Doves are”.

Label Review. 

2005 album.

Our Overview.

Having been on a hiatus since 2010 and with the recent news of the Doves reforming, gigging and writing new material together, the Doves are releasing their first 3 albums - ‘Lost Souls’ 2000, ‘The Last Broadcast’ 2002 and ’Some Cities’ 2005 - on limited edition coloured Vinyl.

‘Some Cities’ 2005 is the Doves third studio album and like it’s predecessor ‘The Last Broadcast’ 2002 it topped the UK Album Charts at No.1. ‘Some Cities’ beams with a revivified looseness and in the three years since ‘The Last Broadcast’ the band had cultivated a better understanding of their strengths and limitations - whilst keeping with Doves natural sound, there is certainly a more hazy, atmosphere heavy direction on this release.

Strands of angst and pessimism course through Doves' music, and ‘Some Cities’ hones this aesthetic push-and-pull, featuring some of the band's darkest and prettiest music to date. Furthermore, those two stylistic extremes aren't always mutually exclusive. The album is the bands most confident and consistent—it relies on distortion to put a little pleasurable abrasion into a set of songs rooted in populist uplift.

Label Review. 

1976 live album remastered with BBC Live In Concert 25th March 1976. Esoteric.

Our Overview. 

Released in 1976, ‘Live At Carnegie Hall’ documented a series of sold-out concerts at the famous venue in New York City staged in June 1975, which saw highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic and electric guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, acoustic & electric guitars, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion) joined by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Regarded as one of the finest live albums of the era, the album featured such classic tracks as “Ocean Gypsy”, “Carpet of the Sun”, “Mother Russia”, “Can You Understand”, “Song of Scheherezade” and “Ashes Are Burning” and is regarded among the finest works by Renaissance.

This expanded edition has been newly re-mastered from the original master tapes and features six lengthy bonus tracks, including the very rare live performance of “Kiev”, recorded at the concerts and issued as the B-side to a rare promotional single by Sire Records in the USA only. Previously unreleased on CD, this sought after performance has been added to this new release, along with the band’s entire 60 minute performance for the BBC Radio One In Concert programme from March 1976. The release also features an illustrated booklet with a new essay.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Also available on CD, and 2CD. 

Our Overview. 

The title of The Waterboys new album ‘Where The Action Is’ is inspired by the chorus of Robert Parker’s 1960s mod / northern soul classic “Let’s Go Baby”. The is a genre-defying album, a testament to the enduring talents of the band’s founder and front man Mike Scott. One of the finest British songwriters of the past four decades, his songs have been covered and/or recorded by artists including Prince, who crafted two different arrangements of Scott’s classic “The Whole Of The Moon”, Rod Stewart, Tom Jones, Steve Earle, and Ellie Goulding, who had a number three hit in 2013 with “How Long Will I Love You”.

The title track’s update of the Parker classic - with lyrics to reflect Mike’s own preoccupations - is a cyclone of a song, all swirling Hammond, lead guitar solos played by Steve Wickham on his fuzzboxed-up fiddle, and female vocals provided by the band’s fabulous Jess and Zeenie. There’s visceral rock’n’roll on “London Mick”, a tribute to legendary Clash guitarist, Mick Jones. The first single from the album, “Right Side Of Heartbreak (Wrong Side Of Love)”, was recorded by Mike at home, guitar and vocal into a single microphone, then sent to Waterboys’ keyboard whizz Brother Paul who added the soundscape, beats and effects at his studio in Nashville. An understated, yet infectious, soulful number addressing the trials and tribs of love, it is one of the album’s standout moments. Further experimentation can be found on “And There Is Love” (a collaboration with brilliant English producer Simon Dine) and “Take Me There I Will Follow You”, with its multi-rhyming lyrics over Brother Paul’s beats.

The two closing songs are inspired by towering literary figures. “Then She Made The Lasses-O” is based on Robert Burns’ poem Green Grow The Rashes-O and the album’s final track is “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn”. This is a reading of the most beautiful part of the chapter of the same name from Kenneth Grahame’s famous book The Wind In The Willows. Cut last summer in a single instrumental take at Real World Studios, with Mike adding the vocal in Dublin, the combination of Scott’s exquisite and emotive reading and the wondrous soundscape provided by Brother Paul and Steve Wickham, bassist Aongus Ralston and drummer Ralph Salmins makes a transcendent piece and an extraordinary ending to the album.

Of the albums stylistic variety, Scott says: “I’m afraid that’s gonna be the case of all Waterboys records, there’s always variety. I don’t work within one style of music. I like them all and feel free to move within them all”. And he hasn’t put the idea of the “mixtape mash-up album” to bed yet, either. “It’s still an entity, I’m still working on that. It’ll come out one day”.

Label Review.

Eight albums 1959-1964.

Our Overview.

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

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

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

Label Review.

Two albums plus 16 bonus tracks.

Our Overview.

America’s southern soul, R&B singing duo James and Bobby Purify’s biggest hit was the classic “I’m Your Puppet” released in 1966, written by yet another powerful duo in R&B circles at the time, the writers Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. After that top ten soul and pop success, they had more modest, top 30 R&B success with “Wish You Didn’t Have To Go,” then made the top 20 with “Shake A Tail Feather.”

The pair originally formed in 1965 by cousins James Purify and Bobby Purify (real name Robert LeeDickey) who adopted his cousins name for the act. Robert retired from the music scene for health reasons in 1969 and was replaced by Ben Moore who again touch on the stage name of Bobby.

This fabulous 2CD set is named after their biggest hit and includes all of James And Bobby Purify’s recordings during that dizzy four year period, including both LPs, all non-album tracks and a clutch of recordings which only surfaced in 2002. Many tracks are currently unavailable on CD.

Label Review.

31 track retrospective drawn from the six albums recorded by much-loved singer/songwriter Cheryl Lynn between 1978-1985 along with three recordings featuring her soulful distinctive vocals as a special guest.

Our Overview.

American soul singer Cheryl Lynn came to prominence in the short-lived Disco era and saw a decline in her record sales by the late 1980s, she remains, however, one of the most talented and best remembered vocalists from that era.

Raised in the church in Los Angeles, California, Cheryl Lynn was once too shy to sing church solos. By 1978, she was a speech pathology major in college. With her singing talents known primarily by her family and her then-boyfriend, she had not considered a career as a singer. Yet her boyfriend, Delbert Langston, issued an ultimatum: she would have to demonstrate her ample pipes on The Gong Show in 1976 or else he would stop dating her. The bashful Lynn sung "You Are So Beautiful". Winning the contest, soon she was receiving phone messages from Atlantic Records' producer Ahmet Ertegun and Elektra Records' Bob Krasnow. A recording contract from Columbia Records soon followed and a pairing with producer-composer David Paich. Miss Lynn enjoyed a string of hits in the late 1970s through the 1980s, among them were "Got To Be Real", "Star Love", "Shake it Up Tonight", "If This World Were Mine" (duet with Luther Vandross and "Encore". She was also the female vocalist on the original version of the now-standard Soul-Pop classic, "Georgy Porgy", by the rock group Toto.

So get your disco ball out, roll your carpet back, shake ya’ bootie, boogie on down and relive the disco era with the great Cheryl Lynn!

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

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

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

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

Label Review. 

The complete 1997-2008 King Crimson boxed set: 18 CDs/4 Blu-Rays/2DVD-a. Includes 11 CDs of live recordings.

Our Overview. 

‘Heaven and Earth’ is the most comprehensive boxed set in the series of box sets covering king Crimson’s entire career to date, covering just over a decade in King Crimson’s extensive history. It presents the most complete account of the ‘ProjeKcts’ series with concerts by ProjeKts 1 – ProjecKts 4 & the sole studio recording of ProjecKts 2 in addition to a huge selection of ProjeKct albums and related recordings.

When the Double Trio line of Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Bill Bruford, and Trey Gunn wanted to develop new material at the end of the ‘THRAK’-era in 1997 they broke down into smaller groups, a process which Fripp dubbed ‘fraKctalisation’. As the various band members in different groupings sought to road test ideas in front of audiences the ‘ProjeKcts’, as they were called, often played in small clubs and away from large scale venues. As a result, this hugely creative undertaking was often unseen and unheard by the more general broader audience and to that extent the ‘ProjeKcts’ can be said to represent ‘The Unknown King Crimson.’ Four CDs and two Blu-rays detail this risk-taking era in comprehensive detail. When the individual players regrouped as King Crimson the band was now a double duo consisting of Belew, Fripp, Gunn, and Mastelotto with Levin & Bruford leaving to fulfill other recording and touring commitments.

The next period of KC activity resulted in two studio albums, a heavy touring schedule, a studio mini-album & a number of live releases on CD/DVD/download & ran to 2003. The two studio albums are presented here for the first time in 5.1 surround mixes. 2000’s ‘The ConstruKction of Light’ has undergone the most radical change of all KC albums thus far. The loss of the original recordings of the electronic drums allowed Pat Mastelotto to completely rerecord the material on his current acoustic/electric kit making for a virtually completely new album of familiar material.

2003’s ‘The Power to Believe’ has also benefited from additional sonic seasonings from the original recording sessions discovered by mixer/producer David Singleton & woven into the surround mix. They are accompanied by a series of live recordings presented across 11CDs of live recordings taken from the various tours including a US show with Tool and a specially construKcted 3CD set from 2000 which interweaves improvs & the London concert to produce a very different, very powerful imaginary KC set-list.

Every night of the 2000 European tour was also filmed by DGM off-shoot company, Bootleg TV style. This had the advantage that the crew filming became equally familiar with the set-lists, for example knowing when to get closer to particular musicians at key points, working out how best to film the improv sections and going with the flow of the gigs. Most live concert films are precisely that: a film of a single performance or a couple of nights at a single venue. With Bootleg TV, filming evolved to match the band and this Blu-Ray details a very different approach to live filming, with nearly ten hours of live video footage as proof of concept.

With King Crimson again off the road, in 2006 Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp became ProjeKct 6 and four of their concerts feature on Blu-Ray Disc 2. Finally, CDs 17 and 18 present an idealised set-list drawn from the New York run of gigs from King Crimson’s 2008 US tour which saw the band playing live after an absence of five years. Following Trey Gunn’s departure, Tony Levin rejoined the band and with drummer Gavin Harrison making his debut with King Crimson both he and Pat Mastelotto foreshadow the elements that would make the three drummer set-up of the present-day incarnation of King Crimson so spectacular.

Eleven years, numerous ProjeKcts, dozens of concerts, complete studio recordings of the era, with re-recordings in new stereo & 5.1, and over 10 hours of live video footage, ‘Heaven and Earth’ is the most extensive account of this part of King Crimson’s ongoing story.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD and Black Vinyl.

Our Overview. 

The phenomenal American blues, funk and soul group that is Robert Randolph and the Family Band are back with their new album ‘Brighter Days’ - which is the follow-up to the Grammy-nominated 2017’s ‘Got Soul’ album - and may be Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s best, most diverse album yet. Rooted in gospel and blues, and branching into rock and soul, it is the sound of a veteran artist sure of himself and confident enough to spread his wings. 

Led by pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph, a virtuoso on the pedal steel guitar, Robert jumped from spiritual music - he started playing the instrument as a churchgoing teenager in Orange, New Jersey, a small city just outside of Newark - to secular music and found an audience among blues fans, roots rock aficionados, and jam band followers with his fiery, passionate instrumental work and heartfelt music.

The first three songs of ‘Brighter Days’ are a full dive back to Randolph’s gospel roots, starting with lead track “Baptise Me”, a joyous romp of a song that makes a direct connection between religious and musical ecstasy and salvation. “We wrote ‘Baptize Me’ the first day in the studio.” Says Robert “It’s really a love story, about an all-round love: for each other, for our audience, for our church background, for the music we love and for our fans.  All of these songs kind of harken back to how we started, to being known as this musical family band that comes from the church and appeals to rock, blues, gospel and soul music audiences. We wanted that good gospel, blues, R&B feel, because that’s where we started and it’s good to not only remind people of that but to actively remember it ourselves.”

“The Family Band” Is not just a name meant to evoke connections of togetherness. They are an actual family; the group that supports Randolph is anchored by his cousins, bassist Danyel Morgan and drummer Marcus Randolph and his sister, vocalist Lenesha Randolph.Given his goals for the album, it’s fitting that the lone cover song Robert selected for the collection comes from Pops Staples and the Staples Singers, one of gospel’s greatest musical families, who seamlessly crossed over to secular R&B success with inspirational songs like “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There.” Their “Simple Man” is a deep, contemplative blues, its pensive nature amplified by Randolph’s signature weeping pedal steel guitar lines.

The album was produced by Dave Cobb, known for his acclaimed and award-winning production of albums by Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, and the "A Star Is Born" soundtrack. “Dave Cobb is just a guy who likes to record good music and good songs,” says Randolph. “He wanted to do something that was fun but it also gives you a gospel feeling. He knows the history of our band, coming from church and giving that fun church feeling to people.

Label Review. 

1994 album. 2011 remaster. Digipak. Also available on CD, and black vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Following Roger Waters departure in 1985 and the 'new' Pink Floyd's new album 'A Momentary Lapse Of Reason' and successful comeback tour of 1987-1990, David Gilmour (the new de-facto leader of the band) called a hiatus following their appearance at Knebworth in June 1990. Aware that the aforementioned record wasn't really a band effort but a Pink Floyd album by committee, Gilmour was sure that another long player should be constructed primarily by the band members in order to create something that long-term fans would find more authentic. In 1993, Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright convened on Gilmour's house boat / recording studio The Astoria to write and record what would be Pink Floyd's final studio album (until 2014's 'The Endless River') 'The Division Bell'. Guy Pratt, their bass player on the previous tour, joined them in the initial creative process. Co-producer of the last album, Bob Ezrin reprised his role on the new record and later the band were joined by various other session musicians and singers, many of whom like Pratt has played with them on the last tour.

Released in March 1994, 'The Division Bell' received mixed reviews but the public pushed them to one side and lapped up the new record which like the last one, attempted to replicate the feel of the albums the band made prior to 'The Wall' whilst mixing in modern production techniques. Lyrically, Gilmour (who never admitted to being a natural poet) was aided by his author wife Polly Samson who contributed to six of the albums eleven tracks. Rick Wright gained his first lead vocal on a Pink Floyd track since 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' on his own "Wearing The Inside Out" whilst also sharing songwriting credits on another four songs.

'The Division Bell Tour' began as soon as the album was released and took in 112 shows over a seven month period, wrapping up with a residency at Earls Court in London concluding on the 29th October 1994 which would be the final full show by Pink Floyd ever although of course no-one knew it at the time. A live album and video were released the following year as 'Pulse'. Although Wright was eager to get back to work on another Pink Floyd project, Gilmour was reticent and effectively semi-retired for the rest of the 1990s to concentrate on his family, indulging in nothing more than session work. Wright instead worked on a solo album: 'Broken China' issued in 1996. 

Label Review. 

Official release of previously unreleased rare live and demo sessions. It is unknown where and when they were exactly recorded but they have been authorised for release by the band. Also available on triple CD. 

Our Overview. 

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

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

Label Review.

Presented here are some choice rarities from the vaults of southern independent labels including Montel, Goldband and J.D. Miller's many imprints. 11 of the 28 tracks are previously unreleased. Ace Records.

Our Overview.

Top-notch rhythm & blues tracks from South Louisiana. Back in the early 50s manic Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips, the man who broke Elvis, called his radio show Red, Hot & Blue – a wonderfully descriptive title which aptly illustrates the contents of this CD, the 19th in the “By The Bayou” series and the sixth devoted to R&B.

Whether from New Orleans in the east or Lake Charles in the west, whether fast and furious or slow and mournful, South Louisiana’s brand of R&B had a distinctive sound which influenced a whole generation of the state’s young rock’n’rollers, creating a blend which became known as swamp pop. Here – hidden amongst the red, hot and blue – can be heard the embryonic sounds of that music.

As previously in the series, this CD contains a mix of the famous and the totally unknown, with offerings from Guitar Jr, Lonesome Sundown and Cookie & the Cupcakes, through cult names such as Left Hand Charlie, Charles Sheffield and Little Victor to artists for whom we don’t even have a name – each play a part in bringing you a package which runs the whole gamut of South Louisiana rhythm & blues.

That embryonic swamp pop sound is typified by Guitar Jr’s ‘Family Rules’, a song still sung throughout South Louisiana and into S.E. Texas where the oil business took many of Cajun descent. It is artists of this background who keep R&B alive today, while it can be difficult to find black musicians who play this genre of music. A couple of years ago Louisiana R&B veteran Carol Fran took four of us out to find a Monday night jam session but discovered several of her old haunts closed down. Eventually she found a club with a jam going on. They were younger musicians not playing Carol’s kind of music but instantly recognised her, got her on stage and a good old R&B blast took place.

With the dearth of this exciting music as a live entertainment, its preservation through the release of long-lost tracks gathers in importance. But, hold on, this ain’t no history lesson, this is rompin’, stompin’ music to be enjoyed – so crank up your hi-fi, slip this CD in your player, grab a glass of something you enjoy and let the ‘bon temps roule’.

Label Review. 

There You Go! (with Dorris Henderson), John Renbourn, Bert & John (with Bert Jansch), Another Monday, Watch The Stars (by Dorris Henderson), Sir John Alot, and 11 bonus tracks. 

Our Overview. 

Long acknowledged as one of the greatest and most influential acoustic guitarists to emerge from the British folk scene, the late John Renbourn is best known to the wider world for his membership of Pentangle, the genre-busting band that he was instrumental in bringing together in 1967.

However, Renbourn recorded extensively both before and during the band’s early genesis, with a trio of solo albums joined by two vital collaborations with American-born folk singer Dorris Henderson as well as ‘Bert And John, his joint album with Bert Jansch in 1966. The set also contains a clutch of bonus tracks from the same period (including a marvellous psychedelic folk rendition of the Love song “Message To Pretty”) to shine the solo spotlight on a man that folk club organiser and future ZigZag founder Pete Frame once dubbed “the stoned Julian Bream of folk guitar”.

Housed in a clamshell box that boasts replica album sleeves, some very rare photos and a new essay on the man, the 6-CD set ‘Unpentangled’ anthologises that essential but often overlooked body of early work.

Label Review. 

16 tracks showcasing Rory’s virtuoso performances of electric, acoustic and live blues. Largely made up of previously unreleased recordings. Also available on CD, and triple CD. 

Our Overview. 

In what would have been the 50th year of Rory Gallagher’s recording career, comes a new compilation: ‘Blues’. From the vaults of the Gallagher estate’s tape archive comes this collection of rare and unreleased recordings of Rory playing his favourite blues material. Ranging from never heard before tracks to special guest sessions with legendary blues artists (Muddy Waters / Albert King) and lost radio sessions, this album uncovers Rory’s love of the blues throughout his solo career from 1971 right through to 1994.

The deluxe edition comprises 90% unreleased material and features performances with musical legends such as Muddy Waters, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber. The Deluxe Edition also comes with an extensive booklet comprising previously unseen pictures if Rory plus a new essay by award winning Blues / Rock writer Jas Obrecht.

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

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