Cerca:lillia

Lillian King's debut album In Your Long Shadow is out October 24th. It is about letting the wind in, Lake Michigan in the winter, and the silence of a long summer evening. And really it's about the grief of losing her dad, Neil King Jr. When her dad died in September 2024, grief permeated every facet of Lillian's life. The loss is felt in everything, but especially when doing the things her dad loved the most -- the simple everyday good things that make life worth living: cooking, walking the longer way to work, swimming in cold water. In the throes of grief it feels impossible to find anything that doesn't just make you sadder, but when Lillian did find those things, she grabbed onto them. Soon it was clear that the best coping mechanisms weren't gin and tonics, but talking to her mom and sister as much as possible, and producing an album. The album arrangement came together in a couple of weeks as Lillian brought bandmates and friends Robert Salazar and Nick DePrey new and old songs to build on. Robert played the drums, while Nick played keys (with a smattering of bass and guitar). The process was collaborative and intimate, and only got better when Jack Henry (producer of albums by Friko and Free Range) joined to record and mix it. Some of the songs on this album are years old, including "Underwater", which Lillian wrote one late night in Montreal a decade ago. However, most came together in the months approaching recording."Dragging Dirt" was written just a week before getting into the studio. Despite the bummer material, the recording process was spontaneous and light hearted. The song "Echo" came together unexpectedly during a break between songs. In the midst of recording In Your Long Shadow, Lillian had concerns about making a "grief album." Her sister Frances, as usual, had the right advice: "Every album from now on is going to be a grief album." In Your Long Shadow is about loss as much as it is about living with it. Take it outside on a walk.

Research Records teams up with organist and synthesist E. Bobby G. to release his sophomore album, Bobby Business. Once again, the album is primarily centered around the 1982 Kawai DX900, but it masterfully explores more genres than his debut, Giving You M.O.R.E.

Bobby Business was recorded in 2022 after E. Bobby G. received an eviction notice from his beloved sharehouse of 12 years. After moving out, he stored the organ at his workplace, Bakehouse Studios, where his boss let him use the space overnight to record until the early hours. The remainder of the album was recorded in his old studio space, NGBE.

The first track, "Ha-Ha," is as meditative as it is glittery, with floating sustained chords. "Big Boy" and "Disco Shift" bring back a slightly more polished E. Bobby G. sound—lo-fi library music with bright tones that will appeal to fans of proto-electronic icons like Brian Bennett. Tracks like "Lucky Strike" and "Tropical Dino Ride" are video game music dreams, featuring West Coast lead lines and strutting percussion. The second half of the album explores spaced-out '90s downtempo and dub elements, with a distinctive refinement that hides the fact it was created primarily using the Kawai DX900.

Bobby Business closes with "Lillian," a sonic dedication to the artist's Grandmother, with a more traditional song structure that hints at what Bobby has planned next.

Starting out as the Masterettes, a girl group formed by high school friends Brenda Reid, Carol Johnson, Lillian Walker and Sylvia Wilbur, the group switched focus and changed name after Wilbur was replaced by Brenda Reid’s husband, Herb Rooney, their breakthrough hit ‘Tell Him’ appearing in 1963 after Leiber & Stoller took charge. 1971’s Black Beauty, produced by Rooney, continued the post-L&S journey via the group’s own take of funky and melodic soul, approaching the style of the Staples Singers with plenty of emotive harmonies. If you like your soul switched on, hard-hitting and individual, you need Black Beauty in your collection.

“Recorded over just three days, with little more than two takes making up each tune, the album is an exercise in the immediate, capturing both Kilbey and his accompanying musicians performing tracks while they’re still fresh. The result is one of the most pure records you’ll find anywhere. From the opening notes of “Poppy Byron”, it’s apparent that Kilbey has delivered something transcendental; something that only someone with a musical dexterity and vision like he can provide. Serving as a musical kaleidoscope of sorts, the album switches genres frequently, shifting between the mandolin-driven sweetness of “Josephine”, the ’60s-inspired psychedelia of “Woman Number Nine”, and the hazy, dream-like nature of “Lillian in Cerulean Blue”. Meanwhile, the lyrics stay true to the concept of the title, with each track focusing on a feminine subject, whether it be via lyrics about Mary Shelley watching SBS in Mandarin on “Poppy Byron”, the story of evil witch “Doris McAllister”, or “Birdeen”, which, a press release notes, focuses on a greedy lorikeet with a sweet tooth. As Kilbey himself notes, Eleven Women is far from perfect record by any means, but in much the same way that even iconic renaissance painting have notable flaws, therein lies the beauty of this.” Tyler Jenke, Rolling Stone Australia A 01 Poppy Byron 02 Woman Number 9 03 Josephine 04 Sheba Chiba 05 Birdeen 06 Lillian In Cerulean Blue B 07 Queen Of Spades 08 Baby Poe 09 Doris McAllister 10 Where Gloria Meets Rachel 11 Think Of You (for Jessie Bellette)

The Exciters began as the Masterettes, a girl group formed by high school friends Brenda Reid, Carol Johnson, Lillian Walker, and Sylvia Wilbur. A single was cut for Brooklyn’s Le Sage label before Wilbur was replaced by Brenda’s husband, Herb Rooney, and after auditioning for Leiber & Stoller, the Exciters recorded the international smash ‘Tell Him’, a song so popular that it spawned foreign language renditions. Our edition of this marvellous debut LP includes the spectacular follow-up hit, ‘Do Wah Diddy,’ another immortal nugget of irresistible pop soul. Bright, light grooves for your dancing feet!

American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled »Eidetic,« a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. The resulting work engages with the universe's unflinching mortality and, as he says, »the ways it has modified and improved my relationships, especially with family.« Embodied by the creek, leaves, and ferns of the cover photography — taken in Michigan’s Burchfield Park, where he and his dad used to hike and »muse on existence« — the music glistens and unfurls with the flow of life he’s come to know. »Eidetic« is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride.

Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. Recorded primarily with guitar, tapes, and voice — and spanning labels with albums for Kranky, Morr Music, Beacon Sound, and Past Inside the Present — his catalog flows seamlessly between ambient improvisation and pop composition. Much like the analog photos that often accompany his releases, songs can feel dreamily softened and distant, and others beautifully vivid and detailed. 2021 full-length »Bloodless« found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With »Eidetic,« he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix — a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper — ever-observant and actively processing.

To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. The modest utility is what he knows best, and here he pushes the output to its most pristine potential.

»Eidetic« opens in a swirl of familiar haze; »Margaret Murie« eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with »Crux,« a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. »We covet this rare green hue / Here at the farthest point from home,« he sings above a reassuring pattern of strums and percussion. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving »Nameless,« inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors; »folks would slowly go insane while looking into their own reflections every day,« he adds. The idea informs a series of surreal abstractions before everything drops out in the final minute, and we are left free-floating in eerie nothingness.

Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest »Thursday Night« catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. »Halve« references the splitting of the atom, what he considers »the beginning of man's downfall,« and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created 'nuclear refuges' in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; »Tet« holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. »Lillian Isola« touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and »Pastel Dust« navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020.

At first blush, Meluch's atmospheric and melodic sensibilities resonate purely in their own right. Upon closer meditation, his ability to render stories — many of which surround human tragedy, misfortune, and understanding — through the prism of his poetry makes »Eidetic« even more rewarding.

Dark Green Vinyl

American singer-songwriter, poet, and photographer Thomas Meluch, known musically as Benoît Pioulard, returns with his most structured and vocal release to date. Titled »Eidetic,« a word denoting the ability to recall mental images with extraordinarily rich precision, the album presents unprecedented clarity and vitality for Benoît Pioulard. To access its thematic ground, Meluch looked inward with an affinity towards the people he loves during a period marked by his move from Seattle to Brooklyn in 2019. The resulting work engages with the universe's unflinching mortality and, as he says, »the ways it has modified and improved my relationships, especially with family.« Embodied by the creek, leaves, and ferns of the cover photography — taken in Michigan’s Burchfield Park, where he and his dad used to hike and »muse on existence« — the music glistens and unfurls with the flow of life he’s come to know. »Eidetic« is the culmination of Meluch's craft both as a producer and writer. An evocative sonic vocabulary meets deft lyrical introspection, articulated with the nuance, vulnerability, and confidence of a longtime artist hitting a stride.

Meluch has continually refined, redefined, and adjusted the focus of his gentle pop project over the last 20 years. Recorded primarily with guitar, tapes, and voice — and spanning labels with albums for Kranky, Morr Music, Beacon Sound, and Past Inside the Present — his catalog flows seamlessly between ambient improvisation and pop composition. Much like the analog photos that often accompany his releases, songs can feel dreamily softened and distant, and others beautifully vivid and detailed. 2021 full-length »Bloodless« found Meluch deep in droning decay, expressive yet wordless. With »Eidetic,« he swings back to sharpened forms. Lush banks of treated guitar and synth brush against hushed percussion; there is mist in the distance, but everything up close is intricately constructed and radiant. Meluch's voice is notably forward in the mix — a warm and calming tenor, a harmonic coo more than a whisper — ever-observant and actively processing.

To record much of the album, Meluch filled a cabin in rural Maine with his usual setup of simple percussion, a couple of Fender electrics, and a parlor guitar made by his friend who does bespoke luthier work. The modest utility is what he knows best, and here he pushes the output to its most pristine potential.

»Eidetic« opens in a swirl of familiar haze; »Margaret Murie« eases listeners in, as lush and verdant as the landscapes conserved by its famed namesake. With the setting established, Meluch, the narrator, enters the foreground with »Crux,« a tender piece written about finding new motivations in a new city. »We covet this rare green hue / Here at the farthest point from home,« he sings above a reassuring pattern of strums and percussion. Meluch's prose shines on the swiftly-moving »Nameless,« inspired by the neurological effects that came with the antiquated practice of manufacturing mercury mirrors; »folks would slowly go insane while looking into their own reflections every day,« he adds. The idea informs a series of surreal abstractions before everything drops out in the final minute, and we are left free-floating in eerie nothingness.

Across the album, labyrinthine lyrical ponderings scatter with dazzling imagery, artfully blurring scenes from world history with Meluch's more personal, present-day. The propulsive and earnest »Thursday Night« catches his mind overly active and too stoned, riffing on black holes and songwriting itself. »Halve« references the splitting of the atom, what he considers »the beginning of man's downfall,« and the unrealized initiative proposed by the US government that would have created 'nuclear refuges' in its national parks. Meluch's loved ones weave throughout; »Tet« holds his father's experience in Vietnam and its lasting effects. »Lillian Isola« touches on his maternal grandmother's spinal curvature, and »Pastel Dust« navigates the wake of his cat, who died on New Year's Eve 2020.

At first blush, Meluch's atmospheric and melodic sensibilities resonate purely in their own right. Upon closer meditation, his ability to render stories — many of which surround human tragedy, misfortune, and understanding — through the prism of his poetry makes »Eidetic« even more rewarding.

• The premium cuts by the legend that is Link Wray remastered on limited coloured vinyl with free CD
• Stunning artwork by Sophie Lo
• Liner notes by Author Nina Antonia.

It will surely come as no surprise that Quentin Tarantino picked up on Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ and ‘Ace of Spades’ for the movie ‘Pulp Fiction’. The brooding guitar man; born in North Carolina in 1929, as Fred Lincoln Wray Jnr, hails from pulp territory - the mythic Americana of rock n’ roll. Wray’s mother, from whom he inherited his striking appearance, was a Shawnee Indian, his father was a street corner preacher and grandpa did some jail time. Whilst having contracted tuberculosis when serving in the Korean war affected Wray’s vocals, his guitar playing mostly did the singing for him, but he wasn’t always volatile - ‘Lillian’ and ‘Alone’ revealing the heart beneath the tough exterior. Fiercely independent, when the rock n’ roll boom burst, Wray fashioned a 3-track home studio from a chicken shack and largely extricated himself from the music business although he would continue to record and play, stating ‘Money don’t rule me, record companies don’t own me.’ Nothing owned Link Wray but he owned rock n roll. Though the era of monochrome had ended, Link cast a long shadow, drawing admiration from the likes of Neil Young, Keith Moon and Pete Townshend who noted of Wray ‘He is the king, if it hadn’t been for Link Wray and ‘Rumble’, I would never have picked up a guitar.’ Though often marginalised throughout his career, Wray was like the night, an unquantifiable influence on successive generations of guitarists who sought to scorch rather than soothe. In November 2005, Bob Dylan was just about to step out on stage at the Royal Hall Albert, when he learned that Link had struck his final chord. In tribute to the great man, Dylan commenced his set with ‘Rumble.’

Der Wechsel der Jahreszeiten und auch der Wechsel des Lebens mit seinen Stimmungen und Gefühlen stehen hinter den Klängen des Projekts »XII«, mit dem Deutsche Grammophon neue Werke von innovativen und kreativen Musikern der Gegenwart präsentiert.

This unique set brings together a treasure trove of R&B rarities enshrined by the $3,000 Lookin' For My Baby', recorded by The Nightriders in 1959 for Juggy Murray's Sue imprint.
Murray had co-founded Sue Records two years earlier with fellow New Yorker Bobby Robinson whose Fire label provides us with the equally compelling Keep A'Calling' by Paul Perryman (side 1, track 1), a snip at only $300!
The set bursts into life with Vernon Harrell's hot dance ticket Slick Chick', currently commanding a cool $400 on its original Lescay label. Northern Soul fans will be interested to know that Harrell co-wrote Seven Days Too Long' with J R Bailey (aka Chuck Wood) and Sweet Sweet Lovin'' for The Platters. 
Mike Robinson ( Lula') also has a tenuous Northern Soul connection, he was originally in Bobby Thomas' Vibranaires before joining the Orioles alongside the legendary Sonny Til. 
BOTH Earl King's make the playlist: Earl Connelly' with his hard Every Whicha Kinda Way' and the New Orleans native Earl King with Darling Honey Angel Child', an early prototype of the standard Come On'.
Look out too for rare soul sweetheart Baby Washington, Medicine Man'.
A Collection to Treasure...