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Recorded in a couple of days back in 2010, but twelve years in the making,
these outstanding recordings are the Hot Club’s tribute to their foremost
influence and inspiration, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.
During a tour of the UK, the trio took time out to hole up in Specific Sound at
Proper Records’ London HQ at the time, have Paul Riley set up the mics and hit
record!
The idea was to capture the jubilant energy and fine musicianship as if the
band was playing at a dance or concert.
This is the way that Western Swing was meant to be played and heard. This is
what would make Bob holler

The duo from North of England (Silverdale) is finally back with their 3rd studio album ‘A Safe Place To Be’. ‘A Safe Place To Be’ comes as the most personal and up-close album from the band.

It’s an album the two of them have been working on, on and off for 2 years, and they and it has been through so much in that time.
The creative aspect of this album (shown in the artwork, videos, and physical formats) is a huge part of this album. The detailed model village where everything was captured, is based on the band’s memories old and new. It’s set in the village (Silverdale) where they both grew up and each song holds a special place in that model village for the two of them. It itself is the band’s ‘Safe Place To Be’, their memories, their hometown, and the songs of this album all in one place. It’s a journey they’d like to take their fans and listeners onto and hopefully, they can find or return to their own ‘safe place to be’.

On the fringe of the indie Rust Belt scene since the 1990s,
Moviola has quietly forged a low-key career of high-quality
recorded output over twenty-five years, issuing ten (!) records
and countless 7-inch singles (including splits with Cobra Verde,
Hiss Golden Messenger, Handsome Family and many others).
In this artistic continuum, the band has evolved from everything
from 4-track fuzz to hi-fi country soul. Today, the band steps
forward with Broken Rainbows, its strongest collection of songs
to date, written, recorded, and mixed inside the group’s HQ in
Columbus.
Jake Housh started Moviola in 1993 as a student at “The”
Ohio State University as a noisy, fuzzed out lo-fi noisemakers.
Over the years, the band has morphed into a unique DIY
music and art-making collective with five distinct singers and
songwriters, recalling the creatively democratic lineage of The
Mekons, The Band, Pink Floyd, many others. Moviola is Jake
Housh, Ted Hattemer (Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments),
Scotty Tabachnick, Greg Bonnell, and Jerry Dannemiller.
Broken Rainbows is a milestone release, showcasing a band
newly energized and assured in its artistry, and supportive of its
members’ songcraft. The eleven-song album hovers over a plot
of ground that’s optimistic in its despair. Album topics range
from the personal to the political, showcasing each member’s
unique songwriting within an overall cohesive band aesthetic.
“Moviola was one of those groups I met early on back in the day
that showed me how to do it. Broken Rainbows is a highlight—
pastoral thumpers, fuzzy indie radness, hooks to spare, pretty
much all the good stuff. Feels like a glorious drive from one
disparate end of Ohio to another. I love this band.”
—Eric Johnson (Fruit Bats)

In 1988, on a break from his band the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards released his first ever solo album, Talk Is Cheap. This universally respected debut is an eleven track masterclass in everything that's good about rock 'n roll and features guest appearances from an all-star cast including Sarah Dash, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, the Memphis Horns, Patti Sciafia and Mick Taylor.

Remastered from the original tapes by Richards' collaborator, Steve Jordan, the album's joyous swagger is re-energised and permeates through each and every song.

Talk Is Cheap sounds as good today as it did thirty years ago; in Keith's words: 'As fresh as the day it was made.

Freestyle Records will release Dan Berkson's debut LP, Dialogues, on September 17th on LP & digital.

Following a move to London and an immersion in the city's deep house scene, Dan Berkson's subsequent rediscovery of his earliest musical foundations and the drawing of inspiration from London's buzzing contemporary jazz scene would lead to Dialogues - an accomplished and rewarding body of work pulled together during his final days in London before relocation to California.

"It was inevitable that Dan Berkson would make a jazz album like Dialogues: joyful, danceable, entertaining, driven by the pleasure principle, and filled with virtuosity. It represents Berkson's experiences in London, where jazz is a living, breathing, dancing scene. It's his love letter to the city, bristling with British talent such as bassist Andrea di Biase (Heidi Vogell, Maria Chiara Argiro, Bruno Heinen) and drummer Jon Scott (Kairos 4Tet, Sons Of Kemet, Mulatu Astatke) and recorded in his final days in the city before relocating to California. It's also rich with history: the musical journey that brought him to this point covers almost 40 years and 4,000 miles.

Berkson received lessons from Chicago boogie-woogie veteran Erwin Helfer - who in turn had learned alongside foundational legends such as Mahalia Jackson and Glover Compton. In 2001 he came to the UK, throwing himself into the deep house scene of East London, his duo with James What signing to Steve Bug's legendary Poker Flat.

But eventually he felt that he'd achieved what he could in the house format. Rediscovering the piano and discovering that jazz provided him the opportunity to keep learning, he enrolled in Trinity College in South London just as South London's jazz scene was exploding into the public consciousness.

Dialogues is a jazz album, not an electronic one – but all the groove-based influences, from the rootsy blues and ragtime of his youth, through the funk he played at college and the house he imbibed in London can be heard, as can his love of the studio as an instrument and mixdowns that suit a club soundsystem. Detroit dons Theo Parrish and Moodymann are every bit as important to this record as Charlie Haden, Carla Bley, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Giuffre, and Herbie Hancock. There's 50s and 60s cool modernism (just listen to the elegant ripples of "Sketches"), there's 70s funk fusion ("Unity" kicks things off with a spring in its step), and of course there's the pumping blues heart of "Live Bait". Above all else, though, it's a personal document: a life of music and collaboration crystalised in a magical, transitional moment. Where Dan goes next musically is as uncertain as anything in these times... but this one record tells you everything you need to know about where he's been."

Toolroom founder and Grammy-nominated producer Mark Knight announces his new album Untold Business: 13-track collection of vocal house music which aims to inject a much-needed dose of meaning and longevity into the world of dance music.

Mark Knight has gone back to his roots on his new album Untold Business, reprising the sounds and records that made him the artist he is today. Diving through his extensive collection of classic Funk, House, Soul and Disco records from the 1970s and 80s has provided the bedrock for the album, which is an homage to the soulful, vocal-led house music that Mark first fell in love with in the 90s.

Step forward Mark Knight with a collection of meticulously crafted, positive, life-affirming records with a focus on real instrumentation and properly crafted songs that will stand the test of time. Untold Business is the antithesis of the functional, cookie-cutter dance music that has become increasingly ubiquitous over the years, and it sounds absolutely glorious.

Lead single ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Alright’ features vocals from Beverley Knight as well as the London Community Gospel Choir, who together bring a powerful message of positivity, solidarity and hope: themes that echo throughout the rest of the album.

“I wanted to write a song of hope as we come out of this incredibly tough time. I feel that musicians and producers have a responsibility to provide the soundtrack to people’s lives, and with this glimmer of hope on the horizon, I wanted this song to be a moment of positivity for the future ahead.” Mark Knight

From the string section, to the 14-piece London Community Gospel Choir, to the incomparably brilliant Beverley Knight on lead vocals – Mark worked with some incredible musicians on the single: an approach that informs his approach for the entire album. Untold Business features further collaborations with the likes of Shingai (Noisettes), Michael Gray, Robert Owens and many more.

In addition to the 10 new tracks recorded especially for the album, Untold Business also includes three of Mark’s singles from 2020, including one of the biggest releases of his career to date. All 4 Love was a collaboration with Rene Amesz and Tasty Lopez which became firmly lodged on the Radio 1 A list for six weeks with worldwide success following soon after. Picking up more than 10 million streams on Spotify it was without doubt one of the biggest house records of the year. Also included here are ‘If It’s Love’ - a joyous celebration of a soulful house sound that came to prominence in the 90s – and ‘Tonight’, which took inspiration from the brisk, looping, filtered house music of the early 00s.

Mal Waldron's first tribute to Billie Holiday, titled Left Alone, was recorded in 1959, mere months before the singer's death. He returned to salute the legendary vocalist on several occasions since then, with this recording likely being his final tribute, recorded less than a year before his own death. Waldron, who worked with Holiday during her last years, is intimately familiar with her takes of the six standards heard on this disc, along with her own "Lady Sings the Blues." Archie Shepp's often gritty tenor sax is reminiscent of the texture of Holiday's voice, yet he perfectly complements Waldron's lush piano. They also pack a punch with their stark performance of "Left Alone" (Shepp's occasional reed squeaks seem deliberate, as if to imitate breaks in her voice). Waldron also recites Holiday's lyrics set to his composition at the conclusion of the LP. Shepp switches to soprano sax for an emotional take of "Everything Happens to Me" and "I Only Have Eyes for You," with the latter song sounding as if the unheard singer is being ignored by her love interest. Shepp's "Blues for 52nd Street" is both sassy and swinging. This instrumental salute to Billie Holiday is one of the best albums ever to honour her memory. by Ken Dryden/AMG

After spending 6 years on a shitty pop-punk train, and releasing tons of records, THE VAPIDS bunkered down and emerged with CHARM SCHOOL DROPOUTS. A giant kick in the ass to everything that was going on at the time. Originally released on CD in 2001, SKR pressed the first (terrible looking) vinyl version in 2008, and now, a proper and sonically ferocious repress in 2020!

No less than 12 months later arrives ‘Deep Blue View’ – not so much of a follow-up, as a mini-flipside moving the Jazz from AM to PM, between city and sea.
“I originally had AM Jazz down as walking around some New York backstreet at 4am, smoking in a fedora, looking for crimes to solve but it now ends as night begins,” reveals Al, of his latest tale’s gradual evolution. “Deep Blue View is the night-time album now… like losing yourself deeper in the fog, or disappearing in the sea… would someone, or some 'thing' come to save you or would they , or it , come along for the ride?”
Usually by now, Daveyhulme’s own could-be John Barry would have left distractions of success for suburban side-projects and writing with his fellow Mancunian musicians, but AM Jazz left unfinished business - and, with 50 or so session recordings leaving a litter of sonic debris strewn about the cutting room floor, one major clean-up. Deep Blue View is 6 brand new tracks crafted from its reconstructed and revived remnants, unfurling like Sinatra’s Wee Small Hours to reinforce the strangely beautiful atmosphere of Al’s now revered repertoire. “I had the urge to create something new and started playing around with different EPs and pseudonyms but when I sequenced these tracks, I was really happy how smoothly they flowed; it just needed an opener. I quickly wrote ‘Deep Blue View’ and it fell into place. It’s great, so I carried on, knowing it was time to save the best stuff for myself,” Al grins.
Just as AM Jazz was created in the spirit of his earlier working style on debut album Tower of Love, Deep Blue View fuses Al’s love of finding the ‘right’ in the odd, weird, back-to-front and everything in between, with the hi-fi meets lo-fi sounds of his crate-digging curiosity and empathy for TV themes and movie soundtracks. Guided by melody, his home-based sorcery of working with analog, tape and field recordings opposed to the lure of studio mechanics allowed his inner subconscious to tap at the door and reveal itself in new musical forms. “In the studio it’s tempting to turn everything up loud but I’ve got bad tinnitus and don’t want to write anything else in a Beatles style. I have done all that now… at home I have a computer, a microphone and just go crazy and lose myself staring at the screen. Then suddenly loads of music is written.”
Setting his inner autopilot to flight mode, ‘Peppergone’ adds to the tracks’ nocturnal narrative and appears reborn after a last-minute culling from AM Jazz’s initial tracklist. Like a beautifully romantic ode to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, it is a fitting tribute to dearly departed best friend 'Batfinks', written in the middle of a tough night. “I have no idea why or how the song came about because I was so upset to do anything, let alone record any music. But there you go. Somehow I did and it’s a really special thing. I know he would have dug me using his chords; growing up we’d both try to create the perfect chord sequence. This is his idea of that. I hope he doesn’t think it’s shit,” Al jests.
Also revived from AM Jazz’s archive is the simmering groove of ‘Night Talk Late Street’ and instrumental ‘Star Six Seven’, whilst ‘Have Another Cigar’ weaves its own semi-autobiographical fairy-tale with lyrics written and sung by long-time pal and former housemate Aidan Smith. Transformed from backing track into a cool morsel of story pop, it recalls the drunken joy of when the pair would make recordings together between singing the Everly Brothers at full volume. “I’m sure it’s about not wanting the musical party to stop and having to get on with real life,” Al says.
‘String Beat’ meanwhile, soars like a beautiful Bond theme with the shimmer of Lee Hazlewood holidaying in Palm Springs, alongside perhaps, the waltzing string-like synthonies of some long-lost rhythm and blues orchestra of Davyhulme (whose real-life origins reside with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra), introduced to him by Super Furry Animals’ Cian Ciaran. “I’ve never created anything this moody before and have always threatened to do something John Barry-esque with some slightly dark and spooky musical changes.”

With a storyteller's eye and sly sense of humor that echoes not only his "honorary uncle" Del Reeves, but Tom T. Hall and Roger Miller, The Kernal delves deep into everything from family dysfunction to road trips to matters of the heart. The music, which he describes with a laugh as "diet country," embodies the spirit of that genre without any of the slavishness or self-seriousness of much modern Americana. Rolling Stone has called his style "sweetly subversive, intellectual and addictive," while Lo-Down said "the songs have an air of nostalgia but they sound far from old - modern, yet timeless. " From the joyous, southern-fried grooves of "U Do U" and "Pistol in the Pillow" through the revved-up rockabilly stomp of "Green Green Sky" and the cinematic travelogue of "Wrong Turn to Tupelo" to "The Fight Song," a sparkling '80s style duet with Caitlin Rose, it's a nine-song sequence that showcases The Kernal's warm, confidential voice while managing to make profound connections with the head, heart and feet. "When people ask me what kind of music I play, I say, 'It's like sixteen-foot trailer country music,'" he says. "You pull up a hay trailer in a field and you barbecue a bunch of stuff and there are people setting off fireworks and there are kids running around in diapers with ice cream running down their bellies. You get up there, turn it up and have a good time. I just love seeing people have a good time, and I think that's why I like country music. The groove of it. It speaks to people's legs. They loosen up and enjoy themselves and it's no big deal. I love that. And I love to be able to contribute to that."

David Wrench and Evangeline Ling - aka audiobooks - threw
absolutely everything at their 2018 debut album, ‘Now! (in a
minute)’, a hectic, head-spinning blast of freewheeling freak-pop
genius. On its follow-up, ‘Astro Tough’, via Heavenly
Recordings, they’ve somehow found a way to ramp things up
even further, concentrating their chaotic energy and inherent
weirdness into a record that’s bigger, deeper and more powerful
han even its predecessor.
“The first album was a photograph of the beginnings of the
project, recorded without any overall plan,” Wrench explains.
“‘Astro Tough’ is more scripted, but a script that still allowed for
ots of improvised scenes. There was more intention behind the
songs, and a lot more refining. We weren’t precious about
everything being spontaneous and a first take, like on the first
record, even though some of it ended up being that. We made a
ot more material for this record, but chose the tracks that best
worked together as an album.”
Multi-instrumentalist and super-producer Wrench is as
comfortable unleashing monolithic psychedelic wig-outs and
heavy dub-driven monsters as he is crafting irresistible synthpop bangers. Writer, vocalist and visual artist Ling is as
chameleonic as she is charismatic, able to jump from
detachment to rawness to aggression to tenderness to hilarity to
oe-curling awkwardness, sometimes within the same song.
Though the record is a product of increased refinement, the pair
were physically together only in bursts, cramming sessions
around their respectively hectic calendars. “We had much less
time together than on the first record, but every time I did see
David that thirst and the ability to come up with something was
there. I think this record is better than the first record, and I
think we’re dying to make more. We’re going to try and better it
again,” says Ling.
Eco-mix colour vinyl. Black vinyl format (HVNLP183) will be
made available once coloured vinyl is sold out.

After retracing the path of Lou Reed, with her tribute show
and album ‘Run Run Run’, Emily Loizeau returns in full
force, influenced by growing concerns for the challenges
of climate change and migration, and everything we’ve
been through these past years.

Writing in the thick of lockdown and recording during
quarantine in England with John Parish (producer and
musician for PJ Harvey), Loizeau had dreamt of
collaborating and creating an album in the land of her
roots long before it came to pass.

Both guitarist Csaba Palotaï, by Loizeau’s side these last
ten years, and pianist / bassist Boris Boublil, a new
addition to the team, had worked with Parish before on a
variety of musical projects. Sacha Toorop, on the drums,
also had experience recording with Parish for Dominique
A’s ‘Auguri’ album.

“Our work on the demos with Boris, Csaba and Sacha; the
songwriting for this album; the sound I was trying to
render: everything seemed to point to a return to the
United Kingdom and to Parish’s creative force, which is
raw, sensitive and powerful all at once," Loizeau says.
"The time was right!"

The album is a diary - personal fieldnotes from a
lockdown, with an eye turned towards the outer world. A
call, a deep and powerful desire to seek out the core of our
fears and anger and find there what binds each soul to the
other.

‘Icare’ is the story of the infinite within us, our desires and
our shortcomings, how we reach for beauty, for harmony,
our creative frustrations and the Promethean madness
that may precipitate our fall.

Impressions cast from lyric and rhythm – desire in movement, now articulated and set forth. Meaning arises between attention and action. In darkness what is it?

Air is breath, like light through crystal; it’s truth and sacred geometry. A version like ancient stone - the sample shows in layers, solid time. Compressed life. Pages packed together and seen from the edge, razor sharp and two dimensional. We are the salt we become, our children and ancestors. All at once, being forever; a verse, then volume and tome.

But we slow, dragging like ploughs tilling clay. The physical is a language like memory – translated into real. Turn from backwards to parallel, watch it reduce; remember downstream. The rock, earth and salt, our real reconfigured.

Type peels away, turning to sand in the wash. Disordering disorder - now still. Translation becomes everything, set sequence and entropy. Whole, to node, to nothing, and all. Not new, just another.

Vector Trancer’s journey continues; re-emerging into the central stream, deep dub glows and woven polyrhythm conjure vital knowledge for protection and expression. Viridis Mantra and outer canopy steam, we’re brought tense rhythm experiments and biospheric reverb – see further excursions in atmos and shades from Touch, Fax, Geometrik, or Ed Handley on a dark one.

Recorded in 2005 as the follow up to ‘Flowers’, ‘Siberia’ is the tenth studio album by Liverpudlian post-punk
legends Echo and the Bunnymen.
• ‘Siberia’ was produced by Hugh Jones (who had previously produced the band’s 1981 classic ‘Heaven Up Here’)
and was written by founding Bunnymen members Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant. 25 years on from their debut
album ‘Crocodiles’, ‘Siberia’ still retains the classic Bunnymen sound whilst breaking new ground. Highlights
include stand-out guitar playing by Sergeant on tracks such as ‘Parthenon Drive’ and "Of a Life’ and the timeless
vocal charms of McCulloch on ‘Stormy Weather’ and ‘What If We Are?’.
• Long out of print, Demon Records is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of ‘Siberia’, pressed on two 180g
translucent vinyl and house in a gatefold sleeve.

ayne/Wayne County's most audacious album is also possibly among the most important albums of its age. Released in 1979 just as the new wave was teetering on the brink of some kind of bold step forward, Things Your Mother Never Told You was one of the sudden shoves which sent it sprawling into its destiny. Electro-punk starts here. Producer David Cunningham takes only a portion of the credit; in years to come he would lead the Flying Lizards into the realm of heavily stylized electronica. But County's songs match his ambitions all the way, from the harsh, grating soundscapes behind "C3"'s muttered imprecations to the soft-spoken paranoia of "Waiting for the Marines," and onto "Berlin," the song that put into words everything David Bowie (among others) tried to convey about that city via image and insinuation. It's not all electro-art smarts, of course. "Boy With the Stolen Face" and the pouting, punishing "Wonder Woman" are archetypal Electric Chairs - a reminder of how, at the band's very best, they could run the Rolling Stones close in the swaggering rock & roller stakes - and the murder mystery "Wall City Girl" could have fallen off a forgotten volume of Nuggets or Pebbles. The title track, meanwhile, doesn't simply seethe with all the promise -- sexual, social, and societal -- which made County the superstar (s)he so very nearly was, it also lets listeners know why no one has ever truly snatched that crown away.

Kansas City trio BUMMER mirror the absurdity of
modern life with a balance of dark humour, dejected
nihilism and righteous fury. Their music spills out in
torrents of skull-crushing riffs, gargantuan bass and
caustic howls delivered at breakneck speed with
gleeful abandon.
Following their split 7” with long-time friends The Body,
which teased a more focused, lean sound for the
group, ‘Dead Horse’ hones BUMMER’s auditory
desolation and scathing gaze to laser-point precision.
In eleven short vignettes the quartet lay waste to
everything in their path, penning a vitriolic overview of
life in the American Midwest, a surprising blend of onestar Trip Advisor review and insightful cultural critique.
“BUMMER puts the ‘power’ in power trio as they play
a raw and primal form of aggressive music that splits
the difference between ‘Bleach’-era Nirvana and the
early, primitive thrash of Slayer. It’s aggressive and inyour-face, but doesn’t skimp on melody, making their
songs memorable. So, there is power and a bit of
precision to what they do. A whole lot of volume, too.” -
New Noise Magazine
CD in gatefold packaging with lyrics.
LP packaged with download code.
Available to independent retailers on grey / blue vinyl.
Artwork by painter Joan Lalucat Vehil.

To say 'In Heaven' is about conquering grief would be oversimplifying everything Tim Showalter has achieved on the eighth studio album from Strand of Oaks. A stunning, hopeful reflection on love, loss, and enlightenment, 'In Heaven' is a triumph in music making, and a preeminent addition to the Strand of Oaks discography.
'In Heaven' was recorded in October 2020 with Kevin Ratterman at Invisible Creature in Los Angeles. Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket) is featured on guitar through the record, while James Iha (The Smashing Pumpkins) contributed vocals and guitar for "Easter". Bo Koster (MMJ, Roger Waters) provided keyboards, Cedric LeMoyne (Alanis Morrissette, Remy Zero) bass, Scott Moore violin, and Ratterman monstrous drums. Showalter also played a lot of synth on this record, which he hasn't done since 2014's HEAL. With clean sounds, Jeff Lynne-esque acoustics, and sophisticated songwriting, he approached 'In Heaven' in a more poised and pop-leaning way than his past releases.
Pairing smart, imaginative lyrics and striking arrangements, tracks like “Carbon” and its magnificent violin stand out, as does “Sister Saturn” with its funky, sinuous groove, and the sublime “Horses at Night,” which features one of Showalter’s most exquisite melodies to date. There’s also a discernible current running through In Heaven of homage to some notable losses in music—John Prine, Jeff Buckley, and Jimi Hendrix all play a part—for In Heaven is about moving beyond sadness or anger to a state of gratitude that we ever had these people to begin with. And while every song provides some clue to Showalter’s personal heaven, the jubilant “Jimi and Stan” says it all, wherein Hendrix and his beloved cat Stan are hanging out, going to shows, and looking at stars together.

John Prine’s Grammy Award-winning album, Fair & Square, is available on vinyl for the first time in over sixteen years. There are three special double LPs: standard black, opaque green and a limited amount of “Irish Edition”—green and orange vinyl with a matte jacket featuring embossed lettering.
Originally released in 2005, Fair & Square won Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 48th Grammy Awards and achieved the fastest rise to number one in the history of Americana radio. The record marked Prine’s first album in nine years, following 1995’s Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings. Rolling Stone declared Fair & Square “an excellent set of songs full of rootsy warmth and unpretentious wit,” while The Washington Post praised its relatability: “this low-key masterpiece arrives not just as a reminder of Prine’s cleverness and mischievous wit but also as a confirmation of his deeply human values. These are values rooted in the enduring mystery and majesty of everyday, ordinary lives.”
Prine is a four-time Grammy winner and Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, a seven-time Americana Music Award-winner, a PEN New England Lyrics Award recipient and member of both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Since his debut in 1971, Prine released over 18 albums and has had his songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Carly Simon, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Zac Brown Band and many others, while drawing effusive praise from Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Roger Waters, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and more.

DEATH, the heavy metal institution founded, realized, and helmed by legendary guitarist Chuck Schuldiner, released the Individual Thought Patterns album (the follow-up to their watershed Human release) in 1993. Expectations were high following Human, but Schuldiner proved once again that he could rise to any occasion. Individual Thought Patterns further honed the forward-thinking and progressive direction birthed with Human, and included “The Philosopher”; arguably the best song to ever come from the world of extreme metal and to this date the most widely-recognized.

LIMITED BLUE WITH BLACK SPLATTER VINYL +DL CODE

Gestural Abstractions is the third full-length album from post-shoegaze duo Winterlight. After an admittedly difficult gestation for their second album The Longest Sleep Through the Darkest Days, this new album developed organically and somewhat swiftly from the moment the pandemic lock-down was initiated.

This mandatory seclusion allowed Tim Ingham to sit with his guitar or at the piano and play uninhibited. With daughter and bassist Bel returning home from university, her presence galvanized the creative process, which resulted in the duo writing their first song together: In Solitude. It is a song in which there is very much an equal display of Tim and Bel's influences and songwriting styles.
Gestural Abstractions is a focused dynamic collection of works teeming with expressive confi- dence; An upliftingly shimmering shoegaze leaning post-rock gem.

Stuart Evans, aka Sordid Sound System is one of the founders of The Green Door Studio, a not for profit, analogue recording studio in Glasgow which emerged from an increasing disillusionment with the modern ways of music production. His sound holds outsider qualities, being everything but generic and predictable, mixing dub with movie soundtracks in the tradition of Carpenter and Italian likes.

On this 7” released on Höga Nord Rekords, SSS deconstructs and rebuilds music in an imaginative style, pairing tribe-ritual “back to ape”-beats with synthesized cosmic harmonies. In a way, we are enjoying straight up dub here but this record is also a display of the vivid and creative Glasgow scene centred round “The Green door studio” and record labels like “Invisible Ink” where krautrock and 80’s/90’s electronic music is part of the foundation. Boundless joy for every girl and boy!

The Allergies are back with a new album – Rejoice! And the feel-good funk, hip-hop swagger, and dusty vintage loops, is everything you need right now.

Across the 13 tracks, producers Rackabeat and DJ Moneyshot dig deep into their souls, as well as their record collections, serving up a day-glo blast of super positive sampledelia that'll have you smiling from ear to ear.

Built from scratch during lockdown, each song offers up a world to lose yourself in, free from any and all dark clouds. It's their Promised Land, and everyone is welcome to bask in the sunshine.

Along for the ride is LA rap legend, Andy Cooper Ugly Duckling, soul sensation Marietta Smith, dance music heavyweight, Dynamite MC, and the unmistakable voice of hip-hop royalty, Lyrics Born.

Everyone got the memo, as career-best performances roll one after the other. And each singer, rapper, scratcher, and sampler, unites through the power of good good music.

Highlights on the LP include the swamp blues meets half-time hip-hop monster, 'Lean On You'. The Latin funk bomb, 'Move On Baby'. Soul rollers 'New Thing' and 'Are You Ready', and the show-stopping and stirring Moby-ish beat banger, 'Promised Land'.

Almost a concept album, the idea of fresh starts, strange new worlds, loss, solidarity, freedom, and the communities we find in clubs, festivals, and making and sharing music, began to come out, organically, through the song-writing process.

"In a weird way the album wrote itself," says DJ Moneyshot. "We'd be lost in our own little world of hypnotic loops as days passed, and samples jumped out of the shelves, and just started to make sense as they got chopped and layered into these tracks."

Early support for the singles, and response from fans across the globe, suggests that this, their fifth album, really could be something special. Come on in…

House anthem Slo Moshun “Bells Of NY” is one of the most iconic gems in the Network catalogue and gets a timely reissue.

The lovingly remastered 12” includes the epic nearly 9 minutes long “House To House Mix” which started the fuss in the first place, plus the much loved by DJs “Xen Mantra Beefy Bells Mix” which like fine wine seems to have matured with age.

It’s almost impossible to explain the hype that exploded when the first copies of this landed in 1993. Network pressed a limited run of the first copies on the Dansa label with
bogus New York producer credits in an attempt to create mystique.

The combination of that relentless uptempo house piano and the break where everythIng slows down underneath a hip hop sample hypnotic proved irresistible, and saturation radio plays from KISS in London turned the track into an instant anthem right away.

The the boss of a rival label boasted they had sourced the track and paid “a fortune” to licence it for UK release. He was making it up as a stampede by labels to locate and release the track began.

Network sensed an opportunity to create major mischief and create even more of a buzz. New York garage producer and Network ally Andrew Komis was enlisted and happily donned the bogus ID of a new kid on the block NYC producer to do phone interviews with UK dance music publications.

His pretend story that Bells Of NY was his homage to the UK House scene laced with Big Apple Hip-Hop was eagerly printed by the magazines.

They were left red faced when the truth emerged that former Nexus 21 and Altern 8 member Mark Archer and his new music making partner Danny Taurus had in fact come up with the gem in homely Staffordshire and not glamorous New York for Network.

All the PR spin in the World would not matter a not if the record didn’t live up to the hype.

Bells Of N.Y did and still does.
It gave Network a first chart hit on their six6 label and more importantly is an all time House Music Classic.

On The Corner Records are proud to reveal the second instalment of their newly forged ‘Double Drop’ series, pairing together two EP’s from two different members of the OTC family, delivering a cosmically twinned, action packed slab of wax.

Label boss Pete OtC developed this series to introduce record players around the world to new artists coming through On The Corner’s region of the solar system. With Vinyl manufacture in pandemic pandemonium and questionable environmental impacts of the efficacy of Disco 12”s it seemed like a prime time to get laying the OTC family’s sonic landscapes onto highly collectible long playing EP pairings, with no represses and no compromise on the artwork, each side sporting a 20+ minute audio journey.

On the A-Side, and hot on the heels of the ‘Dub Protection & The Sportswear Mystics’ cassette, The Diabolical Liberties present their ‘Birds Of Paradise’ EP. This EP all but sold-out and follows the dynamite success of the Duo’s debut long player “High Protection & The Sportswear Mystics” and it’s follow-up hype cassette of dubbed out versions (as well as a series of self-released and long sold-out white
labels that included collaborations with Nyasha (a moniker of Nubya Garcia) and a super limited On The Corner 10” dubplate.)

TOTAL turns 21 this year, and Kompakt’s venerable compilation series couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious coming-of-age collection. If TOTAL 20 was consolidation against the odds, the Kompakt crew producing for a dreamt-of dancefloor in an uncertain future, then TOTAL 21 feels abuzz and alive with possibilities. Significantly, it’s the first TOTAL in some time that’s streamlined down to a single disc; this makes TOTAL 21 even punchier than usual, a joyous, reflective, and always thrilling 75-minute audio scan of the world according to Kompakt.

As with every instalment of TOTAL, there’s a deft balancing here of Kompakt regulars and new blood. Of the latter, there’s a first appearance by KOLLMORGEN, remixed by PATRICE BÄUMEL into an astral torch song; Amsterdam’s NICKY ELISABETH, offering up ROMAN FLÜGEL’s pulsating, arpeggiated remix of “Celeste”; and CAPTAIN MUSTACHE swoops down into view, PLAY PAUL in tow, with the dream-like electro lift-off that is “Everything”. JONATHAN KASPAR also drops by with a new track, “Von Draussen”, a stealthy and lethal floor-hugger with prowling bass.

Elsewhere, there’s the lead track to MICHAEL MAYER’s astonishing recent EP, “Brainwave Technology”, which not-so-gently spears the tech-futurist babble of AI, transhumanism and posthumanism, soundtracked by one of Mayer’s typically lush, glimmering soundscapes. JOHN TEJADA reaches back to the heyday of glitch and dub techno with the gorgeous “Spectral Progressions”, while the brothers VOIGT & VOIGT, on “Nicht Mein Job”, seem reinvigorated by the interwoven patterns and funky minimalism of the Profan days. Not to be outdone, JÜRGEN PAAPE kicks TOTAL 21 with “La Guittara Romantica”, a chiming and lilting lullaby for woozy late-night reflection.

Throughout, it feels as though Kompakt are taking a moment to both breathe in the dust of the past and look forward to a bright future. Perhaps that’s why, on “Fasson”, SASCHA FUNKE seems so confident, with pinprick melodies bouncing around a hall of audio mirrors, or why THE BIONAUT returns with “Blue Sky Motor Lodge”, a song so moistly melancholy, so enduringly lovely, it’ll make you weep tears of joy. ROBAG WRUHME gets a little delirious on the ticking, twisting “No”, and then GUI BORATTO mops everything up with the bubbling, bumping glam-stomp “Wake Up”.

That’s not all – spring for the digital and/or vinyl edition and you’ll get a new cut, “Happy”, from MICHAEL MAYER, and MARC ROMBOY & C.A.R.’s “I Am A Dancer”. But however you choose to play it, now TOTAL’s turned 21, it’s your duty to throw it the celebration to end all celebrations. Let the party begin, and don’t forget to bring a party favor…

incl. 2 posters

Five years in the making, label boss Emmanuel aimed to deliver what for him was the very best selection of artists and people he could ever imagine in one single roof. We have repacked and redesigned our very first compilation after the great first run. 20 artists, 5 records, 1 box.

The Box is a meticulous work of one entire year, every artist of the 20 selected delivered something that connects deeply with the label and the reason why they are part of it. The study goes beyond when artists get different colors of palettes and a different surface to paint, their known soundscapes come with something freer than the usual approach that they did in their singles.

This is a pinnacle for a label that always placed music in front of everything but kept the design and the aesthetics on a top-level each release, each year. ARTS V.

one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden is the name of the second album by Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. On one hand, it’s a collection of walking-paced, cathartic pop/folk songs, on the other it’s a

book of heart-twisting, rear-view stories of city life. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her debut what we say in private with surprising arrangements and new perspectives. The album is set in Montreal and each song exists as a dot on a personal history map of the city where Levy grew up. Due on September 24th from Saddle Creek and Next Door Records in Canada, the physical record will be released alongside a map of song locations and a songbook with chords and lyrics, inspired by Levy’s love of real book standards.

Levy penned and demoed this batch of songs in an artist residency in Banff, Alberta. After sorting and editing she made her way to Los Angeles to record with producer/engineer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) who had previously worked on 2020’s woman, here E.P. After a long walk to the studio each morning, Levy spent her session days diving into the arrangements, playfully letting everything fall in place with complete trust for her collaborators. She notes “Marshall’s expertise and experience with drumming and songwriting was the perfect blend for what the songs needed. He was able to support me in a harmonic, lyrical, and rhythmic sense.” Other contributors that left a notable fingerprint on the soundscape include drummer Tasy Hudson, guitarist Harrison Whitford (of Phoebe Bridgers band), and mixing engineer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett). Many songs came together with a blend of studio tracks and elements from the pre-recorded demos.

The resulting sounds range from classic, soft-rock beauty to intimate finger-picked folk passages and night-drive art-pop. And the textures are frequently surprising due to the collage of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds that tastefully decorate the album without ever clouding the heart-center of the song. Tracks like “damn” and “oranges” feel timeless with their AM gold groove and 70’s studio sheen, while songs like “my love 4 u is real '', “salt spring” and “can’t stop me from dying” sound completely modern in their use of electronics, sound effects, and pitched vocals. In their subtle, sonic variety, all of the album’s songs flow together with ease into one big, romantic dream for Levy’s silken vocals to float above.

Inspired by personal experience, daydreams, and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, the lyrics of one hand... center storytelling on a bigger scale. The experience and emotions of a year are communicated through Levy’s vignettes of city life. Her prose is centered in its setting of the St Denis area of Montreal as it draws up memories from local haunts like Fameux, La Rockette, and Quai des Brumes in rearview reverie. Levy creates a balance through the album’s year by splitting her songs evenly into four seasons. Opening track “damn”, as a song of winter, kicks off the narrative with the events of a cursed New Year’s Eve party. Immediately this timeline becomes jumbled into a Proustian haziness. The listener is then led through the heat-stricken, brain fog of Summer song, “can’t stop me from dying” and then into the autumnal romanticism of “oranges” before returning back to New Year’s on “partner,” which Levy describes as “a woozy late-night taxi blues reflection on moments when timing can be so right, yet so wrong…”. These collected stories as a whole chart the unavoidable growth that comes with experience. “All is forgiven in time. All is forgotten in time. And when the music stopped, I heard an answer” (from “my love 4 u is real”).

Whether to consider these songs fiction or memoir remains unknown. On one hand, Levy says “Why would I try to write a story that’s not my own? What good would that do?” but on the other hand, she is quick to note the ways that language fails to describe reality, and how difficult this makes it to tell an actually true story. The poetic misuse of the word “sewing” in the album’s title serves as a nod to the limitations words provide. What does it mean to sew the garden? And how can we appreciate its carefully knit blooms when the rearview mirror is so full of car exhaust?

one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden is the name of the second album by Canadian songwriter Alexandra Levy, publicly known by the moniker Ada Lea. On one hand, it’s a collection of walking-paced, cathartic pop/folk songs, on the other it’s a

book of heart-twisting, rear-view stories of city life. Ada Lea has followed up the creative, indie-rock songcraft of her debut what we say in private with surprising arrangements and new perspectives. The album is set in Montreal and each song exists as a dot on a personal history map of the city where Levy grew up. Due on September 24th from Saddle Creek and Next Door Records in Canada, the physical record will be released alongside a map of song locations and a songbook with chords and lyrics, inspired by Levy’s love of real book standards.

Levy penned and demoed this batch of songs in an artist residency in Banff, Alberta. After sorting and editing she made her way to Los Angeles to record with producer/engineer Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers) who had previously worked on 2020’s woman, here E.P. After a long walk to the studio each morning, Levy spent her session days diving into the arrangements, playfully letting everything fall in place with complete trust for her collaborators. She notes “Marshall’s expertise and experience with drumming and songwriting was the perfect blend for what the songs needed. He was able to support me in a harmonic, lyrical, and rhythmic sense.” Other contributors that left a notable fingerprint on the soundscape include drummer Tasy Hudson, guitarist Harrison Whitford (of Phoebe Bridgers band), and mixing engineer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett). Many songs came together with a blend of studio tracks and elements from the pre-recorded demos.

The resulting sounds range from classic, soft-rock beauty to intimate finger-picked folk passages and night-drive art-pop. And the textures are frequently surprising due to the collage of lo-fi and hi-fi sounds that tastefully decorate the album without ever clouding the heart-center of the song. Tracks like “damn” and “oranges” feel timeless with their AM gold groove and 70’s studio sheen, while songs like “my love 4 u is real '', “salt spring” and “can’t stop me from dying” sound completely modern in their use of electronics, sound effects, and pitched vocals. In their subtle, sonic variety, all of the album’s songs flow together with ease into one big, romantic dream for Levy’s silken vocals to float above.

Inspired by personal experience, daydreams, and Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, the lyrics of one hand... center storytelling on a bigger scale. The experience and emotions of a year are communicated through Levy’s vignettes of city life. Her prose is centered in its setting of the St Denis area of Montreal as it draws up memories from local haunts like Fameux, La Rockette, and Quai des Brumes in rearview reverie. Levy creates a balance through the album’s year by splitting her songs evenly into four seasons. Opening track “damn”, as a song of winter, kicks off the narrative with the events of a cursed New Year’s Eve party. Immediately this timeline becomes jumbled into a Proustian haziness. The listener is then led through the heat-stricken, brain fog of Summer song, “can’t stop me from dying” and then into the autumnal romanticism of “oranges” before returning back to New Year’s on “partner,” which Levy describes as “a woozy late-night taxi blues reflection on moments when timing can be so right, yet so wrong…”. These collected stories as a whole chart the unavoidable growth that comes with experience. “All is forgiven in time. All is forgotten in time. And when the music stopped, I heard an answer” (from “my love 4 u is real”).

Whether to consider these songs fiction or memoir remains unknown. On one hand, Levy says “Why would I try to write a story that’s not my own? What good would that do?” but on the other hand, she is quick to note the ways that language fails to describe reality, and how difficult this makes it to tell an actually true story. The poetic misuse of the word “sewing” in the album’s title serves as a nod to the limitations words provide. What does it mean to sew the garden? And how can we appreciate its carefully knit blooms when the rearview mirror is so full of car exhaust?

It’s one thing to take the drone rock of your debut album in an entirely new direction but quite another when the result is an ambitious 30 track three-part album.  

But that’s what London collective Moderate Rebels have done on their biggest project to date, the opus ‘If You See Something That Doesn’t Look Right’. Fearless in their refusal to be pigeonholed, they touch on everything from driving rhythmic repetition, discordant guitar fuzz and hazy psychedelia, to late 60s-indebted folk and lilting melodic hooks, via twinkling piano ballads, drum machine rigidity and playful synth pop.

‘If You See Something That Doesn’t Look Right’ will be released in three ten track parts in 2021.

The album touches on the progressive works of Phil Spector, Fripp & Eno and Syd Barrett, the transcendental pop of Spiritualized, St Etienne and Stereolab, and the wry humour of 80s Pet Shop Boys. But it comes stamped with the group’s own inimitable identity.

For Wilkes-Barre’s One Step Closer - the concept of home is complicated. “I’ve never felt so distant in my life,” vocalist Ryan Savitski screams on the lead single “Pringle Street,” a place in his hometown that binds the album’s lyrics to both a precise location and feeling of displacement. On their first ever full-length album and debut for Run For Cover This Place You Know, the band offers a modern comingof-age story about growing up and grasping both the known and the unknown.

One Step Closer started in 2016 and in their short five years, Savitski, along with drummer Tommy Norton, bassist Brian Talipan and guitarists Ross Thompson & Grady Allen have come into their own as a modern hardcore mainstay. Their 2019 EP ‘From Me To You’ countered existing trends in exchange for a more melodic sound in the vein of bands like Turning Point and Title Fight. They went on to open for Have Heart at the band’s now legendary reunion shows that summer, and joined bands like Knuckle Puck and Turnstile on tour before pausing to write their debut album.

This Place You Know grapples with the weight of themes like isolation, depression, and loss - all amplified by driving bass lines, emphatic guitar riffs and unwavering drumming performed by the band. From the first moments of album opener “I Feel So,” the stakes are made clear by the anchoring lyric ‘this place you know, sometimes it hides the truth and lets people go” - One Step Closer is attempting to resolve the unresolvable anguish of moving on from everything you once knew.

- Debut full-length & first RFC release for One Step Closer
- Previous touring & show history with Have Heart, Turnstile, Knucklepuck, Fiddlehead
- US & international touring to follow album release in fall
- Music videos for “Pringle Street,” “Chrysanthemum” & “Time Spent, Too Long”

Keeping the faith and facing the future, Times Are Changing puts a full stop on pandemic talk for unstoppable indie-pop four-piece Lottery Winners, as the four-piece release the fizzing anthem into a newly optimistic world. The first single from their newly


announced, upcoming, second studio album, Something To Leave The House For, the band has penned the soundtrack to hugging old friends, the rebirth of live music and those summer festivals just around the around the corner.

For front man and songwriter, Thom Rylance, working through the darkness of Covid meant surviving Covid, tying the threads of an unravelling mental state into a new body of work now emerging as bright, arms-aloft bursts of positivity. His famed ‘note to self’, the emotive An Open Letter To Creatives and the band’s sensational, viral collaboration with Nickelback with the Rock Star Sea Shanty were just two moments of levity in a time dominated by the dark clouds forming overhead. Now he and the band are moving on and moving up.

“If something so bleak and harrowing can hit us all, totally out of the blue, and change our lives, then by definition that must mean that something beautiful can too.” says bassist and vocalist, Katie Lloyd (bass and vocals) as Lottery Winners start the next leg of their adventure with Times Are Changing, reflective, ready to party and no less ambitious than before.

Their mammoth, 14-track new album, Something To Leave The House For, follows their 2020, self-titled UK Album Chart Top 30 debut with a Fri 24 September 2021 release via Modern Sky UK, promises to document the tumultuous times and the path back from despair. In true Lottery Winners style, every truth and life lesson is dressed in glass-half-full, wildly optimistic, radio-friendly pop, hip-swinging beats and bittersweet tenderness.

The Men’s hugely influential album Leave Home came out during an exciting time in New York City. DIY lofts and shitty bars littered downtown Manhattan and North Brooklyn. The Acheron had just opened its doors. Kill Your Idols had broken up. Toxic State Records was just getting started with Crazy Spirit, Dawn of Humans, Hank Wood and Perdition EP’s. The city was alive with punk and noise and filth. And right at that time, The Men were the show to be at.

Every gig was dripping with sweat. Hallways and sidewalks were packed between sets. Chaos reigned in the pit. The Men hit like a bag of hard cement, a hardcore band with a familiar sound but with an aura of absolute chaos and intensity, like everything was on the brink of going off the rails at every moment of their set, a downhill freight train with no brakes. During these shows one’s focus could shoot back and forth between the intimidatingly angry-eyed, bald-headed Chris Hansell (who went on to front Warthog) and the long haired hippie punks Mark Perro, Nick Chiericozzi and Rich Samis, that made up the surrounding band.

Just one of the many juxtapositions the band embraced. If The Men were a chapter in Michael Azzerad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, the early EP’s and cassettes would obviously be Minor Threat and Black Flag, while Leave Home would likely be… Sonic Youth. It was just before they made the full jump into each record being a smorgasbord of underground genres, from dream pop to folk;

before they had tracks called “Country Song,” for example. But it was a preview of what was to come. Leave Home was a pivot from pure hardcore punk (some might even call it mysterious guy hardcore), as the band got lost in the groove in a way one couldn’t on a straight up punk record. That groove was so strong on “If You Leave…,” “(),” and “Bataille,” while they spaced out on “Shitting With The Shaw,” and stayed as aggro as ever on “LADOCH.” But of course, Leave Home had a re-recording of their hardest track to date, “Think,” making it clear that they were still the moshers we all had come to know and love. If The Men raised their flag as an important New York punk band with Immaculada, they started waving it in the freakiest way with Leave Home.There is no doubt that Leave Home was one of the most influential records of the last decade.

You can hear their mark everywhere from Ty Segal and The Oh Sees to Milk Music and Hank Wood. Few bands have traversed as many genres as The Men and even fewer have done it so well. It is a testament to the band’s undying authenticity and adventurism that the record sounds as timeless and urgent now as it did when it blew the doors of New York punk off its hinges ten years ago, leaving a giant hole for bands of all kinds to come racing through.

Ancient Africa represents Nat Birchall’s official follow-up to last year’s universally acclaimed Mysticism of Sound.

Nat once again plays all the instruments here, tenor and soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, bass, drums and percussion. But this time around the Korg synth is replaced by piano as

Nat wanted to utilise a more “classic” Jazz sound to express his musical visions. He has also arranged the songs for multiple horns, with melodies and harmonies played by up to five different instruments to achieve a fuller and often glorious sound.

An exception to this is Mirror Mind, a ‘duet’ featuring tenor saxophone and piano, hence the title.

With most of his compositions Nat tends to come up with titles depending on the thoughts or images the music manifests within him as he listens back to the recording.

The title track conjures up images of an African sunrise, the horns perhaps invoking the sun as it begins to illuminate the land which was the origin of the human story on Earth.

“Africa is the root of everything, and is the source of civilization, art, music, you name it.”

Paladins is so titled for the African heroes of the past and the present, in all walks of life, social, political, the arts etc.

“Anyone who fights against oppression, whether it be through activism or art, not only in Africa but throughout the whole diaspora, is a Paladin in my book.”



Song for John Blanke is named for the African trumpeter who played in the court of Henry VIII. The horn line sounding

a little like a fanfare, but in a lower register than the Tudor trumpets might have played for the court of the king!

Malidoma is named in honour of the African writer Malidoma Patrice Some. His excellent book ‘Of Water and The Spirit’ is a deeply

moving and illuminating narrative of his life’s journey. From his abduction by Jesuit priests at an early age from his village in Burkina Faso to

his being reunited with his people and subsequent assignment to spread his people’s ancient knowledge to the Western world.

The final song, Ancestral Dance, is a musical reminder to both celebrate life as and when the occasion demands, but also to not forget where we came from, as individuals and as a species.

From the UK, South Africa, France and Australia, Inner Shift Music presents their Collective Continents II release, with Mark Hand, Platform 001, G-Prod and Leo Gunn. The Ep starts with Take Some Chances which has Jazz influenced pads, chords and changes with an addictive hook, by Mark Hand who has recent releases on Soul Print and Apollo. Next comes The Last Letter by newcomer Platform 001 - a deep house track with some funk style house chords and an inspiring spoken word poem, which holds the listener's attention throughout.

On the B side we have the Gaugain brothers G-Prod (who have releases on R&S and Nightflight), with their track Horizon which has a more techy feel with its moody pads, melodic lead and subtle but driving bassline.AAThe EP is complete with a whole other level of head-nodding deepness and warmth, with Aheeoo which you would come to expect from Leo Gunn, who is noted for his multiple appearances on Deep Explorer.

Deep, jazzy, techy, warm and diverse, this EP is everything there is to love about deep house.

"To mark the 50th anniversary of the 1970 concept double album, Jesus Christ Superstar, it has today been announced that a variety of special anniversary edition albums will be released on September 17th. This landmark release, which includes full cooperation from the creators Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, features an array of exclusive demos, commentaries, interviews and much more.
The special anniversary editions are a celebration of the original 1970 concept double album and its continued success spanning 50 years. With the new editions all having been re-mastered at Abbey Road, fans have a great selection to choose from.

The anticipation is there in Elizabeth Stokes’ solo guitar riff under the opening lines of “I’m Not Getting Excited”: a frenetic, driving force daring a packed Auckland Town Hall to do exactly the opposite of what the track title suggests.

As the opener of The Beths’ Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 expands to include the full band, the crowd screeches and bellows. It’s a collective exhalation, in one of the few countries where live music is still possible.

The album title, and film of the same name, deliberately include the date and location, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce says. “That’s the sensational part of what we actually did.” In a mid-pandemic world, playing to a heaving, enraptured home crowd feels miraculous.

In March 2020, everything seemed on track for another huge year for The Beths. Home after an 18-month northern hemisphere tour, they had just finished recording sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers and were primed for more extensive touring. But within days, New Zealand’s lockdown split the band between three separate houses. All touring was cancelled.

“It was existentially bad,” Stokes says. As well as worrying about economic survival, they lost something crucial to the band’s identity: live performance. “It's a huge part of how we see ourselves... What does it mean, if we can't play live?”

The band found an outlet through live-streaming, returning to the do-it-yourself mentality of their early days to connect with a global audience. The album and film have their genesis in that urge to share the now-rare experience of a live show, as widely as possible.

The fuzzy-round-the-edges live-streams pointed the way aesthetically. Native birds, wonkily crafted by the band from tissue paper and wire, festoon the venue’s cavernous ceiling while house plants soften and disguise the imposing pipes of an organ. The presence of the film crew isn’t disguised: much of the camerawork is handheld; full of fast zooms and pans.

With much of the material still fresh, the band was less focused on re-invention than playing “a good, fast rock show”, Pearce says. The tempo is up on crowd favourites “Whatever” and “Future Me Hates Me” (released as a live single on its third anniversary) as both band and audience feed off the mutual energy in the room.

Certain songs have taken on special resonance post-Covid. Pearce has found “Out Of Sight”, a tender rumination on long-distance relationships, hits particularly hard with live audiences.

Album closer “River Run” visibly brings Stokes to tears as a mix of achievement and relief kicks in. “You can finally relax at that point … You play the last note, breathe out a sigh and look up - and you’re in a giant room full of people happy and smiling.”