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Sealed original copies of the Horace Tapscott's 'The Tapscott Sessions' solo piano series, released on Nimbus West Records ‎from 1982 to 1984. Horace Tapscott has been one of the top "unknown" jazz pianists in the Los Angeles area since the 1960s, recording far too few sessions which has led to him being continually overlooked by jazz fans from outside L.A. During 1982-84 he recorded seven solo piano albums for the tiny Nimbus label, playing unaccompanied solos, his improvisations consist of deeply emotional exploration of his music. Tapscott has always had a strikingly original sound that, despite occasional hints at other pianists, is quite distinctive, falling between advanced hard bop and the avant-garde. Totally Essential.




Jazz, with its many iterations and forms, has always been a music on the move - its own changes and evolutions mirroring a flux in the perception of what is and was. This is all too evident when addressing its avant-garde realisations, particularly those rising across the 1960s and 70s - free and spiritual - musics which were both of their moment and beyond them - of a specific people, culture, social reality, philosophy, and political position, while transcending each. These radical sounds have rarely received the wide understanding, recognition, and appreciation in their own time. Thankfully, we have have hindsight. Historical Avant-garde jazz, springing from African American communities and taking seed in every corner of the globe, is increasingly celebrated for the seminal music is was and remains, but there’s still plenty of work to be done, especially when addressing the long standing rift in the United States which favours the east coast over the west.

Brainstory is back with a pairing of tunes that the world's top sommelier couldn't hold a candle to. This gorgeous two-sider features the two vocal songs from their otherwise instrumental forthcoming EP, Ripe. On Side A, Seasons showcase Brainstory's sunny California soul and mixes in a touch of Roy Ayers east coast energy. The result is an infectious and uplifting tune penned at the beginning of quarantine with the hope of finding a brightside in the trouble the world is facing. Sibe B, Bye Bye, is another stone cold B side ballad from the group that gave us Dead End. The Darling Dears of Rialto have recorded what is sure to become another staple in sweet soul sets around the globe. But, in true Brainstory fashion this tune is uniquely theirs. Elements of psych, hip hop and jazz distance it from their soul-loving peers.

When I think I refused the first one, what an unconsciousness! "It was in these terms that Serge Gainsbourg expressed, in 1977, his joy at seeing his talents as a composer finally associated with the adventures of Emmanuelle, embodied on screen by the sensual Sylvia Kristel. For a long time, he bit his fingers for declining the offer to compose the soundtrack for the first part of the erotic saga. In France, only one 45 rpm appeared on Philips in 1977, regrouping the song "Goodbye Emmanuelle" and the instrumental "Emmanuelle and the Sea". However, Goodbye Emmanuelle's soundtrack was released in October 1977 as a nine-track LP reserved for the Asian market (Japan and Hong Kong). Enriched with two bonus tracks, this extremely rare LP is finally available in the UK. Reviews in London Macadam, and L’Echo Ads London Macadam and L’Echo

Audiophile 180g Vinyl-Reissue des Debütalbums "Private Revolution" (1986) der britischen Rockband World Party, die der walisische Sänger und Musiker Karl Wallinger 1985 nach seinem Austritt bei The Waterboys gründete. Mit den Singles "Ship Of Fools", "All Come True" und "Private Revolution".

The ultimate pressings of the Beach Boys discography from Analogue Productions!
Original mono mix produced by Brian Wilson
One of 10 titles featuring 33 1/3 mono and stereo remastered editions: Surfin' USA, Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Vol. 2, All Summer Long, Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys Party!, Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile
Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, most from the original master tapes or best sources available
Lacquer plating by Gary Salstrom and 180-gram vinyl pressing by Quality Record Pressings!

"It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water…I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life. I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard that album." – Paul McCartney

"All of us, Ginger (Baker), Jack (Bruce), and I consider Pet Sounds to be one of the greatest pop LPs to ever be released. It encompasses everything that's ever knocked me out and rolled it all into one." – Eric Clapton

"For those in search of an original mono in pursuit of sonic quality, search no more. This Analogue Productions pressing is now the definitive pressing and the one we chose to feature at our Classic Album Sundays events to honour the 50th anniversary of Pet Sounds, an album that helped change the course of pop music." — Colleen ‘Cosmo' Murphy, Classic Album Sundays

"Overall though, this new reissue is the best sounding of all. The bottom end has more weight and solidity and the instrumental separation and front to back layering is nothing short of astonishing compared to the pleasing mush offered up by other editions. ... Pet Sounds belongs in every serious rock record collection and if you're going to have but one version this one from Analogue Productions is the one to have." — Music = 11/11; Sound = 11/11 - Michael Fremer, AnalogPlanet Read the whole review here.

"What I can say is that Kevin Gray has been able to extract every last bit of information from whatever tape is in the box, and present it in a way that is pleasing and natural to the ear. ... in my opinion, the Analogue Productions pressings are now THE definitive issue of each Beach Boys album, and will be my reference copies until if and when something better comes along — which may be never." — Lee Dempsey, Endless Summer Quarterly, Summer 2015 Edition

To meet the standards of Analogue Productions, our Beach Boys album reissues had a mission to achieve: Present the band's music the way that Brian Wilson — famed co-founder, songwriter and arranger — intended. Mono mixes created under Wilson’s supervision were how the surf rockin’ California crew rose to fame! And we’ve got ‘em!

For the early part of the Beach Boys' career, all of their singles were mixed and mastered and released only in the mono format — they didn't release a single in stereo until 1968. In those days, hits were made on AM radio in mono. And the mono of those times worked well for Wilson, who suffers from partial deafness. In fact, for their first 13 albums, Wilson originally turned in all the final mixed Beach Boy albums to Capitol Records only in mono. The mono mixes were where Wilson paid intense attention, and the dedication paid off!

We’ve taken 10 of the most classic, best-sounding Beach Boy titles ever and restored them to their mono glory!

But there’s no disputing that the close harmonies and one-of-a-kind rhythms of hits like “Surfer Girl,” “In My Room,” “Little Deuce Coupe” and more lend themselves naturally to stereo. So we’ve got your 2-channel needs covered with prime stereo mix versions as well.

Mastered by Kevin Gray, most from the original master tapes, and plated and pressed by Quality Record Pressings, the finest LP pressing facility in the world, these are awesome recordings to experience. And the look of each album befits its sonic superiority! Presented in "old school" Stoughton tip-on jackets, these time honoured favourites shine brighter than the originals!

Pet Sounds is famous for its use of multiple layers of unorthodox instrumentation as well as other cutting edge audio techniques for its time. It's considered the best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound.

Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance (add in some general statements about loss of innocence and modern-day confusion as well). The spiritual quality of the material is enhanced by some of the most gorgeous upper-register male vocals (especially by Brian and Carl Wilson) ever heard on a rock record. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Caroline No," and "Sloop John B" (the last of which wasn't originally intended to go on the album) are the well-known hits, but equally worthy are such cuts as "You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk," "I Know There's an Answer," and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." It's often said that this is more of a Brian Wilson album than a Beach Boys recording (session musicians played most of the parts), but it should be noted that the harmonies are pure Beach Boys (and some of their best).

VH-1 named Pet Sounds as the No. 3 album in the Top 100 Albums in Rock 'n' Roll History, as judged in a poll of musicians, executives and journalists. It's been ranked No. 1 in several music magazines' lists of the greatest albums of all time, including NME, The Times and Mojo Magazine. It was ranked No. 2 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

Limited

LOVE IS A STREAM :: 10 year anniversary edition. Remastered by Stephan Mathieu. Design by Farbod Kokabi.

Jefre Cantu on Guitar & Electronics. With Lisa McGee, John Twells, and Maxwell August Croy on vocals. Orginally released October, 2010 on TYPE records, UK.

From the original press release: As a member of San Francisco legends Tarentel and Type’s premier astral travellers The Alps, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is hardly a new addition to the label, so it’s hard to believe that ‘Love Is A Stream’ is his first Type solo album. Previously releasing on Arbor, Spekk and his own Root Strata imprint, this latest album marks his journey into the beautifully cacophonous world of dream pop. Shoegaze music has been much maligned in recent years, probably due to its rebirth and subsequent explosion of popularity (which gave rise to hundreds of young bands aping the over twenty-year-old sound). However it was only a fragment of the genre that these bands attempted to re-create, and on ‘Love Is A Stream’ Cantu, instead of focusing on tired weeping melancholy ballads, focuses solely on expansive, almost noise-ridden hopefulness. This is the kind of noise we fell in love with when My Bloody Valentine blew our ear drums performing ‘Loveless’, or the kind of harmonic excess we heard on hundredth listen to Catherine Wheel’s ‘Ferment’, but taken into deeper, more abstract realms. ‘Love Is A Stream’ is dedicated to love itself, and the dreamy, shimmering blown-out textures might at first sound like white noise before they ultimately give way to blissful harmony and hidden melody. Underneath the grit and growl are hidden guitar parts, synthesizer drones and even vocals (provided by Lisa McGee, John Twells and Maxwell August Croy) that succeed in swelling the dense, tape-saturated songs to heady new heights and belie any influences they might have. On each listen the mind strips away another layer of dust and bones to reveal haunting and deeply moving beauty. The world might be spiralling into despair, but Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has brought us a record that isn’t afraid to share the love. All that’s left to do is drown in it.

The “nighters” at Wigan Casino initially ran from 2am-8am every Saturday night/Sunday morning. From midnight onwards, crowds would gather outside and spill over onto the road blocking the local traffic. As attendances grew the crowds became a problem, particularly to the local constabulary, and on the eve of the Casino’s 1st Anniversary – with a genuine threat of closure looming – a momentous decision was made. Gerry Marshall, the Casino’s owner, somewhat reluctantly decided to open the club’s adjoining cabaret lounge, known as “Mr M’s” (named after the man himself).

That night Northern Soul history was made. It was the start of an era, the birth of the “club within a club” and, as it proved to be, a temple to fans of Northern Soul “oldies”. Eventually at 3am the black double doors – which separated Mr M’s from the upstairs balcony of the main ballroom – burst open, and a sea of soulies hit the dancefloor for the very first time to the banging sound of “Hey Sah-Lo-Ney” by Mickey Lee Lane, spun by DJ Alan Cain and featured here in all of its remastered glory (side 1, trk 1).

Such was the incredible response to that first night in Mr M’s in 1974 that a petition did the rounds gaining over a thousand signatures demanding that it should continue every week! What had intended to be an emergency one-off event had unintentionally ended up being the longest, most popular “temporary” oldies venue EVER!

M’s, as it was more affectionately known, soon became the No.1 oldies venue in the 70s. It was unashamedly “100%” oldies and “100mph” dance tunes!!! It was like an engine room churning out vinyl memories week in, week out and the atmosphere and sounds are captured here!

Limited double gatefold LP version (16 tracks) of the exciting new release from hip hop legends A Tribe Called Quest.

A Tribe Called Quest - Q-Tip, Phife Dawg (who passed away on March 22nd, 2016), Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Jarobi White - the groundbreaking 90's group that forever transformed the urban music landscape reunited on their first and last studio album together in eighteen years. Guests on ''We got it from Here...Thank You 4 Your Service''

Revive the epic Arcade adventure with the Metal Slug 3 soundtrack on 2LP (Red/White splatters) and CD with booklets on both, officially licensed by SNK.

Following Samurai Shodown 2019, Wayô Records and SNK Corporation once again join forces to deliver an international edition of Metal Slug 3's original soundtrack, in honor of the game's 20 anniversary! Originally exclusive to Japan, this album is now available in this double vinyl edition.

With its distinctive "rock orchestra" sound, the music for SNK's series turned out to be as essential as the games themselves thanks to its uniqueness and incredible energy. Composed by the legendary SNK Sound Team, this soundtrack has a lot in common with the other titles in the series, but stands as the densest and most inspired. Filled with biting humor and explosive action, Metal Slug 3 is often regarded by fans as the best game in the series!

- Two vinyl discs, 33 rpm

- First Print Edition translucent red with white splatters

- Complete soundtrack newly remastered for the vinyl format

- Gatefold with a central wide illustration and two individual illustrated sleeves for each disc

- New comments from the game team

- Officially licensed by SNK

LIMITED TRANSPARENT RED WITH BLACK SWIRLS DOUBLE VINYL

Nine years after it’s initial release, 'The Ripper At The Heaven's Gates Of Dark' is back. The original black vinyl and CD editions sold out pretty quick, and have been a constant source of repress requests ever since. So, at Makoto’s personal request here it is. And I agree with him that it’s definitely the best AMT studio album from that short lived four piece line up.

With the exception of the album's opener 'Chinese Flying Saucer' and it's unashamedly obvious musical references to Led Zeppelin II (hello 1969!) the rest of the album locks into a much more laid-back groove than on recent AMT releases. This dynamic shift is best displayed on the 22 minute jam, 'Shine On You Crazy Dynamite' and also the album's closer 'Electric Death Mantra'. The band opt for less frantic explosions of electric guitar overload and fuzz, replacing those elements with a more epic, blissed-out and at times brooding Japanese psychedelia, with more emphasis on acoustic guitars, sitar, organ, synthesiser and at times, really trippy vocals (most prevalent on 'Back Door Man Of Ghost Rails Inn'), recalling the twisted psychedelics of early Pink Floyd. Yet still, their sound remains so expansive that it is easy to become totally immersed in this album.

Epic in proportions, cloaked in a cosmic haze and shimmering in a synth utopia. 'The Ripper At Heaven's Gates Of Dark' maintains AMT's status as masters of out-of-this-world music and reveals their darker side of the moon.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. at the time of this recording were :Tsuyama Atsushi : monster bass, voice, soprano sax, cimpo flute, soprano recorder, acoustic guitar, cosmic joker Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, dancin'king Shimura Koji : drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto : electric guitar, electric bouzouki, sitar, organ, percussion, electronics, speed guru

Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, Japan Produced & engineered by Kawabata Makoto
Digital mastered by Yoshida Tatsuya.

Today, The Wytches announce their third album Three Mile Ditch. The album features the recently released single “Cowboy” which marked their return after four years away and to celebrate the announcement they share new single “A Love You’ll Never Know”. The track is accompanied by a music video by Mark Breed and he explains,

“The music video format was a long process. Making the set was incredibly fun with Kristian crafting most of the miniatures.I then had to film the green screen band performance within the set before recording the edited version onto my VHS camera. Finally I shot the finished edit inside the view finder.”

The album recorded with Luke Oldfield at Tile House Studios will be released on their own label Cable Code Records on Friday 2nd October.

“This is the first thing that I've ever been proud of for longer than a week,” says The Wytches frontman Kristian Bell of the band’s latest album Three Mile Ditch. This sense of vigour and enthusiasm coming from Bell about the band’s third album is matched by its contents. The album is an explosive collection of 10 tracks that weaves seamlessly between gut-wobbling monster riffs, swampy rock, slick surf, and finely tuned songcraft. It’s also the result of a band coming back from the brink of collapse.

The band’s early trajectory was a steep and speedy one as they quickly established themselves as one of the country’s most exciting and pulverising new bands. Major festival slots stacked up at places such as Glastonbury, SXSW, Reading and Leeds, and British Summertime with the Strokes. As did the tours across the US with METZ, traversing Europe with Fat White Family and Death Grips. They garnered support from BBC 6 Music, DIY, MOJO, NME and more. However, when the ascent to the stratosphere is moving at such a speed, there’s a risk of burning out and imploding, and the band came close to this.

They were on the rocks for a while, unsure of themselves and if the band should - or even could - go on. “I had it in my head that this kind of thing only really happens once and to try it again might be a big waste of time,” Bell reflects. However, despite the difficulties, the powerful pull of the band was too great to ignore.

“We had an album’s worth of songs that was some of our best material. The mission became to complete a Wytches album rather than get The Wytches back on the touring circuit. This album helped us make the decision to try it again.”

LIMITED TRANSPARENT BLUE WITH BLACK SWIRLS DOUBLE VINYL HOUSED IN A NEWLY REDESIGNED FULL COLOUR GATEFOLD SLEEVE/JACKET.

Nine years after it’s initial release, 'The Ripper At The Heaven's Gates Of Dark' is back. The original black vinyl and CD editions sold out pretty quick, and have been a constant source of repress requests ever since. So, at Makoto’s personal request here it is. And I agree with him that it’s definitely the best AMT studio album from that short lived four piece line up.

With the exception of the album's opener 'Chinese Flying Saucer' and it's unashamedly obvious musical references to Led Zeppelin II (hello 1969!) the rest of the album locks into a much more laid-back groove than on recent AMT releases. This dynamic shift is best displayed on the 22 minute jam, 'Shine On You Crazy Dynamite' and also the album's closer 'Electric Death Mantra'. The band opt for less frantic explosions of electric guitar overload and fuzz, replacing those elements with a more epic, blissed-out and at times brooding Japanese psychedelia, with more emphasis on acoustic guitars, sitar, organ, synthesiser and at times, really trippy vocals (most prevalent on 'Back Door Man Of Ghost Rails Inn'), recalling the twisted psychedelics of early Pink Floyd. Yet still, their sound remains so expansive that it is easy to become totally immersed in this album.

Epic in proportions, cloaked in a cosmic haze and shimmering in a synth utopia. 'The Ripper At Heaven's Gates Of Dark' maintains AMT's status as masters of out-of-this-world music and reveals their darker side of the moon.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. at the time of this recording were :Tsuyama Atsushi : monster bass, voice, soprano sax, cimpo flute, soprano recorder, acoustic guitar, cosmic joker Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, dancin'king Shimura Koji : drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto : electric guitar, electric bouzouki, sitar, organ, percussion, electronics, speed guru

Recorded at Acid Mothers Temple, Japan Produced & engineered by Kawabata Makoto
Digital mastered by Yoshida Tatsuya.

Architects are back with their ninth studio album "For Those That Wish To Exist". The self-produced record is the follow-up to the band's critically acclaimed 2018 release Holy Hell, which took a look at the pain and despair that lay at the heart of losing a brother, band mate and best friend in Tom Searle, the group's founding guitarist. The band have confirmed their ascent to the very upper echelons of British heavy music. Few bands, of this modern era or any other, can match the quintet's ability to blend uncompromising heaviness with razor-sharp melodic musicianship. A versatile metal group based out of Brighton, England, Architects employ a lethal combination of breakdown-heavy guitars, melodic vocals and symphonic-ambient post-metal. That sonic delivery is conducted from a platform built on veganism and environmental activism.

Crepuscule presents La Jungle, a brand new electropop single by acclaimed Belgian DJ, producer and remixer Buscemi, featuring with vocal and lyrics by compelling newcomer Lauvé.

The vinyl single is a limited edition edition of 500 copies in orange vinyl, with cover photography by Laura Levasseur.

Since 2001 Buscemi (real name Dirk Swartenbroekx) has released eight solo long players as well as mix albums for Blue Note and Ministry of Sound, and also film and television soundtracks.

Remix clients include Melody Gardot, Isabelle Antena, Calexico, Hooverphonic and Nicola Conte. Seaside, his 2003 collaboration with Isabelle Antena from signature album Camino Real, remains a perennial favourite around the globe. His eighth studio album, Luna Misteriosa, was issued by Crepuscule in 2018.

Hard-edged retrofuturist synthpop track La Jungle heralds forthcoming album Mistral du Sud (TWI 1250) and features guest vocals from Lauvé, formerly of Brussels electronic pop duo P.A.N.T.H.E.R. “La Jungle is about a man-eater,” explains Lauvé (pronounced lo-vay). “She seduces her prey, little by little – then either devours him, or drives him away. It’s a song that allows a woman to have control over the game of seduction. It’s empowering, I hope – but with a hint of recklessness too.”

Raleigh Ritchie releases his highly anticipated second album, ANDY. A twelve track project, Andy sees Bristol born and London-hailing Raleigh holding a colossal magnifying glass to himself. Over the production, for the most part, from long-term collaborator Chris Loco but also, the incredibly talented GRADES on “Time In A Tree” and “27 Club”, Raleigh leaves no stone unturned. The album is a creation of heartbreakingly honest songs that seamlessly fuses sweeping soul and mellow R&B with forward-thinking electronica and gutsy orchestral moments. (Raleigh has become well known for working with the sensational Rosie Danvers and Wired Strings.) This is a truly powerful record, a long-awaited return that packs a poignant punch.

It has been four years since Raleigh aka Jacob Anderson, released his inaugural debut album You’re A Man Now Boy but fans have not been left wanting. When he wasn’t releasing music, performing at his sold out show at Shepherds Bush Empire, or alongside Stormzy in his iconic Glastonbury headline, featuring on Gang Signs & Prayer, Stormzy’s critically acclaimed debut, or acting as Grey Worm in the hit HBO series Game Of Thrones, he was and is “Andy”.

Digging deep through old and new, Basso captures arcane woodland fusion, serene electronic suites and wide eyed Balearic bliss on this first Growing Bin compilation.

This collection celebrates those precious records which land in your life on their own terms. Even the most advanced digger will admit that chance is the secret ingredient in any successful haul. Sure, it helps if you know where to look, but if you arrive a day early at that secluded second hand shop, or an hour late at the convention, you might miss out on a rare sight of sound. But there are still ways to skew the odds in your favour. Even in the most crowded urban environment, a solitary tree soon becomes a nest, and Basso's fostered an abundant garden in his Hamburg hometown. A decade on and the Growing Bin is a safe haven for those exquisite sounds crowded out of the mainstream, the rare birds with the most striking song.

'Coffee' comes right after cocoa in the bin's headquarter, though start your morning with One Tongue and be prepared for a different kind of day. A witch's brew spiced with a hint of Durian and the early bird, this 1990 composition could be the blueprint for the Teutonic trance dancers beloved by the Salon set. A more meditative magic flows through the A2, a smooth blend of fusion guitar, softly syncopated drums and counterpoint keys from one time art-rockers Inandout. This Growing Bin favourite from their '93-95' LP sounds right at home beside the majestic melodies and spheric bass of Matthias Raue's 'Brücke am schwarzen Fluss 2'. Taken from the soundtrack to a TV drama filmed in Mali, this digital homage to African rhythm shimmies in step with New Age dancers from Mkwaju Ensemble and Louis Crelier. The A-side ends with the unbridled optimism of Kosmische maverick Hardy Kukuk. The synthesist hit the studio with friends Karsten Raecke and Andreas Schneider in 86, coalescing crystalline electronics and gentle guitar into tender chord progressions suited for sun bathing beside the Sea of Tranquility.

The second side slinks into motion with the deep beauty and sincere spoken word of Frank Suchland's 'Schnee', a subtle body in a cocoon of reverb which takes Sade's 'I Never Thought I'd See The Day' to another level of placidness. Melancholic Germans Die Fische met in Cairo for the first time, and 'Conversation Of Everyday Lovers' could be the theme for that great city. Underpinned by primal percussion and a restrained groove, the track twists and turns between a trio of ineffable motifs, eternal combinations to the catacombs of Abusir. From there we go sublime, soaring skywards with a ten minute triumph from Hugh Mane. Balancing concentric sequences and space age synth riffs atop an irresistible breakbeat and bubbling bassline, the British producer finds a sensuous sweet-spot between fellow Growing Bin affiliates Krakatau and Singu.

Lucky are we who hear the Bin's sounds.
Patrick Ryder

Swing From The Sean DeLear is the new four song 12-inch by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds on In The Red Records. It celebrates a dreamlike bridge between life and memory. Recorded and mixed with Jim Waters (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth, etc.) at Waterworks Recording in Tucson AZ, the track “Sean DeLear” is a tribute to the late, magical, and ubiquitous Los Angeles underground institution named Sean DeLear. This rocking song uses the metaphor of those passed on as swinging from a chandelier, a festive image everyone hopes is true! Side two of this 12-inch is a fourteen-minute psych, Chicano-groove titled “He Walked In.” The text is based on a visceral fever dream Kid had about his friend and Gun Club bandmate Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who passed away in 1996. Leading the listener back to the theme of feelings sustained between life and memory, the song dreams on as the band spreads their monkey bird wings, featuring Mark Cis-neros on flute, and guest tambourine-queen Cesar Padilla—lost in music but found in sound. In such uncertain times, one thing is most certain—Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds will always bring the party...and the other world

“This lighthouse is under attack, and by morning we might all be dead!”
Demon Records presents the thrilling narrated TV soundtrack of this vintage four-part adventure at sea, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor.
A remote lighthouse in the early 1900s is the scene of this suspenseful adventure for the Doctor and Leela, when a light in the sky and a sudden dense fog are the preludes to a night of terror.
With a lighthouse keeper dead, Old Reuben fears the legendary Beast of Fang Rock has returned.
A shipwreck brings others in search of shelter, but nobody’s safety can be guaranteed. The Doctor must use all his ingenuity if he and Leela are to survive…
Presented across 2 x 140g vinyl discs in Rutan Blob green, this 1977 TV soundtrack is narrated by Louise Jameson, who plays Leela in the story. The supporting cast includes Colin Douglas, John Abbott, Alan Rowe, Sean Caffrey and Annette Woollett. Incidental music is composed by Dudley Simpson, and the familiar strains of the Doctor Who theme are courtesy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
The coloured vinyl LPs are presented in a fully illustrated gatefold sleeve showing cast and credits, and inner bags featuring complete episode billings.
Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dummedy-dum, Dum-dum…

Red Marbled Viny

Multi-genre industrial bass that's equally at home in the underground of Berlin and the low-end-leaning dancefloors of the US and UK. With 'Warp Crawler' on the exciting YUKU imprint, Chrizpy Chriz finds a mature groove in the bass spectrum that deviates between restrained and tearing at its own seams. A must for open-minded purveyors of exploratory electronica with teeth.

Born in Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland, singer/songwriter/guitarist Ricky Warwick was cut from the cloth of a mill workers’ jacket. Raised on a diet of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Thin Lizzy, Stiff Little Fingers, Motown and everything in between. Saving his money from a newspaper round and a little help from his father, Ricky got his first electric guitar at age 13. “That cheap electric guitar changed my life....it saved me, it was more than just notes on a fretboard, it was the deepest breath of life I ever experienced.“ explains Warwick.
At age 14 Ricky and his family relocated to Strathaven, Scotland. It was here that Warwick fully immersed himself in the sonic seas of Rock n Roll. Writing and practicing every free moment he wasn’t working on his father’s farm, Ricky got a call to join acclaimed U.K. Punk/Folk band New Model Army as rhythm guitarist on their 1987 ‘Ghost Of Cain‘ World Tour. Following New Model Army, Ricky went on to form The Almighty in Glasgow who enjoyed ten top forty singles and four top twenty albums in the U.K. during the late 80’s/early 90’s, touring worldwide with such iconic bands as The Ramones, Motorhead, Megadeth and Iron Maiden.
In 2002, after relocating back to Ireland, Ricky recorded his first solo album ‘Tattoos & Alibis‘ in Joe Elliott of Def Leppard’s studio in Dublin with Joe also handling production duties. It marked a shift in direction “I realized that I didn’t need to yell over a wall of sound to make my point...less is more, stripped back instrumentation could achieve the same goal just as effectively. I learned so much making that record, primarily about myself”. Warwick would go on to release two more solo albums between 2002 -2010 and tour globally opening for the likes of Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Bryan Adams and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In January 2010 Ricky received a call from his old friend Scott Gorham who was spearheading a reformation of Ireland’s favourite sons Thin Lizzy and wanted Ricky to front the new line up. ”I was shocked, terrified, excited and extremely humbled when I got that call. Phil Lynott was my hero and Thin Lizzy were the soundtrack of my life. I realized that I could never hope or even dare to try and stand in Phil’s shoes. All I could do was try and stand beside them and sing his songs with as much heart, soul and passion possible. In late 2012, with a necessity to write and perform new material, out of respect for the Thin Lizzy name, Black Star Riders were born. Warwick is the frontman and main songwriter for the band and 2013 saw the release of Black Star Riders acclaimed debut album


‘All Hell Breaks Loose‘.

Black Star Riders have now released four critically-acclaimed and commercially successful albums, the most recent being 2019’s ‘Another State Of Grace‘. They have achieved two U.K. top 15 albums and one U.K. top 10 album as well as mainstream radio play which includes claiming two “singles of the week” on BBC Radio 2.
Following 2016’s lauded ‘When Patsy Cline Was Crazy... And Guy Mitchell Sang The Blues’, Warwick is getting ready to unleash his 5th solo album in 2021. Titled ‘When Life Was Hard And Fast‘, it was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Keith Nelson (ex-Buckcherry), who also co-wrote the majority of the songs on the record with Warwick. “Keith Nelson and I share a passion for good, honest, rock ‘n’ soul. Making the album with Keith who shares a similar outlook and work ethic as myself was a no brainer ....also the fact that he has a killer collection of vintage guitars contributed greatly”
“I wanted to create an album that had the simplistic melodies of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers charged with the electric hedonistic fury of Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. Recording the album as live as possible with a full band was requisite to achieving the desired effect”. Xavier Muriel (Ex-Buckcherry) on drums and Robert Crane (Black Star Riders) on bass completed the core band and turned in stellar performances, giving the songs a real lease of life.
Also, once again, Warwick tapped some of his closest friends for guest appearances on the record, including Andy Taylor (Duran Duran & Power Station) Luke Morley (Thunder), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Dizzy Reed (Guns n Roses). Ricky also duets with his daughter Pepper on the song ‘Time Don’t Seem To Matter‘. “I can’t wait for people to hear this album and to hit the road touring it whether it’s with my band The Fighting Hearts or just myself and my acoustic - it will be amazing. I’m grateful that after 30 years of making records my appetite for writing and playing is the same as it was that day all those years ago when I got my first electric guitar”
For those intrigued by the album cover, it depicts a crash scene from the famous Ards TT Motor Car Race in County Down Northern Ireland. The race ran from 1928 until 1936 was watched by over 250,000 spectators annually. The embankment in the photograph that the spectators are on is actually a field belonging to Ricky’s Great Grandfather’s Farm, which he grew up on for the first fourteen years of his life.

Hunt & Gather’s debut vinyl release comes by way of Pezzner’s cryptic moniker “The Native Language”. Written as a quasi-homeless man living off the rich in the San Juan Islands who writes music once per year to suffice his own delusions.

Walking the streets in these damp, anxious days that all run together lately, I was approached by a man who would blend right into the neighborhood, layered in flannel and sweatshirts for sleeping.

Rough, but for his shoes. (Never cheap out on anything that separates you from the ground.) “Pezzner,” he called out, from a safe distance. “What did the mangrove say to the marauding hordes.” My soul left my body for a moment and my voice responded on its own. “Petrichor.”

He caught my eye, nodded, left a padded envelope on the ground and vanished. The envelope had passed through many hands, slipped into the bed of a ferry-bound truck, passed from one fellow traveler to another, stashed under the counters of anarchist bookstores, left tucked between books at Little Free Libraries. The greenish stains suggested that at one point it had been swum across a lake. Another DAT, contents encoded here unabridged, and a letter from someone who called himself The Sentinel.

The Vessel lived out his days on Shaw Island, under a canopy of trees that gets smaller and smaller every season. His condition the same, any electricity lit his brain on fire, could only bring himself to compose one day a year, only at night, out of sight. Until he met The Angel, an eccentric with means, who built for him a device.

A Faraday Cage to block all electromagnetic emissions. Burlap walls, for atmosphere. A system of pulleys and levers, wood and rope, all running into a box that sat outside. An entirely mechanical control surface. No electrons in here. The Vessel lit fires, watched the shadows dance, closed his eyes and disappeared into the motion for hours at a time. The Sentinel came every morning to change the tapes. The Angel watched and pondered, his plans unknown.

The box sat sealed, bare except for another set of ideograms, scratched in day by day over time. Inside, the usual bedroom-producer shit. Outside, the ideograms told a story, passed from the Vessel to the Sentinel and drawn by the Angel, of a man who became another creature. Alert to the lowest frequencies, feeling music deep in the soil below their feet. Music that brings messages, from distant friends, warning of new creatures and the danger they brought. Skin alive to the world, so sensitive it can detect the landing of a single fly. A mind capable of keeping a map of the world inside. A mind that can look in a mirror and see a soul it knows well. A mind that can grieve.

After processing its contents, I filled the envelope with granola bars and walked it down to the market. The clerk gave me a knowing look as I placed it on the counter behind a stack of pork rinds from the previous century. As I walked out, a young man carrying a plastic bag and wearing impeccable shoes walked in.

Angel Tears in Sunlight is Pauline Anna Strom's first album in over thirty years; an assemblage of music that refracts the expansiveness, and minutiae, of imagined realms while embracing the kaleidoscopic echoes of our distant epochs. The capacity to collapse time might elucidate the enigma of Pauline Anna Strom. A mystic force in music, emerging during the dawn of new age as the Trans-Millenia Consort, the pioneering synthesist channelled primordial energies into future-facing sound through a series of full-length releases between 1982 and 1988. Little was known about her, except by a constellation of devoted followers who saw a unique legacy forming amidst the (mostly male) synthesist canon of the time. Following the 2017 release of Trans-Millenia Music, an anthology revitalizing the most evocative parts of Strom's catalog, the Bay Area visionary sensed the universe telling her to return to music. As with her work in the 80s, Angel Tears in Sunlight was composed and recorded in the same San Francisco apartment where Strom has lived for almost four decades in synthesis with her machines and "dinosaurs." Populated by a compact array of modern instruments that streamline the sound of her analog past and her beloved iguanas, Little Soulstice and Ms Huff, the terrarium of her home forms an intimate yet limitless ecosystem that defies the constraints of the outside world. Within this sanctuary, Strom becomes lost in time, drawing on the ancient energies of her inner visions. Her hardware forms the crux of translating these ideas into sound. "It's the only way this stuff can be pulled out of myself, the universe, Little Soulstice, an ammonite_," Strom notes. "It couldn't be done without this machinery, because there's no other way to draw and capture these frequencies into sonic interpretation." Strom's process of recording transient live-takes enriches the mystery of her work. She renders the machinery a composer itself, a cohabitation with a living other. "Many musicians wouldn't go that far because of ego," Strom muses. "The equipment has to become part of you and your creativity. That's how I think it all comes together." Music-making becomes a harmonic language of intuition with an instrument, where Strom cultivates sound for a harvest that defies season. Shaped by circadian contours, Angel Tears in Sunlight is a celestial observatory of earthborn phonic mosaics. Strom uncovers a symbiosis between hardware frequencies and apparitions of nature in the record's arena of organic tones, emulating the melodic pulses of primeval terrain. The album transcends both shadow and light, falling to hushed stretches of sound as if not to awaken antediluvian animals, before soaring through the treetops where ancient skies peer over reptilian traffic and unsparing rains.

‘Spells’ is the ethereal and enchanting debut release by Los Angeles harpist and composer Nailah Hunter.

Each of the tracks offer tranquillity and a reflective setting. The release started off with Hunter wanting to reclaim the way she thought about creating and performing music.

Hunter says each of the eight tracks on the release represents a spell, allowing her to carry them out as steps of a ritual: “Each track is its own incantation, its own spell, its own world.” Ambient in nature, ‘Spells’ brings out Hunter’s intuitive skills as a composer.

All instrumentation on ‘Spells’ was composed, played, recorded and produced by Hunter, who is best known for creating ethereal music with the harp. She is part of Leaving Records supergroup Galdre Visions alongside Green-House, Ami Dang and Yialmelic Frequencies The project was recently featured in the New York Times.

Hunter recently contributed to 4AD’s Bing Ruth’s ‘Divergence: Species Remixes’ EP alongside Khotin Maria Somerville, Lucy Gooch and James Krivchenia.

For fans of Laraaji, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Enya, Pure Moods, Mary Lattimore and Alice Coltrane.

LP comes with an 8-page full-colour 12x12 booklet.

Green Marbled Vinyl
Polifonic Records is the melodic balance between antagonistic vibrations, spirits and energiesthat inhabit the land of Puglia since the dawn of time.
An harmonic exploration into colorful, vibrant sunrise atmospheres and emotional, introspectivesunset sensations. One Body. Many Souls.

PF001 // The Frst installment comes with four contributions by festival aliates and long timefriends - from the explorative psychedelia of Francis Inferno Orchestra and the introspectiveexotica of Simone de Kunovich, to the playful 707- ish mediterranean vibes of Jolly Mare and thebalearic uplifting arpeggios of Yanik Park.
The package represents indeed a tribute to Itria, the magic Valley placed between two seas,Adriatico and Ionio, in the earth of Regione Puglia.

Liquid Drops proudly presents the first vinyl release of AgainstMe called "Inequalities". The A-Side includes original mixes of two melancholic breakbeat tracks and the B side has two amazing DnB Remixes by Syban aka Myselor and label's boss mSdoS. "Inequalities" is a personal and self-discovering trip that came to life during the hard times of the first lockdown in Athens. AgainstMe's vision for these tracks was to release his inner pressure during the quarantine, feel again the vibe of Germany's countryside and dive to the cold sea of Eressos Lesvos Island.

Arguably the Netherlands’ most prominent grime artist, JLSXND7RS’ name is synonymous with some of the most iconic productions around, with a vast back catalogue including collaborations with Wiley, Footsie, Rocks FOE and Discarda. For the debut vinyl release on his fledgling label, Dark Knight, he’s brought out a long-awaited fan favourite alongside two gargantuan reimaginations.

From its brassy opening notes, “ Marching” is instantly recognisable – a minimal, yet menacing instrumental which has enjoyed countless plays from esteemed DJs including Slimzee and Sir Spyro since it first surfaced on the airwaves in 2016. It also comes with Mala’s seal of approval; the Digital Mystikz legend has cut the track to dubplate for use in his sets.

On side B1, dubstep royalty Caspa pares back the original to its base elements, instead introducing gritty basslines, mesmerising percussion and a grimy harmony to bridge the gap between the two genres.

The release concludes with a remix from Brighton innovator and Sector 7 signee J ook, which Outlook festival-goers will recognise. His melodic interpretation of the song includes swelling reversed synths, shuffling drums and cinematic breakdowns.

Watching Abul Mogard’s Live performance in Atonal Festival 2017 and his releases on Not Waving’s Ecstatic record label were somewhat of a milestone in Malka Tuti’s sonic aesthetics. His ability to touch us with those pulsating sonic textures com-ing out of his modular machine inspired us in MTHQ for years to come. We were more then happy that Mogard chose to contact Tapan about their album and eventually deciding to remix not one but two track from the Belgrade duo… It was like a circle coming to a close.

On the A-side Mogard take the original 17 minute sax infused piece that is EUROPA and drenches it with drones and low freq pulses and atmosphere, creating a some sort of a post apoca-lyptic intense atmospheric soundtrack. The effect of drowning the horns from the original track in a sea of drones and pads, contributes to the over all impression of listening to a distant memory of music… fitting for days like these....

On the B-side Mogard takes it to the next level, capturing a line from Tapan's original collaboration with Jerusalem In My Heart's Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, and passing it through his modular system, amalgamating an epic piece of tension build ups and repetitive movements...

The original artwork was made by artist Marja de Sanctis and adapted, as always, to the sleeve by Morey Talmor.

‘Pacific Kiss’ is the fourth album from Australian musician David West’s underground pop band, Rat Columns. It was engineered by Griffin Harrison and DW in New York City and Perth, and mixed by Mikey Young in Victoria. ‘Pacific Kiss’ sees Rat Columns plunging headfirst into an azure sea of power pop, rock’n’roll and indie. The tones are bright and optimistic, though fans of confusion and gloom will still find solace in the album’s darker moments, of which there are a few. Rat Columns emerged from San Francisco via Perth, Western Australia in the late 2000’s with the mope ’n’ jangle of their first self-titled cassette release, from which several tracks were drawn for their first vinyl release, a four-song 7” on the San Francisco based indie label, Smartguy Records. From that moment, DW and a constantly evolving troupe of friends and co-conspirators have forged a persistent trail of albums and EP’s on a number of interesting small labels such as RIP Society, Upset The Rhythm, Blackest Ever Black, Syncro-System, Adagio 830 and now the London-based Tough Love Records, who have also released many of David’s eponymous pop records. DW has also found time to play in a number of other interesting outfits, such as Rank/Xerox, Lace Curtain, Liberation, Scythe, Total Control and Burning Sensation over the years. ‘Pacific Kiss’ was primarily recorded in a dingy but comfortable practice space in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The core of the record is DW, bassist Max Schneider-Schumacher, drummer Dylan Stjepovic and keyboard wiz Joey Fishman. Additional fairy dust was sprinkled by Amber Gempton and Raven Mahon (vocals), Jef Brown (saxophone) and Mikey Young, who found time to contribute some off the wall guitar solos during the mixing process. ‘Pacific Kiss’ is a record for those astral voyages into the spheres conducted from bedrooms, kitchens, grassy fields and open car windows.

‘Pacific Kiss’ is the fourth album from Australian musician David West’s underground pop band, Rat Columns. It was engineered by Griffin Harrison and DW in New York City and Perth, and mixed by Mikey Young in Victoria. ‘Pacific Kiss’ sees Rat Columns plunging headfirst into an azure sea of power pop, rock’n’roll and indie. The tones are bright and optimistic, though fans of confusion and gloom will still find solace in the album’s darker moments, of which there are a few. Rat Columns emerged from San Francisco via Perth, Western Australia in the late 2000’s with the mope ’n’ jangle of their first self-titled cassette release, from which several tracks were drawn for their first vinyl release, a four-song 7” on the San Francisco based indie label, Smartguy Records. From that moment, DW and a constantly evolving troupe of friends and co-conspirators have forged a persistent trail of albums and EP’s on a number of interesting small labels such as RIP Society, Upset The Rhythm, Blackest Ever Black, Syncro-System, Adagio 830 and now the London-based Tough Love Records, who have also released many of David’s eponymous pop records. DW has also found time to play in a number of other interesting outfits, such as Rank/Xerox, Lace Curtain, Liberation, Scythe, Total Control and Burning Sensation over the years. ‘Pacific Kiss’ was primarily recorded in a dingy but comfortable practice space in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The core of the record is DW, bassist Max Schneider-Schumacher, drummer Dylan Stjepovic and keyboard wiz Joey Fishman. Additional fairy dust was sprinkled by Amber Gempton and Raven Mahon (vocals), Jef Brown (saxophone) and Mikey Young, who found time to contribute some off the wall guitar solos during the mixing process. ‘Pacific Kiss’ is a record for those astral voyages into the spheres conducted from bedrooms, kitchens, grassy fields and open car windows.

• Joe Brown is the English musician who has being working as a rock and roll singer and guitarist for more than six decades and continues to play over 100 shows every year. Often described as a ‘musician's musician’, Brown is admired by fellow artists and fans alike.
• In the early 1960s the hits began to roll in for Joe and his backing band the Bruvvers with tracks such as ‘A Picture Of You’, ‘It Only Took A Minute’ and ‘That’s What Love Will Do’ – all of which are included on this new Gold collection. Brown’s career continued to grow throughout the 60s and included headline British tours that featured the Beatles, Del Shannon and the Crystals.
• This new compilation features 16 of Brown’s best loved tracks pressed on 180g heavyweight gold-coloured vinyl, housed in a printed inner sleeve

Dehumanization is the only full length album from the band Crucifix. Recorded in 1983, it is considered a classic American hardcore album and a landmark of anarcho-punk.Dehumanization delivers a raging critique of war, violence, displacement, and the decimation of human rights and human dignity—themes at once global in scope and also completely endemic to Reagan-era America. The intensity of this message is matched only by the intensity of the sound: a heavy minimalist construction built on brutal guitar riffs, low-end distortion, hardcore fury and teenage speed. It is an album of pure raw power, a hot blast of personal and political outrage and musical adrenaline.Fusing California hardcore with metal and second wave British anarcho-punk, Crucifix carved out their own highly distinctive wall of sound on this release. Ignoring the rules of punk purism in favor of a well produced huge guitar sound, the album preceded much of the hardcore metal crossover of the mid-80s and played an influential but often unacknowledged role in the punk and metal subgenres that followed. “Annihilation,” the album’s opening track, has become iconic . Quoted often, it’s been sampled by Orbital and covered by A Perfect Circle and Sepultura. The original vinyl version of Dehumanization was released on the Crass Records offshoot label Corpus Christi in the UK, and has been out of print since the 1980s. This new Kustomized rerelease has been carefully remastered from an original vinyl source and adheres closely to the audio quality of the original. In addition, the six-panel foldout poster sleeve has been reproduced in its entirety. Taken together, the words, music and graphics of Dehumanization form a complete work and a resonant and enduring document of the period

0.9999...//READ THAT SEQUENCE LIKE A MANTRA After their successful collaboration on “<3”, AtomTM and X1N are back, this time presenting the 4 track EP “0.9”. It contains both the opening and closing tracks of “<3” as well as their corresponding mutations. While “0.9 (Almost a Unit)” was remixed by Esplendor Geométrico, “Almost a Unit (0.9)” got reworked by Peter van Hoesen. “Both renditions contribute amplified iterations of inherent attributes of <3” as X1N eloquently states. On a side note it may be mentioned that in mathematics, the expression “0.999..” is considered being identical to 1. Meditating over that very fact may tell you a lot about our current reality. #HardCodePop //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// PROXIMITY IS DESTINY DREAMS AS SEARCH ENGINES X

Sometimes a record comes along that is a wonderful anomaly that really is all about the music. Silver Leaf recently appeared on the radar via obscuro diggers on both sides of the Atlantic and landed with a Hey!
What is known about Silver Leaf, beyond that it was a short-lived mid-80s project out of Cincinnati, Ohio, is that it features ex-Zephyr keyboardist John Faris, working alongside the mysterious vocalist Silvia Leaf.
The difference between the blues and occasional psychedelic rock of early 70s Boulder, Colorado's Zephyr and the lo-fi recordings of Silver Leaf are striking, but in Hey! and Can We Rebuild Our City?, the power of the ballad and strong playing of John, is wrapped in mid-80s, mid-States lo fi heaven.
Whether a non-de-plume, Ms Leaf's searing, innocent vocals fly above John's keys and programming. Hey!'s repetitive exhalations act like a mantra to a party, while tom's chime in accompaniment. Here it comes!
Can We Rebuild Our City? starts with Faris' forlorn intro before crashing percussion heads to some kind of wonderful, as Leaf questions a calls to hearts.
Releasing just 3 singles, Silver Leaf's music is unique and essential, an experience and a delight to present.

Gatefold black 180 gram 2LP+CD & LP-Booklett

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

MSG is a legendary name. After two phenomenal records under the guise of Michael Schenker Fest, a true guitar hero is returning to his roots. By forming Michael Schenker Group (MSG) back in 1979, Michael Schenker laid the foundations for one of hard rock’s most glorious solo careers of all times. And while nobody expected anything less from a former guitarist for Scorpions and UFO, it’s close to impossible mentioning everything Michael has built over the past 50 years, or the countless people he influenced or played with. This, truly, is the stuff that hard rocking myths are made of.

“I never looked back,” is how Michael dryly sums up an extraordinary career. Due to this mindset, he only realised much later what a huge impact his playing had made on the world of metal and hard rock. Very few guitarists can be cited as a primary influence for the likes of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, Slash or Kerry King. However, to understand Michael Schenker means to understand one primary thing: he’s not here to be worshipped or adored, he’s not here to get rich, he’s here to play. And at 65, he’s doing it with the same swagger, verve and dizzying artistry as always. “I’m still 16 in my head,” he laughs.

Right in time for his 40th anniversary as a solo artist and his 50th birthday as a musician, he resurrects the immortal Michael Schenker Group. “Immortal” is also the name of his new album, recorded by likely the strongest line-up in his long history. Its a lightning bolt of an album that sounds fresh, bloodthirsty and agile. “Immortal” showcases the gargantuan vocal talents of Chilean hard rock prodigy Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), backed by singers Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Deep Purple) as well as Schenker’s brother in arms, Michael Voss (Mad Max) who again produced the record alongside Michael Schenker – flawlessly, punchy and at full steam as if their very lives depended on it.
Next to Michael Schenker caressing his iconic black and white Dean Flying V, we hear bass player Barry Sparks (Dokken), keyboard player Steve Mann as well as the three drummers Bodo Schopf, Simon Phillips (ex-Toto) and Brian Tichy (ex-Whitesnake) pumping gallons of fresh blood through the tracks. And that’s not all, keyboard wizard extraordinaire Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Black Country Communion) gives the listener a baptism of fire in the blistering, heavy hitting opener “Drilled to Kill”, powered by Ralf Scheepers’ unbelievable vocal tornado.

Michael Schenker doesn’t live to play, he plays to live, and there’s no better way of summing up his relationship to his music than this – now for half a century and counting. The most emblematic representation of this relationship is the monumental closing track “In Search Of The Peace Of Mind”, a new recording of the very first song he ever wrote. “I composed this track in my mother’s kitchen back when I was 15,” he looks back half a century and smiles broadly: “The solo is just so perfect, I wouldn’t change a single note even today. This is the most important song of the last 50 years for me. It’s what started it all.”
When it finally got released in 1972 on the Scorpions’ debut “Lonesome Crow” Schenker had already moved on to UFO. What followed were several decades of pure hard rock ecstasy on and off stage, featuring a rotating cast of stellar players, always pressing the pedal to the metal. Now, in 2020, he reaps what he sowed. Alongside many of his peers, friends and contemporaries, he is celebrating 50 years of hard rock – fittingly with an album that is something like a zeitgeisty reminiscence of everything he’s ever done. The massive midtempo smasher “Don’t Die On Me Now” sees Joe Lynn Turner going all in, Ronnie Romero works his magic in “Knight Of The Dead” while Michael Voss cuts a grand figure before the microphone as well as behind the mixing desk on the furious second single “After The Rain”.
Towering above them all, Michael Schenker and his guitar prove they’re truly and utterly invincible. The celebrated icon pulls out all the stops – including his legendary “howler”, the fabled magnet he’s used on his fingerboard for a while now. And here’s yet another thing that’s just so archetypically Schenker, when bringing up his fiery and dedicated performance on “Immortal” he nonchalantly shrugs it off: “I simply played from the heart, as always.” This, dear Michael, is the understatement of the year – all the more so for a record that is already one of the top contenders for hard rock/metal album of the year.

Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold shares, "SHORE feels like a relief, like you'd feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide. It's a celebration of life in the face of death, honoring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honoring their memory. SHORE is an object levitating between the magnetic fields of the past and the future." SHORE was released digitally in its entirety on the fall equinox (22/9) alongside an album length Super-16mm landscape film captured and edited in Washington State by the filmmaker Kersti Jan Werdal. The album was recorded in upstate New York at Aaron Dessner's Long Pond Studio, in Paris at Studios St. Germain, in Los Angeles at the legendary Vox, in Long Island City at Diamond Mine, and New York City's Electric Lady. Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut made a profound impact on the international musical landscape, earning them Uncut's first ever Music Award Prize and a spot in Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the 2000's. The follow-up album Helplessness Blues was met with the same critical praise as its predecessor (MOJO âÿ_ âÿ_ âÿ_ âÿ_ âÿ_, Pitchfork's Best New Music) and earned them a GRAMMY nomination. Both Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues are certified Gold in the US. The band's third studio album Crack-Up, released in 2017, had the highest European chart entry at #5. Fleet Foxes has sold over 1 million records in Europe

It's tempting to think that you have all the answers, screaming your gospel every day with certainty and anger. Life isn't quite like that though, and the debut album from London four-piece TV Priest instead embraces the beautiful and terrifying unknowns that exist personally, politically, and culturally. Posing as many questions as it answers, Uppers is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK's recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though - something completely its own. Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was borne out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band's years of pursuing 'real life' and 'real jobs', something those teenagers never had. Last November, the band - vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Smith and drummer Ed Kelland - played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an "industrial freezer" in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. "It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle_" Charlie laughs, remembering how they dodged Star Wars memorabilia and deep fat fryers while making their first statement as a band. Unsurprisingly, there isn't a precedent for launching a band during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest's entrance in April with the release of debut single "House Of York" - a searing examination of the Monarchy set over wiry post-punk and fronted by a Mark E. Smith-like mouthpiece - served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation's fried brains. It's the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it's an album that has a lot to say right now. Taking musical cues from post-punk stalwarts The Fall and Protomartyr as well as the mechanical, pulsating grooves of krautrock, it's a record that moves with an untamed energy. Over the top of this rumbling musical machine is vocalist Charlie, a cuttingly funny, angry, confused, real frontman. Uppers sees TV Priest explicitly and outwardly trying to avoid narrowmindedness. Uppers sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It's a band and a record that couldn't arrive at a more perfect time.

-LTD. LOSER EDITION-

This LIMITED LOSER INDIES edition is on GREY MARBLED Vinyl! It's tempting to think that you have all the answers, screaming your gospel every day with certainty and anger. Life isn't quite like that though, and the debut album from London four-piece TV Priest instead embraces the beautiful and terrifying unknowns that exist personally, politically, and culturally. Posing as many questions as it answers, Uppers is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK's recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though - something completely its own. Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was borne out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band's years of pursuing 'real life' and 'real jobs', something those teenagers never had. Last November, the band - vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Smith and drummer Ed Kelland - played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an "industrial freezer" in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. "It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle_" Charlie laughs, remembering how they dodged Star Wars memorabilia and deep fat fryers while making their first statement as a band. Unsurprisingly, there isn't a precedent for launching a band during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest's entrance in April with the release of debut single "House Of York" - a searing examination of the Monarchy set over wiry post-punk and fronted by a Mark E. Smith-like mouthpiece - served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation's fried brains. It's the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it's an album that has a lot to say right now. Taking musical cues from post-punk stalwarts The Fall and Protomartyr as well as the mechanical, pulsating grooves of krautrock, it's a record that moves with an untamed energy. Over the top of this rumbling musical machine is vocalist Charlie, a cuttingly funny, angry, confused, real frontman. Uppers sees TV Priest explicitly and outwardly trying to avoid narrowmindedness. Uppers sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It's a band and a record that couldn't arrive at a more perfect time.

Melbourne-based violist/violinist and orchestral composer, Tamil Rogeon, returns to his jazz roots on his soaring and celestial new album, Son Of Nyx coming soon on Greg Boramans' new imprint Soul Bank Music (part of the !K7 Music Group). From conducting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the 2500-seated Hamer Hall to writing and co-producing his first full-length album in three years and one of the very few viola-led jazz LPs of our time, Rogeon joins forces with several stars of Melbourne's thriving and acclaimed jazz scene (Allysha Joy, Sam Anning et al.), channeling the cosmic energy of Yussef Lateef, Herbie Hancock and the like. Whilst often not an instrument typically associated with jazz, violin greats from Jean-Luc Ponty, Stéphane Grappelli to Billy Bang, have gone on to become iconic figures in the jazz canon, yet little can be said for the viola. Often considered the older sibling to the violin, the viola is larger in size and the tone is a lot deeper, something Rogeon was keen to make use of on Son Of Nyx. "I didn't want to make a bebop record. I wanted to make a modal jazz record and there just aren't that many on viola. I wanted to speak with a heavier voice, more akin to a tenor saxophone. The viola is darker and thicker. It speaks slower".

You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In, which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version). Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth

documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole

The five members of Sun June spent their early years spread out across the United States, from the boonies of the Hudson Valley to the sprawling outskirts of LA. Having spent their college years within the gloomy, cold winters of the North East, Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury found themselves in the vibrant melting-pot of inspiration that is Austin, Texas. Meeting each other while working on Terrence Malick's 'Song to Song', the pair were immediately taken by the city's bustling small clubs and honky-tonk scene, and the fact that there was always an instrument within reach, always someone to play alongside. Coming alive in this newly discovered landscape, Colwell and Salisbury formed Sun June alongside Michael Bain on lead guitar, Sarah Schultz on drums, and Justin Harris on bass and recorded their debut album live to tape, releasing it via the city's esteemed Keeled Scales label in 2018. The band coined the term 'regret pop' to describe the music they made on the 'Years' LP. Though somewhat tongue in cheek, it made perfect sense ~ the gentle sway of their country leaning pop songs seeped in melancholy, as if each subtle turn of phrase was always grasping for something just out of reach. Sun June returns with Somewhere, a brand new album, out February 2021. It's a record that feels distinctly more present than its predecessor. In the time since, Colwell and Salisbury have become a couple, and it's had a profound effect on their work; if Years was about how loss evolves, Somewhere is about how love evolves. "We explore a lot of the same themes across it," Colwell says, "but I think there's a lot more love here." Somewhere is Sun June at their most decadent, a richly diverse album which sees them exploring bright new corners with full hearts and wide eyes. Embracing a more pop-oriented sound the album consists of eleven beautiful new songs and is deliberately more collaborative and fully arranged: Laura played guitar for the first time; band members swapped instruments, and producer Danny Reisch helped flesh out layers of synth and percussion that provides a sweeping undercurrent to the whole thing. Throughout Somewhere you can hear Sun June blossom into a living-and-breathing five-piece, the album formed from an exploratory track building process which results in a more formidable version of the band we once knew. 'Real Thing' is most indicative of this, a fully collaborative effort which encompasses all of the nuances that come to define the album. "Are you the real thing?" Laura Colwell questions in the song's repeated refrain. "Honey I'm the real thing," she answers back. They've called this one their 'prom' record; a sincere, alive-in-the-moment snapshot of the heady rush of love. "The prom idea started as a mood for us to arrange and shape the music to, which we hadn't done before," the band explains. " Prom isn't all rosy and perfect. The songs show you the crying in the bathroom,, the fear of dancing, the joy of a kiss - all the highs and all the lows." It's in both those highs and lows where Somewhere comes alive. Laura Colwell's voice is mesmerising throughout, and while the record is a document of falling in love, there's still room for her to wilt and linger, the vibrancy of the production creating beautiful contrasts for her voice to pull us through. Opening track 'Bad With Time' sets this tone from the outset, both dark and mysterious, sad and sultry as it fascinatingly unrolls. "I didn't mean what I said," Colwell sings. "But I wanted you to think I did." Somewhere showcases a gentle but eminently pronounced maturation of Sun June's sound, a second record full of quiet revelation, eleven songs that bristle with love and longing. It finds a band at the height of their collective potency, a marked stride forward from the band that created that debut record, but also one that once again is able to transport the listener into a fascinating new landscape, one that lies somewhere between the town and the city, between the head and the heart; neither here nor there, but certainly somewhere.

• After their huge success throughout the 90s, Suede called it a day (for the first time) in 2003. The Suede Information Service (SIS) compiled and issued this special collection of demos, acoustic versions and other curios in 2004. Only 2000 CDs were manufactured, and these were distributed free to the members of the SIS.
• Whilst some of the tracks have appeared on the Edsel reissues, several tracks, including “Elaine Paige”, the Mick Jones remix of the band’s last single “Attitude” and the live French version of “The Power” have not been reissued since 2004.
• This release also marks the first time this collection has been issued on vinyl.

Fulled By Ramen will be reissuing one seminal album from our 25- year history each month throughout the calendar year of 2021. For February 2021, we will be releasing The Academy Is…’ 2005 studio album ‘Almost Here’ on silver vinyl.

FBR 25 Podcast

We are currently working on a 16 part podcast that will delve into the history of FBR, it’s cultural relevance and Global impact over the past 25 years. Each episode will look at the careers of some of our most important artists, and deep dive into the making of albums told by the artists themselves in their own words.

25th Anniversary Merchandise

We announced the 25th Anniversary around Thanksgiving last year with our first 25th Anniversary limited merch drop, and then will be working throughout 2021 on new and exclusive designs to drop throughout the year.

Vinyl version of the latest album (CD was released November 13th) from US singer/songwriter/composer. This is a 10 track LP featuring songs from the hit Apple TV series of the same name. Marketing activity across all media outlets.

Velvet Season & the Hearts of Gold is the musical adventures of Gerry Rooney & Joel Martin. They have a rich musical history with Gerry Black Cock Records & Joel Quiet Village.

Aldo Tamborrelli – ‘Voices’ (VSHOG Special Version)

VSHOG present their official special version of this highly desirable hidden treasure of hypnotic electronic sleaze excavated from the cult soundtrack to a 1983 Italian ‘Apocalypse Now’ cash-in, and transform it into an 8 minute erogenous bump n’ grind trip to the twilight zone torture garden, cruising leather boys & fetish girls looking for Love in all the wrong places !

‘Voices’ is a narcotic synthesised masterpiece of body music to completely immerse your dark desires on the dancefloor. A dark risqué world of crisp chugging drum machines, mesmerising warm bass pulses, and the erotic wails of seductive screams in the night !

Stefano Torossi – ‘Having Fun’ (VSHOG Special Version)

The VSHOG version of 'Having Fun', from Stefano Torossi's 1974 album 'Feelings' (a holy grail of Italian library music) is an uplifting lush orchestral string laden funky breakbeat feel-good track to raise your vibrations!

Opening with a chunky stripped down drum & bass intro, the strings entice you further in & then the Disco Funk Psyche guitar riff really lifts the track to the sweet spot & you are completely hooked! A beautiful piece of music for all occasions - Balearic Sunsets/Sunrise, Disco dancing, B-Boys and Hip-Hop heads, Jazz Dancers & library music connoisseurs!

Another fantastic offering from the VSHOG Special Version series of releases.

The Sea and Cake's fifth album Oui is back on vinyl. Pressed on color vinyl for the first time (yellow with white!) and packaged in a high gloss jacket with a free download card. Oui marks the triumphant return of The Sea and Cake after a three-year absence which saw the members of the band pursue a variety of interests; musical, professional and personal. The line up of the band remains Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, Eric Claridge and John McEntire. The Sea and Cake formed in 1994 out of the ashes of Shrimp Boat (Sam and Eric), and The Cocktails (Archer). John was a friend of the three and had just begun playing with Mosquito, which would later rename itself Tortoise. In fall of that year the band released their self- titled debut record and followed it with three more for a total of four in four years, each gaining in popularity and critical acclaim. In 1997 after months of touring in support of their most successful record The Fawn, the band decided to take some time off to focus their energy in other places. Eric went to work on his paintings with a series of shows in Chicago and a bi-monthly insert in the Chicago Reader. Archer recorded his second solo record, toured and continued to concentrate on his Sof' Boy merchandise and comics (published by Fantagraphics). John played with Tortoise, built a studio (SOMA) and engineered the Stereolab record among many others. Sam painted for his debut solo show in Chicago and a July 2000 show at Clementine in Chelsea, released his debut solo record and toured extensively. When things began to quiet down in late 1999, the four began setting aside the time to record what would become their finest record yet, Oui. "Surprisingly the long lay off didn't seem to pose any ill effects, somehow the distant perspective supplied a new necessary focus", says Prekop. There were no impediments as far as reconvening and songwriting were concerned. Sam added that "I think (the fact that) Archer and I continued to work together during The Sea and Cake's down time was crucial. So when we started writing it wasn't like we were starting over, we were just working in a new context."

Passion is the fifth and final part of a series of five double vinyl releases that bring together some of Ennio Morricone’s greatest soundtrack music. Each collection centres on a different movie genre, together they allow the listener to rediscover the unmatched genius of the greatest movie composer of all time. Passion once again reminds us that everything in Italian life is approached with gusto, energy and passion.

Passion is available as a limited edition of 3000 individually numbered copies on pink and purple marbled vinyl. The package includes a 4-page insert with liner notes written by Claudio Fuiano. The gatefold sleeve contains a diamond glitter foil spot varnish on the outside and images of iconic movie posters on the inside.

‘Instant Opaque Evening’ is an epic offering from The Underflow, the new trio of Mats Gustafsson, David Grubbs and Rob Mazurek. It makes vast strides on the heels of their self-titled 2019 debut (Corbett vs. Dempsey/Underflow Records) with nearly 90 minutes of intensely focused live performances from January 2020 shows in France, Belgium, Italy and Poland. That tour was a revelation for all three members, experienced as they are, with this still-new group’s freedom to walk onstage each night determined to surprise one another, moving from long instrumental improvisations into and out of songs and covering a terrific amount of ground at each of these concerts.
‘Instant Opaque Evening’ conveys this broad sweep, from the full-tilt electronics of ‘Self-Portrait As Interference Pattern’ and the climax of the seventeen-minute ‘Instant Opaque Evening’ to the inspired, alternate universe chamber music of ‘Planks’ and ‘A Thin Eternity’ and the group’s spontaneous arrangements of three previously recorded songs by Grubbs, ‘Gethsemani Night’, ‘An Optimist Declines’ and ‘Cooler Side Of The Pillow’.
The short version of the long tale of intersecting paths bringing together these three musicians begins in Chicago in the 1990s, with all three active participants in numerous convergences among jazz, free improvisation, experimental rock and more. Both Gustafsson and Mazurek appear as guests on Gastr del Sol albums (‘Upgrade & Afterlife’ and ‘Camoufleur’ respectively; that’s Rob’s cornet taking ‘The Seasons Reverse’ to new heights) and shortly thereafter Grubbs and Gustafsson recorded two duo albums, including the deep minimalism of ‘Apertura’, a talismanic favourite of both musicians.
David Grubbs has played in Gastr del Sol, the Red Krayola and Squirrel Bait and performed with Tony Conrad, Susan Howe, Pauline Oliveros, Will Oldham and many others. He’s the author of the books The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled and Records Ruin the Landscape.
Saxophone player, improviser and composer Mats Gustafsson is known as a solo artist and for international tours and projects with, among many others, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Peter Brötzmann, Neneh Cherry, Christian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, Ken Vandermark and the working groups FIRE!, THE END, LUFT, ANGUISH and Gush, as well as collaborations with contemporary dance, theatre, art, poetry and projects with noise.
Rob Mazurek is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on electro-acoustic composition, improvisation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, film and installation, who spent much of his creative life in Chicago and then Brazil. He currently lives and works in Marfa, Texas. He leads/co-leads many ensembles of various sizes and shapes including his flagship large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground and São Paulo Underground. He has
collaborated with Bill Dixon, Pharoah Sanders, Roscoe Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Chad Taylor, Jim O’Rourke, Naná Vasconcelos and many others.

BLACK vinyl with deluxe origami fold out sleeve & obi strip & DL Card. CD Wallet. The third album from Dutch punk-laced noiseniks adds new maturity and a conceptual feel that pulls the extremes of their sound together. A psyche-fuelled journey into the id punctuated with rhythmic kabuki modal mood swings, thunderstorms, digital beeps, traffic noise, and just plain old beautiful cacophonous reverb-drenched sound when needed. The 'third chapter' refers to the last five years that the Dutch band have spent creating their "difficult" third album. Each song spins a yarn; there are plagues, dreams, wind and fire, 'mythical' characters, and the search for the secret government warehouse. Lead single, Tokyo Music Experience, resonates with a conveyor belt-propelled modal guitar, reflecting the halcyon days of Japanese super-productivity; a mesmerising mantra, infected with news bulletin on-the-hour bleeps underlining its time-sensitive nature; a pristine super-commercial anthem to drive loyalty and reinforce solidarity with the party! Having been described as creating "underground noise with a bracing, warped pop appeal" (Mojo), their new album is a coming-of-age post-classic with a unique worldview - inspired by Van Dyke Parks (Song Cycle) Scott Walker (3 & 4), Moondog (Elpmas), White Noise (An Electric Storm) and Beach Boys (Smile). If their previous effort (Tape Hiss) was their very own sketch of a sketch for an incomplete concept album, a noisy reaction to their previous life, then 'Excerpts From Chapter 3..', with all its interlaced intricacies, is the realisation of their transition from punk-spiked-pop to psyche-pop protagonists. Evolving, testing, infectious...

ENDLICH....das Live-Album der Bluegrass/Folk-Helden mit 17 Songs! Vor über 6 Jahren entdeckten wir die vier Gentlemen von THE DEAD SOUTH aus Regina, Saskatchewan während der Canadian Music Week in Toronto sehr spät am Abend in einem eher spärlich gefüllten Club. Unsere Begeisterung wurde von einer Vertragsunterzeichnung begleitet und so veröffentlichten wir im November 2014 ihr Debütalbum "Good Company". Natürlich sind wir ziemlich stolz, dass wir eine Indie- Erfolgsgeschichte mit der Band schreiben konnten, die nun mit einem Doppel-Live- Album namens "Served Live" gefeiert wird. Natürlich ist die Idee nicht ganz neu, aber wenn es bei einer Band doch Sinn macht, dann bei The Dead South, denn ihre Live-Shows sind schon jetzt recht legendär und vor allem auf der Bühne zeigen sich ihre Stärken, die doch recht schwer auf einem Studioalbum zur Geltung kommen: unbändige Spielfreude, eine genre-sprengende Live-Dynamik, eine gute Prise Humor sowie ein sich gegenseitiges Pushen sind nur einige Attribute, die mir gerade so einfallen wollen. Die "Die-Hard-Fans" der Band werden natürlich nicht 100%ig zufrieden sein, da trotz lediglich drei Studioalben sicher der eine oder andere Song fehlt - mir vor allem _ÇÜGunslinger's Glory', aber dieser ist halt auch sehr lang. Auch sind einige ihrer Cover- Versionen von Bands wie den Animals, The Decemberists oder diverse Tradionals Teil ihrer Live-Sets, aber hier sollten es halt nur eigene Songs auf die Platten bzw. CDs schaffen. Die 17 Songs auf "Served Live" wurden auf 17 verschiedenen Shows mitgeschnitten, denn die Band wollte so vielen Fans wie möglich ein kleines Dankeschön sagen, aber leider hat Covid-19 diesem Unterfangen einen für uns bedeutenden Strich durch die berühmte Rechnung gemacht und es fehlen jegliche Deutschland-Shows, wohingegen USA (L.A., Seattle, Portland, Boston, Atlanta, Denver, NY), GB (Manchester, London, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Belfast, Dublin) und ihre Heimat Kanada (Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal) vertreten sind. "Served Live" ein unglaublich energetisches und authentisches Live-Dokument, das auch hiesigen Fans von The Dead South sehr viel Freude bereiten wird und ein warmes Trostpflaster für die Zeit des Wartens auf die nächste Tour.

Originally conceived as a quarantine EP collecting material recorded in Memphis during sessions for ‘The Unraveling’, the project quickly grew to include provocative new songs written and recorded over what Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood calls “this endless summer of protests, riots, political shenanigans and pandemic horrors.”
Tracks such as Hood’s ‘Watching The Orange Clouds’ - inspired by the protests which followed George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police - and a fiery cover of The Ramones’ classic ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’ (vocals by bassist Matt Patton) were exchanged between Hood, cofounding singer / songwriter / guitarist Mike Cooley, bassist Patton, keyboardist / multiinstrumentalist Jay Gonzalez and drummer Brad Morgan and then mixed by long-time Drive-By Truckers producer David Barbe.

‘Del Rio’ is the third album from the Austin triumvirate of guitarist Craig Clouse (Shit and Shine), bassist Nate Cross (Marriage, Expensive Shit) and drummer King Coffey (Butthole Surfers) and the band’s first release to feature vocals from Colby Brinkman (Taverner). While their two prior albums (2017’s ‘Laredo’ and 2019’s ‘Matamoros’) were somewhere on the periphery of rock music , ‘Del Rio’ is a step or several beyond and a real testament to human imagination (maybe you’re impressed by Tesla Powerwall batteries but that’s because you’ve not heard “Soft Taco”, yet)

Coming off a pair of records their respective labels could barely keep in stock and critical assessments that put reviewers’ own chops to the test (see below), USA/Mexico have delivered their most fully realized statement to date.

Prior praise for ‘Matamoros’ :

“Laredo was a bent-out sunstroke of processed vocals and noise-laden riffs, and its follow up Matamoros is slower, freakier, and somehow louder…too defiantly weird and alien for pigeonholing, that’s how they fit inside Austin’s storied noise rock and experimental music scenes: by refusing to fit exactly in anywhere.” Andy O’Connor, Pitchfork

“Monolithic without being monotone: dirty sounds and gritty textures sliding over each other like sandpaper wiped across a chalkboard.” Marc Masters, Bandcamp

“The amplifiers sound broken, the vocals suggest someone's got their leg caught in a mantrap while deep in the woods trying to poach fat brown hares, and the mixing desk squeals as if it is undergoing physical tort

Today Margot share new single Walk With Me via Full Time Hobby. The Peckham band ended 2019 supporting Swimming Tapes on their U.K. as well as releasing their debut EP earlier this year. New single Walk With Me is a song about empathy, depression and the power of talking. All channelled by frontman Alex Hannaway's pastel vocal hues and searingly honest delivery. Walk With Me works as a conversation between someone experiencing a depressive episode and another trying to understand. "It’s about listening, friendship, understanding, I’ve had experiences where friends, family members have been patient, they’ve been persistent and caring, and it’s this that has really helped me in my life" explains Hannaway. In addition to the official video, the band have also shared a 'Karaoke Video' for the single. "We've been using home karaoke sessions to blow off steam during the lockdown period. Often feeling confined, bored, angry, frustrated; the elation and release of belting out familiar songs in our living room felt cathartic. So it felt perfect for the video, capturing not only the isolation of lockdown but also the communal, spirited moments too" explain Margot. Margot comprises of five friends who moved from the suburbs of south London to Peckham after finishing University. In two separate bands at the time, drunken nights out discussing the merits of a merger evolved into the first few rehearsals. It went well - Margot formed in 2018 and released a steady stream of singles across the year. The band employ a DIY ethic, self-producing their recordings in their home studio. After ending 2019 supporting Swimming Tapes on their UK tour, the band released their debut EP in February 2020 and are set to support Dana Gavanski on her upcoming tour in March 2021. Margot's nuanced blend of dream-pop, neo-psychedelia and jangle-guitar create a propulsive, cruising feel reminiscent of Real Estate or War on Drugs. Expect to hear more from them in 2020.

An exploratory record that dances across time and genre, guided by fidgety miniatures and jazz inflected collage. Throughout, the band pool together their instrumental chops, moving from fluid and serpentine R&B to meditative, minimalistic piano, evoking a contrast of virtuosity and self-surrender.

While constructed from the inspiration of soul, funk and film music, BÉE mediate those influences having first digested them through the productions of Madlib & the RZA.
A sticker on the sleeve tells us Self Help “combines jazz-funk and mysticism,” a signpost to where its musical and spiritual concerns align. The jazz-funk component translates to arresting hooks in sideways song forms: echoes of Gainsbourg spooled through Azymuth-style Brazilian jazz and punctuated by the whip and snap of Steely Dan. “The Sound Where My Head Was,” the instrumental centrepiece, exemplifies present-wave jazz but also ancient sounds, giving off the mothballed air of a Hiroshi Yoshimura record in a library-music archive.

Self Help’s mysticism emerges in broad and specific ways, denoting not only a search beyond cliché and intellect but also an inquiry into the beat, the spirit, the one will. This isn’t new territory for them: Turnbull—the artist formerly known as Slim Twig, who writes and performs with U.S. Girls and various other Toronto concerns—named the group’s Nature, Man & Woman EP after the Alan Watts book. Building these songs from his drafts over three weekends at Toronto’s Palace Sound studio, the ensemble was free to tap out of the city and into some other place, taking up residence in a collective mind maze. The album produces, in equal measure, familiar surprises and the surprisingly familiar. Intoxicated jazz riffs swerve left at phantom intersections. Rhythms cut loose and tie you in knots. But wired in to each song is a sense of gentle accumulation, making every featherlight flourish weigh a ton. U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy brings serenity to “Sing a Silent Gospel,” and wears its antic melodies lightly. The soul shimmer of “Unity (It’s Up to You)” lets the players pool their R&B chops into something fluid and serpentine while, on guest vocals, the musical performance artist James Baley issues urgent declaratives: “Water must pool, as a rule, before tasted/Or else the water is wasted.” The words throughout the record complement the ensemble music while riffing on the precarious nature of unity itself. Then, closer “Extinct Commune” finds Turnbull deserted at the piano, playing phrases of meditative minimalism taking after the composer Joanna Brouk.

For all the record’s reach, it is these contrasting quiet moments that bring Self Help’s communal spirit into focus. A note on personnel: Badge Époque Ensemble now has a seventh member in Karen Ng, the saxophonist and sometime collaborator of Do Make Say Think, Feist, and others. In BÉE, Ng joins Chris Bezant and Giosuè Rosati, her bandmates in the Andy Shauf live band, as well as U.S. Girls co-conspirators Turnbull and Ed Squires, and other Torontonian cross-pollinators listed below. Guest vocalists across Self Help include Meg Remy, who sings with Dorothea Paas on the opener, James Baley, and Toronto singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle on the remarkable “Just Space for Light.” Words by: Jazz Monroe

Recorded in a string of sessions between Curve Pusher’s former Darnley Road location in London and new facility in UK seaside town Hastings, ​Old Tight Selektah​ sees Radioactive Man and Ben Pest (OverworX) riff off their shared passions for studio hardware and live set jams, maintaining the funk at all times.

Lead track ​Old Tight​ works in ​recorded licks from the Pest band’s horn section - Off-Key He-Man. Bar Tab smooths out into a glimmering and acid licked electro number. ​You Bring It, We’ll Wing It​ enjoys more of the Pest brass service, slowing the pace to a dubby, broken beat tempo. Finishing up the EP ​Bracetings​ is a jumpy, up tempo finish to the release showing off both producer’s flair for high precision beat programming.

Ben Pest is a hardware-made-techno specialist based in Bristol. He runs his own label OverworX and has also released his heady raucous sound on ​Varvet, Don’t and I Love Acid.

Asking For Trouble est. 2017
Mastered and cut by Keith Tenniswood at Curve Pushe

Floofy - An ear-bugging flute, a huge Moog bassline and cosmic synths, what more do you need for an ecstatic club anthem?

Charlize - Let’s add a “Spacer Woman” style handclap towards the lush pads. Rex club dance floor approved.

Lezaki - Inspired by a fond memory of a one-time festival at the polish seaside, a fusion between disco and trance elements. Long-lasting friendships will develop while you get lost in the song.

NEP was a loose multimedia collective formed in 1982 Zagreb, ex-Yugoslavia. The founder Dejan Krsic collaborated with various artists in a quest of re-thinking the stale concepts of art history, position of the author and the barriers between pop and elitist high culture. Heavily influenced by Walter Benjamin and Andy Warhol in theory and Brian Eno and Kraftwerk in music, Krsic created NEP as an umbrella term (meaning Nova Evropa or New Europe) of diverse rule-breaking activities, covering graphic design, music, photography, video, news-media and theoretical work. Musically NEP focused on experiments in ambient and tape-music, self-released and hard to find compilation tapes like "The Cassette Played Poptones" (1988). Deeply immersed in pop-culture, politics and art theory Krsic's search for perfect pop music with cutting critical edge peaked in 1989, the year 'Decadance' track was conceived in studio. Fox & His Friends published the single in 2017 with Snuffo Remix on B-side. It received rave reviews in music press like MixMag and DJ Mag and it is still played on dance-floors around the world. But the story around the NEP is musically (as well as artistically) much wider: for the first time Fox & His Friends team compiles best cuts from unreleased and rare NEP tapes, covering the period from 1985 to 1989 on POP NOT POP abum. Dejan Krsic is now famous graphic designer and art historian in Croatia. Other collaborators include Laibach and Borghesia photographer Jane Stravs, artist and TV director Gordana Brzovic, Jovan Culibrk, now Bishop at The Serbian Orthodox Church and Anja Rupel, singer of cult Yugoslavian synth-pop group Videosex as well as the other members of Videosex, Iztok Turk and Janez Krizaj who produced some of the tracks. Other collaborators were talented producers Robert Logozar and Davor Daga Devcic, singers Linda Cooper, Natalija, Alexx Kovacs... The list of collaborations is long. Some of the memorable moments on POP NOT POP album are early demo version of Decadance 'How Do I Dance To This Music?' with blue movies samples and drum machine experiments like early Cabaret Voltaire, then Krsic's reinterpretation of legendary Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express anthem as 'Transcendance', or 'Radical Chic', where Dejan himself and Anja Rupel from Videosex make lovely couple of dandy-esque fashionistas, singing chart-friendly radio synthpop tune that contrasts the A-side (The 'NOT POP' side) - full of experiments, dark wave and industrial nods to Test Department and Cabs. B-side is 'THE POP' side that will surprise most of the NEP followers from their early experimental cassette days. Sunny, danceable, joyfull pop that reveals the many faces of NEP. As Kraftwerk today is more of a concept than a band, NEP does the same by re-writing its products (musical, graphical, theoretical, activist) and constantly puts them in permanent state of change or re-mix. In the future, only NEP logo will be enough to consider something an art piece, and NEP will be everybody who wants to, as their Art Manifest claims. Until that day comes, 'POP NOT POP' is a document of how the vivid and creative were art-scenes in socialist Yugoslavia. Some of the graphic work, cut-ups from theory and Manifesto are also included on this LP, designed by Dejan Krsic aka NEP himself. This release is made from the original master tapes and published for the first time on vinyl.

On Palberta5000, Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser max out traditional pop forms_blowing the genre out into lush, kinetic extensions_to create their own hardcore style of popular music. Together these 16 adventurous, hyper-melodic tracks represent the band's most accessible album by far_one that is bursting at the seams with vocal hooks and exuberant playing. Palberta5000 was recorded with Matt Lambozza (PALM, Shimmer), whose Peekskill, New York, studio is located in the original home and family lamp-store of Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman). Lambozza's recording and mix capture the band's rollicking instrumentation and vocal precision with greater clarity than anyone has before. Tracks like the emotionally chaotic "Before I Got Here," which charges hard before turning on a dime into a hypnotic krout-surf outro, convey the panicked feeling of falling in love, while Palberta's ear for pop music makes itself apprent on heart-melting harmonies like those fround on "Corner Store." Adding variation to Palberta5000's well thought-out song cycle are lavish downtempo jams ilke the slow waltz that is "The Way That You Do," and the enchanting "Red Antz." Taken together, these songs create a full album experience, and one that is sure to excite the band's devoted following while welcoming new fans along for the ride.

LTD. TRANSPARENT RED VINYL

On Palberta5000, Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser max out traditional pop forms_blowing the genre out into lush, kinetic extensions_to create their own hardcore style of popular music. Together these 16 adventurous, hyper-melodic tracks represent the band's most accessible album by far_one that is bursting at the seams with vocal hooks and exuberant playing. Palberta5000 was recorded with Matt Lambozza (PALM, Shimmer), whose Peekskill, New York, studio is located in the original home and family lamp-store of Paul Reuben (Pee Wee Herman). Lambozza's recording and mix capture the band's rollicking instrumentation and vocal precision with greater clarity than anyone has before. Tracks like the emotionally chaotic "Before I Got Here," which charges hard before turning on a dime into a hypnotic krout-surf outro, convey the panicked feeling of falling in love, while Palberta's ear for pop music makes itself apprent on heart-melting harmonies like those fround on "Corner Store." Adding variation to Palberta5000's well thought-out song cycle are lavish downtempo jams ilke the slow waltz that is "The Way That You Do," and the enchanting "Red Antz." Taken together, these songs create a full album experience, and one that is sure to excite the band's devoted following while welcoming new fans along for the ride.

Limited edition cloudy clear vinyl. Combining processed recordings of wind and water with analog synthesizers and chamber orchestra, Elori Kramer's The Blue of Distance is an audio dissertation on the role technology plays in our relationships to geography and nature, unspooling into an examination of memory and longing across seven sections that layer filmic minimalism over churning electronic soundbeds. Half of the suite was written in the Adirondack mountains during summer amid lakes, rivers, and moss-laden forest floors, while the other half was conceived on a frozen Lake Superior island in deep winter, creating a subtextual dialogue between the two extreme settings. Kramer, who was born in 1990 and grew up alongside the internet, uses her music to explore nature in the actual and the virtual world, through direct experience and facsimile alike, focussing and blurring the line between the two. "Looking back at my videos of that summer-- which is where the processed audio came from-- I tried to remember what it had felt like to be there," she recalls, "thinking about questions of reality versus imagination; physical versus digital; and the ways in which memory shifts through our minds and technology." The title The Blue of Distance was derived from Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, referring to the phenomenon of faraway mountains appearing blue due to light particles getting lost over distance. "If we were to go up to the mountains that appear blue from far away, we would see that they weren't actually that color." she says. "This beauty is made possible because of their distance," much in the same way that the splendor of a lush season is only fully realized in the throes of a bleak one, and the joy of an event can only be felt when it has long since been consigned to remembrance. R.I.Y.L Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Josiah Steinbrick, Emily Sprague

Under the impression of the racially motivated murders on 19 February 2020 in Hanau, her hometown, the visual artist and musician Michaela Meise recorded the piece "Cemalim" by the Turk Erkin Koray in German translation. The production of the song was supported by the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn and the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, both of which have included the work in their exhibition programmes this year.

Erkin Koray is a representative of the psychedelic Anadolu-Rock and published "Cemalim" as an arrangement in 1973. The original composer, Rafik Başaran, came from the Cappadocian town of Ürgüp, which is also mentioned in the song. "Cemalim" means, translated into German, "My darling Cemal", and is a lament for the dead. Meise wrote the German text based on the translation by Fatih Alasalvaroglu, who also comes from Hanau.

Besides the mourning of nine young people, solidarity with the relatives and friends of the murder victims is urgently needed. They have organised themselves in the "Initiative 19 February Hanau" - on their website you can find information about what support they would like to receive.

Most of the concert programme of the last two years included anti-fascist songs and was a reaction to the increasing right-wing populism. Folk songs, hits and chansons of the 1960s, published in July 2018 on the album "Ich bin Griechin" (Martin Hossbach), dealt with the experience of the Second World War, told of the longing to leave home or the experiences of a seasonal worker. The songs were composed by the anti-fascist Mikis Theodorakis, the musician Barbara, who survived the Shoah with her family in the underground, and George Moustaki and Alexandra, who crossed both national borders.

Unter dem Eindruck der rassistisch motivierten Morde am 19. Februar 2020 in Hanau, ihrer Heimatstadt, hat die bildende Künstlerin und Musikerin Michaela Meise das Stück »Cemalim« des Türken Erkin Koray in deutscher Übersetzung eingespielt. Die Produktion des Liedes wurde von der Städtischen Galerie Nordhorn und dem NS-Dokumentationszentrum München unterstützt, die beide das Werk in ihre diesjährigen Ausstellungsprogramme aufgenommen haben.

Erkin Koray ist ein Vertreter des psychedelischen Anadolu-Rock und veröffentlichte »Cemalim« im Jahr 1973 als Bearbeitung. Der ursprüngliche Komponist, Rafik Başaran, stammte aus der kappadokischen Stadt Ürgüp, von der auch im Lied die Rede ist. »Cemalim« bedeutet, ins Deutsche übersetzt, »Mein Liebling Cemal«, und ist eine Totenklage. Meise schrieb den deutschen Text auf Grundlage der Übersetzung von Fatih Alasalvaroglu, der ebenfalls aus Hanau kommt.

Neben der Trauer um neun junge Menschen ist Solidarität mit den Angehörigen und Freunden der Mordopfer dringend notwendig. Sie haben sich in der »Initiative 19. Februar Hanau« organisiert – auf ihrer Website finden sich Informationen, welche Unterstützung sie sich wünschen.

Meises Konzertprogramm der letzten zwei Jahre umfasste anti-faschistische Lieder und reagierte somit auf den zunehmenden Rechtspopulismus. Volkslieder, Schlager und Chansons der 1960er Jahre, erschienen im Juli 2018 auf dem Album »Ich bin Griechin« (Martin Hossbach), verarbeiteten die Erfahrung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, erzählten von der Sehnsucht, die Heimat zu verlassen oder den Erfahrungen eines Saisonarbeiters. Die Lieder stammten vom Antifaschisten Mikis Theodorakis, der Musikerin Barbara, welche die Shoah mit ihrer Familie im Untergrund überlebte, sowie von George Moustaki und Alexandra, die beide nationale Grenzen überschritten.
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THERION have always been a band that have challenged themselves to explore new paths, while remaining true to their musical core values. For their 17th studio album, mastermind Christofer Johnsson and his collaborator Thomas Vikström have created something that has been previously unthinkable to the guitarist and the singer. "We have done the only thing that was left of all the different angles to explore", explains Christofer. "We have decided to give the people what they kept asking for. 'Leviathan' is the first album that we have deliberately packed with THERION hit songs."

True to the Swede's words, the album opens with the catchy and swift tune 'The Leaf Of The Oak Of Far' featuring female and male antiphonal singing as well as a choir that seems to have evolved straight out of THERION's breakthrough full-length "Theli" (1996). This is immediately followed by the obvious highlight 'Tuonela', in which Christofer cleverly underscores this hit-track's Finnish vibe by employing NIGHTWISH’s "metal voice" Marko Hietala. Next up in this parade of future fan-favourites is the title track 'Leviathan' that offers classic THERION material with operatic female vocals and a massive choir.

Christofer Johnsson's passion for classic voices, choirs, and orchestral elements as well as his penchant for epic melodies in combination with rock and metal shines clearly through the following sing-along ballad 'Die Wellen Der Zeit', which indicates another nod to German romantic composer Richard Wagner. "Ever since 'Theli', Wagner has been and will always be at the core of THERION", emphasises Christofer. "When we started to combine metal and opera, it was something new and original. Today, symphonic metal has long been a firmly established genre."

When THERION came into being in 1988 by changing name from the already existing band BLITZKRIEG, which was founded a year earlier, Christofer had rather taken inspiration from SLAYER's "Reign In Blood" among other classic metal albums. At the beginning, the Swedes were firmly rooted in death metal, a genre which they helped to define, as witnessed by their debut album "Of Darkness...." (1991). Yet even back then, there were hints of "something else" lurking beneath the rough surface.

The use of female vocals is another core ingredient of THERION today, which developed gradually. CELTIC FROST had basically introduced the female element to extreme metal on "To Mega Therion" in 1985. THERION began with both a female and male vocalist emulating a church like choir already in their sophomore full-length 'Beyond Sanctorum' (1992). With Symphony "Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas" (1993) and "Lepaca Kliffoth" (1995), Christofer continued to developed his trademark sound by gradually drifting towards cleaner vocals and more keyboards. With "Theli", the Swedes had firmly established a reputation of pushing the boundaries of metal in the 90s – among such acts as their compatriots TIAMAT, THE GATHERING, and MOONSPELL that were often referred to as "gothic metal" at the time.
THERION continued to break new ground leaving inspiration for others to follow in their wake: On "A'arab Zaraq - Lucid Dreaming" (1997), Christofer further explored the use of Near Eastern music in metal which he had already begun in 1992, while "Secret Of The Runes" (2001) dared to have Swedish lyrics in some songs. While critics were left confused and fans challenged, THERION were often ahead of their times and vindicated in hindsight. Even the band's 25th anniversary excursion "Les Fleurs Du Mal" has by now overcome the initial shock the album caused and is only beaten in terms of streaming by the classic "Vovin" (1998).
When Christofer faced the question of where to go next after the dramatic "Beloved Antichrist" (2018) had finally fulfilled his musical mission, his answer is "Leviathan" named after a giant sea monster from Judeo-Christian myth that has roots in Babylonic lore: THERION have created a giant hit album – and for the first time in the history of the Swedes, their fans are not asked to explore something new, but simply to lean back and enjoy the best from their band!

Rachel Baiman’s ‘Thanksgiving’ EP is a collection of music to inspire an introspective holiday spirit. The songs center around themes of Indigenous Rights, home and homelessness, and love in hard times.
Baiman called upon her superb live touring band (Cy Winstanley, Shelby Means) in addition to special collaborators including flatpicking guitar master Molly Tuttle, who features prominently on a spirited John Hartford cover, “Madison Tennessee” to bring these
thoughtful songs to life. ‘Thanksgiving’ allows Baiman space to stretch out stylistically and marks an intriguing followup to her celebrated full-length debut ‘Shame’.
Baiman moves with ease from bluegrass, to folk, to old-time and country sensibilities over the course of these four tracks. Her adept lyricism is again on full display, as she sheds new light on the complex, bittersweet feelings of both hardship and hope that often intertwine around the holiday season.

Never Give Up is Partner’s second full-length album, following 2017’s In Search of Lost Time.
In the years since their first release, the band has developed their “post classic rock” sound, trading their 90s rock influences, for deep power grooves, bona fide guitar heroics, and big-hearted vocals from singers Jos e Caron and Lucy Niles.
Partner deliver a more anthemic, kinder, queerer boogie, for all who love the perfect riff, the perfect drum fill, for all whom Rock is their rock.

• Doctor Who Edge of Time is an immersive VR video game and Demon Records are proud to release the soundtrack to this adventure.
• On Vinyl for the first time, this is an original composition by Richard Wilkinson, specially created for this VR experience.
• Double LP, pressed on 140g colour vinyl (Red and Purple LP) and presented in a gatefold. Side D has an etching of the ‘Seal of Rassilon’
• Story line: Mysterious enemy threatens to tear apart the universe and only you can stop them! Armed with the Sonic Screwdriver, players will solve mind-bending puzzles, grapple with iconic monsters and encounter new horizons in a quest to find the Doctor and defeat a powerful force that threatens to destroy the fabric of reality.

Tape / Cassette
Spite Cathedral is an S+M regular but the music found on his releases speaks for an artist that is constantly challenging his own creative boundaries. With equal ease Spite Cathedral delves in micro sounds, multilayered noisescapes or more conventional yet daring musical form and structure. ‘The Human Touchʼ is not an exception of this creative modus operandi and certainly takes things further. Dan Mortazaviʼs teams up with his long term partner Karsten Svendsen on his latest album as Spite Cathedral which is a 13-track sonic shapeshifter that will take you all the way from the clinical minimalist sub-tech realms of opener ‘Wake Up Darling Iʼm Spitting Bloodʼ to the industrial- influenced and raw vocal-driven ‘In Godʼs Cornerʼ, the microscopic sound bits and muted angst of “Without a Soundʼ, to the freeform drifting ambiance of ‘Spellcasterʼ. While these pieces might be a guideline of sorts between them there definitely lies more. While it is indeed impressive that Spite Cathedral can speak to us through a plethora of electronic sub-genres itʼs more fascinating how all his different ways are not only not clashing but are always somehow working together in a hypnotizing unison.

Founded in 1996 by the German-Nigerian lead singer Ade Bantu, his brother Abiodun Odukoya and Patrice, BANTU have been one of the West African acts transforming the legacy of King Sunny Adé and Fela Kuti into the soundtrack of the continent. The group is distinguished by the fact that while created and fronted by vocalist Ade Bantu, it is unmistakably a collective, collaborative effort. When you have a band this strong, this tight where everyone gets to shine, magic happens. And once again with this new album, the 13-piece ensemble is pushing the boundaries of funkiness and political prowess for contemporary music, in Africa or globally.

From their first release, “No Vernacular in 1996 to the present, BANTU has scored a series of hits across Europe and Africa garnering major awards. Indeed, the list of artists who've collaborated with BANTU is a testament to the power, originality and talent of the band: an international cornucopia including UB40, Tony Allen, Orlando Julius, Brothers Keepers (which they created), Gentleman, Ebenezer Obey and Burna Boy just to name a few. These collaborations helped the band earn several major Continental awards, including the Kora Awards (the Pan African equivalent of the Grammys) for “Best Group West Africa” and “Best Group Africa”.

Their latest release Everybody Get Agenda is nothing short of a musical sensation - Afrobeat, Funk and Soul seamlessly flow into one another as they merge with Jazz, Highlife, Hiphop and Yoruba music. The lyrics address issues around corruption, injustice, migration, xenophobia and urban alienation while a guest appearance by Seun Kuti on “Yeye Theory” rounds up this solid long player. There is no doubt that with Everybody Get Agenda BANTU has not just charted new musical territory but reached it and planted the flag.

It seems that every major jazz artist has a one-off sort of record in their discography, be it with strings, voices, spoken word or - as in this case - a foray into the funkier side of jazz. Charlie Rouse (going here as Charles Rouse) gets his chance on Two Is One, a funky soul jazz excursion on Strata-East, the artist-run label where creativity and pushing boundaries was at the forefront. Playing mostly with a group of session musicians, Rouse put together an album that may stray a bit from his hard bop roots, but is nonetheless an enjoyable and at times inventive record. The style of music played here - sophisticated soul jazz with some post bop and spiritual jazz thrown in for good measure - is very much a product of it's time. 1974 saw a whole slew of artists stretching the boundaries of what jazz music could be, combining elements from the past two decades into electric jazz adventures. The piano-less group that Rouse put together is a funky one, with lots of rhythmic playing behind either the searching solos of Rouse on the tenor or some inventive electric guitar work from either George Davis or Paul Metzke who appear together on all but a couple of tracks. Cal Scott gets plenty of time to shine throughout on what sounds like an electrified cello, an unusual instrument for modern jazz to be sure, but one that manages to fit in just fine here.

The first side of the album is all slow burning soul jazz, highlighted by the opening track "Bitchin'" where Rouse shows off that he is more than capable of setting down soulful lines over a funky backbeat. The second side is where the group gets a whole lot more inventive, particularly on the title track where they mix some post bop madness with the soul jazz sound. "Two Is One" features different tempos throughout: in the "first section" the bass plays in 9/8 time, the drums in 6/8 time and the cello and tenor are in 3/4 time. For the "second section" the rhythm section switches to 7/8 time while cello and tenor move to 4/4 time. Stanley Clarke is on bass here and his deep and twisty electric bass line is placed prominently up front.

"Two Is One" is certainly the highlight of the album from a pure jazz standpoint, and it lives up to it's title, which according to Gene Lewis' liner notes is taken from a Thelonious Monk phrase meaning two people so in tune with one another that they become one. The album finishes off with "In His Presence Searching," a spiritually informed jazz number that is reminiscent of the work being done during this period by the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Gary Bartz, (while not being quite as out there as their best work). The tune is all rhythmic glory, with Rouse and Scott playing introspective and penetrating solos throughout. It's a nice album closer, and a good reminder that while Two Is One may be best known for it's funkier excursions, Rouse had a few tricks up his sleeve and the album, when taken as a whole, is a complete statement from a legendary jazz musician.

Southern Lord announce Crush The Machine, the debut EP from West Coast hardcore punk collective D.E.A (Dead End America), formed by the late, great Steve "Thee Slayer Hippy" Hanford of Poison Idea, with current and former members of Queens Of The Stone Age, Eyehategod, The Accüsed A.D, World Of Lies, Ape Machine, and more.

Captured before Hanford’s passing earlier this year, D.E.A's debut shall be released on 7" and digital EP on 30th October (Non-Returnable) Recording details, liner notes from Mark Lanegan and more info below.

Crush The Machine sees the primary writers, drummer/vocalist Steve Hanford and guitarist Tony Avila (World of Lies, Why Won't You Die, Aborted Cop, Here's Your Warning) joined by lead guitarist Ian Watts (Ape Machine, Minmae) and bassist/vocalist Nick "Rex Everything" Oliveri (Mondo Generator, The Dwarves, ex-Kyuss, ex-Queens Of The Stone Age), with additional lyrics and vocals from Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod, Corrections House, Outlaw Order) and Blaine Cook (The Accüsed A.D, The Fartz, Toe Tag).

"A perfectly appropriate title for this 7 inch EP of jack-hammering, oldschool style hardcore tunes released by Southern Lord, written and played by a rogues gallery of real deal music lifers as a condemnation of the criminal Trump administration and republican party, in the same spirit of those by-gone days when Ronald Reagan or George Bush was the crooked, self-serving president of the crumbling United States empire. Never before has there been a more obvious target, as Donald Trump and his mafia family cabinet rape the country while Rome burns. D.E.A. is Tony Avila, Ian Watts, Nick Oliveri, Mike IX, Blaine Cook and the legendary and beloved, late producer and drummer of Poison Idea, Steve "Thee Slayer Hippy" Hanford. Dying shortly before the completion of this record, it stands as a final testament to his genius, one last hot-wired blast of his epic musical brilliance."

Mark Lanegan
Los Angeles
August, 2020

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

ACCEPT ARE BACK! The German kingpins of heavy metal will release their new, eagerly-awaited studio album via Nu- clear Blast on January 15th 2021. The ingenious title of the masterpiece is “Too Mean To Die”.
Speaking of heavy metal kingpins, when ACCEPT first launched at the end of the 70s, the metal genre didn’t even exist - at first the band could only be labelled with the (quality) seal “crazy loud and crazy wild”. Today we know that this was (and is) metal par excellence. And we also know that ACCEPT opened the door to thrash metal, inspiring giants such as Metallica. Guitarist Kirk Hammett recently stated in the German magazine “Gitarre & Bass”: “Wolf Hoffmann has a huge influence on me.“
ACCEPT, who once had their origins in the city of Solingen, a city of sound, have been a worldwide music phenomenon for more than 40 years. They still impress with razor-sharp guitar licks and a steel-hard sound. The band created all-time metal classics like “Balls To The Wall”, “Metal Heart” and many more.
Countless world tours and headline slots at the biggest, cutting-edge festivals cemented the band’s reputation as one of the best, hottest and loudest live acts ever. In addition, the band has sold millions of records, has achieved gold status in the USA, top 10 chart positions worldwide and a number 1 album (Germany, Finland) for “Blind Rage” (2014).
Now with “Too Mean To Die” their 16th studio album is in the starting blocks - it is the fifth album that US vocalist and front man Mark Tornillo has put his incomparable vocal stamp on.Recorded in the world music capital of Nashville (USA), ACCEPT’s music was once again produced by British master producer Andy Sneap, who is responsible for the mix. Sneap, who works for Judas Priest and Megadeth among others, has also been responsible for all ACCEPT productions since 2010.
Special circumstances often lead to very special albums. This is certainly true for “Too Mean To Die”, which of course alludes to the Corona period, although in a different way than one might assume. Hoffmann says: “Its to be expected that many musicians will address the Corona situation in their songs. There will certainly be slogans for cohesion, through which positive vibes should be spread, which is also good. But we have decided to not let ourselves be influenced by it. The fans will get a hard, direct and uncompromising metal album, but of course accompanied with a wink: We are too mean to die! Weeds do not go away! ACCEPT do not let themselves get down!”
Wolf isn’t wrong - the title track is a classic Accept cracker: dynamic and unwavering, turned up to eleven!
Zombie Apocalypse’, also relentless and hard, strikes the same note in the band’s signature style.
The first single - which will be released on October 2nd 2020 together with a remarkable video - is different. Titled ‘The Undertaker’, its a terrific midtempo number with great vocals and a built-in character that chugs along – certain to deliver some mermorable live moments! According to Wolf Hoffmann its one of the most catchy, pleasing pieces of the album.
New to the band, and thus to be heard for the first time on an ACCEPT album, is Philip Shouse (Gene Simmons Band, among others). The US guitarist fights hot duels with Hoffmann, while Uwe Lulis makes the guitar trio perfect and pro- vides the right rhythm. “Phil was part of our orchestra project and was also completely convincing live. We recognised his great talent immediately and simply didn’t let him go,” explains Hoffmann.
Just how varied the ACCEPT guitar trio performs on the new album is proven by one of the secret highlights: ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’ – a beguiling ballad in which Mark Tornillo is at his best. The metal world knows that Mark can scream like no other, but here it shows once again that the frontman can also sing magnificently. “Mark sang this, for us rather unusual song stunningly well. The fantastic thing about Mark is that he not only masters the typical metal screams, but can also sing melodically and beautifully. He proves this impressively in this song”, chief guitarist Hoffmann raves.
In addition, ACCEPT have strengthened their team even further with newcomers Martin Motnik (bass) and Philip Shouse (guitar), thus forming an unbeatable team together with “Drum God” Christopher Williams and “Rhythm Mas- ter” Uwe Lulis.
There’s no doubt that with “Too Mean To Die” Accept are once again playing at the top of the Champions League of the genre. Wolf Hoffmann & Co. present the (music) world eleven masterpieces at the beginning of 2021 - eleven songs for eternity!

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.