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We are repressing Neil Young's 2004 Greatest Hits. The new pressing on 180g black 2LP vinyl will be available for a "release date" of 6th March for all retail accounts ex. Amazon.
Greatest Hits is the third hits compilation, and presents 16 of Neil Young's best-known songs, spanning his solo career from 1969-1992, including "Down By The River", "After The Gold Rush", "Old Man", "Heart Of Gold", and "Rockin In The Free World".
The original version of the LP came with an additional 7" which is excluded on this pressing.

Rick James Blends Brazen Attitude, Fearless Sexuality, and Shrewd Charisma on Street Songs:

Punk-Funk Album Aims for the Hips and Head, Includes the Timeless Hit “Super Freak”
Sourced from the Original Master Tapes and Strictly Limited to 4,000 Numbered Copies:

Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 45RPM 2LP Set Presents 1981 Smash in Audiophile Sound for the First Time
1/4” / 30 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe


“Punk funk” was a relatively unknown concept before 1981. But once Street Songs took the charts by storm that year, the world soon knew about what became Rick James’ signature style. And how. True to its name, Street Songs blends outspoken sexuality, brazen attitude, and edgy commentary amid contagious R&B-fueled arrangements that simultaneously aim for the hips, head, and various nether regions. And it’s never sounded better.

Sourced from the original master tapes, strictly limited to 4,000 numbered copies, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 45RPM 2LP set presents James’ platinum-certified effort in audiophile quality for the first time. Playing with crisp dynamics, lively textures, airy headroom, and revealing clarity, this collectible edition of the record that stayed at the No. 1 spot on the R&B Album Charts for 20 weeks invites you to get closer to music that beckons you to turn your space into a private dance floor.

Then again, you’ll likely be so taken by how the taut bass lines, snappy rhythms, and four-on-the-floor beats — all rendered in stunning detail and with full-bodied architecture — come across with such accuracy and presence, you might stay pinned to your seat. On this pressing, the soundstaging, imaging, and lit-fuse energy of Street Songs reach new heights. Everything from the rubbery feel of the guitar lines to the depth of James’ temperature-raising vocals to the scale of the horn charts emerges as if James and his ace session crew set up in your room.

The Buffalo native and his ensemble waste no time getting their message across. On the album-opening “Give It to Me Baby,” James and company lay down a mix of sleek funk and pulsing disco that practically activates the bright lights of a discotheque and stimulates the libido of anyone within earshot. Having reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Soul charts, the song is pure sex — and just one of the carnal delights on a record that embraces the subject as fearlessly as James does his identity.

Of course, the most famous of James’ erotic excursions — the timeless “Super Freak” — hit No. 1 on Hot Dance Club Play charts, No. 16 on the Hot 100, and, later, No. 153 on Rolling Stone’s list of the Top 500 Songs of All Time. Bolstered by a quavering keyboard theme and electro riffs, the much-sampled track worms itself inside your muscles with smile-inducing subject matter, gliding vocals, nimble movements, a hot tenor-saxophone solo, and backing vocals by the Temptations.

The iconic Motown group isn’t the only celebrated guest artist on the Grammy-nominated Street Songs. James’ then-labelmate, Stevie Wonder, lends harmonica to the frank sociopolitical narrative on “Mr. Policeman,” a protest tune that also manages to stroll ’n’ strut via simmering organ, staggering brass accents, and James’ gritty vocal performance. In addition to contributing backing vocals on several cuts, Teena Marie turns in one of the album’s signature moments on “Fire and Desire,” a romantic old-school duet with James that impresses with smoothness, sensitivity, and smokiness.

High-profile colleagues aside, James remains the undisputed star, a figure whose leather-and-latex attire, braided hair, and natural swagger made him misunderstood by some in the mainstream and embraced by everyone in the know as a true original. As a testament to his magnetism and skills, his charisma and rawness seemingly seep through every note, whether on the balladic sweep of the risqué “Make Love to Me” or strident, poke-and-prod persuasion of the moonwalking “Call Me Up.”

On the closing “Below the Funk (Pass the J),” an uptempo autobiographical tale that addresses the visionary musician’s second-favorite love, the singer acknowledges his upbringing and inseparable connection with his roots — an homage to where he began and a toast to where he’s gone.

Rick James, keepin’ it real on Street Songs, still as real as it gets.

World Of Echo announces the reissue of two remastered albums by Japanese guitarist and songwriter Naoki Zushi, 1988’s Paradise, and 2005’s III. Two classics of Japanese psychedelia, both Paradise and III were originally released on Org Records, the imprint of Shinji Shibayama of acid-folk group Nagisa Ni Te, with whom Zushi has guested on second guitar for decades. Both intimate and expansive, rich with revelatory songwriting and blasted, sky-scouring guitar, these reissues return these albums to print for the first time since the 2000s. It’s the first time III has been officially released on vinyl, with an extra, previously unreleased track, “Under The June Moonlight.”

Recorded in Kyoto’s Townhouse Studios in mid 1987 and released in limited-to-500 vinyl pressing in 1988, Paradise emerged from a scene in Kansai, Japan that was embracing the idiosyncracies of 1970s singer-songwriters, the soaring solos of early seventies psychedelia, and the DIY impulse of 1980s post-punk. While Zushi’s musical history stretched back to the early eighties – he was a founding member of Jojo Hiroshige’s noise outfit Hijokaidan – he found his feet with groups like Hallelujahs, whose dream-pop collection Niku O Kuraite Chikai Wo Tateyo was recently reissued by Black Editions, and Idiot O’Clock.

Paradise appeared two years after that Hallelujahs album and share much the same membership – Zushi’s backing band on several of the songs includes Shibayama on drums and Ken-Ichi Takayama (aka Idiot) on electric guitar, though just as often, Zushi plays all the instruments himself. The coordinates here are wide-reaching – you can hear the volume and intensity of Neil Young & Crazy Horse (on “Hallelujah: Left Side” and “Paradise: Midday”), the slow-motion magic of Galaxie 500, the idiosyncratic spirit of The Only Ones, all mixed up with tender guitar miniatures and stumbling garage-psych-pop moves.

Seven years later, after the transitional album Phenomenal Luciferin, Zushi released III. Perhaps his masterpiece, it’s already been bootlegged on vinyl, but this reissue is the real deal. The album was recorded at Studio Nemu over seven years, and sees Zushi backed by Shibayama (bass) and Masako Takeda (drums), his erstwhile bandmates in Nagisa Ni Te. By this stage, Zushi had started to really stretch out, and many of the songs on III swoon languorously, taking their sweet time to say what they need to say. It’s rich with lovely, melancholy songs, in a similar realm to bandmates Nagisa Ni Te, of course, but you can also hear traces of everything from Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs, through seventies private press loner folk, to the slow-burn meanderings of the likes of early Low or Damon & Naomi.

When interviewed by Shibayama in the mid-nineties, Zushi said of Paradise, “it was a sort of collection of songs that had meant something to me up to that point… it was my paradise. I wanted to create paradise.” That’s something Zushi achieves on both of these albums – visionary Japanese psychedelia, en route to paradise. - Jon Dale

There’s an alternate reality where everyone makes a living wage and the cleanest buses you’ve ever seen arrive every other minute. Where the most intense songs are about confessing your love to a crush at the apple orchard, and where gentle feelings and chaotic energy are inseparable best friends. This is the timeline where Cootie Catcher is right at home. This Toronto based four-piece exudes both vulnerability and unbridled excitement, creating a sound that hypercharges the open-hearted tenderness of twee pop with spiraling synths and giddy electronics. New album Something We All Got is the clearest and most vibrant reading of Cootie Catcher’s vision yet, with songs of sweetness, nervousness, and expectancy that beam out unguarded.
After releasing music made primarily in basement recording environments, Something We All Got is the band’s first flirtation with studio recording. The edges are still sharp, however, with some parts assembled from time-honored lo-fi methods and fun, personally-sourced samples seeping into the production. The sound is explosive and upbeat, with euphoric guitars, bubbly synth lines, speedy drums both played and programmed, and all other manner of sound constantly colliding. Cootie Catcher has three songwriters, Sophia Chavez, Anita Fowl, and Nolan Jakupovski, all of whom have distinctive voices but still manage to overlap in their writing on shared concerns like navigating the lines of romantic and platonic relationships, their city’s social scenes, and struggles in both the microcosmic experience of playing in a band and the zoomed-out challenges of living through late-stage capitalism.
Joy still touches every surface of Something We All Got. “Quarter Note Rock” bounces around the room in a fit of jangling guitar chords, scratched samples, and interplay between breakbeat loops and somersaulting live drums. It’s a blast of positivity even with lyrics about how disappointing it can be to meet your heroes. A smiling electro pop instrumental supports lyrics about having to step painfully away from an almost realized love on “Gingham Dress,” a song that subverts themes of domesticity as a backdrop for the dashed wilt of hopeless devotion.
Cootie Catcher rolls down hills and jumps through flaming hoops throughout Something We All Got without ever dumbing down the visceral emotions that drive these songs. There’s a palpable tension between the band’s exhilarating sonics and the raw, often uneasy sentiments expressed, but it’s an integral part of what makes them unique. Rather than hide behind the kind of calculated vagueness that plagues so much of the indie rock landscape in the time of cursed algorithms, Cootie Catcher runs full-speed toward every confusion and excitement, fearlessly direct and embracing the reality they’re in.

Die Indie-Folk-Ikone Sam Beam, auch bekannt als Iron And Wine, bringt ein neues Studioalbum raus, das voll mit wunderschöner, natürlicher Americana ist, darunter zwei Kollaborationen mit dem weiblichen Folk-Trio I'm With Her. „Ich wollte schon immer diesen Titel verwenden", sagt Sam Beam über „Hen's Teeth“, sein achtes Album in voller Länge und sein sechstes für Sub Pop Records. „Ich liebe ihn einfach. Für mich steht er für das Unmögliche. Hühnerzähne gibt's nicht. Und genau so fühlt sich dieses Album an: wie ein Geschenk, das es eigentlich nicht geben dürfte, aber doch da ist. Eine unmögliche Sache, aber sie ist real."



„Hen's Teeth“ und sein vorheriges Album „Light Verse“ sind so was wie Geschwister. Sie wurden während derselben Sessions nach einer einjährigen Pause mit derselben Band im Waystation Studio in Laurel Canyon aufgenommen. „Wenn ich gerade richtig in Schreiblaune bin und die Band mich dort abholt, wo ich gerade stehe, treiben sie mich zu etwas, das ich mir nicht hätte vorstellen können. Ich bin an einem Punkt in meinem Leben, an dem Spontaneität für mich viel wichtiger ist. Ich muss nicht mehr so viel beweisen wie früher. Ich bin viel freier und liebe es mehr denn je, Musik zu machen. Es gibt keine richtigen oder falschen Antworten. Man betet einfach um Glück und gibt sein Bestes." In diesem Fall wurden die Gebete erhört und das Glück schlug voll zu. Die Musiker fanden so schnell zueinander und inspirierten sich gegenseitig so sehr, dass sie Songs oft in nur wenigen Takes aufnahmen, manchmal zwei oder drei pro Tag. Die beiden Alben können daher als zweieiige Zwillinge betrachtet werden: Sie teilen sich die DNA und ergänzen sich, haben aber unterschiedliche Identitäten und zeichnen sich ebenso durch ihre Unterschiede wie durch ihre Gemeinsamkeiten aus. Die Welt von „Hen's Teeth“ ist erdiger, dunkler, robuster und greifbarer als die von „Light Verse“. Die Songs haben Titel wie “Roses", “Robin's Egg", “Dates and Dead People" und “Singing Saw". “Run into the one you love forever / Laugh into each other's empty mouth", singt Beam in “Roses", dem ersten Titel des Albums. Es ist einer von mehreren Songs, in denen Liebende so tief miteinander verbunden sind, dass sie physisch verschmelzen. “Paper and Stone" erinnert daran: “But for the time we fell in two / You'd be me and I'd be you / One crust of bread could fit in our mouths / You'd breathe in and I'd let it out." Und in “In Your Ocean" finden wir Beam betend: “Praying for dry ground / Though I only want to drown / When I find myself swimming in your ocean".

The most popular acoustic folk music group of the 1960s, Peter, Paul and Mary mixed great songs with political and social activism. They brought folk music to a new prominence in the post-McCarthy era, putting lyrics about politics and morality on the radio amid the syrupy boy-girl love tunes that dominated the airwaves. Presented here is the trio's debut album, originally issued in 1962, the splendid selftitled Peter, Paul and Mary. It features some of their most popular compositions such as 'Early in the Morning' and 'Cruel War', and great renditions of Hedy West's '500 Miles' and Pete Seeger's 'If I Had a Hammer'.

The bonus tracks were recorded live in San Francisco and Long Beach, California, late 1962: 'One Kind Favor', 'The Times They Are A' Changin', and 'If I Had My Way'. "The debut album by Peter, Paul & Mary is still one of the best albums to come out of the 1960s folk music revival. It's a beautifully harmonized collection of the best songs that the group knew, stirring in its sensibilities and its haunting melodies as it crosses between folk, children's songs, and even gospel. Peter, Paul & Mary, which hit the top spot on the album charts as part of a 185-week run, is the purest of the trio's albums, laced with innocent good spirits and an optimism that remains infectious"






f 6 ONE KIND FAVOR [Live version]






[m] 13 THE TIMES THEY ARE A' CHANGIN' [Live version]
[n] 14 IF I HAD MY WAY [Live version]






[f] 6 ONE KIND FAVOR [Live version]






[m] 13 THE TIMES THEY ARE A' CHANGIN' [Live version]
[n] 14 IF I HAD MY WAY [Live version]

French artist Trypheme debuts on Impatience with “Odd Balade”, a darkly-hued collection of songs drawn from human delicacy and dreamworld mythology.

“Odd Balade” is Trypheme’s most ambitious and boldest record to date - both lyrically and musically. The album’s thirteen tracks resist rigid genre boundaries and flutter from medieval folk realms, sprawling synths, gothic 80s wave, leftfield pop, haunted vocals, mutant electronica to reverbed guitars - all reflected through her own shadowy prism. Especially album closer “A Walk In The Vercors” evokes a soothing serenity that echoes the sonic balm of Julee Cruise.

Trypheme’s musical repertoire trends heavily electronic and somewhat abstracted, but on “Odd Balade”, the artist slips into the role of the modern troubadour with a shift to a more poetically and personal songwriting that is infused with symbolism and dreamlike fantasies. The connective tissue of the album is the audacity to love and the vulnerability that ensues. As intimate and introspective as the lyrics are, the themes remain universal and human to the core: the fear of losing a loved one, the melancholia of leaving places and t“the fear of losing a loved one, the melancholia of leaving places and the cycles of life. The record was largely composed in Chars, stirred by the French village’s eerie atmosphere and frequent trips to the seaside in Brittany, where Trypheme resides. Drawing inspiration from the rugged terrain of the seaside landscapes, the writings of Allen Ginsberg and Mark Fisher and the hyperrealist art of Scott Prior, Trypheme uses her songs to depict life with broad strokes of rhythm.

On “Odd Balade” Trypheme consolidates herself as a gifted, nimble songwriter, masterly producer and subtly powerful vocalist. The record combines her skill for crafting lush, alien sound worlds and efficient, alluring arrangements with stealthily devastating songs. Belin’s voice becomes a key ingredient, appearing on eleven of Odd Balade’s thirteen tracks, by turns heavily manipulated, sampled and replayed as a form of percussion, or basically bare.

“Odd Balade” is the manifestation of Trypheme’s roving artistic practice, a ceremonial-grade sacrament cast in a rich nocturnal glow. Pairing the mundane with the mythic, the album stays true to its core: odd and strangely familiar.

RIYL - Riding off into the sunset to an unknown destination, hauntology, present, tales told by the fireside, hot summer rain, adventures, to feel a warm presence when you are walking in the forest or in the mountain, coastal landscapes, sailor’s stories, slow motion, vitesse, heavy blossoms, colors, the warmth of the sun, the tenderness of the moon, getting lost in unfamiliar streets, city’s lights, motorway rest area by night, magic numbers, rendez-vous, picnic, serendipity, poetry, the smell of old records and old books.

Tiphaine Belin has been releasing music as Trypheme since 2016. Odd Balade was written and produced by Belin, and mixed by Belin and Abel Roux. It was mastered by Amir Shoat. Cover art photography is by Ariane Kiks, with art direction by Ariane Kiks in collaboration with Mathilde Chaize.

‘Platinum Rare 1’ contains extremely rare recordings by the four original SWEET members. The legendary glam/hard rock band continues to thrill fans all over the world to this day. Over the years, SWEET have sold more than 55 million records and reached 34 number 1 chart positions. The songs on ‘Platinum Rare 1’ come from the private archive of SWEET guitarist Andy Scott and were personally selected by him. Fans of the band will be thrilled with this collection of rare and alternative takes and mixes. Many of the songs on the album have never before seen the light of day on a regular SWEET release. ‘Platinum Rare 1’ is an absolute enrichment for every true fan of SWEET.

Jubiläumsedition inklusive dem Original Sonderlust Album und einer zweiten Disc mit zwei brandneuen, unveröffentlichten B-Seiten und einer ,Demo-arigato"-Version von Sonderlust mit frühen Demos jedes Songs. Die Doppel-LP erscheint auf farbigem Vinyl: "Bone Vinyl" (LP1) und "Gold Vinyl" (LP2). Vor zehn Jahren war Kishi Bashi nach jahrelangen Tourneen zu seinen gefeierten Alben ,151a" und ,Lighght" kreativ und emotional ziemlich ausgelaugt. Die orchestrale Ausgelassenheit, die seinen Sound früher geprägt hatte, begann zu verblassen, was ihn dazu brachte, seinen künstlerischen Zweck zu hinterfragen. Aus dieser Erschöpfung entstand ,Sonderlust" (2016), eine sehr persönliche Neuerfindung, die von Verletzlichkeit, analoger Wärme und spiritueller Ehrlichkeit geprägt ist. Ishibashi verzichtete auf kunstvolle Violinen-Loops und setzte stattdessen auf Vintage-Synthesizer und reduzierte Texturen, wodurch ein Album entstand, das vor souliger, menschlicher Energie nur so sprühte. Songs wie ,Say Yeah", ,Honeybody" und ,Ode to My Next Life" fingen sowohl den Schmerz als auch die Freude der Selbstfindung ein und verankerten seine üppige Fantasie in gelebter Erfahrung. Jetzt, mit seiner Neuauflage zum 10-jährigen Jubiläum, steht Sonderlust als ein entscheidendes Werk da - in dem Kishi Bashis schillernde Verspieltheit der Selbstbeobachtung und Verbundenheit Platz machte. Die Neuauflage zeigt ein überarbeitetes Artwork des ursprünglichen Cover-Künstlers Ssin Kim, das Wachstum und eine neue Perspektive symbolisiert. ,Wenn man jünger ist, kann die Welt überwältigend wirken", reflektiert Ishibashi. ,Mit zunehmendem Alter beginnt man, seinen Platz darin zu sehen." Was als Album über Liebeskummer begann, ist zu einer zeitlosen Meditation über Empathie, Kreativität und die bleibende Schönheit des Menschseins geworden.

Sundays is the debut full length from Oakland-based Tanukichan, aka multi-instrumentalist Hannah van Loon. At surface level, the album sounds just how the title describes: hazy, dreamy, reflective, just like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Upon second and third listens, the dreamy music unveils a deeper world: an ever present sense of longing, an endless state of summer and a period of instability that plagues us all at one point or another in our lives.
Raised in San Francisco, van Loon started out making classical, bluegrass and jazz music as well as playing in numerous bands in the area before deciding to make something more personal. What started with a few unfocused demos, with van Loon playing all the instruments herself in her house, became a studio experience and viable collection of music after her friend Anthony Ferraro of Astronauts, Etc. introduced her to Company Records founder Chaz Bear (Toro Y Moi, Les Sins). After collaborating on her 2016 EP Radiolove, van Loon and Bear set out to make a much more sonically cohesive release, with both the producer and artist playing all the instruments on the record. The result is a slice of dream pop that could only come from the combination of the laid back atmosphere of California and the nostalgic and often difficult memories that are generally associated with coming of age.
To van Loon, the tracks of Sundays are a form of contemplation and approaching life’s issues from a different and less complicated perspective. “Sometimes for me, it feels easier to write songs about things than to talk. A lot of things in life are layered and paradoxical, but with songs it always seems simpler.”
Opening track “Lazy Love” sets the stage, sonically and lyrically, for the rest of the album, combining vulnerable lyrics with gorgeous, fuzzy tones. Above pummeling synths and guitar tones, van Loon sings “you know I'd do anything/don't you know I try my best/if I could wake up when the sun is rising” showing the album’s constant theme of balancing always wanting to be the best person you can be, while also feeling a low level joy at letting life play out as it wants to. “Natural” is a track that feels perfect for a road trip, a track that hums away with a driving beat, culminating in the sheer excitement of finally having a night alone with someone you’ve loved for a while, among many highs and lows: “a window too bright/it's natural sunlight/grey fades to white lie/kiss you tonight/it's natural delight/help me feel right.” The tracks collectively address a deep rooted sense of yearning for someone, something new, while also feeling content with your life; a realization that maybe the places you’ve always belonged aren’t where you should be anymore, that suddenly you might be looking for something completely different.
“I settled on the name Sundays as the title of the record because it encapsulated how the record felt to me,“ van Loon says. “I was thinking about the laziness, and dreamy clarity that you can feel after a late night, waking up having to face the world with a new perspective.” Sundays encapsulates this feeling, a nostalgic way of looking at the world, waking up feeling like a slightly different person than before, looking back on life, not sure if you can tackle what’s next, but doing your best, day in and day out

2026 Repress


Another Thought was the first collection of Arthur Russell’s music to be released after his death in 1992. Released in 1993 on Point Music it marked the beginning of nearly 30 years of work to let the world hear the enormous archive of unreleased recordings Arthur left behind. Be With revisits this first compilation for a new gatefold double vinyl version and a triple-fold digipak CD reissue.

Both versions of Be With’s 2021 reissue of Another Thought have been mastered by Simon Francis and the vinyl cut by Pete Norman. The original artwork has been restored and tweaked at Be With HQ for the gatefold sleeve and the triple-fold digipak, with the essential help of Janette Beckman. Each version comes with an insert reproducing the liner notes and lyrics from the original CD release.

Together with Calling Out Of Context, Soul Jazz’s World of Arthur Russell, and much of the ongoing work of Audika, Another Thought is absolutely essential for even the most casual Arthur Russell collection. In fact we’d argue it’s essential for any fan of non-obvious pop music. This is the only place where you can hear some of Arthur’s most recognisable tunes and it’s an album that absolutely deserves to be kept in press.


We’ll assume that by now you’re all at least a little familiar with the story of Arthur Russell, the farm boy from Iowa who moved to 1970s New York. Arthur Russell the genuine musical genius who died just 40 years old, leaving behind a wealth of music that dwarfed the few 12"s and LPs that were released during his short life.

Although Arthur had been working on an album for Rough Trade during his last years, with the label no-longer operating it was Point Music (Philip Glass and Michael Riesman’s label set up together with Philips) who stepped in to help Arthur’s partner Tom Lee start working out exactly what Arthur had left behind.

Tom suggested that Arthur’s friend Mikel Rouse was the right person to make the first catalogue. Working in Tom and Arthur’s apartment he had only two weeks to go through what turned out to be around 800 tapes.

As Tom explained “at the end of each day he would generally wait for me to come home and I would, to the best of my knowledge, name and identify pieces in question from that day’s work. As he worked Mikel compiled about a dozen cassettes that he thought would present the most finished sounding songs for Don/Point to use. As Don listened he would then suggest and ask me and thus we collaborated on the choices.”

Don is Don Christensen, Another Thought’s producer. With a final selection of songs from recordings made between 1982 and 1990, including sessions with some of Arthur’s regular collaborators Peter Zummo, Steven Hall, Mustafa Ahmed, Elodie Lauten, Julius Eastman, Jennifer Warnes and Joyce Bowden, it was then Don’s job to turn these into a finished album.

Another Thought is a little different from the compilations of Arthur’s music that came out since. In our conversations with Steve Knutson (who founded Audika Records and who manages Arthur’s estate together with Tom), he explained that “more than any project released by Arthur during his lifetime or posthumously by Audika, ‘Another Thought’ is the most worked over. The material was significantly edited and rearranged from the original source tapes”.

If the aim was to release a comprehensive exploration of every facet of Arthur’s music, from the most avant-garde of his avant-garde compositions through to the most disco-not-disco of his disco-not-disco tunes then the project was a spectacular failure. But as a coherent album of non-obvious pop music Another Thought is wonderful.

Starting with the sparse voice-and-cello of the title track, A Little Lost adds some guitar along with the sneaking suspicion that we’re listening to something nowhere near as simple as it first sounds. By the time we get to This Is How We Walk On The Moon - it could be the moment you notice the congas, or the percussion that’s been building behind them, or maybe it’s that blast of trumpet and trombone - we realise we’ve gone from splashing around to being completely submerged in the musical world of Arthur Russell.

From here the album heads off on its journey around the sounds of the left-field contemporary classical music of the time, re-directed towards pop ears, with minor detours through the swirling woozy disco of the half-remembered night before on In The Light Of The Miracle and My Tiger, My Timing. Whether it’s just Arthur, his cello and some bleeps on Just A Blip, or whether he has some vocal help as he does on the bounding Keeping Up, this is difficult music made so, so easy. And through it all is Arthur’s voice and cello. Sometimes drowned in distortion and sometimes clear as a bell, but always there somewhere.

A Sudden Chill finally returns us to the calmer waters we started in and this last track closes the album with a melancholy that’s not surprising given how soon after Arthur’s death the album was put together.

Whilst Another Thought holds together with the consistency of a proper album, there’s still no getting away from the fact that this was put together from audio recorded in different ways, in different places, with different people at different times. Those with keen ears will hear traces of tape hiss, the occasional blown-out note and some digital fuzz, all fingerprints of those original recordings as well as of the 1990s digital equipment that was used to piece Another Thought together.

Add to this Arthur’s obvious pleasure in making music from the sort of sounds that can make microphones, speakers and ears uncomfortable, it’s no surprise that Another Thought isn’t glossy and pristine. Don Christensen’s productions have been careful to not scrub up those original recordings so much that they lose their original vibe, understandable given that Arthur wasn’t around as a guide. We’ve applied a similarly light touch with the mastering for these Be With versions, just working to make sure they sound like they should on both the vinyl and the CD.

Despite the Discogs rumours, Another Thought was never originally released as an LP. So when it came to the sleeve for this Be With vinyl version we took the original CD artwork as a starting point to come up with something that looks like it could have been in the record racks back in 1993.

We have to thank Janette Beckman for helping us reproduce her iconic photograph of Arthur in his newspaper boat hat. One of many photographs she took of Arthur, Janette shot this in her New York studio back in 1986 for a short article in the January ’87 issue of The Face Magazine. Those with eagle-eyes will notice we’ve used an ever-so-slightly different shot from the one that appeared in The Face and then again on the original cover of Another Thought. The original has long since been lost so we’ve worked with what is left in Janette’s archives. And we also have to thank Tom Lee for giving us permission to reproduce his liner notes from the original CD booklet, together with Arthur’s lyrics.

Despite its title, Ratboys’ new album Singin’ to an Empty Chair is not defined by what’s missing. Rather, it’s the beginning of an important dialogue with a close loved one, vocalist Julia Steiner finds herself estranged from. The music on the band’s sixth studio album – its first for New West Records – fills the space that person left behind with 11 songs showcasing Ratboys at the peak of their powers — twangy, effervescent, as confident as they’ve ever been, and perhaps more emotionally interrogative than ever before. The four-piece Chicago band followed up 2023’s highly acclaimed The Window by reconvening with co-producer Chris Walla to begin tracking at a rural Wisconsin cabin before taking the songs to Steve Albini’s famed Electrical Audio studios in Chicago and later to Rosebud Studio in Evanston, Illinois. The results veer from bubbly power-pop on “Anywhere” to irresistible post-country on “Penny in the Lake,” along with heart-piercing ballads like “Just Want You to Know the Truth” and an exhilarating detour into the extraterrestrial on “Light Night Mountains All That,” which Steiner dubs the band’s mammoth “wormhole jam.” Singin’ to an Empty Chair also marks the first Ratboys album written since Steiner began therapy, which the singer/lyricist credits for the clarity found across the album’s unflinching examinations of relationship and self. Fittingly, as the album begins by extending a hand into the void, it concludes with a scene of serenity – all while weaving candid honesty, humor, chaos, and whimsy along the way. “It's not all doom and gloom,” Steiner says. “The experience of making this record definitely gives me hope for whatever happens next.”

"deathcrash’s third album, Somersaults, glimmers with an everyday euphoria. The London-based slowcore/ post-rock quartet has always had an affinity for building worlds only to crush them. From their breakout EP, People thought my windows were stars (2021), through two critically acclaimed studio albums, Return (2022) and Less (2023), they have been both the architects and the destroyers, the creationists and the ones manning the flood barrier. But, recorded between Black Box Studio in the Loire Valley and Haggerston’s Holy Mountain, Somersaults is almost joyful.

Its ten tracks are more vocal heavy than any of the band’s catalogue – think Mark Linkous via The Kinks – but lyrically, Somersaults resists revelation. For all its abrasion, phrases appear half-swallowed, broken off at the edge of meaning, consumed by the smaller textures of living. “Thirty, no career, it fucking worries me / And doing the band doesn’t help,” Banks sings in ‘NYC’. But, “This life is the best life,” he finishes in ‘CMC’ on top of the ambient white noise of an office printer, thankful that the band is still there, “still making noise in the doorway.”

Their role as caretakers of Duster, Low and Codeine’s slowcore lineage is all across Somersaults – songs scud to a narcotic crawl, sound monolithic and inwards before spotlighting a crystalline nothing. Cathartic builds are muddied with tenderness, the bass a heavy grounding, the drums an exhausted heartbeat grasping for air. But more so than ever, even the silence feels collaborative – a gesture of communal trust – friends celebrating the room they’ve made for each other’s ghosts, and some of the biggest, brightest songs they’ve made to date."

Miki Nakatani’s Best Album MIKI to Be Reissued on Vinyl in a Long Awaited Colored Edition!
This compilation features songs from actress Miki Nakatani’s music career during the mid 1990s to early 2000s, produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
It includes the much talked about track “Chronic Love”, which served as the theme song for the drama Keizoku, a beautifully rendered cover of NICO’s
“Chelsea Girls” that captures the original melancholy, and a drum only mix of Taeko Onuki’s “Natsu ni Koi Suru Onnatachi (DRUM MIX)”.
Additionally, Side D includes three off vocal versions, just like the CD release.






[d] b1 Kowareta Kokoro [Band Mix]



[h] c2. Natsu ni Koi Suru Onnatachi [Drum Mix]

“From Birmingham and centred around the extraordinary songwriting talent of James and Patrick Roberts – initially as The Sea Urchins and since 1993 as Delta – they’ve only just got round to releasing their debut album, Slippin’ Out. It is a work of some beauty”. 9/10 NME ALBUM OF THE MONTH, 2000

“It’s classicist for sure, shot through with the influence of The Beatles, Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. In James’ downright beautiful closing ballad ‘I Want You’ one can also discern the school of ambitious English balladry that peaked in about 1968: The Casuals, Love Affair, Barry Ryan. The impression of accomplished old-schoolery is only furthered by the dizzying string arrangements penned by Louis Clark Jnr, son and namesake of the one-time orchestral chief of Electric Light Orchestra” – Mojo lead review, 2000


Having ended the 90s with the spirited ‘Laughing Mostly’ compilation of singles and demos (Guardian Album Of The Week) Delta finally released their debut studio album of twelve songs in the summer of 2000 on the Dishy Recordings label. Accepting that this might be their sole studio album the band threw everything at these recordings allowing it to exist in its own sphere, unbothered by their contemporary generation and disregarding the idea of even releasing a single.

Recorded at DEP International there was a notable difference to the scruffier, looser charm of their 1990s recordings, a tighter focus developed by having the experienced Lenny Franchi mixing the LP with them. Lenny had been working with a number of Island artists including My Bloody Valentine and Tricky so knew his way around a desk. There was also the question of budget (a few months passed between recording and mixing whilst funds were raised) so every day counted. Ultimately though you can hear the joy in the recordings, even amongst the melancholy and angst. As James recently recalled in an interview in Shindig! Magazine: “It was such a big deal for us. It’s one of my fondest memories doing that record. Everyone was happy. If there’s anything that I’d stand by, I think it would be that”

Louis Clark Jr joined the band towards the end of the ‘90s and brought a classically-trained element to the recordings particularly with his string arrangements. For ‘Cuckoo’, ‘I Want You’ and the prophetic ‘We Come Back’ Louis brought in eight players from the Birmingham Conservatoire; the baroque style is partly why the record often receives comparisons to Love’s ‘Forever Changes’.

On release ‘Slippin’ Out’ was a big favourite with writers at the NME, Mojo and The Guardian again and before long the band were signed to Mercury/Universal for their second studio album ‘Hard Light’, a far more expensive and expansive love affair. It was a temporary palatial home where things quietly fell apart again, but that’s another chapter.

“If long-term memory is nothing more than selective editing and only pop’s most weighty visceral works are built to last then it’s quite possible that in 50 years the Britpop era will be best recollected for the two bands it ostracised. Earlier this year we met Shack and thought their story of mercurial brilliance indicated the biggest music biz oversight of the 90s. We were wrong because we hadn’t met Delta yet. This is richer and more engrossing than anything by Shack” 

Pink Must is the duo project by Brooklyn based sound artists and musicians Mari 'More Eaze' Rubio and Lynn Avery. This self titled album is the debut release under the Pink Must umbrella.

Based on a long-standing artistic chemistry and shared love of genre-defying sounds, Pink Must started off as a remote grunge collaboration, with demos shared long-distance between New York and Texas. Over time, and especially since uniting in Brooklyn in 2023, the project evolved into its own animated soundspace, connecting raw imperfect textures with classic songwriting and a playful approach to both track instrumentation and lyrics.

The duo's production blends richness, glitches, and dissonant layers with drum and string arrangements in ways that subtly hint at influences like Stina Nordenstam and PJ Harvey. The record is tangled yet direct: fictional sketches of various situations, songs about love, change, decay, and even Mari's dog, Keith—all wrapped in signature guitar dreams and deadpan vocal lines.

Milwaukee's powerhouse Altered Five Blues Band returns with their eighth studio album, Hammer & Chisel, a simmering set of eleven electrifying original songs that showcase why this award-winning group has remained at the forefront of contemporary blues for over two decades. Belted out with gusto by singer Jeff Taylor, each track crackles with the energy of a band firing on all cylinders—tight musicianship, razor-sharp guitar work, and witty lyrics that cut straight to the bone. From the opening salvo of the funky, horn-driven "I Got It Good" through the cautionary "Who Can You Trust" to the empowering closing statement of "The Will of Man," the album demonstrates the kind of top-notch performance that can only come from five musicians who've spent 24 years honing their collective sound. Produced by multi-GRAMMY winner Tom Hambridge and featuring guest harmonica ace Jason Ricci on three tracks, Hammer & Chisel captures the band at their peak.

Bettye Swann possessed one of the most emotive voices in soul music’s cannon but her recording career was that of a shooting-star; it blazed at the start, then illumined brightly before abruptly dissipating, all in just eleven years. In 1975 she ceased recording, moved to Las Vegas and retired her Bettye Swann persona.
The Louisianan Betty Jean Champion had relocated to Los Angeles as a young woman where in around 1964 she was introduced to Al Scott, owner of Money Records. It was her fourth Money 45 “Make Me Yours” that propelled Swann into the stratosphere. One of the defining songs of the era, it was her pathway to Capitol Records with whom she signed in 1968.
By 1972 Bettye was at Atlantic Records. The initial Atlantic 45 “Victim Of A Foolish Heart” b/w “Cold Day In Hell” recorded at Fame with Mickey Buckins and Rick Hall, made for a promising debut reaching #16 on the Billboard chart. It was followed by Bettye’s version of Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again” and “Til I Get It Right”, a gentle country-soul labour. “I’m Not That Easy To Lose” also dates from those sessions.
In an attempt to broaden her appeal Atlantic sent Swann to Sigma Sound in Philadelphia where she cut Phil Hurtt’s’ and Tony Bell’s “Kiss My Love Goodbye”, “Time To Say Goodbye” and “When The Game is Played On You”. Her fortunes continued to wane so Swann was next placed with Nashville producer Brad Shapiro. The results were artistically stellar and included three unissued gemstones in The Isley’s “This Old Heart of Mine”, a definitive version of Maxine Weldon’s “I Want Sunday Back Again”, and “Either You Love Me Or Leave Me”.

Heavenly return! As fiercely independent as any punk band, but as sweetly melodic as any chart-topping act, Heavenly combine sharp-edged lyrics with shamelessly joyful pop music. The band comprises original members Amelia Fletcher, Peter Momtchiloff, Cathy Rogers and Rob Pursey, who are now joined on drums by Ian Button. An important element of the Heavenly story was the loss of Mathew Fletcher, who took his own life just before the fourth album was released. It took Amelia, Peter, Cathy and Rob a long time to get over the loss; maybe it took even longer to find a drummer as good as Ian. 'Highway To Heavenly' shares its musical recipe with the band's first four albums, all of which were released in the 1990s at a time when sensitive indie types in the UK were sheltering from the prevailing macho-rock storm under the Sarah Records umbrella, and when women in the US were starting to find their Riot Grrrl voices in the small town of Olympia, where labels like K and Kill Rock Stars were designing a new creative space. The new songs are full of anger, of grief, of empathy, of love, and set themselves in opposition to the resurgence of the cold 'masculine energy' that is making the world a miserable, aggressive place today. It's all pop here, but Highway To Heavenly has a huge range of tones and moods. Heavenly have recently enjoyed a huge resurgence of interest from a younger generation of fans, who have cottoned on to Heavenly's music, but also embraced the band's inclusive version of feminism. The new Heavenly have played a number of sell-out shows in the past couple of years, where older fans have mingled with new devotees. Still our love is Heavenly!

A limited edition tribute to Chris Hill who recorded this record in 1979. Features Luther Vandross!



Recorded jointly in Germany and the USA, Mascara were the creation of soul legend and Mafia club DJ, the late Chris Hill. The vocalists are Ula Hedwig, David Lasley, and Luther Vandross . Ula was a former member of The Harlettes with Sharon Redd and Charlotte Crosley who used to support Bette Midler. David Lasley was also a supporting singer for Bette Midler, and later Luther Vandross, David Lasley’s prolific career as songwriter alone spans more than 30 years. He is best-known as a composer for the hundreds of songs he has written recorded by the likes of Anita Baker ("You Bring Me Joy"), Boz Scaggs ("JoJo"), He sang backgrounds on numerous classic disco hits for acts including Chic ("Everybody Dance", "Le Freak", "I Want Your Love"), Sister Sledge’s ("We Are Family", "He’s The Greatest Dancer") and together with Luther for Odyssey on "Native New Yorker".

San Francisco–born singer-songwriter Ben Kweller returns with Cover The Mirrors, his seventh studio album — and perhaps his most personal work to date. Known in the late ’90s as a member of post-grunge outfit Radish, who were signed to Mercury Records and even counted Nils Lofgren among their fans, Kweller has since carved out a long and prolific solo career rooted in melodic indie rock and unfiltered emotion. Cover The Mirrors is a deeply poignant record, written in honour of what would have been Kweller’s late son Dorian Zev’s 19th birthday. It also marks Kweller’s first release since Dorian’s tragic passing in 2023 — an event that reshaped both his life and his music. Far from retreating into silence, Kweller channels his grief into a collection of songs that explore loss, love, and renewal with raw honesty. “This is the most personal, emotionally raw project I've ever worked on,” he reflects, and every track bears that truth. The album features an impressive roster of collaborators from across the indie landscape: Waxahatchee joins on “Dollar Store,” a sparse and arresting song built on two vocals and a guitar that eventually erupts into a distorted, soaring finale; MJ Lenderman lends his touch to “Oh Dorian,” a tender tribute steeped in warmth and melancholy; Jason Schwartzman resurrects his mid-aughts project Coconut Records for the haunting “Depression”; and psych-rock icons The Flaming Lips appear on the shimmering, otherworldly “Killer Bee.” Musically, Kweller’s craft is as sharp and sincere as ever — intimate yet expansive, stripped-down yet powerful. Cover The Mirrors captures an artist walking through grief with purpose, turning heartbreak into something both fragile and transcendent. It’s the sound of Ben Kweller looking loss directly in the eye — and finding beauty, courage, and connection reflected back. - “One of the great American songwriters” – Jack Antonoff TRACKLIST: A1. Going Insane A2. Dollar Store (feat. Waxahatchee) A3. Trapped A4. Park Harvey Fire Drill A5. Depression (feat. Coconut Records) A6. Don't Cave B1. Optimystic B2. Brakes B3. Killer Bee (feat. The Flaming Lips) B4. Letter To Agony B5. Save Yourself B6. Oh Dorian (feat. MJ Lenderman) Clear Vinyl LP

Vic Velvet ist das Soloprojekt von Victoria Aron, bekannt aus der Wiener Indie-Punkrock'n`-Roll-Band Topsy Turvy. Das Debütalbum mit dem Titel "My Heart Feels Like a Cowboy's" wurde unter der Leitung ihres Freundes Felix Schnabl, alias Salamirecorder, auf einem 4-Spur-Tonbandgerät aufgenommen. Inspiriert vom Sound und Feeling der 60er Jahre lassen diese Songs das Herz wirklich wie das eines Cowboys fühlen, der auf der Suche nach seinem endlosen Weg nach Hause ist. Nostalgisch und herzlich dreht sich bei Vic Velvet alles um Liebe, Hoffnung und Träume, denen eine junge Frau oder ein Cowgirl nachjagen möchte.

Inspiriert von den schattigen Cabarets und verrauchten Jazzclubs des Weimarer Berlins der späten 1920erJahre, präsentiert Bryan Ferry mit seinem Orchester auf „Bitter-Sweet“ sein Solo- und Roxy-MusicRepertoire in neuem Gewand – mit einer raffnierten Jazz-Sensibilität. Das Album besticht durch elegante
Bläserarrangements, gedämpfte Trompete, Klarinettenklänge und eine Atmosphäre urbaner Melancholie,
die Klassiker wie „Alphaville“, „Reason or Rhyme“ und „While My Heart Is Still Beating“ neu interpretiert.
Ferry selbst steuert auf acht Titeln den Gesang bei, während die übrigen Stücke als instrumentale Neuinterpretationen präsentiert werden, arrangiert mit dem Können von Colin Good und gespielt von einem
Ensemble erfahrener Jazzmusiker. Das Konzept des Albums entstand aus Ferrys Tätigkeit als Musikberater
für die gefeierte deutsche Fernsehserie „Babylon Berlin“, in der einige Titel ursprünglich verwendet wurden
und die filmisches Drama mit authentischem Jazz verbindet. Perfekt für langjährige Fans, Jazzliebhaber
und Sammler: „Bitter-Sweet“ bietet eine neue Perspektive auf Ferrys Songwriting und ist damit ein herausragendes Album zum Ausstellen, Entdecken und Verschenken.
Das Album erscheint erstmals seit 2012 wieder als limitierte rote LP und CD.
Tauchen Sie ein in eine Welt, in der klassischer Art-Pop auf die wilden 20er Jahre trifft. „The Jazz Age“
interpretiert Bryan Ferrys Roxy Music- und Solo-Katalog als elegante Jazz-Instrumentals neu, präsentiert
vom Bryan Ferry Orchestra. Von „Virginia Plain“ und „Do the Strand“ bis hin zu „Love Is the Drug“ und
„Avalon“ – jeder Titel erstrahlt in authentischen Arrangements im Stil der 20er Jahre mit Banjo, Klarinette,
gedämpfter Trompete, Baritonsaxophon und Kontrabass, komponiert vom renommierten Arrangeur Colin Good. Britische Jazz-Größen wie der Trompeter Enrico Tomasso und der Saxophonist Alan Barnes erwecken
diese zeitlosen Melodien zum Leben, während die Mono-Produktion den Charme alter 78er-Schallplatten
heraufbeschwört. Ferry selbst verzichtet auf den Gesang und fungiert als Dirigent und Produzent. Dieses
innovative Projekt entstand aus seiner Liebe zum Jazz und seiner Neugier, wie seine Songs ohne Gesang
klingen würden. Perfekt für langjährige Fans, Jazzliebhaber und designorientierte Sammler: „The Jazz
Age“ bietet eine neue Perspektive auf Ferrys Werk und ist damit ein herausragendes Sammlerstück zum
Entdecken, Ausstellen und Verschenken.
Das Album erscheint erstmals seit 2012 wieder als limitierte Edition auf waldgrünem Vinyl (1LP) und
als CD.

Inspiriert von den schattigen Cabarets und verrauchten Jazzclubs des Weimarer Berlins der späten 1920erJahre, präsentiert Bryan Ferry mit seinem Orchester auf „Bitter-Sweet“ sein Solo- und Roxy-MusicRepertoire in neuem Gewand – mit einer raffnierten Jazz-Sensibilität. Das Album besticht durch elegante
Bläserarrangements, gedämpfte Trompete, Klarinettenklänge und eine Atmosphäre urbaner Melancholie,
die Klassiker wie „Alphaville“, „Reason or Rhyme“ und „While My Heart Is Still Beating“ neu interpretiert.
Ferry selbst steuert auf acht Titeln den Gesang bei, während die übrigen Stücke als instrumentale Neuinterpretationen präsentiert werden, arrangiert mit dem Können von Colin Good und gespielt von einem
Ensemble erfahrener Jazzmusiker. Das Konzept des Albums entstand aus Ferrys Tätigkeit als Musikberater
für die gefeierte deutsche Fernsehserie „Babylon Berlin“, in der einige Titel ursprünglich verwendet wurden
und die filmisches Drama mit authentischem Jazz verbindet. Perfekt für langjährige Fans, Jazzliebhaber
und Sammler: „Bitter-Sweet“ bietet eine neue Perspektive auf Ferrys Songwriting und ist damit ein herausragendes Album zum Ausstellen, Entdecken und Verschenken.
Das Album erscheint erstmals seit 2012 wieder als limitierte rote LP und CD.
Tauchen Sie ein in eine Welt, in der klassischer Art-Pop auf die wilden 20er Jahre trifft. „The Jazz Age“
interpretiert Bryan Ferrys Roxy Music- und Solo-Katalog als elegante Jazz-Instrumentals neu, präsentiert
vom Bryan Ferry Orchestra. Von „Virginia Plain“ und „Do the Strand“ bis hin zu „Love Is the Drug“ und
„Avalon“ – jeder Titel erstrahlt in authentischen Arrangements im Stil der 20er Jahre mit Banjo, Klarinette,
gedämpfter Trompete, Baritonsaxophon und Kontrabass, komponiert vom renommierten Arrangeur Colin Good. Britische Jazz-Größen wie der Trompeter Enrico Tomasso und der Saxophonist Alan Barnes erwecken
diese zeitlosen Melodien zum Leben, während die Mono-Produktion den Charme alter 78er-Schallplatten
heraufbeschwört. Ferry selbst verzichtet auf den Gesang und fungiert als Dirigent und Produzent. Dieses
innovative Projekt entstand aus seiner Liebe zum Jazz und seiner Neugier, wie seine Songs ohne Gesang
klingen würden. Perfekt für langjährige Fans, Jazzliebhaber und designorientierte Sammler: „The Jazz
Age“ bietet eine neue Perspektive auf Ferrys Werk und ist damit ein herausragendes Sammlerstück zum
Entdecken, Ausstellen und Verschenken.
Das Album erscheint erstmals seit 2012 wieder als limitierte Edition auf waldgrünem Vinyl (1LP) und
als CD.

Alex Rex, the project of acclaimed musician and former Trembling Bells bandleader Alex Neilson, is set to release his fourth and final studio album, The National Trust, on March 28th. Written in the wake of the sudden death of his younger brother, Alastair, the album is a poignant reflection on loss, love, and renewal, deeply rooted in the landscape of Carbeth—a cabin community in the Scottish countryside that Alastair called home. For Neilson, the cabin became both a physical and emotional project, a symbol of restoration and reconnection.

"For the first four years after Alastair died, his cabin lay empty and exposed to the remorseless Scottish weather. It came to look like a rotten tooth in a beautiful mouth. Cladding was dropping off its veneer, the ashen baubles of dead wasps nests clung to the rafters, all his possessions were just as he'd left them but eaten by mice, moths and time. Ashtrays still carried the crushed centimetres of his old tab ends. The cabins are so joyfully animated by their host's specific personality and this one looked like a haunted house. Guilt, unrealised hopes and encroaching nature yoked together in a wandering sadness. Combined with the fact that I didn't know the right way round to hold a hammer made the project of its restoration seem hopeless.”

Neilson, however, gradually began chipping away at the task, determined to transform the cabin into something he hoped would resemble “a National Trust site occupied by a psychopath,” with a little help from some friends, including Lavinia Blackwall and Marco Rea.

“They poured love into the cabin and helped restore Alastair's original vision. The project also helped restore my relationship with Lavinia which had fractured after Trembling Bells broke up in 2017. Alongside long-term Rex lieutenant Rory Haye, we applied the same intensity of dedication that we did in renovating the cabin, into creating The National Trust.”

As with Neilson’s previous albums, the recording process was intentionally unpolished, with songs presented in the studio with no rehearsals and captured in just a few takes. This raw, immediate approach amplifies the emotional weight of the album, which Neilson describes as being at a “personal apex of sour self-reflection, mock misanthropy, and self-exposure.” Longtime collaborators Lavinia Blackwall, Marco Rea, and Rory Haye return, alongside guest musicians like Jill O’Sullivan (Jill Lorean) and Trembling Bells guitarist Mike Hastings, to bring Neilson’s vision to life. The result is a deeply personal and multifaceted work, blending acid wit with haunting introspection.

The songs on The National Trust traverse a wide emotional and thematic range. The title track opens the album with a sharp and confessional edge, exploring love, loathing, and cultural critique with Neilson’s signature wit. “Boss Morris” pays tribute to the all-female Morris dancing troupe that reinvents British folk with vibrant energy, while “Two Kinds of Song” turns self-referential humour into an avalanche of remorse, culminating in the unforgettable chorus: “I’ve got two kinds of song. Which one will it be; one where I hate myself or one where you hate me?” Elsewhere, tracks like “Psychic Rome” draw from the decadence and hysteria of ancient Rome, while “The Coward in the Tower” breaks new ground as the only song Neilson has composed on an instrument before recording.

Throughout the album, Neilson’s lyricism is as vivid as ever, transforming personal tragedy into poignant and often darkly humorous art. Yet, there is a sense of finality to this work. "Songwriting has encouraged me to see the whole world as a resource. The things people say and throw away can be chiselled and polished and plopped into a lyric. It’s the same with building the cabin- scouring the edges of society for pallets, discarded wood, ornaments for the garden. But while song writing brings to life orphaned parts of my personality, the cabin is a synthesis of all my interests – nurturing my emotional health instead of exploiting it. With that in mind, I think this will be my last album as Alex Rex.”

With The National Trust, Neilson closes a significant chapter of his career, blending masterful musicianship with deeply personal storytelling. Known for his collaborations with artists such as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Shirley Collins, and Current 93, as well as his decade-long tenure leading the psych-folk outfit Trembling Bells, Neilson has long been celebrated for his eclectic and uncompromising vision. This final album serves as a fitting culmination of his journey as Alex Rex, capturing the essence of his artistry while offering a profound exploration of loss, renewal, and the enduring power of love.

‘Moonlight Concessions’ goes back to basics, a return for Throwing Muses to their esoteric off-kilter best courtesy of Kristin’s pin-sharp sketches and their suitably abrasive musical arrangements. The album follows their acclaimed ‘Sun Racket’ from 2020, a heady set filled with tough and tender tales spiked with surreal imagery. Produced by Kristin Hersh at Steve Rizzo's Stable Sound Studio in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, ‘Moonlight Concessions’ is a collection of snippets from everyday life writ large - think Raymond Carver Short Cuts, overheard conversations, recounted happenings and telling one-liners, all sewed together to illustrate the times as they slowly mature, fully peppered with original Muses’ vim and vigour. ‘Drugstore Drastic’ is a kerbside soliloquy caught en route to a more alluring rendezvous. Built on a brisk acoustic strum with a guitar sub-melody underpinning proceedings, it’s an unfolding tale of social awareness from a blurred sub-conscious. ‘Summer Of Love’ began as a bet with a guy for a dollar that revolved around the idea that the seasons don’t change us. The album opener, it’s a haunting baroque overture, bowed and brooding. ‘Libretto’s strings offset the acoustic ambience, the hot and cold of longing at the very heart of it, a thematic driver filed with warmth in a safe haven lubricated by tequila. Written in the differing South Coast environs of The Gulf Of Mexico and Southern California, ‘Moonlight Concessions’ pulls from the star clusters that light both, generating optimism and hope in varying degrees. Hersh explains, “In New Orleans the stars look greenish-blue, as it’s below sea level and swamp-lit. But on Moonlight Beach, they glow icy white. All these songs were written in these two glowy places, which helped our sonic technique find itself.”

Includes demos of every track from the original album, stripped back to (mainly) guitar and voice. Originally a Norman Records exclusive, these are the last few copies available from a limited pressing of just 300. Mark Fry is a France- based, English singer- songwriter/ artist whose debut album, 'Dreaming With Alice,' released in Italy in 1971, became a much-bootlegged "acid-folk" classic three decades later. Fry returned to recording in 2008 and has since released 4 more acclaimed studio albums. These days, far less "acid" than in his youth, Fry still knows his way around a beautiful melody. This album of sketches is resplendent with love songs, the beauty of nature and the passing of time Fry is certainly no stranger to the preparatory sketch. An artist in the truest sense of the word, renowned equally for his decades- long career as a painter of vibrant abstracts and as a cult psychedelic minstrel turned intimate, evocative singersongwriter, his atelier, housed in a converted stable building at his Normandy home, literally doubles as his music studio. It was in this space that Mark's fifth solo album, 'Not On The Radar,' released back in May, was recorded in the summer of 2024, with the singer pushing back his easels to accommodate a four-piece live band and vanloads of miscellaneous accompanying paraphernalia.

Before that, the studio had been a considerably emptier space in which working versions of the album's ten languidly bucolic compositions were first demoed by the solitary songwriter (although some emergent tracks were also captured at Balintore - the home studio of Mark's regular guitarist, Iain Ross, housed on the latter's London-moored canal barge). With those sketches presented here in the same running order as on the mothership longplayer, this new album stands as a document of process - offering the opportunity for track- by- track comparison for those already familiar with Not On The Radar. Crucially, it also makes for a very fine standalone album in its own right, which, if nothing else, bears testament to the inherent robustness of Mark Fry's songwriting.

Mrs. GREEN APPLE's fifth original album, "ANTENNA," will be released on vinyl on July 5, 2023! The band is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
This fifth original full-length album includes the theme songs "Soranji" for the film "From the Gulf with Love," "Que Sera Sera" for the drama "Sunday Nights...,"
and a self-cover of "I Am the Strongest," a song written for the film "ONE PIECE FILM RED."

Macclesfield 3-piece Cassia make their extremely welcome return with the announcement of their most ambitious release yet in new studio album everyone, outside - out April 11th.

The album marks a bold new chapter, and recently served up a tropical-tinged first offering in ‘heat’ - with today serving a superb Round Two with the stomping, insatiable, hook-laden new single ‘friends’.

everyone, outside takes Cassia’s sound to new heights. Written fresh off the back of two years of relentless touring, the band channelled every ounce of their renowned live energy into the album, returning to a studio they built themselves in Macclesfield, after creating their previous album in Berlin. The journey provided an added twist, recording the majority of tracks live on TikTok, giving fans a unique, inclusive experience to be part of the process.

The album’s title is a metaphor for embracing your truest self and reflection of a band who are at their happiest outside. It’s a message that speaks to the idea of reconnecting with nature and Britain’s finest summers. As frontman Rob explains, “That title, ‘everyone, outside’ started as a song about how weird it is that we stay inside all the time when being out in nature always makes us feel better. Over time, it came to mean more than that - like a metaphor for being your truest, most natural self, unburdened, like when no one’s watching.”

Drawing influences from a host of genres and cultures, everyone, outside reveals Cassia’s venn diagram of global sounds and intimate storytelling. A trip to Mexico during the writing process injected the record with a new energy, while their time spent in their new space back home gave the band a freedom to try new instruments, new sounds, acquire new tools to hone their production skills - and to simply have fun and explore. “The time we spent in Berlin taught us so much, but coming back home to Macclesfield allowed us to really focus on making something that felt like it came from us. No distractions, just pure creativity,” says drummer Jacob Leff.

Cassia’s rise has been impressive. From their early days busking the streets of Cornwall to playing major festivals, touring the world and receiving critical acclaim from BBC Radio 1, Radio X, The Independent, Rolling Stone UK, Clash & many more, the band has carved out a unique niche. Their sound, influenced by the African music Rob’s father introduced him to, combined with the indie heritage of nearby Manchester, combines the positivity of bands like Foals and Vampire Weekend, with the jazz-tinged afrobeats of Fela Kuti and Ebo Taylor.

After signing to Distiller Records in 2018, the band gave up their full-time jobs and ventured to Bath to record their debut album, Replica. Tracks such as ‘Right There’, ‘Drifting’ & ‘100 Times Over’ have amassed millions of streams, seeing the band sell out multiple headline Tours both in the UK and Europe. Playing to a homecoming capacity crowd at Manchester’s O2 Ritz, as well as sold out headline shows at London’s KOKO & The Garage, the band have accrued a huge, loyal following and their live shows earned them a nomination for Best Live Act at the AIM Awards alongside Idles and DMA’s, as well as making them the winners of Reeperbahn’s Anchor Award in 2022.

Cassia will tour the UK in May 2025, playing songs from the new album and some of their biggest tracks - headlining Leeds, Bristol, a newly added night in Southampton, a special Manchester homecoming, Glasgow, Birmingham, & a huge show at London’s HERE @ Outernet - dates below & Tickets Here. The band will also take things Stateside this year for their first ever run of headline shows in the US & Mexico.

It’s been decades since New Found Glory were etched onto pop-punk’s Mount Rushmore, but as the Coral Springs, Florida, quartet approach their 30th anniversary, they’ve proven with their 11th studio album Listen Up! - and first for Pure Noise Records - that they still have plenty to say. Shaped by guitarist Chad Gilbert’s battle with metastatic cancer and the enduring bond with bandmates Jordan Pundik, Ian Grushka, and Cyrus Bolooki, the record captures resilience and gratitude in tightly wound riffs and sing-along hooks reminiscent of their early 2000s classics. Written face-to-face in Gilbert’s Nashville home with a riff-first mentality, the album recalls Sticks and Stones and Catalyst while pushing forward with songs like first single “100%,” road-tested alongside The Offspring and Jimmy Eat World. Produced by Steve Evetts with contributions from Dan O’Connor of Four Year Strong, Listen Up! balances nostalgia with urgency, embodying the band’s mission to inspire a new generation of fans while offering longtime listeners a renewed sense of strength, positivity, and joy—because, as Pundik sings on “Beer And Blood Stains,” at the end of the day, “it’s good to be alive.”

Six years after his Grammy-nominated LP5, Sascha Ring - aka Apparat - takes a bold dive into the complexities of life with his sixth studio album.



A Hum Of Maybe is detailed, finely crafted, and wonderfully unpredictable. At its core, the record is about love - for himself, his wife, and his daughter - and holding onto it, protecting it, and constantly recalibrating as it is in a constant state of flux. As the title suggests, the songs explore being stuck in between: not a clear yes or no, but A Hum Of Maybe.



Ring elegantly combines the perspectives of an electronic producer and a classical composer, working closely with long-time collaborators Philipp Johann Thimm (cello, piano, guitar) - who also co-wrote and co-produced the record - Christoph “Mäckie” Hamann (violin, keyboard, bass), Jörg Wähner (drums), and Christian Kohlhaas (trombone). The album also features Armenian-American artist KÁRYYN - Apparat’s Mute labelmate - on ‘Tilth’, and Berlin-and Rome-based musician Jan-Philipp Lorenz (aka Bi Disc) on ‘Pieces, Falling’.



A Hum Of Maybe is complex, deeply personal, and embraces a state of limbo, marking an exciting new chapter for Apparat.

Introducing Self Portrait, the latest chapter from the endlessly inventive one-man force Ryan Adams — a brand‐new, 24-track album that brings together fresh, unheard originals alongside spellbinding reinterpretations of classics by R.E.M., New Order and more.Capturing restless creativity and emotional depth across the two dozen songs, this bold collection once again proves why Ryan Adams is one of the most distinctive voices in modern music. Self Portrait shows Adams at his finest – poignant, unpredictable and sonically rich. For long-time fans, it’s another essential chapter in a prolific career, for newcomers, it is the perfect entry point into the world of Ryan Adams. This project isn’t just another album from Ryan Adams—it’s a dual‐mission: hear where he’s been, and where he’s going.

Mike Mareen – “Africa” (Previously Unreleased Maxi Single) – A long-lost Italo disco gem finally sees the light of day.

In the mid-80s, Mike Mareen was at the height of his fame, setting charts and dancefloors on fire with hits like “Love Spy” and “Agent of Liberty”. Riding that wave, he began work on his second album “Let’s Start Now”, which featured socially conscious songs addressing issues like the Berlin Wall, German reunification, and famine in Africa.

One standout track, “Africa”, was inspired by movements like Band Aid and USA for Africa. Though recorded and intended as a single, it was mysteriously shelved and never released in maxi format… until now.

Thanks to Vintage Pleasure Boutique, this missing piece of Mareen’s discography is finally available on vinyl, complete with a special DJ Edit crafted for today’s retro selectors. A must-have for fans and collectors of true 80s synth-pop and Italo disco.

If there is a year zero for the introduction of reggae music to Japan, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was 1979 when Bob Marley and the Wailers toured the country, trailed by an entourage of journalists, photographers and fans ready to spread the message of the music into all corners of Japanese society.

But the story of Japanese reggae is not a linear one, and the music that is collected on Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 captures the moment J-reggae entered the broader public consciousness, merging commercial city pop style with an infectious backbeat, that has drawn comparisons with the emergence of Lovers Rock in the UK.

Rather than look directly to Jamaica, many producers and artists in Japan were inspired instead by the more approachable sounds of The Police and UB40, their reggae fix arriving pre-filtered through the lens of new wave pop from the UK. Playful and groovy, these album deep cuts have been overlooked for too long.

Among them are Miki Hirayama, the idol singer who borrowed the bassline from Bob Marley’s Natural Mystic on ‘Denshi Lenzi’, Chu Kosaka, who headed to Hawaii to cut the Jimmy Cliff-inspired ‘Music’ and Marlene, the Philippine songstress whose cover of Roberta Flack’s ‘Hittin’ Me Wear It Hurts’ owed much to her producer’s obsession with Sly & Robbie’s Compass Point sound.

Then there was Izumi “Mimi” Kobayashi, who enlisted the Babylon Warriors to perform on a dubbed-out version of her own track ‘Lazy Love’, the city pop-meets-new wave reggae sound of Miharu Koshi’s ‘Coffee Break’, Junko Yagami’s anti-apartheid deep cut ‘Johannesburg’ and Lily, whose ‘Tenkini Naare’ was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto and closes out the compilation with a flourish.

While these stories may not always conform to neat narratives, they do provide a more accurate reflection of the indirect ways in which styles infiltrate one another and, in their naivety, have the potential to create something beautifully strange and entirely new. Previously only available in Japan, the tracks on this compilation are a testament to that curious alchemy.

Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 is released on vinyl and as a full album download (no streaming), featuring original artwork by Japanese Fukuoka-based artist Noncheleee, whose cover pays homage to the iconic dancehall album art of Wilfred Limonious.

Released on 1st September, Tokyo Riddim 1976-1985 is part of Time Capsule's Nippon Series, a loose series of compilations exploring different musical scenes from Japan between the 1960s and 2010s.

"Chuck Roth’s music wanders. The New York-based guitarist’s inquisitive style builds from rippling patterns that center the physicality of his instrument, roaming wherever they take him. watergh0st songs, his Palilalia debut, collects songs from the past half-decade, presenting an intimate snapshot of his music that draws from an eclectic background in classical guitar, electronic music, and improvisation." "The mark of watergh0st songs is its exploratory nature. Roth began his musical journey as a classical guitarist studying the canon works for the instrument, but he was never interested in playing fast or flashy. Instead, he wanted to roam down musical paths and see where they led him. He eventually became more interested in electronic music, where he found inspiration in subtractive properties and patterning. The music of watergh0st songs translates that electronic music to the guitar: many of the songs began as synth tones and later branched out through the physicality of his instrument." "When writing music, Roth wants melodies to feel comfortable in the body, focused less on setting a structure and more on letting music unfold how it happens in any given moment. His songs are fluid and his melodies are clear, plucked with careful attention but never too deterministically. His is the music of a traveler, floating around the strings of the guitar. It is about embracing the banal, or the everyday moments that shape a life." "Though Roth’s music often feels quite direct, there is a dreaminess that lives inside of it. His lyrics don’t feel too hot or cold, instead they have a wistfulness and melancholy of what it feels like to live through every passing day. His exploratory style bolsters these lyrics, giving the music its sense of ennui, as does his focus on texture. Each track takes on a different structure: 'Bunny Hop' unfolds like a squirrel jumping from branch to branch of a tree, while 'Private Boy' has a slower approach, growing from delayed harmonics that almost sound like bowed strings. His textures range from metallic and bristling to soft and feathery, evolving with gentleness. It is about ending up somewhere different than where it started, and watching the notes that fall in-between." The embrace of the routine colors Roth’s music. In it, there is a sense of presence, of admiring the smallest details and moments. Roth loves to take walks and look around, observing the beauty of his surroundings. Similarly, watergh0st songs feels like moving through the world at the pace of a comfortable trot and soaking in every sound as it emerges. It is a quiet evolution—but one that stays."—Vanessa Ague

APORIAMOR noun 1. The death of love’s contradiction.
| “Embody APORIAMOR”

Etymology
aporia-: an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory. from Greek aporos ‘impassable’, from a- ‘without’ + poros ‘passage’
-amor: love. Sentimiento intenso del ser humano que, partiendo de su propia insuficiencia, necesita y busca el encuentro y unión con otro ser. Del latín amor.
-mor: latin for death.

APORIAMOR explores the affective ontological and organic processes of love and lust in the turmoil of an urban existence, through the female lens. It expresses the process of strengthening through heartbreak in its various forms.

With her debut EP The Art of the Concrete, elsas knew that by giving that name to a record which was ironically expansive and experimental, she would be calling for a distilled and clearer path further down the line. This is what she’s been incorporating into the sonic world of this new EP, APORIAMOR, signifying the birth of a more matured and distilled version of herself as an artist.

With APORIAMOR (“the death of love’s contradiction”) elsas conveys a personal process of healing in the romantic space. Through different experiences of heartbreak, elsas builds a language - a coping mechanism attached to its subsequent artistic expression – that isn’t founded on hardness or a closing-off, but instead, on a playful but profound reckoning, and learning of self-worth.

APORIAMOR embraces the complexities of being a lover-girl: of moving through life with an open heart. It celebrates the clarity, sweet hindsight, and detachment that come from processing emotion. APORIAMOR is both an affirmation and a release.

elsas makes canonical blends with a forward boundary-bending vision. Her sound in this record is naturally referential of both her Mediterranean heritage and UK alternative music — intrinsic parts of her lived experience. She has had the opportunity to collaborate with artists she deeply admires, each exchange enriching her creative world.

The experience of working hand-in-hand with Sampha for the last 3 years and ongoingly has been a core of her evolution as an artist. She has also collaborated in many forms with artists like Florence + the Machine, Little Simz, Jordan Rakei, Jockstrap, Obongjayar, Black Country New Road, Genevieve Artadi (KNOWER) and Duval Timothy. Additionally, her ongoing work with the Idrîsî Ensemble, of which she is a core member, continues to inform her artistic depth.

The making of this largely self-produced record unfolded over four years — “it’s a well-kneaded dough,” she says. These songs evolved through exposure to multiple environments: from early writing sessions in her childhood home in the Spanish countryside, to stages across the U.S. while on tour supporting Sampha.

Experimentation and modulation are an intrinsic part of elsas’ method, conceiving songs as organisms that respond to their surroundings. Collaborators on this collection of songs include Shrink, Will Lister, Gabriel Gifford, Ethan P. Flynn and more. The record was mixed by David Wrench (a long-time supporter of elsas’) and Nathan Boddy, and mastered by Matt Colton.

With APORIAMOR, elsas creates a visual world from the fabulation of the past, as an act of playful historical revisionism in which she embeds herself as both subject and storyteller. The songs function like an archive of her experiences across various years, each one unearthed and presented as some sort of archaeological artifact. Through this body of work, elsas begins to conceptualize herself as a legacy artist: one who honors the archive of her own becoming while emerging as a distinct and resonant voice in today’s musical landscape.

Turner Cody first collaborated with Nicolas Michaux and the Soldiers of Love (Clément Nourry, Ted Clark, and Morgan Vigilante) on his album Friends in High Places (2021). This album marked a turning point for Turner Cody, in which he started to incorporate country influences to his songwriting. But that was only the beginning, and Out For Blood is without question a country album. This new album offers the perfect canvas for him to express his poetic lyricism, and to paint portraits inspired by American mythologies. The songs explore such themes as freedom, individualism, destiny, sin and redemption. Rooted in traditional narratives yet resonating with our times, these songs are to be seen as parables: imaginary characters faced with the dichotomy of good and evil. In the vein of Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, or John Prine, Out For Blood stands as a major contribution to the great repertoire of American song. ut For Blood bears witness to a transformation in Turner Cody"s life. While his songwriting already hinted at a certain Americana, it primarily reflected his twenty years spent in New York and the legacy of the anti-folk scene-closer to the Velvet Underground than to Hank Williams. Then came the move: Cody and his family left New York to settle in St. Louis, on the banks of the Mississippi. This change of scenery and perspective fueleda new way of writing. The challenge was clear: maintaining the subtlety and textural work characteristic of his previous works while integrating the country heritage of the new songs. The collaboration between Turner Cody and Nicolas Michaux signs the perfect communion between an artist who writes in the language of poetry and another who crafts sound and textures. The Soldiers of Love, far more than a backing band, have influences ranging from jazz to fusion, from pop to Congolese rhythms. Their subtle, atmospheric sound merges with Turner Cody"s "three chords and the truth" to create this unique magic!

“The blueprint was simple: Hot Chocolate rhythms, George Murray bass lines, classical music instruments with pop sensibilities. We, the architects, however, were complicated.” Paul Simpson, 2025 Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is thrilled to announce the release of the much-mythologised ‘lost’ album by CARE – the group made up of IAN BROUDIE and PAUL SIMPSON Prior to forming Care, Ian and Paul had been very active in the Liverpool post-punk scene. Ian played alongside Holly Johnson, Jayne Casey, Budgie and Bill Drummond in Big In Japan, before joining the Original Mirrors. He also produced several early records by Echo and the Bunnymen, most notably the albums Crocodiles and Porcupine. Paul had played with school friend and future Bunnyman Will Sergeant in Industrial Domestic and the founding line-up of The Teardrop Explodes, before going on to form The Wild Swans. CARE were brought together late in 1982 by mutual friend Will Sergeant, when Paul was looking for someone to play a guitar part for a new song he had written. Ian obliged and asked him to return the favour by singing on one of his songs Tall Ships. When Bunnymen manager Bill Drummond heard the result, now retitled My Boyish Days (Drink To Me), he secured the pair a deal with Arista on the back of it. Care would go on to release three acclaimed singles over the course of a twelve-month period between 1983 and 1984 – My Boyish Days (Drink To Me), Flaming Sword and Whatever Possessed You – before Simpson, still struggling to come to terms with the break-up of his previous band decided not to continue. Although top 40 success eluded Care in the UK, the group quickly found an adoring fanbase in the Philippines, where all three singles became huge hits. Love Crowns and Crucifies marks the first vinyl release of the previously unheard songs gathered together on 1997’s Diamonds and Emeralds CD. Working closely with Paul Simpson and with the approval of Ian Broudie, Needle Mythology has been given access to the original quarter-inch tapes which housed everything that Broudie and Simpson recorded together.

“The blueprint was simple: Hot Chocolate rhythms, George Murray bass lines, classical music instruments with pop sensibilities. We, the architects, however, were complicated.” Paul Simpson, 2025 Needle Mythology, the label founded by music writer, author and broadcaster Pete Paphides, is thrilled to announce the release of the much-mythologised ‘lost’ album by CARE – the group made up of IAN BROUDIE and PAUL SIMPSON Prior to forming Care, Ian and Paul had been very active in the Liverpool post-punk scene. Ian played alongside Holly Johnson, Jayne Casey, Budgie and Bill Drummond in Big In Japan, before joining the Original Mirrors. He also produced several early records by Echo and the Bunnymen, most notably the albums Crocodiles and Porcupine. Paul had played with school friend and future Bunnyman Will Sergeant in Industrial Domestic and the founding line-up of The Teardrop Explodes, before going on to form The Wild Swans. CARE were brought together late in 1982 by mutual friend Will Sergeant, when Paul was looking for someone to play a guitar part for a new song he had written. Ian obliged and asked him to return the favour by singing on one of his songs Tall Ships. When Bunnymen manager Bill Drummond heard the result, now retitled My Boyish Days (Drink To Me), he secured the pair a deal with Arista on the back of it. Care would go on to release three acclaimed singles over the course of a twelve-month period between 1983 and 1984 – My Boyish Days (Drink To Me), Flaming Sword and Whatever Possessed You – before Simpson, still struggling to come to terms with the break-up of his previous band decided not to continue. Although top 40 success eluded Care in the UK, the group quickly found an adoring fanbase in the Philippines, where all three singles became huge hits. Love Crowns and Crucifies marks the first vinyl release of the previously unheard songs gathered together on 1997’s Diamonds and Emeralds CD. Working closely with Paul Simpson and with the approval of Ian Broudie, Needle Mythology has been given access to the original quarter-inch tapes which housed everything that Broudie and Simpson recorded together.

Tears Before Bedtime is the sparkling new album by the Would-be-goods, Jessica Griffin’s band of pop adventurers. Since The Camera Loves Me, their cult classic 1988 debut for the legendary él Records, they have blazed a musical trail through indie guitar pop, with a garage band edge and forays into other territories - glam rock, tango, French chanson… The result is unique and timeless.
The songs on Tears Before Bedtime balance delicacy and power. Perfect pop melodies are delivered in Jessica’s gorgeous and idiosyncratic voice. Her lyrics are intelligent and wry, wistful and witty. Every song tells a story, taking us on a journey through space and time, from belle époque Paris to a 1960s London biker café, from a riverbank in ancient Greece to a 1970s teenage bedroom.
Listening to a Would-be-goods album is like wandering through a gallery of portraits. Innocence gives way to experience. Danger lurks amid the lights of the funfair in the 1950s carousel whirl of The Gallopers. The sinister Dr Love promises heaven but sends you down to hell, to the sound of a last dance in a smoky soul basement. A nymph meets a god in disguise in a garage-band take on a Greek myth (Tears for Leda). The Rose Tattoo is the tale of a doomed love in a sultry Southern state. Don't Come Crying To Me flames an ex-lover to the sound of Bollywood horns and shivery guitar. In Madame X a portrait painter vents his fury on a spoilt socialite beauty. The album closes with a sweetly jazzy lullaby (The Moon Doesn't Mind).
The Would-be-goods began playing as a full band in the 2000s and have been previewing some of these songs at recent shows in England, Scotland, France, and Spain. The album was recorded in London with Jessica on guitar and vocals, Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly, Talulah Gosh) on guitar, Debbie Greensmith (Thee Headcoatees and many others) on drums, and Andy Warren (The Monochrome Set, Adam and the Ants) on bass. Guest musicians have contributed organ, piano, vibraphone, cello, trumpet, and flute to make this the richest-sounding Would-be-goods record yet.