Pop & Rock News

Released in July 1994 by Atlantic Records, Cracked Rear View is Hootie & the Blowfish's most successful album, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 five times during the course of 1995. It was also the best-selling album of 1995 in the United States, selling 7 million copies, and since then has gone on to sell more than 10.2 million copies, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.

AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine says Hootie & the Blowfish, on Cracked Rear View, "...deliver the goods, turning out an album of solid, rootsy folk-rock songs that have simple, powerful hooks."

The album played a pivotal role in shaping the career of its lead vocalist, Darius Rucker, who transitioned to country music in the mid-2000s as a solo artist. Cracked Rear View was an instant sensation, with chart-topping hits such as "Hold My Hand," "Let Her Cry," and "Only Wanna Be with You." The album has a distinctive sound, blending rock, pop, and a hint of folk, using Rucker's soulful, raspy baritone as its emotional core, and his heartfelt delivery to win over audiences.

This Analogue Productions (Atlantic Series) reissue of Cracked Rear View has the essential elements that make it a standout for your collection. We turned to Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound in Nashville for an exemplary cut direct from the master tape. Pressing on 180-gram vinyl is by Quality Record Pressings, and the album is housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

Cracked Rear View's emotional depth and Rucker's distinctive voice left an indelible mark on the music industry, making Hootie & the Blowfish's debut album a timeless piece of musical history.

Die schwedischen Rocker Velvet Insane melden sich mit ihrem neuen Longplayer 'High Heeled Monster' zurück! Die Band spielt eine frische Mischung aus klassischem Rock, Pop, Folk und dem britischen Glam-Rock der frühen 70er Jahre. Auf dem Album sind viele prominente Gäste wie Dregen (Backyard Babies, The Hellacopters), Chips Kiesbye (Sator) & Bonni Pontén (Asta Kask) zu hören. Für Fans von Slade, KISS, David Bowie, New York Dolls oder The Ark.

Die südkalifornischen Bluesrocker Robert Jon & The Wreck melden sich mit einem brandneuen Studioalbum zurück. Sie engagierten dazu die Produzentenlegenden Don Was, Dave Cobb und Kevin Shirley, zudem wurden zwei Tracks von Joe Bonamassa und Josh Smith produziert. Auf 'Ride Into The Light' kommt ihr knallharter, purer Rock'n'Roll in Hülle und Fülle zum Einsatz.

Mit Hits wie “Rock Around The Clock” , “See You Later Alligator”, “Shake Rattle And Roll” hat sich Bill Haley in die Geschichtsbücher des Rock’n’Roll geschrieben.

Für alle Vinylliebhaber gibt es ab sofort eine Zusammenstellung mit allen Hits der Rock’n’Roll Legende.

With hits like „Rock Around The Clock“, „See You Later Alligator“, „Shake Rattle And Roll“, Bill Haley made his mark in the annals of rock‘n‘roll. „See You Later Alligator“, „Shake Rattle And Roll“, Bill Haley has made his mark in the records of rock‘n‘roll.

For all vinyl lovers, a compilation with all the hits by the rock‘n‘roll legend is now available.

Repress! Essential garage Zamrock/soul/funk: the first official reissue of the celebrated band’s one and only album.

The musical style that became known as Zamrock came to embody the economic despair that
followed the 1973-1974 oil crisis, which flung Zambia into recession and exacerbated a wide
range of social tensions. Much of Zamrock also captured the controversy of wider politics in
Africa and the world. Perhaps the finest example of this is Black Power by The Peace.

The Boyfriends, from Kitwe’s Chamboli Mine Township, supplied the founding members for Zamrock’s most
famous band, WITCH, and kick started one of Zamrock’s best bands, Peace. Their sole Zamrock entry, Black
Power, recorded at Malachite Film Studio circa 1973/4 and issued circa 1975, sounds like nothing else in the
Zamrock canon: a lost message drifiting from the flower power era, imbued with a fiery Zambian voice.

Applaus für GRAVEYARD, die mit „Lights Out“ nicht nur die Erwartungen erfüllt, sondern diese sogar noch übertroffen haben, denn auch wenn man sich für „Goliath“ als Single-Auskoppelung entschieden hat, auch jede andere Nummer hätte sich diesen Status verdient. Kurzum: Mit „Lights Out“ machen die Burschen klar, dass alle Spots auf sie gerichtet werden müssen! Zweifarbige Neuauflage!

First repress since its original release in May 1998

Celebrating twenty-five years since its release as rgirl2 – the label’s first LP – Rocket Girl is reissuing its seminal compilation A Tribute to Spacemen 3 on double vinyl with spot varnish sleeve in May 2023.

Widely acclaimed at the time of its release (garnering rave reviews in the UK, US, Canadian and European music weeklies and monthlies), the collection sounds as fresh and inventive as it did three decades ago. Launched at a time when tribute albums were prevalent, A Tribute to Spacemen 3 stands apart from other covers albums in that it not only redecorates S3’s songs in a bold new palette of colours, but also acts as a time capsule documenting a very specific wave of 90s US and UK bands that shared many sensibilities – ‘post-rock’ might be the catch-all genre, but their music also encompassed psych, slowcore, analogue electronica, dream pop and space rock to varying degrees – and many of whom (Mogwai, Low, Arab Strap, Bardo Pond) have gone on to reap major critical and commercial success, and are still thriving today. In 1998 the LP was a gateway for fans of Spacemen 3 to discover these relatively unknown experimental artists operating on small independent labels either side of the Atlantic – today it is a celebration of the timeless innovation and longevity of that scene.

As author Richard Milward states in Rocket Girl 20, the 2019 book illuminating the history of the label: ‘In no way is the LP a collection of imitators simply regurgitating Spacemen 3’s songs sound-for-sound – rather, the compilation celebrates the purity and bravery of Pierce’s and Kember’s song writing (themselves never averse to a transformative cover version) while showcasing the originality and diversity of those bands they have inspired.’ It is the simultaneous simplicity and otherworldliness of S3’s songs that make them perfect fodder for reinterpretation, the band’s ‘three chords good, two chords better, one chord best’ mantra providing a solid, tantalising foundation for these bands to experiment with freely. Throbbing and humming with equal parts euphoria and melancholia, over the course of the album’s 69 minutes the tracks slide from slithering stoner psych (Asteroid #4’s ‘Losing Touch With My Mind’) to hymnal delicacy (Amp’s ‘So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears)’ and Mogwai’s crisp, glockenspiel-chiming ‘Honey’) to zero-gravity lounge jazz (Transient Waves’ closer, ‘Billy Whizz’). There are radical reworkings: the oozing fuzztone lava of Bardo Pond’s ‘Call the Doctor’, and not least Arab Strap’s startling take on S3 live mainstay ‘Revolution’, replete with aggressive, crunching drum machine and the lyrics delivered down the telephone in Aidan Moffatt’s laconic Falkirk drawl – ‘a change, a solution, a wee… a wee revolution’ – before its explosive climax.

Ace Records freut sich, mit Singer-Songwriter, Ex-Pulp-Tour-Gitarrist und Sheffield-Legende Richard Hawley an diesem ersten Teil einer Compilation-Reihe mit von Hawley ausgewählten Lieblingssingles zusammenzuarbeiten. Dies ist eine Auswahl von 28 7inch-Singles, die Hawley auf seinen Tourneen gesammelt hat: Secondhand-Shop-Funde, Kneipen-Jukebox-Juwelen und alles dazwischen. Hawley bezeichnet den Klebstoff, der diese Auswahl zusammenhält, als "Little Bangers", da es sich bei allen um Mini-Handgranaten handelt; helle Lichter, die explodieren und verpuffen, einige große Namen, einige Raritäten, einige verlorene Seelen, einige Obskuritäten, einige von Künstlern, von denen er fast nichts weiß, außer dass sie ihn zum Tanzen bringen wollen. Viele sind Garagen-Instrumentals mit Gitarrenlinie als Lead-Melodie und der Kunst, eine Geschichte ohne Text zu erzählen. Eine 7inch-Single kann nur eine limitierte Menge an musikalischer Info enthalten - es muss knallen. The Shadows, Link Wray, The Troggs, The Champs, Jimmy Gordon und viele mehr zeigen wie das funktioniert. Kuratiert von Richard Hawley für CD und Doppel-LP mit umfangreichen, informativen Liner Notes.

White Vinyl

Nach einem Jahr voller schwindelerregender Verluste, persönlicher Selbstbeobachtung und bittersüßer Erinnerungen kehren die Foo Fighters mit einem neuen Album ''But Here We Are'' zurück, das am 2. Juni 2023 bei Roswell Records/RCA Records erscheint. Eine brutal ehrliche und emotional rohe Antwort auf alles, was die Foo Fighters im letzten Jahr durchgemacht haben, ''But Here We Are'' ist ein Beweis für die heilenden Kräfte von Musik, Freundschaft und Familie. Mutig, beschädigt und unerschütterlich authentisch beginnt ''But
Here We Are'' mit der neu veröffentlichten Lead-Single "Rescued", dem ersten von 10 Songs, die die emotionale Skala von Wut und Trauer bis hin zu Gelassenheit und Akzeptanz und unzähligen Punkten dazwischen abdecken. Produziert von Greg Kurstin und Foo Fighters, ist ''But Here We Are'' das 11. Foo Fighters-Album und das erste Kapitel im neuen Leben der Band. Klanglich kanalisiert sie die Naivität des Foo Fighters-Debüts von 1995, geprägt von jahrzehntelanger Reife und Tiefe, ''But Here We Are'' ist der Sound von Brüdern, die Zuflucht in der Musik finden, die sie vor 28 Jahren überhaupt erst zusammengebracht hat, ein Prozess, der ebenso therapeutisch war wie es um die Fortsetzung des Lebens ging.

Léo Ferré, Poet und Musiker, war zu rebellisch und inspiriert, um in das Schema des Musikgeschäfts der Nachkriegszeit zu passen. Jahrelang war ernur in den als 'linkes Ufer' bekannten Kabaretts in Paris willkommen. Dank anerkannter Interpreten, insbesondere Catherine Sauvage, erreichten seine Lieder dennoch ein breites Publikum. Von den 1950ern bis zu den frühen 1960ern zeichnet diese Anthologie aus LP und Bildband den Aufstieg von Léo Ferré und seines einzigartigen Stils nach, der sich weigerte, Zugeständnisse zu machen; eine Reise, die ihn zu den größten Varieté-Bühnen führte (Bobino, Olympia, Alhambra). Sein kontinuierlich kreativer Atem machte ihn zum wesentlichen Poeten der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, der anarchistisch-autoritären Tendenz.

JEROME BRAILEY funk drummer and former member of George Clinton’s PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC is most famous for co-writing PARLIAMENT’s 1976 gold hit single “Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Of The Sucker)". But thanks to poor management, in 1978 he and several other members mutinied and left the group.

That same year Jerome gathered his own crew, dubbed them MUTINY, and issued two classic funk albums on Columbia Records: “Mutiny On The Mamaship” (1979) and “Funk Plus The One” (1980). A third album entitled “Black Hat Daddy & The Silver Comb Gang” was scheduled for release on Jerome’s own label J.Romeo in 1981 but, due to unforeseen circumstances never saw an official release, although a handful of tracks were included on MUTINY’s 1983 album “A Night Out With The Boys”.

So now, Jerome Brailey & Regrooved Records proudly presents the original mixes and line-up for the true 3rd and unreleased MUTINY album “Black Hat Daddy & The Silver Comb Gang”.

Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues, Mambos, Cha Chas, Exotisches, unglaublich Seltsames! Zusammengestellt wurden diese raren Stücke von Professor Bop, der vielen eigentlich als Radiomoderator bekannt ist. In mühsamer Kleinstarbeit wurden längst vergessene Geheimnisse der Musikgeschichte geborgen und liebevoll zusammengestellt.
"Down At The Ugly Men's Lounge" ist eine skurrile Zusammenstellung dieser Raritäten und soll dem Zuhörer eine Tür in die Vergangenheit öffnen, zum Hören und Tanzen anregen.

With their first EP "Handprint Negatives", the quartet Ha The Unclear messes things up with a surprising punk insouciance and a great sensitive intelligence.

The track "Paperboats" is a model of explosive composition, accompanied by a climbing imagination like psychedelic ivy and, let's say it, a bit surreal. Let's get carried away by the madness and the genius of the group which releases this track to accompany the release of their EP.

Walter “JUNIE” Morrison was a former member of the OHIO PLAYERS and responsible for writing and arranging their early 1970s hit singles “Pain”, “Pleasure”, “Ecstasy” and most notably, the group’s first Billboard R&B Number One “Funky Worm”. In 1978 he joined George Clinton’s Funk Mob PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC and, as their musical director, played a key role during the creation of the hit albums “One Nation Under A Groove”, “Motor Booty Affair”, “Gloryhallastoopid” and their R&B Number Ones, “One Nation Under A Groove” and "(Not Just) Knee Deep". In between acts he released three solo albums for Westbound Records that showcased his unique take on the funk. “The Funky Worm – Live at Dooley’s 1976” is a one of kind live recording from his mid-70s Westbound solo period that was only recently discovered.

Regrooved Records is proud to present the very first live album of funk icon JUNIE MORRISON.

Hannah Aldridge wuchs an den schlammigen Ufern Alabamas auf, ihre Songs halten ein empfindliches Gleichgewicht zwischen Rebellion und Selbstfindung. Wer den Bible Belt kennt, hört die vertraute Stimme eines alten Freundes, alle anderen lernen die dunkle Seite des Südens kennen, den Kampf, der Vergangenheit zu entkommen und eine Zukunft zu schmieden. 'Dream Of America' bewegt sich auf einem schmalen Grat zwischen freundlichem Americana-Charme und dem rohen, hypnotischen und gelegentlich elektronischen Stil dessen, was man Noir-Indie-Pop nennt. Es ist Musik für diejenigen, die sich ihren Dämonen stellen, ohne an sie gebunden zu bleiben.

2023 REpress
A North American road trip of coming of age garage soul mapped by Ivan Liechti, Ghost Riders is Efficient Space’s latest narrative compilation, hovering in a liminal emotional ravine between moonlight melancholy, teenage heartache and unchecked, unrealised ambition. Across seventeen open hearted ballads recorded 1965-1974, the 2LP collects and connects dots between British Invasion fanatics, child prodigies, the loners and the luckless, in a kind of trans-continental survey of those swept up in rock’n’roll mania and buoyed by local newspaper ads promising fame and gold records.

From the tangerine dreams of 8th grade all-girl combo The Mod 4 to the tri-state jukebox aspiring echoes of The Tempters, The Yardley’s poetic Farfisa vamp and lilting folk pop, and The Landlords’ weepy break up b-side blues, these are mostly one shots by dreamers whose experience was brief before being checked back to the reality of suburban normality and realistic career options. Hailing from the regional backwaters of Illnois, Arkansas, Nevada, Massachussets, Ohio, Idaho, Texas and beyond, the licensed artists were scouted by way of local fire departments, spiritualist fellowships and animal welfare centres, often barely a stones throw from where their contributions were originally laid.

A barely teenage Dennis Harte's ‘Summer’s Over’ perhaps best taps the collection’s essence. A gut-wrenching lament of the passing of the season as if it was the last on earth. Flanked by players from The Left Banke, Harte, a now-piano tuner to the stars, is from the minor segment that found longevity in showbiz. Likewise with Michigan icon Lyn Nowicki who cast her ghostly voice over Beatles cover song chameleons The Common People and Jerry McGee, The Ventures member and conduit of Dr. John’s ‘Twilight Zone’.

Ghost Riders simmers with the scent of youthful summers, the pang of schoolyard romance, and the excitement (and disenchantment) of teenage naïveté, delivered via a deceptively simple and frequently wonky garage band set up. The vision of record collector and graphic designer Ivan Liechti, these eternal psych-folk howlers are further crystallised by Colin Young’s fastidious audio restoration, the original artwork of Elise Ganebin-de Bons and an aptly penned forward from Sonic Boom.

Trey Gruber's posthumous debut double LP Herculean House of Cards. A compilation of early demos, studio demos, and live recordings. A tortured songwriter and struggling addict who jolted the tired Chicago DIY scene with his own brand of primal despair, Trey Gruber and his band Parent were on track to join the ranks of Twin Peaks, Mild High Club, and Whitney. His death in 2017 at the age of 26 brought it all to a halt. In his final years Trey wrote and recorded hundreds of previously unheard demos, dandelions in the cracked concrete of 21st century disconnect, an alphabet's worth of which have been compiled by his family and friends for his only album: Herculean House Of Cards. The 26-song 2xLP covers years of material, from home tape recordings, sessions at Mathew Roberts (Mild High Club) & Paul Cherry's home studio, to a studio session with Charles Glanders (Whitney) at Chicago's Foxhall Studios, along with audio taken at The Hideout during his last live performance, among others. Though Gruber was an unrelenting perfectionist who was constantly self-deprecating about his best demos, Herculean House of Cards is a wholly comprehensive and accurate reflection of his infectious charisma and raw songwriting. He had a charmingly distinct way with words but also could be disarmingly vulnerable. Like he was in life, Gruber never shied away from being open with his struggles with alcoholism and addiction. On the vivid opener "Eisenhower to the West Side," he sings in painstaking detail of, "A jail-skin cell, a junkies fight/Corner-boys full of grace/And Jesus Christ full of spite." He told then-future bandmate flautist Rebecca Ridge, "It's not some Lou Reed glorification of drugs _ `makes me feel like a man'_ I talk about the disconnect and the ugliness. They're sad pop songs." But even with the pain and the darkness in his lyrics, Gruber's songs had an unmistakable sense of hope and catharsis.

Monster rarity here! An incredible find for anyone into late 60s /early 70s underground hard-psych and blues-rock.

A full unreleased album by British hard-blues band SAM APPLE PIE, recorded in 1970 possibly as a follow up album to their Decca debut. Taken from the only surviving copy of a recently found acetate (without song titles or credits), all leads to believe this was recorded by the line-up of Sam Sampson, Bob Renny, Andy Johnson, Mick Smith and Mick Stuart.