Pop & Rock Vinyl New Releases - News

2019 marks the 20th anniversary of ‘Low Birth Weight,’ the second album by Piano Magic, then a loose collective of musicians centred around founder songwriter, Glen Johnson. Though a year later, the collective would take shape as a bona fide internationally touring group, in 1999, Johnson had one foot in his native Nottingham and the other in his new home of London where, finding himself label manager at Rough Trade Records, also became highly prolific, releasing his own records across a myriad of micro-labels (Che, Wurtlitzer Jukebox, Darla, Rocket Girl, etc).

By his own admission, ‘Low Birth Weight,’ owes much to the East London experimental group, Disco Inferno who, embracing sampling technology, attempted to turn pop music inside out. By 1995, the Inferno had burnt out but Johnson remained inspired by their playful, subversive manifesto and thus, the album here, partly produced by “Nottingham’s own Martin Hannett,” Martin Cooper, is difficult to pigeonhole either at the end of the millennium or even now. Drum kit signals are fed through a tiny amp literally inside a cardboard box; breathing is employed for rhythms; kick drums are replaced with broken glass; there’s a ragbag of tablas, huge slap back delay and phase, theremin, shortwave radio, and more.

Aside from the DI benchmarks, ‘Low Birth Weight’ bears the marks of an infatuation with the dreampop of the time – the guitar saturated in delay and overdrive – inspired by the likes of AR Kane and Kitchens Of Distinction and not the more languid “shoegaze,” which has oft been levelled at LBW.
There’s a revolving door of guests on the album, including Pete Astor (The Loft/The Weather Prophets) on a cover of Disco Inferno’s ‘Waking Up’; Simon Rivers of The Bitter Springs supplies lyrics and voice to ‘Crown Estate’ and ‘Dark Secrets Look For Light’; Jen Adam, then an American art student on a year’s placement in London, writes and sings ‘The Fun Of The Century,’ a personal account of being pushed off a roof at a party by someone she thought a close friend.

‘Low Birth Weight’ is undoubtedly of its time, though undoubtedly more playful and literary than much of the music made during the late 90’s and a fascinating bridge between dream pop and experimental electronic music.

South east London songwriter and visual artist Jerkcurb has today announced his hotly-anticipated debut album Air Con Eden - set for release on Friday 13 September via Handsome Dad Records. The culmination of several years of intense creative focus, Air Con Eden reflects on Jerkcurb instigator Jacob Read’s recent real life events, losses and tragedies as well as more cryptic, fictitious perspectives and surreal adopted personalities. The record’s euphoric lead single ‘Timelapse Tulip’ arrives alongside today’s news - accompanied by a stunning, intricate 3D animated video courtesy of a collaboration between Read, director Gilbert Bannerman and production designer Theo Boswell. Read will tour the U.K. in October to celebrate the album's release with a hometown headline at Chat's Palace included on the run.

Having fully emerged in 2016 with the flourishing ‘Night On Earth’ - a streaming hit with 2,700,000 spins to date - and subsequent tracks ‘Voodoo Saloon’ and ‘Little Boring Thing’, there’s been a growing sense of an artist climbing into maturity with each succeeding release, video and gig laying the foundations for Jerkcurb’s burgeoning cult status. Radio and press took to Jerkcurb instantly with BBC Radio 6 Music inviting him in for a live session on Tom Ravenscroft’s show, also making an appearance as a guest on Steve Lamacq’s Thursday Round Table, while esteemed publications like Dazed, Vice, Noisey and Wonderland have all thrown their weight behind his music and art. Indeed, Read has been heavily immersed in his art and animation all the while, exhibiting at the Tate Britain and also being commissioned by them to create a promo for their installation Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One and drawing praise from It’s Nice That along the way.


There’s a near impossible richness to Read’s songwriting form on Air Con Eden, with its as-yet-unheard title track offering perhaps the clearest distillation of the record’s predominant theme: time at its malleable and fraught. Inspired by Victor Gruen - the pioneering designer of shopping malls in the United States - Read unpacks the idea of being trapped in an eternity that feels like an endless present tense, the passing of the seasons reduced to a standstill in a pristine shopping mall; a symbol of both stasis and comfort; an Eden without the possibility of an ending.

For Burdened and Bright Light is the fifth full-length album from A-Sun Amissa.

This new work builds on the foundations of previous record Ceremony in the Stillness (2018), incorporating some of the heavier, distorted, guitar oriented themes but this time fuses them with broken, crumbling electronic beats and primal drone movements. The result is two long-form pieces of work that take time to unfold and multiple listens to truly digest what is on offer.

The music of A-Sun Amissa has evolved some-what naturally over the years, drawing from elements of dark-ambient, post-rock and minimal doom but always with a leading experimental edge and a huge amount of room to push the boundaries back as far as possible. For Burdened and Bright Light feels like the next logical chapter in the journey.

Essentially A-Sun Amissa is the project of Richard Knox (Gizeh Records founder, The Eternal Return Arkestra curator and member of The Rustle of the Stars, Shield Patterns and Glissando) who has utilized a vast array of other musicians throughout the group’s previous records. This time around though it’s almost exclusively the work of Knox who continues to embed his typical DIY approach in writing, recording and mixing the entire album, alongside providing the artwork.

On a sonic level For Burdened and Bright Light is the furthest Knox has gone in terms of production, depth and working with a more diverse palette of sounds. A-Sun Amissa’s distinct atmosphere remains intact however and the result is a more immersive, ambitious, adventurous record of conflicting emotions as the theme of the work tackles the contradictions of being human and explores the duality of light and dark, hope and despair.

The two compositions found here are underpinned by vast ambient passages that are drenched in distortion and reverb, slowly unfurling before more industrial, kinetic sounds are introduced and heaving guitars come to the fore. As ever, there’s a melancholic dissonance that resonates throughout, repetition is key and moments of dread are paired with shafts of light as these two monolithic pieces unravel themselves over the course of forty minutes. The clarinet work of Claire Knox features prominently and ranges from huge, droning, orchestral overtones in the opening section of Breath by Breath to a wild, free-jazz explosion in the middle of Seagraves. The addition of David Armes’ lap-steel for the first time brings a discordant and haunting element to the sound and builds on the recent live work this trio have done together.

A-Sun Amissa has never been a project to repeat itself and with For Burdened and Bright Light they continue their long and patient journey into the abyss.

Shari Vari, is a Hamburg based duo comprising of Sophia Kennedy and Helena Ratka. Sophia Kennedy's name might ring a bell to “professional” and unprofessional audience: The Baltimore born and Hamburg bred luminary released her self titled debut record to quite some critical acclaim on DJ Koze's Pampa Records in 2017, a record that was voted amongst the 20 best electronic records of that year by Pitchfork. Shari Vari are everything you didn’t know you were missing in your life. Their lyrics are fresh, funny and “out-there”, their melodies are catchy and their rhythms are groovy as hell. Their debut LP on Malka Tuti titled NOW is a collection of 8 songs, groovy, gloomy, cheerful and contemplative, mixed all together in mish-mash of genres and influences. Whether they are echoing Suicide’s Alan Vega in songs such as Out of Order or Dance Alone, or telling a story laid over an almost exotic dubby beat in Jungle, their debut album throws the listener back to the days when having all the music in the world in the palm of your hand was a dis- tant dream, and one would simply listen over and over again to their favorite cd on their Sony (or Panasonic?) Disc player until every note and every word in the lyrics is etched to their memory...

“After assisting other artists like Poolside, Toro Y Moi, and U.S. Girls as a pop percussionist, Brijean Murphy is ready to show the world what she's been working on. The end result is her first album Walkie Talkie.” -The Fader

NATIVE CAT RECORDINGS is a home for genre-defying artists of the West Coast and beyond. Our mission is to nurture acts who have just entered or continue to remain in the musical vanguard. Founded by Jenny Gillespie Mason in 2010 as Narooma Records, the possibility for both ruggedly established and freshly embarked musicians to release new music in an overwhelmingly vast and ephemeral music landscape, led to rebrand and relaunch the label as Native Cat in 2018.

-LP Includes limited art print by Brijean.
-Comes with download code.

“The songs borrow from Brijean’s childhood influences of Latin soul and jazz, combining delectably danceable rhythms with pop melodicism; the sound is both vintage and modern, Brijean’s conga rhythms shining.” - Bandcamp Daily

Brijean Murphy was born to make you move. Stepping out in 2018 as one of indie’s most in-demand pop percussionists, Murphy spends much of her time on back-to-back runs with a dozen different acts including Poolside, Toro Y Moi, and U.S. Girls. It’s a marvel that, somewhere in the whirlwind of the past year, she found time to collaborate with producer Doug Stuart to record their first communiqué to the world: the dreamy, back-room disco of Walkie Talkie.

Combining Murphy’s upbringing heavily steeped in latin jazz and soul, Brijean is a hypnotic and danceable new direction for Murphy, and a fine complement to her contemporaries on the 2019 indie circuit. Equal parts dance production, organic percussion and melodic mantra, Walkie Talkie transmits Murphy’s essence perfectly.

Walkie Talkie is Murphy’s collaboration with producer Doug Stuart, who shares a background as a jazz, pop, and session musician (Bells Atlas, Meernaa, Luke Temple, Jay Stone). In marathon sessions at their intimate home-studio, wedged between touring schedules that rarely-overlapped, Brijean formed. Murphy’s layered percussion and hypnotic, expressive vocals coupled with Stuart’s harmonic palette and intuitive production evokes 70s disco, 90s house, and sly pop sensibilities.

L'Épée is a four-piece band comprised of Emmanuelle Seigner (Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle), Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre) and Lionel + Marie Limiñana (The Limiñanas).
The collaboration came about last year, when husband and wife duo The Limiñanas recorded an album ('Shadow People') with Anton Newcombe. A track featured French musician, actress, model and muse Emmanuelle Seigner on guest vocals. When she came into the studio to record the group dynamic clicked and a natural collaboration ensued.
Inspired by melancholic movie scores and the mythology of Rock'n'Roll music, from Lou Reed to the Rollin Stones, 'Diabolique' is infused with light, shadows and layers of psychedelic fuzzy guitars.
It was recorded between Lionel and Marie's home place Cabestany (FR) and Anton's Cobra Studio in Berlin.
The collective have named themselves L'Épée, meaning "the sword" in English, after it came to Anton in a dream.
They will be touring Europe later this year.

PROPER PIC SLEEVE REISSUE OF THIS EARLY LCD 12" FROM 2004. ‘Yeah’ was the follow up to LCD's breakout track "Losing My Edge," and was kind of a sleeper that has definitely stood the test of time and is worth a revisit. LCD records seem to speak to those kids sick of the scene, who want their 12" to retain interest longer than the next trend, but without sacrificing up to the minute relevance. An impossible feat, but listening to tracks like "Yeah (Crass Version)" will make you a believer. The song writing and composition are the foundations that the track is built on, with enough rock pretentiousness and sleazy analog to keep you interested. It takes a little more to keep our jaded ears interested these days, and this is might be it. "Yeah (Pretentious Version)" is a completely alternate version, offering a cleaner instrumental take on the track. Also includes the "Clap-a-Pella." Recommended.

The English-Irish electronic/dance duo Moloko released their first album Do You Like My Tight Sweater? in 1995.

It’s one of their most experimental records, before moving on to a more mainstream approach. Roisin Murphy is carrying the album with her versatile vocals, both in range and style, while Mark Brydon created the breakbeats, sound effects and groovy disco lines.
This is electronica at its best, danceable and funky.

The album includes their hits ““Fun for Me” and “Dominoid”, besides fan favourites like “Day for Night” and “Where Is the What If the What Is in Why?”. They never slow down in their exiting music and absurd lyrics, but that’s exactly what makes this record unforgettable.

Pure joy to be danced on all night.

Do You Like My Tight Sweater? is available as a limited edition of 3000 numbered copies on turquoise vinyl.

Hoga Nord Rekords have had the opportunity to work with Al Lover twice before during the last four years and now it's time for the next step in the relationship between them, this time with the 7'' single 'Dark Matter Discotheque / Mark E. Moon'. In these tracks, Lover's influences mainly stems from a decadent eighties New York or Paris and you can almost smell the heavy perfume mixed with indoors smoking get the feeling of sitting in a room with mirror walls.

The FRANCO EP is an exploration of sonic tone; from rich soulful depths, to a vibrant palette of hip-hop and funk-laden beats, the debut offering from FRANCO is a polished entry. Here is your chance to become acquainted! Featuring Australian hip hop legend Plutonic Lab on drums & production and Natalie Slade on vocals.

Manchester songwriter Ryan Kennedy returns with his fourth album "The Unforgiving Current". Recorded in and around Tokyo hotel rooms, apartments and studios,  the album is a badly lit stroll through Tokyo's winding streets, stopping in only the most questionable bars. Despite its seemingly overpopulated centres, there is often a strange isolation. This Isolation would be the fuel behind "the Unforgiving Current".

After moving to Tokyo early 2018 Kennedy began work on the album. Amidst language and work issues his rosey outlook soon dimmed and what follows is Kennedy's exploration and loneliness in this foreign land. Previous musical similarities may be unearthed but what runs through this record is a vein of (dare I say) mature introspection which sets it apart from previous works. 

In 1985, I started working as a sound engineer in the famed Far Studios of German hit producer legend Frank Farian in Rosbach near Frankfurt, and there had an array of gear at my disposal that not many producers could afford, and know how to use in consequence. In the center a high-end Neve studio desk, but also the finest machines created by mythic brands like Linn, Kurzweil, Publison, or Quantec. Confronted with this considerable amount of opportunities on a daily basis, I soon decided to use what I was surrounded with for my own musical ideas, and started experimenting with it in my spare time. My perception of sounds quickly surpassed what I had known before. The equipment offered me many possibilities to position sounds within a song and I learnt how to compose by filling up all the places in between the speakers. There was not only left and right but near and far as well, and even up and down. My preferred perspective grew to be that of standing in front of the speakers, "looking down" on a song from a slightly higher position. The material was recorded on analogue reel-to-reel audiotape, which I subsequently edited and deconstructed manually with a razor blade, an edit block and a roll of audio splicing tape.

The good side wins! Minami Deutsch crushes negativity, sorrow, and depressive energy on their new Hoga Nord Rekords release, 'Can't get there', a six-track EP. Listening to this, the second Minami Deutsch - release on HNR, you get the feeling of leaving half your brain in a Volkswagen down an endless Autobahn in 1972 and one-half lost in the astral plane as boundless light, above space and time.

The Japanese psych-scene is being kept vital by picking up all the best influences from all the best psychedelic music and mixing that with a delicate touch of Japanese music tradition. On this EP, you hear all that you love and miss from the 70's krautrock bands plus a cover on cult band Index's song 'Israeli blues' from 1968. Also on this record are two remixes of the title track by HNR household names Jamie Paton and Mythologen. If Minami Deutsch's music usually has small or no elements of modernity, (this meant in a good way!) these tracks show new paths for them to try and the sounds marry happily!

This record works as a pathway to the inner core of the bands creativity, where there are few limits or boundaries and where you make the trip as hard or as easy as you want.. but you'll end up in a happy fuzzy place no matter what you choose.

Called out by The Irish Times as “Ireland’s best new rock band” and named as an one of NME's “100 Essential New Artists for 2019," When I Have Fears is the debut album from Dublin, Ireland's The Murder Capital.

Produced by Flood (PJ Harvey, New Order, Foals) the album features both singles from the band so far, "Feeling Fades" and "Green & Blue", as well as the first studio recording of breakthrough track "More Is Less".



An exercise in both darkness and light, “When I Have Fears” only serves to highlight the early ambition in the band's sound. From the post-rock build and breakdowns of the two-part "Slowdance", to the tender, bruised confessional of "On Twisted Ground" and industrial pulse of closer "Love, Love, Love", there's a consistent intensity throughout that marks out The Murder Capital as a band arriving fully formed on their debut album.

Following sell-out shows on their April tour, the group have also announced a new string of UK & European headline dates for October and November 2019 - see below.

Featured on the forthcoming Kitsuné Maison 11 compilation, « Resolution Of One » is Guards' psychedelic garage pop new single. Out on Kitsuné on May 9th !

For Against Fascism Trax 006, Auntie Flo takes us to Brazil, a country that is dealing with having a bona fide fascist president, with an EP recorded in Rio De Janeiro. I’m going to shut up and let Afonso Marcondes from Sao Paolo take it from here -

In a world in which culture policies (incl. music) win nationalist tones, Brazil has lessons to give with the catastrophic failed experience of the last government and the teletubbies talk on Culture from the current one.

As one sometimes feel as if one is on a time-warp from time to time, most often taken there by music, songs like March of The Berimbau here, could easy make for the perfect soundtrack for the political history of Brazil, country in which Auntie Flo got his inspiration and recorded this tracks.

From the military regime that gave Brazil bossa nova in the 60’s, the tropicália sounds of the 70’s to the pop rock era of the 80’s all the way from the rave scene of the 90’s to todays Bahia Bass, music in Brazil has always been instrumental in helping shape the political scene.

One thing about the Brazilian music ’scene’ is that rarely it lends itself to extreme political views, via lyrics or otherwise, after all, carnaval must be kept a happy time! The number of different cultures living in peace, side by side in Brazil has strenghten the country disapproval of hate talk in music since I can remember growing up in the interior of São Paulo state.

As per wiki: Fascism is a form of radical ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition… Children bedtime reading if you follow the past 15 years in Brazilian politics and the rise and fall of Brazil’s Labour Party, together with its disastrous polices on culture and synergy with de definition above; including the views of a important cultural Party branch that continuously 'preached' that Authors should need no rights over their works. That couldn’t bit music in Brazil.

Fast forward to the first 5 months of government of an unfortunate retired army officer, whose every word sounds like Trump, and whose views on culture is to extinguish the Culture Ministry and cut low the state incentives to the sector, that, so far, is not bitting music in Brasil.

Hope that Auntie Flo’s music inspired everyone as the place where it was made and recorded inspired music in Brazil, as a beacon of light against any hate talk darkness.

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination.

Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first – a three-part suite where Davachi's piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress – recalls Eduard Artemiev's majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. "Perfumes I-III" employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike.

While the first half of Pale Bloom showcases Davachi's latent Romanticism, the sidelong "If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery" reveals the Mills College graduate's affinity for the work of avant-garde composers La Monte Young and Eliane Radigue. Softly vibrating strings rise and fall like complementary exhalations of breath. As the fluctuating pitches create overtones that pitter and pulse, the piece slowly and subtly evolves – suggesting a well-tempered stillness, yet without stasis.

Luca Venezia, aka Curses, has with his Carcassonne-Mini LP, written and produced a cold wave dream filtered through how all the sci-fi movie soundtracks of the eighties should have sounded like; picture The Cure on a study visit in John Carpenters studio in 1983.

This six-track Mini LP is Curses first release on Hoga Nord Rekords and you can place his music beside other artist in the HNR artists stable, like Jamie Paton and Pardon Moi - eighties influenced dark and expensive sounding electronic music. Luca Venezia also solves the task of putting vocal elements in the tracks with sharpness and precision; the heavy processed reverberating overdubs float in and out on a tastefully low level in the mix.

Outside the safe studio walls the discourse is polarised and dumbed down to headlines and introductions, to guttural noises and simplification. Curses music is part of your antidote to this regression and is nor black or white nor simple or safe.

“Featuring the rumbling scowls of James McGovern's vocals… a gloriously well-crafted narrative, it's abrasive punk stance and places itself, front row, in the eyes of those yearning for someone to die for.” ­
– THE LINE OF BEST FIT
Overview
“Green & Blue” is The Murder Capital’s second single, following their official debut single “Feeling Fades,” produced by Flood (Foals, PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode), digitally via their own label Human Season Records on January 11th and as a 7” on April 5th (April 19th in the US). "Green & Blue" was released digitally on April 25th and will be released on a limited edition 12" on June 14th via Human Season Records.

First 7" single from Denmark's TIGHTEN UP label, two great cuts from 2 TONE legend and (ENGLISH) BEAT vocalist RANKING ROGER. Side a is a rare 2001 cut written w/NEVILLE STAPLES, produced by BENTLEY RHYTHM ACE's FUZZ TOWSHEND. Flip is an unreleased SLY & ROBBIE production from 1989. Pic sleeve.

Margot Records was born in 2006 in Riccione (Italy) from the stable relationship and friendship of the two musicians and djs Pepe and Giaga. They created it to make their music more freely, without impositions, with an own identity, fascinated on every kind of test.

Almost four decades since it’s domestic release, Karen Marks’ 1981 single Cold Café has finally reaped it’s deserved international credit to become one of Australia’s most recognised minimal wave recordings. Efficient Space now showcases the Melbourne artist’s brief but entire discography, including two previously unheard demos, all produced with experimental synthesist Ash Wednesday (The Metronomes, Modern Jazz, Thealonian Music). A rarity in the then male dominated industry, Marks found her footing in music, first through rock journalism and then in band management. Formally of Adelaide, newly arrived synth-punks JAB (Johnny Crash, Ash Wednesday and Bodhan X) approached her for representation, subsequently contributing tracks to seminal 1978 snapshot Lethal Weapons and playing the Crystal Ballroom’s opening night. Wednesday and Crash would soon dissolve JAB, enlisting Mark Ferry and Sean Kelly to create Models. Still under Mark’s management, Models became one of the fastest rising new bands of the punk movement, playing to full houses of dedicated and frenzied fans everywhere. Sadly, internal frictions forced Wednesday and Marks to leave after two years, with Crash following three months later. Her creative relationship with Wednesday fortified with the co-production of his 1980 machine-pop prank Love By Numbers, her swooning chorus uplifting his deadpan count to 100, before the two collaborated on Marks’ own recording persona. Immortalised by the icy Oz wave of Cold Café, her Astor issued 7″ also boasted the caffeinated flip Won’t Wear It For Long - a should be hit with guitar from future Icehouse member Robert Kretschmer.

preorder for repress! After the excellent Souljazz release 'The world of Arthur Russel' which had the focus on already released work by this cellist, composer & songwriter, now an excellent compilation on the US based Audika records featuring 12 unreleased tracks! The material here was derived from basically two sources. The first is a album from 1985 called 'Corn' and the second is an album A.R. recorded for Rough Trade between 1986 and 1990. Both albums were never released. You'll find a unique mix of pieces with just A.R singing and playing his Cello to more leftfield rock / pop oriented tracks with a surprising use of drum machines. Also, the last track 'Calling all kids' is a Walter Gibbons mix apparantly. According to the liner notes ( the vinyl comes with a 10' booklet) A.R. left an archive of over 1000 tapes and as much pages of lyrics with lots of different/alternate takes on material released as 24-24 Music, Dinosaur L, Indian Ocean, loose Joints etc.A must have for any Arthur Russel 'collector' or just good-music lovers in general !!

Kapitan is Dori Sadovnik, half of the groundbreaking dancefloor-scorching duo Red Axes.

In his debut solo LP Alaska, Kapitan takes us on a journey into the deepest realms of his inner psyche. Through his modular synth experimentations, his analogue approach for synthesis and organic instruments he created an lp that is both personal and outgoing, fresh and nostalgic at the same time.

Weaving samples from his non-stop traveling schedule as half of one of todays top dance acts, playing guitars, drum machines and synthesizers, the album feels contem- porary and timeless, like it could have been written at anytime in the past 30 years and still feel relevant than ever, echoing Mort Garcon’s modular experimentations as well as early Air music.

One of the great lost singles of the C86 era. Peter Brickley was a member The Telephone Boxes who supported The Smiths on their rst UK tour. After having recorded a few demos for various uninterested record companies, the band split. In 1985, Brickley formed his own band under the name The Wall owers. Releasing 3 excellent singles. This, their debut is pure jangle pop perfection. Criminally overlooked at the time It makes it’s rst appearance on 7” here

Part of The Optic Sevens Reissue Series
Limited to 500 copies on Splatter Vinyl Includes Poster & Postcard
The tracks on Everybody’s Problem are among the hardest to find of all those in Pulp’s back catalogue. This, their second single was originally released on Red Rhino in 1983

heir rst single, “Halcyon Days” was originally released in 1985. The B-side, “Like One Thousand Violins” was voted into that year’s Festive 50 by listeners to John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show, the band having recorded a session for the show earlier that year. First time on 7”

Limited to 500 copies on Red Vinyl Includes Poster & Postcard
Originally released in 1986 on Pink Records. This was arguably McCarthy’s nest moment. This issue has a different B side to the original “The Fall” .
By the time McCarthy appeared on the NME’s C86 cassette they had already been playing together for a couple of years and released two excellent singles.Their debut “In Purgatory” and the indie masterpiece “Red Sleeping Beauty” The following year McCarthy released the brilliant “Frans Hals” before unleashing their debut album “I Am A Wallet”
Now recognised as an indiepop masterpiece it has gone on to achieve cult status, receiving praise from the likes of Nicky Wire (Manic Street Preachers) . Known by todays indie accolites as the band that spawned Tim Gane and Leititia Sadier (who of course went on to form Stereolab)

Celebrating the photography of Robert Doisneau, 25 years after his death. Discover the new Esprit Robert Doisneau Collection, associating songs with his famous images of Paris.

Famous all over the world, the photographer’s work accurately represents the soul of Paris. This collection of ten LPs are all pressed on 180g coloured vinyl.

Celebrating the photography of Robert Doisneau, 25 years after his death. Discover the new Esprit Robert Doisneau Collection, associating songs with his famous images of Paris.

Famous all over the world, the photographer’s work accurately represents the soul of Paris. This collection of ten LPs are all pressed on 180g coloured vinyl.

Celebrating the photography of Robert Doisneau, 25 years after his death. Discover the new Esprit Robert Doisneau Collection, associating songs with his famous images of Paris.

Famous all over the world, the photographer’s work accurately represents the soul of Paris. This collection of ten LPs are all pressed on 180g coloured vinyl.

Celebrating the photography of Robert Doisneau, 25 years after his death. Discover the new Esprit Robert Doisneau Collection, associating songs with his famous images of Paris.

Famous all over the world, the photographer’s work accurately represents the soul of Paris. This collection of ten LPs are all pressed on 180g coloured vinyl.

It's time for some pre-fun by The Tolhouse Men! This single is a little taste of what you can expect for their upcoming album! On the A-side we have ''Lady June'', a soulful vocal house joint. Light and happy, it will give you an instant smile on your face! The B-side named as, ''So Double U'', is more serious. Heavy bass and melodic chords. Perfect to drown away in your thoughts or jus' cruizin' in your ride. The funk hits you with this one!

Ry X Has Announced The Release Of His Much-anticipated New Album, Unfurl, Available 15th February 2019 Via Infectious And Is Available To Pre-order Here. Ry Has Shared A First Track Entitled 'untold', Which Is Streaming Here, And Announced News Of An Extensive International Tour To Follow The Release, Including 4 X Uk Shows In February. Ahead Of Those Dates Ry Will Be Visiting London This Friday (12th) For A Headline Barbican Performance Backed By The London Contemporary Orchestra Which Has Been Sold Out For Months. Upcoming Tour Info Below.

Last year, after his mind-warping gig at Cafe OTO, we presented the new world of Yximalloo, and his label Sakura Wrechords, from Tokyo.

Yximalloo's (Naofumi Ishimaru) long and varied career in music covers a period as manager of Yellow Magic Orchestra back in the day, when he also started producing his own music on cassette. Later branching out into CDrs, his discography is voluminous. Sometimes collaborating with Momus, Jad Fair (Half Japanese), Sympathy Nervous (Vanity Records) and others, he has quietly put out over 70 releases, all with his undefinable catalogue of styles.

An unknown track of his was released in 2013 by Kompakt, as "Wanted". An unknown artist - they had lost the details of the CD he'd sent them - they were compelled to release it anyway. It was the only vinyl release of Yximalloo's until "Best Of". Now he returns with a second volume.

Culled from just a few points in his prolific career, this release has hints of early Residents, Hosono's jerky formative sample projects and deep- in-the-woods Texas Chainsaw Massacre vocals - just a few more glimpses of Yximalloo's dimensions. Shipping in two weeks.

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination.

Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first – a three-part suite where Davachi's piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress – recalls Eduard Artemiev's majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. "Perfumes I-III" employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike.

While the first half of Pale Bloom showcases Davachi's latent Romanticism, the sidelong "If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery" reveals the Mills College graduate's affinity for the work of avant-garde composers La Monte Young and Eliane Radigue. Softly vibrating strings rise and fall like complementary exhalations of breath. As the fluctuating pitches create overtones that pitter and pulse, the piece slowly and subtly evolves – suggesting a well-tempered stillness, yet without stasis.

Part of The Optic Sevens Reissue Series
Limited to 500 copies on splatter vinyl Includes Poster & Postcard
The Servants second single, Originally released on Head Records in 1986 as a 12” EP . This is it’s rst appearance as a 7” single.
In 1986 The Servants recorded a John Peel session, got a full page feature in the New Year’s edition of the 1986 ‘NME’ hailing them as the next big thing, appeared on their C86 cassette and played shows with amongst others the Jesus And Mary Chain, Felt, Primal Scream, the Go Betweens, the Pale Fountains and the Wedding Present

* MIRAGES is the brainchild of Jean-Benoît Dunckel(AIR) and Jonathan Fitoussi.
* Spawning from Xavier Veilhan’s Studio Venezia at the 57th Venice Biennale and completing in Jean-Benoit’s studio in Paris.
* Collaboration between Jean-Benoit (AIR) and Jonathan Fitoussi.
* 12″ 180g heavyweight clear vinyl
* White printed artwork by Jean-Philippe Talaga
* Photos by Diane Arques
* Ltd Ed. of 500

“Synthesizers amassed through the years, which on this album, conceived with precision and care over the course of one year, reveal their essence –and more importantly, their soul, going from very cinematographic parts to very direct others. Between start and finish, a singular floating and inventive pop music unfolds. An upgraded form of instrumental electronic music, that takes the listener very far, and very high, perfectly mixing both musicians world, like fruitful pictures arisen from a desert that forgot to be arid. Their mirages are inventive, their mirages are fertile.” Joseph Ghosn

Sworn Virgins are back on Soulwax/2manydjs label, DEEWEE with two more hugely effective club tracks entitled ‘Lazer Beam / Take Your Lady.

From the green hills of Albania to the back rooms of New York City, Sworn Virgins bring the light. A strangers hand on your shoulder, bright red painted finger nails scratching your thigh, all those beautiful things that made you leave that small town you came from. Greased up and ready to go, close your eyes and take it in.