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After a nine year hiatus SUN AND SAIL CLUB are back and they've come back swinging! This album is more aggressive than the previous album, as if that was even possible. Same line-up as before featuring Scott Reeder (FU MANCHU/SMILE) on drums, Scott Reeder (KYUSS/THE OBSESSED/FIREBALL MINISTRY) on bass, Bob Balch (FU MANCHU/SLOWER/BIG SCENIC NOWHERE/YAWNING BALCH) on guitar and Tony Adolescent (THE ADOLESCENTS) on vocals. The album starts with a mellow jazz guitar piece and then proceeds to rip your face off until the end of the album, which closes with another solo jazz guitar piece. "Shipwrecked" is their strongest album yet. Fully realized and to the point. Fast and dissonant. "This album is a compilation of riffs collected over a nine year period. Most of the songs were written last year but some of them have been floating around for a while. There is a general sense of unease throughout. I wanted to make an album that went one step further than "The Great White Dope." The songs are faster and more intense at times. It's basically the soundtrack of me beating the shit out of my guitar. Then you factor in Scott Reeder on drums, Scott Reeder on bass and Tony Adolescent on vocals and you've got something more than I could have imagined by myself. This album is raw and pummeling. If you're a glutton for punishment this might be your desert Island record." - Bob Balch Recorded at Jim Monroe's The Racket Room, Casa De Balch, and Scott Reeder's The Sanctuary

Red vinyl, limited to 300 copies. After a nine year hiatus SUN AND SAIL CLUB are back and they've come back swinging! This album is more aggressive than the previous album, as if that was even possible. Same line-up as before featuring Scott Reeder (FU MANCHU/SMILE) on drums, Scott Reeder (KYUSS/THE OBSESSED/FIREBALL MINISTRY) on bass, Bob Balch (FU MANCHU/SLOWER/BIG SCENIC NOWHERE/YAWNING BALCH) on guitar and Tony Adolescent (THE ADOLESCENTS) on vocals. The album starts with a mellow jazz guitar piece and then proceeds to rip your face off until the end of the album, which closes with another solo jazz guitar piece. "Shipwrecked" is their strongest album yet. Fully realized and to the point. Fast and dissonant. "This album is a compilation of riffs collected over a nine year period. Most of the songs were written last year but some of them have been floating around for a while. There is a general sense of unease throughout. I wanted to make an album that went one step further than "The Great White Dope." The songs are faster and more intense at times. It's basically the soundtrack of me beating the shit out of my guitar. Then you factor in Scott Reeder on drums, Scott Reeder on bass and Tony Adolescent on vocals and you've got something more than I could have imagined by myself. This album is raw and pummeling. If you're a glutton for punishment this might be your desert Island record." - Bob Balch Recorded at Jim Monroe's The Racket Room, Casa De Balch, and Scott Reeder's The Sanctuary

Steve Leach's Balearic beach-funk beast Ocean Potion, recorded with the Crystal Grass Orchestra is an absolutely ace, Ned Doheny-adjacent funky AOR / blue-eyed soul BBQ classic from 1976.

Who is Steve Leach, you ask? None other than Seasick Steve in a previous life! A French-only release on Philips, it's a hugely immediate, pop-funk firecracker. It features a wonderfully lush, full orchestral sound throughout, underpinning Steve's gorgeous voice and an army of brilliant backing vocalists.

The supporting cast is phenomenal and is arguably the salient reason this is such a fantastic record. We're talking legendary players from the French scene (think Arpadys, Voyage, Kongas, CCPP, Giant, Swing Family) such as Don Ray with his arranger-conductor hat on as well as synths, Marc Chantereau on percussion, Slim Pezin on guitar, André Ceccarelli on drums, Christian Padovan on bass and Pierre Halation on flute.

With these snakes behind the scenes, it remains a mystery how Ocean Potion is so relatively unknown. Hopefully, this long overdue reissue rectifies this and puts a stop to people dropping $200 on it.

Triumphant, horn-forward opener "The Light Of The Mind" has that uniquely Ned Doheny fidgety funk feel with a fantastically irresistible chorus and great harmonies. Just magic. The insouciant, swaggering "Hey! Hey! What You Doin To Me" is straight up white-hot feel-good funk with by turns sweeping and stabbing strings and a neck-snapping break. Crucial. Coming off like something off The Beach Boy's Surf's Up or Holland (including a sneaky "reason to live" reference that surely nods to "The Trader") is the brilliantly ominous, driving wall of sound of "Take Strength". Cavernous drums, urgent strings and a staggeringly good vocal performance make this a real highlight amongst an album of highlights. The blissful folk-funk of "The Lady Of The Sea" is a real naked heartbreaker, melancholic vibes and a beautiful flute line complementing each other perfectly. Side A closes out with "All My Life", a groovy island-funk white-reggae-tinged lilter which just about lands the right side of acceptable.

Side B opens with the gorgeous "You're The Only One Girl" before the propulsive Philly soul of "At Least We Got Love" elegantly glides into focus. Pulsing beats and piano working with that irresistible orchestra of grass. Glacial ballad "All Love's Children" has a deep New Orleans soul feel that truly soars whilst the breezy "Get Out In The Sun" owes a debt to "Crocodile Rock". It's pure pop for now people and wouldn't have been out of place on a late 70s Nick Lowe effort. Deep late-period Beach Boys gem "Golden Hues" is another heavy melancholic down lifter that really beguiles before the real reason you're all here. Pastoral closer "I Meditate Each Day" is just beautiful, and likely the reason this reissue is giving you that special feeling. Another gorgeous flute-led, folk-funk groover, it featured in a memorable mix from the Creme2laCreme crew (Raphael Top-Secret, Jerome Qpchan and Antoine Kogut) live on Red Light Radio over a decade ago and has been top of many heads' wants list never since. Just mellow out.

As ever, the audio for Ocean Potion has been carefully remastered by Be With regular Simon Francis, ensuring it sounds better than ever. Cicely Balston's expert skills have made sure nothing is lost in the cut whilst the records have been pressed to the highest possible standard at Record Industry in Holland. The original, iconic sleeve featuring a topless Steve reclining next to his piano on a flatbed truck on the beach (of course?!) has been restored here at Be With HQ as the finishing touch to this long overdue re-issue.

RIYL: Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Remi Álvarez, Juma Sultan's Aboriginal Music Society, Horace Tapscott. Atrás del Cosmos were a central force in Mexico City's creative arts community, and often considered the first free jazz group in the country. Founded by a trio composed of pianist Ana Ruiz, percussionist Evry Mann, and saxophonist Henry West, the ensemble was prolific in mentoring a generation of improvisers, cultivating an expanded additive roster, and organizing workshops in downtown Mexico City including inviting Don Cherry to play and instruct on his "organic music" approach in 1977. Between 1977 and 1983, the group lived and rehearsed in a residential space behind the Cosmos theater, hence their celestial-tinged name. But despite their central importance to the local scene, Atrás was rarely recorded and had a scant international presence, leaving behind just a single cassette before their disbandment. Now issued on LP for the first time, the aforementioned tape Cold Drinks, Hot Dreams is a red-hot recording documenting the core group plus double-bassist Claudio Enriquez performing live in 1980, a delirious improvisation with high peaks and low valleys, sucking in an amalgam of influences including New York loft style, Mexican folk music, and the surrealism of Alejandro Jodorowsky into its heady gravitational pull. Ruiz's playing style is virtuosic and expressive, pulling off monumental chords and using the piano's whole register, recalling Cecil Taylor's percussive approach, Matthew Shipp's emotive voicing, and Duke Ellington's mystifying arabesques. Evry Mann dabbles in polyrhythms in tracks like the solo marimba meditation "Clapping Music II," and Henry West wails heavy in the show-stopping cut "M.D." Now finally available after forty years, the music of Atrás del Cosmos will be sure to stun spiritual jazz veterans and newcomers alike3

Strange Power!, the fifth record from Durham, NC-based songwriter and poet Anne Malin Ringwalt, emerges from the darkest waters of the self into a world remade. Releasing in conjunction with her second book of poetry, What Floods (Inside the Castle, Oct. 2024), Strange Power! overflows with Ringwalt's teeming and sensuous personal symbolry: glowing lilacs and gentle queens, dolphins wild and girls who grew up brave _ T.S. Eliot sung by Cat Power, backed by Mount Eerie. She sings: "I rose up from water." Ringwalt writes and performs with the authority of a lifetime spent harnessing the alchemy of storytelling; her belief in the power of words to heal and transform is palpable in each achingly- delivered lyric. Made amidst profound inner and outer change, Strange Power! also sees Ringwalt taking up the role of self-producer for the first time, mirroring and supporting the record's Orphic quest by gathering contributions from a coterie of friends wielding an electric range of American instruments. Violins, vibraphones, drum machines, electric guitars dappled with spring reverb, wind-blown shells, and a host of other numinous sounds form an unfurling and shadowy world which was then carefully honed during the mixing process (shepherded by Michael Cormier-O'Leary and Lucas Knapp) _ settling the final record in an eerie meridian between spareness and verdancy. The result is a beguiling and darkly blooming realm: the sound of a personal cosmos being remade, piece by piece. Ringwalt is at the height of her spirit as both songwriter-poet and singer, her willowy voice by turns conjuring and keening as she reckons with her deep past and the stories told since. Opening track "The Pines" sets the stage for a record of truly life-long scope: "I was a child, now I hold her / I was asleep for many years." Some songs, like the gorgeous "North Carolina" and "The Saint," were written as early as 2013 but, Ringwalt says, "insisted upon being remembered" as the record took shape; in its final form, they serve as inciting moments of self-discovery before the journey to come. "The Visionary" recalls one of Ringwalt's earliest musical breakthroughs _ her re-rendering of an Emily Brontë poem into a song at age 15 _ and, she says, "`cites' the melody of that song in the context of this new one _ a holding of the past and present and every layer in between/beyond, in utter solitude _ a solitude that reflects certain aspects of abandon as a child and an adult..." This unusually lengthy time-scale lends Strange Power! a deeply moving sense of narrative fullness. Stretches of the record _ particularly the "Judgment Day" ? "River" ? "Lilac Bloom" trifecta that form the black heart of Side 1 _ may recall familiar wanderings of personal underworlds such as Mount Eerie's Lost Wisdom Pt. 2 or Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy. Yet this hollowed landscape is in turn exorcized by the a capella "I Know," in which Ringwalt sings "I won't be gutted by you / For giving and trying to heal / I won't be gutted, I am not a fool / I deserve a love that is new" before the song concludes with a piano passage that recalls hymnal music _ suggesting a faith in life itself to offer new beginnings. Side 2 features some of Ringwalt's most powerfully introspective writing to date, as the songwriter casts off myth after myth in her search for personal transformation. By the final song, "Stories," the energy that has been gathering all throughout the record breaks loose as Ringwalt reflects: "I wrote so many stories, not knowing what the end was." But at this stage in the journey, we know there is no such thing as an ending; if the healing process is never complete, the storyteller's strange power is what finally offers liberation.

The new album from Tears For Fears, Songs For A Nervous Planet, features four new studio tracks plus live recordings of Tears For Fears on tour and at their best. The album features live performances of hit songs like “Shout”, “Head Over Heels”, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, “Mad World” & more. Spanning all eras of the band from The Hurting to The Tipping Point and beyond, this record takes you on the incomparable sonic journey that is a Tears For Fears live show and their career to date.

The new album from Tears For Fears, Songs For A Nervous Planet, features four new studio tracks plus live recordings of Tears For Fears on tour and at their best. The album features live performances of hit songs like “Shout”, “Head Over Heels”, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, “Mad World” & more. Spanning all eras of the band from The Hurting to The Tipping Point and beyond, this record takes you on the incomparable sonic journey that is a Tears For Fears live show and their career to date.

Apricotfarbenes Vinyl. Manchmal kommen sie zurück, wenn man es am wenigsten erwartet. Jeder, der sich in den letzten zehn Jahren für Rockmusik interessiert hat, wird mit David Jakes und Jack Wrench vertraut sein. Jakes war der grüblerische, intensive Sänger von Lonely The Brave, ein vielschichtiger Charakter, der mit einer einmaligen Stimme gesegnet ist. Und Wrench war der explosive Schlagzeuger bei Arcane Roots, ein Mann, der gleichermaßen in der Komplexität des Math-Rocks und der schieren Rock-Power zu Hause ist. Als Jakes Lonely The Brave 2018 aus psychischen Gründen verließ und Arcane Roots sich später im selben Jahr trennten, sah ihre musikalische Zukunft, gelinde gesagt, ungewiss aus. Sicherlich hätten nur wenige erwartet, Jakes, einen Mann, der sich im Rampenlicht nicht wohlfühlt und immer nach Frontmännern Ausschau hält, wieder auf der Bühne zu sehen. Aber hier und jetzt, im Jahr 2024, haben sich diese beiden Ausnahmetalente zu Interlaker zusammengeschlossen, die vielleicht die sensationelle Rockband sind, auf die man gewartet hat, seit sie sich von ihren früheren Projekten getrennt haben. Jakes und Wrench - die sich nur vage aus ihren früheren Bands kannten - haben ihre neue Partnerschaft über Instagram angebahnt; sie tauschten beiläufige Nachrichten aus, entdeckten ihre gemeinsame Liebe zu REM und Pearl Jam, bevor sie dazu übergingen, Demos und Songideen auszutauschen und schließlich ihr brillantes Debütalbum komplett online zu schreiben und aufzunehmen. Gegen Ende des Prozesses trafen sie sich einmal persönlich, sagt Jakes, nur um "sicherzugehen, dass wir gut miteinander auskamen und alles gut war - sonst wäre es peinlich geworden!"

Was haben Motörhead, Refused, Rage against the Machine, AC/DC und Green Day gemeinsam? Es mag vielleicht verwundern, aber sie haben allesamt Songs mit Texten, die ziemlich gut im Kontext eines Widerstands gegen eine Epoche funktionieren, die immer mehr durch herzlosen Nationalismus, Rassismus, Faschismus und Egoismus gekennzeichnet ist. Das Leben im Europa des Jahres 2024 kann einem schon den Rest geben: In immer mehr Ländern wühlen Politiker*innen den Dreck auf, der schon längst hätte abgeschafft werden sollen - oder der zumindest kollektiv verachtet gehört. Doch eines muss man sich unbedingt ins Gedächtnis rufen: just because you got the power, heißt nicht, dass man recht hat. Tagtäglich wird einem heute eine neue dumme Idee um die Ohren gehauen. Meistens geht es darum, diejenigen nach unten zu treten, die eh schon am Boden liegen. Für Otto Normalverbraucher, der sich von der Gesellschaft betrogen fühlt, ist das reines TNT. Das Gefühl ist bisweilen nachvollziehbar, doch bitte wann sind die Verbreitung von Angst, das Bauen von Mauern und die Zerstörung von Bildungssystemen zur Lösung für Alles geworden? Seit wann ist ein menschliches Wesen aufgrund seiner Ethnie, seines Geschlechts, seiner sexuellen Orientierung oder seines Glaubens weniger wert? Unsere Antwort ist kurz und knapp: Wann immer irgendwer versucht, uns hier auf Linie zu bringen, entgegnen wir: fuck you, we won"t do what you tell us. Was also tun? Sind wir die einzigen, die sich in einer Welt, die sich spiralförmig in den Abgrund dreht, wie basket cases, also absolut verloren fühlen? Hoffentlich nicht. Und wenn wir eines gelernt haben, dann, dass im Produzieren, Spielen und Hören von Musik ein mächtiger Zauber liegen kann. Es gibt weniges, was so wirksam für sozialen Kit sorgt. Deshalb sind wir unglaublich stolz und freuen uns extrem, wieder ein neues Hellsongs-Album zu präsentieren. Für uns ist es ein Lichtstrahl in äußerst dunklen Zeiten. Zusätzlich zu den Cover-Versionen gibt es auch vier eigene neue Songs, die mehr oder weniger dasselbe Themenfeld abdecken. Mehr Vocals, mehr Drums, allgemein mehr Instrumente, gespielt von einer noch größeren Gang mit noch mehr Wut im Bauch als je zuvor. Hoffentlich gefällt"s euch. Wir lieben es! Lassen wir diese abgründigen Zeiten hinter uns und gehen wir gemeinsam in eine gleichberechtigte Zukunft! Eins wissen wir jedenfalls genau: We would rather be dead, als es gar nicht erst versucht zu haben. See you on the road!

Was haben Motörhead, Refused, Rage against the Machine, AC/DC und Green Day gemeinsam? Es mag vielleicht verwundern, aber sie haben allesamt Songs mit Texten, die ziemlich gut im Kontext eines Widerstands gegen eine Epoche funktionieren, die immer mehr durch herzlosen Nationalismus, Rassismus, Faschismus und Egoismus gekennzeichnet ist. Das Leben im Europa des Jahres 2024 kann einem schon den Rest geben: In immer mehr Ländern wühlen Politiker*innen den Dreck auf, der schon längst hätte abgeschafft werden sollen - oder der zumindest kollektiv verachtet gehört. Doch eines muss man sich unbedingt ins Gedächtnis rufen: just because you got the power, heißt nicht, dass man recht hat. Tagtäglich wird einem heute eine neue dumme Idee um die Ohren gehauen. Meistens geht es darum, diejenigen nach unten zu treten, die eh schon am Boden liegen. Für Otto Normalverbraucher, der sich von der Gesellschaft betrogen fühlt, ist das reines TNT. Das Gefühl ist bisweilen nachvollziehbar, doch bitte wann sind die Verbreitung von Angst, das Bauen von Mauern und die Zerstörung von Bildungssystemen zur Lösung für Alles geworden? Seit wann ist ein menschliches Wesen aufgrund seiner Ethnie, seines Geschlechts, seiner sexuellen Orientierung oder seines Glaubens weniger wert? Unsere Antwort ist kurz und knapp: Wann immer irgendwer versucht, uns hier auf Linie zu bringen, entgegnen wir: fuck you, we won"t do what you tell us. Was also tun? Sind wir die einzigen, die sich in einer Welt, die sich spiralförmig in den Abgrund dreht, wie basket cases, also absolut verloren fühlen? Hoffentlich nicht. Und wenn wir eines gelernt haben, dann, dass im Produzieren, Spielen und Hören von Musik ein mächtiger Zauber liegen kann. Es gibt weniges, was so wirksam für sozialen Kit sorgt. Deshalb sind wir unglaublich stolz und freuen uns extrem, wieder ein neues Hellsongs-Album zu präsentieren. Für uns ist es ein Lichtstrahl in äußerst dunklen Zeiten. Zusätzlich zu den Cover-Versionen gibt es auch vier eigene neue Songs, die mehr oder weniger dasselbe Themenfeld abdecken. Mehr Vocals, mehr Drums, allgemein mehr Instrumente, gespielt von einer noch größeren Gang mit noch mehr Wut im Bauch als je zuvor. Hoffentlich gefällt"s euch. Wir lieben es! Lassen wir diese abgründigen Zeiten hinter uns und gehen wir gemeinsam in eine gleichberechtigte Zukunft! Eins wissen wir jedenfalls genau: We would rather be dead, als es gar nicht erst versucht zu haben. See you on the road!

Recorded in Memphis, 1960-62 by Home of the Blues Record Company – sixteen tracks of vintage rocking Memphis blues that went unissued at the label’s demise and were lost in a warehouse, ultimately rediscovered and released by Acoustic Archives.

All now remastered to perfection by Oz Fritz and a team of A&R experts working with the original masters, including ones made by Sam Phillips Recording Studios in Memphis.

Featuring the superb arrangements of trumpeter Willie Mitchell, accompanying some of the best singers of the day, with guitar by Sammy Lawhorn, bass by Lewi Steinberg and drums by AI Jackson Jr. Recorded in glorious mono by Scotty Moore at Sam Phillips Recording Service.

Each artist bio had been thoroughly researched under the guidance of Acoustic Archives producer Marc Ryan with the assistance of Dr. Dave Evans, head musicologist at Memphis State U. The story provided in the 12-page booklet includes how these cuts eventually surfaced from the early 1960s and features the photos and commentary on the recording artists, with how the original owners of the Home of The Blues Record Shop, once at 107 Beale Street, worked at the recordings.

Back in print, on white & purple splatter vinyl!

Hailing from Buffalo, NY, Head North has used their indie-influenced pop-punk to break out of the local scene and demand the attention of a national audience. Packing in sentiments as big as their sound, the band hits home with walls of guitar lines, frenetic punk rock drums and an emotional complexity anchored behind their lyrics. Singer Brent Martone hits raspy notes of anger and sadness, knowing when to shriek and when to soften, adding a layer of versatile energy to back up his passion.

RIYL: The Dangerous Summer, Brand New, Have Mercy

Blending elements of post-hardcore, emo and Southern-tinged indie rock, Microwave balance frankness with a penchant for wit, allowing for seemingly standard personal confessions to make a significant and striking impact. While often tipping into the heavier side of resonant punk, the band shines brightest in soft reservation. Their self-released debut album Stovall feels like a snapshot in time, bringing to mind that same unforgettable feeling that albums like Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American, Manchester Orchestra’s I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child and Taking Back Sunday’s Tell All Your Friends did years ago.

RIYL: Manchester Orchestra, All Get Out, Taking Back Sunday"

In 2007 an Italian film festival invites Mouse on Mars to score a film of their choice. The organizers claim to be able to clear the rights for any movie the band chooses. Werner Herzog’s fictional documentary Fata Morgana, which merges footage of several desert explorations by Herzog and his team into one continuous association, has long been a band’s favorite. The film comes with a soundtrack by Mozart, Leonard Cohen, Third Ear Band and field recordings. Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner are sent a DVD to Düsseldorf and start working. The idea is to score the film in real time so instrumentation has to be readily at hand: guitar, percussion, electronics, mouth harp, pedals, software, tapes, samplers. Once the arrangement for the three-part film is sorted Mouse on Mars bring their score to stage. Herzog Sessions is performed twice: first when the band still thought the rights had been cleared, and a second time at London’s Southbank Center knowing that Herzog would have never approved a new score.

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Mouse On Mars – London Queen Elizabeth Hall soundtracking Werner Herzog.
By Mike Diver, 24.04.2009

Filmed in 1971, Fata Morgana is perhaps not one of Herzog’s best-known works (think Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, et cetera…), but then Mouse on Mars have never been ones to embrace the mainstream, quietly letting their modern, experimental take on krautrock do the talking over the years, thus producing some quietly brilliant electronica that far outweighs their modest profile.

The film itself is not altogether dissimilar to the wonderful, Phillip Glass-scored Koyaanisqatsi, with sweeping landscape shots and no obvious plot or narrative, though Fata is concentrated purely in one place – in and around the Sahara Desert, switching from images of barren wasteland to desert tribes and dead, skeletal cattle.

The obvious thing to do when soundtracking such powerful imagery is to vie for dreamy electronic soundscapes which can be sustained for a long period, and whilst this ambient shoegaze approach was present and correct (also carefully constructed and highly effective), Mouse on Mars added a human element to the performance, incorporating a live dimension by using and looping guitars, harmonicas, processed vocals and even a live horn player (quite possibly a flugelhorn. Look it up if you don’t believe me) for the final section of the film.

Some of the most interesting points arose when the duo suddenly switched from solemn, ambient tones to glitchy, bouncing electro (reminiscent of their more upbeat work) whilst on the same film shot – causing the audience mood to flick from tripped-out bliss to attentive semi-wired, utterly subverting any idea of a narrative the film may have possessed. Clever stuff.

Ranging from sinister to surreal to humorous, all the moods portrayed in Fata Morgana were successfully matched by Mouse on Mars’ live rescore – no mean feat. The duo also went above and beyond the call of duty with their own soundtrack, adding a fascinating personal signature to an already unique film.

The Post-Punk Synth Alchemists return with new album ‘Strange Loops’. With blistering rhythms and searing bass, AK/DK return with their highly anticipated fourth album, ‘Strange Loops’. It builds on the momentum of their previous release; Shared Particles, which sold out of the Dinked edition even before its release and achieved no. 7 in the Indie Record Store charts. Known for their trademark motorik energy and riotous joy, AK/DK are back, and for the first time, they’ve introduced guest vocalists into the fray. This new release sees the drum and synth duo collaborate with three exciting artists: the musician TVAM, punk poet - Thick Richard, and I Am Fya; sound artist. The angular guitars and spaced-out vocals of TVAM intertwine with the duo’s driving beats and convulsing synths, resulting in the pulsating Devo-esque powerhouse of ‘Square Route’. The two bands have been crossing paths on festival line ups for a while now and it seemed inevitable that they should join forces. I Am Fya’s usual experimental textures and sound-collage is temporarily put to one side on ‘Pull Up’. For this deep and heavy sub-rattling cut; I Am Fya and AK/DK lean heavily into sound system bass and dancehall style. Her febrile and powerful vocals interweave with tectonic sub bass and stuttering rhythms, sounding like Missy Elliot jamming with a modular synth. Manchester’s very own Thick Richard adds his lyrical, jet-black humour to the track ‘Nobody Shouts’. Their collaboration began when the band invited the punk poet up for an impromptu improvisation during their set at Beatherder festival 2020. It went down so well that they had to record it; learning the track from fan footage online. This is nothing new for AK/DK, creating powerful improvised moments for those lucky enough to be in the audience. Strange Loops presents two distinct halves of music. The A side offers sure-fire bangers that will linger in your ears and have you pounding the dance floor, while the B side delves into more experimental and ambient territories with completely live takes from the studio, reflecting the duo’s love of ‘70s German Kosmische bands. “We always had more ambient experimental tracks on our records, and wanted to give them a spotlight on this release” says the band’s Gee Sowerby. Their previous releases have earned accolades such as BBC 6 Music’s ‘Album Of The Day’ and impressed judges on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable, solidifying their reputation as pioneers in their genre. It’s on stage where AK/DK truly come to life. Their electrifying performances, characterised by joyous live-looping of keyboards, drums, and distorted whoops, have made them a fervent fan favourite for over a decade. They’ve left an indelible mark on audiences at festivals like End Of The Road, Blue Dot, and Green Man, winning over new audiences wherever they play. With Strange Loops, AK/DK continue to push boundaries and defy expectations, reinforcing their status as one of the most dynamic and innovative acts in the scene

Polishing Peanuts DELUXE's first EP (November 2011) opened the door & created a buzz about the band's future projects. The 3 first tracks that came out in spring, started to tease the audience's interest, especially Daniel the EP's title track (out on May 13th) & the crazy video who came along with it. The long awaited LP drops on September 16th 2013, and goes by the sweet name of The DELUXE Family show.

This first album reflects the maturity acquired by the band during the years, full of tracks as diverse & breathtaking as the fellows mustaches. The jazzy touch, trademark of the band's first discographic adventures can be found on tracks Extra Mile & Bleed On, Indisposed (feat. Cyph4) & Pretty Flaws are melancholic & dreamy ballads, whereas Family Show & Baby (feat ASM) are hip hop bangers. The LP travels through different styles, it also features several mc's (Tumi on Too Me, Taiwan Mc on Blocked) and surprises the ears by easily skipping from dub step fuelled rock & roll vibes, to sweet & sour ballads, and even funky disco sounds. With eclecticism, assumed diversity and an urge to tell a story, DELUXE invites his listeners to immerse in this first album's universe, grooving, moving, bouncing, a real musical melting pot with various horizons.

A RADICAL HORIZON is comprised of a series of duets between cellist Lori Goldston and pianist Stefan Christoff, recorded on a late Fall afternoon in Brooklyn, NY. A conversation between friends, these improvised excursions reflect a willingness to be open to the spirits in the space and between the notes; a spirit of communion that, as Stefan writes, "guides and dances with our dialogue together".

Stefan Christoff is a Canadian musician, community organizer, and journalist based in Montreal, Quebec. He has collaborated with artists such as Sam Shalabi and Adriana Camacho, performs with his brother Jordan as a duo in Anarchist Mountains, and has released music on labels such as Moon Villain, Shimmering Moods, and Aural Canyon.

A lifelong community activist, he helped establish the Musicians For Palestine project and has engaged in street-level solidarity work in Lebanon and The Philippines as well as closer to home in Montreal. This is his second appearance on Beacon Sound after 'In Sofia', an album of piano improvisations recorded in Bulgaria, was released on the label in 2023.

Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, possessor of a restless, semi-feral spirit, Lori Goldston is a cellist, composer, improvisor, producer, writer and teacher from Seattle. Her voice as a cellist, amplified or acoustic, is full, textured, committed and original. A relentless inquirer, her work drifts freely across borders that separate genre, discipline, time and geography.

Current and former collaborators and/or bosses include Earth, Nirvana, Mirah, Jessika Kenney, Ilan Volkov, Eyvind Kang, Stuart Dempster, David Byrne, Terry Riley, Jherek Bischoff, Malcom Goldstein, Steve Von Till, Lonnie Holley, Cat Power, Ellen Fullman, Maya Dunietz, Mik Quantius, Embryo, O Paon, Tara Jane O’Neil, Natacha Atlas, Broken Water, Ed Pias, Christian Rizzo and Sophie Laly, Threnody Ensemble, Cynthia Hopkins, 33 Fainting Spells, Vanessa Renwick, Mark Mitchell, Lynn Shelton, and many more.

Her work has been commissioned by and/or performed at the Kennedy Center, Sydney Festival, Cineteca Nacional de México, Tectonics Festival, Frye Art Museum, Time Based Art Festival (TBA), WNYC, The New Foundation, Paris Fashion Week, Northwest Film Forum, On the Boards, Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle Jewish Film Festival, Bumbershoot, Crossing Border Festival, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Joe’s Pub, the Stone, University of Chicago, and venues large and small throughout North America, Mexico, Australia, and Europe.

NOW Music is proud to present the newest addition to the ‘Yearbook’ series: NOW – Yearbook 1981. NOW – Yearbook 1981; a celebration of the eclectic and creative brilliance of the year in pop. 4 CDs of 85 tracks that defined the charts in 1981. Available on a 4CD special edition which is housed in ‘hard-back book’ packaging, including a 28-page booklet with a summary of the year, a track-by-track guide, a quiz, and original singles artwork, and as a standard 4-CD package. A limited edition 3LP set pressed in translucent red vinyl, limited to 3,000 units and a 4CD set

Population Four signaled the first major change in the lineup of Cranes with the departure of bassist Cope. Jim Shaw stepped from behind the drums to take over lead guitar duties in full, Francombe switched to bass, while new member Manu Ros settled behind the drum kit. The band is ultimately the most conventional it’s ever been on Population Four. In this album Cranes continue a change strongly evident in Loved from the stark and enigmatic vocals of Alison Shaw and their more synthesized sounds to acoustic guitars and standard drums.

Available on vinyl for the first time as a limited pressing of 1500 individually numbered copies on blue & white swirled vinyl. The package includes an insert.

REISSUE of Sun And Sail Club sophomore album. The name might be the Sun and Sail club, but you'll find no yacht rock here. Instead of Michael McDonald, we have Bad Brains. Kenny Loggins? Hall and Oats? More like Matt Pike and Lemmy Fucking Kilmister. "The Great White Dope" is featuring members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, and the Adolescents, containing 10 riff-filled tracks of high energy, bullshit-free punk and sleaze. The song writing on 'The Great White Dope' steers away from the experimental direction of their previous release, and it's laser focused on one thing: unapologetically rocking your face off. The vocoder is gone and they've recruited singer Tony Adolescent, who delivers balls to the wall vocals with no added effects or frills. The production, like the music itself, is loud, heavy, and beautifully simple. "This record is a direct result of my wife telling me she was pregnant with our son. As a first time father, panic set in and I wrote the album in two hours. I wasn't sure if I'd have a lot of time once he was born so I crammed as many frantic riffs into one album as possible. Looking back it's funny to listen to now, but at the time I was on a mission. Everyone killed it on this record and we recruited Tony Adolescent on vocals which is unreal to me." - Bob Balch

REISSUE of Sun And Sail Club sophomore album. The name might be the Sun and Sail club, but you'll find no yacht rock here. Instead of Michael McDonald, we have Bad Brains. Kenny Loggins? Hall and Oats? More like Matt Pike and Lemmy Fucking Kilmister. "The Great White Dope" is featuring members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, and the Adolescents, containing 10 riff-filled tracks of high energy, bullshit-free punk and sleaze. The song writing on 'The Great White Dope' steers away from the experimental direction of their previous release, and it's laser focused on one thing: unapologetically rocking your face off. The vocoder is gone and they've recruited singer Tony Adolescent, who delivers balls to the wall vocals with no added effects or frills. The production, like the music itself, is loud, heavy, and beautifully simple. "This record is a direct result of my wife telling me she was pregnant with our son. As a first time father, panic set in and I wrote the album in two hours. I wasn't sure if I'd have a lot of time once he was born so I crammed as many frantic riffs into one album as possible. Looking back it's funny to listen to now, but at the time I was on a mission. Everyone killed it on this record and we recruited Tony Adolescent on vocals which is unreal to me." - Bob Balch

Something About Livingis an album of live recordings by experimental jazz composer/multi-instrumentalist Robert Stillman. The music was captured over the course of Stillman's time as the solo support act for The Smile (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Tom Skinner). The album weaves excerpts from various theater and arena shows along the tour's North American routing into a seamless whole, creating a 40-minute program that represents an expanded version of Stillman's ever-transforming live set.

Something About Livingis the product of a steady, on-stage evolution that happened over the course of the nearly 60 shows opening for the Smile across the EU, UK, US, Canada and Mexico. However, the creative origins of the set began in relative isolation during the pandemic, through Stillman's work on projects like his multi-media installationUnseen Forcesand his monthly broadcast for Margate Radio, both of which drew upon solo improvisation using saxophone, cassettes, Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, and effects.

"At the time The Smile asked whether I'd like to open for them on their first tour, I felt like I'd already been preparing without really knowing it," says Stillman. "I'd been doing this music constantly, but always for a hypothetical audience" During the pandemic, Stillman's solo set-up served as the research lab where he worked on all the concepts he was interested in: solo improvisation, creating and manipulating cassettes, FM synthesis, analogue delays chains, no-input mixing, and non-metric rhythmic pulses. So when he was offered the first Smile tour, the idea was to bring "the lab" onto the stage.

What Stillman could not have prepared for was the experience of playing in venues with capacities of up to ten thousand listeners. "The first tour was in summer 2022, so not that long after the worst of the pandemic, when I had pretty much made peace with the idea that I might never be able to perform for an audience again. Then all of a sudden I found myself in front of huge numbers of people, and felt the massive responsibility of being with an audience, of this thing I'd done alone for so longactually being witnessed, and it was completely overwhelming!" On the flip-side, Stillman also recalls, was a new appreciation of how powerful the live performance was as a social phenomenon. "It's a cliche, but also true: the moment of making and hearing music in a shared time and space has a very specific meaning and power; there was a sense that everyone in the venue was necessary to make it real, regardless of what they were doing, or how they felt about it. There was an inevitability about it that I'd never fully appreciated."

Over the course of the tours that followed, Stillman transformed this appreciation of the shared moment into an ethic of spontaneity that guided the development of his live set. "An important reference for this set has always been an Animal Collective show I saw when I first moved to New York, probably in 2001 or so, that has always set the high-water mark for what I wanted to do live- they were improvising a lot, and out of what would seem to be absolute chaos they'd find their way to something structured, and then back out again into the unknown. It was so thrilling to witness".

ThoughSomething About Livingcompiles recordings from different dates along the tour, Stillman has edited and mixed them into a work that seeks to reflect the ebb and flow between 'chaos and control' that characterizes his live set. Among the compositions featured are some from previous album releases ("Time of Waves", "What I Owe", "What Does it Mean to Be American") as well as some new compositions ("The Dream of Waking", "Renaissance 2.0," and the title track, "Something About Living").

The album/track title "Something About Living" is a reference to a line from Stillman's favorite film,My Dinner With André: "André Gregory is explaining the value of life experiences that, as he says, are'to do with living'.That really struck me, the way he articulated it. I strongly believe live music situations can ask these kinds of questions, for performers and audiences. I hope that's reflected in this music."

[a] 01: Time of Waves (Live in Miami FL) [Live]
[b] 02: What Does It Mean to Be American (Live in Forest Hills NY) [Live]
[c] 03: The Dream of Waking (Live in St Augustine FL) [Live]
[d] 04: Something About Living (Live in Richmond VA) [Live]
[e] 05: What I Owe (Live in Chesterfield MO) [Live]
[f] 06: Renaissance 2.0 (Live in Chesterfield MO) [Live]

"The Night The Zombies Came is Pixies’ tenth album, if you count their classic 1987 4AD mini LP Come On Pilgrim, and first new music since 2022’s acclaimed Doggerel LP. 13 new songs that find Pixies looking ahead to the most cinematic record of their career. Songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Black Francis explains: “Fragments that are related and juxtaposed with other fragments in other songs. And in a collection of songs in a so-called LP, you end up making a kind of movie.” Druidism, apocalyptic shopping malls, mediaeval themed restaurants, 12th century poetic form, surf rock, gargoyles, bog people, and the distinctive dry drum sound of 1970s era Fleetwood Mac are just some of the disparate wonders that inform the new songs. For the new album recording sessions the band returned to work with producer Tom Dalgety, who drummer David Lovering refers to as “a fifth Pixie” after producing 2016’s Head Carrier, 2019’s Beneath the Eyrie and 2022’s Doggerel. Early on in the recording process at Guilford Sound studio in Vermont, the band noticed the new songs were dividing into two camps: what they came to call the “Dust Bowl Songs” - country-tinged, ballad-esque numbers such as ‘Primrose’ and ‘Mercy Me’, and on the other side, the album’s furious punk numbers such as ‘You’re So Impatient’ and ‘Oyster Beds’. Only ‘Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)’ keeps its feet in both camps — reminiscent of early 60s Phil Spector, the band hitting the sweet spot between mushy and abrasive, it’s a track that Black Francis allegedly likened to being chased by a swarm of bees.
The Night The Zombies Came sessions also saw Pixies welcoming new bass player Emma Richardson (Band Of Skulls) to the line up; the first British band member to join the group. There’s also an expanded role for guitarist Joey Santiago. After contributing his first-ever Pixies lyrics on Doggerel, for the new record Santiago wrote the words to ‘Hypnotised’ by completing a complex lyrical riddle of sorts, known as a sestina.
The Night The Zombies Came is released via BMG on CD, black vinyl"

“Friends, they are my ticket out of this place I am in… feels like nothing more than a dirt bike vacation stop between Phoenix and San Diego.” Dirt Bike Vacation—for Worried Songs Records—explores the sonic world of the late amateur guitar player, Charles ‘Poppy Bob’ Walker, through a captivating set of instrumental songs made in the mid-1980s. Recorded on a single-track, Marantz field recorder, the project is a transportive document of Walker’s days spent as a meatpacking employee in Yuma, Arizona and the dailiness of that existence: driving to work, sitting in his backyard, walking around drunkenly, unwinding on the couch with a friend. These sketches, showing an experimental tendency, are surprisingly ahead of their time; some exhibit ad hoc tape delay (“Granite Bluffs,” “Goodbye YMCA”), while others make use of primitive overdubbing (“Continuation to Moon Doctor”). Not dissimilar to works such as Bruce Langhorne’s The Hired Hand soundtrack, Walker’s guitar playing is melodic, texturally rich and beautifully sober. On a musical tour from Nashville to Los Angeles, musician-archivist, Cameron Knowler, uncovered these songs from a series of dusty cassette tapes housed at a branch of the Yuma County Library. Originally tipped off by cryptic metadata entries found through an online finding aid, Knowler requested a sound sample and was immediately drawn in by their eerie, yet hopeful nature: “I didn’t care what they sounded like at first, but once I heard just a few seconds, I had to find out everything I could about Charles, who he was, and if he was still alive.” As it turns out, the two had miraculously crossed paths over 20 years prior when Cameron was a young boy accompanying his mother, a gem trader, on a biyearly sojourn to Quartzsite, a town 80 miles north of Yuma: “Charles, sitting down and smoking in a recliner, withdrawn, held what I now understand to be a mid-1990s Martin D-28 guitar. Unlike other old-timers, his instrument was sharply tuned and had a nice sound, even to my young and uncalibrated ears. Though his left hand showed signs of highly developed arthritis, his musical ideas were animated by a palpably deep understanding of fretboard anatomy, arrangement and harmony.” Sorting through the index cards associated with these tapes, Knowler was able to gain a detailed sense of most recording’s provenance, whereabouts and time: Walker’s Datsun pickup truck chugging along boiling hot Interstate 80, the Marine Corps Air Station parking lot, the Eastern Wetlands on the banks of the Colorado River, a fishing trip to Martinez Lake. Trying to reduce the amount of his own subjectivities coloring the work, Cameron constructed titles and track sequences by borrowing information gleaned from Charles’ handwritten notes: “I tried to organize everything by time of day, giving the listener the sense of how a Yuma day might sound and feel like, and each song title—even the record itself—is borrowed from his own words.” This proved no small task, as many notecards had to be deciphered and then coupled with their native tapes which needed extensive restoration treatments. The result is a project very much out of the blue, and one that is intensely personal to Knowler, having grown up in the same town under similar circumstances. “It feels like a part of my own journey as a guitarist reckoning with the defining marks of a gothic border town,” he remarks. “At the time I would’ve met Walker, I didn’t have much outside influence, but he has been in there all the while.” In their current form, the tracks combine to create a sonic journey that boldly contributes to the traditions of acoustic guitar soli, archival digs and field recordings all the same; most importantly, it is a creative document which shows a day-in-the-life of a man grappling with the human experience under a ubiquitous Yuma sun.

In celebration of the 21st Anniversary of this popular Christmas double album, Jeepster and War Child are releasing It’s A Cool Cool Christmas on vinyl for the first time. Originally released on November 20th 2000 as a CD only release, it will now be available on vinyl on November 19th 2021. This double album is released with colourful inners within a wide spine sleeve.

REPRESS

In celebration of the 21st Anniversary of this popular Christmas double album, Jeepster and War Child are releasing It’s A Cool Cool Christmas on vinyl for the first time. Originally released on November 20th 2000 as a CD only release, it will now be available on vinyl on November 19th 2021. This double album is released with colourful inners within a wide spine sleeve.

"""Population Four"" is the fourth studio album by the British alternative rock band Cranes, released in 1997. This album marks a major change in the lineup. With bassist Cope leaving the band, Jim Shaw took on the role of lead guitar, Francombe transitioned to bass, and new member Manu Ros joined as the drummer. The album showcases a more traditional sound, as Cranes move away from stark and mysterious vocals toward acoustic guitars and standard drums, while maintaining their distinctive ethereal blend of dream pop and gothic rock. Alison Shaw's haunting vocals continue to take center stage, as the band embraces a more mature and refined sound. Tracks such as ""Brazil"" and ""Angel Bell"" demonstrate their ability to blend lush melodies with introspective lyrics. The single “Can’t Get Free” is a haunting and atmospheric track that encapsulates the band's unique ethereal style, cementing their status as a cult favorite. This re-release comes as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on silver & black marbled vinyl."

"“Tenalach - The relationship with the land, the sky, the water and the deep connection that allows you to hear the earth sing and be one with nature”

Following on from their many mutual remixes and first collaborative EP “Pleamar” (Wonderwheel Recordings 2020) Chancha Via Circuito y El Búho return with a new EP “Tenalach"" which sees the duo enter new territories and soundscapes. This mysterious, atmospheric and melancholic EP is like the soundtrack to a videogame that takes place in a strange and wonderful parallel universe.

Imagine Zelda set in the jungles and mountains of Latin America.

Croaking frogs sit next to driving snares on the genre-defying Sapo Cururú, birds float above strobing synths on Oropéndola while Sumay’s epic synth lines melt into Chancha’s trademark percussions on Sumay. Opener El Samurai is perhaps the closest to the pair’s well-known folktronic sound, marrying cowbells with bowing violins and its animal-esque synth line.

While the BPM may have risen, this is neither ‘downtempo’ nor ‘umtempo’ and an EP that cannot easily be pigeon-holed - it is fresh and original. It also reflects a darker side to the pair’s music, a sub-conscious reflection of a changing world, holding in each song a constant tension and the desire to escape to new realities where the connection between humans and nature is blurred and equal."

The Best Of Spear Of Destiny is a compilation album featuring the most successful songs of the British 80’s rock band Spear Of Destiny.

The album is originally released in 2008 on CD and is now for the first time avalaible on vinyl. It features songs like “Liberator”, “The Wheel”, “Rainmaker”, “Flying Scotsman”, “Mickey” & many more.



The Best of Spear Of Destiny (20th anniversary edition) is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on crsytal clear and black marbled vinyl and includes a renewed insert.

"In a musical life that spans close to three decades, Chuck Ragan has consistently worn his heart on his sleeve, and carved out a musical niche in the process. First with post-hardcore trailblazers Hot Water Music and subsequently on his own, he's built a large and singularly powerful body of work whose honesty, immediacy and warmth have won the loyalty of a fiercely devoted international fan base that's supported him through his various musical incarnations.
Available on CD and 1LP with insert on 3 Colour - Yellow, Green & Blue Smush Vinyl."

Somehow, 15 years has passed since I worked on A Colour For Autumn.

This recording was, in many ways, a critical one for me. In some respects, it rounded out a period of work that was focused on a particular marriage of thematics and harmony. Like For Varying Degrees Of Winter, it dwelled on old world impressions of the seasons, something that, in the southern hemisphere, isn’t intrinsically part of our way of approaching place. I think it was this incongruity with my own lived experience that kick started the interest in making these recordings.

The intention had originally been to take Vivaldi head-on , as the holder of the Four Seasons terrain (I jest of course), but shortly after completing this album, it became resoundingly clear that even in the old world, seasonality was a thing that was known ‘then’, and unknowable ‘now’.

Climate change, as a lived experience and not merely as a ‘possibility’, suddenly came into focus with reports flooding in about the climatic dynamics since the turn of the century and events like the Black Saturday fires here in Australia. It felt like, and continues to feel like, seasonality as some predictable measure of our world is relegated to the ‘before’ times. This record is not about these climatic shifts however, more a recognition of how we have used patterns and predictability to guide us over the centuries and perhaps a realisation that the way forward is not the path we have known historically.

Listening back to the record with fresh ears, a process made completely delightful by Stephan Mathieu who has carefully remastered it, I am struck by how minimal some of the structures were. There are moments that strike me as uncharacteristically patient and even generous, allowing one element to hold without interference. I’m grateful to still feel a deep connection to this edition and to the people and places that helped shape it.

I hope you find some sense of your place here. It’s offered with that intention and invitation.

The LP was released during a fertile period in her early career, when she was also playing with the group The Marine Girls and just about to embark on a life-long musical and personal partnership with Ben Watt in Everything But The Girl.

Its stark minimalism made it stand out from the crowd, and the album remained on the Independent chart for many months. To this day, ‘A Distant Shore’ remains one of our proudest achievements here at Cherry Red Records. Fully supported by the artist, 'A Distant Shore' is now being represented with the addition of five hitherto unheard demo recordings, hand-picked by Tracey from her archive of cassettes. ‘Lucky Day’ was recorded during the same session as the album but somehow never made the grade; the other four tracks here were recorded during a later session but then set aside, to be re-recorded a while later with EBTG for their first album, Eden.

Freshly mastered at Abbey Road Studios with new sleeve-notes written by Tracey, this 2024 edition is available on both vinyl and CD, a beautifully presented reminder of the album’s elemental beauty.

Latin funk at its finest. A kingpin player of Miami’s Cuban music scene, Ray Fernandez, brought together his ‘court’ for this sensational Afro-Cuban funk triumph. Largely a family affair, the album features his wife, two sons and a range of other talented musicians including Rickey Washington on saxophone, father of the contemporary jazz maestro Kamasi Washington. Originally released in 1973 on Manuel J. Mato’s iconic and collectible Sound Triangle Records, Ray & His Court is a dose of Miami heat fuelled by a Cuban fire, taking in salsa, soul, funk, calypso and Afro-Cuban rhythms.

A kaleidoscopic album that draws influence from a range of different genres and scenes blended together in true Ray Fernandez style. Side A, showcases an array of traditional Latin workouts including the addictive enticing opener 'La Señorita Lola' and the pulsating 'Lo Sabia' with its punchy horns and Ray’s wonderful, quirky bubbling organ groove. The tantalising ‘Venimos Acabando’ and bouncing organ stabs of ‘El Alacran’ are two further tickets to get a dancefloor vibing.

The B-side then steps things up, slipping a hit of heavy-weight Miami funk into the mix. Take the DJ favourite ‘Cookie Crumbs’ with its fiery bassline, tripped-out voiceovers and breakbeat drums. Or the amazing, memorable and truly unique funk instrumental ‘Soul Freedom’ with some mighty fine bass clarinet work courtesy of Gary Gottfried. Also featured is a seductive organ-led Cuban funk rework of Bobby Hebb's 'Sunny' (are there any bad versions of this song?), with a sumptuous female vocal that combine to serve up a seductive take us this much-loved classic.

'Ray And His Court' is a brilliant blend of Afro-Cuban gems and Miami funk heat from an influential group on Miami’s Latin music scene. A majestic and magnetic classic where every track is a surefire winner.

THE TWO CLASSIC EARLY SINGLES ORIGINALLY ON THE BLACK EYES LABEL. RE-PRESSED AND REISSUED ON RED AND BLACK SPLATTER VINYL. PLUS FIVE 1982 DEMOS FROM THE LEGENDARY PETE BURNS FRONTED BAND. CAPTURING DEAD OR ALIVE’S MUTATION FROM PROTO- GOTHIC ROCK BAND TO HI-NRG POP SUPERSTARS.

Having been ‘discovered’ working in Liverpool’s Probe Records during the punk rock explosion of the late 1970s, Pete Burns found himself fronting his own band, Nightmares In Wax who mutated into the more familiar Dead Or Alive, eventually bringing Pete into the UK pop mainstream, and a star was born.

Bringing together two-self-released 1982 singles and a collection of early versions of HiNRG tracks which would eventually find their way onto the band’s debut album, ‘Let Them Drag My Soul Away’ showcases the blossoming of one of the 80s pop scene’s most colourful characters.

Repressed on suitably atmospheric red and black vinyl and housed in a cover photograph by Dead Or Alive’s then manager Francesco Mellina, ‘Let Them Drag My Soul Away’ presents a last glimpse at a pre-stardom Pete, and a long overdue back story accompaniment for fans and collectors alike.

New West Records is proud to release Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney. This album features new versions of David Olney songs recorded by Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Willis Alan Ramsey, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Mary Gauthier, Jim Lauderdale, and Buddy Miller among others. The tracklist is also highlighted by a never-before released live recording by Townes Van Zandt. Originally from Rhode Island, Olney moved to Nashville in the early 70s and fell in with a group of songwriters including Townes Van Zandt, John Hiatt, Steve Earle, Guy Clark, and Rodney Crowell. With his rock band David Olney and the X-Rays he toured tirelessly. He went on to release a string of brilliant albums and his songs were recorded by Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Del McCoury, Linda Ronstadt, and many others. But the bright lights of stardom never shone on David, and he died the way he lived: onstage in a club, far from home, singing a song. This album gathers some of David’s friends and colleagues to pay tribute to his unique vision. Many of these artists are legends in their own right; all are here because of their deep admiration and respect for the man and his songs.

Reissue of the Philadelphia group"s gritty psychedelic milestone, "Set And Setting" from 1999. The songs on Bardo Pond"s first two Matador releases - "Amanita" and "Lapsed" - were largely worked up at home and then recorded on the clock at a professional studio. On "Set and Setting," the band chose to work out of its home base, Lemur House, and the end result benefited from the open-ended DIY flexibility. "It was closer to the heart of what we do," says guitarist Michael Gibbons. "There was more improvisation, but also more culling of material. We had more time to find things that jumped out at us, go places we wouldn"t normally go, do investigative work. I think there was a shift. It"s just somehow a more true experience of Bardo Pond."

Greg Wilson returns to Running Back with another special project.
Forty years on from the release of the groundbreaking ‘Street Sounds UK Electro’ LP, ‘Real Time’ (two versions of which opened the separate sides of the album), finally gets a 12” release. Despite its prominence on ‘UK Electro’, it was the only inclusion not to be issued on 12” back in 1984.
Zer-o, like Syncbeat and Forevereaction, were the same trio – Manchester musicians, Martin Jackson and Andy Connell, and DJ Greg Wilson, making his first foray into record production. They also teamed up with rappers, Kermit and Fiddz, for the Broken Glass
track, ‘Style Of The Street’, one of the early UK hip hop releases. Fictional production and songwriting credits were added by Street Sounds to suggest a thriving British electro scene, the music having blown-up in New York during ‘82/’83, with the ‘Street Sounds Electro’
series, launched in October ’83, documenting these developments and unlocking a significant youth market who’d religiously collect these compilations.
Featured here is a Greg Wilson edit of ‘Real Time’, the ‘retrospective dub’ (the ‘UK Electro opener, which was in fact the original demo version of the track), and a Gerd Janson bonus beats edit. Flip it over and you’ll find a pair of 2024 reworks – the retrospective
dub, and the more downtempo introspective dub – courtesy of Greg and Ché Wilson, whose recent collaborations have included remixes for Gabriels and Confidence Man.

Most bands after nearly 20 years of classic albums, touring , line-up changes and a definitive legacy might be forgiven for putting their feet up and kicking back for a while, but then most bands aren’t the juggernaut that is Motörhead. We Take No Prisoners takes in a collection of singles and promos from the period of 1996-2005, during which the band, now a taut powerful trio, continued on their relentless journey with even more of the same quality, ear-shredding riotous rock ‘n’ roll than ever before. This Box Set containing nine 7” records, brings together some of the classic singles from the era alongside rare and live material including a lost interview with Lemmy and Mikkey Dee. There is also a CD version that features all this alongside tracks exclusive to that format. Descriptions: - 7" Singles Box Set containing nine 7” singles (on black – eight 7” contain two tracks on each and one 7” interview with Lemmy/Mikkey Dee). - Standard digisleeve with 2CD with 20pp Booklet. Features several tracks exclusive to the CD edition only.

"RATT released their last full-length record of the Atlantic era, Detonator, in 1990. Music was changing, but ‘Detonator’ was still a success, peaking at #23 on the Billboard Top 200 and going GOLD. The first album to feature major outside songwriting contributions (Desmond Child, Diane Warren) and guests (Jon Bon Jovi, Michael Schenker). Lead single “Lovin’ You’s A Dirty Job” hit #18 on the Rock Charts while the power ballad “Giving Yourself Away” reached #39.
The album features the classic line up of Stephen Pearcy (vocals), Warren DeMartini (guitars), Robbin Crosby (guitars), Juan Croucier (bass/vocals), and Bobby Blotzer (drums), and is now available on CD and Limited Edition red vinyl."

Thirty years after it was released on CD and cassette, Fuemana’s cult classic New Urban Polynesian album is finally available on vinyl. Born from the blood, sweat and tears of the late great Polynesian renaissance man Phil Fuemana and his family and friends, Fuemana’s music transports the listener back to the autumn and winter days of 1994 in the antipodes, where they turned love, loss, grief and acceptance into the finest R&B/street soul album ever recorded in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Fuemana spent several late nights tracking one-take sessions at The Lab Recording Studio with engineers Simon Taylor, Chris Sinclair and Mark Tierney. From there, New Urban Polynesian came together quickly. Across the album, Phil showed off his prodigious skills as a multi-instrumentalist and producer, playing most of the smooth, sophisticated, and heartfelt music himself. In the studio, he shared the lead with Christina and Matty J, supported by a cast of backing vocalists, musicians and guest vocalists, including a young Carly Binding.

From the lush openings of their soulful Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, and Stevie Wonder covers ‘Closer’ and ‘Rocket Love’ to the misty new jack swing serenade of his original ‘Seasons,’ Phil’s goal was to craft material that would let the music industry know the Fuemanas had arrived while also inspiring the next generation.

In 1995, the Fuemana family’s youngest sibling, Pauly, borrowed the initials from Ōtara Millionaires Club and began performing as OMC. Not long after, he changed everything for New Zealand music by recording the feelgood guitar-laced Polynesian pop global mega-hit ‘How Bizarre’ with producer Alan Jansson.

Consumed by a desire to do more musically, Phil established Urban Pacifika Records, where he launched the careers of a new wave of Pacific hip-hop and R&B talent, including Lost Tribe, Moizna, AKA Brown, and Sani Sagala, aka Dei Hamo.

In 2005, Phil tragically passed away from a heart attack aged 41. Five years later, Pauly, equally tragically, joined him after an extended battle with a rare neurological disorder, leaving Tony and Chirstina to grieve and make sense of their family’s extraordinary story.

When New Urban Polynesian first hit record store shelves in 1994, the Fuemanas dedicated the album to their father, Takiula Fuemana. Three decades later, it has expanded in meaning to become a remembrance of their youngest brother Pauly and a celebration of the life and times of their big-hearted big brother, Mr. Fuemana, Mr. Phil Fuemana.

Words by Martyn Pepperell in conversation with Tony & Christina Fuemana.

Gazebo Records feel honoured for the opportunity to share this important album for our inaugural release, now available for the first time on vinyl with remastering by Mikey Young.

All proceeds from this record flowing to the Fuemana family.

An example of globalisation's ultra exoticisms: a Guinean hit that changed the perception of African music in European dance charts (selling over a million copies), covered by a Hongkongese pop star two years later, the perfect recipe for ensuring heavy frothing amongst diggers and collectors worldwide. Besides its aesthetic novelty, it's also highly effective on just about any dancefloor, a theme that sounds so familiar to many but then with the added unexpected surprised factor of the lyrics being sung in a female voice and in Cantonese -- a hard moment to forget on a well helmed club floor. Another generosity of this release amongst the other 3 tracks is a display of heavy Cantonese ballad prowess in the Adult Contemporary landscape, especially with a cover of Gamble & Huff's "When Will I See You Again", huge on the couples' slow dance scene, shameless drama.