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It contains all the signatures of her best lyricism: delicate and precise phrasings, moments that flicker between beauty and banality, meaning that forms through the accretion of observations, memories, and unexpected adages. This is an album that is at once post-theistic and devoted to a relationship with the divine, each song blinking in and out of "the fragile plane," a place Krieger describes as "a middle ground in the universe," both abstract and peaceful, where time, bodies, and names don't exist.

Krieger initially collaborated with Luke Temple and Jeremy Harris to record her vocals and guitar to tape at Panoramic Studios in West Marin, CA. As the album continued to form, Krieger envisioned instruments - like the French and English horn (Nancy Ranger and Priscilla Reinhart), electric guitar (Jacob Drab), and pedal steel (Kevin Copeland) - as characters which would walk in and out of the soundscape. What emerged from conversations with composer Sammy Weissberg, are brass parts that have a dark, almost surreal logic: horns arise to emphasize a word or phrase, fall out completely, only to rush back with dissonant orchestrations that gesture simultaneously toward deterioration and generation.

While Krieger takes inspiration from Elliot Smith's honesty, Judee Sill's cosmic reaching, and Joni Mitchell's sharp noticing, the dream-like association, harmonic dissonance, and angular melodic ascensions in each song are singularly and delightfully Krieger's.

"I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane" is a daring collection of songs by an artist who scries with both the cold glass eye of truth and the beating heart of empathy; who portrays life in all its twisted complexities.

Working with Bat For Lashes producer David Kosten (aka Faultline), the recording of Man Alive was completed mainly in a chapel in North Wales. The album sounded unique. Nothing dates like the future, yet Man Alive sounds dateless, placeless, and as a result, stands up perfectly many years later.

Man Alive was only the beginning of the group's adventures in – to use their words – 'Mismatched styles of music mashed together.' The result is often exhilarating; there are Brazilian drums and a prog guitar breakdown in Schoolin', classical influences, as well. Its subject matter is often way outside the realms of conventional songwriting; MY KZ, UR BF explored the different Americas: the cosy self-centred domesticity of programmes such as Friends versus a foreign policy
based on killing; Qwerty Finger examines imperialism. Anglo Saxon guilt is also present.

The album's artwork was striking – a photograph of a fox by Swiss photographer, Laurent Geslin, reflecting the track Tin (The Manhole) which deals with the theme of depression, through, as the band said in 2010, "the story of an urban fox that ingests all our pollution and grows massively in a sort of dream sequence. We chose photos of an urban fox for this reason, but we partly attacked the code of the digital image to create a glitch distortion . . . a reference to digital manipulation and chaos as well as our modern lives online".

Released in August 2010, Man Alive made the UK Top 20 and was well reviewed.

For example, BBC Music commented that the group "know more than most how to craft a song, how to make an album. They know how to give it depth, light and dark, and they - crucially - know when to stop." Man Alive was shortlisted for the 20th Mercury Music Prize in 2011.

The original LP edition of the album is super- scarce, released before the 'vinyl revival' kicked in, hence the original pressing now selling in the high three figures.

This re-issue is presented with scrupulous attention to the detail of the original UK first pressing, complete with gatefold sleeve, poster and 8 page booklet. It is pressed on 140gm vinyl.

After releasing a breakout bedroom pop EP Catflap and a dream-jangle LP Telltale Signs that brought international embrace, Sobs now assemble a front- to- back indiepop behemoth - Air Guitar - after a much anticipated three-year wait.

A thirty-minute trip for the post-Internet consumer, Air Guitar calibrates inventive pop hooks for the indie rock lover, instantly accessible yet intricately arranged.

The album draws a line through the history of pop stylistics from 80s new wave ("Last Resort") and 90s power-pop ("Burn Book") to 00s sk8er punk and radio pop ("Air Guitar"). Further informed by the cosmopolitan, culturally astute ethos of PC Music - Sobs connects the uptempo of Shibuya's Advantage Lucy ("Lucked Out"), heart-on-sleeve indie rock of Bettie Serveert and Big Star ("World Implode"), with the eclecticism of New York's Darla Records ("Friday Night") to define the pulse of indiepop then and now.

RIYL: PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Dead Can Dance, Black Sabbath, Depeche Mode. In Blood is the group’s 14th album and the follow-up to 2020’s critically acclaimed Dances/Curses (Album Of The Year – The Quietus, Top 10 International Albums – Irish Times). It was typical of a band so well-known for stellar live performances to release their most successful album at a time when they were unable to back it up on the road. As was the case for many, lockdown changed the band’s lives in unexpected ways. Some felt a form of cabin fever at not being able to continue to make music (diverting their energies elsewhere - founding Wrong Speed Records for starters) whereas others relished the peace and quiet, perhaps questioning whether they wanted to return to the life they had before. Gigs (so long the lifeblood of the band) were booked, postponed, and cancelled. Things began to unravel and perhaps for the first time since the band formed in 2003 it was hard to see how it could continue. A plan was hatched to attempt to re-energise and reassemble the band: they would begin work on a new album. They would approach this as though a Somerset version of The Desert Sessions – members old and new and guests would contribute as and when time and restrictions allowed. Lyrically, British folk and ghost mythology provided the starting position for the song themes ranging from mutated stories of grief and loss written in the 14th Century (Perle), spiritual reawakening by ancient apparitions (Avalon) to the growth of nature after devastation (Can’t Feel Around Us, Over Cedar Limb), a metaphor also for spirit and body renewal and rebirth after trauma. The results sound free of any genre shackles and it suits Hey Colossus. They have taken the expansive anything-goes approach that made Dances/Curses so successful and fine-tuned and shaped it into an 8-song single album that never treads water or fills time. The prominent vocals steer the listener through the music, defining it as opposed to punctuating it (or being buried by it). The album is a calling card for the band in their 20th anniversary year. As odd and challenging as long-term fans would expect or hope for, but somehow more accessible and to the point than ever before. It is the closest the group have ever come to a pop record, radiating positivity through the murk like a small ray of light in some very dark and very weird times. Music can never entirely negate these feelings but, like the natural world referenced in the lyrics and sleeve, it invisibly bonds people together, lifting us up if we choose to let it.

ltd 700 copies on black vinyl housed in reverseboard printed sleave with printed inner sleave. Comes with lyric booklet, poster and postcard inserts ** Formed in 1968, The Plastic People Of The Universe – named after a Mothers of Invention song and heavily influenced by Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground – were iconic figureheads of the Prague Underground, a loose collective of Czech poets, philosophers and artists considered a threat by the Communist government. Banned and jailed under Czech communism The Plastic People Of The Universe are a true story of artistic perseverance, Authorities claimed their music would have a "negative social impact", and they were banned from playing for the public, having to play secret shows in remote locations. The raw DIY sound of their recordings escaped to Europe on tape and was released without the band's knowledge, their first album being a document of artistic defiance against the control of a stringent political environment they lived under.

Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned, PPU's debut LP, was recorded in 1973-74, but not released until 1978 (and even then, only in France). A beguiling album of lo-fi experimental rock that falls somewhere between Can, The Fall and Canterbury psych-folk with Ayler-esque sax solos. First-time vinyl reissue and it is limited. Essential.

One of the best band you never heard of

A.R. Kive collates the three most astonishing works from that most miraculous of duos - A.R. Kane - comprising the ‘Up Home’ EP from 1988 that signified the band’s dawning realisation of their own powers and possibilities, their legendary debut LP ‘sixty nine’ (1988) and its kaleidoscopic, prophetic double-LP follow up ‘i’ (1989).

In founder-member Rudy Tambala’s new remastering, the music on these pivotal transmissions from the birth of dream pop, have been reinvigorated and re-infused with a new power, a new depth and intimacy, a new height and immensity. Vivid, timeless and yet always timely whenever they’re recalled, these records still force any listener to realise that despite the habits of retrospective myth-making and the
safe neutering effects of ‘genre’, thirty years have in no way dimmed how resistant and dissident to critical habits of categorisation A.R. Kane always were. Never quite ‘avant-pop’ or ‘shoegaze’ or ‘post-rock’ or any of those sobriquets designed to file and categorise, A.R. Kive is a reminder that those genres had to be coined, had to be invented precisely to contain the astonishing sound of A.R. Kane, because
previous formulations couldn’t come close to their sui generis sound and suggestiveness. This is music that pointed towards futures which a whole generation of artists and sonic explorers would map out. Now beautifully repackaged, remastered and fleshed out with extensive sleeve notes and accompanying materials, ‘A.R. Kive’ reveals that 35 years on it’s still a struggle to defuse the revolutionary and inspirational possibility of A.R. Kane’s music.

A.R. Kane were formed in 1986 by Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli, two second-generation immigrants who grew up together in Stratford, East London. From the off the pair were outsiders in the culturally mixed (cockney/Irish/West Indian/Asian) milieu of the East End, with Alex and Rudy’s folks first generation immigrants from Nigeria and Malawi, respectively. The two of them quickly developed and fostered an innate and near-telepathic mutual understanding forged in musical, literary and artistic exploration. Like a lot of second-generation immigrants, they were ferocious autodidacts in all kinds of areas, especially around music and literature. Diving deep into the music of afro-futurist luminaries such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Lee Perry and
Hendrix, as well as devouring the explorations of lysergic noise and feedback from contemporaries like Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers, they also thoroughly immersed themselves in the alternate literary realities of sci-fi and ancient history (the fascination with the arcane that gave the band their name), all to feed their voracious cultural thirsts and intellectual curiosity.

It was seeing the Cocteau Twins performing on Channel 4 show the Tube that spurred A.R. Kane into being - “They had no drummer. They used tapes and technology and Liz Fraser looked completely otherworldly with those big eyes. And the noise coming out of Robin’s guitar! That was the ‘Fuck! We could do that! We could express ourselves like that!’ moment”, recalls Tambala - and through a mix of
confidence, chutzpah, ad hoc almost-mythical live shows and sheer innocent will the duo debuted with the astonishing ‘When You’re Sad’ single for One Little Indian in 1986. Immediately dubbed a ‘black Jesus & Mary Chain’ by a press unsure of WHERE to put a black band clearly immersed in feedback and noise, what was immediately apparent for listeners was just how much more was going on here - a
tapping of dub’s stealth and guile, a resonant umbilicus back to fusion and jazz, the music less a conjuration of past highs than a re-summoning of lost spirits.
The run of singles and EPs that followed picked up increasingly rapt reviews in the press, but it was the ‘Up Home EP’ released in 1988 on their new home, Rough Trade that really suggested something immense was about to break. Simon Reynolds noted the EP was: Their most concentrated slab of iridescent awesomeness and a true pinnacle of an era that abounded with astounding landmarks of guitar-reinvention, A.R. Kane at their most elixir-like.

If anything, the remastered ‘Up Home’ that forms the first part of ‘A.R. Kive’ is even more dazzling, even more startling than it was when it first emerged, and listening now you again wonder not just about how many bands christened ‘shoegaze’ tried to emulate it, but how all of them fell so far short of its lambent, pellucid wonder. This remains intrinsically experimental music but with none of the frowning orthodoxy those words imply. A.R. Kane, thanks to that second generation auto-didacticism were always supremely aware about the interstices of music and magic, but at the same time gloriously free in the way they explored that connection within their own sound, fascinated always with the creation of ‘perfect mistakes’ and the possibilities inherent in informed play.

‘sixty nine’ the group’s debut LP that emerged in 1988 had
critics and listeners struggling to fit language around A.R. Kane’s sound. As a title it was telling - the year of ‘Bitches Brew’, the year of ‘In A Silent Way’, the erotic möbius between two lovers - and as originally coined by the band themselves, ‘dream pop’ (before it became a free-floating signifier of vague import) was entirely apposite for the music A.R. Kane were making. Crafted in a dark small basement studio in which Tambala recalls the duo had “complete freedom - We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music”. There was an irresistibly dreamy, somnambulant, sensual and almost surreal flow to ‘sixty nine’s sound, but also real darkness/dankness, the ruptures of the primordial and the reverberations of the subconscious, within the grooves of remarkable songs like ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Crazy Blue’. Alex’s plangent vocals floated and surged amidst exquisite peals of refracted feedback but crucially there was BASS here, lugubrious and funky and full of dread, sonic pleasure and sonic disturbance crushed together to make music with a center so deep it felt subcutaneous, music constructed from both the accidental and the deliberate, generous enough to dance with both serendipity and chaos. ‘sixty nine’ remains - especially in this remastered iteration - ravishing, revolutionary.

The final part of this ‘A.R. Kive’ contains 1989’s astonishing double-LP ‘i’ which followed up on ‘sixty nine’s promise and saw the duo fully unleash their experimental pop sensibilities over 26 tracks, plunging the A.R. Kane sound into a dazzlingly kaleidoscopic vision of pop experiment and play. Suffused with new digital technologies and combining searingly sweet and danceable pop with perhaps the duo’s strangest and boundary-pushing compositions, the album did exactly what a great double-set should do - indulge the artists sprawling pursuit of their own imaginations but always with a concision and an ear for those moments where pop both transcends and toys with the listeners expectations. Jason Ankeny has noted that “In retrospect, ‘i’ now seems like a crystal ball prophesying virtually every major musical development of the 1990s; from the shimmering techno of ‘A Love from Outer Space’ to the liquid dub of ‘What’s All This Then?’, from the alien drone-pop of ‘Conundrum’ to the sinister shoegazer miasma of ‘Supervixens’ — it’s all here, an underground road map for countless bands to follow.” Perhaps the most overwhelmingly all-encompassing transmission from A.R. Kane, ‘i’ bookended a three year period in which the duo had made some of the most prophetic and revelatory music of the entire decade.

After ‘i’ the duo’s output became more sporadic with Tambala and Ayuli moving in different directions both geographically and musically, with only 1994’s ‘New Clear Child’ a crystalline re-fraction of future and past echoes of jazz, folk and soul, before the duo went their separate ways. Since then, A.R. Kane’s music has endured, not thanks to the usual sepia’d false memories that seem to maintain interest in so much of the musical past, but because those who hear A.R. Kane music and are changed irrevocably, have to share that universe which A.R. Kane opened up, with anyone else who will listen. Far more than other lauded documents of the late 80s it still sounds astonishingly fresh, astonishingly livid and vivid and necessary and NOW.

ltd 700 copies on black vinyl housed in reverseboard printed sleave with printed inner sleave. Comes with lyric booklet, poster and postcard inserts ** Formed in 1968, The Plastic People Of The Universe – named after a Mothers of Invention song and heavily influenced by Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground – were iconic figureheads of the Prague Underground, a loose collective of Czech poets, philosophers and artists considered a threat by the Communist government. Banned and jailed under Czech communism The Plastic People Of The Universe are a true story of artistic perseverance, Authorities claimed their music would have a "negative social impact", and they were banned from playing for the public, having to play secret shows in remote locations. The raw DIY sound of their recordings escaped to Europe on tape and was released without the band's knowledge, their first album being a document of artistic defiance against the control of a stringent political environment they lived under.

Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned, PPU's debut LP, was recorded in 1973-74, but not released until 1978 (and even then, only in France). A beguiling album of lo-fi experimental rock that falls somewhere between Can, The Fall and Canterbury psych-folk with Ayler-esque sax solos. First-time vinyl reissue and it is limited. Essential.

One of the best band you never heard of

Returning once again via Geelong, Australia; Vintage Crop offer up their new single “Springtime”. With 2022’s “Kibitzer” album still looming large in the rear-view mirror, the band now speed ahead once more with this two-track seasonal treat. 

“Springtime” exhibits the band’s growing strength in harmonic arrangement, whilst staying true to their taut roots - allowing the lyrics to shimmer. Following the arc of a relationship on the rocks and both people coming to terms with their situation, the song is a rare moment of vulnerability for the band that demonstrates their range. The flip side of the EP sees “Mercenary” deliver the sort of post-punk punch that fans have come to expect from the band. Brutish, brash & refusing to sit still; all the makings of a classic Vintage Crop number. Paired with lyrics exploring the online music scene, the track pokes fun at the “Internet Sound” that now dominates the underground. 

Springtime is a firm foot forward for Vintage Crop.

Eight years after its original release in 2015, and sold out upon release, Umor Rex finally presents a vinyl repress of Sirens, by Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV. This new edition is limited to 500 copies and comes with revised artwork.

Inspired by the link between seduction and violence, Sirens comprises a series of timbrally vast anamorphic pieces that poise the voice as a newly imagined tool of multiplicity. Processes of sample manipulation, signal processing, routing, and source design inform instrumental writing and performance in feedback until intertwined, flickering between states of conflict and consonance. Apparitions of the schizophrenic voice are at one moment fractured and cold and at the next full of warmth and vivaciousness, embodying velvet rituals of romanticism in the digital age.

Ultimately, Sirens is music for ambitious dreamers: surreal sound portraits sound like the warmth of the world laid over an ice cold virtual altar. LXV’s vocal truncations and fleshy sound palettes depict the archivation of the breath and aural fantasies of the flesh which Coverdale sets amongst a vast and unconfined landscape of deeper and unknown force. Harmonically active and dynamic orchestrations underpin post-sacred tonalities while brooding pipe organs, sphinx flutes, and hailstorms of metallic percussion characterize uniquely disjointed discussions between disparate compositional ontologies. At times violent and at others serenely peaceful and seductive, these pieces, at their most powerful moments illuminate a felt space between cybernetic energy and the body.

Composed and recorded by Kara-Lis Coverdale and David Sutton. Mastered by John Tejada. Cover photograph by Cody Cobb. Layout by Daniel Castrejón.

Minor Science—aka UK-born, Berlin-based musician Angus Finlayson—makes his Balmat debut with Absent Friends Vol. III, the third installment in a shape-shifting series across a variety of formats and platforms. And with it, he pushes forward his vision of ambient music as neither static vista or merely mood-setting atmosphere, but rather a dynamic matrix of textures, sensations, and even rhythms.

The first two Absent Friends—a 2014 set for Blowing Up the Workshop, and a 2017 cassette and web player for Whities (now AD93)—were hybrid affairs, part DJ mix and part collage, mostly featuring music made by other people. Then, in 2020-21, Finlayson developed the project into a live show of his own material. Armed with hundreds of bespoke stems created in his studio—idiosyncratic FX chains, feedback loops through cheap rack gear, heavily post-processed field recordings, found voices, etc.—he would improvise on four CDJs, mixer, FX, and live synths, extending techniques he learned as a club DJ into a live context, accompanied by visuals by Stockholm-based artist Paul Witherden.

Absent Friends Vol. III is an album of studio versions of the music developed for the live show. But in Minor Science’s world, even a category as simple as “studio versions” is slightly opaque. “Most of these tracks weren’t ‘composed’ in the studio,” Finlayson explains: “The sounds started out as stems and source material for the live show, and might not have been intended to go together—but then through performance, they settled into shapes that worked. I then recreated those performances in the studio.” That organic process of ideation and realization might help explain the unusual coherence of the album, in which sounds and textures flow seamlessly from one to the next, sometimes seeming to stand still, and sometimes looping back. There are virtually no melodies, few recognizable motifs or riffs, yet the eight-track album nevertheless moves with a distinctive logic and a determined sense of purpose, from the frozen-in-time shimmer of the opening “Introduction” through the early cuts’ studies of space and light; from the seemingly autobiographical “Summer Diary” through the rushing trance (yes, trance) arpeggios of “Contingency” and on to the dulcet denouement of the closing “Gather Your Party (Dispersed Mix).”

Setting out to create a future Balearic anthem while doffing a cap to street soul and synth-heavy Italo-disco B-sides of the early 1980s, Orbs of Light’s debut single, ‘Billion Days’ lands on Leng after a tip-off from Mind Fair duo Dean Meredith and Ben Shenton, who booked the duo to play live at their Rotation festival last summer.

Orbs of Light’s Baz Bradley and A Girl Called Kate have been friends for decades and have collaborated musically in the past, though it was only a couple of years ago that they dreamed up this project. It was first trialled via a 2021 remix for Andres y Xavi on Hollis Recordings (‘Perfect Timing’) on which Kate added new vocals to Bradley’s interpretation of the track. Since then, regular recording sessions have taken place, with the duo first crafting tight instrumental tracks before – in Bradley’s words – “dream up the best songs we can” with “melodies that will hopefully stay in your head all day”.

It would be fair to say that they’ve achieved that goal on ‘Billion Days’, a hooky and addictive affair whose vocal hooks and strong chorus could well inspire Balearic sing-alongs in the months ahead. Their original mix (B1 on the vinyl version of the EP, track 2 on the digital EP) is joyous, cheery and kaleidoscopic, with steel pan style melodies, bouncy synth stabs, jaunty lead lines and Kate’s wonderful lead vocal riding a shuffling, post street soul beat and a bubbly bassline.

The accompanying remix package is naturally very strong too. San Francisco crew 40 Thieves, fresh from dropping a killer single of their own on Leng (‘The Gift’, with disco legends Gary Davis and Cinnamon Jones), step up first with a take that stretches out and builds on Orbs of Light’s original mix – think wobbly nu-disco synth bass, fresh flute sounds, dubbed-out vocal snippets and a locked-in groove that’s just perfect for sun-soaked alfresco dancing.

Fittingly, the second and final revision comes from Mind Fair, whose email to Leng HQ about Orbs of Light got the ball rolling. Opting for a rubbery, body-popping beat inspired by vintage electro, they deliver a joyful, effects-laden Balearic dancefloor ‘Dub Mix’ that somehow makes a genuinely life-affirming record even more loved-up and saucer-eyed – despite the presence of only a fraction of Kate’s addictive lead vocal.

Clearlight returns, two years on from his DNO debut alongside regular collaborator Owl, with five otherworldly solo excursions.

What’s most striking about the Belgian’s work is the way he brings digital textures to life. Like an alien biosphere that doesn't abide by our own natural laws, his soundscapes are irregular and uncanny, but in a way that makes them feel all the more real.

Tracks like ‘Super Strong’ and ‘Heavy Feet’ sway and wobble to cumbersome beats, lumbering through swamps of croaking, chirping, fizzing things. The former eventually collapses into total abstraction, while the latter endures blasts of technoid bass, like the retrorockets of some hulking spacecraft coming in to land.

‘Spinning Head’ is powered by a buzzing oscillator that rolls back and forth across the stereo field. Paired with assorted clattering, clanking percussive debris, it’s an unnerving yet oddly pleasant experience, as if someone were rummaging around between your ears to help find a part that’s come loose.

Lead track ‘Water Willy’ is stranger still. Shifting from something akin to an exotica record played at the wrong speed to a melancholy whalesong lullaby, its twangs, chimes and plodding bass pulse create an eerie but beautiful ambience reminiscent of the deep ocean.

Only bonus track ‘Salt Cube’ is willing to break the spell, upping the pace to deliver the EP’s most traditionally dancefloor-friendly cut in the form of glitchy minimal d&b, with a heavyweight halftime switch post-breakdown.

Taking sounds from the club, but clearly not feeling forced to cater for it, Clearlight grows alternate realities that feel familiar, but offer wondrous, illuminating new experiences. Step inside and join him.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

A new EP by The Untouchables is always a treat to be savoured, but the opening track of their latest for DNO is so deliciously tense, so foaming at the mouth with anticipation, that it’s hard not to gulp down the whole release in one go. A minute and a half of sinister notes trying to jab their way through a thick filter and there’s no doubting ‘Emu’ is gonna be one hell of a ride — and it doesn’t disappoint, revealing the stabs in all their gritty darkcore glory, and unleashing a torrent of system-shaking subs.

As per, the Belgian duo present a masterclass in merging dub’s unparalleled spaciousness with techno’s unrelenting drive, and delivering it all at a drum & bass tempo.
On ‘Punjab Chant’, a South Asian vocal call and various wind and percussive instrumentation from the region are pulled apart, lashed with delay, and layered over rubbery subs, resulting in an intense intercontinental dubwise belter.

‘Ragga Ting’ goes full digi dancehall, maintaining pace while employing sultry dembow-style syncopation and a hefty droning bassline that seems to loop ad infinitum. It’s an innovative move and one that’s sure to get hips swinging in the dance.

And the final track on wax, ‘86 Dread’, is pure bass weight, its boxy drums almost swallowed up by the sullen low-end, with only crisp shakers and the odd sonic squiggle poking above the gloom.

Digital bonus track ‘Planetarium Space’ brings the tempo down, but fills the mix with the hurried tick of hi-hats and pattering congas, dollops of reverse bass that add slippery off-kilter movement, and a rogues’ gallery of ghostly organ and other haunted samples and synths that wouldn’t feel out of place in an ‘80s horror flick.

Always taking a leftfield route to rattle your ribcage, The Untouchables and DNO once again prove they’re a perfect pairing. Yum, yum.

Rhythms of postmodern realism at the very bottom of the DNO.

Nottingham’s hottest prospects, the four piece have been making waves with their definitive, genre-spanning sound that incorporates elements of post-punk, indie and art pop to create something remarkable and unique. 2022 saw the band release their debut EP ‘Soft Soap’ which garnered rapturous praise from BBC Radio 1, NME, Clash and more, cementing their place as an outfit to watch.

Until the End of Time is the seventh studio album, and third posthumous album by 2Pac. It follows his previous posthumous albums R U Still Down? (Remember Me) and Still I Rise. The album consists of material recorded while the rapper was on Death Row Records from 1995–1996. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart.

A majority of the music compositions were remixed from their original state. Highly anticipated, Until the End of Time was ultimately one of the best selling hip hop albums of 2001. There were only three times references to Death Row Records were not censored (“Until the End of Time” (both versions), “U Don’t Have 2 Worry”, and “All Out”). The core vocal tracks and some instrumentation was recorded during and after the All Eyez On Me and Makaveli: The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory sessions.

This will be a 180 gram 4LP 20th anniversary reissue of the long out-of-print, 4x platinum, posthumous album.

Der Titel von Wayne Shorters elftem Blue-Note-Album kam nicht von ungefähr. Denn auf “Schizophrenia” begab sich der Saxofonist 1967 mit einem All-Star-Sextett auf eine atemberaubende Gratwandlung. “Diese Musik bewegt sich an der Grenze zwischen Post-Bop und Free-Jazz”, meinte Stephen Thomas Erlewine auf AllMusic, “sie wurzelt im Post-Bop, weiß aber, was auf der anderen Seite der Grenze vor sich geht.

Ein paar Jahre später sollte Shorter diese Grenze überschreiten, aber ‘Schizophrenia’ knistert vor Spannung, weil er und seine Kollegen versuchen, die beiden Extreme auszubalancieren.”

2023 Repress Blue Vinyl

- Eagerly anticipated follow up to 2014 debut - number 7 in Mojo's best albums of the year.
- LP jacket is gloss laminate with front & back folds on the outside.The back panel is uncoated/matt varnish - 300 gsm card and 180g vinyl. Digital Download included.
- EU tour coming in April with Summer festivals later in 2017.

Sometimes it can take years to find your calling. Not so, for wanderer Julie Byrne, whose power of lyrical expression and melodic nous seems inborn. But often, what comes naturally demonstrates against speed. Julie's second album Not Even Happiness has taken time to evolve, but as it spans recollections of bustling roadside diners, the stars over the high desert, the aching weariness of change, the wildflowers on the coast of California and the irresolvable mysteries of love. Her new album archives a vivid world that would've otherwise been lost to the road and in doing so, Byrne exhibits her extraordinarily innate musicality.

In fact, some of the album's songs took two years of fine tuning to get where they needed to be. And if you were to ask her why the follow up to 2014's Rooms With Walls And Windows has taken so long, you'd only be greeted with a bemused smile as though it's the strangest question she's ever been asked, Writing comes from a natural process of change and growth. It took me up to this point to have the capacity to express my experience of the time in my life that these songs came from.'

Having counted Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Northampton, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, New Orleans as her home in recent years. For now, Julie has settled in New York City where she moonlights as a seasonal urban park ranger in Manhattan. Whether witnessing the Pacific Northwest for the first time ('Melting Grid'), the morning sky in Colorado after staying up through the night at a house party in the mountains of Boulder ('Natural Blue'), recording the passage of freight trains on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York ('Interlude'), or a journey fragrant with rose water, reading Frank O'Hara aloud from the passengers seat during a drive through the desert of Utah into the rainforest of Washington State ('All The Land Glimmered Beneath'), Not Even Happiness is Julie's beguilingly ode to the fringes of life.

Self-taught on the guitar after picking it up when her father became ill and could no longer play the instrument himself, Julie readily admits she can't read music and doesn't even listen to it all that much - the first vinyl she owned was indeed, her own. Recorded with producer Eric Littmann (Phantom Posse), Julie laid down the new album in her childhood home in western New York state and offers an altogether bigger picture to its predecessor through a wider, yet subtle, exploration of instruments and atmospherics, Not Even Happiness reveals an artist who has grown in confidence over time.

Byrne's debut album was released back in January 2014 on Chicago based DIY label Orindal after initially being as two separate cassettes releases. Rooms With Walls and Windows went onto become a true modern-day word of mouth success story (it would have to be for an artist who shuns all forms of social media) and ended the year being voted number 7 in Mojo magazine's best albums of the year, with the Huffington Post calling it "2014's Great American Album". A collection of hushed intimate front porch psych-folk songs, that unknowingly recalled the greats, but felt very much for our time. It saw her travel to Europe over two summers playing the Green Man festival and End Of The Road, as well as lesser trodden tour paths around Europe.

Julie Byrne will take the songs from Not Even Happiness (the first release on a new record label Basin Rock, based in the Lancashire / Yorkshire border town of Todmorden) on the road throughout 2017.

Repress

Tresor Records is fortunate enough to be sitting on a catalogue of past releases that no other label in electronic music would turn down.

Three of the finest in this collection were contributed by Surgeon; "Basictonalvocabulary", "Balance" and "Force + Form" all originally came out on the Berlin institution between 1997 and 1999.

Surgeon's inimitable combination of Detroit techno and post-industrial sounds emanating from his British homeland found its fullest expression in these masterful trio of releases on Tresor.

Factory Benelux presents a special 35th anniversary edition of Here Comes Everybody, the highly-regarded second album by Scottish group The Wake, originally released by Factory Records in 1985. Just 800 copies will be made available for Record Store Day on 18 April 2020, pressed in crystal clear vinyl with a bonus 7-inch single + digital copy.

The Wake formed in Glasgow in 1981 after singer/guitarist Caesar left Altered Images. Joining Factory the following year, the group toured with New Order and released popular mini-album Harmony. Trailed by sprightly single Talk About the Past in 1984, second album Here Comes Everybody was eventually recorded as a trio, combining dreampop melodies and wistful lyricism typified by standout track O Pamela (later interpreted by artful French new wave covers project Nouvelle Vague).

Praise for Here Comes Everybody: “Holds up as a touchstone for aching, atmospheric synth-pop, all slinky guitars, crispy percussion, textured keyboards and limber bass" (Pitchfork); “The album stands as a pillar of moody synth pop, still bearing passing resemblance to New Order while retaining the bounce of the Postcard label bands and the cavernous production of Closer-era Joy Division, covering it all in some of the heaviest synth wash this side of Klaus Schulze" (Dusted)

Newly re-mastered for this special 35th anniversary edition, the original 8 track album is now augmented by companion singles Talk About the Past and Of the Matter, pressed on a bonus 7-inch single in a picture sleeve. Here Comes Everybody itself is pressed on clear vinyl, housed in a white reverse board sleeve with printed inner bag containing lyrics, images and liner notes by band members Carolyn Allen and Caesar.

Der Soundtrack zur HBO-Serie "The Last of Us" basiert auf der beliebten Musik und Klangwelt des gleichnamigen Videospiels. Geschrieben wurde der Soundtrack vom mit einem Academy Award ausgezeichneten Komponisten Gustavo Santaolalla und von David Fleming.Die intime, gitarrenbetonte Klanglandschaft spiegelt die Emotionalität der Serie wider und nimmt die Hörer mit auf die ungewisse Reise durch die USA in einer postapokalyptischen Welt, zwanzig Jahre nach der Zerstörung der modernen Zivilisation durch eine, von einem Pilz verursachte Epidemie.

Based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation® platforms, The Last of Us is written and executive produced by co-creators Craig Mazin (Emmy® Award-winning creator of HBO’s “Chernobyl”) and Neil Druckmann (creator and writer of the award-winning “The Last of Us” franchise and Naughty Dog Co-President).


The Last of Us takes place twenty years after modern civilization
has been destroyed by a viral outbreak. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

The vinyl release to the acclaimed series contains soundtrack
highlights from the show. Featured are score tracks by composer Gustavo Santaolalla, with additional music by David Fleming as well as songs by Depeche Mode, Pearl Jam, Jessica Mazin & Nick Offerman.


The package contains 2x vinyl, standard weight at 140g, 1x green and 1x clear, a double-sided poster of the show’s key art, spot gloss and soft touch on the gatefold and an insert featuring liner notes by Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin, Gustavo Santaolalla & David Fleming and images from the show.

"One Sunday afternoon in 1990, I had a phone call from Keith saying that Sarah Records had received the demo cassette the two of us had recorded on a 4-track in a friend's shed and were interested in putting out two of the songs as a single. T

hey were Clearer and Alison. Delighted by this news, we booked some recording time with a studio we'd regularly used in our previous incarnation as Feverfew, the White House in Weston-super-Mare.

This was the first time we'd ever played a note of music that was using someone else's money, so the pressure was being felt. We recorded Clearer, Fearon and Chelsea Guitar, with Clearer becoming Sarah 55, the first of eight singles for the band across two labels. At that time, we were still toying with a name for ourselves and had settled with the Art Bunnies.

While driving us back home from Weston, though, I declared that I really couldn't see how people would take us seriously with a name like that. Disappointed, Keith (Girdler) then got out a piece of paper upon which he'd written several other contenders. These included Opal Trumpet, the Smiling Monarchs and (thankfully) Blueboy."

A Colourful Storm presents Blueboy's singles collection and the band's final retrospective release. Beautiful gatefold sleeve designed by Sarah Records' own Matt Haynes with original artwork insert, postcard and liner notes by Paul Stewart.

An antidote to the tough-guy hardcore spreading from CBGB's, emo outliers Native Nod's unique genre juxtaposition of damaged art-rock, daring/naive songwriting, and raw, poetic vocals have set them apart from the glut of early-'90s post-hardcore. Compiled here are the band's trio of seminal 7" EPs for the Gern Blandsten label, with liner notes by Jenn Pelly and scores of unseen photographs and ephemera.

Es ist 5 Jahre her, aber das Warten hat sich gelohnt! "Memento Mori", das Nachfolgealbum von "Viktoria" ist MARDUK pur, von Anfang bis Ende! Zehn Tracks unerbittlicher, kompromissloser, düsterer und harter schwedischer Black Metal! "Memento Mori" ist erhältlich als Deluxe Gatefold LP (mit alternativem Cover-Artwork, transparent-schwarzem extra dickem Splatter-Vinyl, 8-seitigem Booklet in DIN A4 Format, DIN A2 Poster, Kunstdruck - limitiert auf 2000 Einheiten weltweit und nicht in jedem Land erhältlich), sowie als reguläre Gatefold LP (180g Vinyl, Lyric Sheet), Ltd. CD Mediabook und digitales Album.

Es ist 5 Jahre her, aber das Warten hat sich gelohnt! "Memento Mori", das Nachfolgealbum von "Viktoria" ist MARDUK pur, von Anfang bis Ende! Zehn Tracks unerbittlicher, kompromissloser, düsterer und harter schwedischer Black Metal! "Memento Mori" ist erhältlich als Deluxe Gatefold LP (mit alternativem Cover-Artwork, transparent-schwarzem extra dickem Splatter-Vinyl, 8-seitigem Booklet in DIN A4 Format, DIN A2 Poster, Kunstdruck - limitiert auf 2000 Einheiten weltweit und nicht in jedem Land erhältlich), sowie als reguläre Gatefold LP (180g Vinyl, Lyric Sheet), Ltd. CD Mediabook und digitales Album.

Wayne Shorter’s 1967 album Schizophrenia found the legendary saxophonist at the pinnacle of post-bop with a sextet of like-minded musical explorers including James Spaulding, Curtis Fuller, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter & Joe Chambers performing Shorter originals like ‘Tom Thumb’, ‘Go’, and ‘Miyako’.

This stereo Tone Poet Vinyl Edition was produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket.

Mit wenig mehr als einer unerbittlichen Reihe von Live-Auftritten und einem zweimal gepressten (und anschließend ausverkauften) selbstbetitelten Demo hat sich die in New York ansässige Band Lathe of Heaven als ein starkes und zusammenhängendes Element inmitten der Flut von Punk und synthiegetriebenem Pop-Revival erwiesen, das derzeit im US-Underground wuchert. Die 2021 gegründete Band setzt sich aus Mitgliedern bemerkenswerter Brooklyner Projekte wie Pawns, People's Temple, Porvenir Oscuro, Android, Hustler und anderen zusammen. Obwohl diese Liste vergangener und alternativer musikalischer Bestrebungen ein breites Spektrum an Genres und Fähigkeiten aufzeigt, kann Lathe of Heaven nur als eine Abkehr von solchen Einflüssen verstanden werden und erforscht einen völlig eigenen Sound. Nun, fast zwei Jahre später, sind Lathe of Heaven endlich bereit, ihr Debütalbum "Bound by Naked Skies" zu veröffentlichen. Die elf Tracks umfassende LP verbindet Elemente von düsterem britischem New-Wave und finnischem Post-Punk zu einer nuancierten Gegenüberstellung von 80er-Jahre-Soundwahn. "Bound by Naked Skies" greift Themen der klassischen und zeitgenössischen Science-Fiction auf, die den einzigartigen und bewussten Sound prägt, und verdankt seinen literarischen Einflüssen ebenso viel wie der Musik. Als kraftvolle Hommage an die unheimlichen Welten der Autoren Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia Butler, Ken Liu und natürlich Ursula Le Guin (nach deren Roman die Band benannt ist), verweben sich Themen der Kosmologie ("Ekpyrosis"), Simulation ("Heralds of the Circuit-Born"), Geisteskrankheit ("Moon-Driven Sea") und Ontologie ("Entropy", "The Spider" etc.), und ziehen sich wie ein roter Faden durch das Album. Ein Einblick in die Gedankenwelt derer, die von der Ungewissheit der erschreckenden und gar nicht so fernen Zukunft der Menschheit geplagt werden.

Das neunköpfige australische Spiritual-Jazz-Ensemble Menagerie um Produzent, Songwriter, Gitarrist, DJ und Aufnahmeleiter Lance Ferguson expandiert seinen Sound weiter in das Musikuniversum. Das neue Album 'The Shores Of Infinity' ist ein zukunftsweisender, rhythmuslastiger Ausdruck des zeitgenössischen Jazz, der, tief in der Tradition verwurzelt, sich jeder Genre-Schublade entzieht. Inspiriert sowohl von der Post-Coltrane-Generation der 70er Jahre als auch von der aktuellen New Wave Of Jazz haben Menagerie international große Wellen geschlagen und bei Worldwide FM, Jazz FM und Jazzwise mehrfach ausgezeichnet.

'So well - and lovingly - executed that it's ultimately impossible to ignore.' - Jazzwise

"There is an overarching sense of profound amazement throughout it all.' - Blues & Soul

'A stunning work, full of integrity and class… Essential.' - Echoes

'Wonderful record, full of some great Kamasi/Donald Byrd/even Art Blakey moments!' - The Guardian

Cleveland’s Heart Attack Man have been making music since 2013, originally starting as an outlet for singer/guitarist Eric Egan. It quickly became a 4 piece band that started touring throughout the mid-west. Creating their own brand of rousing, noisy post-hardcore and indie pop gems. Self-releasing the EP Acid Rain in late 2014 and set off touring the states. In 2016 the band went in the studio with Modern Baseballs Ian Farmer to record their debut full length The Manson Family. This led to non-stop touring across North America including tours with The Movielife, Drug Church, Hot Mulligan, The Early November and others. The new full length Fake Blood was produced by Brett Romnes (Sorority Noise, Boston Manor, Beach Goons) and picks up where The Manson Family left off with heavy themes, a touch of humor wrapped up in hard hitting catchy riffs with big hooks galore.

Tomáš Knoflíček is a musician, sound organizer, and curator based in the Czech Republic. His activities are mainly related to post-everything quartet Gurun Gurun (Home Normal, Buh records), in which he collaborated with a number of mainly Japanese musicians (e.g. Haco, Asuna, Aus, Cuushe, Moskitoo). Since 2004 he has been working at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music University of Ostrava, where he focuses mainly on interdisciplinarity in art, especially the relationship between image and sound. He is the co-organizer of the Kukačka project (kukacka.org), focusing on art in public space, and also the curator of the Lauby and Dukla galleries in Ostrava. As a curator or co-creator, he participated in a number of sound art projects and collaborated with many visual artists, for whom sound is an important means of research (e.g. Christoph Zwiener, Julia Gryboś, Barbora Zentková, Matěj Frank, Jan Krtička, Pavel Sterec, Lišaj). Knoflíček is also the author of several music videos and VJ-sets for Gurun Gurun, Wabi Experience, and Haco. In 2021 he released his first solo album Vaguely delimited targets (LOM label).

Cursed to ride forever on this mortal plane after partaking in a satanic drug ritual, the Death Wheelers pledge allegiance to the god of hell and fire. However, in order to prove themselves to their newly anointed leader and for the spell to take effect, the club Will need to engage in a series of lewd acts of sex and violence across the country.Immortality comes at a price and you’re about to pay for it… The beating heart of The Death Wheelers is a rumbling engine. Since their self-titled debut in 2015 and in 2020’s cinematic-storytelling breakout, Divine Filth, the Canadian outfit have tapped into wind-through-hair freedom and careened down open roads of groove, not a cop in sight. Their third record, Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, more than lives up to its name on all fronts. With songs like “Morbid Bails” and “Lucifer’s Bend,” the in-the-know references abound, and The Death Wheelers draw from classic underground metal, scummer heavy rock and cast themselves into a cauldron of cultish biker devil worship, reveling in any and all post-apocalyptic dystopias with genuine glee at having just seen the world eat itself. You might hear some surf guitar. Crazy things can happen. A sample in “Triple D (Dead, Drunk and Depraved)” underscores the message: “We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man. And we want to get loaded.” That line, from Roger Corman’s 1966 film The Wild Angels, serves as a mission statement, and as “Lucifer’s Bend” starts by laughing about how you can’t get away from Satan, they might as well carve it into their forearms to be ready when the blast of distortion hits, as much Entombed as Motörhead, galloping and sinister, coated in road dust and blood. The band tells the story like this: “Cursed to ride forever on this mortal plane after partaking in a satanic drug ritual, the Death Wheelers pledge allegiance to the god of hell and fire. However, in order to prove themselves to their newly anointed leader and for the spell to take effect, the club will need to engage in a series of lewd acts of sex and violence across the country. Immortality comes at a price and you’re about to pay for it…” While forging songs adherent more to ideology than style, The Death Wheelers cast their biker cult in their own image, and on Chaos and the Art of Motorcycle Madness, they challenge death head-on as only those with no fear of it could hope to do.

repressed !

Undesignated remixes is an expansive project containing 12 remixes of tracks from dgoHn’s iconic 2020 full-length by some choice artists from in and around the Love Love sphere. Remixes that take dgoHn’s unique razor-sharp original productions and send them through a loop and round the twist, some stripped down, some messed up, most but not all maintaining the speedier tempos that dgoHn likes to work around. The result is a collection of seriously futuristic electronic music with some stylistic leanings towards labels like braindance or drumfunk or jungle but completely genre-eluding as a whole, reshaped from the minerals of the original LP by some absolute dons of their craft.

Opening the album Equinox does a fantastic job highlighting the lushness of ‘Puppet’ layering sky-high sunshine pads before sliding into Meat Beat Manifesto’s heavy sci-fi acid dub version of ‘Daisy Takes Two’. A woozy remix of ‘Lucky Gonk’ by Macc & dgoHn marks the first new material from them as a duo since ’09 and Wisp also makes a rare appearance bringing his inimitable post-rephlexian vibes on an agonisingly wonderful, melody-heavy remix of 'Electryon'. Skee Mask’s choice of remixing ‘Robin’s Windmill’ turns the original into a bundle of writhing rhythms organically unfolding with swelling ambient tones. Homegrown heroes Rognvald & Scrase both opt for pumped up post-breakcore in unconventional time signatures while Djrum emphatically provides the LP’s dose of peak jungle choppage, tempering the drum breaks of ‘Ninnyhammer’ with a blistering amen. Also featured on the LP are crisp and beefy drum workouts courtesy of Coco Bryce and Forest Drive West, visceral and apocalyptic half-time bass from Activia Benz affiliated duo Quavis and virtuosic noir-jazz tearout from fellow East-Anglian Carl Brown.

Blonde on Blonde: A double album that transcends time, defies space, suspends reality, and looks through the human soul and tells the listener characteristics about themselves they didn't know. Professor Sean Wilentz, historian-in-residence for Bob Dylan's Web site, comes as close to summing up its brilliance in his superb Bob Dylan In America as any who've tried: "The songs are rich meditations on desire, frailty, promises, boredom, hurt, envy, connections, missed connections, paranoia, and transcendent beauty – in short, the lures and snare of love, stock themes of rock and pop music, but written with a powerful literary imagination and played out in a pop netherworld." No lie.

As part of its Bob Dylan catalogue restoration series, we are thoroughly humbled to have the privilege of mastering the iconic LP from the master tapes and pressing it on 45RPM LPs at RTI. We feel that the end result is the very finest, most transparent edition of Blonde on Blonde ever produced. Forever renowned for what the Bard deemed "that thin, that wild mercury sound," the album's famed aural character lives and breathes on this superb version, with wider and deeper grooves affording playback of previously buried information and lifelike presentation of the studio sessions.

Prized for a unique sound that cultural critic Greil Marcus tagged "the most glamorous record imaginable; listening you can see the chequered jester's suit Dylan had worn on stage for the nine previous, furious months," Blonde on Blonde is to music, production, prose, and performance as what hydrogen is to water. The secret to its inimitable aural character partially stems from Dylan's request in Nashville to producer Bob Johnston to remove the baffles from the studio room, allowing the musicians to interact as well as the music to assume a more organic quality that drifts from one microphone to another.

The story of Blonde on Blonde is almost as compelling as the music within. Dylan, frustrated with how initial attempts fared in New York, relocating to Tennessee and pairing with Nashville's top session players as well as members of what would become the Band, feverishly chasing perfectionism while also arriving at an on-the-fly feel that remains a reference point for recorded music. The Bard sweated over lyrics, demanded his band get the exact sounds he heard in his head, and limited most takes to a handful at most. A majority of songs were recorded long after midnight, the post-A.M. vibe reflected in the nocturnal aura, woozy optimism, inversion of intervals, and spiritual soulfulness of the playing.

Recorded in New York in 1957 (though not released until 1962), 'Tijuana Moods' was, according to Mingus himself, "the best album i ever made." The music is a vigorous stew of Mexican rhythms and sophisticated post-Ellington arrangements, further invigorated by the soloing of trumpeter Clarence Shaw, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, and, particularly, saxophonist Shafi Hadi. Mingus's vision of Tijuana was clearly sensual, the music evoking strippers, frenetic street scenes, and heart-broken lovers. Making use of suite like thematic material and various forms of counterpoint, the group sounds much larger than it is, and points toward Mingus's later experiments with form. the bristling sound and spirit of the music, however, are its primary attractions - a remarkable place where Mexican fantasy and hard bop meet.

In 2017, musicians and regular collaborators Gigi Masin and Jonny Nash were invited to a residency at artist Xavier Veilhan's "Studio Venezia" project at the Venice Biennale. For this immersive installation, Veilhan transformed the French Pavilion into a fully functioning recording studio, inviting artists to record original works during a series of residencies. Masin and Nash recorded a series of improvised compositions primarily for Piano and Guitar which were eventually edited down to 6 pieces, collectively entitled "Postcards From Nowhere".

Initially released in 2019 as a limited-edition collaboration with London-based design and branding consultancy Commission Studios, "Postcards From Nowhere" is now fully available on vinyl featuring new artwork and printed inner sleeve featuring photographs by Luke Evans.

Next on Allchival is a compilation tracing the musical pursuits of Cork’s (via Belfast) Finbarr Donnelly and his trilogy of bands – Nun Attax, Five Go Down To The Sea? and Beethoven - before his untimely death by drowning in London’s Hyde Park in 1989. From the post punk of the first band via the discordant indie of the second to the chaos of Beethoven’s short lived existence this compilation shines some light on one of Irelands most enigmatic frontmen over a ten year period. Released on 18th April Record Store Day on a 15 track LP and an expanded CD version with 24 tracks. Featuring tracks released on Setanta, Creation, Kabuki & Abstract plus previously unreleased Fanning Sessions, the LP also comes with a fanzine with detailed liner notes and ephemera.

Nun Attax, formed in the late 70s, are synonymous with the Downtown Kampus at Cork’s Arcadia Ballroom, the lynchpin of the city’s post-punk music scene. Their live performances being the stuff of Southern legend - unforgettable, incendiary events, examples of which can be heard on the tracks here White Cortina, Reekus Sunfare. In the early-80s the band changed its name to Five Go Down To the Sea? and recorded the Knot A Fish EP 7’’ for London–Irish label Kabuki Records and soon after the band left recession-ridden Cork for the UK capital.

Squatting south of the River, working on building sites and collecting welfare under several aliases recording and gigs were sporadic but by 1984 they had hooked into the early Creation scene, and played gigs at Alan McGee’s Living Room club. Working with The Mekons Jon Langford they release The Glee Club on Edward Christie’s Abstract Sounds label. Following it up with the last of their three releases as Five..on Creation itself the band’s chaotic existence led to its demise only re-emerging in 1988 as Beethoven. Down to two original members – Donnelly and guitarist Ricky Dineen – plus two new additions their only release – a 12” on the fledgling Setanta records – features a cover of “Day Tripper” backed with original tracks and was NME’s Single of the Week in the summer of ‘89 when such things carried weight. The planned second single doesn’t go ahead after Donnelly’s death.

REPRESS

This is the standard version with no poster or hand numbered sleeve. Repress of this chiller classic from 2015. "Talk From Home" showcases Kraft's emotional depth as a producer, and skill as a multi-instrumentalist. Recorded over a few weeks in the winter of 2014, the intimacy of the recordings shines through in a melancholic yet hopeful world of melody and tone.

The anticipation is there in Elizabeth Stokes’ solo guitar riff under the opening lines of “I’m Not Getting Excited”: a frenetic, driving force daring a packed Auckland Town Hall to do exactly the opposite of what the track title suggests.

As the opener of The Beths’ Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 expands to include the full band, the crowd screeches and bellows. It’s a collective exhalation, in one of the few countries where live music is still possible.

The album title, and film of the same name, deliberately include the date and location, lead guitarist Jonathan Pearce says. “That’s the sensational part of what we actually did.” In a mid-pandemic world, playing to a heaving, enraptured home crowd feels miraculous.

In March 2020, everything seemed on track for another huge year for The Beths. Home after an 18-month northern hemisphere tour, they had just finished recording sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers and were primed for more extensive touring. But within days, New Zealand’s lockdown split the band between three separate houses. All touring was cancelled.

“It was existentially bad,” Stokes says. As well as worrying about economic survival, they lost something crucial to the band’s identity: live performance. “It's a huge part of how we see ourselves... What does it mean, if we can't play live?”

The band found an outlet through live-streaming, returning to the do-it-yourself mentality of their early days to connect with a global audience. The album and film have their genesis in that urge to share the now-rare experience of a live show, as widely as possible.

The fuzzy-round-the-edges live-streams pointed the way aesthetically. Native birds, wonkily crafted by the band from tissue paper and wire, festoon the venue’s cavernous ceiling while house plants soften and disguise the imposing pipes of an organ. The presence of the film crew isn’t disguised: much of the camerawork is handheld; full of fast zooms and pans.

With much of the material still fresh, the band was less focused on re-invention than playing “a good, fast rock show”, Pearce says. The tempo is up on crowd favourites “Whatever” and “Future Me Hates Me” (released as a live single on its third anniversary) as both band and audience feed off the mutual energy in the room.

Certain songs have taken on special resonance post-Covid. Pearce has found “Out Of Sight”, a tender rumination on long-distance relationships, hits particularly hard with live audiences.

Album closer “River Run” visibly brings Stokes to tears as a mix of achievement and relief kicks in. “You can finally relax at that point … You play the last note, breathe out a sigh and look up - and you’re in a giant room full of people happy and smiling.”

"Perfect Saviors ist unser völlig unironischer, aufrichtiger Versuch, das größte und beste Rockalbum des 21. Jahrhunderts zu schaffen." The Armed - das in Detroit gegründete Alternative Metal-Post-Hardcore - Kollektiv - meldet sich mit neuen Album Perfect Saviors zurück, dem nächsten Schritt seit ihrem Durchbruch ULTRAPOP aus dem Jahr 2021. Perfect Saviors wurde von Tony Wolski zusammen mit Ben Chisholm und Troy Van Leeuwen produziert, mit Beiträgen von Julien Baker, Sarah Tudzin, Mark Guiliana, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Eric Avery, Stephen Perkins, Josh Klinghoffer und vielen anderen. Das Album wurde von zudem von Alan Moulder (u.a. NIN, Iggy Pop, Jesus & Mary Chain, Wet Leg, Foo Fighters...) gemischt. Sänger Tony Wolski äußerte sich wie folgt zu dem Album: "Zu viele Informationen haben uns dumm und verwirrt gemacht. Zu viele Möglichkeiten, sich zu vernetzen, haben versehentlich zur Isolation geführt. Und zu viele Erwartungen haben jeden gezwungen, eine Berühmtheit zu werden. Vorhersehbare ursprüngliche Gefahren sind neueren sozialen Gefahren gewichen. Das Ergebnis ist eine Welt, die verwirrend und beängstigend, aber letztlich auch schön ist. Wir hoffen, dass diese Platte genau das alles auch ist. Perfect Saviors ist der Abschluss einer Trilogie von Alben, die untersucht und seziert, was "Popkultur" in einer Welt der grenzenlosen Information und des Zugangs ausmacht. Jedes Album nutzt "Popmusik" als lockeres Format, um diese Ideen auszudrücken, und nutzt Komposition und Präsentation als eine Möglichkeit, diese Fragen weiter zu hinterfragen. Perfect Saviors ist das ultimative Produkt dieser Entwicklung. Mit Hilfe eines der weltweit bekanntesten Mixing Engineers haben The Armed ein wunderschönes Album geschaffen, das die Sprache und die Welt des Pop durch eine einzigartige, extreme und perverse Linse betrachtet und so ihre Kunst vermittelt. Perfect Saviors folgt auf das von der Kritik gefeierte Album ULTRAPOP von 2021, das auf zahlreichen Best of 2021-Listen landete, darunter Pitchfork, New York Times, Stereogum, Revolver und vielen mehr. Vinyl im Klappcover mit zwei 12seitigen Booklets, Insert + DLC!

High Roller Records, reissue 2023, black vinyl, ltd 300, 425gsm heavy cardboard cover, insert, poster, bonus track, mastered for vinyl by Patrick W. Engel at Temple of Disharmony

High Roller Records, reissue 2023, black vinyl, ltd 400, 425gsm heavy cardboard cover, insert, poster, Transfer by Marcus Mossmann (R.I.P.) at PHONOGRAPHIC ARTIFACTS in 2018. Audio cleaning and mastering for vinyl by Patrick W. Engel at TEMPLE OF DISHARMONY in October 2022. Cutting by SST Germany on Neumann machines for optimal quality on all levels