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Zum 10-jährigen Bandbestehen schenken sich die Jungs des Turbo Rock Trios Balls Gone Wild selber ein Album mit 11 Songs voller Power, Melody und vor allem Hooks, Hooks, Hooks.

"Stay Wild“ heißt das neue Album des Turbo Rock Trios BALLS GONE WILD, das am 22.07.2022 das Licht der Welt erblicken wird. Zum 10-jährigen Bandbestehen schenken sich die Jungs selber ein Album mit 11 Songs voller Power, Melody und vor allem Hooks, Hooks, Hooks.Der Hörer merkt sofort, dass hier drei Jungs ans Werk gegangen sind, die wissen wie man sein Instrument hält. Spielfreude und gute Laune tropfen einem aus jeder Pore entgegen, wenn man die Songs auflegt und ordentlich aufdreht.
BALLS GONE WILD – Das ist der Punk und Hardrock Sound der 70er und 80er Jahre mit frischem Wind im Hier und Jetzt! Der Geruch von Bier liegt in der Luft und es klingt nach dem Resultat einer außerehelichen Liaison von Motörhead und AC/DC - Also… LAUT HÖREN!!!

Waltari Mastermind Kärtsy Hatakka veröffentlicht mit HEAD FIRST deren Debutalbum. Der Status des finnischen Crossover-Monsters Waltari ist nicht leugnen, doch nur noch wenige können sich erinnern, dass Kärtsy Hatakka schon damals eine andere Band unter dem Namen HEAD FIRST hatte... die einzige echte Funk-Metal-Band aus Finnland!
In einigen der ersten Waltari Songs war der funkige Einfluss von HEAD FIRSt auch noch deutlich heraus zu hören. Und nun bringt eben diese Band ihr Debüt heraus... nach 30 Jahren des Wartens!
Basierend auf den größten Live-Killern wurde das vorhandene Songmaterial den heutigen Sounderwartungen angepasst. Dazu entstanden auch einige brandneue Stücke.
HEAD FIRST bedeutet Old-School-Funk-Metal mit einer frischen Kante grooviger Beats und mitreißender Energie!!

2000'S CLASSIC 'BREEDING DEATH' EP DEBUT FROM THE SWEDISH
MASTERS, PRESENTED ON MID-PRICE CD WITH BONUS TRACKS -
FEATURING THE LINE-UP OF ANDERS NYSTROM, JONAS RENKSE,
MIKAEL AKERFELDT & DAN SWANO.Bloodbath is a titan of death metal
from Stockholm, Sweden, notable for the inclusion of Katatonia & Opeth
members &, in their recent era, welcoming Nick Holmes of UK doom
legends 'Paradise Lost' to join in with the brutality
Formed in 1998 with a mutual fascination for horror & the glory days of death
metal from classic bands such as Entombed, Morbid Angel, Cancer & Autopsy,
Bloodbath has remained a leading light of extreme metal since their 'Breeding
Death' EP was unleashed back in 2000, & a formidable force for over 20 years,
cemented in recent times by their 'Grand Morbid Funeral' (2014) opus & its followup, the even blacker- hearted 'The Arrow of Satan is Drawn' in 2018. 'Breeding
Death' was the original catalyst to propel Bloodbath into the death metal sphere
with full force. Primarily dedicated to recreating the buzzsaw, high-energy sound
of mainly Swedish greats such as Entombed, Carnage & Dismember, 'Breeding
Death' was pure death metal worship to reignite the fading old school essence of
brutality as the 21st century dawned.
Bloodbath's initial line- up consisted of Anders Nyström & Jonas Renkse of
'Katatonia' joined by Mikael Akerfeldt of 'Opeth' on vocals & completed by Dan
Swanö of 'Edge of Sanity' on drums. The EP was recorded at The Sanctuary in
Sweden, with production & mixing duties also handled by Dan Swanö.
This edition of 'Breeding Death' is presented on mid-price CD & includes bonus
tracks in the shape of demo versions of the songs 'Breeding Death' & 'Ominous
Bloodvomit'.

BLOODBATH'S 2002 DEBUT FULL-LENGTH STUDIO ALBUM MARKS ITS
20TH ANNIVERSARY, ON MID-PRICE CD - FEATURES THE LINE-UP OF
ANDERS NYSTROM, JONAS RENKSE, MIKAEL AKERFELDT & DAN
SWANO.Bloodbath is a titan of death metal from Stockholm, Sweden,
notable for the inclusion of Katatonia & Opeth members & in their recent
era, welcoming Nick Holmes of UK doom legends Paradise Lost to join in
with the brutality
Formed in 1998 with a mutual fascination for horror & the glory days of death
metal from classic bands such as Entombed, Morbid Angel, Cancer & Autopsy,
Bloodbath has remained a leading light of extreme metal since their 'Breeding
Death' EP was unleashed back in 2000 & a formidable force for over 20 years,
cemented in recent times by their 'Grand Morbid Funeral' (2014) opus & its followup, the even blacker-hearted 'The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn' in 2018. Debut album
'Resurrection Through Carnage' was released in 2002 & built on the foundations
laid by the 'Breeding Death' EP, with a continuation of the classic old school
Swedish sound & d-beat style, whilst notably establishing a maturity & identity of
their own. The album introduced more dynamic & controlled, groove- laden
passages & melodic/atmospheric texturing, whilst still infusing the compositions
with influences from the genre's glorious past.
As with 'Breeding Death', Bloodbath's line-up of Anders Nyström & Jonas Renkse
of Katatonia, Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth & Dan Swanö of Edge of Sanity remained,
with production & engineering duties once more handled by Dan Swanö & the
band.
This edition of 'Resurrection Through Carnage' marks 20 years since the album's
original release & is presented on mid- price CD with 8- page booklet including
lyrics

Sunny Ozuna is a living legend and a man worthy of praise on many levels. In the Texas and Latin Music pantheon, few have been at it longer and are more revered by their fans and peers than Sunny is. He became a star right out of high school in the late `50s and hasn't looked back in the seven decades since. Among countless other honors and notable achievements, Sunny was the first Latino artist to appear on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" (in 1963). He penned "Smile Now, Cry Later," a hit for him and The Sunliners, which along with the theater masks that grace the album's cover, became staples in the Chicano Soul and Lowrider Soul cultures. We have been fans of Sunny & The Sunliners' music for a long time. We first got in touch with Sunny to try to reissue some of his records in 2013 but we didn't sign a deal until 2015. It took a trip to San Antonio and then two years of steady phone calls before they decided "if you have been chasing us for this long, you must be serious." With Sunny's blessing we started getting everything mastered, scanned, and planned. First we released 2017's Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 1 compilation that put rare 7" sides next to some of his biggest hits and mixed in some choice album cuts for good measure. In the wake of that, we released three of Sunny's full lengths with their original track lists and art: Smile Now, Cry Later, Little Brown Eyed Soul, and The Missing Link - all of which were Record Store Day releases that raised money for the victims of 2017's Hurricane Harvey. For the 7" collectors, we reissued 45s, making some very hard to come by sides widely available again and pressing some tunes on the format for the first time. In 2020, as an homage to Sunny, we released Dear Sunny... a compilation of Big Crown artists covering Sunny & The Sunliners songs. Through all of this we were able to do what we set out to do: get Sunny's music to a new audience of people and make it all accessible and available again to his existing fanbase. Sunny still keeps a busy schedule and loves performing as much as he did as a teenager. His music and the music that it directly influenced are seeing a resurgence in popularity in the last few years. With any luck at all, our efforts played some small part in that, and on that note, we present Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 2 - another compilation curated by us, where we dig a little deeper into Sunny's catalog and pull some lesser known gems that hold court with his hits. Hats off again to Mr Brown Eyed Soul himself, San Antonio's own, Sunny Ozuna, we are sure you will enjoy the music.

Sunny Ozuna is a living legend and a man worthy of praise on many levels. In the Texas and Latin Music pantheon, few have been at it longer and are more revered by their fans and peers than Sunny is. He became a star right out of high school in the late `50s and hasn't looked back in the seven decades since. Among countless other honors and notable achievements, Sunny was the first Latino artist to appear on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" (in 1963). He penned "Smile Now, Cry Later," a hit for him and The Sunliners, which along with the theater masks that grace the album's cover, became staples in the Chicano Soul and Lowrider Soul cultures. We have been fans of Sunny & The Sunliners' music for a long time. We first got in touch with Sunny to try to reissue some of his records in 2013 but we didn't sign a deal until 2015. It took a trip to San Antonio and then two years of steady phone calls before they decided "if you have been chasing us for this long, you must be serious." With Sunny's blessing we started getting everything mastered, scanned, and planned. First we released 2017's Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 1 compilation that put rare 7" sides next to some of his biggest hits and mixed in some choice album cuts for good measure. In the wake of that, we released three of Sunny's full lengths with their original track lists and art: Smile Now, Cry Later, Little Brown Eyed Soul, and The Missing Link - all of which were Record Store Day releases that raised money for the victims of 2017's Hurricane Harvey. For the 7" collectors, we reissued 45s, making some very hard to come by sides widely available again and pressing some tunes on the format for the first time. In 2020, as an homage to Sunny, we released Dear Sunny... a compilation of Big Crown artists covering Sunny & The Sunliners songs. Through all of this we were able to do what we set out to do: get Sunny's music to a new audience of people and make it all accessible and available again to his existing fanbase. Sunny still keeps a busy schedule and loves performing as much as he did as a teenager. His music and the music that it directly influenced are seeing a resurgence in popularity in the last few years. With any luck at all, our efforts played some small part in that, and on that note, we present Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 2 - another compilation curated by us, where we dig a little deeper into Sunny's catalog and pull some lesser known gems that hold court with his hits. Hats off again to Mr Brown Eyed Soul himself, San Antonio's own, Sunny Ozuna, we are sure you will enjoy the music.

Sunny Ozuna is a living legend and a man worthy of praise on many levels. In the Texas and Latin Music pantheon, few have been at it longer and are more revered by their fans and peers than Sunny is. He became a star right out of high school in the late ‘50s and hasn’t looked back in the seven decades since. Among countless other honors and notable achievements, Sunny was the ­rst Latino artist to appear on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” (in 1963). He penned "Smile Now, Cry Later," a hit for him and The Sunliners, which along with the theater masks that grace the album's cover, became staples in the Chicano Soul and Lowrider Soul cultures. We have been fans of Sunny & The Sunliners' music for a long time. We fi­rst got in touch with Sunny to try to reissue some of his records in 2013 but we didn't sign a deal until 2015. It took a trip to San Antonio and then two years of steady phone calls before they decided "if you have been chasing us for this long, you must be serious." With Sunny's blessing we started getting everything mastered, scanned, and planned. First we released 2017's Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 1 compilation that put rare 7" sides next to some of his biggest hits and mixed in some choice album cuts for good measure. In the wake of that, we released three of Sunny's full lengths with their original track lists and art: Smile Now, Cry Later, Little Brown Eyed Soul, and The Missing Link all of which were Record Store Day releases that raised money for the victims of 2017's Hurricane Harvey. For the 7" collectors, we reissued ­ve 45s, making some very hard to come by sides widely available again and pressing some tunes on the format for the ­rst time. In 2020, as an homage to Sunny, we released Dear Sunny... a compilation of Big Crown artists covering Sunny & The Sunliners songs. Through all of this we were able to do what we set out to do: get Sunny's music to a new audience of people and make it all accessible and available again to his existing fanbase. Sunny still keeps a busy schedule and loves performing as much as he did as a teenager. His music and the music that it directly in‑uenced are seeing a resurgence in popularity in the last few years. With any luck at all, our efforts played some small part in that, and on that note, we present Mr Brown Eyed Soul Vol. 2 – another compilation curated by us, where we dig a little deeper into Sunny's catalog and pull some lesser known gems that hold court with his hits. Hats off again to Mr Brown Eyed Soul himself, San Antonio's own, Sunny Ozuna, we are sure you will enjoy the music. Tracks: Side A 1 I Can Remember 2 Sitting In The Park 3 Give Me Time 4 Should I Take You Home (Keyloc Version) 5 If I Could See You Now 6 Come Back Baby 7 Viva Mi Triestesa Side B 1 Runaway 2 Sharing You 3 I’ve Never Found A Girl 4 Together 5 I’m No Stranger 6 Best Of Both Worlds 7 Baby, I Apologize

Red Vinyl

That we live in a world changed is beyond question. Since 2015's Zenith, Berlin-based songwriter Molly Nilsson has surrendered to the world, traveling from Mexico to Glasgow, observing the changing socio-political landscape and imagining a better world. For an artist who has so successfully created her own environment and gradually let others in, her 8th studio album Imaginations sees Nilsson directly engaging with her surroundings, engendering change and allowing love in. Imaginations dreams big, recasting storming, stadium-sized pop into the internal language of the solo auteur. Imaginations is not escapism, it's a kaleidoscope and an alternative view, an agent of change.Opener Tender Surrender encapsulates Imaginations, a tango on the ruins of the past, like many of Nilsson's best songs a collision between the political and personal. Though potentially a love song, there's a glowing anger in the lines I want your ruin, I want destruction, I won't be through until we mend this...' this is rapturous transformation, order and chaos. Molly has built an almost 10 year career on perfectly summing up how we feel and this is no different... Who else could write a song about privilege (Let's Talk About Privileges) and make a heart-rending chorus of It's never being afraid of the police, it's expecting every thank you, every please.' The artist's vision on this album is perhaps more forceful than the emotionally fragile moments of previous album Zenith, at times exemplified on songs like Memory Foam, a bright, driving pop song that belies themes of nostalgia and the past, reminding us that Molly alone can make us feel so welcome in loneliness. If there's overt anger in songs like Money Never Sleeps, an anthem for a post-capitalist utopia if ever there was one, there's also seams of optimism sewn into the album's genetic code. Any revolutionary will tell you that anger alone achieves nothing - Nilsson's mission on Imaginations is to offer some alternatives we can hold close. Not Today Satan is a song about accepting love as the agent of change, Don't be sad, but do get mad at all the small men who act so tall, in the end they always fall, there ain't no sin in giving in to love, that's just how we're winning the fight.' Love can be visceral, a weapon with which to fight the power.On Imaginations Molly is recasting her interior monologue as a prism through which to see the world, a means to live differently and to reject the status quo. We can Think Pink, change our destiny together. This is an optimism about the future when we need it the most. New boys, new girls.. give me your smile and I'll give you mine' Clearly, we are living through a transformation but with alchemists like Molly Nilsson, we're never alone in the process.

14 track vinyl version of the 2012 CD compilation. Pressed on pale blue vinyl, with printed lyric inner sleeve. First time on vinyl. Includes poster and postcard.
A swish compilation LP featuring fourteen of the most memorable songs in the career of the top notch indie band THE HIT PARADE.
Entitled ‘PICK OF THE POPS (VOL1)’ the LP collects together the most poignant moments in the career of THE HIT PARADE, and includes their thoughtful recording for Sarah Records “In Gunnersbury Park”, their tubthumping single for Minty Fresh USA “Hitomi” as well as other cuts, both cheerful and desolate in style, that feature CATH CARROLL (Factory Records), AMELIA FLETCHER (Heavenly and Talulah Gosh) and HARVEY WILLIAMS (Another Sunny Day and The Field Mice).
THE HIT PARADE was formed by JULIAN HENRY with his school friends MATT MOFFATT and RAYMOND WATTS in 1984 when they released their first single ‘Forever’ on JSH RECORDS. Since then they’ve clung to the sensibilities of pure pop and have become a curiosity item with their retro attitudes and songs about dead writers, disused swimming pools and failed love affairs.
Their early vinyl singles were lauded by John Peel, the NME and Melody Maker, the now defunct weekly paper that published JULIAN HENRY’S writing. In the 1990s the band toured alongside Edwyn Collins, The Milkshakes and Sarah Records notables, and signed to Japanese and US labels, releasing a sequence of albums that have since become collectible.

Savage Necromancy bereiten den Ansturm auf die Tore des Himmels vor - Rauher Old School Black Metal für Fans von Archgoat, Impiety, Black Witchery, Beherit, Blasphemy!

On the outskirts of late 1970s Olympia, Washington, something stirs, sings, and breathes. Cheri Knight, a music composition student at the Evergreen State College, is developing her practice in a quaint but adequately equipped campus recording studio, amalgamating with the sonic timbre of the surrounding time, space, and place, while devoting to her own inner maxims. At once performative and meditative, electronic and organic, collaborative and self-contained, Cheri’s early compositions are simultaneously complete and sketches of a ceremonial process at play. American Rituals captures the artist’s environmental emergence, unearthing a unique compositional voice and signposting a regional sonic ethos.

The path to Evergreen seems gently preordained for Cheri, a whisper in the trees. Growing up in a musical household in Western Massachusetts, she learned to play piano and clarinet, demurring from notated music but composing piano pieces in the minimalist mode of Erik Satie and folk songs inspired by Joni Mitchell. In high school, her class studied John Cage’s work, an epiphanic moment
for the young artist. The group also visited a studio outside Amherst where she encountered the modular limitlessness of a Moog synthesizer. Cheri studied philosophy and music at Whitman College in Washington, and then took a year to build a stone house with some friends in New Hampshire. She settled at Evergreen soon after, carrying with her a zeal for improvisation, creative investigation,
and hands-on experimentation.

Y U QT are back on Time Is Now, and with them they're bringing the sun. "Sweet Fantasy" EP sees the Leicester duo return to what they do best: capturing UKG at its least po-faced, and most energetic.

And who better to help kick off proceedings than the one of the most recognisable voices in today's UKG revival? Ell Murphy's smooth-as-syrup vocals add another level of dynamism to the already-buoyant 4x4 garage banger "Fantasy", coming complete with a hook just as irresistible as the ones which shot their previous releases to success. "Buss Down" picks up the energy with propulsive kickdrums and old school MC vocal chops before "Leaving All Your Cares Behind" follows suit, adding a feel-good vocal melody for an extra serotonin hit. It's up to the more light-footed "Just Be Friends" to leave a sweet taste in our mouths. Euphoric Korg organ stabs give a sense of nostalgia whilst a meandering bassline lends it plenty of swing.

Killer old schooled beats comes with his dreaming rap by CV Smiles after the long intro from SJT Remix.

On other side,Pure analog 139bpm techno session from the guy "PST" with 808.

First ever repress of the sought after psychedelic tinged funk rock private press album 'Eclipse of the City' from 1980 New York. Originally recorded between 1975 and 1977 in Manhattan's garment district. Eclipse of the City lay dormant on a reel to reel player whilst frontman Carlos Fire Aguasvivas muddled through life working as a data entry clerk away from his fellow band members. It wasn't till he rediscovered the tapes that a sudden life affirming moment drove him to get the music pressed. Putting pen to paper Carlos created the artwork as a homage to his love of comic art and brought the band to life on the reverse with his spindly characters engrossed in the jam. Only 300 copies were pressed at the time leading to eye-watering prices for a copy. with a recent digital re-release from Indian Summer's Anthology Records, Sticky Buttons stepped up to repress the record with a limited run of 500, lovingly manufactured in the UK in all its vinyl glory.

Arriving in the Bronx from the civil unrest of Santo Domingo in the early 60's Aguasvivas was surrounded by the raucous sounds of rock, jazz and prog. Absorbing the humdrum atmosphere of life in New York, Eclipse of the City came from the minds of close friends Carlos Aguasvivas, Steve Garcia and Eddy Garcia. Meeting at Monroe High School the three of them quickly formed a strong bond over their shared interest in music. It wasn't long after that they began rehearsing in a basement under a neighbourhood cleaners and in the attic of Steve and Eddy's family home piecing together their extended sessions of tripped out cinematic psychedelia.

Recording got off to a rocky start as a car accident left the three band members in A&E after taking an early morning cab ride through Manhattan to watch the sunrise on their way into the studio (a theatrical artistic statement of intent conceived by Steve Garcia) - as Eddy mentioned "Eclipse was forged from a lot of pain". Their recording sessions were postponed but a few weeks later they were back and with the added energy of John Ortega on Bass and Vincent Anderson on electric piano and organ - with just a few microphones and a reel to reel recorder, Eclipse of the City was laid down as the stark bold homage to New York's downtown.

Influences ranged from the cinematic behemoth Jaws to the UK prog rock bands of Genesis, Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer but only could Eclipse of the City take its unique form in the attics and basements of New York with the full band adding their Puerto Rican and Dominican slanted New York energy. Side one includes 3 fully formed tracks breaking out into eerie moments of calm before diving into well timed jolts of reprise as each element weaves over the top of one another whilst side two presents a 30 minute narrative work following the night adventures of a young group of friends exploring the vibrant nightlife of downtown New York. A rumbling half hour of wobbling guitar, tight drumming and synth organ licks jutting out from the glistening lights of the night before the sun rises down Manhattan's East-West axis as the lilt changes and the organ lulls the friends back home. A truly idiosyncratic take on the heady world of New York in the 70's and one that still resonates with our urban landscapes and love for the nights they bring today.

a 01: Think Positive (Live) feat. Steve Garcia, Edward Garcia & John Ortega
b 02: Jennifer (Live) feat. Steve Garcia, Edward Garcia, Vincent Anderson & John Ortega
c 03: Try It All Again (Live) [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Edward Garcia & Steve Garcia]
[d] 04: Eclipse A (Beginnings) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Edward Garcia & Steve Garcia]
[e] 05: Eclipse B (First Movement) [Live] [feat. John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[f] 06: Eclipse C (Hustle Bustle) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[g] 07: Eclipse D (Funky Side of Town) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[h] 08: Eclipse E (Midnight) [Live] [feat. John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[i] 09: Eclipse F (First Movement Continued) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]
[j] 10: Eclipse G (Home) [Live] [feat. Vincent Anderson, John Ortega, Steve Garcia & Edward Garcia]

Hailing from Adelaide, Australia's CHARNEL ALTAR formed in late 2018. Not long after, the band's self-titled debut demo followed in January 2019. Originally self-released digitally, a cassette version was soon released by Desert Wastelands Productions and a 12" vinyl version by Seed of Doom Records and Impure Sounds; a tape re-release then came in mid-2020 via Blood Moon Productions. With this underground momentum building, CHARNEL ALTAR released a split EP with fellow Aussies CARCINOID, which was released on tape by Headsplit Records and on 10" vinyl once again by Seed of Doom. During all this, CHARNEL ALTAR became a prolific force on the live front. Their first show was supporting Uada, and they went on to play with the likes of Incantation, Krisiun, Integrity, Primitive Man, Faceless Burial, Gutless, Ignivomous, and Vile Apparition. A tour with CARCINOID was planned for 2020, but was unfortunately cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, CHARNEL ALTAR make their full-length debut with the slimy 'n' stultifying Abatement of the Sun. Horrific and harrowing, churning and gestating with utter dread and doom, CHARNEL ALTAR's death metal is like a slo-mo melting of mind and matter. One could arguably qualify it as death-doom, but the band's version of such evades easy categorization and aims more for hovering tension and paradoxically spacious density - indeed, like old(er)-school death metal dragged through tar but trudging forward like a tank. That all three members previously played together in the cult Tombsealer - who toured nationally in support of Mournful Congregation and played with such acts as Dead Congregation, Portal, Fetid, Windhand, Cough, Inverloch, and Nocturnal Graves to name a few - shows in their seemingly effortless execution, that these dreadful 'n' doomed-out ruminations have been simmering in their hearts for time eternal. Or, put another way, Abatement of the Sun is all-too-perfectly titled: the end is not just nigh; it's NULL.

Produced by Heidecker, Drew Erickson, Eric D. Johnson and Mac DeMarco, High School sees Heidecker emerging as an increasingly playful and poignant story teller, infusing childhood tales with new gravity. In conjunction, he announces Tim Heidecker Live! Featuring Tim Heidecker and The Very Good Band, his first two-act tour of comedy and music. Since 2016, Tim Heidecker has chronicled the annals of adulthood on a series of supreme singer-songwriter albums. The crushing devastation of divorce and the existential malaise of middle-age, the minutiae of home ownership and the ritual of family vacation, child rearing and global warming: Heidecker has handled it all with humor and heart. But, there’s one pivotal lodestar of human development he has yet to mine that’s right, High School. First single “Buddy” is a composite of a few woebegone friends, which finds Heidecker reminiscing on the familiar tragedy of the adolescent stoner, manifesting the destiny of undiagnosed depression and parents who didn’t care much. The song itself is a jangly delight, but it’s hard not to mourn for “Buddy,” then re-count whatever blessings you may have. After initial and fruitful sessions with Jonathan Rado, Heidecker started recording tunes with DeMarco and Erickson, who had also worked on 2020’s collaboration with Weyes Blood, Fear of Death. At DeMarco’s studio, they added drum machines and synths and sidewinding solos to Heidecker’s big strummed chords. Johnson (Bonny Light Horseman, Fruit Bats) helped Heidecker finesse the tunes even more, making the music as rich as the feelings. Kurt Vile contributed to one song, as well. Through all those sessions, it slowly became clear: Heidecker was writing not only about the adventures and misadventures of life as a Pennsylvania teen in the early ’90s, but also how it felt to lose a juvenile sense of mystery and possibility as an adult. He was writing about high school and, really, the way it helped shape everything else. Back at Pennsylvania’s Allentown Central Catholic High School, Heidecker dreamed of making it with one of his many rock bands — Time and Other Things, Shaggy’s Beltbuckle, and (incredibly) The Pulsating Libidos. Two years shy of his graduating class’ 30th anniversary, Heidecker admits he had little of substance to say when he was 17, like all but the rarest of precocious minds. In college, though, he found the friends with whom he built his comedy career, largely apart from music and without much thought for his time back at Central Catholic. He was focused on his future. It is fitting, then, that as Heidecker has become such a delightful singer-songwriter and collaborator, he returns to the first scene of his time as a musician. Maybe he’s right — he didn’t have anything to say or sing about life back then. But across the earnest and amusing High School, he finds plenty to say about those weird and wonderful and ordinary times.

Limited Edition 100 Only Red Vinyl LP - Hand Signed and Numbered / Quantity: 100 - Beth Blade and The Beautiful Disasters are a melodic Hard Rock band based out of Cardiff, South Wales. The four-piece provide monster riffs, huge choruses and a dose of old school rock and roll attitude. With aggressive muscle and melodic sensitivity, this band is reigniting the flame of British Hard Rock. They have an unmistakable modern presence whilst keeping the spirit of old school rock and roll alive. The band have been a non-stop force to be reckoned with, building a strong pedigree touring with Marco Mendoza and The Electric Boys, and have supported old and new legends such as Kee Marcello, Y and T, Dan Reed and Danny Vaughan, Ricky Warick and Damon Johnson, Massive Wagons, Those Damn Crows, Tyketto and Graham Bonnett. They are no strangers to festivals either having performed at Hard Rock Hell, Planet Rockstock, Monsterfest and most notably with KISS on the globally renowned KISS Kruise in the US. The band's first two albums received glowing reviews across the rock press and resulted in international radio airplay including heavy rotation on major networks in the UK. Beth herself has sung backing vocals on the last two Thunder albums with the latter reaching number 3 in the U.K. Top 40 Album Chart and number 1 in the U.K Rock Chart in March 2021. The band are currently working on album number 3 and have a number of live shows and festivals already booked alongside The Treatment, Mason Hill, Collateral and will be hitting the road again on a UK tour with Swedish Rockers Thunder Mother. The band is fiercely determined and has the grit to surpass their previous accomplishments through intense live performances and a passion for rock and roll that is unrivalled.'

Night School is proud and excited to team up with Frankie Rose to reissue her much loved interpretation of The Cure’s masterpiece Seventeen Seconds for Record Store Day 2021. Pressed on Dark Red Transparent Vinyl with new, artist approved artwork, Frankie Rose’s Seventeen Seconds is the art of the cover album done right. "Since I already think it's a perfect record, I tried not to reinterpret too much and stick to similar sounds as the original, but with a twist.” Dark Red Transparent Vinyl Pressing of 600.

Following the precursor singles of 2021, Formality Jerne-Site’s unveiling is finally cast upon her already-growing fanbase. Trained classically as a composer and completing a masters at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Jura introduces a highly-anticipated playground of carefully sculpted characters, plots and lessons - sometimes charming, sometimes nefarious, always absolute and sincere. A fictional land opens its doors and roof to us. A trio of trans kids run amok in rural suburbia. Various sorcerers of the wild future enter the scene on some songs; on others, the mind is cast to sun-drenched drives and journeys of yesteryear. At the heart is a pop sensibility: yearning, reflections, vanity, guesswork, hope. Jura is adamant about practice and precision. Dead seriously she offers, about making music: ‘Nothing should be half-hearted or an accident.’ There’s a maturity and elegance to her compositions, arrangements that - although at first sound seem abstract - lean away from experimental, somehow. She sing-speaks in English, and somehow not typically theatrically for such a play of a record. The theatrics are all real. It’s a fantasy land for sure, but it's based on hard facts. Like academia subdivided into poetry. It’s that weird-ass specificity she mentioned. Opener ‘Someone’s Lifework’ introduces less a choir of voices, than a choir of personalities. The art of storytelling is at the center of the musical expression. A protagonist relinquishes control of chaos that’s bigger than them on a perilous journey on some vessel: they comfort their co-passengers. There’s a sense that the hero - or anti-hero - might be more canny and cunning than the sweetness they first sell to fellow players. 'Is this our getaway chance?’ sings fellow Copenhagener Ydegirl amongst swelling synths and reverb that become so definitely Jerne-Site as the quest continues. The search? For intimacy, perhaps. ‘Same late Age (dIcK bIfFeReNcE)’ imbibes at once, some further disorientation, perhaps a little hallucinatory feeling which may come over the listener. Through a synthesizing of political themes that work across time ‘Same Late Age (dIcK bIfFeReNcE)’ bears reminiscences of the musical expressions of anti-capitalism in the 1980es, although in a new body and context. “I have a feeling that music reconjures societal morals and ideas from the time in which it was written when we press play or hear a live performance. From the moment at a concert when the symphonic orchestra starts tuning in, the time traveling begins. So I imagined how it would be to be trans sitting there playing the first violin, having the job of producing that first tone that all the other musicians around me tune in ona, ” Jura explains. The listener yearns for more; and subsequent tracks deliver. On ‘How Intimate It Gets,’ Jura meditates on the futility of closeness, begging the audience to enter the blood and guts of their own entanglements, the blueprints of focusing entering. Jura sings richly about fingers being lines, pointing or bending, and we’re reminded of their own wicked ways we can’t control. A history of singing in choirs informs the harmony of myriad inner voices heard across the album. At once prophetic and enigmatic, some of the songs rearrange historical events out of pop musical language. The enormously entertaining ‘Pinot-Botticelli Toast to European Users’ conjures scenes of Cold-War world leaders stuck on a cruise in the Transatlantic vacuum, and the protagonist watches a devastating heartbreaker careen on into the picture, led by his own hips on ‘The Lasceaux Associate’. Finally, on title track ‘Formality Jerne-Site’, American English rises to the occasion like a verdict around the narrative of three trans teenagers in rural Colorado: language turns into something sensual and haptic, playing with the snare and sizzle of syllables. The words twist and bend, while the music follows its own synaesthetic logic: “around us pop culture made a vow to a normative desire, drawing in like water color percussion”. Anyines is a site of play and documentation, with a canon so far quite nice. Their future is one that envisions supporting the galaxies their dear friends embody, be it music, performance, video games or beyond. Highlights from their discerning back catalogue include myriad formats: live and digital, plus releases binded to physical artefacts that enhance the live experience such as sculptures and scents. Their history also includes disappearing time-sensitive shadow-tracked material and cross-disciplinary opportunities that reflect deep professionalism and a totally non-schooled semblance of sound and drama. Recent releases include a dance-theatre soundtrack, a traditional shiny pop record, and the acclaimed ML Buch sophomore, Skinned.

Tape

Charlemagne Palestine (born Charles Martin ni 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist. Palestine's performance style is ritualistic; he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and drinks cognac.

Oren Ambarchi (born 1969 in Australia) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, "re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it's no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it's a laboratory for extended sonic investigation". (The Wire, UK).

Oren Ambarchi's works are hesitant and tense extended songforms located in the cracks between several schools: modern electronics and processing; laminal improvisation and minimalism; hushed, pensive songwriting; the deceptive simplicity and temporal suspensions of composers such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier; and the physicality of rock music, slowed down and stripped back to its bare bones, abstracted and replaced with pure signal.

From the late 90's his experiments in guitar abstraction and extended technique have led to a more personal and unique sound-world incorporating a broader palette of instruments and sensibilities. On releases such as Grapes From The Estate and In The Pendulum's Embrace Ambarchi has employed glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, drums and percussion, creating fragile textures as light as air which tenuously coexist with the deep, wall-shaking bass tones derived from his guitar.

Ambarchi works with simple constructs and parameters; exploring one idea over an extended duration and patiently teasing every nuance and implication from each texture; the phenomena of sum and difference tones; carefully tended arrangements that unravel gently; unprepossessing melodies that slowly work their way through various permutations; resulting in an otherworldly, cumulative impact of patiently unfolding compositions.

Ambarchi has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, Pimmon, Keiji Haino, John Zorn, Rizili, Voice Crack, Jim O'Rourke, Keith Rowe, Phill Niblock, Dave Grohl, Gunter Muller, Evan Parker, z'ev, Toshimaru Nakamura, Peter Rehberg, Merzbow, Kassel Jaeger, Anthony Pateras, Crys Cole, Giuseppe Ielasi, Judith Hamann, Sunn 0))), James Rushford, Stephen O'Malley and many more.

For 10 years together with Robbie Avenaim, Ambarchi was the co-organiser of the What Is Music? festival, Australia's premier annual showcase of local and international experimental music. Ambarchi now curates the Maximum Arousal series at The Toff In Town in Melbourne and has recently co-produced an Australian television series on experimental music called Subsonics. Ambarchi co-curated the sound program for the 2008 Yokohama Triennale. Ambarchi has released numerous recordings for international labels such as Touch, Southern Lord, Table Of The Elements and Tzadik.

Belgian drummer Eric Thielemans is one of the most idiosyncratic figures in Belgian music, someone who not only demonstrates that special musicians always seek out (and find) their own place, but above all that they always remain students of the art of questioning and listening. No musician better illustrates the difference between playing music and playing with music than percussionist Eric Thielemans. He gets to the heart of the matter with an at times extremely minimalist approach, but on the other hand he frequently relies on a range of objects beyond the regular drum kit: a drum placed on its side, a bicycle wheel with a bow, hands and the body.

Tape

Charlemagne Palestine (born Charles Martin ni 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist. Palestine's performance style is ritualistic; he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and drinks cognac.

Oren Ambarchi (born 1969 in Australia) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, "re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it's no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it's a laboratory for extended sonic investigation". (The Wire, UK).

Oren Ambarchi's works are hesitant and tense extended songforms located in the cracks between several schools: modern electronics and processing; laminal improvisation and minimalism; hushed, pensive songwriting; the deceptive simplicity and temporal suspensions of composers such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier; and the physicality of rock music, slowed down and stripped back to its bare bones, abstracted and replaced with pure signal.

From the late 90's his experiments in guitar abstraction and extended technique have led to a more personal and unique sound-world incorporating a broader palette of instruments and sensibilities. On releases such as Grapes From The Estate and In The Pendulum's Embrace Ambarchi has employed glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, drums and percussion, creating fragile textures as light as air which tenuously coexist with the deep, wall-shaking bass tones derived from his guitar.

Ambarchi works with simple constructs and parameters; exploring one idea over an extended duration and patiently teasing every nuance and implication from each texture; the phenomena of sum and difference tones; carefully tended arrangements that unravel gently; unprepossessing melodies that slowly work their way through various permutations; resulting in an otherworldly, cumulative impact of patiently unfolding compositions.

Ambarchi has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, Pimmon, Keiji Haino, John Zorn, Rizili, Voice Crack, Jim O'Rourke, Keith Rowe, Phill Niblock, Dave Grohl, Gunter Muller, Evan Parker, z'ev, Toshimaru Nakamura, Peter Rehberg, Merzbow, Kassel Jaeger, Anthony Pateras, Crys Cole, Giuseppe Ielasi, Judith Hamann, Sunn 0))), James Rushford, Stephen O'Malley and many more.

For 10 years together with Robbie Avenaim, Ambarchi was the co-organiser of the What Is Music? festival, Australia's premier annual showcase of local and international experimental music. Ambarchi now curates the Maximum Arousal series at The Toff In Town in Melbourne and has recently co-produced an Australian television series on experimental music called Subsonics. Ambarchi co-curated the sound program for the 2008 Yokohama Triennale. Ambarchi has released numerous recordings for international labels such as Touch, Southern Lord, Table Of The Elements and Tzadik.

Belgian drummer Eric Thielemans is one of the most idiosyncratic figures in Belgian music, someone who not only demonstrates that special musicians always seek out (and find) their own place, but above all that they always remain students of the art of questioning and listening. No musician better illustrates the difference between playing music and playing with music than percussionist Eric Thielemans. He gets to the heart of the matter with an at times extremely minimalist approach, but on the other hand he frequently relies on a range of objects beyond the regular drum kit: a drum placed on its side, a bicycle wheel with a bow, hands and the body.

Something's happening in country music. Newer artists and younger audiences are embracing instrumentation, vocal stylings and song structures long thought drowned in the ocean of slick, snap-track productions. Not easily dismissed as merely regional or a novelty throwback, the trend could be on its way to full-blown movement. If so, Kimberly Kelly's Show Dog Nashville debut album may prove to be the clarion call. Either way ... she's not asking. I'll Tell You What's Gonna Happen is more than her (abbreviated) album title, more than a reference to her connection with a Country Music Hall of Famer, and much more than a historical footnote. Rather, it's a statement of musical confidence earned the only way that happens: talent, work ethic, experience, vulnerability, and courage. For Kelly, it's all of a piece. "I like to think of it as a sub-genre of country music called 'country music,'" she says with a wink. A native of Lorena, Texas, Kelly has multiple connections to the Nashville industry. She has also been unafraid to defy convention. "This is not my first rodeo," she says of her label debut. "I worked really hard in Texas before I came to Nashville. I wrote songs, put out records, did a radio tour, and played every weekend while earning a Master's degree. They say don't have a 'plan B,' but I watched my mom struggle to get that next level of pay. My mom earned her bachelor's degree when she was 60, so school was important to me to know I could take care of myself.

Following up their hugely respected 2 demos (also available as a compilation) and fairly recent 7”, CHAOTIAN are back to release ultimate Death Metal barbarity into the underground in the form of their debut full length. Storming into life with a rotten amalgamation of putrescent riffing and blastbeats, the instrumental unity of this Danish titan is a juggernaut of pure filth. It is telling when a band can have those super groovy pinch harmonic laden riffs and not making them sound like all the others. This may seem a weirdly specific observation (perhaps a guitarist just being a guitarist) but it makes all the difference with heaviness, intensity and also the catchiness on the records. When met with the sewer-spewing vocals and weird dissonant spasms in the music, it doesn’t take long to recognise this will be a truly warped and maniacally brutal experience of Death Metal might. Interlinking primitive hooks that grasp you by the throat then transcend into these weird effects or spacious riffs, there’s nothing predictable about the album yet it has that familiar feeling that all good Death Metal has where it feels a bit daunting, unnerving and yet you cannot escape it. Obviously Denmark and this trio does not let the scene down. Amazingly this small country seems to have so much diversity in their rotten underground movement and CHAOTIAN are a shining example who embody the grotesqueries, masterful songwriting and tight musicianship that has become associated with this otherwise pretty and peaceful nation. It explains that mysterious gurgling from the sewers at least! Bludgeoning, cavernous and ultimately otherworldly, CHAOTIAN masterfully combine the cerebral and cosmic with brutish, old school music that is damned heavy and doesn’t feel pretentious nor directionless. Their debut LP is not just as strong as their previous works, but a more refined and complete vision, showcasing the bands full potential (so far)…

Part of The Optic Sevens 4.0 Reissue Series.
Limited to 1000 copies worldwide.
Pressed on White Vinyl Includes postcard and poster.
Edward Ball was a member of cult band The Television Personalities alongside his school friend Dan Treacy before leaving to concentrate on The Times.
‘I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape’ (inspired by cult TV series The Prisoner) Is probably the best known track from them, originally released on the Artpop! label in 1982.
The second single from The Times reissued here with an extra track from the 12” (released a year later in 1983). We have also decided to use the same sleeve that was used for the original 12”

'Soul Food - Cooking with Maceo' blends raw, old-school funk with the
flavours of the New Orleans school of music
Parker worked with Ivan Neville, Nikki Glaspie and Tony Hall, as well as a host of
local musicians to record the songs. The funky flavour of the city weaves its way
through the album as the funk father and his band take on iconic songs of the
Mississippi masters such as Dr. John's voodoo funk of 'Right Place, Wrong Time',
The Meters 'Just Kissed My Baby,' 'Yes, We Can Can' recorded by Allen Toussaint
as well as takes on Aretha Franklin's 'Rock Steady', Prince's 'The Other Side of the
Pillow' and Maceo's long-time hero and Ray Charles Saxophonist, David "Fathead"
Newman's 'Hard Times'. We also get funky workouts from Parkers own back
catalogue on 'Maceo' and 'Cross The Tracks'. The latter adopted by Giles
Peterson at the staple song of his iconic WAG Club in Soho, London in the 1980s.
The amazing P-funk Parker has been at it with his legendary sound for time that
dates back to the 1960's. That's when Maceo and his drummer brother Melvin
climbed on board the James Brown funky soul funk train. It wasn't long before
James coined the solo summoning signature, "Maceo, I want you to Blow!". To
most musicologists it's the musically fertile group of men from this period of
James Brown's band who are recognized as the early pioneers of the modern
funk and hip-hop whose sounds we still jump to in the present day.

Minru is the project of Caroline Blomqvist, a Swedish musician based in Berlin. Woven from light and shadow, the interplay of her folk and indie-rock blend appears from a personal space of finding life after death. On her debut LP »Liminality« she paints melody in soft tones, whispering secrets to navigate feelings of loss.

Built around winding layers of acoustic guitar, piano, and strings, Minru is a surprisingly uplifting and stirring testament to Blomqvist’s own suffering from the passing of someone close to her. Returning to Berlin from Sweden feelings of grief, confusion, and pain travelled with her, and these emotions prompted the journey both of and within the album, heard as a dreamlike actualisation of wandering lost between them. "I read that Carl Jung used the word "»Liminality«” to describe the psychological process of transitioning. I instantly felt seen; it reflected my own experience and the feelings I carried whilst making the album – a sense of the old certainties being gone, but the new not being quite there yet,” she says.

Defined as "the threshold separating one space from another" »Liminality« moves between feeling the ground beneath your feet fall away, fighting through the darkness and the doubt, and the emerging shades of hope and light as you painstakingly make peace with mortality and find yourself as a person again. "I am happy to have encapsulated this moment of time in sound," Blomqvist says, "it will always be there as a memory."

Flourishing from a preferred position of solitude, »Liminality« sees Blomqvist’s vision radiate with intensity from her home-based studio in Neukölln - a small, 2-room apartment with squeaky old wooden floors. Capturing the intimacy of the space, she recorded vocals and synth on gear partly borrowed from friends (to swiftly reunite it with its owners), and the songs flow with a stream of consciousness as feelings become entwined with melody. Time-restraint drew the process to a natural close, preventing Blomqvist from losing herself to experimentation. “Maybe I would have been stuck in »Liminality«, trying out sounds forever,” she suggests of the way ‘Into the well’s instrumental swims into a warm stream of synth pads. "It’s the cosiest moment on the album,” she says, “Cosy is a feeling I always strive for in life."

Finished and self-produced at a Berlin-Lichtenberg recording studio alongside musical friends (Povel Widestrand, Tobias Blessing, Sunniva Lilian Shaw Of-Tordarroch, Marlene Becher and Liv Solveig Wagner), the result is beautifully detailed and rich like the folk of her Swedish roots. First picking up a guitar as a kid and becoming obsessed with it, she would skip school to spend extra hours mastering the instrument, grappling to perfect the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ intro. “As a child I was fascinated by my dad’s acoustic guitars around the house and would hit the strings to make them sound,” she recalls. After attending music high school in Gothenburg and playing in bands during her teens, Blomqvist later moved to Germany. As well as enjoying walks at Tempelhofer Feld and coffee at Leuchtstoff café, she performed with Tuvaband, Adna, and Tara Nome Doyle and played in Berlin venues Loophole and Schokoladen, where music became her world. With the passing of time she felt a growing urge to find an outlet for her own songs; Minru was the answer along with her first »Yearnings« EP.

Now writing whenever she returns to Sweden, within the calm and stillness of her family’s mountainside cabin, her skilfully constructed arrangements summon the comforting atmosphere of home. “I hope listeners will feel inspired to slow down a bit, create, draw, cook something. Just be in the moment that is now.” »Liminality« is the kind of record that rewards attention. Give this album your time, it will give you its soul.

Night School is proud and excited to team up with Frankie Rose ( Crystal Stilts and The Vivian Girls) to reissue her much loved interpretation of The Cure’s masterpiece Seventeen Seconds for Record Store Day 2021 July 17th - Drop 2. Pressed on Dark Red Transparent Vinyl with new, artist approved artwork, Frankie Rose’s Seventeen Seconds is the art of the cover album done right.

"Since I already think it's a perfect record, I tried not to reinterpret too much and stick to similar sounds as the original, but with a twist.”

"The letter X marks the spot, crosses over, literally with a cross. It’s the former, the ex-. The ex-lover known simply as “an ex”. Ex- is the latin prefix meaning “out”. Exterior, an exit. Extraordinary. Excellent. It’s exciting. Generation X. X-files. X is the unknown. X is Extreme“

Extreme is Molly Nilsson’s tenth studio album. Recorded in 2019 and throughout the 2020 global pandemic at home in Berlin, Extreme is a departure for Nilsson, an explosion of angry love. It’s an album of anthems for the jilted generation, soaked with joy and offering solace, bristling with distorted, Metal guitars and planet-sized choruses that bring light to the dark centre of the galaxy. It’s an album of the times, by the times and for the people. It’s a record about power. About how to fight it, how to take it and how to share it.

Absolute Power explodes with massive guitars, double kick beats and the instantly iconic line “It’s me versus the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.” Nilsson’s performance itself portrays absolute power in its confidence but the song is a call-to-arms, an entreaty to grasp the here and now, to take the power back. It’s Nilsson pacing the ring and we’re instantly in her corner. Earth Girls takes familiar Molly Nilsson themes - female empowerment and subverting the patriarchy - but casually throws in one of the choruses of her career. “Women have no place in this world” she sings, but it’s the world that isn’t good enough. Stadium-sized but still warmly hazy, Earth Girls has its fists in the air, glorifying in harmony, almost ecstatic in its feeling good. Nilsson’s Springsteen-level conviction and righteousness bleeds through the speaker cones, the cognitive dissonance between the song’s cadences and angry lyrics redolent of Bruce in his prime. Female empowerment isn’t always an angry energy on Extreme, however. On Fearless Like A Child, Nilsson’s anthem to the female body and women’s sovereignty of it, she croons over a mid-80s blue-eyed Soul groove. It sets a nocturnal scene as the narrator surveys her past and her surroundings. Before we’re fully submerged in a dreamlike, Steve McQueen-era Prefab Sprout poem to learning from your mistakes the song erupts into one of those lines only Molly Nilsson can get away with: “I love my womb, come inside I feel so alive” she fervently sings. Against the backdrop of ever-encroaching, conservative rulings on women’s reproductive rights in places like Texas, it’s simultaneously angry and full of love.

Every song on Extreme is a gleaming gem in a pouch of jewels. On Kids Today, Nilsson is the voice of wisdom, archly commenting on the eternal struggle between youth and authority. Wisdom infuses Sweet Smell Of Success with a transcendent love that forgives the narrator’s shortcomings and celebrates the moment, it’s a letter to the author from the author that asks “what is success” and concludes that this is it, this song, this moment. It’s a rare moment of simple reflection that is generous in its insight to Nilsson’s inner life. “Success” is a tool of power and we don’t need it… We need power tools and there are moments on Extreme where it feels like Nilsson is showing us how to find them. It's an open conversation through out Extreme. She’s a warm, comforting presence through out the album and specially on these songs of encouragement, songs perhaps sang to a younger Molly Nilsson or, really, to whomever needs to hear them. “They’ll praise your efforts, they’ll call you slurs a rebel, a master, an amateur / Merely with your own existence, you already offer your resistance.” On Avoid Heaven she’s even more direct, pleading with us to avoid concepts of purity and to embrace the glorious, ebullient, emotional mess we’re often in as a method of upending the power structures who need things to be perfect.

They Will Pay brings back the big, distorted power chords in the form of a agit-punk, pop slammer. Of course, when Molly Nilsson does punk pop we get the catchiest chorus this side of The Bangles or The Nerves. It’s rendered in an off the cuff, throwaway manner that is just perfect in its roughness. However, it’s on Pompeii that Nilsson delivers the album’s epic, emotional heartbreaker. Like 1995 on Nilsson’s album Zenith, or Days Of Dust on Twenty Twenty, the lyrics of Pompeii are heavy with a transcendent sadness, an aching poetry that cuts to the truth of the heart like the best Leonard Cohen lines, though here delivered with an uplifting, life-affirming love. It contains the most personal moments of Extreme, a song lit by the dying embers of romance. Yet it’s here where the alchemy at the base of all Nilsson’s best work is found. Turning small nuggets of personal truth into big, generous universal moments that invite everyone to cry, to love and to fight the power. In an album of jewels, it might be the shining star.

Molly Nilsson’s biggest, boldest and most vital album to date, Extreme is about power. Against the love of power and for the power of love.

The roots of Naima Bock’s music are far reaching. Born in
Glastonbury to a Brazilian father and a Greek mother, Naima spent
her early childhood in Brazil before eventually returning to England
and various homes in South East London. This heritage combines
with more recent pursuits in Naima’s music. From the Brazilian
standards that the family listened to while driving to the beach, to the
European folk traditions she tapped into on her own, and the pursuits
that interest her today - studies in archaeology, work as a gardener,
and walking the world’s great trails - Naima’s music draws from
family, the earth and music handed down through generations.
 Naima’s debut album, ‘Giant Palm’, is undoubtedly infused with the
Brazilian music of her youth and regular family visits. She found
inspiration in “the percussion, the melodies, chords - and particularly
the poetic juxtaposition of tragedy and beauty held within the lyrics.”
 By the age of 15, Naima was embedded in the music scene of SouthEast London, eventually forming Goat Girl with school friends and
touring the world. After six years playing bass in Goat Girl, Naima left
the band to try something new. She set up a gardening company and
started a degree at University College London in archaeology
because, as she jokes, “I liked being near the ground.” During this
time, she wrote music, played guitar, learned violin, worked with evershifting South-London collective Broadside Hacks, and met producer
and arranger Joel Burton through Memorials of Distinction labelhead
Josh Cohen. Joel’s burgeoning interest in Western classical music,
global folk music, and experience in large scale arrangement and
orchestration informed the collaborative process that eventually
culminated in ‘Giant Palm’.
 Recorded with the help of over 30 musicians (including Josh Cohen
on synth / electronics) by Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground at his
studio space in Streatham, South-East London, and engineered by
Syd Kemp, the songs on ‘Giant Palm’ represent a snapshot of a
specific feeling, of brief moments in Naima’s life that make up a larger
whole.
 The expansive yet delicate arrangements highlight Naima’s love for
the collectivist values of traditional folk music, in which songs belong
to everyone, and singing can take on countless forms without the
need to exactly replicate something. “All the other representations
that I’d had of singing felt so unattainable,” she recalls. ‘Giant Palm’
finds Naima bucking these expectations to let her unique voice and
sense of communal creativity flourish.

Arriving on Lobster Theremin's White Label on comes a fresh-sounding and typically loud release from Leeds vinyl enthusiast Peaky Beats. Never one to be pigeon-holed into a specific style of music, his recent releases have explored 2-step, speed garage and dub - bringing his wicked ear for big UK blends into the spotlight - and earmarking him as one of the UK's most exciting emerging producers.

On Paradise Falls EP, Peaky Beats unites the worlds of jungle, drum & bass and 2-step on a high velocity, future-facing project, with a little help from contemporary jungle legend Tim Reaper. 'Paradise Falls' is a melodic stepper that ventures close to 150BPM territory. Those skippy UKG elements are all there, but this time with a hefty dose of jungle influence which brings a certain weightlessness to the track. 'Soul Diesel' ventures further into the garage sphere; the velocity diminishing slightly as the vitality continues to soar. Introspective breaks for sunny days.

'Tangerine Dream' is a prime old school cut of dubbed-out nostalgia. Sitting somewhere between The Streets, El-B and Coco Bryce, its deep bass-weight inspires big 'Any Jungle In, Guy?' energy, before Tim Reaper's remix of 'Paradise Falls' blows the bloody doors off with a typically emotive and atmospheric cut of jungle fantasia.

Recorded for Benin’s Communist revolution,
‘Rhythm Revolution’ is a rare and truly unique
Afrobeat record - it’s rumoured only 200 copies of
the original release survived.

 Ferry Djimmy was a schoolteacher, former boxer,
and a personal friend of Muhammad Ali and Fela
Kuti. He was later Jacques Chirac’s personal
bodyguard.

 Recorded at the Satel Studio in Cotonou, the
album is one of the toughest, wildest and deepest
slices of Afro-Funk cut - with raw African rhythms,
distortion, energy and wit.

 Alongside nods to Hendrix, Kuti and James Brown,
there is something truly unique about Ferry
Djimmy’s musical legacy.


 A must-have for Afrobeat, Afro Funk and Psych
collectors.

Dallas-born Roger Kynard Erickson, better known as Roky Erickson, is a legend of psychedelic music and culture. Playing piano at five years old and guitar at ten, he dropped out of high school in Austin shortly before graduating, since the school dress code demanded short hair. In 1965, his group, The Spades, made an impact with “We Sell Soul” and the following year, The 13 th Floor Elevators burst onto the scene with debut album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13 th Floor Elevators, but the band’s non-conformist attitude and open endorsement of drugs such as marijuana and LSD put them in repeated conflict with the authorities. Then, in 1968, during a performance at the San Antonio edition of the World’s Fair, known as HemisFare, Erickson began speaking incomprehensible nonsense on stage, leading to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and confinement in a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he was forcibly given electroshock therapy. The following year, after being busted with a single joint, Erickson pleaded not guilty by means of insanity, leading to a 3-year stay in Rusk State Hospital, with further electroshock and Thorazine treatments. Following his release Erickson formed a group initially called Bleib Alien, which evidenced a more hard-rock orientation, later renamed The Aliens, though Erickson was also working with Austin’s The Explosives in the same era. Aliens material produced by Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater Rival was issued by CBS and an independent, 415 Records. Then, in the early 1980s, Erickson became fixated with junk mail and unsolicited letters, writing to lawyers and celebrity figures on a regular basis; in 1985, solo mini-LP Clear Night For Love was produced at Music Tracks in Austin by bassist/guitarist Speedy Sparks, with former Joe “King” Carrasco and Delbert McClinton drummer, Ernie Durawa, plus Supernatural Family Band alumnus John Reed on guitar. Released by France’s New Rose label in small numbers, the release found Erickson back in semi-psychedelic/country rock mode on opening track “You Don’t Love Me Yet,” the plaintive “Starry Eyes” and the anthem-like title track, while “The Haunt” is more in swamp/horror rock vein and “Don’t Slander Me” has heavy blues leanings.

Soul icon Otis Redding made immeasurable contributions to the form. As a singer-

songwriter, producer, arranger and talent scout, Redding was responsible for some of the

music’s biggest and most lasting hits during the 1960s, though his death in an airplane crash

in 1967 brought his life and career to a tragically premature end. He was born Otis Redding

Junior in 1941 in the small town of Dawson, Georgia, the son of a sharecropper and preacher,

and moved to the city of Macon at the age of two, where he learned to sing at the Vineville

Baptist Church. After singing in the high school band, he performed weekly gospel songs on

radio station WIBB, winning local talent contests after being inspired by Little Richard and

Sam Cooke. Since his father became ill with tuberculosis, Redding began supporting the

family at the age of 15, working as a gas station attendant, a digger of water wells, and

occasionally by playing piano with pianist Gladys Williams at the Hillview Springs Social

Club. Then, in 1958, Redding had a repeat prize run at a talent contest held by broadcaster

Hamp Swain, bringing him first into a group called Pat T Cake and the Mighty Panthers, and

later into Little Richard’s band (during a time when Richard switched rock and roll for

gospel). Moving to Los Angeles in late 1960, debut single “She’s All Right” was issued on

the Trans World label (a subsidiary of Al Kavelin’s Lute Records), credited to The Shooters

featuring Otis; following the birth of their first child and his subsequent marriage to Zelma

Atwood, Redding recorded the popular “Shout Bamalam” for Macon’s Confederate Records

(who swiftly reissued it on the Orbit label since some radio stations objected to the original

label’s confederate flag logo, during a time of terrible racial segregation in the South).

Redding cut the movingly emotive “These Arms Of Mine” at Stax studios in Memphis in

1962, backed by Booker T and the MGs, which surfaced on the subsidiary Volt label in

October, reaching the charts some six months later (and eventually selling a reported 800,000

copies). Subsequent singles “What My Heart Needs” and “Pain In My Heart”/“Something Is

Worrying Me,” recorded in September 1963, formed the bulk of debut album, Pain In My

Heart, which was padded out by standard cover tunes of songs such as “I Need Your Lovin’,”

Ben E King’s “Stand By Me” and Little Richard’s “Lucille.” The album, which surfaced at

the start of 1964, reached the top 20 of the US R&B chart and also hit the Billboard Hot 100;

this edition has an alternate track listing that includes the Trans World debut single tracks

“She’s All Right” and “Getting’ Hip,” as well as “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” the B-side to

“That’s What My Heart Needs.” Carefully remastered, spinning at 45 rpm for enhanced qudio quality.

Mekons + Freakwater = FREAKONS.Freakwater and the Mekons have
joined forces to sing songs about coal mining
FREAKONS, the eponymously-titled album on Fluff & Gravy Records , is the first
fruit of this visionary musical union.The Mekons and Freakwater have been
friends for decades, forged in the punk rock/ art school crucibles of late '70s
Leeds and mid '80s Louisville respectively. Both bands mined British folk and
American classic country music for three- chord songs whose lyrics fit the
nihilism or political rage or outlandish joy of the moment. Many of these songs
were about coal mining. Traditional songs about heroic union organizers, deadly
mine disasters, wailing orphans, or mining's grim history of economic and
ecological devastation fit seamlessly alongside each band's original material.
And so it is with FREAKONS.
Deep pit mines, strip mines, mountaintop removal, collapsing slag heaps. Deadly
work, poisoned water, and fantastic songs. Always fantastic songs. This is where
the FREAKONS were born, from the very bowels of the earth.
The Mekons' Jon Langford & Sally Timms and Freakwater's Janet Bean &
Catherine Irwin are joined here by the stellar string and vocal harmonies of Jean
Cook (Ida, Tara Jane O'Neil, Skull Orchard) and Anna Krippenstapel (The Other
Years, Joan Shelley, Freakwater), along with special guest, the beloved guitar
genius Jim Elkington (Jeff Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Eleventh Dream Day,
Horse's Ha, Skull Orchard, Freakwater, The Zincs).
Belgian painter Jo Clauwaert created the album's intricate gatefold cover. Images
from song lyrics and related history emerge and recede again in this gorgeously
illustrated artistic fever dream.The story of coal mining is one of ongoing pillage
and ecological devastation. It is also a story of heroic workers, struggling in
blighted circumstances to feed their families. The songs and the culture that have
risen from the mines deserve our attention. A portion of the profits from the
FREAKONS record will go to Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, a grassroots
organization dedicated to creating a better future for the Appalachian region.
Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC.ORG) works to end mountaintopremoval coal mining, and to promote political candidates who care about social,
environmental and economic justice and the transition to clean, renewable
resources

THE DEBUT ALBUM OF COLD & PRIMITIVE OLD-SCHOOL NORWEGIAN
BLACK METAL, BORN FROM THE ASHES OF CULT ACT, TULUS
PRESENTED ON THE VINYL FORMAT FOR THE FIRST TIME.Norwegian black
metal band Khold formed in Oslo in the year 2000, by Gard & Sarke (also known
from his own, self-named act, alongside Darkthrone's Nocturno Culto). Khold is
what emerged out of the ashes of the cult band, Tulus. Khold has recorded 6
albums to date & have successfully toured with bands such as Satyricon &
Behemoth in the past. Khold is also notable for their use of old Norse for songtitles & lyrics. 'Masterpiss Of Pain' was Khold's debut album, released in 2001 on
Moonfog Productions & was recorded at Panser Studios (Arcturus, Chrome
Division, Fleurety) in Oslo.
'Masterpiss Of Pain' also features a guest appearance by Galder (Old Man's Child,
Dimmu Borgir) on the track 'Rovnatt'.
This edition of 'Masterpiss Of Pain' is presented on the vinyl format for the first
time & contains inner sleeve with lyrics.

BBE Music presents the first ever reissue of ‘Classifieds’, an ultra-rare, privately pressed 1985 album by Moonshine aka Monica Rypma & Friends. A naive and charming dose of dreamy DIY synth-pop interspersed with off-kilter, ambient interludes, original copies of ‘Classifieds’ are now almost impossible to dig up, but lately, thanks to the internet, the album has earned a cult following from music obsessives all over the globe. Created by aspiring songwriter and recent music-school dropout Monica Rypma, incredibly the album’s recording and production was entirely financed from sponsorship and advertising, way back in 1985. Inspired by René Van Helsdingen, the Amsterdam based composer, pianist and crowd-funding pioneer, Monica decided to sell advertising space on the album sleeve and name the album 'Classifieds', designing the cover to mimic a newspaper’s small ads layout. Written and recorded in only 5 days with René Van Helsdingen collaborator, synth wizard and multi-instrumentalist Brian Batie producing, the album was engineered by Wil Hesen at Studio Farmsound in Heelsum. With Rypma assisting, Batie composed and arranged almost all of the music on the spot, and lyrics were dreamed up by Batie, Rypma and Brian’s friend Jenny Garner. With an album full of music she could be proud of, Monica called in help from friends and family to print, fold and assemble the albums. “The original cover sleeve had three coloured bands; yellow, green or pink” says Rypma. “These were not different pressings, as most people presumed, but came from the limited budget that was left for printing. As one ink ran out, another colour was used, and this method produced the three versions.” Once copies had been distributed to the record’s advertisers and sponsors, hardly any were left. Until now, that is!

Charlie Griffiths, guitarist for British Progressive Metal band Haken, proudly presents his debut solo album ‘Tiktaalika’. With musical roots still firmly in the progressive realm, Charlie draws from his love of old-school 80s thrash, 90s tech-metal and alternative rock. Running the gamut from melodic to avant-garde to straight-up heavy, you might say Tiktaalika bridges the gap between King Crimson and King Diamond! This concept album was 375 million years in the making, with the 9 tracks drawing inspiration from themes of geological time, fossilisation, transformation and humanity’s connections with each other and the planet we inhabit. The Griffiths-penned lyrics are given voice by some of the best vocalists in the business: Tommy Rogers (Between the Buried And Me), Danïel De Jongh (Textures), Vladimir Lalić (Organised Chaos) and Neil Purdy (Luna’s Call). The album also features a host of guest musicians: Drummer Darby Todd (Martin Barre, Frost, Devin Townsend), Keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) and Saxophonist Rob Townsend (Steve Hackett). The album was mixed by Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood and mastered by Ermin Hamidovic. The artwork was created by Dan Goldsworthy. Available as Limited CD, Gatefold 180g 2LP+CD & as Digital Album.

Charlie Griffiths, guitarist for British Progressive Metal band Haken, proudly presents his debut solo album ‘Tiktaalika’. With musical roots still firmly in the progressive realm, Charlie draws from his love of old-school 80s thrash, 90s tech-metal and alternative rock. Running the gamut from melodic to avant-garde to straight-up heavy, you might say Tiktaalika bridges the gap between King Crimson and King Diamond! This concept album was 375 million years in the making, with the 9 tracks drawing inspiration from themes of geological time, fossilisation, transformation and humanity’s connections with each other and the planet we inhabit. The Griffiths-penned lyrics are given voice by some of the best vocalists in the business: Tommy Rogers (Between the Buried And Me), Danïel De Jongh (Textures), Vladimir Lalić (Organised Chaos) and Neil Purdy (Luna’s Call). The album also features a host of guest musicians: Drummer Darby Todd (Martin Barre, Frost, Devin Townsend), Keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) and Saxophonist Rob Townsend (Steve Hackett). The album was mixed by Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood and mastered by Ermin Hamidovic. The artwork was created by Dan Goldsworthy. Available as Limited CD, Gatefold 180g 2LP+CD & as Digital Album.

Perhaps the best Soul / Funk LP Athens of the North has ever released and you know we have high standards, not one filler and mostly unreleased tracks – Essential LP

The Up Tights were formed by Henry Bradley in Forrest City, Arkansas in March of 1967 while most of the band members were attending Lincoln High School.They took their name from the Stevie Wonder song "Uptight - Everything's Alright." Playing at school functions, they quickly branched out to playing bigger shows and headlined the 1968 St. Francis County Fair in Forrest City.

The Up Tights first recorded for Action Records in Memphis as Noble and the Up Tights. The 45 featured an original song by singer, Izear "Ike" Noble Jr. titled "Don't Worry About It."

Henry Bradley was drafted into Vietnam in 1968. He served in the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. While he was away, the Up Tights continued with Henry's brother, Arthur, taking over all the guitar duties. The band also hired a manager named John Mitchell. In 1968, the band met Joe Lee, who owned Variety recording studio in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

For the band's first recordings at Variety, Lee chose two originals by Noble titled "Look a Little Higher" and an updated version of "Just a Dream" which Lee released on his Alley Records label in 1968. Lee continued to record the band over the next several months. He liked to experiment in the studio and produced many versions of the group's original songs, adjusting the mix and adding elements to each unique take.

For the group's second Alley release, they appeared simply as Ike Noble on the record label. Lee brought in a local songwriter named Charles "Jamie" Holmes, who had previously written for Alley records and Joe Keene's studio in Kennett, Missouri

The resulting 45 from this collaboration was "It's Bad" backed with "That's What I Get," two Holmes originals. Another Holmes original was unreleased at the time, but available here titled "There's Gonna Be a Better Day Coming." Stax Records was interested in signing the group and wanted to re-cut "It's Bad" at their studio, but ultimately the label passed since they generally had a policy of working with Memphis based groups.

As the band grew in popularity, they began appearing with and competing with Memphis legends, the Bar-Kays. The group's biggest show in Arkansas was an opening slot at Barton Coliseum, one of the largest venues in the state, in Little Rock in mid-1969. As a result, the band was offered a spot on George Klein's "Talent Party" television show on WHBQ in Memphis in July of 1969..... Further Sleeve notes on back of the LP