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Take a much-loved UK soul gem, Loose Ends classic from ‘85 ‘Hangin’ On A String’ and hand it to the godfather of house, Frankie Knuckles to work his unquestionable magic and there was no doubt the result would be a slice of house music heaven. South Street Records unlock the vaults once again, reissuing this melding of transatlantic minds presenting a triple threat that sees both Frankie’s 1992 Club Mix and the elusive Classic Club Reprise sit alongside the Loose Ends Original 12 Inch Mix, on either side of a 12 inch.

Taking the best of London’s soul and coupling it with the heart of Chicago, the master Frankie Knuckles purrs this one out across the highways with a slung-back house interpretation of ‘Hangin’ On A String’. A bumping beat, punchy bass line and effortless percussive touches give the perfect platform for Loose End’s vocal dynamics to provide a power, emotion and sincerity often lacking in modern dance music.

Flip it over to find the Classic Club Reprise - straight up sunset business with Frankie side-lining the vocals to let the instrumentation sing with added trademark flourishes in true spiritual style. Finally, the Original 12 Inch Mix gets a well-deserved inclusion which, back in 1985 was a true game changer bridging a multiplicity of scenes in the UK with its use of drum machines and synthesizers whilst maintaining that pure soul vibe. A track that topped the US Billboard R&B chart, making Loose Ends the first ever British band to do so, it’s a UK soul classic drenched in drum machine hits, soaring synths and crunchy guitar licks that’s infused with an ‘80s electro style and a quintessentially London flavour.

The thirteen song album has been remastered at the hallowed Abbey Road Studios in London from the original 1/4’ analog master tapes, and the vinyl processed with a new half speed lacquer cut to ensure the highest quality audio possible.
The bonus LP is a collection of outtakes of nearly every album track, including never before heard pre-production demo recordings, alternate mixes and arrangements, live material, an Archers of Loaf cover, as well as a newly recorded version of the album track ‘Caretaker’ which was recorded in 2019 on the literal last night in the house Stevenson grew up in, ten years after the song was originally written there.
The album features liner note essays written by musicians Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus who drew early inspiration for their own music and songwriting from the album. Also contributing liner notes are Pitchfork, NPR and Stereogum writer Nina Corcoran, as well Packaging: LP Deluxe edition, stoughton tip-on jacket gatefold w/ download card

Limited edition cloudy clear vinyl. Combining processed recordings of wind and water with analog synthesizers and chamber orchestra, Elori Kramer's The Blue of Distance is an audio dissertation on the role technology plays in our relationships to geography and nature, unspooling into an examination of memory and longing across seven sections that layer filmic minimalism over churning electronic soundbeds. Half of the suite was written in the Adirondack mountains during summer amid lakes, rivers, and moss-laden forest floors, while the other half was conceived on a frozen Lake Superior island in deep winter, creating a subtextual dialogue between the two extreme settings. Kramer, who was born in 1990 and grew up alongside the internet, uses her music to explore nature in the actual and the virtual world, through direct experience and facsimile alike, focussing and blurring the line between the two. "Looking back at my videos of that summer-- which is where the processed audio came from-- I tried to remember what it had felt like to be there," she recalls, "thinking about questions of reality versus imagination; physical versus digital; and the ways in which memory shifts through our minds and technology." The title The Blue of Distance was derived from Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, referring to the phenomenon of faraway mountains appearing blue due to light particles getting lost over distance. "If we were to go up to the mountains that appear blue from far away, we would see that they weren't actually that color." she says. "This beauty is made possible because of their distance," much in the same way that the splendor of a lush season is only fully realized in the throes of a bleak one, and the joy of an event can only be felt when it has long since been consigned to remembrance. R.I.Y.L Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Josiah Steinbrick, Emily Sprague

Album composed, recorded and mixed by Elko Blijweert. Mastered & cut by Frédéric Altstadt. Original cover artwork painted by Joe Brockerhoff. Album pressed on 180g vinyl, in an edition of 500 copies.

Here we add a new classic chapter to tradition. A tradition known as the many exotic sounds of Maestro Elko B. The multi instrumentalist member of bands like ‘The Horse Head Bed’, ‘The Groovecats Deluxe’, ‘Dino And The Chicks’ and many more has once again composed a new solo album for Ekster. This fine and tasty selection of musical pieces vibrate colourful echoes ranging from blossoming fountains over casino-esque gambling. Space-cowboys play hide and seek with childlike innocence in an adult world. Many of the songs on “Realm of Rides & Romance”
have found its origin in Blijweert’s work as a composer of soundtracks for theatre, dance performance and artistic installations. Cinematic reflections providing EXO “Paradise Moods” by this multitrack one man band.

Recorded from 2017 to 2020, Elko has expressed finding inspiration in chance, the Sphinx, the casino, the Decap organ, colonialism, bats and frogs.

Linus Hillborg’s solo debut Magelungsverket lures listeners through despaired soundscapes of justly tuned electroacoustic orchestral arrangements seeped in rich harmonic synthesis.

Magelungsverket is a rendering of materials from Hillborg’s own computer game hacking project, Orphan Works, where an obsolete game engine was modified to create an interactive installation in which participants drive through the purple midnight streets of a decrepit and abandoned Stockholm. The game's generative soundtrack interacts with the player’s haphazard navigation of a ceaseless digital void of factories, housing projects, run down bars, ditches and lakes. Displaced, uncanny narratives and depictions of both real and semi-fictional locations in Stockholm that could have existed - but do not - procures distinct sequences of sound constructed with the Buchla 200 system, programmed synthesis, bowed cymbals, metal clarinet and tape machines.

The rendered pieces on Magelungsverket have been adapted from Orphan Works’ interactive and generative material into separate, fixed compositions, bound by duration, each one named after a location in this fictional, virtual Stockholm. For instance, Vårbergsobservatoriet (The Vårberg Observatory), draws its name from an artificial mountain that exists in the outskirts of Stockholm, amidst the sprawl of residential areas far beyond the sparkling city center. It was built from garbage scraps left behind after the underground metro system was constructed in the 1970s. In this fictional version, a public observatory was wishfully imagined to have been built on top of it. However fictitious Hillborg has imagined these locations, it is a bittersweet reflection and fragmented mental image of a Stockholm that never existed. Magelungsverket will be released on the 4th of December in a limited run of 200 black vinyls and across digital platforms.

Linus Hillborg (b. 1989, Stockholm) is a composer, musician and sound artist based in Stockholm, operating in numerous fields, ranging from experimental musics and audio-visual installations to post-punk and noise formations.

“Instead of landscape sketches I wanted to go into more personal areas of my reality,” says Jim Ghedi of his third album In The Furrows Of Common Place. “To hold up certain aspects of society that were laying bare in front of me.”

Whilst Ghedi’s previous idiosyncratic take on folk has often been instrumental, exploring the natural world and his relationship to it through his music as seen on 2018's A Hymn For Ancient Land. His new album In The Furrow Of Common Place is a deeper plunge inside himself to offer up more of his voice to accompany his profoundly unique and moving compositions. “There were things I was seeing around me and being affected by in my daily life,” he says. “Socially and politically I saw defiance but also hopelessness. I wanted to be honest with the frustration and turmoil I was experiencing.”

The decision to include more of Ghedi’s vocals was a conscious one and driven by a need to say something. However, this isn’t a brash raging political polemic. As is now customary with Ghedi’s work, it is rich in nuance, history, poetry and allegory. Musically, the album is equally locked into this ongoing sense of evolution. Ghedi’s intricate yet deft guitar playing still twists and flows its way through the core, weaving in and out of gliding double bass, sweeping violin, gentle percussion and vocals that shift from tender solos to overlapping harmonies.

As with much of Ghedi’s work, there’s a rich connection between the past and the current. Musically, he continues to sit in a singular position of sounding distinctly contemporary yet also with a touch of traditional flair. This expands itself into the lyrical terrain here too. “I've been exploring contemporary issues and in that process discovering sources that correlate with similar issues in the past,” he says. “Which proves that these issues throughout history - environmental destruction, working class poverty etc - are ongoing.”

For all the socio-political and historical backdrop to the record it is not one that feels overwhelmed by it. Much like Ghedi’s work when it was largely instrumental - and some of it still is here - it flows and unfurls thoughtfully, with space still being utilised masterfully, creating room to pause and reflect. It’s another inimitable record from an artist that truly sounds like nobody else right now.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”

Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.

Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

In a time where everyone from Whitney Houston to Frank Zappa have been re-created in hologram form, where Grimes recently suggested in an interview that “we were at the end of human art”; there could scarcely be a better time for genre-shifting Leeds-based six-piece Team Picture to bring forth the thrillingly expansive synth-pop opus of their debut album The Menace of Mechanical Music.

Inspired by an early 20th century essay under the same name by American marching band leader John Philip Sousa, Team Picture take a look at the automation of creativity on this, their first record with a fully settled line up. Themes centre around the value of creative identity in an automated age, the increasingly disposable nature of art and where that leaves its creators. At twelve songs split into a three-part suite; The Menace of Mechanical Music is emphatically maximalist.

Tracks like the breathy, twinkling Flowerpots, Electric Beds and Handsome Machines’ Icarus-like striving for the sun are an antidote to a music world awash with digital production manipulation and songs written to algorithm. In debating the loosening of the human grip on creativity, Team Picture have poured every last drop of emotion into the recording process.

The group’s now trademark three-way vocal delivery and blurring of textures takes on new structure and purpose. They’ve always had a self-awareness to themselves, too. Initially grouped in with the guitar psych crowd, thanks to their fledgling repeato-rock, they were quick to disassociate themselves from that on 2018's mini-album Recital. With The Menace of Mechanical Music, they expand their sound further still, pirouetting from the likes of Sleeptype Auction – which glimmers like a late 80’s 4AD artefact – through various FX-laden dreamscapes, to the squelchy post-punk of closer Quit Reading. Yet the group were as much influenced by the work of the Early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, and his triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, as they were music touchstones ranging from Kate Bush, Cass McCombs and The Cure.

It’s Sousa words that resonate most deeply within the record however: “The fears of Sousa echo the fears of today's musician,” says Lewis of the late band leader’s 1907 text. “The re-appropriation of funds and support that the artist needs to survive, the gradual erosion of musicianship and self-improvement, that art will become disposable, and that our cultural identity will disappear.”

Recorded with producer Matt Peel (W.H Lung, Eagulls), half the group were unemployed during the session and a daily routine would see them undertake universal credit meetings and job interviews in the morning, before heading to the studio to work into the night. “It was an anxious process but an enjoyable one” says the band’s guitarist Josh Lewis. Indeed, beyond the increasingly golden gated idea of ‘making it’ as an artist, this new album is simply about surviving as one.
Sousa’s vision of a society that had deferred to automation, where babies were rocked to sleep by wheels and pulleys, and people no longer played piano with their own hands. Well over 100 years later and on the precipice of a technological shift never seen before, The Menace of Mechanical Music is the most human response that Team Picture could have given.

Following the 2020 release of RoundAgain, Nonesuch reissues on vinyl Joshua Redman's first album with his own band — pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade — originally released in 1994. MoodSwing was Redman’s third recording as a band leader and his first featuring all-original compositions. The young saxophonist sought to change what he believed to be the public perception of jazz — a largely academic and overly intellectualized form of music devoid of the emotional themes that drive many other genres. As he explains in the original liner notes, jazz was seen as, “an elite art form, reserved for a sophisticated intelligentsia who rendezvous in secret.” With MoodSwing, Redman makes the case that jazz can be an accessible musical medium that could evoke basic and visceral emotional reactions.

From the playfully coy ‘Chill’ to the urgent energy of ‘Rejoice’, Redman offers up a communicative and inspired record ofemotional diversity. Joining him in this task was a young band of his peers, all of whom have since become established and esteemed figures in jazz. MoodSwing was one of the first exposures the jazz community had to young pianist Brad Mehldau, then beginning his career in Redman’s quartet. Mehldau anchors these compositions behind Redman’s lyrical playing, occasionally stepping out front to show his talents in ‘The Oneness of Two (In Three)’ and ‘Past in the Present’. The band’s rhythm section has since been recognized as one of jazz’s best, with Christian McBride on bass, and then little-known Brian Blade on the drums.

As the follow-up to his breakout Wish, MoodSwing was universally praised by critics and enjoyed commercial success, selling over 300,000 units worldwide. Entertainment Weekly wrote, ‘saxist Redman finds ingenious ways of creating a modeof acoustic jazz that is both entertaining and enlightening.’ This record continues to provide a cornerstone for Redman’s currentcareer; many of these compositions are still featured in the saxophonist’s live sets today.

Redman’s previously announced European summer 2020 tour dates with Mehldau, McBride and Blade have been rescheduled for 2021, including London’s Barbican, now on July 11.

THERION have always been a band that have challenged themselves to explore new paths, while remaining true to their musical core values. For their 17th studio album, mastermind Christofer Johnsson and his collaborator Thomas Vikström have created something that has been previously unthinkable to the guitarist and the singer. "We have done the only thing that was left of all the different angles to explore", explains Christofer. "We have decided to give the people what they kept asking for. 'Leviathan' is the first album that we have deliberately packed with THERION hit songs."

True to the Swede's words, the album opens with the catchy and swift tune 'The Leaf Of The Oak Of Far' featuring female and male antiphonal singing as well as a choir that seems to have evolved straight out of THERION's breakthrough full-length "Theli" (1996). This is immediately followed by the obvious highlight 'Tuonela', in which Christofer cleverly underscores this hit-track's Finnish vibe by employing NIGHTWISH’s "metal voice" Marko Hietala. Next up in this parade of future fan-favourites is the title track 'Leviathan' that offers classic THERION material with operatic female vocals and a massive choir.

Christofer Johnsson's passion for classic voices, choirs, and orchestral elements as well as his penchant for epic melodies in combination with rock and metal shines clearly through the following sing-along ballad 'Die Wellen Der Zeit', which indicates another nod to German romantic composer Richard Wagner. "Ever since 'Theli', Wagner has been and will always be at the core of THERION", emphasises Christofer. "When we started to combine metal and opera, it was something new and original. Today, symphonic metal has long been a firmly established genre."

When THERION came into being in 1988 by changing name from the already existing band BLITZKRIEG, which was founded a year earlier, Christofer had rather taken inspiration from SLAYER's "Reign In Blood" among other classic metal albums. At the beginning, the Swedes were firmly rooted in death metal, a genre which they helped to define, as witnessed by their debut album "Of Darkness...." (1991). Yet even back then, there were hints of "something else" lurking beneath the rough surface.

The use of female vocals is another core ingredient of THERION today, which developed gradually. CELTIC FROST had basically introduced the female element to extreme metal on "To Mega Therion" in 1985. THERION began with both a female and male vocalist emulating a church like choir already in their sophomore full-length 'Beyond Sanctorum' (1992). With Symphony "Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas" (1993) and "Lepaca Kliffoth" (1995), Christofer continued to developed his trademark sound by gradually drifting towards cleaner vocals and more keyboards. With "Theli", the Swedes had firmly established a reputation of pushing the boundaries of metal in the 90s – among such acts as their compatriots TIAMAT, THE GATHERING, and MOONSPELL that were often referred to as "gothic metal" at the time.
THERION continued to break new ground leaving inspiration for others to follow in their wake: On "A'arab Zaraq - Lucid Dreaming" (1997), Christofer further explored the use of Near Eastern music in metal which he had already begun in 1992, while "Secret Of The Runes" (2001) dared to have Swedish lyrics in some songs. While critics were left confused and fans challenged, THERION were often ahead of their times and vindicated in hindsight. Even the band's 25th anniversary excursion "Les Fleurs Du Mal" has by now overcome the initial shock the album caused and is only beaten in terms of streaming by the classic "Vovin" (1998).
When Christofer faced the question of where to go next after the dramatic "Beloved Antichrist" (2018) had finally fulfilled his musical mission, his answer is "Leviathan" named after a giant sea monster from Judeo-Christian myth that has roots in Babylonic lore: THERION have created a giant hit album – and for the first time in the history of the Swedes, their fans are not asked to explore something new, but simply to lean back and enjoy the best from their band!

"Goodmorning. I wish you, a merry merry christmas. As you sit by the fire. I see your sadness on your face. You hear the funny bells inside your head. And I do look into your pretty eyes. So gray. The Funny Bells. You are my friend. Today." au

Generative music seems to imply a systems approach to music, or a system that once created can utilise randomness in a creative way. The benevolence of nature’s creativity belies this musical term, and can flip the word ‘generative’ to mean to involve constantly flowing creativity with purpose. In Europe there was a time in the Pagan Renaissance when architecture would mirror nature’s generative quality. Sculptures and columns were to imply animation or movement.

That’s where Milan W.’s album comes through in 2020. His music involves the night shadows of Europe’s architecture and its growth. In Bloom personifies itself by showing Antwerp’s influential ‘Night Play’: a term that can relate to many European cities such as Bologna, Vienna, and so on and so on. The leftovers of Renaissance and gothic architecture are everywhere in Europe still; layers of ruins that can generate the impression of simultaneous time periods. Tracks like Spa and Helium Queen reveal and revel in the power of shadow movement that is generated by the night. In Milan W.’s past works, the poignant and simple creative play of dark wave and synth beat music was his vehicle for expression, but now on In Bloom he departs to a touching sidereal impressionism allied with Coil’s instrumental pieces on Horse Rotorvator — an album whose cover portrays the potential powers of the pavilion just as Milan W. is portraying the generative soul and alienation of Europe’s ‘Night Play’. Because of In Bloom we can come to believe that there is a secretive energy in alienation, a playfulness that is alight at Night.

This reissue of pianist Dave Brubeck’s classic 1959 album ‘Time Out’
features the classic quartet of Brubeck with Paul Desmond on alto sax, Eugene Wright on bass and drummer Joe Morello.
The bonus album is ‘Countdown - Time In Outer Space’ recorded in 1961 by the same line-up. The 20-page booklet contains complete information with specially prepared liner notes by Penguin Guide to Jazz’s writer Brian Morton and by France’s prestigious Jazz Magazine. “Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet has never lost its power of fascination. On these unforgettable tunes, Dave Brubeck and his alter ego Paul Desmond seem to be painting a canvas. Every note is like a touch of colour, expertly distilled, subtly hypnotic, ideally thought. “ Jazz Magazine

Recorded and produced sometime, somewhere between the back streets of Hackney, Margate and Sydney, this release brings together 4 deep and diverse tracks from UK producer Mike Misiu (previously seen on Razor n Tape and Pleasure Unit among others). It also marks the maiden musical voyage of his new label Heads High.

Opening track 'Darkness Falls' floats a dramatic filtered string section over a driving dub-disco-house beat, spacey synth plucks and euphoric swells.

Track 2 'Cascade' builds on a tumbling synth bass and moody chord stabs with jazzy rhodes, strings and filtered vocals to create an infectious shuffling deep House groove.

On the B side 'For Your Love' is a bubbling psychedelic cauldron of hypnotic synths, piano lines and soulful vocal echoes which come together as a driving electro-discoid-funk jam.

Closing out the E.P. is 'Bala' is an uplifting percussive number with a vibe that transports you to an Afro-cosmic dancefloor beyond the stars.

The music of CARM features horns in roles typically reserved for drums, guitars, and voices, while also escaping the genre categorizations reserved for music featuring an instrumentalist as bandleader. It is not jazz or classical music, nor is it a soundtrack. This is contemporary popular music that features a sound normally used as a background color and texture as the unabashed lead voice. According to CARM, aka CJ Camerieri, "It started with the question: `What kind of record would my trumpet-playing heroes from the past make today?' I believe they would want to work with the best producers, beat makers, song-writers, and singers to create new, truly culturally relevant music, and that's what I sought to do with this project." Produced in Minneapolis by Ryan Olson ( Polica , Lizzo ) and featuring collaborations with Sufjan Stevens , Justin Vernon ( Bon Iver ), Yo La Tengo , Shara Nova , Mouse on Mars , Francis and the Lights and many others. It is a completely unique sound that additionally serves as a survey of the collaborations that have come to define the artist's career thus far. Says Vernon, "I truly believe there isn't a more accomplished brass player in the entire world of music. And this is way more than a 'horn' record. It's a discovery of new heights with what is possible in creating music." The album begins with an orchestral brass choir of french horns, which quickly gives way to a piano sample from Francis, as Stevens and Lupin combine voices over a lush bed of horns to sing "Song of Trouble." The album bookends with the same piano sample used as a springboard to an iconic lyric by Vernon in the album closer "Land." Between these two generation-defining artists we have upward sweeping melodies and fanfares reminiscent of Ennio Morricone . The acutely original sound of Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo in "Already Gone" give way to the virtuoso sound of Nova's voice. A more experimental path emerges before the strings from yMusic bring us back to the piano sample that started the record. Instead of recycling well-trodden sounds, CARM offers a respite for those seeking an original voice.

Gidge - the Swedish duo consisting of Ludvig Stolterman and Jonatan Nilsson - return with their new album “New Light” on November 6th. Marking their 5th release on Atomnation, this LP can be seen as their second full-length album to date, following up 2014’s mythical “Autumn Bells” LP. Their discography furthermore includes short-film “Lulin” (in collaboration with Lampray), mini-album “LNLNN”, and debut EP “For Seoul”.

Tibor Szemző returns with a new album, based on the music for his film about historic figure Alexander Csoma.

Tibor Szemző is a Hungarian composer, performer, media artist. Recently his album Snapshots From The Island (1987) gained renewed interest. Over the years Tibor Szemzo continued composing classical / electronic works. His pieces often include spoken texts, film and other media. He creates installations and composes music for his own and others’ films.

Csoma, his new album, is based on the music for this film about Alexander Csoma. Alexander set up to research the origin of the Hungarians 200 years ago. During his student years, before he enrolled in college, he and two fellow students vowed to go to Central Asia to discover the origins of their nation. In the first thirty-five years of his life, he spent his humble pilgrimage in Asia traveling and studying with Buddhist priests in Tibet in isolation, and devoted the remaining eleven years of his life to publishing some of the material he had collected in India.

Now on the 200th anniversary, Szemző’s Cinematic Opera wishes to pay tribute to Alexandar Csoma. Over the course of two vinyl sides classical and acoustic instruments are mixed with angelic voices, spoken word in German, Hungarian & English. Sounding like vintage Tibor Szemzo compositions, vividly performed by the Gordian Knot Company and the Voces Aequales Ensemble.

Early summer 2019, João Lobo started recording his compositions at les Ateliers Claus in Brussels, with guitarist Norberto Lobo, bassist Soet Kempeneer and recording engineer Christophe Albertijn. The recording sessions were planned over the course of one week, however the job was mostly done in just a few takes. With the addition of some overdubs, the whole process was finalised in a spontaneous wave. It is too simplistic to define Joao Lobo’s compositions with one term, and the association of the album “Simorgh” with this ingenious partnership’s new creations, is inevitable.

While the mix of genres and styles may be easy to distinguish, the focus centres on the result of the mixing: a highly grooving and an occasionally paused and introspective music that seems out of time and out of space. It is difficult to grasp or define a specific period in time or a geographic origin in this fusion of references, as what you listen to is a bold creation of original and surprising elements. Drummers – such as João Lobo – employ a multi-layered concept in their music, weaving the different tracks into a linear wash of sound. He plays the song with the drum set while the other members fly in and out of the compositions, always gathering around their phoenix in order to attain enlightenment.

What João Lobo and many of his contemporaries are up to, can be explained through simple terms as a future exploration of the emotionally expressive possibilities of sound. It breaks away from the conventional order providing space for the discovery of a new order. Simultaneously it allows a more profound and broader expression of what the current reality of music is and represents. It was instantly clear for me that we had to share his music with our audience and create this medium for happiness.

This release is the trio’s debut record, which is the impetus for their personal development in the realisation that features João as a mentor in the creation process. The featured compositions highlight the musicians’ unique physical aspect to control their instruments and their hidden techniques that underlying these tracks. The result is an ongoing aural interplay. It was love at first sound.

This album is a co-release between Les Albums Claus and Shhpuma.

Elzhi, the “Syllable Sensei,” is back again with a highly anticipated release titled “Seven Times Down Eight Times Up,” This 12-track LP is a collage of memories and metaphors layered atop beats crafted by up-and-coming producer JR Swiftz. With collabs from Detroit artists, Monica Blaire and Fes Rock on two of the album's stand-out tracks, Elzhi’s new masterpiece showcases his ability to create meaningful concepts while Detroit’s own comedian and “Real Hip Hop Advocate” Foolish provides commentary throughout the album.
As one of Elzhi’s most cohesive releases to date, his wordsmithing abilities paint images of royalty, excellence, and zombies wearing Gucci, all with an underlying message of resilience. “Seven times Down Eight Times Up” is the mantra for a year that has seen lots of “downs,” and reminds us that no matter what we're faced with, we will remain undefeated, and get back up after being knocked down by this machete-wielding maniac we call “life.”

Southern Lord announce Crush The Machine, the debut EP from West Coast hardcore punk collective D.E.A (Dead End America), formed by the late, great Steve "Thee Slayer Hippy" Hanford of Poison Idea, with current and former members of Queens Of The Stone Age, Eyehategod, The Accüsed A.D, World Of Lies, Ape Machine, and more.

Captured before Hanford’s passing earlier this year, D.E.A's debut shall be released on 7" and digital EP on 30th October (Non-Returnable) Recording details, liner notes from Mark Lanegan and more info below.

Crush The Machine sees the primary writers, drummer/vocalist Steve Hanford and guitarist Tony Avila (World of Lies, Why Won't You Die, Aborted Cop, Here's Your Warning) joined by lead guitarist Ian Watts (Ape Machine, Minmae) and bassist/vocalist Nick "Rex Everything" Oliveri (Mondo Generator, The Dwarves, ex-Kyuss, ex-Queens Of The Stone Age), with additional lyrics and vocals from Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod, Corrections House, Outlaw Order) and Blaine Cook (The Accüsed A.D, The Fartz, Toe Tag).

"A perfectly appropriate title for this 7 inch EP of jack-hammering, oldschool style hardcore tunes released by Southern Lord, written and played by a rogues gallery of real deal music lifers as a condemnation of the criminal Trump administration and republican party, in the same spirit of those by-gone days when Ronald Reagan or George Bush was the crooked, self-serving president of the crumbling United States empire. Never before has there been a more obvious target, as Donald Trump and his mafia family cabinet rape the country while Rome burns. D.E.A. is Tony Avila, Ian Watts, Nick Oliveri, Mike IX, Blaine Cook and the legendary and beloved, late producer and drummer of Poison Idea, Steve "Thee Slayer Hippy" Hanford. Dying shortly before the completion of this record, it stands as a final testament to his genius, one last hot-wired blast of his epic musical brilliance."

Mark Lanegan
Los Angeles
August, 2020

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

It seems that every major jazz artist has a one-off sort of record in their discography, be it with strings, voices, spoken word or - as in this case - a foray into the funkier side of jazz. Charlie Rouse (going here as Charles Rouse) gets his chance on Two Is One, a funky soul jazz excursion on Strata-East, the artist-run label where creativity and pushing boundaries was at the forefront. Playing mostly with a group of session musicians, Rouse put together an album that may stray a bit from his hard bop roots, but is nonetheless an enjoyable and at times inventive record. The style of music played here - sophisticated soul jazz with some post bop and spiritual jazz thrown in for good measure - is very much a product of it's time. 1974 saw a whole slew of artists stretching the boundaries of what jazz music could be, combining elements from the past two decades into electric jazz adventures. The piano-less group that Rouse put together is a funky one, with lots of rhythmic playing behind either the searching solos of Rouse on the tenor or some inventive electric guitar work from either George Davis or Paul Metzke who appear together on all but a couple of tracks. Cal Scott gets plenty of time to shine throughout on what sounds like an electrified cello, an unusual instrument for modern jazz to be sure, but one that manages to fit in just fine here.

The first side of the album is all slow burning soul jazz, highlighted by the opening track "Bitchin'" where Rouse shows off that he is more than capable of setting down soulful lines over a funky backbeat. The second side is where the group gets a whole lot more inventive, particularly on the title track where they mix some post bop madness with the soul jazz sound. "Two Is One" features different tempos throughout: in the "first section" the bass plays in 9/8 time, the drums in 6/8 time and the cello and tenor are in 3/4 time. For the "second section" the rhythm section switches to 7/8 time while cello and tenor move to 4/4 time. Stanley Clarke is on bass here and his deep and twisty electric bass line is placed prominently up front.

"Two Is One" is certainly the highlight of the album from a pure jazz standpoint, and it lives up to it's title, which according to Gene Lewis' liner notes is taken from a Thelonious Monk phrase meaning two people so in tune with one another that they become one. The album finishes off with "In His Presence Searching," a spiritually informed jazz number that is reminiscent of the work being done during this period by the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Gary Bartz, (while not being quite as out there as their best work). The tune is all rhythmic glory, with Rouse and Scott playing introspective and penetrating solos throughout. It's a nice album closer, and a good reminder that while Two Is One may be best known for it's funkier excursions, Rouse had a few tricks up his sleeve and the album, when taken as a whole, is a complete statement from a legendary jazz musician.

In 1978 Pharoah Sanders went into the studio with pianist, Ed Kelly, who was an important figure in the local San Francisco and Oakland jazz scene. The two of them recorded six tracks which ranged from covers of standards, through soul jazz through to two real gems. The album was originally released as Ed Kelly and Friend due to Pharoah being contracted to Arista Records at the time. Indeed, as you can see, the cover shows Kelly playing next to Pharoah’s hat, shoes and Selmer tenor saxophone.

Rainbow Song, a Kelly composition, opens matters in a manner far removed from Pharoah’s work on his Impulse albums (although there had been a dramatic change of course when he signed with Arista and recorded). This is firmly in Grover Washington Junior territory with a liberal sprinkling of oh so tasteful strings. The Master’s sound is full and mighty as ever.

With the radio track out of the way it is business as hoped for and Newborn is a Sanders composition that burns with intensity. The power of his solo is as good as anything he has produced and he runs over the full span of the tenor’s range and onwards into territory lesser known or explored by 99% of sax players.

Sam Cooke’s You Send Me is treated with reverence and respect, with Pharoah delivering a sensitive and heartfelt rendition and ending with some extraordinary phonics, which we will meet again on later albums. Kelly’s accompaniment complements Sander’s playing before he receives his own space for a shimmering yet restrained solo which discloses what this non-pianist assumes to be an agile right hand.

Answer Me My Love is an early 50’s ballad with a fascinating back story. On its initial release in post-war Britain, covers of this fine melody stirred sufficient controversy for the song to be banned by the BBC. What led to it being barred from broadcast on the Light Programme and treated like Anarchy For The UK, Wet Dream and Give Ireland Back To The Irish? I can reveal that the reason for this draconian action was that the original version was entitled ‘Answer Me, My Lord’. In the olden days, it seems that a direct appeal to God was considered to be blasphemous- especially if set in a secular or selfish. Further research indicates that Nat King Cole made the most celebrated recording and that Bob Dylan used to sing it live in the 1990’s, presumably during his overtly Christian phase. Anyway, it is a grand tune.

Pharoah went on to record at least three studio versions of his great anthem You’ve Got To Have Freedom but the one here is the earliest incarnation that I am aware of. It is also the most restrained treatment of the theme, although Pharoah’s solo shows his ability to play with fire and power over the entire range of the horn. There’s plenty of space for Kelly’s piano too and he provides an elegant setting for Sanders’ exploratory work.

Following the November 20th 2020 release on CD and digital, Fogerty’s Factory is now being made available on vinyl.
This album is a ‘time capsule’ of the Fogerty’s Factory sessions that John Fogerty and Family have been sharing on YouTube and with various media during lockdown.
All tracks were recorded since the beginning of March 2020, and feature John along with his children, Shane, Tyler and Kelsy Fogerty. Shane and Tyler together are BMG frontline signing Hearty Har.
Seven of the tracks have never been available commercially before - the other 5 have only been made available digitally as part of the Fogerty’s Factory EP released in May 2020.

A never before issued recording of Horace Tapscott leading his legendary Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, 'Live at Century City Playhouse 9/9/79' documents the entirety of a 2 hours performance, sprawling across glorious 3 LPs, that rises as one of the most beautiful, striking, and historically important records of the year. A joyous explosion of sound, seeded by social, political, and community-based action, at the juncture of spiritual and free jazz, this one's a 10 out of 10 and not to be missed.

Kurt Vile’s ‘Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep)’ was recorded and mixed in sporadic sessions that spanned four years at The Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville, TN. It includes five songs - covers of John Prine and “Cowboy” Jack Clement as well as two originals - and was recorded alongside a cast of local heavies like Bobby Wood, Dave Roe and Kenny Malone, with Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf) tossed into the mix as well.

Most importantly, it features what KV has called “Probably the single most special musical moment in my life” - a duet with the late John Prine on the songwriter’s well-loved tune, ‘How Lucky’. “The truth is John was my hero for a long time when he came into The Butcher Shoppe to recut one of his deepest classics with me. And, man, I was floating and flying and I couldn’t hear anything he told me while he was there till after he was gone for the night,” notes Vile in a personal statement that accompanies the record. “A couple nights later we were playing ‘How Lucky’ together again; this time onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on New Year's Eve at the turn of 2020. Nothing like seeing John and his band of musical brothers and family and friends playing into the new decade in front of an adoring audience on that stage in Nashville, TN... and, yup, that’s just how lucky we all got that night."

Remastered by Bob Weston, ‘Mountains’ comes back to us as a gold foil-embossed gatefold double LP and includes the previously unreleased original takes of ‘Return to Pirates’, ‘Poison Moon’ and ‘Killed by the Telephone’, which were delivered along with the original master tapes 20 years ago but were omitted from the final album.

The record is completed by a newly recorded orchestral version of ‘Valley of One Thousand Perfumes’ produced by composer Joe Wong (Russian Doll, Midnight Gospel) and mixed by Dave Fridmann.

At the turn of the Century, Timony (Ex Hex, Wild Flag, Hammered Hulls) was already a celebrated presence in American underground music - a fixture of D.C. and Boston rock ’n’ roll via her work in Autoclave and Helium respectively. By 1998, though, Helium was drawing to a close and Timony was feeling uncertain about the future. “I had never been good at the rock ‘n’ roll business, and making a living from being in a band just didn't seem like it was in the realm of possibility for me,” she writes. “I just knew I wanted to make another record because that was the part of being in a band that I liked the most.”

“If you have a vacancy for Favourite New Band, Pom Poko would like to apply for the role,” tweeted Tim Burgess in April, as Norway’s finest punkpop anti-conformists revisited their joyous debut album, ‘Birthday’, for one of Tim’s mood-lifting Twitter listening parties. Pom Poko pimp their CV on all fronts with their glorious second album, ‘Cheater’. Between the quartet’s sweet melodies, galvanic punky ructions and wild-at-art-rock eruptions, ‘Cheater’ is the sound of a band celebrating the binding extremes that make them so uniquely qualified to thrill: and, like Tim’s listening party, to fulfil any need you might have for a pick-you-up.

As singer Ragnhild Fangel explains of the leap from ‘Birthday’ to ‘Cheater’, “I think it’s very accurate to say that we wanted to embrace our extremes a bit more. In the production process I think we aimed more for some sort of contrast between the meticulously written and arranged songs and a more chaotic execution and recording, but also let ourselves explore the less frantic parts of the Pom Poko universe. I think both in the more extreme and painful way, and in the sweet and lovely way, this album is kind of amplified.”

The sound of four distinct personalities driving in divergent directions towards one destination, the result is an evolved snapshot of the bracingly contrary chemistry forged when Fangel, Tonne, Jonas Krøvel (bass) and Ola Djupvik (drums) united to play punk during a jazz gig at a literature festival in Trondheim (the band-members studied jazz there).

Along the way, the band drew praise from NME, Interview Magazine, DIY, PopMatters, The Line Of Best Fit, The Independent and BBC Radio 6, where Miranda Sawyer was moved to note that “‘Birthday’s ‘Crazy Energy Night’ seems to contain about 20 songs in one.” Meanwhile, a huge touring schedule included countless sold-out headline shows and a rapturously received UK jaunt with Ezra Furman.

‘Cheater’ does its predecessor proud on every front. Bursting with colour and wonky life from its cover art (by close collaborator Erlend Peder Kvam) outwards, it differs from ‘Birthday’ primarily in that its songs did not have a chance to be road-tested before going into the studio. But you wouldn’t know it. As Ragnhild explains, “That meant we had to practice the songs in a more serious way, but it also meant the songs had more potential to change when we recorded them since we didn’t have such a clear image of what each song should/could be as the last time.”

140g clear vinyl LP with PVC printed outer sleeve and digital download code.

It was inside Jeff Tweedy’s second home, The Loft in Chicago, that Love Is The King was recorded in April of 2020. Surrounded by an assemblage of treasured instruments and loved ones in a world that felt more and more alien by the day.

Out on dBpm Records, Love Is The King, a “beautifully honest ode to love and hope,” is the follow-up to 2018’s WARM and 2019’s WARMER, and comes on the heels of Tweedy’s second book, How To Write One Song, out October 13th via Penguin Random House's Dutton. “At the beginning of the lockdown I started writing country songs to console myself. Folk and country type forms being the shapes that come most easily to me in a comforting way. 'Guess Again' is a good example of the success I was having at pushing the world away, counting my blessings — taking stock in my good fortune to have love in my life,” comments Tweedy. “A few weeks later things began to sound like 'Love Is The King' — a little more frayed around the edges with a lot more fear creeping in. Still hopeful but definitely discovering the limits of my own ability to self soothe." –Jeff Tweedy

In unserer heutigen Kultur der permanenten öffentlichen Entblößung ist es selten, dass Künstler sich dazu entschließen sich am Licht der Öffentlichkeit vorbeizuschleichen. Das maskierte, schwedische Psych-Kollektiv GOAT ist da eine Ausnahme und wohl eines der großartigsten Popkultur-Mysterien der Welt. Ihr neues Album "Requiem" wirft dabei mehr Fragen auf als dass es sie beantwortet. Die einzige Erklärung, die die Band zu ihrem neuen Album abgibt ist, dass es sich dabei um ein "Folk-Album" handele und es sich mehr auf idyllischen Ritualismus als auf Acid-Freakouts konzentriere. Songs wie "Try My Robe" beschwören wieder einmal das heißblütige Pulsieren herauf, das uns schon 2012 mit "World Music" und 2014 mit "Commune" verführt hat.

DAUW present the release of What the Fog, the second album of David Allred & Peter Broderick. The album is a follow-up of their first full-length LP Find the Ways, which was released through Erased Tapes in 2017.

The music itself was originally composed as a soundtrack for an 11-hours slow motion journey in the Louvre museum in Paris. The title, #monalisa, can be interpreted as a new way of perceiving art through technology and social media such as Twitter or Instagram. The movie is directed by Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott and tries to make us more aware of the presence of technology in our lives as well as the way we experience an exhibition or art itself. The album is a 42-minutes extraction of the 11-hours journey they went through. Each track is built in a way that makes it possible for the listener to travel from one place to the other, as if you were walking in the museum yourself. In that way, the record can even be perceived as a music documentary.

Being completely instrumental, What the Fog distinguishes itself from their first album in which the voices of both artists held a central place. Nevertheless, in line with an earlier observation from Clash Magazine, the music still combines minimalism and serenity to construct intense pieces of music.

“It presents a moment of calm that uses sparsity to create something quietly intense.” (Clash Magazine on their debut album)

Born in Maine, raised in Oregon, Peter Broderick learned to play several instruments such as piano, banjo and violin. In 2007 he joined the Danish ensemble Efterklang on their tour and had numerous collaborations with artists such as Machinefabriek and Nils Frahm. His most recent release Blackberry was released this August through Erased Tapes. It marked his first vocal album in 5 years and once again showed the variety in his ever growing repertoire.

In a relatively short period of time, Portland-based musician and multi-instrumentalist David Allred showed his songwriting capabilities through several releases on Oscarson and Erased Tapes. Besides his own music, he played as a session musician for several artists and ensembles such as Heather Woods Broderick, Masayoshi Fujita and The Beacon Sound Choir. His most recent album Felt the Transition sees the light late December 2020 through Erased Tapes.

While Joe Henderson seemed to arrive fully formed on his auspicious 1963 debut Page One, the album was really a showcase for the transcendent collaboration between the tenor saxophonist and trumpeter Kenny Dorham who would form a potent frontline team on numerous mid-60s Blue Note classics.

Page One opens with a pair of indelible Dorham compositions (“Blue Bossa” and “La Mesha”), with the balance of the six-song set penned by Henderson including his enduring theme “Recorda-Me.” Dazzling performances by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Butch Warren, and drummer Pete La Roca further elevate this album making it one of the crown jewels of the Blue Note catalog.

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

"When Candy Opera first appeared on the kaleidoscopic early 1980s Liverpool music scene, by rights they should have changed the world" ~ Louder Than War
"Very welcome news as a highly underrated band who is now back with a force. While their previous output is stellar, this new single is even more commanding of attention. This is absolutely stunning, the band reaching higher than ever before" ~ Big Takeover Magazine
Sometimes it takes a while to realise what you’ve got. So it goes with pop craftsmen Candy Opera, who emerged during Liverpool’s 1980s golden age and whose new LP 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' is their first collection of new material in nearly three decades.
Ahead of that, they present 'These Days Are Ours', a rally cry of hope for the current times and the first single from this long-play, which is due for release in mid-November via European / UK label A Turntable Friend Records. The video was created / produced by James
Davies and Paul Malone.
Mixed by Grammy award-winning producer Guy Massey and featuring back vocals by Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans, the track was recorded at Elevator Studios in Liverpool.
With all the hallmarks of an enduring pop anthem, this impeccably produced, adrenalin-fuelled song captures the essence of Candy Opera’s infectious energy and celebrates life with a genuine wonder-lust, whilst delivering the excitement of their live performances.
Following the overdue release of two archival sets - '45 Revolutions Per
Minute' and 'Rarities' (released in 2018 by Firestation Records., quickly selling out of their first runs) - their new album 'The Patron Saint of Heartache' picks up where the band left off, with 14 fresh songs ready for discovery of a sound as timeless as any Candy Opera output.
Candy Opera were formed in Liverpool in 1982 and went through various incarnations before calling it a day in 1992. By 1985, the band had played alongside the likes of The Pogues, The Go-Betweens and The Redskins, as well as appearing on Granada TV.
The band's current line-up is drawn from all eras of the band’s existence and features Brian Chin Smithers (guitar, vocals), Alan Currie (drums), Frank Mahon (bass), Paul Malone (vocals, guitar), Ken Moss (guitar) and Gary O'Donnell (keyboards, vocals, percussion).
This new LP also features a swathe of friends and contemporaries, including Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) and Phil Jones (Afraid of Mice). The result is an exquisite piece of pop craftsmanship that brings their songs into the light. This is a labour of love born of experience, but retaining the sense of wonder that brought the band together in the first place.

After a tumultuous period of emotional blows, leaving the majority of the band getting to grips with new life scenarios, the new album is rooted in reflection and redemption, and sees You Me At Six harness those darker experiences as a catalyst for creativity, empowerment and positivity.
Recorded over five weeks at Karma Sound studio in Bang Saray, and continuing their creative relationship with that album’s producer, Dan Austin (Biffy Clyro, Massive Attack, Pixies), ‘SUCKAPUNCH’ is the sound of a band embracing change. You Me At Six have crafted their most experimental, personal and
progressive record to date

Modern House Quintet present their debut album, an LP featuring their vision of what electronic music has to offer. This record sees the duo explore the various sounds and influences that make them what they are. Presented in two separate LPs, this first is a vibrant mix of inspirations, ideas and sounds. From deeper soulful music, to more upfront and synthetic and all the way through to pieces that incorporate instruments you might not always hear in this kind of music.

-LTD. COL. EDITION-

We are always sitting on a handful of unreleased songs that didn't make their way to albums. Listening back to these gems we decided to launch a new series entitled Big Crown Vaults and the first volume features the music of Lee Fields & the Expressions. These tunes were cut during the Special Night & It Rains Love sessions. Listening to these tracks you can imagine how difficult some of these decisions were in the first place to leave them off the albums. An absolute standout is "Regenerate," a song that finds Lee in the country soul realm, a style that Mr Fields, a North Carolina native, flourishes in. A drum break starts the song and then drops into a chorus where El Michels, Paul & Big Bill Schalda belt out the earworm chorus. Lee sings an encouraging tune about finding your way out of a low point in a relationship while The Expressions lay down an airtight groove. "Thinking About You" takes it back to the dance floors with what will surely be a hit at Soul parties around the globe. An uptempo drum break opens the song and Lee launches into a tale about the unbreakable bond with his significant other and how they keep each strong through moments of hardship and pain. People who have seen Lee perform live in the last decade might have been lucky enough to hear his rendition of Little Carl Carlton's "Two Timer". For those of you who haven't heard it, Big Crown Vaults has got you covered. A faithful version of the song showcases Lee's gorgeous voice and the Expres- sion's unwavering groove. Another treat on here is the fuzzed out funk banger "Do You Know" where Fields uses his platform to address some of our societal woes in a "Make The World" style. A deeper from the vaults number is "Out To Get You", an instrumental that Lee never laid down vocals to. Even as just a rhythm track it stands as a testament to The Expressions musical prowess, the band that created 5 studio albums with Lee Fields which will go down in history as stone classics.

Tony Fruscella was an under-recorded mellow, lyrical, cool jazz trumpeter (think Chet Baker). He unfortunately lived a similarly addictive lifestyle that led to his tragically premature death in 1969. His cool tone, influenced by Miles Davis and swing-era veteran Joe Thomas, made him a sideman in the early ‘50s for artists like Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz.

In 1955, the same year he recorded with Getz, Fruscella led the only session officially released during his lifetime, I’ll Be Seeing You a.k.a Tony Fruscella. He is backed here by a great horn section of Allen Eager on tenor saxophone (who played similar sounds with Gerry Mulligan), Charles Mingus’ associate Danny Bank on baritone, and Chauncey Welsch on trombone. The rhythm section is rounded out by the prominently featured piano of Bill Triglia (who also played with Mingus), Bill Anthony on bass, and Junior Bradley on drums.

"Black vinyl issue - Features 2 x unreleased songs ‘Dark Places (Soundscape)’ and ‘I Am The Cosmos (42420)’
Brand new 2020 mixes of ‘Star’, ‘Hyperspace’, ‘See Through’ and ‘Die Waiting’
+ ‘Uneventful Days’ (St. Vincent Remix)
+ ‘Saw Lightning’ (Freestyle Live)"