Weekend Recovery are back with a brand-new album ‘Esoteric’. Mixing equal measures of in-yer-face vox, overdriven guitars and straight-talking lyrics, it’s this mix that’s seeing the Sheffield indie-pop trio into editorial playlists on Apple, Deezer and YouTube alongside shows at Kendal Calling, Bingley Weekender and sell out dates including Corporation Sheffield. The first cuts from the record ‘Chemtrails’ and ‘No Guts All The Glory’ hit the airwaves with a bang, amassing plays on BBC Radio 1 Introducing (Gemma Bradley, Nels Hylton), BBC 6 Music (Steve Lamacq, Chris Hawkins, Fresh on the Net), Radio X (John Kennedy), Kerrang! Radio (Johnny Doom), Amazing Radio (Charlie Ashcroft, Shell Zenner, Frankie Francis), Absolute Radio (Frank Skinner), Planet Rock (Wyatt Wendels), BBC Sheffield (Christian Carlisle, Ellie Colton), BBC York (Jericho Keys), RTE 2 Ireland and as far as KEXP, Seattle and national USA station Sirius XM (Rodney Bingenheimer). The latest single ‘No Saint’ features Joel Arthur from local bandmates Hydeout and represents the harder edge in their third studio album.
Suche:the plan
- A1: Hip Hop Delivery Intro
- A2: Global Chemistry (Feat Craig G)
- A3: Go Move (Feat Andy Cooper)
- A4: Wild Thing (Feat Birdapres)
- A5: Who`s Nice Kid (Feat Chrome)
- A6: King Of Rock
- B1: Chasing The Funk (Paul Sitter`s Version)
- B2: B-Boys Impressions
- B3: It`s On Like That (Feat Dr Syntax)
- B4: Bollywood Cannot Carry Double
- B5: Nothing Gonna Change (His Way)
- B6: Outro
Breakbeat Paradise Recordings has teamed up with hip-hop legend Paul Sitter who has gather some of dopest MCs on the planet to feature on the epic LP: Hip-Hip Delivery.
The LP is a celebration to the oldskool hiphop vibes that started it all by cutting and scratching up the classic funk record, twisted in a brand-new way with MCs from around the world dropping fire on the mic.
Starting out with the intoxicating Global Chremistry with Craig G and some big funky grooves. Moving on to the Go Move featuring the awesome Andy Cooper on a smooth boom bap joint. The classic Wild Thing gets a oldskool hiphop twist with some big rhymes by Birdapres and cuts by DJ Robert Smith. The breaks are about to get serious as Chromedrops some high paced rhymes on the Who's Nice Kid track. Finally the A-Side finishes up paying some respect to some of the classics beat and breaks from the early hip days on the King Of Rock jam.
The flip side kicks off with more groovy, soulful hip hop featuring Andy Cooper on the catchy Chasing the Funk. Paul Sitter breaks is down nice on another slick hip hop anthem B-Boy Impressions before letting Dr Syntax take it over on the mic on the It's On Like That jam.
The last 3 joints on the album lets Paul Sitter get busy on some funky hip-hop creations showcasing his classic breakbeats and heavy sample techniques.
Breakbeat Paradise Recordings' first full album release since 2019 to drop on 12" vinyl but with an instant classic release like this we felt there was no other way to do it.
A double 12" album with brand new music produced in collaboration between DJ Fett Burger and Dama. All produced between April to October 2021.
An explosive creative collaboration between the two artists.
Unfinished sketches by Dama have been reproduced, reworked and remixed in various ways, and new tracks have been created. There have already been released three digital singles on DJFB's Digitalised Planet B, now the double album on vinyl, Emotional Tripper.
A tripped out left field house and techno record, with experimental and ambient elements. Early Italian dance music meets UK and Norwegian percussive house. Techno, electro and minimal elements all in their place. A pure mix of influences mixed and reworked together in a creative, fun and surprising way. Staying true to their original influences and moving towards something new and original.
DMX Krew unearths the lost Cold War LP.
Created for 1983. Created in 2003. Released in 2023. In mistrust and blindness mankind wages a COLD WAR, East against West in a spiraling cycle of mindless escalation. For 40 years the madness continues until it reaches its inevitable climax, NUCLEAR WAR.
Armageddon is achieved at the push of a button, millions of lives are destroyed. Those who are spared struggle for survival in the bleak conditions of NUCLEAR WINTER.
Acid rain destroys the landscape, darkness falls across the face of the
earth and hope is lost as the population falls prey to radiation sickness and cancer. Deep underground, the last survivor works feverishly in his isolated laboratory. A lone scientist attempting desperately to save mankind, he uses occult technology and deep-frozen human tissue to create a group of 12 radiation-resistant HUMAN CLONES.
They set forth to rebuild and repopulate the planet, whilst the scientist continues his work to improve and strengthen mankind. He develops a technique to fuse his own living flesh with the transistorized mind of a supercomputer, transforming himself into FUTURE MAN. Synergy of man and machine. Having transcended his mortal condition, he is now deemed ready to meet THE ELOHIM, a race of super-evolved aliens who created mankind 40000 years ago and have been watching and waiting ever since for the day when man at last becomes enlightened.
They descend from the heavens in their storship telling Future Man to
rejoice, for the trials of mankind are over and they sing to him of their long wait and THE GOLDEN AGE which is about to begin. Future Mom and the Clones are taken on board the spacecraft whereupon the Elohim transport them through the STAR GATE to a planet paradise where they are able to live in peace and happiness and once again become prosperous and many.
The decade of the 80s is revived through recordings like "Eyes" that allow you to travel through the music and trigger those old emotions of innocence, joy and adventure. It's possible you don't understand a word of what they're singing in the chorus, but the song is very catchy! Maybe not even Maria Chiara Perugini knows what she sings about, but she makes you hang on to every word of her like a nursery rhyme of synths, beach and bubblegum. "Eyes" is so amazing, so mesmerizing and more and more people are discovering this italo-disco masterpiece that usually satisfies and makes fun of you at the same time. If you try playing it at 75% speed gives a hypnotic vapor wave vibe! And even more, the song would have fit well in the dance club scenes from Scarface. Beyond the words - difficult to find a text that makes sense, sometimes out of context, unundestandable even for a French listener - the piece is so surprisingly likeable for the unique tone of Clio's voice, a strange cross between teenager and adult, and the part where she spoke another language, with some really cool synthesizers, are people's favorite parts. 0:31 "Je suis bien heureuse" , 0:47 "La nuit a ses merveilles", 0:57 "Il y a de quoi y perdre la tete, pour toi, sha, pour toi", 1:36 "Je n'ai plus de bulles", 1:52 "Je vous prie applaudissement". "Eyes" by Clio contains all the emotions that a dance-pop song should contain plus the essential element of mystery, a kind of magic that takes place between the chorus and the bass line, a shot in the dark drizzly night of the Italo-Disco. made by Roberto Ferrante, a guarantee for the perfect productions of the 80s, when he was only 20 years old.
Pacific Northwestern doom metal monolith BELL WITCH will see the
release of their new album "Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine
Gate" on 2LP/2CD, June 9th.For their new album, bassist/vocalist Dylan
Desmond and drummer/vocalist Jesse Shreibman exploded Bell Witch's
bounds
Like 2017's lauded "Mirror Reaper", "The Clandestine Gate" is a single 83-minute
track -- a composition that pulses and breathes on a filmic timeframe. It
constitutes the first chapter in a planned triptych of longform albums, collectively
called "Future's Shadow." While traces of organ and synthesizer hovered over
"Mirror Reaper" and Bell Witch's 2020 collaboration with Aerial Ruin, "Stygian
Bough Volume 1", "The Clandestine Gate" drew those instruments closer to the
center of its compositions.The band reunited with their longtime producer Billy
Anderson as they began negotiating these new compositional weights. On "The
Clandestine Gate", Bell Witch's twinned voices build off of the chantlike textures
of previous records while steering toward more developed melodic lines,
structured harmonies, and rhythmic death metal growls.
The immense gravity of a work like "The Clandestine Gate", which features
exclusive stunning cover art by Jordi Diaz Alama, allows ideas to simmer in a way
that feels profoundly and somatically intuitive -- not just a philosophical exercise,
but an embodied truth. By slowing down both their creative process and the
tempo of the music itself, Bell Witch digs even deeper into their long standing
focus: the way life spills on inside its minuscule container, both eternal and
fleeting, a chord that echoes without resolution.
The second album in a planned trilogy for Students of Decay, Theodore Cale Schafer’s “Trust” follows 2019’s “Patience,” building upon its motifs and compositional strategies to arrive at a potent document of artistic and personal growth. Recorded between 2020 and 2022, a period in which Schafer relocated to New York City, these arrangements feel like they bear the mark of a change in scale, not abandoning the private, diaristic sensibility of his earlier work so much as imbuing it with a charged atmosphere of vivid, slow-blooming intensity. These songs find the artist tightrope-walking between drama and austerity, narrative and abstraction. Such is the case on both “Luck,” in which a captivating wash of baroque strings slowly recedes into a bed of inky, flickering ambience, and “Best Friend,” wherein snatches of conversation are halted by entrancing piano motifs and hovering drones. This is an album that develops aspects of Schafer’s previous output– the patiently meted out, barely-there piano melodies, the unexpected resonance of off-the-cuff location recordings– working them like raw materials into robust, lyrical compositions. At times almost drifting into the romantic realm of the orchestral, “Trust” is the most generous and expansive offering we’ve heard from Schafer in his young career.
Theodore Cale Schafer (b. 1994) is a musician based in New York City. Informed by his occupation as an audio engineer, his work combines digitally sourced audio and manipulated self-recordings to create music that is equally influenced by Playstation OSTs, modern classical composition, confessional narrative, and spoken word. Recently, he has collaborated with Natalia Panzer, Angelo Harmsworth, Claire Rousay, Sydney Spann, and picnic, participated in the Neo-Pastiche: Changes in American Music Festival at the Black Mountain College Museum, and curated the “Casualism” mix series with Retreat Radio in Malmö, Sweden.
Foundation is set in the future when the world is barely remembered and humans have colonized the galaxy. The record introduces Donnie Ozone, a brilliant visionary rapper and psychohistorian whose job is to use lyrics and rhymes to predict the future. It is divided into six chapters, each showing a part of the bigger picture portrayed on the outstanding cover by Infidel.
Teslasonic gathers together the galaxy's top scientists and artists on a bleak outer planet and sets out to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind and begin a new human galactic empire based on Art, Science and Technology. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation and designs it to withstand a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that he predicts will last for a long time.
For the exhibition “Flowers in 20th and 21st Century Art“, Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O‘Rourke had created the installation ”Lifetime of a Flower“ in which they set parameters but allowed the process itself to grow uncontrollably. Literally: in the garden of their Japanese house, they planted seeds and filmed the plant growing and thriving throughout the duration of the exhibition. Visitors were able to watch the stream in real time - and they heard a composition in which Ishibashi and O‘Rourke reflected the organic process in sound. The eponymous composition now available on LP, is an enigmatic and sophisticated layering of sounds, melodies and rhythms, noises from everyday life, all of which are repositories of associations, memories and expectations.
- A1: Moon Rise Over The Ocean
- A2: Setting Sail On A Distant Horizon
- A3: Lost At Sea (Feat Lana Del Rey)
- A4: The Texture Of Dreams
- A5: The Poetry Of Wind & Waves
- A6: A Beautiful Delirium
- A7: Deep Ocean Swells
- A8: My Deep Blue Dream
- B1: Reflections Of Light On Water
- B2: In The Dying Light Of Day: Requiem For Mother Earth
- B3: A Delicate Mist Surrounds Me
- B4: The Mermaids' Lullaby
- B5: Song Of The Eternal Sea
- B6: Hollywood Bowl (Feat Lana Del Rey)
Rob Grant präsentiert sein atemberaubendes Debütalbum ”Lost At Sea”.
Grant hatte nie den Plan, Musiker zu werden. Er hat keinerlei musikalische Ausbildung genossen. Noten lesen kann er nicht. Aber wenn er sich an ein Klavier setzt, geschieht etwas Magisches. Die Noten strömen aus ihm heraus und es entsteht eine Komposition nach der anderen.
Als Vater der internationalen Ikone Lana Del Rey hat er eine ganze Reihe von Talenten eingeladen, an der Entstehung des Albums mitzuwirken.
Seine Tochter Lana Del Rey ist als Autorin und Produzentin tätig, während Jack Antonoff, Luke Howard, Laura Sisk und Zach Dawes an der Produktion beteiligt sind.
Sein Album inklusive der Tracks ”Hollywood Bowl” und ”Lost At Sea”, mit Vocals seiner Tochter Lana Del Rey, erscheint am 09. Juni und ist vorbestellbar auf CD und Vinyl.
Deepening the comic tones using cosmic relief, and lively vibes, La Science des Imbéciles (Ludicrous System), Brigitte Barbu’s sophomore sonic adventure, manifest a blurry creation intersecting orbital audio paths and damaged smoking instruments. Could have easily been called Birdless Science but it wouldn’t be funny…
- 22: When Worlds Collide
- 23: Raver
- 24: The Spin
- 25: Clear Spot
- 26: Rev Head
- 27: Set It On Fire
- 28: Burn Out
- 29: This Life Of Yours
- 30: Solid Gold Hell
- 31: Blood Red River
- 32: Don't Lie To Me
- 34: Melodramatic Touch
- 35: Slow Death
- 36: Strangers In The Night
- 37: I've Had It
- 38: Gonna Make You
- 39: When Worlds Collide
- 40: Ghost Train
- 41: The Other Place
- 42: She Cracked
- 1: Hell Beach
- 2: If It's The Last Thing I Do
- 3: Bad Priest
- 4: Demolition Derby
- 5: It Came Out Of The Sky
- 6: Atom Bomb Baby
- 7: Go Baby Go
- 8: Psycho Cook Supreme
- 9: Lead Foot
- 10: Murderess In A Purple Dress
- 11: Temple Of Love
- 12: You Only Live Twice
- 13: Human Jukebox
- 14: Shine
- 15: Distortion
- 16: Place Called Bad
- 17: Hungry Eyes
- 18: Braindead
- 19: It Must Be Nice
- 20: This Is My Happy Hour
- 21: Fire Escape
- 33: Have You Seen My Baby?
- 43: Frantic Romantic
- 44: Shake Together Tonight
- 45: Last Night
- 46: Bet Ya Lyin' (Slink City Lee)
- 47: It's For Real
- 48: Pissed On Another Planet
- 49: Shadows Of The Night
- 50: Girl
- 51: I'm Looking For You
- 52: She Says She Loves Me
- 53: Sorry Sorry Sorry
- 54: That Girl
- 55: High Noon
- 56: Teenage Dreamer
- 57: Another Sunday
- 58: Walk The Plank
- 59: Larry
- 60: Making A Scene
- 61: It'll Never Happen Again
- 62: This Is My Happy Hour
- 63: Swampland
- 64: We Had Love
- 65: The Scientists Clear Spot
- 66: The Scientists When Fate Deals Its Mortal Blow
- 67: The Scientists Burnout
- 68: The Spin
- 69: Rev Head
- 70: Set It On Fire
- 71: Blood Red River
- 72: Nitro
- 73: Solid Gold Hell
- 74: I Cried No Tears
- 75: Crazy Heart
- 76: This Life Of Yours
- 77: Backwards Man
- 78: The Wall
- 79: Raver
- 80: Fire Escape
Black + White Haze Vinyl. With a sound that was swampy, primal and modern-urban all at once_as much in the tradition of rock n' roll and punk rock as it was a rejection of those things, the Scientists' formula was as universal as it was specific to their own experience. The themes of getting wasted, driving around in hotted-up cars, being trapped in crap jobs, and paranoia were their subject matter. Machine throb bass and drums with jagged car-wreck guitars were their modus operandi. Fitting into no place or time they spurned all but the most rudimentary and elemental of rock structures to create a sound all their own. Quadruple CD includes their complete studio recordings, live recordings, and a previously unissued set from Adelaide UniBar, plus dozens of previously unpublished photographs, discography, and fold out Perth Punk family tree. Double LP version boils the box down to 22 essentials, plus unpublished photographs, discography, and fold out Perth Punk family tree.
t 20 THIS IS MY HAPPY HOUR LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR
u 21 FIRE ESCAPE [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[v] 22 WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[w] 23 RAVER [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[x] 24 THE SPIN [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[y] 25 CLEAR SPOT [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[z] 26 REV HEAD [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[xa] 27 SET IT ON FIRE [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[xb] 28 BURN OUT [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[xc] 29 THIS LIFE OF YOURS [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[xd] 30 SOLID GOLD HELL [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[xe] 31 BLOOD RED RIVER [LIVE AT ADELAIDE UNIBAR]
[xf] 32 DON'T LIE TO ME [LIVE AT THE LOFT]
[xh] 34 MELODRAMATIC TOUCH [LIVE AT STOREY HALL]
[xi] 35 SLOW DEATH [LIVE AT STOREY HALL]
[xj] 36 STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT [LIVE AT THE SYDNEY UNI]
[xk] 37 I'VE HAD IT [LIVE AT LE TOTE]
[xl] 38 GONNA MAKE YOU [LIVE AT THE PRINCE OF WALES HOTEL]
[xm] 39 WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE [LIVE AT SYDNEY TRADE UNION CLUB]
[xn] 40 GHOST TRAIN [LIVE AT THE PRINCE OF WALES HOTEL]
[xo] 41 THE OTHER PLACE [1985 FLEXI DISC]
[xp] 42 SHE CRACKED [1985 FLEXI DISC]
As the siren’s song echoes out of systems worldwide, perhaps we are (re)turning to the liquid age of dance; with natural ephemera such as moss, sentiments for ecology such as swamps, and mercurial aspects of water all absorbing the aesthetic forefront. A return to nature, a deep dive under the lily pads. Here Marijn with her debut EP guides our plunge, a trip previously taken via her podcasts on Kulture Lab, where you can also find her previously released music.
Whispers from the ethereal plane drift around the headspace, a rumble in the distance of sound traversing the water, voices to guide and to keep you from floating too far from the line. Audio hallucinations are aplenty when submerged, a serenity of space, yet distant growls assure that peace is not always 2 be found. The melancholia within the daydream, the pang of loss caught in reflections, internal and from the water, with the lily pads floating above as a guiding entity, an anchor, something to hold. Under the lily pads we rumble.
On the flip everyone’s fav casual breaks n rave hooligan Luca Lozano asks the recurring thought within dance music, a question we quest, yet rarely want the answer. Abstraction via squeaks and tweaks, you better bop your bleepin’ head to this 1.
‘Leave A Message’ leaves the tranquil waters disturbed and rippling to the outer edges, providing jumps for the lily pads to ride on the incoming tide, with the ebb and flow making way for a storm surge. Aka big beats are the best, a notion the directly honest final track ‘Made (Drums)’ follows, bringing a twisted jack attack logic to a deranged assembly of samples, a manic orchestra of tumbling drums who have conspired to freak out, albeit with cute bubbles underneath to revel in the allure of sonic mania.
Legendary New York band M'lumbo distil experiences from their pre-pandemic shamanic travels into their stunning new album The Summer Of Endless Levitation. The eight-track vinyl LP is an avant-garde take on folk music informed by painter and sculptor Jean Hans Arp's 'Biomorphic' works and it serves as a sonic renewal of self.
The cult M'lumbo collective has been a legendary and groundbreaking act since first forming in the mid-80s. They cross genre boundaries as they draw on jazz, world, electronic, rock and experimental music that escapes the commercial world and take you into another realm entirely. There is no limit to their sound; each member brings their own cultural background to the mix, making the band all the more unique.
As the coronavirus pandemic struck, three members of the band Rob Ray Flatow, Paul-Alexandre Meurens and Brian O'Neill under-took a regimen of shamanic traveling in New York City. The experiences led them to spontaneously compose and perform a suite of pieces, informed and inspired by Jean Hans Arp's works but also by the feelings of isolation and indefinite exile yet to come in their urban environment.
Compared to the works they have done as part of the larger M'lumbo band, this album is a more modest and naive affair that is "a vehicle for the renewal of feeling using only a few instruments - acoustic and electric guitar, keyboard, flute, small percussion, kalimba and clarinet - and locating a sense of both the deep sadness and uplifting powers of reverie."
'There Are No Words' kicks off with heavenly chords and organic percussion that recalls the jungle jazz of Don Cherry, then 'Shoreline' is a five-minute dub with percolating rhythms and new age melodies before the soul-soothing acoustic guitar of 'The Afternoon Levitation' blisses you out on a sunny day. The perfectly entitled 'Swoon' is another gloriously uplifting piece of musical spirituality that fuses the electronic and synthetic with the ancient and ritualistic. There is more jungle jazz, big-band horn work and cosmic synth modulations of 'Open The Heavens' while 'Quanta' is a shuffling, jumbled mix of radiant chords, wigged-out electronic lines and celestial charm. 'Planetfall' goes from free-form jazz to double-time techno and back to cathartic ambient. The final trio of tracks conjures up everything from the transcendental jazz of Alice Coltrane to the cinematic downtempo of Calm.
Warehouse find!
Teenage Fanclub have announced news of their tenth studio album, Endless Arcade, released 5th March. Even if we weren’t living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world.
Endless Arcade follows the band’s ninth album “Here”, released in 2016 to universal acclaim and notably their first Top 10 album since 1997; a mark of how much they’re treasured. The new record is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heart-warming and heart-aching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.
In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as “Bandwagonesque” and “Grand Prix”. This century, albums such as “Shadows” and “Here” have documented a more relaxed, less ‘teenage’ Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, which Endless Arcade slots perfectly alongside. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts - insecurity, anxiety, loss.
Such is life. But the title track suggests, “Don’t be afraid of this endless arcade that is life.”
A preview from the album came in February 2019 with Raymond’s ‘Everything Is Falling Apart’, an online single released at the outset of a six-month tour and a highlight of Endless Arcade.
Everything is falling apart? Well, yes, but the song was written long before COVID-19 arrived. Neither was Raymond’s inspiration political or social, but more, “the entropy in the universe, the knowledge that everything eventually decays,” he explains. But Raymond says relax. Or rather, “Relax, find love, hold on to the hand of a friend”.
Fortunately, Endless Arcade was virtually finished by the time lockdown was announced, bar the odd tinker under the engine hood. It seems timely, given how everyone had to initially stay home under lockdown, that the album starts with Norman’s ‘Home’, though it was chosen in part because of its opening line: “Every morning, I open my eyes...” The album’s longest track (at seven minutes) typifies TFC’s relaxed groove, culminating in Raymond’s peach of a guitar solo.
Norman’s search for ‘home’ could be literal: after all, he’s been living in Canada for the last 10 years. But it’s also figurative. Like Norman’s other Endless Arcade songs – The Sun Won’t Shine On Me’, ‘Warm Embrace’, ‘I’m More Inclined’, ‘Back In The Day’ and ‘Living With You’ – his words on ‘Home’ are etched by loss and yearning. “Without going into too much detail, the last eighteen months have been challenging for me on an emotional level,” he admits. “But it’s been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song.”
In contrast, Raymond’s songs – he’s also responsible for ‘Come With Me’, ‘In Our Dreams’, ‘The Future’ and ‘Silent Song’ – are philosophical and questing. As he sings in ‘The Future’: “It’s hard to walk into the future when your shoes are made of lead”, but he’s still going to try, “and see sights we’ve never seen.”
In the band’s own near future, they’re already planning another new album given they can’t yet tour the one they’re releasing now. Welcome back, Teenage Fanclub, unafraid of this endless arcade that is life.
Warehouse find!
Teenage Fanclub have announced news of their tenth studio album, Endless Arcade, released 5th March. Even if we weren’t living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world.
Endless Arcade follows the band’s ninth album “Here”, released in 2016 to universal acclaim and notably their first Top 10 album since 1997; a mark of how much they’re treasured. The new record is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heart-warming and heart-aching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.
In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as “Bandwagonesque” and “Grand Prix”. This century, albums such as “Shadows” and “Here” have documented a more relaxed, less ‘teenage’ Fanclub, reflecting the band’s stage in life and state of mind, which Endless Arcade slots perfectly alongside. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts - insecurity, anxiety, loss.
Such is life. But the title track suggests, “Don’t be afraid of this endless arcade that is life.”
A preview from the album came in February 2019 with Raymond’s ‘Everything Is Falling Apart’, an online single released at the outset of a six-month tour and a highlight of Endless Arcade.
Everything is falling apart? Well, yes, but the song was written long before COVID-19 arrived. Neither was Raymond’s inspiration political or social, but more, “the entropy in the universe, the knowledge that everything eventually decays,” he explains. But Raymond says relax. Or rather, “Relax, find love, hold on to the hand of a friend”.
Fortunately, Endless Arcade was virtually finished by the time lockdown was announced, bar the odd tinker under the engine hood. It seems timely, given how everyone had to initially stay home under lockdown, that the album starts with Norman’s ‘Home’, though it was chosen in part because of its opening line: “Every morning, I open my eyes...” The album’s longest track (at seven minutes) typifies TFC’s relaxed groove, culminating in Raymond’s peach of a guitar solo.
Norman’s search for ‘home’ could be literal: after all, he’s been living in Canada for the last 10 years. But it’s also figurative. Like Norman’s other Endless Arcade songs – The Sun Won’t Shine On Me’, ‘Warm Embrace’, ‘I’m More Inclined’, ‘Back In The Day’ and ‘Living With You’ – his words on ‘Home’ are etched by loss and yearning. “Without going into too much detail, the last eighteen months have been challenging for me on an emotional level,” he admits. “But it’s been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song.”
In contrast, Raymond’s songs – he’s also responsible for ‘Come With Me’, ‘In Our Dreams’, ‘The Future’ and ‘Silent Song’ – are philosophical and questing. As he sings in ‘The Future’: “It’s hard to walk into the future when your shoes are made of lead”, but he’s still going to try, “and see sights we’ve never seen.”
In the band’s own near future, they’re already planning another new album given they can’t yet tour the one they’re releasing now. Welcome back, Teenage Fanclub, unafraid of this endless arcade that is life.
- 1: The Wasteland
- 2: Know Your Honor
- 3: Introduction: "Let's Experiment
- 4: Spiral Jetty
- 5: Rule By Being Just
- 6: Pure Radio Cosplay
- 7: Weight Of The Sun (Or The Post-Modern Prometheus)
- 8: The Ship Impossible
- 9: Summer Of All Dead Souls
- 10: Strange Epiphany
- 11: Pure Radio Cosplay (Reprise)
- 12: Cover The Days Like A Tidal Wave
- 13: Racing And Hunting
- 14: Fall Of The Empire
- 15: Ebb Away
- 16: The Fairlight Pendant
Gold Vinyl[27,31 €]
Reissue of the 2011 album Tao of the Dead by American alternative rock band ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead. First time available on vinyl since its release year. Features a replica of the original comic book insert. Tao of the Dead is their seventh album. The band stripped down to its core four-piece lineup for the record, deviating from the past two records that featured a filled-out six-piece band. This resulted in a stripped-down record with heavy emphasis on guitar. It’s a two-part record, each side with a specific musical tuning; Part One in D and Part Two in F. The album can be listened to as 16 different movements or two lengthy tracks. Part One: Tao Of The Dead is split into eleven tracks, whereas Part Two: Strange News From Another Planet is five songs combined into one. Lead singer Conrad Keely described the album's composition; "It's the way I listened to albums when I was a kid, seeing as some of my favorite records were Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Yes' Relayer and Close to the Edge... I always liked listening to records that were just a continuous piece, like an orchestra or a symphony."
Levellers have announced new acoustic album Together All The Way - the follow up to their 2018 Top 20 album We The Collective. The Album will be available on Limited edition Red Vinyl and CD.
The last ‘Collective’ album was recorded at Abbey Road with the legendary John Leckie 5 years ago and resulted in their highest chart position in twenty years. Levellers always planned to do more but how do you top that? Eventually they came to the conclusion to not try to top it but to go another way.
They decided to strip everything right back and go for a more traditional, folk approach. They reconvened the collective - this time with Sean Lakeman producing and Al Scott mixing - at their own Metway Studios in Brighton. Everything was recorded live, with the musicians playing through the songs until they had versions they were happy with.
Colin McCann didn't pick up a guitar for nearly ten years. The Northern-California-based songwriter, previously performing under Long Dog Bird, had been creating music with longtime friend and collaborator Brian Gossman for much of their adult lives with early-00s Baltimore-based band Wilderness. So what would cause such a stagnant period? And how could McCann find his way back to the joy that music had once so easily conjured? The answer was to go back to the very beginning, where the kinetic forces that urged McCann to make music in the first place could emerge once again. But first, he had to make space in his internal world; a kind of silence where he could hear the exhale of his past, and the blossoming of a new song. That blossoming would soon become the first songs for McCann's latest project Vulture Feather. The band's debut album Liminal Fields exists on an intangible plane: a crack in the concrete, a gauze between worlds. For as long as McCann can recall, he's been using music as a vehicle to try and connect with an underlying, indescribable nature that only the sonic world seems to be able to reach. "There's a feeling of ecstasy that comes when one merges with music," he says. "It's what calls us all back again and again to listen, to sing, and to play." McCann had been striving to reach this outlying environment throughout his career, often stretching in ways that eventually came to negatively impact his life, and his health. The wake up call came when McCann suffered a near-death experience, eerily predicted by a friend through a dream she had had almost a year earlier. Newly awoken to the beauty of being alive, McCann strove to slow down, to listen to the inherent nature in all living things, and to rediscover our mutual connectivity. He stopped playing and listening to music, and instead soaked himself in the cacophony of silence. Then without any epiphany or grand catalyst, something urged McCann to pick up a guitar again. Ideas flowed more naturally than ever, and he soon realized that the liminal space he had been searching for was there all along--he only had to listen. McCann tentatively reached out to Gossman to collaborate and the friends found themselves once again jamming together, in an off-grid quonset hut where they now practice. "It was like no time had passed," McCann says. "That feeling of ecstatic joy, of forgetting your own name, came flooding back." They were soon joined by another old friend, Eric Fiscus, who completed Vulture Feather on drums.




















