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A little over a year ago, Nathan Williams found himself back in San Diego, writing what would eventually become Hideaway, his seventh album as Wavves, in a little shed behind his parents’ house. It was also the place where he made some of his earliest albums, before he became known for his uncanny ability to write songs that sneered at the world while evoking pathos, sympathy, and a deep understanding of how sometimes we’re our own worst enemies, and that can be okay. Williams’ return to his childhood home was not just a symbolic attempt at jumpstarting creativity. It came as a result of a series of major life changes. A decade ago, Williams released King of the Beach on the maverick indie label Fat Possum. The album was a cocky collection of pop punk gems that catapulted him into the public consciousness, eventually prompting a jump from Fat Possum into the major label system, where he released two albums before becoming disillusioned by the lack of creative agency available to him. In 2017, Williams self-released You’re Welcome on his label, Ghost Ramp. Now, Williams has returned to Fat Possum with a barbed collection of anxious anthems that grapple with the looming sense of doom and despair that comes with getting older in an increasingly chaotic world. “He’ll always skew toward the Bart Simpson character,” says Matthew Johnson, founder of Fat Possum. “But that does not mean that he doesn’t have some commentary, and once in awhile, it’s totally spot on.” Across its brief but impactful nine tracks, Hideaway is about what happens when you get old enough to take stock of the world around you and realize that no one is going to save you but yourself, and even that might be a tall order. The album features Williams’ most universal and urgent songs yet. “Honeycomb” lopes along sunnily, as Williams sings affecting lines like “I feel like I’m dying, it’s cool, it’s great, just pretend I’m okay.” His directness is shocking, and proof that Williams is the kind of songwriter who can capture pain and uncertainty with resonant brutal force. “It’s real peaks and valleys with me,” Williams says. “I can be super optimistic and I can feel really good, and then I can hit a skid and it’s like an earthquake hits my life, and everything just falls apart. Some of it is my own doing, of course.” It’s this self awareness that permeates each of Hideaway’s songs, marking them each as mature reckonings with who he is. After realizing the material he’d been working on in the hideaway was starting to take shape, Williams, along with bandmates Stephen Pope and Alex Gates workshopped the songs in a series of now-abandoned studio sessions, before linking up with musician and producer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio to help fully realize their new songs.

Demon Records presents Distortion: Live, the fourth and final edition in a series of expansive vinyl box sets chronicling the solo career of legendary American musician Bob Mould.
Bob Mould’s career began in 1979 with the iconic underground punk group Hüsker Dü before forming the beloved alternative rock band Sugar and releasing numerous critically acclaimed solo albums. The final volume in the series features 8LPs of live recordings from across Mould’s solo career.
8 LPs including –
• 4 live albums – Live At The Cabaret Metro, 1989 (first time on vinyl), The Joke Is Always On Us, Sometimes, LiveDog98 (first time on vinyl), and Live At ATP 2008 (first time on vinyl)
• Each album is presented with brand new artwork designed by illustrator Simon Marchner and pressed on 140g clear vinyl
with unique splatter effects
• Bonus LP Distortion Plus: Live which features live rarities including B-sides and stand-out tracks from the Circle Of Friends concert film
• Mastered by Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering in Boston Plus -
• A 28-page companion booklet featuring: a new and exclusive foreword by Bob Mould; an interview conducted by journalist Keith
Cameron; an exclusive testimonial from Bully’s Alicia Bognanno; rare photographs and memorabilia

After spending nearly a decade recording and touring with the collaborative psych rock band Quilt, Anna Fox Rochinski has completed her first solo record, Cherry. Though this is her first solo outing, Quilt released three full length records on Mexican Summer between 2011-2016 and toured North America and Europe extensively via High Road Touring and Paper and Iron Booking, respectively. Quilt completed several headlining tours in both continents, as well as opening on tour for bands such as The War On Drugs, Luna, and Woods. Anna’s songs have been licensed and used for sync placement extensively, most recently in Netflix’s “You”, and Quilt signed a publishing deal with Third Side Music in 2016. Their music was featured in many press outlets including NPR and Pitchfork, and was performed live on KEXP, Late Night with Carson Daly, and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Initial pressing on limited edition opaque red vinyl

One of the beautiful qualities of the Bellingham music community was the fact that many different groups of various genres could coexist and even perform comfortably throughout the half-dozen venues in this little Northwest college town in the most northwest corner of the most northwest state in the lower 48.

The original roots soulfunk juggernaut of Joel Ricci's "The Lucky Seven" known in their town as "The Leaders of the Funk Revolution," attracted a certain cadre of party goer, as did Dan Lowinger's rugged rockabilly quartet "The Foot Stompin' Trio". At Footstompin gigs, Lowinger would be found deftly chicken pickin' that honky tonk tele' and was known to impress the audience so much with his licks, they would throw buckets of beer on him as a show of their love and appreciation. It was only a matter of time before Dan and Joel were lucky enough to get the chance to perform together and toured the States for a few years together with a fiery ska/reggae/rocksteady powerhouse also out of the Bellingham area, "The Yogoman Burning Band". Dan and Joel recorded many demos together and contributed original material to the Burning Band, but the proto-rock of "Please Some", is pure Royal Dees. This tune, composed and recorded by Ricci, was actually conceived as a submission to Tramp Records and remained unfinished for many years while also suffering from the degradation of the original cassette it was recorded on. The Duo re-recorded again 4 years later when they were both living in Portland, Oregon and that version lives today as side D's "alternate take" which Ricci found in his cassette archive over the summer. This version also came with it's own set of audio issues, notwithstanding the botched ending, which we have retained here for you as the loose and roots funky vibe of the whole take justifies it's inclusion.

Finally, Joel and Dan's friend and comrade Doug Krebs, who happened to also be a well-loved member of that same Bellingham music community, especially as the go-to sound and mastering engineer, came through in spades to rescue the two pieces and prepare them for proper release on this, the one and only Royal Dees release to see the light of day on the bold and inimitable Tramp Records.

With his debut release for Peckham club and label institution Rhythm Section International, Hackney-raised Jerome Thomas is declaring the dawning of a new age for British soul music.

Jerome’s school was a home filled with non-stop music; whether that was bootleg CDs of Rare Groove from East London’s Sunday markets to late 90s R&B on The Box or family favourites; Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Chico DeBarge, Jill Scott. He learnt his prodigious vocal craft of ad-libs and harmonies by listening to Brandy’s ‘98 LP ‘Never Say Never’ on repeat.

Working with a live 6 piece band of assorted ages and musical backgrounds from rock to classical jazz, Jerome’s sound is a 180 degree turn from the direction of travel of UK R&B which has trended towards producers tracks made inside the computer. Jerome composes the pieces, then allows space for interaction with his long term musical collaborators. The ‘organic decisions’ open up the scope of his music as they jam and record. The result is a sound that could been made in the 70s, the 90s or the 00s. He’s the new blood of the sophisticated British sound that traces back to artists like Mica Paris, Soul II Soul and Omar.

For Jerome, music has literally been a life saving vessel for self expression. Like 1% of the population, he has a stutter, which disrupts the fluent flow of his speech. The stutter disappears when he sings, freeing his voice as it’s transformed into an instrument. As an introverted, intuitive Pisces, the songwriting process lets him explore and express his internal cosmos; “a lot of my songs are like diary entries addressed to people I haven’t been able to talk to or speaking about desires I am too embarrassed to talk about”. Jerome describes his sound using the acronym FOE, standing for “Freedom of Expression” and “Fusion Of Everything”. His music is a space for him to dissolve boundaries and binaries.

“As soul beings we are all a mixture of masculine and feminine; a mixture of our Mum and our Dad”. His fine falsetto explores a register that can read as masculine or feminine. The romantic story that runs across the two vinyl sides of “That Secret Sauce” is told without specifying a gender point of view. As Jerome says “we all experience the same thing with romantic situations, so I didn’t want to pin it to one side”. Like many of the great soul records, a close listen to “That Secret Sauce” reveals its romantic narrative; from first meeting to sexual infatuation to the dissolution of the affair, the breaking up and the moving forward - keeping your energy clear. It’s a tale as old as time, retold.

7" of this funk classic re-issued for the first time from recently discovered Master Tapes.

Funky Soul (originally titled "Going To See The Man") was a routine crowd pleaser during live shows that even had its own dance "rock the ship." This was the part two of the song. It was part one that was created in the studio as a riff off of part two. The raw energy of this song when performed live created hysteria and drove spectators into a frenzy. It didn't take long for word to get around and catch the attention of the famous WYLD DJ Larry McKinley. McKinley wanted to capture this magic onto record and helped arrange the session at Cosimo Matassa's studio. He drove Isaac Hayes down from Memphis to New Orleans in 1968 and organized Issac Hayes to arrange the horn section on this record while he was working with the Okeh label and developing an emerging artist named Margie Joseph. It was during this time that Margie recorded two singles Why Does A Man Have To Lie/See (Okeh, 4-7304) and Show Me/A Matter Of Life Or Death (Okeh, 4-7313).

David Batiste & The Gladiators were a band David Batiste and several of his brothers formed while they were in High School in New Orleans back in 1961. The band won a talent show in 1965 at Harlem's famous Apollo Theater and are the pioneers of what is now known as "Funk." David Batiste & The Gladiators were legendary mainstays of every bar in New Orleans that every band was hustling trying to get booked at.

It's no wonder that this song was famously complied on BBE Records and Ubiquity in the 1990's, rediscovered and performed by Miles Tackett & The Breakestra in the early 2000's. Those compilations contained audio sourced only from the vinyl record originally pressed up twice in the early 1970s and sought after by collectors and DJs for years and years. This version is from a direct master tape transfer from recently discovered NOLA tapes. But wait… The party's just started. An entire album's worth of 1960s previously unreleased David Batiste & The Gladiators material from recently discovered master tapes is in the works and forthcoming on Family Groove Records.

York Pennsylvania born and raised, R&B vocalist Carman Bryant has performed throughout the U.S. and all over the world. There’s a saying in the Harrisburg/York Pa.area “If you want a seat, you better get there early” for a performance by Carman and her band.
Carman's recording "Midnight Star” is an unreleased recording that was produced many years ago by Cecil DuValle of the Teddy Pendergrass band. The original studio masters were lost when Cecil moved to England because Teddy Pendergrass stopped performing. "Take a Chance" is a duet by Doug Payne and Carman from the same recording sessions at Alpha International Studios that was located in South Philadelphia. This was during the time that Doug Payne was on the "We are Family" tour with Philly recording group "Sister Sledge''. Doug Payne is a graduate of Howard University Washington D.C., and Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music & Art in New York City, this is the same school that was used for the movie and television series "FAME" starring Debbie Allen and Irene Cara. Doug had two songs signed with TSOP Gamble & Huff's publishing that were selected to be recorded by Phyliss Hyman before her death. In 1981 Doug Payne started his own label in Philadelphia with the release of "HOLIDAY" by Doug Payne & Polygon.
Carman and her son Terrell Bryant aka Nakuu both have been busy lately
recording new music to hit the scene around the same time.Terrell Bryant is
the son of Jason Bryant who started The SOS Band.
Doug's wife June Payne is a former member of Philadelphia recording group The "Three Degrees".

“Montreal’s genre-defying post-rock combo BIG|BRAVE could very well be the most noteworthy recent heavy curiosity to come out of the city in recent years.” - NOISEY

“…combines elements of Björk, Neurosis and Sunn O))) into a cohesive whole; but this whole is an ever evolving and challenging sonic mass.
- THE QUIETUS

Minimalism and instinct, structure/freedom and meticulous timing form the cornerstones of their precise, rhythmical sound.
Lyrically, the album explores the weight of race and gender, endurance and navigating other people’s behaviours, observation and protest. The band further comment “this album involves what it means navigating the outside world in a racialized body and what it does to the psyche as a whole while finding individual worth within this reality.”
This time featuring the core trio Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball and Tasy Hudson, for their most collaborative record they’ve made so far. The band elaborate “having cut our teeth in very different musical backgrounds respectively, our intuitions vary, which has an interesting effect on our individual approaches and ears.”
For this record, BIG | BRAVE once again made the trek down to Rhode Island to record with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets. They remark “we fully trust his instinct as an engineer and his creative output, getting to experiment with textures, concepts, layers, and with pretty much every single recorded sound, the process of making records with Seth is an absolute journey and pleasure.”
With the initial seeds planted in 2012, with no other goal than simply experimenting with the instruments in their possession, Robin Wattie and Mathieu Ball started writing subtle ambient/minimalistic folk songs together. When long time friend Louis Alexandre Beauregard joined on drums, the goal still remained to play as tranquil as possible. After an incident where Wattie’s acoustic guitar broke, and having borrowed a friend’s electric as a replacement, larger amps that Ball had in storage from previous bands started to get incorporated to the outfit. Now with amplitude as a compositional tool, BB never lost interest in the power of minimalism and fragility. It became clear that loud volume would become just as effective as the lowest possible ones and the juxtaposition of both would become something BB still uses as their main MO to this day.
After self-releasing Feral Verdure in 2014, the band had the opportunity to open for Thee Silver Mt Zion in Montreal QC. After which, Efrim Manuel Menuck found something meaningful in the members and the band and invited them to open on future shows with Mt Zion and with Godspeed! You Black Emperor.
In 2015, the band entered the studio with Menuck and recorded “Au De La”. With no home for the record, they decided to take a chance in writing to Southern Lord. As luck would have it, Greg Anderson happened upon their email among hundreds and responded. Since then, the band has had a home with Southern Lord Records. (Along with Au De La, Southern Lord has released Ardor in 2017, A Gaze Among Them in 2019 and VITAL in 2021).
After Beauregard’s departure in 2018, the band traveled down to Rhode Island with Loel Campbell on drums to make a first record with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets. After the album’s release, with Campbell unable to tour, Tasy Hudson joined the ranks and the band spent most of the year touring their 2019 album “A Gaze Among Them”.
In 2020, the core trio of Ball, Wattie and Hudson once again made the trek down to Machines with Magnets to record their 5th LP “VITAL”.
Since their inception, the band has had many honours and privileges of touring a number of times in North America and Europe with bands such as Sunn O))), MY DISCO, The Body, Thou, Primitive Man and Thee Silver Mt Zion.

We’ve all been fans of each other from the start, says Jimmie Dale Gilmore, “but the thing that’s always struck me about The Flatlanders is that, first and foremost, it’s a band rooted in friendship. Beyond the music, we just connect with each other in these deep and personal ways, and that’s been a lifelong treasure.” Take a listen to Treasure of Love, The Flatlanders’ first new album in more than a decade, and it’s clear that those bonds are deeper and stronger now than ever before. Completed during COVID-19 lockdowns with the help of longtime friend and collaborator Lloyd Maines, the record finds the iconic Texas trio of Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock in classic form, serving up a rollicking collection of twang-fueled, harmony-laden performances full of wry humor and raw heartbreak. While a few of the songs here are never-before-heard originals, the vast majority of the tracklist consists of vintage tunes the band picked up during their 50-year career, some stretching as far back as the group’s earliest performances in the honkytonks around Lubbock, TX, where you might have spotted Willie Nelson or Townes Van Zandt in the audience on any given night.

Rock ‘n’ roll is often hard to define, or even to find, in these
fractured musical times. But to paraphrase an old saying,
you know it when you hear it. And you always hear it with
The Wallflowers. For the past 30 years, the Jakob Dylanled act has stood as one of rock’s most dynamic and
purposeful bands - a unit dedicated to and continually
honing a sound that meshes timeless songwriting and
storytelling with a hard-hitting and decidedly modern
musical attack.
That signature style has been present through the
decades, baked into the grooves of smash hits like 1996’s
‘Bringing Down the Horse’ as well as more recent and
exploratory fare like 2012’s ‘Glad All Over’.
But while it’s been nine long years since we’ve heard from
the group with whom he first made his mark, The
Wallflowers are silent no more. And Dylan always knew
they’d return. “The Wallflowers is much of my life’s work,”
he says simply. That life’s work continues with ‘Exit
Wounds’, the brand-new Wallflowers studio offering. The
collection marks the first new Wallflowers material since
‘Glad All Over’.
‘Exit Wounds’ is an ode to people - individual and
collective - that have, to put it mildly, been through some
stuff. “I think everybody - no matter what side of the aisle
you’re on - wherever we’re going to next, we’re all taking a
lot of exit wounds with us,” Dylan says. “Nobody is the
same as they were four years ago. That, to me, is what
‘Exit Wounds’ signifies. And it’s not meant to be negative at
all. It just means that wherever you’re headed, even if it’s
to a better place, you leave people and things behind, and
you think about those people and those things and you
carry them with you. Those are your exit wounds. And right
now, we’re all swimming in them.”

Thirty years after his disappearance, Miles Davis, both the man and his character, is still a subject for debate and controversy. And haven’t we heard that before with all artists? But when it comes to the importance of his contribution to music in the 20th century there is only unanimity.

Everyone says, sure, he was the greatest trumpeter. Other opinions are that he left the world of jazz behind him in 1965. It’s also said he was the catalyst of every decade from 1949 to 1989; that he revolutionised jazz, and brought it out of the ghetto; that he buried jazz; that he was the most important musician of his century... Each of those statements has its share of truth. Whichever way

you look at him, he remains a major figure in jazz and in 20th century music overall. Miles surpassed (or at least equalled) the importance of both Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington for the simple reason that he addressed not only the jazz world but all worlds of music, and that he created (among other things) a fusion of the spheres people knew as jazz, blues, rock and pop, and spoke to every audience, either in turn or collectively.

There was a dinner at the White House during which a perfectly respectable lady, married to a politician no doubt, asked Miles what he did for a living. With some annoyance Miles replied, “Well I’ve changed music five or six times, so I guess that’s what I’ve done ... now tell me what have you done of any importance, other than be white? [...] You tell me what your claim to fame is.” The provocative tone in Miles’ words lifted the veil over his refusal to be hassled, his revulsion against America’s treatment of Black people, and Miles’ awareness of his own importance in the world of music. Even when speaking, Miles maintained the art of synthesis.

In the beginning – this was 1944 – there was a concert in St Louis, Missouri where Miles heard Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie for the first time. “Man, that shit was terrible, I mean Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie ‘Yardbird' Parker, Buddy Anderson, Gene Ammons, Lucky Thompson and Art Blakey, all together in one band [...] that shit was all up in my body and that’s what I wanted to hear [...] and me up there playing with them.1” Miles was 18, he’d been playing trumpet for years and now he knew that this was what he wanted to play, and nothing else: to play with Bird! A year later he’d turned 19 and he was in New York, where he learned it all, up there alongside Bird and Dizzy.

The infamous MAYHEM return this year with an EP called “Atavistic Black Disorder / Kommando” that presents the band in a way that has never been heared before! The lords of darkness have dug deep and reflected their influences to create a musical odyssey that shows them multifaceted in several ways. For this goal, cover versions of bands like Discharge, Dead Kennedys, Rudimentary Peni and Ramones were chosen, which in typical MAYHEM manner impressively fit into their bursting and darkenened sound. Nevertheless, MAYHEM would not be MAYHEM, if this musical creation would do without own composed songs. In addition to named cover versions, a brand new track called “Voces Ab Alta” was recorded to continue the musical journey alongside previously released tracks “Black Glass Communion” and “Everlasting Dying Flame”, which were used as bonus tracks for the 2019 album “Daemon”. The EP comes as a 180g LP format which features a two-sided cover artwork and two-page insert, as well as a Ltd. CD Digipak with sleeve and 12-page booklet.

fter a hiatus of over eight years Fuzzy Lights are making a welcome return. Burials is the follow-up to the critically acclaimed album Rule of Twelfths, and the fourth album from the Cambridge-based post-folk collective. 

Their sound has been stripped back to its component parts, deconstructed and rebuilt under less obvious influences. There’s a bedrock of folk-rock - predecessors like Trees and Fairport Convention - but this is then built upon through multiple layers, from the stillness of Talk Talk to the orchestral chaos of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. With Burials Fuzzy Lights have cultivated these sounds and influences into something new and fresh that distances the album from the rest of the folk-rock crowd.

The most striking element of these songs is how intimate they are. Lyricist Rachel Watkins has revealed a lot about herself in these seven songs, which have been written from a very personal perspective. Raw experiences have been distilled into each piece, her translucent vocals often betraying the content of the songs themselves. The album is bookended with the most personal of these. Opener ‘The Maidens Call’ reveals her loss from suffering a miscarriage, whilst album closer, ‘The Gathering Storm’ frames the rallying cry of women’s rights around how individuals must work together now, and in future generations, to destroy prejudice. There is also engagement with humanity’s immediate surroundings and the environment. ‘Under The Waves’ deals with devastation of coral reefs, ocean resources and our natural world, and ‘The Graveyard Song’ imagines the perception of time from the juxtaposed views of a yew tree and a young woman.

As scenarios, paths, and outcomes shift around us, Burials’ amalgam of glowering, intense instrumentation, timeless, weightless melody, and exactingly revealing lyricism carves a very particular path through the world. This is music that tears us away from the everyday not just as a form of escapism, but as a means of self-reflection on hardship and the strategies we develop to overcome it.  It is the band’s rawest yet most accomplished statement to date.

Snapped Ankles return to the forest, but it's not as they left it. Trees planted in neat rows. A well-ordered monoculture with access roads and heavy machinery. The smell of greenwashed money in the air. There's no sign of the ancient woodland they emerged from on debut album, Come Play The Trees. And it's far cry from the gentrified East London they found themselves hawking on Stunning Luxury. All is not well in the face of progress. Welcome to the Forest Of Your Problems. Even among the famously close-knit woodwose community there are factions forming. Meet The Business Imp, The Cornucopian, The Nemophile and The Protester. Each with their own motivations and belief systems. Their own sense of injustice: contradictions, anxieties and guilt. There are woodwose who have risen to the top in the boom and bust world of real estate and hedge funds. Grab what you can before the next crash. Others find euphoria in the absolute conviction that wealth and technology will see us through this. There are those with their recycling in order, who are well-versed in the prospect of imminent ecological and economic collapse, burying themselves in vegan cookery and extensive international holiday itineraries. And there's an increasing number angry at the state of the world, ready to take to the streets and the trees in an attempt to force real change. Forest Of Your Problems runs the gamut of modern woodwose emotions. In this neat human approximation of the forest, it's an increasingly knotted affair. Despite all of this, Snapped Ankles haven't lost their innate ability to make you want to move your feet - their Teutonic forest rhythms are still shot through with post-punk lightning. Whether they're exploring those opportunities which might arise when a Nigerian prince emails out of the blue on 'The Evidence', or referencing the crooked woodwose attempting to go straight on 'Rhythm Is Our Business', this is music to lose your inhibitions to. The moments of pure elation on 'Shifting Basslines Of The Cornucopians' are worth the admission price alone - "It's a great time to be alive!" ...apparently. Snapped Ankles outsider status has always allowed them to hold a mirror up to society. Now the boundaries are not so clear. In the four years since Come Play The Trees was released, their cult has flourished. Previous album Stunning Luxury saw the band invited to play the BBC 6 Music Festival and a KEXP session on the back of a sold-out UK tour which culminated with two nights at Village Underground in London. As those who have witnessed the shamanic ritual of their live shows will attest, they are a truly unique, communal experience. Forest Of Your Problems will see the woodwose bring their ancient forest rhythms and high-wire, multi-media live act to ever bigger stages - including Camden's iconic Roundhouse in October.

Dauw welcomes Taylor Deupree to the label with his new record 'Mur'. With this release Dauw also introduces Jelle Martens, a Belgian graphic designer and painter, for the artwork of this release.

Deupree describes the album title “as if there’s always something about my music that’s like a murmur”, resulting in a murmuring effect when pronouncing the names of each track. Mur is a personal journey through the challenging year that 2020 has been. The fifth and last track on the album, Mar, contributes as a catharsis to this turbulent period in Deupree’s personal life, which is defined by the interaction between the loud sounds and the soft keys of the piano. As if the storm has died down and the waters have found their peace.

Taylor Deupree is an American musician and mastering engineer based just outside of New York. As a former member of the American electronic band Prototype 909, Deupree has had numerous collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stephen Vitiello, Alva Noto and Marcus Fischer. Curating 12k, a New-York based music label, is another aspect of Deupree’s career and brought together over one hundred releases since its beginnings in 1997. Having some similar artists in our catalog (Federico Durand, Will Samson and Steinbüchel for example), it’s safe to say that Deupree’s new release through Dauw will be in good company.

Following the 70s Peruvian cumbia compilation by Ranil last year, Analog Africa returns to Latin America to highlight the work of one of Perú’s undisputed masters of the electric guitar: Manzanita. This 13th release in the Limited Dance Edition Series includes 14 mostly instrumental compositions of electrifying Peruvian cumbia and guaracha. Manzanita's unique guitar lines rest on confident foundations that shifts gears effortlessly. Limited Edition LP in Gatefold Cover pressed on 180g high quality virgin vinyl

"I was in Lima, hanging out with collector-extraordinaire Victor Zela, who had spent the previous few years pouring his passion for Peruvian Cumbia into the blog „la cumbia de mis viejos“, a trove of incredible music. But after the birth of his first child, his priorities shifted and he decided to part with some of his rarest LPs. I was one of the lucky few given an early chance to examine his treasures, and when I picked up the album Manzaneando com Manzanita, Victor said: “Take it! its one of the best LPs ever recorded in Perú … easily in the top five”. That was all the encouragement I needed … two years later many of the songs from that masterpiece have made it onto Manzanita y su Conjunto, a compilation of electrifying Cumbia sides from Manzanita’s golden era.

Berardo Hernández – better known as Manzanita – first surfaced during the psychedelic Cumbia craze. At the head of the scene were the magnificent Los Destellos, whose leader, Enrique Delgado, was such a six-string wizard that other guitarists found it impossible to escape his shadow. But when Manzanita arrived, his electric criollo style sent shockwaves through Lima’s music scene and posed a serious threat to Delgado’s dominance as king of the Peruvian guitar.

Manzanita had come to Lima from the coastal city of Trujillo, five hundred miles up the coast – a place where Spanish, African and indigenous populations had been living and making music together for centuries – and came of age at a time when the first wave of psychedelic rock from the US and UK was starting to sweep the airwaves. But the sounds of Cream and Hendrix disappeared from the radio just as quickly in 1968 when Juan Velasco seized control of the country in a military coup. The new regime, which favoured local traditions over cultural ‘imports’ from the north, was a blessing in disguise for the Peruvian music scene.

Record labels flourished as new bands, raised on a hybrid diet of electric guitars and Cuban rhythms, rushed in to fill the vacuum created by the lack of imported rock. A new genre, known as Peruvian cumbia, was born and Manzanita quickly became one of its most original voices.

Starting in 1969, Manzanita y su Conjunto released a steady stream of singles that used Cuban guaracha rhythms as the foundation for dazzling electric guitar lines. After countless 45s and several years on the touring circuit, the band signed to Virrey, an important Peruvian label, and recorded two LPs acknowledged as masterpieces among aficionados of tropical music. Most of the songs on Analog Africa’s new compilation Manzanita y su Conjunto are drawn from those legendary sessions of 1973 and 74.

Although he scored a few more hits in the later 70s, his dissatisfaction with the music industry caused him to withdraw from the scene for several years; and when he finally retired for good, the golden age of Peruvian cumbia was a distant memory. But when Manzanita was at the top of his game he had few equals. Victor Zela was right: this is some of the best music ever recorded in Perú."

Los Angeles based Alt-rock quartet THE INTERRUPTERS are releasing their first-ever live album "Live In Tokyo!" with a set list that captures the live power that made them one of the busiest touring bands in the world, with fan favorite songs from each of the bands three albums including hit tracks such as "She's Kerosene," "Gave You Everything," "Take Back The Power" and "Bad Guy." Their greatest hits performed in the greatest way you can see THE INTERRUPTERS: LIVE! The past three years have been pivotal for THE INTERRUPTERS. The band toured the world in support of their Fight the Good Fight (2018) album, including their first ever tour stop in Japan, where they captured this energetic live performance for their first live album "Live In Tokyo!" This recording captures the band that is known for their powerful live performances which features the band's most popular tracks from their three Hellcat Records albums. Not to mention, an onslaught of successful touring worldwide including many sold out headlining dates as well as appearances at Download Festival, Slam Dunk and support runs with Green Day and Rancid throughout Europe and the UK. The band shows no signs of slowing down and have recently announced tour dates next year with the Dropkick Murphys across Europe and the UK.

Re-mastering by: Cicely Baston at Alchemy/Air Mastering, London

Electric blues guitarist Melvin Taylor had been sporadically recording solo albums for 20 years when Dirty Pool arrived — and was somehow just beginning to find fame. Already a hit in Europe, it had taken a steady run of performing in Chicago’s famed blues clubs to slowly earn Taylor a well-deserved reputation as an equal talent among the giants before him, such as Otis Rush, Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

While early records like Melvin Taylor Plays the Blues For You show off an equally amazing jazz side, Taylor traded away his Wes Montgomery-inspired runs for more Luther Allison/Jimi Hendrix attacks with the formation of the trio Melvin Taylor and the Slack Band in the mid ’90’s.

The title song of the second album by that outfit, “Dirty Pool,” is actually more the balls-to-the-wall, no-compromise, hard-rockin’ electric Texas blues of Vaughan and Johnny Winter than the sweet Chicago soul of Buddy Guy.

Indeed, three tracks on this 1997 release, including “Dirty Pool,” were SRV tunes. Other standards, like “Kansas City” and “Floodin’ in California” also have more of a Lone Star State approach to them. But the Jackson, Miss.-born Taylor’s guitar is cleaner than his forebears and technically, he even surpasses them, yet the anger and sorrow of the blues is readily evident in his playing.

This rare combination of qualities really comes out in a slow blues tune like his solo in “Dirty Pool,” which after repeated listens, still makes me head shake in disbelief when I hear it.

“Too Sorry” is a good example of how well Taylor fares when he treads in Jimi Hendrix territory, whereas his rhythm work is the best I’ve heard from a lead guitarist since Vaughan; listen to “I Ain’t Superstitious,” “Born Under A Bad Sign” and the funky “Telephone Song” for your proof.

It also helps that Taylor’s drummer James Knowles is well in synch with him, while Ethan Farmer completely owns the low end of the sound. Farmer’s peppering bass lines in and “Floodin’ in California” is the textbook way electric blues bass should be. Overall, a tight little band.

Taylor’s vocals certainly won’t draw any comparisons to the Wide-Brimmed–Hatted One but he holds his own just fine until it’s cuttin’ time. This is right at the top of my list of best blues guitar playing on record over the last couple of decades. If you decide to give this one a listen, prepare to be blown away.

From their genesis as members of the Venus club in-house band in the early 70s, Hailu Mergia and the Walias Band were at the forefront of the musical revolution during an era where modern instruments and foreign styles superseded the traditional fare to become the staple sound of Ethiopia. No one would argue that the Walias were the trailblazing powerhouse of modern Ethiopian music. They were the first band to form independently without affiliation to a theatre house, a club or a hotel; unprecedented and risky as they had to raise all funding for expenses by themselves including buying equipment. They were the first to release full instrumental albums, considered to be commercially unviable at the time. They opened their own recording studio, with band members Melake Gebre and Mahmoud Aman doubling as technical buffs during sessions. They were also the first independent band to tour abroad. In short, they were the pioneers every band tried to emulate; some more successfully than others.
Odds are, any Ethiopian over the age of 35 who had access to TV or radio by the early 90s, will instantly recognize the sound of Walias. What is not a given is, how many would actually identify the band itself. Barely a day went by without hearing the Walias either in the background on radio or as an accompaniment to various programs on TV.

This Tezeta album, the band’s second recording, released in 1975, is one of those that have been impossible to find for nearly three decades. Sourced by Awesome Tapes From Africa and expertly remastered by Jessica Thompson, its unique and funky renditions of standards and popular songs of the day are so quintessentially Walias, flavorful and evocative. Hailu's melodic organ, unashamedly front and center in every track, makes even the complex pieces accessible.
Profoundly engaging; it's an immersive trip down memory lane for those of us getting reacquainted with it, while also an enthralling and gratifying experience for fresh ears.

Virtually unknown recording outside Ethiopia.
Documents Mergia & Walias legendary early period.
Follow-up to reissue of hugely popular seminal Ethiopian instrumentals LP Tche Belew (ATFA012)

Cassette-only, released in 1975 on the band’s in-house label to fund their record store.
Beautifully-rendered instrumentals of classic Ethiopian standards.

Limited edition gold vinyl edition.
Hamburg's funk adventurers at the top of their game with special guests Ice-T, Charlie Funk, Peter Thomas, Gizelle Smith, Lee Fields, JSwiss & the Mocambo Kidz.

Original press release note (2019):
Carrying blistering funk lines in their fingers and worldly influences in their hearts, the unique and distinctive Mocambo sound is not one to be confused with retro bands trying to recapture an era. Eschewing traditional recording methods, this DIY crew are committed to driving forwards, and 2066 sees them at the height of their powers, broadcasting a call for unity.
After reaching new audiences worldwide and earning critical praise for their two long players on Brooklyn's Big Crown Records in their tropical guise as Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, the band have reassembled and refocused in their original form, the workhorses behind dozens of 45s on the Mocambo label and beyond. Crossing generations, this album introduces some of the world's youngest funk talent to step up and rub shoulders with soul and rap legends, soul sisters, an elder statesman composer/arranger and a brand new emerging artist out of New York.
As with all Mocambo releases, the two sides of the record have been meticulously sequenced by the
band. Side A welcomes us aboard with joyous instrumental stomper Preaching To The Choir, and a call to build bridges from Mocambo chanteuse and percussionist Nichola Richards, duetting with emerging rap talent, New York MC JSwiss. B-girls and b-boys are called to the dancefloor as Superstrada and Concrete Stardust commence, all buzzing synth lines and relentless drums. New Jersey legend and Big Crown associate Mr Lee Fields is guest of honour for Where Do We Go From Here before a horn workout brings us to a close with Macumba. It's time for a breather.
The B side kicks off with the grand return of the Golden Girl of Funk, Gizelle Smith, a sister who's been busy taking on the world. Composer and presenter Peter Thomas narrates a Return To Space to mark the centenary of the debut of his score to sci-fi show Space Patrol, which first broadcast in 1966. We're back down to Earth and the mean streets for the furious drums and car chase workout of Golden Shadow. Today slows down the pace for a reflective ballad with Nichola front and centre - and here's the next generation: the Mocambo Kidz sing along to their parents' instrumentation for Here We Go, a new kids' block party anthem... with no sleep 'til bedtime. The album closer makes it clear that the Mocambos are nowhere near powering down as Ice T and Charlie F unk bring their A-game for an old school attack which, since you're up bouncing anyway, gives you no excuse not to flip the LP and drop the needle right back on to Side A. Onwards!
A summation of their journey so far and a celebration in anticipation of what's to come, the album is set
to take its place in a legacy of open minded, organically recorded music, showering listeners with the crew's maze of tantalising sounds pulled from funk, afro, hip hop with cinematic composition and storytelling.

With his ongoing commitment to like-minded archivist label Finders Keepers Records, industrial music pioneer Steven Stapleton further entrusts us to lift the veil and expose “the right tracks” from his uber-legendary and oft misinterpreted psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List.
Following the critically lauded first instalment and it’s exclusively French tracklisting both parties now combine their vinyl-vulturous penchants to bring you the next ‘Strain Crack & Break’ edition which consists of twelve lesser-known German records that played a hugely important part in the initial foundations of the list which began to unfold when Stapleton was just thirteen years old.
From the perspective of a schoolboy Amon Düül (ONE) victim, at the start of a journey that commenced before phrases like kosmische and the xeno-ignant Krautrock tag had become mag hack currency, this compendium is devoid of the tropes that united what many would accurately argue to be the greatest progressive pop bands in Europe
(namely CAN, Neu! and Kraftwerk) and rather shatters the ingredients across a ground zero landscape for both inquisitive fans and socially rehabbing musos to begin to assemble a unique self-styled identity. If Krautrock was the music that journalist told us lurked behind schlager (German pop) in the 1970s, then this record includes the music that skulked behind Krautrock and perhaps refused to polish its backhanded name belt.
Including lesser-known artists like the late Wolfgang Dauner, whose career proceeded and outlived the kosmische movement while consistently informing and outsmarting them whenever they got stuck in their metronomic ruts, or how about Fritz Müller, the man who
was to Kraftwerk what Stuart Sutcliffe was to The Beatles but had more in common with Yoko and quite rightly couldn’t give a stuff about the Fab Four’s Hamburg roots.
Elsewhere we have a plethora of German bands made for German audiences as they try and shed secondhand flower power Americanisms and feel the benefits of much harder drugs and the realisations of difficult second album budgets while Kommune 1
newsflashes wipe smiles from everybody’s faces and replace them with opioid chic or acid-sarcastic grins. Bonzo Cockettes show us their Big Muffs and drummers ask for extra mics while Conny Plank goes for parliamentary office and gives babies good firm handshakes for the camera.
‘Strain Crack & Break: Volume Two’ is the sound of Steve Stapleton’s sponge-like mind and the dividends of anyone who was brave enough to even peek inside those brick-thick gatefold covers never mind drop the needle.
Over forty years since Nurse With Wound’s first album was released, Finders Keepers Records and Steve Stapleton take connoisseurs of our kind of music back to the disused elevator shaft towards ground zero. Arriving at the same checkout from different departments, Finders Keepers and Nurse With Wound continue to sing from the same hymnal with this ongoing collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from Steve’s list, where many overzealous erds have faltered (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick).
After ‘Strain Crack & Break: Volume One’ merely scratched the surface of this DIY dossier of elongated punk-prog peculiarities, this second lavish metallic gatefold double vinyl compendium drives a much deeper groove which, in accordance with Steve’s wishes, focusses exclusively on individual tracks of German origin - the country whose music forged the prototype of the NWW inventory in the form of his secondary school vinyl wantlist in the early 1970s, comprised of disassembled free jazz, unshowered stoner psych, hypnotic prog, deranged monk funk and fuzzed out Deutschmark bin bonzo beats.

Nonesuch Records releases an album of songs written and performed by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The musicians, who have known each other since their student days, were presented with three days of gratis studio time and decided to experiment with ideas they had begun putting to tape during the sessions for their January 2021 Nonesuch release Narrow Sea. With Shaw on vocals and Sō – Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting – filling out this new band, they developed songs in the studio, with lyrics inspired by their own wide-ranging interests: James Joyce, the Sacred Harp hymn book, a poem by Anne Carson, the Bible’s Book of Ruth, the American roots tune ‘I’ll Fly Away’, and the pop perfection of ABBA, among others. The album is co-produced by Shaw, Sō Percussion, and the Grammy Award–winning engineer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift).

Shaw, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her vocal composition Partita for 8 Voices, written for and performed with Roomful of Teeth, makes her solo vocal debut with Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. The album’s first track, ‘To the Sky’, from the Sacred Harp, takes its lyrics from Anne Steele. “I love the songs about death, and going home, and looking toward a time that is better or brighter, which, if there’s one thing to think about in the world, maybe that’s the thing,” Shaw says. “This one I love in particular. There’s a line, ‘Frail solace of an hour / So soon our transient comforts fly / And pleasure blooms to die.’ It’s meditation on the ephemeral, and I love it.”

“I hadn’t written very many songs, but I have certainly loved many in my life. I’ve been thinking of making a solo album for seven or eight years, but it takes having the right friends and community in the room,” Shaw says. “The prompt for all of us was: What would we make in the room together with no one person in charge, like a band writes in the studio?”

Cha-Beach recalls of the early test run during the Narrow Sea session: “It had that capturing-lightning-in-a bottle feeling.” When the opportunity to have three days in their friends’ studio, Guilford Sound, came up, the five musicians decamped for Vermont with engineer/co-producer Jonathan Low. “Jon is an amazing editor,” Cha-Beach says. “He is so helpful in thinking about: ‘We have these ideas: how do we shrink those and make them come across on an album?’”

One such idea was for Shaw to do a duet with each member of Sō. She sings with Josh Quillen on steel drums on the title track, which she wrote in under an hour in a “free-writing zone, very inspired by James Joyce, taking on that brain space,” she says. Lyrically, the song is “related to some math bits that I love, but also memory, and love songs of somebody who’s gone or passed away, or that you’re no longer with: what is the sound of that kind of devastation or confusion or love?” They recorded the song only twice, and the first take is on the album. “It’s very spare. The playing is very Josh; it’s so sensitive,” Shaw says.

Adam Sliwinski’s marimba duet with Shaw is an interpretation of the ABBA song ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’. She explains, “It’s really a Bach chorale. Also, the idea of someone singing ‘Don’t go wasting your emotion / Lay all your love on me / Don’t go sharing your devotion / Lay all your love on me,’ over and over again very slowly, there’s a certain tragedy in it. And then Adam did some absolutely exquisite layering that built this stunning world from the marimba.”

Jason Treuting on the drum kit joined Shaw for ‘Long Ago We Counted’. She suggested, “Why don’t we start with the voice and the kit having a weird conversation, sort of like two babies talking to each other? And then we built this loop, and we go from this place that’s totally uncomfortable and nonsensical to something that’s rich and rolling and satisfying.” For ‘Some Bright Morning’, the duet with Cha-Beach – who here plays electronics, piano, and Hammond organ – Shaw drew upon a twelfth century liturgical hymn she had sung regularly in church during her college years: ‘Salve Regina’.

“Some songs on Let the Soil… were very specifically composed by Caroline,” Cha-Beach says. “But others were this assemblage of ideas: finding words, an idea for how a melody could work, a harmony, and then tossing it in a blender and trusting each other.” Shaw adds, “What I love about Sō is the curiosity about how objects make sounds and how they speak to each other. There was an underlying thread of thinking about what goes into soil, how we take care of it, how we allow it to be itself, how we contain it, and what can come out of it if you cultivate the right environment, which for me is always this wonderful metaphor for creativity and collaboration: let people be themselves and see what happens,” she concludes.

Caroline Shaw is a New York–based musician – vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer – who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy–winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Shaw’s film scores include Erica Fae’s To Keep the Light and Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline as well as the upcoming short 8th Year of the Emergency by Maureen Towey. Hailed for ‘astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds’ (Guardian), she has produced for Kanye West (The Life of Pablo; Ye) and Nas (NASIR), and has contributed to records by The National and by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry. Shaw currently teaches at NYU and is a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School. Her 2019 Nonesuch/New Amsterdam album Orange won a Grammy Award.

Through its interpretations of modern classics, innovative multi-genre original productions, and ‘exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam’ (New Yorker), Sō Percussion has redefined the scope and role of the modern percussion ensemble. Sō’s repertoire ranges from twentieth century works by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Steven Mackey, to collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including Shara Nova, choreographer Susan Marshall, The National, Bryce Dessner, and many others. Sō has recorded more than twenty albums, including a performance of Reich’s Mallet Quartet on the Nonesuch record WTC 9/11; appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, the Barbican, the Eaux Claires Festival, MassMoCA, and TED 2016; and performed with Jad Abumrad, JACK Quartet, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel, among others.

Heavy music’s evolution has always been a murky swamp of sub-genres. So, combining Thin Lizzy’s glistening twin guitar harmonies with Melvins- grade sludge and a hearty dose of proto-metal psych probably shouldn’t sound so revolutionary as it does in the hands of L.A. quartet Deathchant. But theirs is a special, transcendent sound.
Waste, the band’s sophomore album and first for RidingEasy Records, is anything but. The 33-minute, 7-song blast flows seamlessly from song to song, aided by droning segues, while simultaneously slithering between genres and moods. Rumbling noise, chiming guitar melodies, bluesy boogie, NWOBHM thrash, COC grunge and punk fury all rear their head at times, sometimes all at once.
Though you wouldn’t be able to tell by the concise structures and well- crafted songs, a lot of Deathchant’s music is improvised, both in the studio and live. That’s not to suggest their songs are jammy — they’re very tightly organized compositions. But the four musicians have that special musical telepathy that allows them to keep the song structures open-ended.
“Improv is a huge things for us and always has been,” singer/guitarist T.J. Lemieux says. “The musical freedom to look at the other dudes in the band and be able to take things wherever we want to go is magical. I like the feel of flying off the hinges.”
Likewise, the band itself is similarly amorphous in its membership. “We run the band with an open door. No lineup is definitive,” Lemieux explains. On Waste, the lineup is: Lemieux, George Camacho on bass, Colin Fahrner on drums, and John Belino on second guitar.
Waste was recorded live in a rented cabin in the mountains of Big Bear, CA. “We packed a big-ass van and set up in the living room and kitchen,” Lemieux says. “Tracked it live, with overdubs after.” The whole album was recorded over two separate weekends, engineered by Steve Schroeder, who also recorded the band’s 2019 self-titled debut album.
“I’d say it has sort of a DIY LA punk aesthetic,” he adds. “Very ironically going hand in hand with a classic metal vibe: Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, classic Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and other melodic heavy rock bands.”

Heavy music’s evolution has always been a murky swamp of sub-genres. So, combining Thin Lizzy’s glistening twin guitar harmonies with Melvins- grade sludge and a hearty dose of proto-metal psych probably shouldn’t sound so revolutionary as it does in the hands of L.A. quartet Deathchant. But theirs is a special, transcendent sound.
Waste, the band’s sophomore album and first for RidingEasy Records, is anything but. The 33-minute, 7-song blast flows seamlessly from song to song, aided by droning segues, while simultaneously slithering between genres and moods. Rumbling noise, chiming guitar melodies, bluesy boogie, NWOBHM thrash, COC grunge and punk fury all rear their head at times, sometimes all at once.
Though you wouldn’t be able to tell by the concise structures and well- crafted songs, a lot of Deathchant’s music is improvised, both in the studio and live. That’s not to suggest their songs are jammy — they’re very tightly organized compositions. But the four musicians have that special musical telepathy that allows them to keep the song structures open-ended.
“Improv is a huge things for us and always has been,” singer/guitarist T.J. Lemieux says. “The musical freedom to look at the other dudes in the band and be able to take things wherever we want to go is magical. I like the feel of flying off the hinges.”
Likewise, the band itself is similarly amorphous in its membership. “We run the band with an open door. No lineup is definitive,” Lemieux explains. On Waste, the lineup is: Lemieux, George Camacho on bass, Colin Fahrner on drums, and John Belino on second guitar.
Waste was recorded live in a rented cabin in the mountains of Big Bear, CA. “We packed a big-ass van and set up in the living room and kitchen,” Lemieux says. “Tracked it live, with overdubs after.” The whole album was recorded over two separate weekends, engineered by Steve Schroeder, who also recorded the band’s 2019 self-titled debut album.
“I’d say it has sort of a DIY LA punk aesthetic,” he adds. “Very ironically going hand in hand with a classic metal vibe: Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, classic Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and other melodic heavy rock bands.”

What Did You Expect from The Vaccines? is the debut studio album by English indie rock band The Vaccines. It was released on 11 March
2011, entering the UK Albums Chart at #4 and going on to become the biggest-selling debut by a band in 2011.

The Vaccines were formed in West London in 2010 by Justin Hayward- Young (lead vocals, guitar), Freddie Cowan (lead guitar, vocals), Árni Árnason (bass, vocals) and Pete Robertson (drums, vocals). The band have released four studio albums and have sold more than two million records worldwide. They have performed at the world’s biggest festivals and toured with acts such as The Rolling Stones, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, The Stone Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Imagine Dragons and Muse.






RELEASE: 25-6-2021

What Did You Expect from The Vaccines? drew comparisons to The Ramones and The Jesus and Mary Chain and contains 6 singles; “Wreckin’ Bar”, “Post-Break-Up Sex”, “If You Wanna”, “All In White”, “Nørgaard” and “Wetsuit”.

The 10th anniversary edition on black vinyl contains an exclusive, brand new insert + a free download coupon for the original album + unreleased What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? Demos album.

The four Scottish-Irish musicians Conor Dalton, David Donaldson, Greame Reedie and Ian Maclennan are Island People. After their highly acclaimed debut from 2017, they have now finished their second album with the simple and consistent title »II«. Compared to their debut, »II« sounds more mature and complex. The arrangements unfold like the long tracking shots of an early Antonioni film - time seems to stand still, circling the moment. Impressionistically, one feels transported into the Scottish island landscape with its contrasting lights and harsh elements. Gloomy, darker, richer textures have conquered their space on »II« as much as the more present acoustic components. As much as its predecessor, also this record was skilfully produced, the musicians’ entire experience is audible (Conor Dalton is a sought-after mastering engineer; David Donaldson a Grammy Award-winning producer) – but anything fashionable or sensationalist has been intentionally waived. The musical serenity, holding up a craft that neither has to show itself off every minute nor wants to respond to the latest trends impressed us the most. The cover photo was contributed by the Scottish artist Helena Ohman. She also provided the video for the track »Crash«. Furthermore, singer Alice Hill-Woods was invited to contribute the lyrics and vocals to »Stalling«. Island People »II« will be released as gatefold double LP as well as on CD and digitally. In advance we asked Island People about the creative process behind the album and quote as follows: This album reflects on the destination we have in common before us, and celebrates the longer road while also considering paths not taken and journeys that ended too soon. It has been said that »art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time.« For us the writing of this album has been a great journey through both, shared with friends. While our first album acknowledged our own spaces and borders as individuals, the new album seemed to grow very quickly from our travels together as a band. Periods spent on the road playing live afforded extra time together and while we didn’t feel constrained to a concept at the start, more and more of the tracks evolved to reflect these journeys and experiences together.

Cinema – which features tracks in English and Spanish – draws inspiration from the classic films and directors that María and Josh grew up watching, including Pedro Almodóvar and Wes Anderson. The title also pays homage to how the band first began creating music in the first place.

The Marías have fast proven among the most visionary and entrancing new bands in recent memory. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Atlanta, María Zardoya moved to Los Angeles in 2016 where she met drummer Josh Conway after a performance at the famed Kibitz Room Bar at Canter’s Deli. The two began writing together, crafting a remarkable collection of mesmerizing original songs fusing kaleidoscopic soul, gentle jazz, and imagistic, bilingual lyricism.

Last year saw The Marías unleash a series of new songs affirming their continued creative evolution. “Hold It Together” and “Jupiter” were released in the top half of 2020, accompanied by official music videos. The former received praise from The FADER, which wrote, “The pop-leaning and low-key love song features guitar and key lines that interlock hand in hand. Right in the pocket is the cotton candy-textured voice of vocalist María that coolly asks you to slow down with her. ”Meanwhile, “Jupiter” was hailed as “a soothing dream from retro outer-space,” by Melted.

In October of last year, the group released two new songs written and recorded during lockdown – “Care For You” and “bop it up!” – both joined by official videos co-directed by María with longtime visual collaborator Bethany Vargas. “Care For You” received acclaim from V Magazine, which praised it as “a slow, jazzy jam, both sensual and soothing,” while Órale enthused, “‘bop it up!’ is unlike any project The Marías have put out before... Although their signature tenderness is still recognizable, listeners will discover a newfound sense of invigoration. ”International art and fashion magazine Teeth added: “Both tracks are quarantine jams to dance and cry to, the kind of music we need during this endlessly trying time... The Marías have this incredible ability to transport you.”

Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis's ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman's twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo's first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock. Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry. For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. "This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being," says Lightman. "It's about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There's an epicness to it and tension at times. It's like the ways particles collide. There's an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together."

Recorded during the thick of the Covid lockdown, Kevin, Tony, & Eric hunkered down in their studio and turned their energy inward. With all live shows and future tours canceled, Brainstory had no other outlet besides their rehearsal space which had been converted into a makeshift studio. Stepping up to the obstacles of the moment, they recorded and produced an EP of brand new music. They were already highly skilled musicians two years ago, but time in the studio with Leon Michels producing Buck and playing alongside bands like Holy Hive and Chicano Batman had a profound effect on them. Their ears have developed, their ethos and their drive has matured, their musicianship is full-blown; hence the name of the EP, Ripe. Ripe is a seven song journey into who Brainstory are as people and as a band. They are lighthearted and fun but never anything less than dead serious about their artistry. In choosing to record a mostly instrumental record, they have departed from their 2019 debut Buck and are showing more of their Jazz roots. Ripe pulls from Jazz, Hip Hop, 70s Funk, 60s Soul, and life in Southern California in the year 2021. Kev's intro to the EP is a testament to their thing, his goofy and charming "let's go baby_.less go baby" is welcoming and fun and then "Scissors" drops - serious as can be. The first vocal number we hear is "Seasons", a song about maintaining through the challenges of 2020 that would make Roy Ayers proud. "Long Day" and "Rogers" are drenched in reefer and psychedelia and promise a moment away from reality if listened to in headphones. "Bye Bye" is another stone cold ballad from the group that is destined to be a staple in sweet soul sets around the globe. Ripe is a welcome ray of sunshine as we all shake off the darkness of 2020 and will hold fans over while they finish recording their full length sophomore album due out in 2022.

COLORED VINYL IS TRANSPARENT WITH ORANGE & GREEN SPLATTER. Recorded during the thick of the Covid lockdown, Kevin, Tony, & Eric hunkered down in their studio and turned their energy inward. With all live shows and future tours canceled, Brainstory had no other outlet besides their rehearsal space which had been converted into a makeshift studio. Stepping up to the obstacles of the moment, they recorded and produced an EP of brand new music. They were already highly skilled musicians two years ago, but time in the studio with Leon Michels producing Buck and playing alongside bands like Holy Hive and Chicano Batman had a profound effect on them. Their ears have developed, their ethos and their drive has matured, their musicianship is full-blown; hence the name of the EP, Ripe. Ripe is a seven song journey into who Brainstory are as people and as a band. They are lighthearted and fun but never anything less than dead serious about their artistry. In choosing to record a mostly instrumental record, they have departed from their 2019 debut Buck and are showing more of their Jazz roots. Ripe pulls from Jazz, Hip Hop, 70s Funk, 60s Soul, and life in Southern California in the year 2021. Kev's intro to the EP is a testament to their thing, his goofy and charming "let's go baby_.less go baby" is welcoming and fun and then "Scissors" drops--serious as can be. The first vocal number we hear is "Seasons", a song about maintaining through the challenges of 2020 that would make Roy Ayers proud. "Long Day" and "Rogers" are drenched in reefer and psychedelia and promise a moment away from reality if listened to in headphones. "Bye Bye" is another stone cold ballad from the group that is destined to be a staple in sweet soul sets around the globe. Ripe is a welcome ray of sunshine as we all shake off the darkness of 2020 and will hold fans over while they finish recording their full length sophomore album due out in 2022.

If Black Sabbath had been born and bred in an Ohio mobile home and raised on a steady diet of smoke and acid - the result would sound exactly like Mistreater
In 1981 the group independently recorded and released the “Hell’s Fire” album. Today the album is considered a US metal classic and is considered one of the strongest metal albums ever made by metal aficionados - original copies are hard to find and there’s a hefty price tag if you’re lucky enough to find a copy for sale. Mistreater are from Creston (population 2000) and were far outside everything and everybody associated with the “hip” music scene in Ohio. Mistreater either didn’t know or care about the scene in nearby Cleveland where bands like proto-punk rockers Electric Eels, Rocket From The Tombs and Styrenes made waves. Pere Ubu and Dead Boys sprang from these roots. The Pagans ruled the Cleveland area during the punk days. Earlier, The Choir, Raspberries and The James Gang were pivotal Cleveland bands. As local audiences were receptive, the city was a major stop-off for touring bands. Similarly, radio station WMMS also had open ears. Nowadays, The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is located in Cleveland. It goes on – Cleveland and its surroundings were happening. Mistreater was into none of this… Their music was by outsiders for outsiders. More brutal, raw and louder than everyone else. Rough-edged and without gloss, the Mistreater of Hell’s Fire was not aiming for the mainstream. The riffs are stoner hard knock-outs and the guitar leads are psyched out punches rooted in heavy psychedelia. Sweden’s On The Dole Records are proud to present the first ever reissue of “Hell’s Fire”. And in true OTD fashion no expenses were saved. The band was interviewed for the extensive liner notes, rare photos were found, the sound is remastered and carefully restored, and the non album single b-side “Baby Blue” is added as a bonus. This is a US metal / D.I.Y masterpiece that should be heard by everyone into hard, loud music and massive guitar riffs. It’s like Greg Sage of The Wipers had gone metal. It would have been the ultimate soundtrack to Tim Hunter’s “River’s Edge” movie with Dennis Hopper. Mistreater were young and had no contacts or knew ways to reach out with their music back then… Now the time has come for the resurrection of Mistreater. Mistreater is not in the nearby Rock’n’roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland. But they should be. This OTD reissue goes to prove it.

Surfdog Records and Brian Setzer have announced that for the first time, Setzer’s classic 2003 album Nitro Burnin’ Funny Daddy will be issued on vinyl. It will be released on limited edition 180 gram, red transparent vinyl on 25th June 2021.
Only Brian Setzer could cut an album with more lyrical honesty and musical diversity than anything he's ever done and then title it Nitro Burnin' Funny Daddy. Not that the name is misleading; Nitro is in fact packed with explosive performances. There's more than enough volatile picking and singing to mark this as a highlight of a catalog already crowded with great albums he's delivered as leader of the history-making Stray Cats and on his own too.

But there's more: street-corner doo-wop, heartbreak balladry, a foot-stomp hoedown, several lyrics that will shock and stun longtime fans, and always, somewhere in the mix, the blues. Every track is distinctive, none sounds like any of the others, yet all of them are pure Setzer. And it's all compressed into a tight trio format -- Setzer and his big band colleagues, standup slap-bass powerhouse Johnny Hatton and rhythm dynamo Bernie Dresel on snare and cymbals -- whose sound evokes Les Paul, Junior Parker, and even Earl Scruggs as much as Louis Prima or Eddie Cochran.
Originally released in 2003, Nitro Burnin’ Funny Daddy was Brian Setzer’s eleventh solo album and when it was released he said it was the most personal record he had ever done. The album followed his big-band release Boogie Woogie Christmas from the previous year and saw him back to his rockabilly best, taking in doo-wop (“To Be Loved”), bluegrass (“When The Bells Don’t Chime”), rootsy-rock (“Don’t Trust A Woman (In A Black Cadillac)”) and going on a cinematic Wild-West romp (“Wild Wind”).

• The tracks from the group’s two 1984 EPs together on a swanky 10-inch vinyl LP. Inner bag features liner notes by Kris Needs incorporating new interviews with all three Delmonas and a series of great photos by Eugene Doyen.

• Sarah Crouch, Hilary Wilkins and Louise Baker started singing together as a unique spark of spontaneous magic inextricably linked to their boyfriends in the Milkshakes, then rocking a garage-punk antidote to shiny synth-pop and brash chart stars with a direct lifeline back to rock’n’roll’s original simplicity and wildness. After Billy Childish and Bruce Brand formed the Pop Rivets in 1978, the guys hooked up with Micky Hampshire and Russell Wilkins to found the Milkshakes. Sarah shared a student house with boyfriend Micky plus Billy. After she and Hilary, then dating Russell, sang backing vocals on the Milkshakes’ rollicking Beatles-translated take on the Shirelles’ ‘Boys’, Louise’s arrival turned them into a girl group pretty much by accident.

• “I loved the music the Milkshakes were playing,” Louise recalls. “Loved the small, intimate venues and most of the bands that played with them, especially the Prisoners. I’d gone with the Milkshakes to Belgium and was somehow persuaded to get up on stage and sing something. Next thing I knew, there was some kind of plan to get the three of us in the studio.” At first the three girls were called the Milk-boilers, renaming themselves the Delmonas by the time Ace Records’ Roger Armstrong and Ted Carroll suggested recording the EPs that furnish this collection. “I think we were asked to each think of three songs and turn up,” says Louise. “I mostly listened to music from the 60s: lots of girl groups, Irma Thomas, Dusty Springfield, Bo Diddley, Velvet Underground, Kinks. Bruce had the best record collection; Mel Tormé was in there somewhere and one of my faves. Sarah came up with doing the Doors cover.”

• ‘Comin’ Home Baby’ was written as an instrumental before Bob Dorough added lyrics and Mel Tormé recorded it in 1962. The Delmonas’ finger-clicking, noir-dynamic version kicked off their first EP with authentic-sounding 60s production resonance, iced with mysterioso organ. The Cookies scored a hit with Goffin & King’s ‘Chains’ in 1962, the Beatles’ version providing the Hamburg Star-Club template for the Delmonas’ energised rendition. The first EP, “The Delmonas Volume 1”, rounded off with two songs from the Childish-Hampshire songwriting partnership: ‘Woa’ Now’ and ‘He Tells Me He Loves Me’, the latter recalling the New York Dolls covering the Shangri-Las’ ‘Give Him A Great Big Kiss’, mainly because it has similar chords.

• “The Delmonas Volume 2” opened with Sarah’s idea of covering the Doors’ hit. “We thought, ‘How would the Kinks have played it?’” she affirms. ‘Hello, I Love You’ had got the Doors into hot water with the Kinks’ publishers for its resemblance to ‘All Day And All Of The Night’. The Delmonas home in and highlight that similarity, adding bonkers psychedelic drop and evocative new coda. Their surf-tinged version of the Milkshakes’ ‘I’m The One For You’ is followed by the swampy screaming of ‘Peter Gunn Locomotion’, a cover of a 1963 single by Freddie Starr in his pre-stand-up comedian days as singer with the Midnighters. The set closed with the sultry organ-led vamp of the Milkshakes’ ‘I Want You’, the nearest the Delmonas get to the slowies Sarah helpfully points out they referred to as “shag songs”.

• All these tracks would re-appear on their “Dangerous Charms” album, along with out-takes and recordings from a BBC session, before the original trio splintered, leaving Sarah and Hilary to return for further adventures as Ludella Black and Ida Red. The eight tracks here capture a moment when three fun-loving friends got to live out some musical fantasies and had a blast doing it. 37 years later, it sounds just as contagious.

Tape

Tekanan is the full-length debut of Melbourne-based Indonesian-Australian drummer and sound artist, Rama Parwata. A thorough exploration of rhythmic capabilities and percussive improvisation under ever-shifting timbral and stylistic environments, Tekanan is Parwata’s examination and documentation of his vast musical influences in electro-acoustic improvisation, Indonesian gamelan music, free jazz, electronic music, R&B, and noise music, whilst still maintaining an entirely unique non-idiomatic musical voice. Tekanan sees Parwata experimenting with not only the drum kit, but additionally implementing no-input mixing boards, musique-concréte sampling techniques, junk percussion, electric guitar, and computer music production to create a relentlessly metamorphosing soundscape that abruptly, yet seamlessly oscillates between ethereal ambiances to turbulent barrages of rhythm and noise through five unique movements.



Aptly named after the Indonesian word for pressure and stress, Tekanan was composed by Parwata with the intent of it being a listening experience which would pressure the listener to have no clear indication of the direction of the music and where it will ultimately settle, leading the listener on a sinuous, yet intriguing aural journey. This title additionally applies to the pressure of the challenging nature of the music, in a performative sense, which pushed Parwata to his physical and mental limits to perform and compose.



“As cliche or banal this might sound, I tried to make a record that was purposely made to be hard to put into a box. I didn’t want to make a “drumming” record or a noise record or anything of the type, but a record that just contained "good” music (or what I constitute as being good). Many aspects of my musical life were injected into this release: gamelan music (the first music I was exposed to), noise, hip-hop, free-improvisation, Xenakis, jazz, electronic music. Ultimately this record is a homage to those musical influences.” - Rama Parwata

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An active figure in Australia’s experimental music and art scenes, Parwata has worked with the likes of Marco Fusinato, Robin Fox, and Robbie Avenaim, and choreographers Stephanie Lake, Juliet Burnett, and Melanie Lane. He is also a member of seminal long-running Melbourne Doom Metal band, Whitehorse.


As of 2019, Parwata has been a co-curator and committee member of Melbourne’s legendary concert series, Make It Up Club, which has been presenting weekly avant-garde improvised performances since 1998.

Transmeridian is the first album from Departure Lounge (ex-Bella Union) in 19 years. It features all four original members plus a guest appearance from legendary REM guitarist, Peter Buck, one of many long-standing admirers of a band that embodied a lost age of reflective, experimental pop music coming to the fore at the turn of the Millennium alongside The Beta Band, Tunng, Boards Of Canada and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

The surprise new album, named after the defunct ‘golden age of aviation’ cargo airline for which singer/guitarist Tim Keegan’s dad was chief pilot, is released on Violette Records (formed by Michael Head (Shack, The Pale Fountains) and Matt Lockett ) on digital and vinyl formats on Fri 26 March 2021.
Originally scooped up by Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label (labelmates with John Grant’s Czars) following the self-funded release of their debut album Out Of Here (1999), Departure Lounge’s sophomore outing, Too Late To Die Young (2002) was equally acclaimed and was honoured as the first ever Album Of The Week on the emergent BBC 6 Music. The band toured extensively in the UK, Europe and the US, including outings with The Go-Betweens, Morcheeba, Paul Heaton and Robyn Hitchcock, peers whose stylistic contrasts reflect the eclectic nature of Departure Lounge themselves.

Calling a halt in late 2002, citing family and geographical reasons (drummer Lindsay lives in Nashville, where their second album Jetlag Dreams (2001) was recorded), the four members remained firm friends and occasional collaborators, before reuniting in late 2019 for shows at The Green Door Store, Brighton and The Lexington, London, ostensibly to support the digital reissues of their first three cult-classic albums. With no plans other than to make some new music, the next day they set off for Middle Farm Studios, Devon.
Tim Keegan (vocals/guitar), Chris Anderson (lead guitars/keyboards/bass), Lindsay Jamieson(drums/keyboards) and Jake Kyle (bass/guitar/drums) channelled their evident joy at being back together into a complete 13-track album, largely conceived and recorded in just one 24-hour session in the company of studio owner and co-producer, Peter Miles. Ranging from soulful Americana to piano and mellotron-fuelled melancholia via pastoral musings on the nature of post-youth and eerie Spaghetti Western-tinged instrumentals, the next leg on the Departure Lounge journey is a multi-mood expression of pure artistic freedom.
The ‘leak’ of instrumental track Al Aire Libre (remixed by Parisian groovemeister Kid Loco) in October 2020 gave little away as to what fans could expect from a new Departure Lounge record, the track going gracefully everywhere and nowhere on a whistled Latino breeze. First single proper, Mercury In Retrograde, covered in the twinkling lights of a music box Casio CZ101 melody, turned the clock back - this was an old live favourite that never got past the studio door. Unfinished business brought to a happy conclusion, the single returned Keegan’s honest and distinctive lyrical voice back to British music at just the time listeners needed it.
It was an emotional thread, rather than one musical style, which gave the first three Departure Lounge albums their coherence. The songs told the story of the band. Transmeridian has the same sense of deeply connected musical energy. The purring, campfire acoustica of Timber and So Long bear no obvious resemblance to the ethereal, end-of-the-evening, piano-led interlude Paging Marco Polo, whilst the quasi-glam stomp of Mr Friendly would normally have no business sharing space with the strange, spacey Gurnard Pines (named after an abandoned holiday camp on the Isle Of Wight). Yet the journey’s ebb and flow, accelerations and pauses make for compelling, grown-up listening. Australia, showcasing the chiming Rickenbacker 12-string of Athens, GA’s finest guitar slinger, leaves no doubt that Departure Lounge’s pop sensibilities also remain solidly intact.
These four friends from different musical backgrounds came together originally with the stated aim of ‘creating music to soothe the troubled soul’. Citing their love of (and placing on record their debt to) influences including Robert Wyatt, Nick Drake, Talk Talk, Lou Reed, Arvo Pärt and Cocteau Twins, the band’s diversity of taste is reflected in the music they create.
Transmeridian is only the second full-length LP released by Violette Records, formed by Michael Head (Shack, The Pale Fountains) and Matt Lockett as a platform for Head’s work and developing into a respected independent label as well as multi-disciplinary event organiser, drawing in outsiders working in music, literature, art and design. The label continues to host live events whenever possible and recently initiated an ELP (halfway between and EP and an LP) vinyl series, putting out acclaimed releases by The Pistachio Kid and Studio Electrophonique.

Purple Vinyl

Even if you're well-acquainted with composer and multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher's richly varied output, his gentle fifth solo album, Refections of the Invisible World may come as a surprise. Psychedelic lyricism has always been a fundamental aspect of his sonic signature, but his second collaboration with producer Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys, Jessy Lanza, Morgan Geist) finds the Toronto native luxuriating in expansive atmospherics for its full duration.
That's not to downplay the eclecticism he finds within this ethereal landscape. Each track tills its own discrete sonic acreage, and while every one emanates from a clear focal point, the spontaneous impulse that drives Fisher's more audibly improvisational music always remains close at hand. Some pieces unfold rippling aquatic vistas or delight in prismatic guitar arpeggiation, elsewhere his plaintive, blues- infected tenor saxophone wafts like some strange jazz apparition, or becomes a chorus of cosmic murmurs. The presence of electronics is undeniable, but equally irrefutable is the organic instrumental sources of these disparate hues. In fact he's discovered a rare balance: no matter how effects-saturated, every gesture on the record feels palpably sculpted by Fisher's hands and breath. As such, Refections of the Invisible World carries a sense of intimacy at the heart of its diffuse, dream-like sonics.
Fisher has a been a major presence in Canada's music community for more than twenty years—particularly in more experimental and improvisational circles. Nothing short of a guitar virtuoso, he also wields saxophone, drums, and various other instruments with similarly refined musicality, vivid textural imagination, and sometimes feral abandon. His one-man-band tape Garden of Unknowning for Manchester's Tombed Visions, showcase all of this as he spars with different iterations of himself. The Quietus' cassette critic Tristan Bath extolled it as "miraculous," adding that "it’s a visceral experience soaking up this record, and it’s all down to Fisher’s utterly innate sense of musicality." He subsequently cited it in his 2018 contributor's year-end chart for the Wire.
In 2014 his partnership with Nick Millevoi's trio Many Arms on Suspended Defnition (Tzadik) prompted Spin's Brad Cohan to remark "Many Arms have dug even deeper into math-metal wizardry, bolstering their already imposing lineup with gale-force blowing guest saxophonist Colin Fisher, thus blasting their outré sonic blitz into a fire-breathing free jazz otherworld." Fisher later engaged the band's bassist, Johnny DeBlase, to team up with him and Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever) as Monas. As an ongoing collaborator to introspective dance music auteur Caribou, Fisher frst appeared in offshoot project Caribou Vibration Ensemble, and subsequently on acclaimed albums Swim and Suddenly. He's also made two duo albums with celebrated Nova Scotian jaw harp innovator chik white for Dylan and Lisa Nyoukis' Chocolate Monk label. In addition to performing alongside the likes of Jaime Branch, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Laraaji, Gerry Hemmingway, and Fred Frith, he has contributed to recordings by the Constantines (Sub Pop), Bernice (Arts & Crafts), Rhys Chatham (Table of the Elements), Born Ruffans (Warp), Anthony Braxton and AIMToronto Orchestra (Spool), and many more.

Factory Benelux presents an expanded double vinyl edition of Sex and Death, the 11th studio album by lauded Factory Records ensemble The Durutti Column.

Originally released in 1994 on CD only, the album has now been re-mastered with 5 bonus tracks and appears on vinyl for the VERY FIRST TIME in a coloured vinyl edition limited to 1500 copies.

The vinyl edition is housed in a gatefold sleeve . Disc 1 is pressed in blue vinyl, and disc 2 in silver. A 2xCD edition is also available (FBN 201 CD).

The writing and recording of Sex and Death closed an uncertain period for Vini Reilly and the group following the collapse of Factory Records in 1992. Factory founder Tony Wilson remained in post as manager of the band, but Sex and Death would be their last album with producer Stephen Street, famed for his work with Morrissey, The Smiths and Blur.

Writer and master guitarist Vini Reilly remained philosophical. “People say the Durutti Column is this or that. I don’t care, so long as we make good music. There’s screaming feedback on some tracks, heavy metal guitar, Spanish picking. It’s not just this ethereal trip. Don’t listen to the form, never listen to the form. Listen to the content.”

Stand-out tracks include Anthony (dedicated to Wilson), The Rest of My Life, and Believe In Me. Guest musicians include viola player John Metcalfe, vocalist Ruth-Ann Boyle (later to form hitmakers Olive with Tim Kellett), programmer Martin Jackson (Magazine, Swing Out Sister) and bassist Peter Hook, then on furlough from New Order post-Republic.

All 5 bonus tracks are previously unreleased, having been retrieved from a long-lost DAT tape located in Tony Wilson’s personal archive. All tracks on the album have been newly re-mastered in 2020 by Peter Beckmann and Technology Works.

"Guts finest selection from his DJ sets. Some dancefloor classics and some discoveries"

Any DJ set tells you, unconsciously or not, about its author.

Through the record choices and the way they are organized, one can feel the DJ’s state of mind and find out a bit more about the musical deposit discovered that is being shared and dug through by him or her at the moment.
The appetite for diggin’, the quest for a novelty or a forgotten rarity is what makes a DJ set a true organic living matter constantly fueled although not always, unfortunately, respected.
Time stretching. Too many DJ’s made a pact with this diabolical creature. A true digital steamroller that runs over the rhythm to fix the tempo while leaving behind an agonizing drummer whose sole crime was to have been carried away by his energy and having moved forward the BPM. At the end, everything that gave charm and life to the track, its imperfections and the peculiar fact that it makes you dance faster towards its end… all these along with all the lively movements contained within the track are reduced to nothing.

My conception of music and DJ sets is the exact opposite. Since the first volume of Straight From The Decks, my DJ sets have been redesigned, refreshed and improved. However, there was no preexisting plan, they evolved naturally following my new desires.

The famous core of my indispensable musical choices started to morph little by little into something different without losing sight of its center of gravity which remains undoubtedly afro-tropical.
No matter which track, its style and its origin, the quality of the music that is brought to my ears is always my sole and primary concern.
In this selection, you’ll find 7” vinyl records available to everyone sitting proudly next to some rarities found online and acquired through nerve-raking auctions battles. There are indeed exclusive remixes along with titles that until now were only available in their digital formats. Now for the first time they are available here in vinyl format. Obviously, if you have chosen the CD format, that precision doesn’t really matter…
Sixteen titles which have become the heart of my sets throughout this past year.
A heart which in a year will beat to a certainly different drum…
Pura Vida
Gutsto attend the next one..."

Lisa Milberg and Jon Bergström started their band Miljon over a pitcher of margarita in Mexico City and have since kept busy writing gorgeous little pop-songs in makeshift studios in and around their hometown of Stockholm, Sweden – mostly in their bedrooms and various cabins in various woods surrounding the city, never staying too far from the pine trees.
Having assembled a collection of 13 pieces of proper flaskpost-disko, these demos were passed on to Studio Barnhus’ in-house mixmaster Matt Karmil, who worked his studio magic on the recordings, turning them into a seductively warm and spacious debut album. “Until then, our only expenditures for the album were wine bottles and taxis”, says the band.
This isn’t the first time Miljon has teamed up with Studio Barnhus, the ever-explorative Stockholm dance label. The band collaborated with Barnhus co-founder Axel Boman on the wistful piano-house ballad “Forgot About You” in 2018 (“a summer anthem … a marvel of simplicity” - Pitchfork) and the label’s core personnel are all regulars at Arranging Things, the design store (“Stockholm’s coolest” - Vogue) that Lisa runs with another friend.
Going further back, Miljon isn’t the first musical project of neither Lisa’s nor Jon’s – the former enjoyed her fair share of 00's indie rock success as drummer and eventually lead singer of The Concretes, while Jon has earned a reputation as the hardest working man in several Swedish music scenes, bringing energy and expertise to punk stages around the country as well as Stockholm’s electronic underground.
With Miljon, the two friends make sure to keep it short and sweet, happily celebrating imperfections. “We believe in ‘first thought, best thought’ and try to work on the songs as little as possible, instead trusting a good melody and a nice vibe, not overthinking it. We dare you to find a bridge on this album!”
With “Don’t They Know”, the duo presents not only 13 beautiful songs (perfect for shower-humming, living roomshuffling and warm summer night boombox-blasting alike) but also an album that turns into something grander than the sum of its parts.
“We made it because it’s the kind of album we’ve been wanting to hear ourselves. It’s all quite song-centric these days and it feels rare to find a whole album to step into and stay inside, you know? We hear great songs all the time, but we wanted an album that was its own little universe, with its own mayor, own happy hour, its own yard sales and extramarital affairs.”
“Don’t They Know” is released through Studio Barnhus as a vinyl LP June 18.

This was the ardent wish of thousands of fans calling out to Andi Deris, Michael Kiske, Michael Weikath, Kai Hansen, Markus Grosskopf, Sascha Gerstner and Dani Löble during the PUMPKINS UNITED WORLD TOUR - and their dream has come true! With the upcoming album, simply titled HELLOWEEN, the band opens a new chapter after 35 years of a glorious career. The future of one of the most influential German metal bands from now on will feature three singers. Originally planned for the live performances only, it was the birth of a unique seven piece metal alliance.

Dani Löble: ”This record is the coronation of the PUMPKINS UNITED journey! Still today I am fascinated by the different character traits and facets of the HELLOWEEN history. As an example I’d like to point out the legendary voices of Michi, Andi and Kai. To enjoy them now together on one record, under one flag is the ultimate HELLOWEEN experience”. It is therefore not surprising that the pre-release single SKYFALL, a 12 minute epos written by Kai Hansen, has the long yearned “Keeper-vibe” - even if the long player can by no means be limited to it. SKYFALL implies the musical arch which will be loved by fans of every era. This first album of a new age is taking the fans from unforgettable memories of the fifteen studio records and four live CD’s to new adventures. SKYFALL begins with a bang. The epic track describes an alien landing on earth and a dramatic chase while Kiske, Deris and Hansen duel with each other in a breathtaking manner and create a vocal broadband adventure. Produced by Martin Häusler, it is the most elaborate video clip in the history of the band; shown with 3-D animation and having a cinematic look, this video is a real high-end experience.

”FEAR OF THE FALLEN” – the second single is a fast paced, melodic track done the way only Deris can do it. ”I had so much fun not only writing a song for my voice but also for one of the greatest singers out there. I always have an extremely broad smile on my face when I hear Michi singing my melodies“, says Deris and Kiske adds: ”The whole process, including the spirit, was just ideal. If I had the feeling that one of the parts would not be really fitting, I asked Andi if he would sing it and vice versa. There was no competition whatsoever – what counted was what is best for the respective song. I am thankful to be (again) a part of this crazy family. I love them all”. Along with massive album tracks such as HELLOWEEN classic and album opener “OUT FOR THE GLORY“, the epic “DOWN IN THE DUMPS”, both written by Weikath, the power metal shouter “MASS POLLUTION“ by Deris and Grosskopf’s scuff proof rocker “INDESTRUCTIBLE“ (which could be an analogy towards the unbreakable career of the band), the album release is flanked by the ‘party-track‘ of the record, “BEST TIME“. Lyrically the song by Sascha Gerstner reminds of the good old days, musically it´s convincing with confident HELLOWEEN style guitar harmonies and a chorus that stays in your long-term memory after hearing it for the first time.

“HELLOWEEN“ offers a complete metal universe within 12 songs. The base of this milestone album was already erected in the studio: using the original drum kit of Ingo Schwichtenberg, the recording was done with the same modulators at the Hamburg HOME studios where back then ”Master Of The Rings“, ”The Time Of The Oath“ and ”Better Than Raw“ were recorded. Completely analog and under the eyes of long term producer Charlie Bauerfeind and co-producer Dennis Ward, the UNITED impact travelled to New York and got the final mix in the Valhalla Studios of Ronald Prent (Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Rammstein).

Returnee Kai Hansen reflects: ”Being in the studio with my old companions after 30 years was very emotional for me. But at the same time it was a completely different experience with the ‘new‘ boys. The collaboration of different songwriters and strong characters made the album very special: a unique mix with reminiscences from all chapters of the band’s history. HELLOWEEN is a big part of my life and I am looking forward to celebrating the songs live for and with our fans“! From another perspective Markus Grosskopf agrees: ”For me, being one of the last “survivors” who played every note from the beginning, it was a fantastic experience and a very emotional process. I think everyone can hear it on this album. I love it“. When it came to capturing the larger-than-life emotions in the artwork, it quickly became clear that it was only possible as a handmade painting on which the important topics of the band's history are processed. The work of Berlin based artist Eliran Kantor has achieved this and visually underscores the fact that the band cherishes all parts of their history. With all this brand new material an album has been created, an album that is set apart from the digital mainstream and showing the essence of the band was never more solid. This is the beginning of something big – here comes HELLOWEEN!