A short and sweet week of the new stuff to get July roasting at the record shop…
Maybe it’s Glastonbury? Maybe the weather? Maybe they all knew we had some DIY planned? Either way, the heads have all aligned and this week’s newies are short in shelf space, but all plentiful in quality from returning artists we like muchly.
Firstly - and our Record of the Week - is Landscape From Memory, the ninth studio LP from Ryan Lee West’s Rival Consoles. He has managed that rare feat of finding new space but still sounding entirely like himself. Partly stitched together from a scrapbook of discarded audio snippets, it is full of precise melancholia, but also evocative and lush with slow evolving tones. Massive music for the full span of the stereo. If you do have five minutes (well, eleven and a half minutes, speaking less figuratively), do check out the video Anthony Dickenson created to accompany ‘Soft Gradient Beckons’ as it is really special stuff.
+ Available on limited double Clear vinyl.
The Past is a Garden I Never Fed is the new long player from the sedulous Glenn Donaldson’s The Reds Pinks and Purples and his first in partnership with Fire Records. We are big fans as I am sure you’ll recall, but there is something a little bit sparking about this one as the guitars crunch with distortion and move about as far into shoe-gazing as he has to date. There is a gorgeously whispery quality to his voice and when the guitars jangle, we are talking 12-string-Crosby-jangle! It got us good!
+ Available on limited Neon Pink Vinyl.
Award-winning poet and rapper Kae Tempest returns with his fifth studio album, the (sort of) eponymous ‘Self Titled’. As you’d anticipate, it is full of sharp-tongued social commentary - in a rasping and lower timbre growl - but there is so much empathy and compassion, a really grown-up album of righteous anger with wider understanding. Lots of guests, great production and such focused energy.
+ Available on limited Orange colour vinyl. 
The Itch have sent us a few copies of their double A 7” single The Influencer / Co-Conspirator - with Gabe Gurney’s remixed versions. Very limited and absolute banger 100% guaranteed.
Lastly for today, we have just this minute announced that our 360th Dinked Edition is NATIONAL AVERAGE, the new LP from midlands duo, BIG SPECIAL… and it is OUT FRIDAY! Yep, announced now, in the shop now and shipping first thing in the morning. Dark humour, huge production and even ‘... a little bit of sleaze’. A very cool looking Yellow splatter on transparent clear vinyl pressing for Dinked.
We have scorching reissues this week from Pusha T and Daniel Johnston in the building right now, with Richard Hawley, Dexter Gordon, The Wild Magnolias and Mercury Rev due to land shortly. We’ll be sure to tell you all about it presently.