💕 To celebrate the most romantic day of the year, we have half a dozen stunners for your eyes to beholder.

Produced with Cate Le Bon, Phonetics On and On is the second LP from New York-via-Chicago trio Horsegirl and it is absolutely brilliant. It has jangle, it has hooks, it has drive, it has tons of charm and they manage (in no small part, we’d imagine, down to Le Bon) to move from lo-fi primitives to rich sonic bangers with great panache. We got snuck this one last year and have listened to it really solidly for months now, it’s just got such a lot going on. Record of the Week, a solid gold Drift Tip™ and absolutely one to fall head over tails for.

+ Available on limited and exclusive Clear vinyl.

We have a Dinked double hitting the racks today and they are both brilliant, idiosyncratic and very much unalike!

Firstly, End Of The Middle is the new LP from North East singer Richard Dawson. We’ve been firm fans for such a long time, and although we have adored his recent maximalism and his various studio collaborations, there is something about the directness of this new album that just floored us. That inimitable voice, it’s an LP full of ‘wow’ moments.

+ Available as a limited Dinked Edition.

Bartees Strange returns with his third LP Horror, and it really is quite the thing. Focused on ‘horror’, there are so many subtle perspective changes throughout, and that is matched by the genre mashing too, with soulful pop through to glam guitar screams. There are even house beats. The whole thing is hugely impressive and not short of a good ear worm too.

+ Available as a limited Dinked Edition.

Like A Ribbon is the debut LP from East London–based rapper, producer, and poet John Glacier. She is proper good. The production is just fantastic, so dense and lo-fi, but as a whole - especially under her amazing and hypnotic vocals - it all really whirls around the full stereo to hallucinatory effect. The little flash of Sampha is magic too!

For those already following her trajectory, Like A Ribbon is an album composed of tracks from the two existing EPs Like A Ribbon and Duppy Gun, as well as the third unreleased EP Angel’s Trumpet. Highly recommended indeed.

American singer-songwriter Denison Witmer returns on Asthmatic Kitty Records this week with Anything At All. It was recorded and produced by Sufjan Stevens and it has a really nice energy to it. It’s gentle, but not vacant and although it seems quite simple in its pastoral loveliness, there are some quite complicated things going on too.

Avalanche is the third LP from dream pop powerhouse Thala. The more ‘up’ sections drip with euphoric lifts, but when she hits those more maudlin paces, man, it really flies! Somewhere between Hope Sandoval and SVE, but more off-kilter. A banger.

+ Pressed on "Avalanche" White vinyl.

Also this week; Portland country soul band The Delines return with Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom. Devon folk royalty Seth Lakeman releases the all new The Granite Way (and has signed us some postcards!) Critical Thinking is the fifteenth studio LP from the iconic Manic Street Preachers. We just put our last few exclusive Red vinyl copies in stock. After a bit of back and forth, we also have The War on Drugs’ Live Drugs Again LPs too!

Lastly for now, can you all imagine how we felt when this arrived by email;

Two days after his 100th birthday, Marshall Allen started recording New Dawn, his debut solo album. A member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra since 1958, Allen assumed leadership of the band in 1995. Throughout his nearly seventy-year career, Allen has never released a solo album under his own name, and yet, instead of capping such a legendary output, New Dawn seems to herald a new beginning. 

As you’d well expect, it is just sublime. Everything is super rich and when he slows it down… well, nothing has sounded this luxurious in yonks. Neneh Cherry lends her voice to the title track and she is utterly enchanting over long held brass notes and melancholic guitar lines. Quite magic stuff throughout, one to really soak in.

There are compilations and reissues to tell you all about next week too (but in the racks now!) to include; Barnyard Beehive on Numero, Tokyo Bliss, A Love Form Outer Space and plenty of Creedence!