A short dispatch this week, with both new and not-new releases for your considerations.
Our Record of the Week is a right (Alta) Ripa! The Berlin-based Ben Lukas Boysen returns on Erased Tapes and his fourth studio album is really stunning stuff, with gorgeous ambience and some proper propulsive energy too. Both modes sit so well together and the slowly evolving paces are really ones to lock into.
+ Available on exclusive Clear colour vinyl.
After a little delay, we have Woodland, the new collaborative album from Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and it really is worth the wait. Following up their homespun, Grammy-winning release All The Good Times, this ambitious new set was recorded in Nashville (at their own re-built Woodland Studios) and is entirely hung around their wonderful voices. Such graceful music, this really has made for a great stereo vibe in the shop today.
One Little Independent have made a very limited 12” pressing of Björk’s captivating collaboration with Rosalía. Both sides feature a track called ‘Oral’ that dates back two decades, first written by Björk between 1997’s Homogenic and 2001’s Vespertine. The B side is a really great remix by Olof Dreijer from The Knife.
Black Pumas Live from Brooklyn Paramount has landed and this one really is great, with Eric Burton, Adrian Quesada and their six-piece band really taking the songs somewhere special.
Some really great reissues hitting the racks, with Mercury Rev’s beautiful and swooning fifth album All Is Dream pressed on double Translucent Blue vinyl. We have a limited pressing of Regina Spektor’s Songs, a collection of early recordings that have been specially remastered by Bob Ludwig right in time for their 22nd birthday, playable for the first time ever outside of a handmade CD-R! Echo & The Bunnymen’s eight studio LP - ‘What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?’ - gets a limited Translucent colour vinyl pressing, one of the first times since its April 1999 release. The 'Sludge' Brown pressing of Iglooghost’s Tidal Memory Exo is finally here too.
Lastly for today, the reissue of the self-titled cLOUDDEAD album is here via Superior Viaduct and it is absolutely amazing. The album - that compiles six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001 - is an amazing headspace and an unparalleled meeting of electronic wooze and leftfield rap production. A limited import pressing across 3LPs, it’s not cheap, but this really is an extraordinary collection of work.