And you thought that mid-November Fridays were supposed to be quiet, eh?
Hello, Friends.
Our Record of the Week is Return, the debut (confusingly) from the brilliant Katy J Pearson on Heavenly Recordings. This is all about her rich and totally captivating voice, modern, with hues of classic, pastoral folk and Country and Americana. We've been watching her for a long time now and this debut is everything we were expecting and more, brilliant stuff.
+ All initial (like now) orders will include a special 'field recordings' bonus CD, recorded in countryside locations and captured on a vintage Nagra tape recorder in the summer of 2020.
+ Indie shop version LP is pressed on limited, transparent red coloured vinyl.
+ Katy has signed us a test pressing that you can win via our Instagram page.
A Mythology of Circles is the new album from Brooklyn-based composer Faten Kanaan, her first to be released on Fire Records. We have been playing this to death back at home, really quite stunning cinematic landscapes painted with swaying synths. The digital voices and chorals are powerful stuff, really high on this one. It was also our 68th Dinked Edition, and, as luck would have it, we're able to make a last few copies available now via our website here.
One of our absolute-most-favourites back in business! Old honey tonsils - Kurt Wagner - and Lambchop return with a covers-only album, featuring takes on; The Supremes, George Jones, and Stevie Wonder. TRIP is just that, a lovingly curated and smart trip through record collections and radio stations with a set of interpretations that really add to the amazing set of originals. Really love this already.
+ Shop soon as we have a very limited 'Sun Yellow' colour pressing.
Absolutely beautiful, lo-fi electronics from Domenique Dumont with People On Sunday, an original soundtrack to the 1930 silent film variously known as Menschen am Sonntag, Les Hommes le Dimanche and People On Sunday. Utterly charming stuff on the Leaf Label.
Welsh guitar virtuoso Gwenifer Raymond returns with Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain on Tompkins Square. More stock landing shortly on this one.
Quakers is an evolving collective consisting of music makers: Supa K (Katalyst), 7STU7 and Fuzzface (Geoff Barrow) as executive producer, along with an ever-expanding cast of MCs they invite along on the adventure. II: The Next Wave is a collaborative force of defiant hip-hop addressing the injustices of systematic corruption, racism and the climate emergency.
+ We have a limited edition on Blue Vinyl.
Also this week; Marika Hackman releases a darkly beautiful, self-produced new album of Covers. Foothills is the tenth jangling studio album from Christchurch's The Bats. Monument is the heavy new LP on Sacred Bones from Belarusian trio Molchat Doma, we have a really limited colour vinyl pressing too. I’ll Probably Be Asleep is the charming debut album on Marathon Artists from Melbourne’s Hachiku. Stats release the vibrant and bubbling Powys 1999 on Memphis Industries and we have a limited crystal vinyl pressing.
On 12" this week, New Order return with their first new music in five years with Be A Rebel, Dove Grey coloured vinyl and super nice packaging. Mark Pritchard returns on Warp with MP Productions, a six-track, club-ready EP. Very excited to have more Peel Dream Magazine with Moral Panics, featuring unreleased tracks from their post-punk and shoegaze sophomore album. We also have our last few copies of Savage Gary's Quarantine Sampler 2 on the impeccable Speedy Wunderground.
Lastly new this week - and getting here in good time for the festive season - our main man Chilly Gonzales releases A Very Chilly Christmas on Gentle Threat. Featuring Feist and Jarvis Cocker alongside the Chilly-est vibes, pure Christmas essential, this.
We have a really wild set of reissues for your racks today.
Firstly, Earth Recordings have delivered an absolutely beautiful appraisal (don't they always!) of the self-titled Trees album to celebrate its 50th Anniversary. The early 70s outsider folk album was distinctly weirder than its contemporaries and listening to it fifty years on, it sounds eerily modern. 4LP and 4CD sets that deep dives into demos and sessions, with loads of notes from Stewart Lee and founder-member David Costa.
Four Tet reissues an expanded edition of his brilliant There Is Love In You album, an absolute classic from the vaults, now back in print and expanded with an extra set of remixes. The bonus remix record features Joy Orbison, Floating Points, Caribou, Roska and Jon Hopkin. Angel Echoes still gives us such chills and Love Cry pounds harder than anything... What an album one-two! We should have ordered way more, these are flying out mate.
This week we get to revisit PJ Harvey (the one true queen of England)'s 1996 studio collaboration - Dance Hall At Louse Point - with musical mate, storied international producer-provocateur (and Yoevil's most famous son), Mr John Parish.
We also have new editions of The Cranberries' No Need To Argue. An essential reissue from the Swans vaults with the positively epic fifth studio album Children Of God. Also heavy af, Third Man colour vinyl editions of Boris' Amplifier Worship and Absolutego. Got in trouble a bit for my choice of volume with these ones. Blue Note reissue Bobby Hutcherson's Oblique as part of the Tone Poet series, sounds mint!
Pure goodness from the high god Sun Ra, with real nice reissues on Strut of Dark Myth, Horizon and Nidhamu.
Our kind of compilation, Film Music 1976 to 2020 is all the best bits of glambient pioneer - and remarkable human being - Brian Eno's contributions to the world of film soundtracks, all in one place, all in one sitting. Dim the lights!
Would you like to spend a little bit of time with the best band of all time™? Good! Because the heads at Matador have started reprinting Pavement's albums. Quarantine The Past: The Best of Pavement, Westing (By Musket And Sextant) and The Secret History Vol.1 in the building now, Brighten The Corners, Crooked Rain, Crooked, Rain, Slanted And Enchanted, Terror Twilight and Wowee Zowee all due very shortly.
Some really lush books on the racks this week too. Kim Gordon's beautiful No Icon hardback on Rizzoli is quite the wonder. Worth flagging that we got hold of a few more copies of Spike Jonze's Beastie Boys on Rizzoli too.
Raconteur, outfielder, Tarot reader and friend of the shop David Keenan releases his thrilling new XSTABETH collection on White Rabbit. We have a pinch of signed copies.
Lastly this week - and also on the esteemed White Rabbit - our good mates and lifelong supporters Heavenly Recordings are celebrating their thirtieth birthday with a really beautiful coffee-table hardback. Pictures, stories and a lot of magic in those pages. We have two special editions that include super limited Working Men's Club and Saint Etienne 7" singles. Don't miss out.
Quite the week full, no?
- Drift
