Welcome to the 51st week of 2020, our last batch of new releases and reissues. As it happens it's a pretty darn good set, lots of different directions, which is just how we love it.
Hello, Friends.
Our last Record of the Week this year is the third and final part of Paul McCartney's solo trilogy. We're very fond of Macca admittedly, but there is something so incredibly likeable about this record. Like 1970's I and 1980's II, III is entirely self recorded, arranged, performed and produced at home. There is a quality to it where he's just tinkering about, testing things, having fun and that fact that he's still driven to do so at 78 is testament to a genuinely restless, creative soul. The album has some really amazing moments and some inevitable misfires, but he is in beautiful voice and as a whole, it is absolutely charming.
Back in September, Anna von Hausswolff released an album of extraordinary intensity and emotion called All Thoughts Fly. We could hardly get any, but still made it one of our Deluxe albums of the year. Well, in true Christmas miracle form, we now have a really lush Cloudy Clear vinyl pressing in the shop. The Swedish composer sidelines the gothic pop of her previous releases in favour of sorrowful, wordless soundscapes, performed entirely on a church’s pipe organ. Both calm and dramatic, fluidly progressing between the two. Very highly recommended.
+ You can now read Deluxe Issue 21 online here.
Drive–By Truckers return with The New OK, one of the most-interesting lockdown projects to arrive yet. The album comes mere months after the release of the band’s highly acclaimed The Unravelling. Originally conceived as a quarantine EP, the project quickly grew to include provocative new songs written and recorded over what co-founder Patterson Hood calls "this endless summer of protests, riots, political shenanigans and pandemic horrors."
+ CD is here, Transparent Red LP due in a few weeks.
Mercury Prize and Grammy Award-winning James Blake releases the limited 12” Before EP. A big step back towards beat music and club culture. Really got us going, this.
Following their Mercury Prize nomination, the brilliant Lanterns On The Lake return with The Realist EP, four brand-new tracks as well as a new, reworked, stripped-back arrangement of the single Baddies. What a fantastic band they are.
We have just a few of the very limited edition run of Nick Mulvey’s recent Begin Again EP, made on recycled vinyl in biodegradable packing.
Limited 12" on Ninja Tune this week with Thundercat remixed by Floating Points and Ty Dolla $ign & Lil B.
Liam Gallagher has a limited 12" this week called All You’re Dreaming Of, white vinyl copies still here if you're quick. He gave ti two thumbs up, self-describing that; "Bing Crosby would have been proud."
Taylor Swift follows her folklore album (we just got LP restocks guys!), with another flash release and evermore, featuring collaborations with The National, Haim and Justin Vernon. CD due any minute, LP is NEXT MAY!! But we do have a limited Green pressing for you.
Few choice reissues for you. Tame Impala's The Slow Rush gets a limited, end-of-the-year pressing on double Cream Vinyl.
We have just this minute taken stock also of Love Record Store editions from Georgia, Kelly Lee Owens, La Priest, Shirley Collins, Protomartyr and Stephen Malkmus. In stock and shipping now, browse them all here.
Originally released in 2009, Jon Hopkins' third solo album Insides gets a nice 2020 pressing on CD and LP. Been playing this loads this week, he's bloody good, isn't he!
Lastly this week, an absolute classic from the Dischord vaults, with the self titled Minor Threat LP. This new 2020 edition is pressed on limited blue vinyl and they've given the (iconic) sleeve a blue wash too. Now playing, nice and loud too.
We always go completely bananas this time of year for a Light In The Attic compilation, and this year is no different with today's announcement of Somewhere Between: Mutant Pop, Electronic Minimalism & Shadow Sounds of Japan 1980-1988. If you loved Kankyō Ongaku and the Pacific Breeze compilations as much as we did, then you're in for a real treat with this one. It's released next month and we have a very handsome-looking "Purple Cornetto" colour vinyl pressing.
We'll have a few more bits and bobs to tell you about before Christmas no doubt, including the possibly over-hyped Drift Christmas playlist, but in the short term, thanks for reading these and we're taking this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas.
- Drift
