Heck. This Friday is an absolute corker for new releases. Some new instant classics, some old undeniable classics.
Hello, Friends.
Record of the Week is Schlagenheim, the absolutely scalding debut LP from the mercurial Black Midi. The album was recorded with Speedy Wunderground producer Dan Carey, who the band praises for his quick, unfussy approach and truly captures the incendiary energy of their live shows. It's an album of tense angular shapes and nervous energy, it really has a huge amount to get excited about and the more we've listened to it, the more we have found. The band have arrived in a whirlwind of hype, and we're thrilled to report that we think every bit of it is well and truly warranted.
Loops In The Secret Society is a glorious re-imagined journey through parts of Jane Weaver's The Silver Globe and Modern Kosmology albums. As huge fans of both, it's a glorious ride with little moments popping to the surface like dreams. She is such a brilliant songwriter, capable of making perfect pop moments, only to whirl them into hypnotic dreams that sound all together different and strangely familiar. LUSH foiling on the front cover too!
A Bath Full of Ecstasy is the seventh studio album from the ever excellent Hot Chip. It has plenty of their hallmarks alongside some brilliantly off-kilter tones. Above all else it's really beautifully written, it's engaging in it's big fun moments, but also in those intimate bits too.
+ Limited Edition Double LP pressed on crystal clear vinyl in limited edition black and white sleeve, designed by Jeremy Deller and Fraser Muggeridge studio.
After over a decade working on a multitude of other things, The Raconteurs return on Third Man with Help Us Stranger. Although Jack White is always so distinctive, this new LP sounds like the combined efforts of all members - Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler - and has some pretty great riffs, it's an album of rock and roll songs by a band clearly having loads of fun.
As an expression of the band’s deep admiration and appreciation for the community fostered by independent record stores, The Raconteurs are going all-in with exclusive offerings. We are stocking a limited edition white vinyl version of Help Us Stranger with an alternate cover and hand-screen-printed LP jacket. ALSO, purchase the album this week we'll enter you into the raffle to win a strictly promotional, never-available-for-sale 7” test pressings of their cover of Donovan’s “Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness).” Winner to be announced next week.
Hatchie releases her debut LP Keepsake on Heavenly Recordings. The same sort of indie pop sensibilities as on her excellent Sugar & Spice EP, but she has really taken things off and experimented as a songwriter with some pretty unflinching honesty. The less obvious moments are really really good.
+ Limited Indie version is pressed on clear vinyl.
An Obelisk is the sixth album from Titus Andronicus, which finds the band under stewardship of producer and legendary rocker Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü). Heavy, full and pretty good fun too!
+ Indie stores only grey and black vinyl in matte jacket.
False Alarm is the fourth studio album from Two Door Cinema Club. Loads of bubbling electro pop tones going on here.
+ Initial pressing is on limited blue vinyl.
We have a limited (ultra clear vinyl) repress of the superb Working Men's Club Bad Blood / Suburban Heights 7" on Melodic. Absolutely bloody mega this lot!
Another super limited one, the Fat White Family's Feet gets a rework from Sheffield legend DJ Parrot and Jarvis Cocker. Vocal version on the A side and instrumental on the B.
A killer compilation from the vaults here with Seafaring Strangers: Private Yacht. Having battled the witches and wizards of Darkscorch, the outlaws of Cosmic Americana, and traveled alongside Ladies From the Canyon and their Lonesome Heroes, it was time for Numero to take it real easy. With pop music's volume knob adjusted for deflation in the early '70s, softness begat smoothness. Featuring Ned Doheny, Steps (not that one), Madness (not that one) and Calvin Johnson (not that one)... Originally released in the summer of 2017, it receives a 2LP reissue here on Lavender vinyl.
Castleface reissue more stunners from the vaults with The Oh Sees Graveblockers. Encased in a brown paper wrapping like a forgotten bit of smut from behind the beaded curtain, this unassuming disc is a time-capsule back to John Dwyer’s early SF days, janglingly fingerpicked wisps of melody and electronics baking in the all-too anemic sunshine of San Francisco’s elusive summer. Limited edition green coloured vinyl with insert.
Last one this week and it is an absolute joy. Sacred Bones deliver a long overdue pressing of Mort Garson's Mother Earth’s Plantasia. Influenced by the best selling book, The Secret Life of Plants, it's an album of gloriously off-kilter instrumentals on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Besides being a touchstone in early electronic music, it's also got the most wonderful character. The book claimed that plants dig music, so whether you'd purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern or a peace lily, you also needed a copy of Plantasia as it's an album recorded especially for our green friends. Lush, bubbling orchestrations, it truly is one of those who favour green.
Man, we LOVE this week. What a classic.
See you soon.