Limited stuff, live stuff and Dinked stuff. It’s another big ol’ week over at Drift.
Hello, Friends.
Record of the Week is Translate, the first solo artist album in six years from Norfolk synthesizer specialist Luke Abbott. A strikingly direct and assured return to the solo music-making game, following a productive diversion into live improvisation with his experimental jazz trio Szun Waves. This is hugely evocative music, it feels so filmic it's easy to drift off into dystopian futures and crapped-out old space stations. This is going to be our Autumn/Winter 2020 soundtrack for sure, can't believe the textures he's made here, absolutely lush.
We have three very different - and very special - live albums on the racks this week.
LIVE DRUGS is an epic, career-spanning double live album with some BIG riffs from The War On Drugs. Culled from over 40 hard drives of recorded live shows, spread out across years of touring behind multiple critically acclaimed-records.
+ Last few copies of the indie edition are pressed on limited double Opaque Purple vinyl.
With that canon of songs, the man on his own was always going to be pretty stunning. In the vast, empty expanse of the West Hall in London’s Alexandra Palace, Nick Cave sat alone at a piano and sang 21 songs from across his extensive back catalogue. Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace is an amazing session over 2CD/2LP.
Just under a month after delivering their award-winning 2016 album Nonagon Infinity, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard took to the stage at San Francisco’s The Independent for a live set both wildly frenetic and meticulously executed. Live In San Francisco '16 is intense; double drums, triple riffs and all sorts of wild energy in-between.
+ Our Indie editions are pressed on Golden Gate Sunburst & Bay Fog coloured vinyl with rainbow foil wide-spine jacket, printed on recycled board.
What a thriller this is. Speed Kills is the pounding debut from London punks Chubby and the Gang. In the true spirit of old pub backroom bands, it feels like it is about half a beat from careering off-course, off-time and off the edge of the stage... It's pretty glorious stuff.
Richard H Kirk at the helm for Shadow of Fear, the first new Cabaret Voltaire release in some twenty-plus years. Dark and full of clunking electronic textures, this is a fantastic set. When the beat drops on Vasto... It's pure fists in-the-air.
+ Limited Edition Double Purple Vinyl – packaged in a gatefold sleeve with high definition download code.
Our neighbours from the bay - Tourists - drop their dreamy debut LP Another State on Modern Sky. Limited White vinyl pressing.
Album number eight finds The Cribs in utterly-blistering mode. Night Network is self-produced out of the 606 Studio in Los Angeles. Limited Swimming Pool Blue vinyl.
Porto-based experimental duo Paisiel comprise Portuguese drummer João Pais Filipe and German saxophonist Julius Gabriel. Unconscious Death Wishes is divided into two parts and features field recordings, textures and some really lush, driving patterns. Excellent stuff this, out via Rocket Recordings.
Autechre follow last month's excellent SIGN LP with the surprise release of Plus. The two sit brilliantly together and whereas SIGN had some space, Plus is jacked-up, fast and pounding. It's pretty thrilling stuff.
Limited Vapour 12" from Mildlife on Heavenly this week with remixes from JD Twitch and Cosmodelica.
A super-limited tape release from caroline (we love this band) with NC NJ NLFT, a session that was aired on Resonance FM back in April.
Very few people give us the chills as hard as The Dirty Projectors. Domino have grouped together the band's five 2020 four-song EP's in a wild, diverse and thrilling 20-song anthology titled 5EPs.
+ Available to independent retailers on crystal clear double vinyl in a tri-fold jacket with printed inner sleeves and digital download card.
Third Man Recs are on fire this week with Southeast of Saturn, a double disc compilation of the space-rock scene of Detroit in the 90s. Lots of rarities and unheard jams here.
Fatboy Slim throws Lockdown caution to the wind and invites everyone round his, becoming the latest curator of the seminal Back to Mine mix series. Really good obviously, full of bangers and pressed on limited yellow vinyl if you're quick.
Super-limited reissues of Emma-Jean Thackray's self-released Ley Lines and Walrus 12"s this week. My god, she's good.
For the first time since the original vinyl pressing in 1988, Oh Boy Records has repressed John Prine [Live] on Yellow and Black vinyl. Not many of these about.
Coldplay's breakout debut LP Parachutes gets a 20th Anniversary pressing on limited Indie translucent yellow coloured, heavyweight vinyl. I know that none of you asked, but I got a CD copy of this free in release week with my SEGA Dreamcast, an often-maudlin soundtrack to Crazy Taxi.
Lastly this week, we have a special, half-speed mastered 40th Anniversary Edition of The Special's second album, More Specials. It sounds absolutely fantastic.
Last Minute Admin: Matthew Halsall's superb new album has been delayed. CDs are here and you can stream it (it's lush), but the LP is two weeks away. We will also - potentially - have late arrivals this week from: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Jennifer Castle, Ana Roxanne, anrimeal, Public Memory, Josephine Foster, Badge Époque Ensemble and very limited releases from Cindy and El Perro del Mar.
What a week. We love you lot.
- Drift
