A world of sounds today. LOADS to take in and not two things the same.
Hello, Friends.
Record of the Week isn't so much just record of the week, it's a full on vibe of the week. London-based quintet Vanishing Twin release their new LP The Age of Immunology on Fire Records and it crafts a really immersive and evocative headspace. It's got a sort of Morricone meets Vannier quality to the strings and soundtrack vibes, with a deliciously woozy Stereolab take on sunshine melancholia. They really have made a space and it's much much better than anywhere else you'll find right now.
+ Our Indie version is a super-special, limited edition Picture Disc pressed in cream and black coloured vinyl, rendered in a spiral. You wait till you see this bad boy spinning!
Featuring collaborations with a host of key names in jazz and world music, including - amongst others - the father of Ethio-jazz Mulatu Astatke; British jazz funk legend James Taylor, trombonist Dennis Rollins, UK saxophonist Pete Wareham and Beninese singer-songwriter (and Grammy Award-winner) Angélique Kidjo... Hackney Colliery Band have effortlessly transformed their explosive live energy to record with Collaborations: Volume One. Moments of ambience and moments of up temp... it's a real trip.
Out Of Sight is the new LP from songwriter Jake Xerxes Fussell and it's some of his finest moments yet. Man what a voice, it feels soaked in generations of folklore without any affectations. He keeps the production pretty simple which is another big victory, just warm ballads with a perfect balladeer.
25-year-old Rose Keeler Schaefler, aka Keel Her, releases With Kindness on Tim Burgess’ O Genesis Recordings. We were really knocked back by this as soon as we heard it, very direct songwriting and some pretty magical production and arrangement, huge amounts of warmth and charm.
Little Sea Change theme running through this week with three of our previous guests dropping records.
Korea's Jambinai release their third LP ONDA and it really is quite marvellous. It brings in influence and timbres from traditional Korean music, but uses them thrillingly as part of their epic post-rock soundscapes. They are one of the most amazing live experiences (especially in a dilapidated old town hall!) we've ever seen and ONDA ("come") really captures that energy and synergy.
+ Limited Indie Shop only LP version is pressed on white coloured vinyl.
Wovoka Gentle release their full debut - Start Clanging Cymbals - this week on Nude Records. Even when they came to play for us they had a quite unique sound, but this first full album really is full of it's own character, song cycles and loops that flow into one another. Full of intimate euphoria, got a lot of early Animal Collective about it.
Pixx returns on 4AD with her second LP Small Mercies. Less glacial pop than on her excellent debut, pulling in some pretty grungy guitar shapes and letting the two flow side by side. Manages to do plenty of shape shifting without feeling like a pick and mix, really well written, really well produced.
After a two-year hiatus, Los Angeles’ noise-rock trio Froth are back with their most fully realised work to date with Duress. A band of impeccable musicianship and an elevated sense of humour, it's a big set of songs with really gloriously blown out guitars. Been playing this a lot.
Untitled is a new compilation that collects seven collaborations inspired by the life and work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, pairing emerging and established musicians to create a genre-defying compilation of new music. Featuring Shabaka Hutchings, Kojey Radical, Wu-Lu, Nubya Garcia, Lex Amor, Ego Ella May, LayFullstop, Moroka, AJ Kwame, Lord Tusk, Roxanne Tataei, Kz, Mala, Joe Armon-Jones, Confucius MC, Kwake Bass, Maxwell Owin & Coby Sey.
Following 2017's glorious return with 'How The West Was Won', Peter Perrett - former frontman of The Only Ones - releases Humanworld on Domino. Vocally he sounds stronger than ever and the guitars really glimmer throughout.
Polymer is the tenth studio LP from Plaid. Across it's thirteen tracks if moves from some really quite up-tempo moments, to bright, melodic rhythms to hypnotic textures. Beautifully crafted, it is coherent whilst moving about quite a bit.
Hate to admit, we'd always written comedian Tim Heidecker off as being funny... but not funny enough to hold our attention on an album. In our face! What The Brokenhearted Do… is a really engaging listen. Darkly funny, but actually just a really smart and direct commentary about where we find ourselves politically and a personal comment on relationships.
+ The LP is on Teal Blue vinyl
Singer songwriter Dylan LeBlanc returns with Renegade. Whereas his yearning vocals have been a perfect country sound, this new LP is full of jangling swagger. A sort of AM radio drive down the dirgy parts of Hollywood Boulevard. Really into this.
Younghusband return after a wee break with Swimmers, and it's really lush. Very very chill, got that lazy Sunday / Velvet's sound nailed. Lots of live to the production, lush ambling pace.
+ The LP is on Transparent Blue vinyl
Instrumental quartet and singularly indefinable visionaries of heavy music, Pelican, release Nighttime Stories, their first full length album in six years via Southern Lord Recordings. A few moments of quiet(er) introspection, but otherwise it's a full and heavy record with gnarly riffs and lush space in between.
Neil Hannon, one of the country’s foremost songwriters, releases a wonderful new Divine Comedy album Office Politics. It’s the follow-up to their acclaimed top ten 2016 album Foreverland. Office Politics is a 16 track tour de force full of inventive, timeless music peopled with a typically irreverent cast of characters.
+ The 2LP is on Opaque white and light blue vinyl
PicaPica release their debut Together & Apart on Rough Trade. Features the vocal interplay of Josienne Clarke and Samantha Whates, it's based in the folk world but with some really interesting new directions.
On Permanent Way, Charlie Cunningham laughs in the face of ‘difficult second album’ syndrome and ‘acoustic-singer-songwriter’ imagery with boosted colours and dynamics, while retaining the essence of the man’s achingly personable appeal. He really is good!
+ The Indie LP is on White vinyl
Nunroyd Works is the third release by Craven Faults. Loads of drive to the synths this time, dynamic, haunting and really lush retro futurism.
+ Really limited (300 only) transparent turquoise pressing)
+ We also found three last copies of the previous Springhead Works 12".
Loads of you missed out on the Girl Band Shoulderblades 12" (a one track 12” with custom etch designed by artist Damien Tran), but the good news is we got a few more. The band have actually just this second announced their studio album return with the forthcoming The Talkies album.
To mark their 20th Anniversary, Moshi Moshi Records release of Twenty Years Of Moshi Moshi, a compilation, which celebrates two decades of music released through the label. The compilation 3LP is a mix of Singles Club and full Moshi Moshi releases and takes us right up to the present with singles from current artists Girl Ray, Teleman and Anna Meredith.
Soul Jazz are not mucking around this week with Brazil USA: Brazilian Music in the USA in the 1970s. Traces the paths of the Brazilian explosion into the USA and it's evolution. It's ALL KILLER.
Early seventies essential Neil Young (& Stray Gators) live recording. Recorded at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa on February 5th 1973. Produced by Neil Young and Elliot Mazer and mixed by John Hanlon. It is mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman from the original analogue tapes. 140g double Black Vinyl withed Etching on the D side. Very, very lush.
We've got a 25th Anniversary double Blue Vinyl pressing of Pink Floyd's The Division Bell.
Richard Hawley's pretty essential Late Night Final, Lowedges and self titled albums get a new pressing this week. Limited Edition one time pressings on Clear vinyl.
Not available since 2002, Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 5 gets a fresh presentation this week. A comprehensive anthology of music from the mythic first leg of Bob Dylan’s groundbreaking Rolling Thunder Revue. Alongside the 3LP set (with a lush 64-page booklet), there is a monster 14CD edition that features 148 tracks in all, with more than 100 of those never previously released. The timing of the release serves also as a companion piece to the new film, “Rolling Thunder Revue – A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese" that will be on Netflix as of next week.
- Drift