Recently Added Vinyl
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Great album that combines Jeff Greene's strung out psychedelic classics with Dan Greene's undoubted ear for a pop tune.Visit product page →
Features the singles wintertime queen', the mutation'and dream driver'.
'intense, beautifully melancholic pop music with something of the spirit of galaxie 500, a touch of Spector, a rub of The Who, even a pinch of Procul Harum or the Zombies' (soundsxp).
'yearning melodies and softly-softly harmonies (think the Go-Betweens), a back-porch swing (Lambchop, Maybe), tentative yet high-tensile guitar work (Velvet Underground, Pavement)' (Timeout).
'a glorious album that slowly drips into your psyche with songs that drift into your heart and set up camp for days.' (Tangents)
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Over It And Over It
2. Dream Driver
3. Belt And Shoelaces
4. Bad Habit
5. Get Ready!
6. Diamond
Side B:
1. The Mutation
2. Tour Of Her Head
3. She's An Heiress
4. Wintertime Queen
5. Complicated
6. 100th Floor -
Visit product page →12' EP (white vinyl).
January suddenly seems like a terribly long time ago, but if you can cast your mind back that far you may remember a remarkable album released just mere weeks into the then fresh, unsullied year that was 2014.
Full of driving drums, doom-filled fuzz guitars and perfect monochrome vocal harmonies, September Girls'debut album Cursing the Sea shot into the new year with all the excitement, vim and vigour of an outrageous New Year's Eve party. Critics rejoiced and new fans were birthed, kicking and screaming to the front rows of gigs and festivals across the globe. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Phil Spector, The Velvet Underground, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus And Mary Chain, the five-piece play reverb-soaked noise-pop of the finest order and have been described as "a combination of razorwire guitar lines, thudding Moe Tucker beats and girl group melodicism".
Cursing the Sea garnered widespread coverage, with a Guardian New Band of the Day piece, NME radar and 8/10 review and a 4* review in The Fly as well as coverage in The Sunday Times, The Observer and Uncut. The Financial Times said that they were 'like a less malevolent Jesus and Mary Chain - impressive power, conjuring exactly the right balance between noise and sweetness', while Time Magazine no less named them as one of the 11 best new bands in the world. In the intervening months September Girls have been busy on the road, playing SXSW as well as UK festivals such as Beacons, Body & Soul, Great Escape, Stag and Dagger and Wales Goes Pop, not to mention a mobbed show to a packed Berwick Street for Record Store Day. Bobby Gillespie and Andy Weatherall turned up for their show at The Lexington in London and they were invited to support John Spencer Blues Explosion in Dublin.
They are set to play at The Liverpool Psych Fest later this month and CMJ in New York in October. As their year of triumph draws to a close, September Girls return with a brand new four track EP entitled Veneer, recorded deep underground in Guerilla Studios, Dublin. Whilst still retaining their signature drenched feedback sound the tracks have a greater depth and polish than the album recordings. Each of the four tracks is written and sung by a different member of the band.
The perfect way to round off September Girls' incredible year, the Veneer EP builds on the foundations of Cursing The Sea to offer a tantalising glimpse into the band's future as purveyors of the finest dark-hearted pop in town.
Side A:
1. Veneer
2. Black Oil
Side B:
3. Melatonin
4. Butterflies -
Recorded Fields Editions
Robert Curgenven 'They Tore the Earth and, Like a Scar, It Swallowed Them'
£14.99
vRecorded Fields Editions
Robert Curgenven 'They Tore the Earth and, Like a Scar, It Swallowed Them'
£14.99
Visceral psychogeography of settler colonialsm via field recordings - 30+ remote areas across Australia over 12 years - pipe organ, guitars, dubplates "It is with regret I have had to record the existence of such large areas of desert land encountered in my travels in Australia.' - Australia Twice Traversed (1889), Ernest Giles, 1835-1897 They tore the earth and, like a scar, it swallowed them'is a very physical negotiation of territories voided by history.Visit product page →
Forged from the historical dynamics of the settler colonial trope, the album plays out across four scenes, through the eyes not of the invaded but of the invaders to a harsh and unforgiving land. Rendered via field recordings gathered over 12 years in over 30 remote locations across Australia, mixed and expanded within immense, shimmering harmonics wrought via pipe organ, dubplates, guitar, bass and turntable feedback, piano, and low frequency oscillators. Amidst the heat and the dust, in a landscape populated only by the insinuation of characters, the field recordings bear testament to a dramaturgical tension within an ontological and phenomenal space - a starkness dwelling within an unfillable horizon. As the embodiment of a rogue outpost of empire, the settler colonialists'blind enactment of will and violence against and into the arid interior of their new land serves as the manifestation of a mortal struggle.
This story is not about a battle well-fought in a hard and unforgiving land, nor the romanticisation of ghost towns and their spectral remains. Whether the settlers'myopic conquest be a dogged attempt that ends within the span of one short life or a hard-won, yet momentary, triumph to last a few generations, the result is much the same. It is as if the conviction in their misapprehension of the 'willful, lavish land' is turned once again upon them, as the ravaging frontier consumes and erases the ruins of these battles, leaving little to tell bar a scar where the drama played out in the wretched shadow of true desolation.
Four scenes in a delinearised order comprise the album and the live audio-visual versions of this piece. Within the sequence of the overarching chronology the scenes are: the survey of a land assumed to be empty; the movement into and inhabitation of this confrontingly large, alien landscape and the colonists vague awareness of the underlying social landscape; a conflagration and the resulting change in the relationships with the land for all within this social landscape; devastation - of culture, citizenry, land - the inevitable decline.
Side A:
Scene 1. Scattered to the wind, the fortunate
Scene 2. Only the dogs and the fires on the horizon
Side B:
Scene 3. The heat at their necks
Scene 4. And when the storm came, they were the storm -
Visit product page →Inspired by a number of conversations between director Yann Demange and music producer David Holmes, the majority of '71's score was created before the film was shot.
Yann likes to shoot with music already written - an idea that resonates with the collaborative work of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. With reference to CAN's soundtrack work, in which only Irmin Schmidt would have seen the film, David would describe the emotion, tone and atmosphere of the scene with the other band members before recording and then editing to picture after.
He says 'It frees your imagination to try and capture a world that only you can see and feel but in total relation to the directors overall vision. Living in Belfast for most of my life was also a big inspiration.' Musically influenced by John Carpenter's Assault From Precinct 13'& Escape From New York', John Paul Jones'Four Minute Warning'and Tony Conrad's The Pyre of Angus Was In Kathmandu', the music pulses with the tension and potential terror of war-torn Belfast streets in 1971. Touch Sensitive Records 2014 http://www.touchsensitiverecords.com
'Holding it all together is David Holmes'terrific score, chiming guitars and alarum drums hovering over a rubble-bed of sampled sounds and remodulated chords, plaintive melodies emerging from a bedrock of discord and disquiet - ¦Demange uses Holmes's eerie score (to which he listened on set) to generate both growing tension and weirdly uncanny unease.' Kermode on the Observer
'A terrific soundtrack by David Holmes which ratchets up the tension and gives you this sense that things are eerie, things are uncanny, things are slightly out of wack.' Kermode and Mayo's Film Review -
Visit product page →Limited Edition 7''Single.
Following the announcement of a new single Keep Your Darkness', and the double album The Anthology - 20 Years of Antiseptic Poetry'Glasgow trio bis have confirmed three dates for January 2015. The releases come via Cargo who are also releasing deluxe editions of the band's first three albums on 1st December.
The single is released as a 7" vinyl/download of Keep Your Darkness'backed with a cover of Susan Fassbender's 1981 minor hit, Twilight Café'.
Recorded with the full live band, Keep Your Darkness'carries some familiar bis influences, sounding like early Human League as played by Adam And The Ants with the signature triple-headed vocal assault. UK Fans will recognise the song from recent live shows, indeed it was widely considered the highlight of the band's set at the closing ceremonies of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
On the flip is a raucous take on Susan Fassbender's classic Twilight Café'. Susan was an underrated and tragic figure, as evidenced by a recent Top Of The Pops 2 episode featuring the song. The caption read, "No-one seems to know anything about Susan....except Glasgow Indie-Pop stars, bis". It's a song the band have always loved, and finally their version sees the light of day.
The single shows the hard-hitting side of bis and will feature on forthcoming live shows, new material suggests a return to the guitar/synth/drum machine model of the early days, with the sonic element dialled back to POP with a twist. In other words, bis promise to keep their darkness.
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Visit product page →The iconic and seminal Amebix album remastered and with sensational brand new design.
Album has been out of print for some time and has been a constant seller even 30 years after its recording.
CD features bonus unreleased live CD.
Amebix reformed briefly in 2009 and recorded the highly acclaimed comeback album sonic mass to global praise.
New liner notes by The Baron.
Unseen photos. -
Measures Of Joy is the debut album from South London based group Virginia Wing, due to be released on Fire Records in November. The album is a work of psychedelic majesty that avoids the rockist trappings that many contemporary bands fall into; speaking to everyday anxiety and isolation and in contrast, seeking to evoke an inner world of pastoral fortification. The startlingly realised collection draws influence from the radiophonic sounds of Broadcast, the kosmische wonder of Cluster and the rhythmic propulsion of This Heat whilst never directly emulating any particular style.Visit product page →
Building on the experimentations found on their 7" on Critical Heights and a 12" EP on Faux Discx, Measures Of Joy encompasses spoken-word passages, brooding electronics and musique concrete influences to create songs that are at once immediate and truly strange. From the metronomic pulse of "World Contact" and the avant-pop of "Marnie" to the sonic experimentation of "Gold Thread", Measures Of Joy is a record that consistently surprises and ensnares; a collection of hallucinogenic pop-songs played with a sense of urgency and an experimental verve. Virginia Wing is Alice Merida Richards, Sam Pillay and Sebastian Truskolaski.
The album was recorded at Holy Mountain Studios by Misha Hering.
1. The Body Is A Clear Place
2. Estuary
3. World Contact
4. In the Mirror It's Sunday
5. A Complex Outline
6. Meshes
7. Juniper
8. Read The Rules
9. An Arabesque
10. Marnie
11. First and Fourth
12. Gold Thread -
Decadubs 3'is a vinyl-only companion-piece to Hyperdub's next birthday collection CD, Hyperdub 10.2'After '10.1', our first compilation of 10th anniversary dancefloor heaters, 10.2'features some of the label's best songs of the last five years, and this EP pulls tighter focus on six of that set's more body-moving moments.Visit product page →
Hyperdub is often associated with dark and brooding instrumental music; however, this mid-summer collection sheds sunlight over that dread filled reputation, showcasing an underrated cast of talented songwriters, vocalists and producers.
Laced with new cuts from Kode9, Cooly G, Morgan Zarate feauring. Eska and Ghostface Killah, Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland, DVA featuring Zaki Ibrahim, and a reversioned & revoiced contribution by Ikonika with Dam Funk, Decadubs 3'highlights a sometimes-overlooked aspect of Hyperdub's personality with a range of cerebral R&B, garage, funk, and icy pop.
Opening Side 1, DVA is joined again by South African singer Zaki Ibrahim with their brand new summery mutant garage track 'Solid', followed by the lo-fi, bashy mutation of Kode9 & copeland's 'Lies Lies', then Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland's grime lullaby 'Signal 2012', one of their final joint works.
On Side 2, Morgan Zarate's Sticks & Stones'is a swinging lost dub featuring the soulful Eska and Wu Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah. Dam Funk jumps on Ikonika's funk bomb Mr. Cake', adding a fun, party vocal for its new incarnation as I Know (That You Are The 1)', and finally the EP sways into the digi dub meets R & B slow jam of South Londoner Cooly G's 'Obsessed'.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. DVA - Solid
2. Kode9 - Lies,Lies
3. Dean Blunt, Inga Copeland - Signal 2012
Side B:
1. Morgan Zarate - Sticks & Stones
2. Ikonika - I Know That U Are The 1
3. Cooly G - Obsessed -
The 'Killing Season' EP is the first collaborative release from Kode9 & The Spaceape since their 2011 album 'Black Sun'.Visit product page →
The lyrical themes explored on The Spaceape's 2012 Haitian-inspired EP 'Xorcism' are expanded. The emotional, spiritual and psychological effects of living with illness and the "unknown" are dissected wryly, but often with unforgiving brutality, in this new batch of songs. 'Chasing A Beast', depicts a nightmarish scenario where the cards are clearly stacked, culminating with our character's nemesis, "..a white magic woman" offering "..a gun or a knife". 'Devil Is A Liar', spits in the eye of those who live in fear of "burning in hell". "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist". 'Heart' unhooks the life support and strips back the beats onto which The Spaceape grieves for this "vital organ", languidly delivering a litany of deceit and betrayal perpetrated by our "souls sacred ghetto". 'Pictures On The Wall' wryly paints its own picture of the stasis one finds oneself in, as images stare back, depicting a world far from their own.
Finally, 'Autumn Has Come' maps the body onto a decaying city as winter approaches. Under the strain of impairment, the city still glimmers in sunlight, defiantly looking ahead to the change in season despite growing uncertainty.
Side A:
1. Chasing A Beast
2. Devil Is A Liar
Side B:
1. Heart
2. Pictures On The Wall
3. Autumn Has Come -
Cooly G returns with 'Wait 'Til Night', an album of sensitive, lo-fi bedroom music, it's lyrics sketching dreamy scenarios of seduction, lust and sex. The moody South London house of her debut album 'Playin Me' and her DJ sets has given way to a near-horizontal, sometimes melancholy and highly original take on R'n'B.Visit product page →
The tracks swing effortlessly with no-fuss musical arrangements that are filtered through reggae sound system culture and US R'n'B in equal amounts, with a slight hint of dark synthpop wound throughout. The pace has come down from the deep, tribal house she's known for so far, with the only constants that run through the album ' her intimate vocals and smokey synths ' cross-hatched with her characteristic broken rhythmic sense. Opening with title track, Cooly coos about a date, over an infectious synth lead that wouldn't sound out of place on a Depeche Mode song.
'Like A Woman Should' is twilight music, synths rolling out like clouds over pulsing drums, while the vocals whisper invitations.
'Your Sex' is a fantasy with synths and surprisingly stabbing, hooky and distorted rhythm guitar.
'I Like' feels like the opening of an especially dreamy jungle track stretched into a full pop song.
'Dancing' rolls out drums and a mini guitar figure into a gently dizzy waltz, while
'Quick Question' plays out the scenario after the dance.
'Want's' barely-there song structure of drum and occasional bass with a wiry synth lead, is accompaniment to a near-whispered vocal.
The pace steps up with the smouldering 'So Deep', with a deep synth bassline and a muscular hip hop beat. '1st Time' is all depth charge bleeps, guitars and piano.
'Freak You' is spacious and guitar driven, with Cooly beaming in directives through a distant voice transmission. The album's final honest, angry and forlorn track, 'The 3 Of Us', comes down hard on an absent parent, a full stop on the romance that the album narrates. It also reveals Cooly G as a skilled rap artist, something she's kept hidden until now, with double-time flows casting off a missing babyfather.
'Wait 'Til Night' finds Cooly G casting her net wider than her debut album, with songs that are more confident, accessible and stylistically consistent. The album comes laced with Cooly's unique honesty and charm and is sure to win her new fans with her catchy melodies, slow-jammed stories of blighted urban romance, and engaging lack of pretension.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Wait 'Til Night
2. Like A Woman Should
3. Your Sex
4. I Like
5. Dancing
6. A Quick Question
Side B:
1. Want
2. So Deep
3. 1st Time
4. Freak You
5. Fuck With You
6. The 3 Of Us -
Heavyweight 180g red and black splatter vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve, with lyric insert and free download of the whole album.Visit product page →
The vinyl is limited to just 300 copies.
?New Heavy Sounds is super stoked to bring you the full on, take no prisoners, hard rock sci-fi concept album by Transmaniacon. 'The Darkening Plain'
'Transmaniacon MC' is a track by the Blue Oyster Cult.'Transmaniacon' is a science fiction novel by John Shirley.
These two pieces of art were to be fused together as project for a film of the novel. Some preliminary work was done, like minded musicians were gathered and some hard and heavy music, was created for the film's soundtrack. Sadly that concept lies stillborn.
However projects breed concepts, and a band was born to re-imagine, remould and reanimate the idea. A band fuelled by a burning love of 70's hard rock and proto metal, science fiction and excursions into the dark side.
Transmaniacon take the blueprint and soundworld laid down by Bloodrock, Mountain, Steppenwolf, Blue Oyster Cult and Alice Cooper, and add a hefty slab of dark doom, hard riffs, punk attitude and stoner metal to ramp it up for the 21st century.The vibe is steeped in 70's rock, but the sound is definitely 'NOW'. From the Sabbathian sludge of 'City Of Chaos' to the Dead Kennedy-esque 'An Eye For An Eye' and the stoner moves of 'Chasing The Insane' the album is shot through with twists and chock full of riffs.
This is hard rock at its hardest and heaviest set against an expansive post apocalyptic backdrop. Nothing encapsulates the cinematic darkness more than the album opener, which grafts a progressive approach to hard rock and doom.
'Quintessence of Dust' is a 24 minute monolithic mindfuck of epic proportions, the now completed score to the stillborn science fiction horror story possibly.
An intense listen that features the spoken word talents of punk poet Lydia Lunch, and as the album's opener; it's also a pretty bold statement of intent.
'Quintessence Of Dust' is a grim eco warning, a tale of alien invasion and payback time for a future Earth's corpulent consumerism, rampant waste and self centred greed. A hideous flesh and metal robot army, hybrid humans inadvertently created by man himself, invade, take over and consume the Earth.Even in the most gruesome horror and far beyond the setting sun. Everything dies, dust to dust says Lydia Lunch.
And she's right. It's sonic Armageddon, a six movement riff-fest that musically shifts through doom, organ fuelled groove outs, psychedelic electronica, hard rock and metal, to an exhilarating 'Boston meets The Who' style power chord ending. It's a progressive wall of rock that batters, yet sucks you into the bleak story concept.
As with all NHS releases we have another very special LP package. To visualise this apocalyptic tale for the sleeve, we have enlisted the Truly awesome talents of one of the real legends of horror, sci-fi and fantasy illustration, Ian Miller. From the 70's to the present day, his beautiful, intricate yet dark and unsettling style has realised in pen and ink, the horrific creations of H.P. Lovecraft's warped imagination, as well as a whole host of demons and nightmares that have graced (if that's the word) myriad book covers, comics, films and games. Who better to animate the true terror of Earth's robot conquerors. Believe us when we say that the artwork is truly amazing.Tracklisting:
1. Quintessence of Dust
2. City Of Chaos
3. Eye for An Eye
4. Chasing The Insane -
Visit product page →The 3RD full-length recording from the much loved Anglo-Australian four-piece is made up of smart, beautiful pop music, with lyrics that resonate with experience and melodies that chime, echo and soar.
The album combines the eagerness, urgency and immediacy of their 2010 debut with the contemplation, sophistication and ambition of their 2012 follow-up Europe, and yet it goes beyond either both sonically and in song. It was written at a time of considerable change for songwriter Elizabeth Morris, a time during which she fell in love, moved to Italy and got married - not that that seems to have hindered the songwriting process. They then returned to their spiritual home of Soup Studios.
The intention was to capture a more instinctive and fluid live studio sound and to play as well as possible while the red button was on, a different approach to the more piecemeal recording of their previous two albums. Or as Paul Rains put it, We've used three years of touring to try and get some of that sweat and grime and togetherness and sweetness and anxiety onto a record. One of the themes of the new record is new beginnings and things drawing to a close. Nothing feels the way it did before and I am grateful for that, sings Elizabeth on "Crickets in the Rain", a song written after her move to Italy and which she describes as anti-nostalgia. Built along the same lines is the gorgeous History Lessons, of which Elizabeth says, I guess at some point I became a bit tired of everything seeming better in the past, from music to relationships to buildings to societies. We're a bit obsessed with it and it can become overwhelming.
We don't live in the present. This song is trying to express that frustration. Among the highlights of the album is Bright Eyes, a duet with guitarist Paul Rains. Elizabeth again, I wanted to write another duet, but the only problem with doing that is that when you play live it's very rare that the person you recorded it with can be there. So I thought it would be great to write a song with Paul singing the other part. Another standout is the Twin Peaks-referencing Half-Heart Necklace, based on a true story from Elizabeth's hometown. There had been some murders, and this girl who was my age was missing and presumed killed. It turned out she had been hiding for years in her boyfriend's cupboard, and she was charged for wasting police time.
Other notable tracks include the rollicking Kings and Queens, inspired by a show they played in the USA with their friends and kindred spirits The Wave Pictures, and Romance and Adventure, originally earmarked for a film soundtrack and written in response to a challenge from Paul to write a pop song in a minor key. Allo Darlin' were formed by Elizabeth Morris, fellow Australian Bill Botting (bass), Paul Rains (guitar), and Michael Collins (drums).
Their debut album was named No. 2 record of the year by eMusic. Their second album 'Europe' scored 8.1 on Pitchfork, was made USA Today's Album Of The Week, and garnered praise from Uncut, Q, NME, The Quietus and The Guardian. It was named Rough Trade Shop's Album Of The Month and was their biggest selling album of the year. The band have been playlisted at BBC 6Music and have recorded many sessions for 6 Music & XFM, as well being Steve Lamacq's personal pick for BBC Introducing. Allo Darlin' have produced a wonderful record - thoughtful and exciting and exquisitely played ' that will please their existing army of fans and newcomers alike.
"Breezy rom-pop brilliance." 8/10, NME
Classic indie pop... doesn't rewrite the formula for wistful bedsit charm as much as show that it can still be carried out masterfully. Pitchfork
A masterclass of modern cult pop. The Guardian -
Dark Pool is the new studio album from Black Rain, the project's first in 18 years. Produced in New York City by Stuart Argabright, Black Rain's founder and figurehead, Dark Pool is a work of hard-edged sonic fiction rooted in cyberpunk's quintessential neo-noir cityscape/dataspace but projecting into a farther future of biotechnological advancement and alienation. Partly inspired by the writings of Philip K. Dick protégé K.W. Jeter (particularly 1996's Edge Of Human, which picked up where Ridley Scott's Blade Runner left off), and Paolo Bacigalupi's 2009 novel The Windup Girl, a vision of 23rd century Thailand plagued by genetic and economic terrorism, Dark Pool's humid dystopia is also acutely Ballardian in its vision of manmade and natural worlds encroaching upon each other: a vivid psychogeography of half-submerged high-rises and hidden jungle laboratories. Stuart Argabright first landed in New York in 1978.Visit product page →
By day, he worked as a landscape gardener for the upscale likes of Rock Hudson and Bob Dylan, while at night involving himself in all manner of subcultural activity ' the reverberations of which are still being felt today. He co-founded seminal no wave minimalists Ike Yard (whose early 1980s work has been cited as an influence by the likes of Kode9, Young Echo and Silent Servant), collaborated with the late Rammellzee in futurist hip-hop outfit Death Comet Crew (recently reactivated for an LP on Powell's Diagonal label) and as Dominatrix scored a bona fide club hit with the downtown electro classic 'The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight' (1984).
Black Rain was revived in the wake of 2011's Now I'm Just A Number's release and Argabright has toured extensively under the name and last year released an EP of live recordings, Protoplasm, on BEB. Three of the EP's four tracks appear here on Dark Pool in radically revised and expanded form: the stuttering ribofunk of 'Endourban' is now anchored by ominous string pads faintly redolent of Argabright's labelmates Raime, while 'Data River' revisits the accelerated beat-stream of Black Rain's 1996 album Nanarchy, and the low-slung 'Protoplasm' has evolved into a sprawling, syncopated techno epic - the sound of red dawn rising on an illegal replicant rave.
A further seven new productions feature. 'Burst', its title perhaps a nod to Sogo Ishii's 1982 biker gang saga Burst City, harks back to the scrap-metal-banging brutalism of Black Rain mk.1; 'Xibalba Road Metamorph', the album's angry, anguished centrepiece, externalises the sadness and self-loathing of Jeter's oppressed post-human workforce. 'Night In New Chiang Saen' reimagines dub as the viral product of one of AgriGen's morally suspect scientific initiatives in The Windup Girl, before 'Who Will Save The Tiger?' calls upon spidery, Metalheadz-esque breakbeats and wailing guitar drones to summon a 23rd century Ark.
Vocals (on 'Profusion' and 'Profusion II') from Zoe Zanias (Keluar), and a brief spoken intervention from Sean Young (who of course played Rachel in Blade Runner) are simply the most audible manifestations of a dejected feminine presence that haunts the entire album. For all its textual references, Dark Pool is a visceral and straight-talking affair: its bodyhammer rhythms and brooding sound design require no explanation for their impact to be felt.
1. Dark Pool2. Profusion I3. Watering Hole4. Endourban5. Burst6. Xibalba Road Metamorph7. Data River8. Night In New Chiang Saen9. Protoplasm10. Profusion II: Fallofthehouseofagodofbiomechanics11. Who Will Save The Tiger? -
Visit product page →For his new album Farmer’s Corner, Toth a.k.a Wooden Wand decided to try something different: instead of spending a week in a studio with the same people, the same engineer, the same equipment and the same state of mind, he would record in fits and starts, whenever – and WHEREever – he felt like it, recording new songs as he wrote them.
Over six sessions in four studios spanning three states, he began amassing tracks. Toth then chose his favorite ten songs for Farmer’s Corner, which is, remarkably, the very first self-produced Wooden Wand album. Abetted on the majority of the tracks by electric bassist Darin Gray (On Fillmore, Jim O’Rourke, Grand Ulena, Dazzling Killmen), and guitarists William Tyler (Lambchop, Silver Jews, Yo La Tengo) and Doc Feldman. Toth also called on friends in St Louis, Nashville, and his current home in Lexington, KY to produce an album that splits the difference between the protracted psych of his work with the Vanishing Voice and the World War IV and the more lonesome, bucolic styles of his more recent albums with Michael Gira and the Briarwood Virgins.
The result is the most “Wooden Wand” album in the Wooden Wand discography, reflecting Toth’s omnivorous musical and narrative obsessions. the arrangements – think Little Feat covering Harvest Moon – only serve to highlight his capabilities as both a songwriter and storyteller. The collected songs form an easy entry into the ever-growing Toth output, where outlaws on the run, epic landscapes, endless travels, agitated insomniacs and ditch-digging memory-evaders lurk behind every turn.
Tracklisting:
1. Alpha Dawn
2. Uneasy Peace
3. When The Trail Goes Cold
4. Adie
5. Dambuilding
6. Sinking Feelings
7. Home + Horizon
8. Port Of Call
9. Gone To Stay -
In 1987, WERS Boston played host to the Lemonheads. It obviously went well. They returned the following year for another live session. The sessions are collected here, split over two 12"s and also including two additional tracks that were featured on the 1987 Boston compilation 'Crawling From Within' (77 Records), 'Sad Girl' and a cover of Big Star's 'Mod Lang'.Visit product page →
Disc 1:1. Mod Lang (From 'Crawling From Within' compilation)2. Uhhh (1987, Live on WERS)3. Belt (1987, Live on WERS)4. 394 (1987, Live on WERS)5. Nothing True / Glad I Don't Know (1987, Live on WERS)6. Falling (1987, Live on WERS)7. Don't Tell Yourself (1987, Live on WERS)8. Sunday (1987, Live on WERS)9. I Like To (1987, Live on WERS)10. Sad Girl (1987, Live on WERS)11. Amazing Grace (1987, Live on WERS)12. Rat Velvet (1987, Live on WERS)13. Second Chance (1987, Live on WERS)14. Sneakyville (1987, Live on WERS)15. So I Fucked Up (1987, Live on WERS)16. Sick Of You (1987, Live on WERS)17. Hate Your Friends (1987, Live on WERS)Disc 2:1. Sad Girl (From 'Crawling From Within' compilation)2. Cease To Exist (1988, Live on WERS)3. Burying Ground (1988, Live on WERS)4. If Only You Were Dead (Early Mallo Cup) (1988, Live WERS)5. Out (1988, Live on WERS)6. N.I.B. (1988, Live on WERS)7. Clang Bang Clang (1988, Live WERS)8. Take Her Down (1988, Live on WERS)9. Falling (1988, Live WERS)10. Instrumental (1988, Live on WERS)11. From Here to Burma (With Juliana Hatfield) (1988, Live on WERS) -
Visit product page →Fire Records will be reissuing SOS JFK , the one and only album from folk two-piece The Children’s Hour, which featured Josephine Foster and Andy Bar. Initially released in 2003, the album introduced audiences to Foster’s enchanting vocals and poetic folk, which would be developed to staggering effect in her later solo recordings, such as the recently released critically acclaimed album Blood Rushing (Fire Records).
The Children’s Hour were an acoustic duo comprised of members Andy Bar and Josephine Foster. The two friends first connected in 2000 in a short-lived rock trio called Golden Egg, and then on a lark formed the pop song-writing duo oriented toward more naïve themes. Foster was a recent opera school dropout and the band became a vehicle for her to explore singing in a non-operatic manner into a microphone and learn to play the guitar. Bar was finishing studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and was honing a personal and highly melodic fingerpicking style inspired by bossa nova in particular.
They were heard performing in a Chicago dive bar and given a surprise invitation to make a studio recording (SOS JFK), which both found to be an extremely nerve-wrecking learning experience. Meanwhile fans of their music rose up from unexpected corners, even invited by the band Zwan to open all the shows of both bands´ maiden tour.
Initially conceived of as a modest front porch collaboration and side project, the band did not withstand all the attention long. Bar and Foster took meandering paths in diverse directions, although the two remain stalwart pals and both continue to dedicate themselves to the muses.Tracklisting:
1. Little Boy
2. Mary
3. Wyoming
4. Kindness of Strangers
5. Anna
6. The Lumberjack Song
7. Adoption Day
8. Nearby Room
9. Lost Love
10. Special King
11. SOS JFK
12. The Chinese Song
13. Going Home -
Visit product page →"One of the greatest punk records of all time"
Fire Records reissue the 1978 classic debut punk record 'Crossing The Red Sea with the Adverts'. Released after an ever growing live following and the string of successful chart hits The Advert's debut has cemented its place in punk rock history.
Reworked into the familiar Fire package by John foster the record will be available on CD and LP, both with the extra single and live bonus tracks. From the sonic Armageddon which ushers in 'One Chord Wonders' through to the deliriously protracted fade of 'Great British Mistake', 'Crossing The Red Sea' never put a foot wrong.
Created at the height of Punk, recorded with all the venom and passion which gave the era such vitality, "Crossing the Red Sea" was at once a statement of intent and a bellow of defiance, a refusal to take anything for granted, even its own brilliance. More than that, though, the album defined and thus became the precious moment in time when the establishment rules of rock fell away, and new ones still had to be carved out. And by those brittle standards, the Adverts weren't simply crossing the Red Sea, They were parting it. Dave Thompson.
Tracklisting:
1. One Chord Wonders2. Bored Teenagers3. New Church4. On The Roof5. Newboys6. Gary Gilmore's Eyes7. Bombsite Boy8. No Time To Be 219. Safety In Numbers10. New Day Dawning11. Drowning Men12. On Wheels13. Great British MistakeSingles14. One Chord Wonders15. Quickstep16. Gary Gilmore's Eyes17. Bored Teenagers18. Safety In Numbers19. We Who WaitLive20. On Wheels21. Newboys22. New Church23. Gary Gilmore's Eyes24. Drowning Men25. No Time To Be 21 -
The impeccably named Scott & Charlene's Wedding are back with not so much a brand new album, as a generation's glimpse of love, home-sickness, basketball, alienation, rock and roll and all things that matter to an expatriate Aussie stranded in New York, which was released on Fire Records in July 2013. The brainchild of the amiable and unashamedly charismatic Craig Dermody, Scott & Charlene's Wedding offer a sonically charged take on the Lemonheads' ramshackle melodicism and Pavement's lo-fi drawl.Visit product page →
Following the success of Critical Heights' recent reissues of the band's debut album Para Vista Social Club and the follow-up EP Two Weeks, the new album sees their first new recordings for over two years capturing Dermody at a pivotal time in his life. He has further developed his gloriously ragged anthems to reach new heights of nonchalant perfection.
Having uprooted from Melbourne, Australia to New York, New York, the Big Apple has replaced Melbourne as inspiration his latest trials and tribulations. His heart-on-sleeve lyrics reveal tales of everyday Dermody life, somehow more absurdly unhinged, humorous and poignant than the lives of his peers. All coming from a man with a clear mission to update the rock'n'roll template beyond his inspirations and influences as Scott & Charlene's Wedding effortlessly sprawl across the generations, linking the vintage swagger of the Velvets to the off-kilter pop perfection of the Only Ones by way of the Stooges and Television.
