Pre-sale of the week: The Smile – Wall of Eyes, out 26 January

Wall of Eyes is the new album from The Smile, the supergroup consisting of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood with jazz percussionist Tom Skinner. The album was recorded between Oxford and Abbey Road Studios, and was produced and mixed Sam Petts-Davies. It features string arrangements by the London Contemporary Orchestra. The album is the…

More new releases for 17 November 2023

We’ve got some more peaches due for release on 17th November, and the first is Songs of Silence – incredibly, Vince Clarke’s first ever solo album. As its title suggests, Songs of Silence is a lyric-less instrumental album, and is hugely evocative for that. Unlike anything you’ve previously heard from Clarke as an artisan of…

Pre-sale of the week: Neil Young – Before and After, out 8 December

Before and After contains some of Neil Young’s favourites from his playbook, which he performs mostly alone on a solo acoustic journey into his music history. The songs blend into each other and morph with mesmerising clarity into a continuous flow of music, creating a pure and intimate 48-minute listening experience. The 13-track album spans…

New releases for 10 & 17 November

The first of our six stormers for the next two weeks to blow in is Substance (out 10 Nov), which compiled the 12″ versions of all of New Order’s singles from 1981 to 1987 with many of their respective B-sides (on the CD and cassette versions), including specially recorded new versions of ‘Temptation’ and ‘Confusion’.…

Pre-sale of the week: Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia?, out 1 March

Where’s My Utopia? is the follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Leeds band Yard Act’s debut record The Overload, which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize after a slew of positive reviews, national radio playlistings and a placing at #2 in the Official Charts. Frontman James Smith has said that lead single ‘Dream Job’ “feels like an…

New releases for 3 November 2023

A quarter of a century since his self-inflicted coronation and self-released debut solo album, Kenny Anderson – DIY pop voyager, ancestral seaside home restorer, squeezebox lothario, Fife for lifer, diamond miner, hijacker of hearts, and the man also known as King Creosote – brings us I DES. While the record’s kaleidoscopic musical terrain plots vibraphones,…

New releases for 27 October 2023

The first of this week’s smashers is Chronicles of a Diamond, the hotly anticipated second album from Black Pumas. When the Austin-bred duo made their self-titled debut in 2019, they set off a reaction almost as combustible and rapturous as their music itself. Along with earning a career total of seven Grammy Award nominations (including…

Pre-sale of the week: The Libertines – All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, out 3 March

All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade is the first new album in nine years from The Libertines and opens with the infectious new single, ‘Run Run Run’. On the album, the quartet of unlikely lads have gathered from their new-found homes in France, Denmark, Margate and London to solder a stronger-than-ever internal bond, and scale…