Releases from January–February 2015
Great albums from around the world
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Find releases from 2016.
Also check out some of the great reissues of classic albums.
The hottest pre-sale releases
Pre-sale of the week is Rome by The National, out on 13 December.
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Releases for 23 February 2015
A deluxe reissue of Led Zeppelin’s classic album Physical Graffiti, plus brand-new goodies from Black Star Riders, Public Service Broadcasting, Revolution Saints, Big Sean, Songhoy Blues, Mark Lanegan Band and Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman.
- This is a deluxe package, in 3 CDs or 3 LPs, of Led Zeppelin’s sixth album, Physical Graffiti, with the original artwork plus newly created negative artwork for the companion audio.
- The original album is newly remastered on 2 discs, while the third disc features previously unreleased studio out-takes. Includes a die-cut square slipcase to hold 3 wallets, booklet, U-card, slipcase prints and a 16-page booklet.
- Fresh from the critically acclaimed Top-30 debut album All Hell Breaks Loose in 2013, Black Star Riders return with the long-awaited follow-up, The Killer Instinct. The band formed around the last of incarnation of Thin Lizzy and features guitar legend Scott Gorham, Damon Johnson (guitar, ex-Alice Cooper), Jimmy DeGrasso (drums, ex-Megadeth), Robbie Crane (bass, ex-Ratt) and fronted by Belfast-born, ex-The Almighty vocalist Ricky Warwick.
- This album tells the story of the space race between America and the Soviet Union from 1957–1972 via the duo’s eccentric mix of guitar-driven electronica, propulsive drumming and spoken-word samples culled from this uniquely rich period of modern history. The Race For Space follows Inform – Educate – Entertain, Public Service Broadcasting’s debut album which reached #21 in the UK album charts and was nominated for Best Independent Album.
- Following career-best reviews and a Top-20 chart entry for Phantom Radio, Mark Lanegan Band return with A Thousand Miles Of Midnight, an album of remixes of tracks from both Phantom Radio and No Bells On Sunday, the EP that accompanied it.
- The album is made up of a brilliant array of remixes by artists as diverse as UNKLE, Moby, Greg Dulli and Soulsavers.
- Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman are proud to announce their album Tomorrow Will Follow Today, their boldest musical statement to date. After being voted Best Duo and nominated for Best Original Song (‘The Ballad of Andy Jacobs’) in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2013, in Tomorrow Will Follow Today they add two rarely covered traditional songs to eight confidently written compositions to create a superb new album.
Releases for 16 February 2015
This week sees a wonderful 25th anniversary album from Texas, plus new albums from Phosphorescent, Idlewild, Carl Barât And The Jackals, Steve Earle & The Dukes and Carter Tutti, along with vinyl reissues of classics from Sigur Rós and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.
- Multi-platinum, award-winning five-piece Texas celebrate their 25th anniversary in style with this new release. Texas 25 contains four brand new songs and highlights from the band’s greatest hits, completely re-recorded and re-worked for 2015 with acclaimed NYC soul outfit Truth & Soul (Amy Winehouse, Adele).
- Recorded in the Queens studio of Truth & Soul and mixed in Nashville at the studios owned by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, the deluxe 2-CD format includes a bonus disc of such original classic hits as ‘Say What You Want’, ‘Halo’ and ‘Inner Smile’.
- Recorded over four nights at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, this live album is a veritable best-of from a band at the height of their performing power. Featuring scorching renditions of the best-loved songs from the Phosphorescent catalogue, from ‘Los Angeles’ to ‘Song for Zula’, Phosphorescent delivers a live album for all time.
- After five years away, Scottish alternative rock band Idlewild return with a new album, Everything Ever Written. The band’s eighth studio recording represents a new chapter, both personally and creatively – featuring twelve tracks of alternative rock woven together from strands of Scottish folk, Americana & Hebridean psychedelia.
- Produced by the band’s guitarist Rod Jones and mixed by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.), with whom they collaborated on their 2002 release The Remote Part, and augmented by new members Luciano Rossi (piano, organ & vocals) and Andrew Mitchell (bass, guitar & vocals), Everything Ever Written is Idlewild’s most eclectic output to date. The album was written mainly on the Isle of Mull, vocalist Roddy Woomble explains: ‘The record soundtracks a period of transition. Working without time constraints gave the whole thing a creative freedom. Idlewild is a new band to me now; I’m excited for the future.’
- Carl Barât and his new band The Jackals announce the release of their debut album, Let It Reign, through Cooking Vinyl Records on Monday 16 February.
- This follow-up to the 2013 album The Low Highway features Earle’s longtime band The Dukes – Kelly Looney, Will Rigby, Chris Masterson and Eleanor Whitmore. The album was produced by R.S. Field (Buddy Guy, John Mayall), engineered by Earle’s long-time production partner Ray Kennedy and recorded at House of Blues Studio D in Nashville, TN.
- Carter Tutti Plays Chris & Cosey features eight brand new reinterpretations and re-workings of classic Chris & Cosey songs from the 1980s and 1990s. The idea for the album originated from their live performances in the UK, Europe and North America from 2011 to 2014.
- The next instalment in the re-release programme of all of Nick’s albums onto vinyl.
Releases for 9 February 2015
An absolutely stellar new album from Gretchen Peters among other new releases, and a long-awaited vinyl reissue of Murder Ballads by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
- Fresh from her induction into the prestigious Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Gretchen Peters unveils her new album, Blackbirds. Co-produced with Doug Lancio and Barry Walsh and recorded in Nashville, the album features a who’s who of modern American roots music: Jerry Douglas, Jason Isbell, Jimmy LaFave, Will Kimbrough, Kim Richey, Suzy Bogguss and more. But it’s not the guests that make Blackbirds the most poignant and moving album of the Grammy-nominee’s storied career; it’s the impeccable craftsmanship, her ability to capture the kind of complex, conflicting, and overwhelming emotional moments we might otherwise try to hide and instead shine a light of truth and understanding onto them.
- In an atypical and unexpectedly rewarding move, Peters teamed with frequent tour-mate Ben Glover to co-write several tunes on the new album, which evokes the kind of 1970s folk rock of Neil Young, David Crosby, and Joni Mitchell that Peters grew up on, albeit with a more haunted, country-noir vibe simmering just below the surface. Blackbirds follows Peters’ 2012 album Hello Cruel World, which NPR called ‘the album of her career’ and Uncut said ‘establishes her as the natural successor to Lucinda Williams.’ If anything, though, Blackbirds truly establishes Peters as a one-of-a-kind singer and songwriter, one in possession of a fearless and endlessly creative voice.
- Mount The Air is the first studio album by The Unthanks since ‘Last’ was released four years ago. The album has been two years in the making and is the first to be made in their own makeshift studio in Northumberland, set up in an old granary building, 200 yards from where Rachel Unthank and Adrian McNally live with their two young sons.
- It is the first Unthanks record to feature writing from all five core members, with debut contributions from both Rachel and Becky Unthank as well as continued and more extensive writing from pianist and producer Adrian McNally, including the 10-minute title track. Musically more ambitious than ever, the Mercury-nominated Geordies are still a combination of grounded tradition and filmic orchestration, but with Mount The Air, they take on flavours from traditions as diverse as Spain, India, Blue Note and, er, trip-hop.
- Mount The Air is the work of an act who still believe whole-heartedly in the value of the album as an art form. On very limited resources and in makeshift facilities, they have shown extraordinary commitment and devotion to that art form to create their finest work yet.
- I Love You, Honeybear is the highly-anticipated follow-up to Father John Misty’s acclaimed debut, Fear Fun. The album was produced by Josh Tillman and Jonathan Wilson, mixed by Phil Ek, and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound.
- Father John Misty (aka Josh Tillman) says of the album: ‘I Love You, Honeybear has a decidedly more soulful presence than Fear Fun, due in no small part to the fact that I am truly singing my ass off all over this one. The album is really characterized by the scope and ambition of the arrangements. Nearly every tune is augmented by something special, be it orchestral strings, a mariachi band, questionable electronic drum solos, ragtime jazz combos, soul singers, or what have you. I’m pretty sure there’s a sitar in there somewhere. Blammo.’
- ‘I Love You, Honeybear is a concept album about a guy named Josh Tillman who spends quite a bit of time banging his head against walls, cultivating weak ties with strangers and generally avoiding intimacy at all costs. This all serves to fuel a version of himself that his self-loathing narcissism can deal with. We see him engaging in all manner of regrettable behaviour’.
- Continuing the re-release of all Nick Cave’s work on vinyl. Finally Murder Ballads arrives. Murder Ballads is the ninth studio album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, released in 1996. As its title suggests, the album consists of new and traditional murder ballads, a genre of songs that relays the details of crimes of passion. ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’ was a hit single and received two ARIA Awards. Guest musicians on the album include Kylie Minogue, PJ Harvey and Shane MacGowan.
- It was the band‘s biggest commercial success to date, most likely helped by the unexpected repeated airplay of the ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow‘ video on MTV, who even nominated Cave for their Best Male Artist award of that year, though this nomination was later withdrawn at Cave‘s request.
- Murder Ballads received almost unanimous critical praise with Rolling Stone awarding it 4 Stars and Entertainment Weekly rating the album very highly as well. Q magazine had this to say: “…Musically, The Bad Seeds touch on tinkling cabaret jazz, country-paced morbidity and every morose station between”, while it ranked Number 7 in the NME‘s 1996 Critics‘ Poll.
- This vinyl release complements the recent deluxe issue on CD+DVD, which presents the album in 5.1 surround sound.
- Kodaline, one of the big success stories of the past two years, return with their epic new album, Coming Up For Air, on RCA Victor. Produced by Jacknife Lee (Snow Patrol, R.E.M.), Jim Eliot (Ellie Goulding) and ‘A Perfect World’ producer Steve Harris, and with a first single that features a stadium-sized chorus of which Coldplay would be proud and which highlights the ambition on ‘Coming Up For Air’. Other highlights from the album include the anthemic ‘The One’, the driving percussion of ‘Ready’, the acoustic and string-laden ‘Better’ and the rousing album closer ‘Love Will Set You Free’.
- Engineered to restore your faith in rock’n’roll. J.D. McPherson is back in style!
- Following on from the band’s last studio release, ‘Money And Celebrity’, in September 2011, this new album is set to be big in sound and energy. This album is a full-on rock record with hooks The Subways have become famous for. The album also marks a new phase for the band: having previously worked with legendary producers (Stephen Street, Butch Vig and Ian Broudie) on their first three albums, the band’s lead singer, Billy Lunn, has taken on full engineering, production and mixing responsibilities for the new album. The album will not be over-thought or over-produced, just direct and exciting to listen to, capturing the essence of the band’s live shows. Billy, Charlotte and Josh reach their fourth album firing on all cylinders. Still only in their twenties, they have built a hardcore international following.
- This version is a deluxe edition with 5 extra tracks, 3 of which are previously unreleased. ‘I knew the groove needed to be paramount’, Clark says of the album, which she arranged and demoed extensively in Austin, Texas before heading into the studio in Dallas to record. She enlisted Dap-Kings drummer Homer Steinweiss and frequent collaborator McKenzie Smith of Midlake to share percussion duties, while she returned to producer John Congleton to take the sonic potential they’d only just begun to tap with ‘Strange Mercy’ into dramatic new territory. ‘I wanted to make a party record you could play at a funeral.’ The result is Clark’s most riveting work yet. ‘Bring Me Your Loves’ is a frenzied freakout, but even the less frantic tracks such as ‘Severed Crossed Fingers’ deliver her trademark blend of the beautiful and the surreal. At the heart of all her music, though, lie larger questions about what it means to be human and the ways in which we seek to find meaning in our lives.
Releases for 2 February 2015
New albums from Murder By Death, Luke Haines, Leah, Blind Guardian, Hannah Sanders, Butch Walker, Dengue Fever, and some vintage radio broadcasts from Aerosmith. And if that isn’t enough for you, Bob Dylan sings Sinatra. Yes, really!
- What happens when a Mark E. Smith impersonator has his caravan holiday ruined by Skrewdriver’s Ian Stuart? Let Auteurs and Baader Meinhof icon Luke Haines and Scott King reveal all in this typically singular new project, a micro-opera entitled Adventures In Dementia.
- Aerosmith came out of Boston in the early seventies to become one of America’s biggest rock bands. Like the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith spin on the twin axis of guitar and singer. After massive early commercial success the band went through many years of trouble, caused by a mixture of internal schisms, substance abuse, mismanagement, line-up changes and trips to rehab, finally finding huge success again after singer Steve Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry guested on Run DMC’s 1986 version of the band’s 1975 single ‘Walk This Way’.
- The two performances on Up In Smoke are radio broadcasts from either end of the seventies. The first is one of the band’s earliest recordings, from 1973, when they were promoting their debut album. The performance contains the band’s first hit single, ‘Dream On’, and other key tracks that would form the basis of their live set for a number of years.
- This album is diverse, powerful and beautiful, and often dances on the edge of progressive. Most of all it’s hard not to be drawn into and enchanted by Leah’s diverse vocals. Featuring musicians such as Timo Somers and Sander Zoer of Delain, and Barend Courbois of Blind Guardian and Vengeance, this 14-track masterpiece emerges as the heaviest of all her releases. Dabbling in worldly Celtic, Middle-Eastern and New-Age flavours, and lyrically laced with epic imagery of dystopias, fallen empires, spiritual warfare, love and destiny, this album proves to be very promising and is expected to be received by fans and critics as one of the top symphonic metal albums of the year.
- The ten new tracks on Blind Guradian’s new album will transport the listeners – via a mysteriously powerful red mirror – into an otherworldly dimension that includes tyrants, gods and the Holy Grail. And it’s no coincidence that Beyond The Red Mirror bears strong lyrical ties to 1995’s Imaginations From The Other Side, for we are reunited with the young protagonist we first met twenty years ago in the songs ‘Bright Eyes’ and ‘And The Story Ends’, who stood before a magic door, unsure whether to make the leap into a new, unknown world or to stay in his own. Now an adult, the impact of this important moment in the protagonist’s life is the launching point for the entire album.
- Here is the much-anticipated debut album by folk singer Hannah Sanders, produced by Ben Savage (The Willows). The album showcases a stunning voice of unaffected beauty, with a range, elasticity and purity so rarely encountered in the modern folk landscape. Clearly a singer with a deep understanding of traditional song, Hannah seems equally adept at delivering love songs like ‘I Gave My Love a Cherry’ with intimacy and simplicity as she is at telling a dark murder ballad like ‘Miles Weatherhill’ with real intensity and drama. An English singer who spent much of her life in America, influence from either side of the ocean is clear from these arrangements, which breathe new life into a exquisite collection of folk songs.
- With his remarkably diverse resumé, which includes everything from guitar god to GRAMMY- and CMA-nominated producer, Butch Walker’s new LP shows both skill and tenderness. The production was helmed by Ryan Adams at his PAX AM Studios in LA along with friends and special guests Johnny Depp and Bob Mould. With gritty hints of folk, pop and rock, Afraid Of Ghosts weaves a journey through life, love, death and everything in between.
- The title track finds Walker attempting to come to terms with his demons over spare acoustic guitar notes and accordion chords, while the gentle doo-wop of ‘How Are Things Love’ brings both the artist and the listener back in time. ‘Bed On Fire’ takes things back up a notch as haunting strings and electric guitar build to a chill-inducing distorted crescendo. The album’s first single, ‘Chrissie Hynde’, wistfully recounts the Pretenders frontwoman’s voice coming through the speakers, over a combination of acoustic and electric guitar, piano and a solitary drumbeat, captivating as always with Walker’s effortlessly unique vocals. Throughout his career, Butch Walker has always inspired with his infectious yet never over-bearing sense of melody.
- Dengue Fever is in the vanguard of an emerging global pop sensibility, making music that’s both familiar, yet eerily unique. With five full-length releases, the Los Angeles sextet blends rhythms of sixties Cambodian Pop – heavily influenced by American surf, rock and early psychedelic garage bands – with their own unique eclectic mix of American and international styles. Their first release in nearly four years, The Deepest Lake finds the band exploring new sonic soundscapes with forays into funky Latin beats, Cambodian hip-hop, perfectly synched dual vocals, while still maintaining the band’s signature sound.
Releases for 26 January 2015
New albums by The Charlatans, Gaz Coombes, Pond and others.
There are also deluxe editions of classic albums by Motörhead, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Motörhead albums – Another Perfect Day, Iron Fist and No Sleep ’Til Hammersmith – each come with a bonus CD packed with live performances and rare tracks; the five reissues from Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – from 1985’s The Firstborn Is Dead to Murder Ballads from 1996 – come in a CD and DVD pack, with the entire album remastered in 5.1 surround sound. Tyrannosaurus Rex’s first three albums are each released in a deluxe CD edition with a host of unreleased and bonus extras. Click here for more details of these classic reissues.
- The Charlatans – Tim Burgess, Mark Collins, Martin Blunt and Tony Rogers – release their twelfth album, Modern Nature.
- The album was produced by The Charlatans and Jim Spencer and mixed by Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Portishead). The album features a cacophony of contributors from their three temporary drummers – Pete Salisbury of The Verve, Stephen Morris of New Order and Gabriel Gurnsey of DFA’s avant-disco group Factory Floor – to Kate Bush’s backing singers Melanie Marshall and Sandra Marvin, strings by Sean O’Hagan and brass courtesy of Dexys’ Big Jim Paterson. Q has already described the album as ‘one the finest of their career’.
- The mega-watt melodic genius responsible for ten Top 20 hits and six Top 20 albums – I Should Coco was Parlophone’s fastest-selling debut since the Beatles’ Please Please Me – returns with his remarkable new album, entitled Matador.
- Jessica Pratt’s self-titled 2012 debut has been much-murmured about in the time between yesterday and today. People respond to the austere, pristine clarity of the performances, the gentle strength, marveling at how much comes from so little: just a voice and a guitar or two! They remark on the timeless nature of the songs and the voice, scrupulously informed by the folk-rock of ages past, but sung without bags (none in hand, nor beneath eyes). They speculate on just who is the personality behind this Jessica Pratt? It is hard not to respond to the sound of her music, not to want more right away.
- Two years on, and Jessica’s very new On Your Own Love Again is here for us, playing her further adventures in different pastures. If they feel removed from the first songs, it may help to know that the recordings of the first album were made some years back with no expectation of making an album. They sat quiet on the shelf for a long time, eventually appearing on the internet.
- In a time when pop culture mechanisms continue to dumb down the South, Charlottesville, Virginia brothers Abe, James and Sam Wilson (aka rock outfit Sons Of Bill) find inspiration in the region’s rich literary and cultural traditions. With Grammy-nominated producer and former Uncle Tupelo/Wilco drummer Ken Coomer at the helm, Sons Of Bill has elevated their artistry to new heights by making an album that is as current as it is rooted in the foundations of early alt-country, long before the term Americana was coined.
- London siblings Kitty, Daisy & Lewis return with their new album, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis The Third. Produced by Mick Jones of The Clash in a new 16-track analogue studio in a derelict Indian restaurant in Camden Town, the band take their songwriting, instrumentation, styles, production and sound to another level, with this third album.
- Even if you’re from the most insular, incestuous musical scene in the most isolated city on the planet, people will still stand up and take notice if the music you make is as good as Pond’s.
- Over a couple of months Nick, Joe, Jay, Jamie, Lukas, Cam and a parade of friends and well-wishers cobbled together a mountain of tape that was stitched up to become Pond’s sixth album.
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- Tyrannosaurus Rex Expanded Deluxed CD Reissues
- My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair … Deluxe CD £16.99
Releases for 19 January 2015
- Recorded in Nashville, where The Waterboys’ Mike Scott and Steve Wickham were joined by American musicians, including Muscle Shoals legend David Hood on bass.
- Hailing from Chicago, Fall Out Boy – Patrick Stump (vocals/guitar), Pete Wentz (bass), Joe Trohman (guitar) and Andy Hurley (drums) – are back with their sixth studio album, American Beauty / American Psycho. It is the highly anticipated follow-up to the band’s fifth studio album Save Rock and Roll.
- The album includes the singles ‘Centuries’ and ‘American Beauty/American Psycho’, plus the track ‘Immortals’.
- The album contains 11 tracks, and the CD comes with a 12-page booklet in a soft pack.
- The new record from Sleater-Kinney is the first in 10 years from the acclaimed trio – guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein, vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker, and drummer Janet Weiss – who came crashing out of the ’90s Pacific Northwest riot grrrl scene, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact. Formed in Olympia, WA in 1994, Sleater-Kinney were hailed as ‘America’s best rock band’ by Greil Marcus in Time Magazine, and put out seven searing albums in 10 years before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006. But the new album isn’t about reminiscing, it’s about reinvention – the ignition of an unparalleled chemistry to create new sounds and tell new stories. Produced by long-time Sleater-Kinney collaborator John Goodmanson, who helmed many of the band’s earlier albums including 1997 breakout set Dig Me Out, No Cities to Love is indeed formidable from the first beat.
- Ryan Bingham needed peace and quiet to write. He relocated to the mountains of California, embracing the solitude to dig down deep and craft his most powerful album yet, Fear and Saturday Night. Bingham was actually in the back of a van when he wrote ‘The Weary Kind,’ the centerpiece of the film Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges. It earned him an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy, and skyrocketed him into the spotlight.
- Recorded mostly live with a brand new backing band with producer/engineer Jim Scott, Fear and Saturday Night is the most authentic, personal, and deeply moving portrait of that man we’ve heard yet.
Other releases for 2015
Find releases from 2016.
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