Releases from July–August 2015

Great albums from around the world

Click to order your copy to make sure you don’t miss out! You can pay for your order when you collect it. Please note that we cannot post items to you.

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 by , out on February.

Click here to see all our current pre-sale offers

Releases for 28 August 2015

New releases for 28 August include the ever-dependable Motörhead, shoegazers Tamaryn, a stunning live set from Robert Cray, Hoboken’s finest, Yo La Tengo, bringing their own take to a selection of other artists’ tunes, Hooton Tennis Club’s spiky debut pitches up, Beach House bring out their fourth album, but album of the week is What Went Down by Foals, if only for the epic 11-minute title track!

There are also vinyl reissues of Nirvana’s 2002 best-of, and a 5-disc retrospective from The Faces.

- Foals What Went Down
After three critically acclaimed Top 10 albums, a succession of major awards and a growing list of festival headline sets, Foals will be propelled to bold new heights with the release of their eagerly anticipated new album, What Went Down.
Produced by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine), ‘What Went Down’ is an album that grapples with questions that are a world away from the bland bleatings of homogenised pop: permanence and impermanence; life and death; solitude; vulnerability; intimacy; passion; rage; humanity – weighty issues that make demands of the people creating that music, and of all those who listen to it, too.
Sonically, it’s an album that seesaws precariously between primal aggression and naked vulnerability. It’s an approach that delivers a contrast of muscular shocks with the fiery central riff of ‘Snake Oil’ and the menacing percussive march of ‘Albatross’ set against some of the band’s most openly experimentally moments to date, such as the cocktail of afrobeat and drum machines that underpins ‘Night Swimmers’ and the stripped-back, vocal-led ‘Give It All’.

- Motörhead Bad Magic
Legendary British rock’n’roll trio Motörhead release their 22nd – yes, 22nd! – studio album, Bad Magic, which contains an unheard of, bumper-sized 13 tracks, comprising 12 brand-new Motörtunes and a truly epic cover of The Rolling Stones’ classic, ‘Sympathy For The Devil’.
Bristling with thunderous attitude, and some of the fiercest rhythms and riffs that’ll assault your ears this year, Bad Magic demands that you fall to your knees and pray heartily that your senses don’t get completely pulverized, because big-rig head-crushers like the Motöranthemic ‘Thunder And Lightning’ show that Motörhead are as strong, mean, loud, relentless, uncompromising and goddam heavy as ever.
The world might be in a state of turmoil and uncertainty, but Motörhead will always be Motörhead. That you can rely on.
The deluxe CD comes in a ‘book’ package, and the LP contains a CD copy of the album.

- Beach House Depression Cherry
Beach House is Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. This record shows a return to simplicity, with songs structured around a melody and a few instruments, with live drums playing a far lesser role. With the growing success of Teen Dream and Bloom, the larger stages and bigger rooms naturally drove the duo towards a louder, more aggressive place; a place farther from their natural tendencies. On Depression Cherry, they continue to let themselves evolve while fully ignoring the commercial context in which they exist.
Victoria and Alex sum up this record with a line from ‘Into the Mystic’ by Van Morrison.: ‘Hark, now hear the sailors cry, feel the air and see the sky, let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic … when the fog horn blows, I want to hear it, I don’t have to fear it.’

- Hooton Tennis Club Hooton Tennis Club
Hooton Tennis Club hail from Chester and Ellesmere Port, their name inspired by a sign for the tennis club in Little Sutton.
Here the wit of Kurt Vonnegut and twisted storytelling of Wes Anderson collide to tell tales of banal jobs, relationships, memorable parties and passing characters. Musically melodic, fragile, wonky, witty, poetic and pop (definitely, defiantly pop) the skewed melodies and oddball narratives combine in perfect symbiotic musical harmony, each song a small burst of sunshine to warm the coldest of hearts. Think Teenage Fanclub, Guided By Voices, Randy Newman, Big Star, Silver Jews – but birthed in northern English towns in the 21st century.

- Yo La Tengo Stuff Like That There
New album from Yo La Tengo! Cover versions, reworkings of old songs and two fresh cuts from Hoboken’s finest, designed as a successor to their similar 1990 release, Fakebook. Includes reinterpretations of faves by The Cure, Hank Williams, Sun Ra, The Lovin’ Spoonful.

- Tamaryn Cranekiss
Tamaryn’s first two full-lengths (2010’s The Waves and 2012’s Tender New Signs) stood out in a crowd of shoegaze/ethereal revivalists. With Cranekiss, Tamaryn emerges from her past in a way that’s inviting, warm-blooded, and shockingly direct. She’s made a big record, loaded with samples and synth triggers, the result of long nights grinding it on her own out at the Brooklyn studio Gary’s Electric. Cranekiss represents a long journey, and a new phase – a blood-red kaleidoscope of desire and late night abandon, a bold step forward.

- Robert Cray 4 Nights of 40 Years Live
Robert Cray has always been, above all, an artist to experience live and this superb 19-track collection of live material, recorded across 4 venues in December 2014, is both a great introduction to the man in his prime and a worthy addition to any Robert Cray fan’s collection. It also contains a bonus 90-minute live DVD with interview material!

- Nirvana Nirvana
Nirvana’s eponymous 7 x platinum-selling posthumous collection makes its debut on deluxe 45rpm double LP on heavyweight 180-gram vinyl with a digital download card, as well as a standard 33rpm single LP 180-gram heavyweight vinyl edition which also includes a download card.

- The Faces You Can Make Me Dance, Sing, Anything
The Faces squeezed a lifetime’s worth of rock ’n’ roll into just five years. But despite their relatively short time together, Kenney Jones (drums), Ronnie Lane (bass/vocals), Ian McLagan (keyboard), Rod Stewart (vocals) and Ronnie Wood (guitar/vocals) have earned a spot on the short list of the world’s greatest rock bands.
This brand new boxed set features newly remastered versions of all four of the Faces’ studio albums, plus a bonus disc of rarities. All of the music has been remastered from the original analogue tapes and approved by the surviving band members. Without a doubt, this is the best-sounding version of the band’s music ever released.
The limited edition vinyl LP set You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (1970-1975) includes: The First Step (1970), Long Player (1971), A Nod Is As Good As A Wink … To A Blind Horse (1971), Ooh La La (1973) along with the bonus disc from the CD set. To deliver superior audiophile quality, each album was cut from the original analogue master tapes directly to lacquers and pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl. The records will come packaged in sleeves that accurately recreate the original release. For instance, when you push the sleeve for Ooh La La, the man’s eyes move and his mouth opens, creating a look that’s reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s animation work with Monty Python.
In addition to the studio albums, the collection also features a bonus disc that gathers up nine essential tracks that didn’t appear on proper albums, including the 1973 single ‘Pool Hall Richard’, a live performance of the Temptations’ ‘I Wish It Would Rain’ from the 1973 Reading Festival, and ‘Dishevelment Blues’, a song that came free as a flexi-disc in copies of the New Musical Express.

[back to top]

Releases for 21 August 2015

Next week sees some long-awaited and some unexpected releases. Announced just ten days before release, Dr Dre’s new album, Compton, gets a physical CD rush release, with the vinyl to follow later. The Strypes release their second album, which is full of their rollicking version of rock’n’roll, The Fratellis weigh in with sharp, observant song-writing, Jon Cleary is something a little bit different – old-school R&B, funk’n’soul from New Orleans, via Kent of all places – and Spock’s Beard bring us more of their brand of Californian prog.

Also five of John Lennon’s post-Beatles albums get a welcome vinyl re-issue whilst The mighty Fall’s vinyl re-issue programme continues with their first two magnificent LPs, and there is a comprehensive 23-disc box set of R&B rock’n’soul powerhouse The Isley Brothers between 1959 and 1983.

Release of the week this week is a bit tricky with Dr Dre’s a worthy effort, however it just has to be Hundred Records favourites Wilco with Star Wars.

- Wilco Star Wars
To huge surprise Wilco announced a new album in late July, with a stream of it available briefly.
Well here is the physical release and, as you would expect from Wilco, we get great lyrics, riffs that recall earlier songs and sounds that recall, well, nothing at all.
As good as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot? No, but then that gives plenty of bar for Wilco to get under and still produce a memorable and important album.
The LP will be released on 13 October

- The Strypes Little Victories
Last seen supporting the Foo Fighters, this second full release from The Strypes exhibits all the unfettered joy and straight-ahead rock’n’rollness of their debut.
If youthful abandon and energy is your thing, you could do a lot worse than lending your ears this release.

- Dr Dre Compton
Dr Dre’s surprise new album gets its physical rush release on CD, with the vinyl to follow at an unspecified time later this year. Compton recounts Dr. Dre’s journey as he escaped the depths of one of the most notorious cities in America and built a billion-dollar empire.
The album opens with a news anchor giving an overview of Compton’s notable shift from a predominantly white suburb in the ’30s to a black-dominated city by the ’70s over a swelling beat that grows more menacing as the city’s current state is slowly revealed, and plays out as a journey through Dre’s nostalgic subconscious. This sort of storytelling feels cinematic at times, and like a good movie, Compton begs to be experienced to from beginning to end. While it may have been inspired by Straight Outta Compton, it isn’t tied to that association, and that bodes well for its longevity.

- Spock’s Beard The Oblivion Particle
The Oblivion Particle is the twelfth album from Californian prog rock legends Spock’s Beard. It’s available as a standard CD, a limited mediabook CD with a bonus track, and a 180g double LP with CD included. This is progressive rock in the Seventies’ spirit, full of contrasting climates, breaks and complex compositions based on tortuous, audacious and elaborated instrumental developments. Spock’s Beard combine strong melodies with intricate arrangements and superb musicianship.

- The Fratellis Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied
The Fratellis are a proper rock’n’roll band. They are you and me and everyone we’d fancy to meet for a drink and a dance. It’s the sound of handclaps and dropped beer bottle caps. It feels like the sing-a-longs you stumble upon in the back rooms of house parties. It’s the chase down hallways of guys and gals looking for each other, ending up with each other, and not quite knowing what to do with each other. It’s the feeling that right now is just fine and that tomorrow can wait another day.

- Jon Cleary GoGo Juice
Jon Cleary is a funk and R&B – in the old-school sense of R&B – musician based in New Orleans. He is originally from Cranbrook in Kent who for the past 20 years has studied the musical culture and life of New Orleans. Cleary is an accomplished pianist as well as being a multi-instrumentalist, a vocalist and a song-writer.
Jon Cleary performs with a number of music luminaries including Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, B.B. King, Ryan Adams, and Eric Burdon. Compositions by Cleary have been recorded by notable musicians including Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt and, most recently, John Scofield on his album Piety Street.

- John Lennon 5 Vinyl Reissues
If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of The Beatles, his artistic immortality would already have been assured. John brought a vision of life that was simultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic.
But it was only after the breakup of The Beatles in 1970 that the figure the world now recognizes as ‘John Lennon’ truly came into being. Whether he was engaging in social activism, giving long, passionate interviews that broadened the nature of public discourse for artists, defining a new life as a self-described ‘househusband’, or writing and recording songs, Lennon came to view his life as a work of art in which every act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large. It was a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by an innate inclusiveness and generosity. ‘You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,’ he sang in ‘Imagine,’ which has become his best-known song and an international anthem of peace. ‘I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.’
Such imagery, coupled with the tragedy of his murder in 1980, has often led to Lennon being sentimentalised as a gentle prince of peace gazing off into the distance at an Eden only he could see. In reality, he was a far more complex and difficult person, which accounts in part for the world’s endless fascination with him.
- John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP £19.99
- Imagine LP £22.99
- Rock ’n’ Roll LP £19.99
- Double Fantasy LP £19.99
- Milk and Honey LP £19.99

- The Fall Live At The Witch Trials / Dragnet
To quote the very great John Peel, ‘The question I’m always asked about The Fall is: “Which album should I start my collection with?” My short answer is that you have to get them all.’
Nothing much sounds like The Fall, and on Live At The Witch Trials and Dragnet, featuring one of the classic Fall line-ups, they sound like nothing else. Live At The Witch Trials, their debut album, contains the mighty ‘Industrial Estate’ and Dragnet contains ‘Psykick Dance Hall’, both of which are worth the admission price on their own. Now available on vinyl for the first time in eons, they won’t last for ever so grab one whilst the grabbing’s good!
- Live At The Witch Trials LP £19.99
- Dragnet LP £19.99

- The Isley Brothers RCA Victor & T-Neck Album Masters (1959-1983)
The RCA Victor & T-Neck Album Masters (1959–1983) is a 23-disc box set collection chronicling the sonic evolution and abiding achievements of an unsurpassed R&B ensemble. This box set follows The Isley Brothers through their transformation from a 1950s doo-wop/gospel vocal group into the world’s pre-eminent R&B rock’n’soul powerhouse party band.
Featuring newly remastered versions of the 21 albums released by The Isley Brothers for both RCA Victor and their independent T-Neck Records, nearly all of which are expanded with rare mixes and tracks making their CD and digital debuts. This set also includes, for the first time, the previously unreleased live album Wild In Woodstock: The Isley Brothers Live At Bearsville Sound Studio 1980 in its entirety, as well 84 rare and previously unreleased bonus tracks.
Contents
Shout! (RCA Victor, 1959)* / It’s Our Thing (T-Neck, 1969)* / The Brothers: Isley (T-Neck, 1969)* / The Isley Brothers Live At Yankee Stadium (T-Neck, 1969) / Get Into Something (T-Neck, 1970)* / In The Beginning … The Isley Brothers & Jimi Hendrix (T-Neck, recorded 1964-1965; remixed/released 1971)* / Givin’ It Back (T-Neck, 1971)* / Brother, Brother, Brother (T-Neck, 1972)* / The Isleys Live (T-Neck, 1973) / 3+3 (T-Neck, 1973)* / Live It Up (T-Neck, 1974)* / The Heat Is On (T-Neck, 1975)* / Harvest For The World (T-Neck, 1976)* / Go For Your Guns (T-Neck, 1977)* / Showdown (T-Neck, 1978)* / Winner Takes All (T-Neck, 1979, 2 CDs)* / Go All The Way (T-Neck, 1980)* / Wild In Woodstock: The Isley Brothers Live At Bearsville Studios 1980 (previously unreleased)* / Grand Slam (T-Neck, 1981)* / Inside You (T-Neck, 1981)* / The Real Deal (T-Neck, 1982)* / Between The Sheets (T-Neck, 1983)*
(* includes bonus tracks)

[back to top]

Releases for 14 August 2015

We’ve got a fine selection of releases for you on 14 August. Lovers of a bit of heavy will be delighted with new releases from metallers Soulfly and Bullet For My Valentine. There’s some fine archive reggae/ska/rocksteady from both Keith Hudson and Lord Tanamo and The Skatalites, and the very latest in country from Canaan Smith and Whiskey Myers. However, our release(s) of the week just have to be the long-awaited vinyl reissues from Mark Kozelek’s mighty Red House Painters. Long-time RHP obsessives would insist that you should run-not-walk to buy all four, but if feet were held against the fire, the self-titled LP commonly referred to as Rollercoaster, due to its front cover, would be our first choice.

- Bullet For My Valentine Venom
This long-awaited fifth studio album from UK metal titans Bullet For My Valentine is their heaviest record to date. Featuring ‘No Way Out’, their ground-breaking fusion of metal and punk continues to forge ahead and make noise across the world!

- Soulfly Archangel
Evoking the dark atmosphere of 2005’s Dark Ages, Archangel (the tenth album from Soulfly) is arguably the band’s most intense album to date. Opening with the anthemic punk-metal blast of ‘We Sold Our Souls To Metal’, via the grand Behemoth-inspired title track and the frantic groove of ‘Ishtar Rising’, Archangel rages from start to finish. ‘I am so proud to be releasing Soulfly’s tenth album,’ comments founder/vocalist/guitarist Max Cavalera. ‘I feel it is my most mystic album since Prophecy.’

- Neil Young The Monsanto Years
Arriving – for Neil – quickly on the heels of the CD release, the vinyl confirms the initial impression that The Monsanto Years finds Neil Young approaching his snarling best. If wax is your thing, this release is a must!

- Canaan Smith Bronco
A new country star arrives! Canaan Smith has toured with the likes of Dierks Bentley. Bronco is the follow-up to his astonishingly well received self-titled EP, released earlier this year.

- Whiskey Myers Firewater
Whiskey Myers’ debut album, Road Of Life, established the guys as a worthy heir to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s blue-collar tradition. Firewater ups the ante and solidifies Whiskey Myers as a genre-blending diamond in the rough, whose music has captured the attention of fans and critics alike. Firewater was produced by Leroy Powell, former guitarist for Shooter Jennings, and recorded at the famed Panhandle House in Denton, Texas.

- Red House Painters 4 vinyl re-issues
At last, if you missed out on the RSD 2015 box set containing the above albums, they are now available individually after many years of being out of print. What better way to start a life-time’s addiction to the doings of Mark Kozelek than the first four Red House Painters albums. Health Warning – Kozelek is prolific under a number of different names; I must have nearly 50 different releases tucked away at home, including, strangely, two AC/DC covers albums, which are weirdly brilliant!
Ocean Beach includes a second disc containing the Shock Me EP.
- Self-Titled (Bridge) LP £17.99
- Self-Titled (Rollercoaster) 2 x LP £22.99
- Down Colorful Hill 2 x LP £17.99
- Ocean Beach 2 x LP £21.99

- Keith Hudson Entering The Dragon
This 1974 release by Keith Hudson is something of a lost gem – with his gravelly vocal style gaining more and more prominence in recent years. Housed in some sunshine cover art, Entering The Dragon – with the man Keith bringing an abrasive edge that probably sounded quite startling in its day – now acts as a sign-post to the dancehall/hip-hop evolutions that were to come. With particular highlights including ‘Will You Come Out Tonight’, ‘It Was When Friends Started to Talk About You’ and ‘Rage Of Love’.

- Lord Tanamo & The Skatalites I’m In The Mood For Ska
Double CD collection from the legendary Jamaican act The Skatalites. The first CD features tracks taken from the 1996 Ska Splash tour. These include the favourites ‘Guns Of Navarone’, ‘El Pussycat’, ‘Eastern Standard Time’ and ‘Phoenix City’. These are some of the last recordings made before the sad death of key members of the group, Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso. CD2 includes tracks recorded for New York’s Moon Ska Records by the band and friends including guest vocalists Lord Tanamo and King Bravo, plus several tracks taken from the Clash Of The Ska Titans album featuring ska legend Laurel Aitken.

[back to top]

Releases for 7 August 2015

7 August is a great week for new releases, bringing you albums from Mick Jones, Georgia Barnes, Lindi Ortega, Night Beds and Mac DeMarco. We really like Ultimate Painting’s second album, Green Lanes, and The Phoenix Foundation’s sixth, Give Up Your Dreams, but release of the week is the Winchester troubador Frank Turner’s latest, Positive Songs For Negative People.

- Frank Turner Positive Songs For Negative People
Positive Songs For Negative People is Winchester-based singer-songwriter Frank Turner’s sixth album, the follow-up to 2013’s critically-acclaimed Tape Deck Heart. It was made with his trusted backing band The Sleeping Souls.
It has been an eventful decade for the troubadour from Winchester. As he turned his attention towards his sixth album at the tail-end of 2014, Turner thought back to his debut. ‘When a band makes a debut record, there’s a freshness and excitement to it that bands often lose as time goes by,’ he says. ‘I wanted to try and make a record with that young, exciting feel.’ The idea was that Frank and his band would capture the exhilarating thrill of their live show. Like much of Turner’s work, it is a record that takes Life’s Big Issues – triumphing over the darkest adversities – and places them inside a mix of beguiling, intricate vignettes and sweeping anthems. This is Turner at both his most reflective and celebratory.
The album is available on CD, limited double CD containing a 10-track bonus acoustic album with a 12-page booklet in a digipak sleeve, and a black heavyweight LP with printed outer wallet and printed inner wallet.

- Ultimate Painting Green Lanes
Green Lanes is the second album from London-based Ultimate Painting. Formed as a loose collaboration by Jack Cooper (Mazes) and James Hoare (Veronica Falls), the project became a fully fledged band in 2014 with the release of their self-titled debut album. This album is stuffed with the airy, lush harmonies we’ve come to expect from Ultimate Painting.

- Georgia Georgia
This is the eponymous debut album by multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Georgia Barnes. Written, performed and produced in its entirety by Barnes and recorded in her own home studio, Georgia is the product of two years of obsessive work, but also a young lifetime of voracious music listening.
Georgia blends elements of the glacial yet hyper-melodic tone of early 00s grime, sweltering, mid-summer west London dub and ragga, sophisticated pop, and first-wave post-punk agitation, and reveals new layers of intrigue and ingenuity with every listen.
The LP is an indies-only coloured vinyl pressing.

- Mick Jones Ex-Libris
A new album of six original songs by Mick Jones – legendary guitarist of The Clash, founder of Big Audio Dynamite and producer for the likes of Gorillaz and The Libertines.
Ex-Libris was recorded in his West London studio earlier this year and is released in conjunction with the opening of his incredible Aladdin’s cave of popular culture, The Rock & Roll Public Library, at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
The LP is pressed onto 180-gramme heavyweight vinyl and is limited to 1000 copies worldwide, with 100 random copies signed by Mick Jones!

- Lindi Ortega Faded Gloryville
Lindi Ortega is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Toronto, Ontario who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Her voice has been described as a blend of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris. She spent nearly a decade as an independent artist in the Toronto music scene, releasing two albums and an EP in that time, and has been described as Toronto’s best kept secret.

- Night Beds Ivywild
Night Beds, the musical project of 26-year-old Colorado Springs native Winston Yellen, received much acclaim for his 2013 debut album, Country Sleep, scoring plaudits for its tortured take on alt.country and Yellen’s soaring vocals. But Yellen has always been much more than another singer-songwriter. ‘When Country Sleep came out, I had never made songs like that before,’ explains Yellen, who currently splits his time between Nashville and Los Angeles. ‘That was a departure for me. That wasn’t my bread and butter.’ The charismatic, enticingly unhinged Yellen had been living in a house that used to belong to Johnny Cash and the atmosphere had taken an effect, but after finishing that album and before Country Sleep was even released, Yellen began experimenting with the kind of melancholic, neon-tinged R&B that makes up the mesmerising Ivywild.
The LP is an indies-only coloured vinyl pressing.

- Mac DeMarco Another One
Recalling the days when the likes of Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson and Prince released a classic every year (or less), Mac DeMarco’s mini-LP Another One is released almost a year to the day after the meteorically successful Salad Days. Conceived and recorded entirely by DeMarco in a short break during a relentless tour schedule at his new place in Far Rockaway, Queens, Another One contains eight freshly written songs, expanding the arsenal of Mac’s already impressive catalogue.
There’s a bittersweet, romantic sensibility present on this album. The overall feeling is of love lost, or perhaps love never found, yet Mac embraces this without making it a sombre experience for the listener. It’s at times haunting and warm, and a bit more refined and sophisticated, but remains playful, retaining the guts and soul of classic Mac.

- Phoenix Foundation Give Up Your Dreams
New Zealand-based The Phoenix Foundation return with their sixth studio album, Give Up Your Dreams. It’s a shrewd and vibrant reminder that in The Phoenix Foundation’s gloriously absurd world of Technicolour pop, it’s the challenges you set yourself that reap the greatest rewards. ‘Give Up Your Dreams could sound like a defeat but it represents something quite defiant, joyous and celebratory’ exclaims co-frontman Samuel Scott of the record’s infectious rhythm-driven sound and optimistic feel.

[back to top]

Releases for 31 July 2015

Whilst The Maccabees’ new album is mighty impressive, particularly on lovely limited edition dark blue vinyl, release of the week goes to Lianne La Havas with the extra funky Blood. Also sneaking out her latest, a genre-bending effort which even comes in a dub version, is Joss Stone. The first Placebo album gets a wildly overdue re-release on vinyl and the soundtrack of the recent Mad Max movie is every bit as distinctive as the film. And we come at last to the end of the wallet-busting series of Led Zeppelin remasters plus extras with Presence, In Through the Out Door and Coda – phew!

- Lianne La Havas Blood
Blood is an album inspired by Lianne La Havas’s family heritage, which is part Jamaican and part Greek.
Discovering her heritage inspired Lianne to reflect on the connections between now and then, which in turn sparked the songs which would become her future. Simply, ‘everything seemed to have a lot more clarity, and I really wanted to speak about it.’
Lyrically, the songs that feature on the album are almost all related to ‘the feeling of who you are and where you come from’. Sonically, Blood is a collection that shakes, shimmies and swings with Jamaican grooves with Lianne taking inspiration from the nation’s love of grooves, rhythms and syncopation.

- The Maccabees Marks To Prove It
It was grounding themselves in their local area, London’s fast-changing Elephant & Castle, that gave The Maccabees a direction forward for their fourth album after they became mired in studio hell. And yet, though it’s the Elephant roundabout and not the band that adorns the record sleeve, and the people of south London that are captured in its lyrical vignettes, the title applies to the quintet themselves as much as to an area in turmoil.
Elephant & Castle, like much of London, is coming under the strain of gentrification, with expensive housing projects planned and long-term residents being edged out. The Maccabees’ career, meanwhile, has been one of more managed development. The transition from the lovable puppyish indie rock of 2007’s Colour It In via the more muscular and varied Wall Of Arms in 2009 to the expansive beauty of 2012’s Given To The Wild is not one of radical or impetuous reinvention, but the gradual, hard-won evolution of a band who seem to develop more potential with every new phase.
The limited edition LP comes in dark blue vinyl.

- Joss Stone Water For Your Soul
Free-spirited English soul singer Joss Stone has been on an incredible journey, metaphorical and literal, artistic and geographic, absorbing influences and making music. Water For Your Soul is the fruits of her travels in sound, demonstrating how the teen soul prodigy has blossomed into an artist of style and substance. It is an album that pulses with the liquid groove of reggae, dazzles with the mix and match sonic adventure of hip hop, shimmers with the exotic sounds of world music and delivers the emotional belt of RnB.

- Junkie XL Mad Max Fury Road OST
This film’s epic score is written by Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, a Grammy nominated and multi-Platinum producer, musician, and composer. Junkie XL’s versatility puts him on the cutting edge of contemporary music, as well as in the vanguard of exciting new film composers. He is able to draw on his extensive knowledge of Classical forms and structures while keeping one finger planted firmly on the pulse of popular music. When this eclectic background is paired with his skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays keyboards, guitar, drums, violin, and bass) and mastery of studio technology, a portrait emerges of an artist for whom anything is possible.

- Led Zeppelin Presence
Finally we come to the end of the run of Led Zeppelin remasters plus extras, all painstakingly curated by Jimmy Page. The extra discs on the deluxe editions of all three releases include companion audio in much the same style as the previous six. Once my wallet has recovered from this battering I can start to save for the Bowie box set in September!

- Led Zeppelin In Through the Out Door

- Led Zeppelin Coda

- Placebo Placebo
Placebo are one of the definitive alternative rock bands of the past 20 years, with 12 million albums sold to date worldwide. The band’s self-titled debut album helped pave the way for a strong shift in British music, acting as an antithesis to Britpop and inspiring a generation of bands to follow them. This debut album has been remastered and is presented on high quality, heavyweight 180gm black vinyl.

[back to top]

Releases for 24 July 2015

Just the four new releases recommended for 24 July, as a number of releases have been pushed back a week. This week seems to be mainly re-releases, however some, like the two Northern Soul 7" box sets and Roger Waters’ classic Amused to Death, are worthy of attention. Release of the week goes to Daniel Romano’s If I’ve Only One Time Askin’.

- Various Artists Chess Northern Soul
Compiled and annotated by all-round soul oracle Ady Croasdell, the Chess Northern Soul 7" set brings together fourteen classic tracks from the legendary Chess and its affiliate labels Cadet, Argo and Checker. Big names featured here include Terry Callier, The Dells, Mitty Collier and Tony Clarke over fourteen sides that have lit up dance floors since the soul club scene’s inception, while Etta James’s stunning 1964 side ‘Can’t Shake It’ gets its first ever vinyl re-release. All of the sides have been lovingly cut from the best quality audio available and come in a smart presentation box with replica UK Chess livery and 8-page leaflet with detailed notes. Chess Northern Soul also includes a download card.

- Various Artists Capitol Northern Soul
Ranging from well known soul legends to names known only by the scene’s hardcore dancers and collectors, the Capitol Northern Soul 7" box set brings together the likes of Gloria Jones, Doris Troy, Bobby Paris and Sam Williams in a glorious celebration of the vintage label’s soul output and that of its esteemed spin-off imprints, Tower and Uptown. Strictly limited and with sleeve notes from compiler and northern soul aficionado and DJ Richard Searling, this super-smart box includes the first ever vinyl pressing outside the US, and the first ever legal vinyl re-issue, of The Outsider’s club classic ‘Lonely Man’. Capitol Northern Soul also includes a download card.

- Daniel Romano If I’ve Only One Time Askin’
Not quite country, Americana, folk, songwriter or pop, Daniel Romano’s exquisite and expansive new album, If I’ve Only One Time Askin’, is pieces of each, but ultimately the work of a singular mind. The 11 new self-produced and largely self-performed songs lead their baritone-voiced creator down a path filled with countrypolitan crooning, honky-tonk heartache and mid-century melodrama.

- Roger Waters Amused to Death
An unblinking look at an entertainment-obsessed society, Amused to Death addresses issues that have only grown in complexity and urgency over the past two decades. With Amused to Death, Roger Waters sounded the alarm about a society increasingly – and unthinkingly – in thrall to its television screens. Twenty-three years later, Amused to Death speaks to our present moment in ways that could scarcely have been anticipated two decades ago. Today, television is just one option in an endless array of distractions available to us anytime, anywhere, courtesy of our laptops, tablets and smartphones. With eyes glued to our screens, the dilemmas and injustices of the real world can easily recede from view. The 2015 CD edition features remastered audio.
There is also a picture disc double LP of this album, also priced at �34.99. Please specify if you want this when ordering.

[back to top]

Releases for 17 July 2015

Release of the week is Jason Isbell’s Something More Than Free, his follow-up to my favourite album of 2014, Southeastern. The week also brings a long overdue reissue of Michael Head’s The Magical World of The Strands, a stone classic, and new albums from The Chemical Brothers, Alan Jackson, Iron And Wine & Ben Bridwell, Flying Saucer Attack and Samantha Crain. And that’s without even mentioning Tame Impala’s Currents, available at Hundred Records on indies-only coloured vinyl as well as CD.

- Tame Impala Currents
This is the highly anticipated third studio album from global sensation Tame Impala. Lyrically the record finds Parker in a very different place to where he was seven years ago. Currents maps Parker’s evolution through transitions in life, relationships, perspectives and mindsets, and finds him a brand new person. Musically, Currents sounds like the work of a player on top of his game and having a blast, Parker indulging his whims and unafraid to dive down the rabbit hole after an idea. A genre-bending soundscape fuelled equally by curiosity as it is by consciousness; it’s an exhilarating new territory for Tame Impala.

- The Chemical Brothers Born in the Echoes
The undisputed masters of brain-altering, transcendental electronics return with their first studio album since 2010’s Further. The Chemical Brothers’ eighth studio album is a magnificent eleven-track collection of lean, propulsive machine-driven music. From juddering robotic funk to unhinged futurist freakbeat, from icy spectral psych to rhapsodic analog synthetics, from euphoric spiritual acid to harmonic ambient distortion, the album is the sound of a reinvigorated Chemical Brothers creating some of the most mind-expanding music of their career to date.

- Jason Isbell Something More Than Free
The award-winning Jason Isbell is back with his fifth album, Something More Than Free, the follow-up to Isbell’s 2013 breakthrough album, Southeastern. The pure honesty and authenticity of Isbell’s poetic lyrics and soulful vocals have connected deeply with so many, and they shine as brightly as ever on the 11 new songs on this album, permeated by southern-inspired vignettes of working class-men and women and traditions.

- Alan Jackson Angels and Alcohol
Country superstar Alan Jackson releases Angels and Alcohol, his first album of new material since 2012’s Thirty Miles West. Jackson wrote seven of the ten tracks on the album, including the title track. Angels and Alcohol is his 15th studio album. He is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry.

- Michael Head & The Strands The Magical World of The Strands
The Magical World of The Strands, finally reissued after being criminally out of print for an age, is an album of exquisite beauty. Very few albums like this are made anymore. It is music stripped to the basics: lovely songwriting and beautiful musicianship. Imagine a melange of Bryter Layter, Astral Weeks, Forever Changes and Harvest and you are getting somewhere near the sound of this superb album.

- Iron And Wine & Ben Bridwell Sing Into My Mouth
Longtime friends Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses and Iron And Wine’s Sam Beam take great pride in announcing the completion of their first ever collaborative album, Sing Into My Mouth. Classics interpreted on this album range from the familiar – Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)’, Sade’s ‘Bulletproof Soul’ and El Perro del Mar’s ‘God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)’ – to deep cuts such as Them Two’s ‘Am I a Good Man?’ (a frequent fixture in Band of Horses’ live set).

- Flying Saucer Attack Instrumentals
This new album from Bristol space-rock outfit Flying Saucer Attack – their first in 15 years – comprises 15 drone/ambient instrumentals performed solo by mainman David Pearce.

- Samantha Crain Under Branch & Thorn & Tree
Following 2013’s critically-acclaimed album Kid Face, singer-songwriter Samantha Crain brings us her fourth album, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree. The album’s intimate vignettes are marked by Crain’s smouldering vocals and lyrics that call attention to the details of everyday life that often escape us, supported by the subtle musical settings she has crafted.

[back to top]

Releases for 10 July 2015

Two releases come out on 6 July with the rest arriving on Friday, which will be the day for all new releases from now on. The week brings new albums from Lucy Rose, Years & Years, Cradle Of Filth, Little Boots, Shelby Lynne and Owl City, plus a retrospective from Groove Armada. Release of the week is Perpetual Motion People by Ezra Furman.

- Ezra Furman Perpetual Motion People
Ezra Furman says of the title Perpetual Motion People: ‘That’s who it was made by and that’s who it’s for. People who feel they can never settle. I’m restless in most aspects. I don’t tend to live in one place for long. I am always changing the way I present my gender. My religious life is intensely up and down in terms of observance and personal convictions. I’ve always viewed the idea of truth itself as something wobbly, always slipping out of our grasp. That’s what the songs are about: a head that is haunted, a society I cannot join, a lover who is perpetually in the act of leaving. A central idea is the fugitive or runaway, in a hideout built in the midst of an unfriendly or alienated world.’

- Lucy Rose Work It Out
Lucy Rose says that working on her second album was a big change from making her first record on her own: ‘It’s hugely different. It’s nice different in ways because this time we went into a recording studio, instead of being in my parents’ living room trying to make a record. We could actually go into a recording studio for the first time and that was really amazing. But at the same time I did have those extra pressures that I didn’t have before of making a record that the label wanted to put out and they felt was ready as well. It wasn’t just down to me deciding: yeah, now it’s time.’

- Years & Years Communion
Two years ago, Years & Years set themselves an ultimatum: it was all or nothing. ‘We experimented with a few ideas, spoke to different producers, pulled in favours, worked hard and just went for it.’ How the rest of the story panned out is pretty clear to see. The band soon found themselves sharing stages with the UK’s biggest pop exports, Sam Smith and Clean Bandit, and by the end of the summer they had seized the opportunity of an October slot on Later… With Jools Holland to crystallise their reputation as both able party-bringers and absorbing live performers. Now, they’re the winners of BBC’s Sound Of… poll 2015.

- Cradle Of Filth Hammer Of The Witches
Malevolent kings of British metal. Masters of the darkest arts and crafts. Cradle Of Filth have been firmly ensconced at the forefront of the extreme music scene for the last two decades. Ever since they emerged from the lengthening Suffolk shadows in 1991, Dani Filth and his fiendish cohorts have blazed a grotesque trail across the globe, spreading their fetid gospel of obscene theatricality earning themselves a formidable reputation as one of the most important metal bands ever.

- Groove Armada Little Black Book
Moda Black’s Little Black Book series was inspired by the desire for a new, more diverse, more personal platform for artists to express themselves. An album, remix album, compilation, mix series, autobiography and photo-book all rolled into one – a chance for artists to reveal a wealth of new material, whilst also dipping into their back catalogue and allowing it to be re-imagined by new artists. The Little Black Book gets inside the artists’ minds and looks to the future and what’s to come.
For the second edition, the reigns have been handed to the prolific and much-loved Groove Armada. From early inspiration courtesy of 90s rave collective DiY to the worldwide success of six albums, long summers in Ibiza and global live tours.

- Little Boots Working Girl
Since she emerged as Little Boots in 2008, Victoria Hesketh has been steadily regenerating, caressing her crystalline pop into bold new shapes. Released in 2009, the same year she topped the BBC’s Sound Of… poll, her Top 5 debut album Hands showcased a pop star willing to experiment, fusing massive pop hooks onto squelchy electronic soundscapes, while follow-up album Nocturnes succeeded in its aim to create experimental late night dance music built around classic pop songwriting. But it’s on excellent third album Working Girl that the two sides of Hesketh’s personality fuse, creating a forward-thinking, constantly shape-shifting pop album.

- Shelby Lynne I Can’t Imagine
Shelby Lynne was destined to be a singer. Born a singer. She was raised in rural Alabama by musical parents who stressed individuality and the importance of standing apart from others. This latest album thoroughly vindicates that world view with a unique album that sounds as only Shelby Lynne can.

- Owl City Mobile Orchestra
In the state of Minnesota lies a small town called Owatonna with roughly twenty-two thousand inhabitants; within that city is a quiet road with a modest house. In that house there’s an unkempt basement with no windows. Within those confines you’ll find Adam Young of Owl City hard at work, creating his electronic and melodically infectious brand of music.

[back to top]

Other releases for 2015

Find releases from 2016.