Releases from September–October 2016

Great albums from around the world

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Find releases from 2017 | 2015.

Also check out some of the great reissues of classic albums.

 

The hottest pre-sale releases

Pre-sale of the week is Hit Me Hard and Soft by Billie Eilish, out on 17 May.

Special pre-sale offer: Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and SoftSpecial pre-sale offer: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Wild GodSpecial pre-sale offer: Richard Hawley – In This City They Call You LoveSpecial pre-sale offer: London Grammar – The Greatest LoveSpecial pre-sale offer: Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – LoopholeSpecial pre-sale offer: John Grant – The Art of the LieSpecial pre-sale offer: Goat Girl – Below the WasteSpecial pre-sale offer: Richard Thompson – Ship to ShoreSpecial pre-sale offer: The Decemberists – As It Ever Was, So It Will Be AgainSpecial pre-sale offer: Paul Weller – 66

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Jump to: 28 October  |  21 October  |  14 October  |  7 October  |  30 September  |  23 September  |  16 September  |  9 September  |  2 September

 

Releases for 28 October 2016

Just six recommended new releases for 28 October – smaller but still perfectly formed! Madness are back with their first album in 4 years, Can’t Touch Us Now, full of wry, observational lyrics and a lovely pop/reggae/soul fusion, which is a long-winded way of saying it’s situation normal, but splendid for all that. Given the dearth of albums by The Jam currently available on vinyl, it’s great to see the release of About The Young Idea, which is effectively a 3-LP best of, but does include a previously unreleased track for the completists out there. Jack Savoretti follows up the enormous success of Written In Scars with Sleep No More, again showcasing his exceptional voice and sense of a good melody, resulting in an album to appeal to many. More heads-down no-nonsense psychedelic rock from The Brian Jonestown Massacre on their 16th album, Third World Pyramid – they’ve already recorded their next album, so brace yourself! And CRX, the new band of Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi, release their debut, New Skin.

Album of the week is Toy’s third, Clear Shot – a thrilling mix of psychedelic, shoegaze and post-punk.

  • Toy - Clear Shot
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    • Toy  Clear Shot 
  • Clear Shot began to take shape in the first half of 2015, and the result is Toy’s most coherent and confident album to date. Lushly cinematic, shot through with their most expressive melodies thus far and coated with a ‘sheen’ courtesy of Chris Coady (Beach House, Smith Westerns, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Clear Shot sees Toy working both in bigger colours and more minutely crafted detail.
  • Madness - Can’t Touch Us Now
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    • Madness  Can’t Touch Us Now 
  • Madness are back with their first album in four years: Can’t Touch Us Now, produced by Clive Langer and Liam Watson and mixed by Brit Award winner Charlie Andrew. Tracks such as ‘Mr Apples’, ‘Mumbo Jumbo’, the Amy Winehouse referencing ‘Blackbird’ and the title track ‘Can’t Touch Us Now’ capture the band’s inimitable combination of pop, reggae and soul influences. As on many of Madness’s greatest moments, the lyrics are gloriously observational and humorous, beautifully framing life in London.
  • The Jam - About The Young Idea
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    • The Jam  About The Young Idea 
  • About The Young Idea is effectively a triple-LP greatest hits of much-revered The Jam. It includes a previously unreleased demo of ‘Takin’ My Love’.
  • Jack Savoretti - Sleep No More
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    • Jack Savoretti  Sleep No More 
  • Sleep No More is the brand new album from Jack Savoretti, the follow-up to his Top 10 and gold-certified breakthrough album, Written In Scars. The new album features 12 original songs including the single ‘When We Were Lovers’, which sets the tone with its big heart and spell-binding rhythm. Each song showcases Jack’s exceptional voice, from the honest warmth of ‘I’m Yours’ to the anthemic ‘We Are Bound’, all powered by addictive choruses.
  • The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Third World Pyramid
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    • The Brian Jonestown Massacre  Third World Pyramid 
  • Anton Newcombe and his merry band return with their 16th album. In a year in which they have already released two EPs, The Brian Jonestown Massacre now present this full-length album, Third World Pyramid, and have another album in the can ready to go. No one can say that the band have been taking things easy.
  • CRX - New Skin
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    • CRX  New Skin 
  • CRX is a new band form by Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi. New Skin has been produced by Josh Homme of Queen of the Stone Age. Valensi is the last of The Strokes to involve himself in a side project.
 

 

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Releases for 21 October 2016

First up for release on 21 October, Pretenders are back! Chrissie Hynde was in the process of recording a follow-up to her solo release Stockholm when she realised that the songs she’d written were perfect for the more muscular Pretenders sound, so Alone was born. Hooton Tennis Club’s sophomore effort, Big Box Of Chocolates, is full of bright, catchy songs which evoke northern England in their typically laconic style. Courteeners’ latest, Mapping The Rendezvous, is full of hooky guitar riffs and memorable lyrics; if you like The Maccabees or Blossom, this one will be right up your street. If, on the other hand, you like your nu metal, you’ll be excited about Korn’s return with Serenity Of Suffering – darkly atmospheric and brutal. Michael Bublé releases Nobody But Me, a collection of original pop tunes and beautiful standards that highlight his talent as a profound interpreter of the American songbook as well as gifted songwriter. Jimmy Eat World’s 9th studio album, Integrity Blues, is a more polished and melodic effort, with songs that run from jangly guitar to introspective balladry. Lazarus is the original cast recording of the musical co-created by David Bowie, inspired by the novel The Man Who Fell To Earth.

Album of the week is David Crosby’s Lighthouse, a masterful record which has been recorded in a stripped-down, intimate style that’s perfect for the songs on it.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • David Crosby - Lighthouse
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    • David Crosby  Lighthouse 
  • The masterful Lighthouse is an intimate stripped down set that highlights David Crosby’s instantly recognisable voice, incisive song-writing and incomparable guitar playing. The palpable joy in this 9-song collection captures an artist in an unexpected burst of inspiration, indeed it is said the next album has already been written and recorded.
  • There’s a sparse unvarnished quality to the songs that allows them to breathe and grow.
  • Pretenders - Alone
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    • Pretenders  Alone 
  • Chrissie Hynde was working on a solo project with the Black Key’s Dan Auerbach in his Nashville studio, organically recording the follow-up to her 2014 album, the superb Stockholm. The new record had been tentatively entitled ‘Chrissie Hynde Practices Her Autograph’. Then it dawned that those driving guitars, ragged-but-righteous arrangements, the tough yet tender lyrics delivered by the most distinctive voice of a generation sounded fantastically familiar. Ultimately, this could only mean one thing: Pretenders were back.
  • Hooton Tennis Club - Big Box Of Chocolates
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    • Hooton Tennis Club  Big Box Of Chocolates 
  • Hooton Tennis Club’s second album, Big Box Of Chocolates, was produced by Edwyn Collins at his Clashnarrow Studios in Helmsdale, Scotland. If their debut album, Highest Point In Cliff Town, released in August last year, was the band’s sprightly statement of intent, Big Box Of Chocolates may well be their coming-of-age: a record that retains all the colour and invention of their debut, while being elevated by richer instrumentation and lyrics that hint at slightly heavier themes: love and loss, nihilism and the ‘non-spaces’ of Northern England, all delivered in the band’s typically laconic, bittersweet style.
  • Courteeners - Mapping The Rendezvous
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    • Courteeners  Mapping The Rendezvous 
  • The follow-up to 2014’s Concrete Love, Mapping The Rendezvous features more of Courteeners’ insanely hooky guitar riffs allied to memorable lyrics, if you’re a fan of the Maccabees or Blossoms, then this one could be for you.
  • Korn - The Serenity Of Suffering
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    • Korn  The Serenity Of Suffering 
  • Nu-metal godfathers Korn return in 2016 with their 12th effort, The Serenity Of Suffering. Their first since 2013’s The Paradigm Shift, the album is a return-to-form for the band, echoing the polished production, dark atmosphere, and classic brutality from Issues and Untouchables. Produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Deftones, Foo Fighters, Mastodon), The Serenity of Suffering includes the pummeling lead single, ‘Rotting in Vain’, and ‘A Different World’, which features Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor on guest vocals.
  • Michael Bublé - Nobody But Me
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    • Michael Bublé  Nobody But Me 
  • Nobody But Me is the multi-Grammy, multi-platinum award winning singer’s 9th studio album, following the critically acclaimed To Be Loved. This exciting collection of original pop tunes and beautiful standards highlight Michael Bublé’s talent as a profound interpreter of the American songbook as well as his gifted songwriting and producing style. Nobody But Me was recorded in Los Angeles and Vancouver and includes three new Bublé-penned originals along with breathtaking reinventions of classics including ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’, ‘The Very Thought of You’, Brian Wilson’s ‘God Only Knows’ and the Johnny Mercer classic ‘I Wanna Be Around’. Guest artists on the album are Megan Trainor and Black Thought (of The Roots).
  • Jimmy Eat World - Integrity Blues
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    • Jimmy Eat World  Integrity Blues 
  • Integrity Blues is the bands ninth studio album following on from 2013’s Damage. This time Jimmy Eat World have crafted a more polished melodic sound than the rawer predecessor. From bright jangly guitar to introspective balladry, this is a solid effort indeed.
  • Original Cast Recording - Lazarus
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    • Original Cast Recording  Lazarus 
  • The show Lazarus was created by David Bowie and Enda Walsh, inspired by the novel The Man Who Fell To Earth. The off-Broadway production of Lazarus, starring Michael C. Hall, received incredible reviews and was sold-out. Standing alongside the cast’s interpretations of classics from his canon are the three final David Bowie studio recordings, co-produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti and recorded with Donny McCaslin and his quartet, the same band that played on Bowie’s Blackstar album. These last three songs – ‘No Plan’, ‘Killing A Little Time’, ‘When I Met You’ – bring completely new dimensions to their cast counterparts. The original Blackstar version of ‘Lazarus’ is also included on the cast album.
 

 

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Releases for 14 October 2016

Kicking off our recommended releases for 14 October we have the unexpected duo of Dr John Cooper Clarke & Hugh Cornwell with This Time It’s Personal, a collection of much-loved tunes, sung – if you can believe this – by John himself, and a good job of it he makes too! Moby’s new album is all about how The Systems Are Failing because of humanity’s impact on the world around us. Kings Of Leon have stuffed Walls full of hooky, catchy riffs and heartfelt lyrics passionately sung. Two Door Cinema Club incorporate a wide and varied range of styles into Gameshow, and it remains great fun throughout. Jagwar Ma successfully mix dub-inflected guitar with smart pop psychedelia in Every Now & Then, and it’s always interesting and eminently listenable. Country superstar Dwight Yoakam does the bluegrass album he should have made years ago with Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars..., and Beth Hart’s Fire On The Floor is a shot of incendiary blues-rock delivered with a voice of burnt honey – fabulous.

Our album of the week is Conor Oberst’s spare and unadorned Ruminations – just Conor, his piano and harmonica, the album harks back to an earlier time and is a wonderfully intimate listen.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • Conor Oberst - Ruminations
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    • Conor Oberst  Ruminations 
  • In the winter of 2016, Conor Oberst found himself hibernating in his hometown of Omaha after living in New York City for more than a decade. He emerged with the unexpectedly raw, unadorned solo album, Ruminations. In Nebraska last winter, songs that hark back to an earlier era unexpectedly began to take shape. Oberst went to ARC, the studio he built with his Bright Eyes bandmate and longtime friend Mike Mogis, to record that music. With the help of engineer Ben Brodin, he recorded all the songs in the span of 48 hours.
  • The results are almost sketch-like in their sparseness, and they ultimately became the songs that comprise Ruminations. These tracks do not have the multi-layered instrumentation of the most recent Bright Eyes and solo albums: this is Oberst alone with his guitar, piano, and harmonica; the songs connect with some of the rough magic and anxious poetry that first brought him to the attention of the world, while their lyrical complexity and concerns make it obvious they could only have been written in the present.
  • Dr John Cooper Clarke & Hugh Cornwell - This Time It’s Personal
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    • Dr John Cooper Clarke & Hugh Cornwell  This Time It’s Personal 
  • Acclaimed poet Dr John Cooper Clarke and esteemed singer-songwriter (and founding member of The Stranglers) Hugh Cornwell have teamed up to release their first album, This Time It’s Personal. It’s a match made in the rock’n’roll heaven of their respective youth and, just as their eyebrow-raising new album says, this time it’s personal. Featuring classic tracks that they both grew up listening to, the album is the surprising duo’s first collaboration.
  • Moby & The Void Pacific Choir - These Systems Are Failing
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    • Moby & The Void Pacific Choir  These Systems Are Failing 
  • Moby’s new album is called These Systems Are Failing. And they are. All of them. We built great cities. Great industries. Great systems. These systems were supposed to protect us, to free us, but instead they’ve poisoned our air, killed the animals, butchered the land – and destroyed ourselves. We think we’ve conquered the problems of food production and wealth distribution, yet we’re more miserable than ever.
  • Kings Of Leon - Walls
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    • Kings Of Leon  Walls 
  • Multi-platinum selling rock band Kings Of Leon return with the hugely anticipated Walls. The Grammy Award-winning group decided to return to their recording roots in Los Angeles and worked with famed producer Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Florence + The Machine). Lyrically, the album will touch on band members’ personal stories, which Q Magazine calls “goosebump-inducing” and “worth holding your breath for.
  • Two Door Cinema Club - Game Show
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    • Two Door Cinema Club  Game Show 
  • Two Door Cinema Club return with Gameshow, their first album since 2012’s Beacon.
  • Gameshow incorporates a wide and varied range of styles and influences that perfectly marries the band’s pop sensibilities and hooks, with a continued sonic invention. It’s a real statement of intent, introducing their dedicated fan base to Two Door v2.0: a sound that’s ambitious, but never alienating – off-kilter, but always danceable.
  • Singer Alex Trimble says of the new album’s sound: “We’re not embracing the pop that’s going on now in a melodic or structural sense. The two biggest influences for me were Prince and Bowie – both total pioneers who straddled that line between out-there pop and avant garde craziness.
  • Jagwar Ma - Every Now & Then
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    • Jagwar Ma  Every Now & Then 
  • Since the release of 2013’s Howlin, Jagwar Ma have played sold-out shows across the world. Now the song-writing duo of multi-instrumentalist and producer Jono Ma and singer and guitarist Gabriel Winterfield return with their second album, Every Now & Then. The new record returns to the melody-soaked nods to club culture and instantaneous vocal hooks they’ve become well known for, but has also seen them employ their passion for the Beastie Boys, citing this eclectic album as their ‘Paul’s Boutique’. Overall this stunning record encapsulates the band at their most entrancing and anthemic – a wig-out of oscillating acid bassline, ricocheting dub-fused guitars and heady pop psychedelia bathed in strobe-lit sonics. It was self-produced and recorded in the United Kingdom, Australia and France, then tweaked and mixed with the assistance of some of their brightest contemporaries.
  • Dwight Yoakam - Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…
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    • Dwight Yoakam  Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars… 
  • Dwight Yoakam developed a love for bluegrass music at an early age and for years has wanted to record an all-bluegrass album. The songs on this album are new interpretations of classic Dwight songs and a very unique cover of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’. The album also includes four of Dwight’s past Billboard Top 100 Country tracks: ‘These Arms’, ‘Gone’, ‘Guitars, Cadillacs’ and ‘Please Please Baby’, all re-imagined with a bluegrass treatment.
  • Dwight has long been a star in the world of country music, and has also made a name for himself in film and TV as an actor, writer, and director.
  • Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor
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    • Beth Hart  Fire On The Floor 
  • Beth Hart is on fire. Right now, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter is riding a creative tidal wave, firing out acclaimed albums, hooking up with the biggest names in music and rocking the house each night with that celebrated burnt-honey voice. Despite all the emotionally bare moments, for Beth, Fire On The Floor represents a catharsis. “I think Better Than Home is one of the best records I’ve ever done,” she says, “but it was a brutal experience. Fire On The Floor has more energy and I think, overall, it’s just got more balls. And I think I really needed that, just to balance out that heavier mood on Better Than Home.
 

 

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Releases for 7 October 2016

Once again we’ve worked hard to recommend 8 albums for 7 October from the avalanche of new releases. First up, Green Day return with their 12th studio album, Revolution Radio – expect more ludicrously catchy, angsty guitar pop from the American trio. Norah Jones releases Day Breaks, in which she returns to the jazz roots of her debut, and it’s lovely. Alter Bridge have, while gaining massive success, squared the heavy metal circle of crunching guitars and overall loudness whilst adding a surprising melodicism; their latest, The Last Hero, continues in that vein. Meshuggah are a different kettle of fish, delivering massively overpowering progressive metal in The Violent Sleep Of Reason, all steeped in their Nordic roots, Seasick Steve’s Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground is the sound of a man still going strong and having the time of his life. The enigmatic Goat’s 3rd album, Requiem, is as intriguing and original as their previous two, it’s beyond categorisation and a must-listen. Don’t Let The Kids Win is Julia Jacklin’s assured debut album, a fine mixture of observational wit and – for want of a better phrase – indie folk, which deserves a wide audience.

Release of the week is C Duncan’s follow-up to last years Mercury-nominated Architect, the achingly beautiful Midnight Sun – a more expansive and richer listening experience.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • C Duncan - The Midnight Sun
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    • C Duncan  The Midnight Sun 
  • Glasgow’s prodigious talent C Duncan released his critically acclaimed and Mercury Prize-nominated debut full-length, Architect, last July. His follow-up, The Midnight Sun, sees the bedroom producer return with a more expansive and experimental second offering, blending electronic elements and sweeping synth sounds with his signature layered vocals and dreamy instrumentation.
  • Green Day - Revolution Radio
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    • Green Day  Revolution Radio 
  • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees and Grammy Award-winning rock band Green Day release their 12th studio album. Produced by Green Day and recorded in Oakland, Revolution Radio is a potent 12-track blitz of angst-ridden anthems that unites Green Day’s fully formed stylistic approach with lyrical themes that address the complexities and uncertainties of modern day existence. Musically, the album is raw, visceral, and fearless – solidifying the band’s reign as one of the leading voices in rock music.
  • Norah Jones - Daybreaks
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    • Norah Jones  Daybreaks 
  • Norah Jones has come full circle with Day Breaks, her remarkable sixth album, which finds her returning to her jazz roots. She is this era’s quintessential American artist, the purveyor of an unmistakably unique sound that weaves together the threads of country, folk, rock, soul and jazz. Day Breaks is a kindred spirit to Come Away With Me, though it is unquestionably the work of a mature artist who has lived life and grown immensely in her craft. The album features jazz luminaries including Shorter, Smith, and Blade.
  • Alter Bridge - The Last Hero
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    • Alter Bridge  The Last Hero 
  • The Last Hero is the brand new album from Orlando rock titans Alter Bridge. This is their fifth and they continue to produce hard and heavy rock with a great melodic structure, something that few are able to achieve.
  • Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep Of Reason
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    • Meshuggah  The Violent Sleep Of Reason 
  • Swedish progressive metal pioneers Meshuggah are entering their 30th year of existence, during which they have defied expectations as to the limitations of metal and proven their virtuosic prowess by taking their cathedral-complex compositions to stages all over the world through legendarily long tour cycles.
  • The Violent Sleep Of Reason, the band’s eighth full-length studio album, finds them building upon their legacy for fearless metal sculpting within the context of extreme metal, but also recapturing some of the magic and excitement specifically within the aspect of performance, finding flow and groove that would be a challenge for any lesser band to locate, given such technical geometric madness at mischievous hand.
  • Seasick Steve - Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground
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    • Seasick Steve  Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground 
  • Keepin’ The Horse Between Me And The Ground is the eighth studio album from Seasick Steve. Ten years after the release of his breakthrough album, Dog House Music, and the follow-up to 2015’s Top 5 album Sonic Soul Surfer, this new album finds Steve at his best and again doing things his way. The album is a celebration of being alive, still going strong, and loving every minute of it. As Steve says: “I am having the best time of my life right now, and it’s been one helluva ride!
  • Goat - Requiem
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    • Goat  Requiem 
  • In a culture obsessed with content, saturation, and continual exposure, it’s rare to find artists who prefer to lurk outside of the public eye. Sweden’s enigmatic Goat may qualify as the greatest modern pop-culture mystery. Who are these masked musicians? Are they truly members of the Arctic community of Korpilombolo? Are their songs part of their isolated communal heritage? Their third studio album, Requiem, offers more questions than answers, but the reward is not in the untangling but in the journey through the labyrinth.
  • Goat’s previous albums, World Music and Commune, were perfect testaments to this heightened awareness, with Silk Road psychedelia, desert blues, and Third World pop all serving as governing forces within the band’s sound. But Goat’s strange amalgam isn’t some cheap game of cultural appropriation – it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact origins of the elusive group’s sound.
  • With Requiem, Goat continue to rock and writhe to a beat beholden to no nation, no state. Goat’s only outright declaration for Requiem is that it is their ‘folk’ album. Goat create a world where the line between truth and fiction is so obscured that all you can do is bask in their cryptic genius.
  • Julia Jacklin - Don’t Let The Kids Win
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    • Julia Jacklin  Don’t Let The Kids Win 
  • Julia Jacklin’s highly anticipated debut album, Don’t Let The Kids Win, is coming!
  • Hailing from the Blue Mountains of Australia, Julia Jacklin is a guitarist and singer like no other. Her music courses with the aching current of alt-country and indie-folk, augmented by her undeniable calling cards: her rich, distinctive voice, and her playful, observational wit. For the past few years Jacklin has lived in a garage in Glebe (a suburb of Sydney), working a day job on a factory production line making essential oils, all the while finding time to hone her craft – to examine her turns of phrase, to observe the stretching of her friendship circles, to wonder who she was and who she might become. And now, as Jacklin quits her factory job to focus solely on a music career, the future she had once imagined is becoming her present day reality. “It feels really good to be getting closer to my first album release,” says Jacklin; “it has been a very long dream of mine.
 

 

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Releases for 30 September 2016

It’s been harder than ever to whittle down the wealth of new releases out on 30 September to just 8 to recommend, but here we go! Sir Van Morrison possesses one of the finest voices in all music, and he uses it to good effect on his 35th studio album, Keep Me Singing. By way of a complete contrast, alt-rock superstars Pixies release their second post-reformation album, Head Carrier, and it’s a monster! Opeth continue their journey from death metal to prog of the most engaging and intense type with the beautiful Sorceress, Slaves crank up the volume on their spirited and noisy second, Take Control, Ultimate Painting’s third album, Dusk, is intricate, involving and lovely guitar pop, Regina Spektor’s Remember Us To Life, her first for four years, is well worth the wait, and Joanne Shaw Taylor’s Wild is just that: wild blues/rock guitar and vocals which is a punch in the gut – in a nice way!

Release of the week is Bon Iver’s 22, A Million. Both album and tracks are oddly titled, but there’s nothing at all odd about the result, and it comes highly recommended.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • Bon Iver - 22, A Million
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    • Bon Iver  22, A Million 
  • Bon Iver’s new album 22, A Million, is the band’s first album in five years. The album was largely recorded at Vernon’s April Base Studios in Fall Creek, Wisconsin as well as studios in London and Lisbon alongside a group of collaborators.
  • “22, A Million is part love letter, part final resting place of two decades of searching for self-understanding like a religion. And the inner-resolution of maybe never finding that understanding,” the band said. “The album’s 10 poly-fi recordings are a collection of sacred moments, love’s torment and salvation, contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver built a habitat rooted in physical spaces, then 22, A Million is the letting go of that attachment to a place.
  • This album comes with more attached puffery than any we’ve seen since we opened! When all is said and done, all you really need to know is that this is Bon Iver.
  • Van Morrison - Keep Me Singing
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    • Van Morrison  Keep Me Singing 
  • Sir Van’s 35th studio album continues the rich vein of jazz/blues he has been mining for recent albums. Still, at 71 years of age, in possession of one of the finest voices in popular music, Keep Me Singing contains enough to delight fans old and new.
  • Pixies - Head Carrier
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    • Pixies  Head Carrier 
  • Head Carrier is the second ‘post-reunion’ album from alt-rock four-piece Pixies, their first new music since 2014’s Indie Cindy. This 12-track record showcases the band’s unique mixture of surrealism, psychedelia, dissonance and surf rock. A standout track is ‘All I Think About Now’, where Paz Lenchantin, the band’s new permanent bassist, takes a cool vocal.
  • Opeth - Sorceress
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    • Opeth  Sorceress 
  • There are few bands that can or will match Sweden’s Opeth. Since forming in the tiny Stockholm suburb of Bandhagen in 1990, the Swedes have eclipsed convention, defiantly crushed the odds and, most importantly, crafted 12 stunningly beautiful, intrinsically intense albums to become one of the best bands on the planet, both live and on record.
  • Opeth’s new album, Sorceress, is proof that chief architect Mikael Akerfeldt has a near-endless well of greatness inside. From the album’s opener, ‘Persephone’, through ‘The Wilde Flowers’ and ‘Strange Brew’ to the album’s counterpart title tracks ‘Sorceress’ and ‘Sorceress 2’, Opeth’s twelfth full-length is an unparalleled adventure, where visions cleverly and secretly change, colours mute as if weathered by time, and sounds challenge profoundly.
  • Slaves - Take Control
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    • Slaves  Take Control 
  • The hottest property on the UK music scene return! Following on from the success of the duo’s top 10 Mercury-nominated debut album Are You Satisfied, Slaves mark their return in an explosion of punk-rock fury. Take Control was produced by one of the legends of early hip-hop and New York punk, Mike D!!
  • Ultimate Painting - Dusk
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    • Ultimate Painting  Dusk 
  • Dusk is the third album from London-based duo Ultimate Painting, a ten-song set that expands the group’s sound from their self-titled debut and their critically acclaimed sophomore effort, Green Lanes. The simple interplay of the songs slowly worms into your synapses.
  • Most groups would kill to have one talented songwriter in their ranks, but Ultimate Painting are lucky enough to be comprised of two singular voices in Jack Cooper and James Hoare. Their tunes weave in and out of each other like the duo’s respective six-strings, spiralling around each other in a laconic dance. Dusk feels different and cements the group’s presence in the modern world guitar pop, finding voice in the allure of quietude.
  • Regina Spektor - Remember Us To Life
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    • Regina Spektor  Remember Us To Life 
  • The new LP marks Regina Spektor’s first outing since 2012’s What We Saw From The Cheap Seats.
  • Remember Us To Life is composed entirely of all new songs recently written by Spektor. Regina gave birth to her first child in 2014 and she spent considerable time writing during and after her pregnancy. Says Spektor: “I made more art and felt more inspired than I had in a long time.”
  • Joanne Shaw Taylor - Wild
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    • Joanne Shaw Taylor  Wild 
  • Wild is the highly-anticipated new album from fabulous blues guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor, following her 2014 release The Dirty Truth. Joanne has been hailed by The Sunday Times for her “killer licks, soaring solos and heart-wrenching vocals”, and Joe Bonamassa has in the past described her as “a superstar in waiting”.
  • Recorded at Grand Victor Sound Studios, Nashville TN, Wild was produced by Kevin Shirley (Joe Bonamassa, Aerosmith, Journey, Iron Maiden). Joanne says: “Recording at Grand Victor was incredibly inspiring. It is quite the legendary studio. Dolly Parton cut ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ here. And Chet Atkins worked here. Basically, if there was a hit record out of Nashville, it was made here. I am very proud of this album, and I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.
  • Not one to sit around for long, Joanne is currently on her mammoth US tour with UK dates to follow, including one in Southampton.
 

 

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Releases for 23 September 2016

The quality new releases just keep rolling in! First up for 23 September is Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea, another fine album of ethereal folk from singer-songwriter Michael Rosenburg, better known as Passenger. Live At The Greek is the latest in a lengthy list of live albums from surely the hardest-working man in showbiz, Joe Bonamassa – one for all lovers of incendiary blues guitar. Marillion’s eighteenth studio album, FEAR, is a fine addition to their rich canon of epically listenable prog. Billy Bragg & Joe Henry breathed new life into some of Americana’s finest songs during their journey across the American railroad, collected on Shine A Light – see Billy’s work with Wilco for more like this. American indie darlings Warpaint return from their various solo projects with their third album, Heads Up, and a fine and feisty effort it is too. Devendra Banhart continues on his own idiosyncratic way on An Ape On Pink Marble, which manages somehow to be familiar, different and interesting all at the same time. Boxed In release their follow-up to last year’s critically acclaimed debut: think LCD Soundsystem crossed with Hot Chip.

Release of the week is Bruce Springsteen’s Chapter And Verse, a companion album to his autobiography, published the following week, and includes five previously unreleased songs by The Boss. Essential.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • Bruce Springsteen - Chapter And Verse
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    • Bruce Springsteen  Chapter And Verse 
  • Chapter And Verse is the career-spanning audio companion to Bruce Springsteen’s extraordinary forthcoming autobiography, Born To Run. Five of the album’s 18 tracks have not been previously released.
  • Springsteen selected the songs on Chapter And Verse to reflect the themes and sections of Born To Run. The compilation begins with two tracks from The Castiles, featuring a teenaged Springsteen on guitar and vocals, and ends with the title track from 2012’s Wrecking Ball. The collected songs trace Springsteen’s musical history from its earliest days, telling a story that parallels the one in the book.
  • Passenger - Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea
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    • Passenger  Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea 
  • Serenading the ears and entering the mind with utmost reclined tendencies, Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea is the latest studio album by singer-songwriter Michael Rosenburg, better known as Passenger. Forcing his way through the intertwined emotions of country-touched love and ethereal measurements of peaceful balance, Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea is a profound scattering of inspirational musings tipped with an abundance of spirit and substance.
  • Joe Bonamassa - Live At The Greek Theatre
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    • Joe Bonamassa  Live At The Greek Theatre 
  • Another essential live album from the hardest working man in showbiz! Joe Bonamassa and band perform live at the famous Greek Theatre, featuring old favourites and songs from his most recent studio album, Blues Of Desperation. If incendiary blues guitar is your thing, this one’s for you!
  • Marillion - F.E.A.R.
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    • Marillion  F.E.A.R. 
  • F.E.A.R. is Marillion’s eighteenth studio album. The feeling within the band themselves is that they may well have produced their best ever work. Marillion has certainly not mellowed with age; the album artwork shows the acronym ‘F.E.A.R.’ embossed on a gold ingot, and the songs themselves bear the hallmark of true quality.
  • Whilst the album title itself is certainly provocative, it’s not meant to be offensive. The title itself features as a line in the track ‘New Kings’ and is delivered as a plaintive falsetto. Steve Hogarth said, “We’ve used ‘F.E.A.R.’ as a title with some relish, but only as it shows that we haven’t shied away, but it’s said with sadness. There are two basic impulses behind human behaviour: Love and Fear, and all the good stuff comes from love.
  • Billy Bragg & Joe Henry - Shine A Light
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    • Billy Bragg & Joe Henry  Shine A Light 
  • Shine A Light, subtitled Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad, is an album in which Billy Bragg and Joe Henry mine that rich vein of Americana that Billy first touched on with Wilco.
  • In March 2016 Billy and Joe, guitars in hand, boarded a Los Angeles-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station, looking to reconnect with the culture of American railroad travel and the music it inspired. Winding along 2,728 miles of track over four days, the pair recorded classic railroad songs in waiting rooms and at trackside while the train paused to pick up passengers.
  • Warpaint - Heads Up
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    • Warpaint  Heads Up 
  • Warpaint’s third studio album, Heads Up, was recorded after the band spent 2015 apart working on solo projects. The band reunited in January this year and started to work with producer Jacob Bercovici, with whom they had worked on their debut EP, Exquisite Corpse. Heads Up was recorded in House On The Hill studio in downtown LA, their home studios and Papap’s Palace. “The doors were a little more open in terms of what was accepted and what wasn’t, because we were sharing ideas so rapidly between us,” says the band drummer Stella Mozgawa of the recording process. “Everybody was allowed to have their space, time and creative freedom with songs and figure out, ‘I wonder what the best notes would be? I wonder what the best would be to play?’” adds bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg. “Everybody got to sit and go, ‘What do I want to do to this? What’s my part? What’s My role? How can I make it the best?’
  • Devendra Banhart - Ape In Pink Marble
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    • Devendra Banhart  Ape In Pink Marble 
  • Ape In Pink Marble, Devendra Banhart’s ninth album, was written, produced, arranged, and recorded in Los Angeles by the singer/songwriter/guitarist with his longtime collaborators Noah Georgeson and Josiah Steinbrick, both of whom also worked on Banhart’s most recent album, Mala (2013).
  • Devendra Banhart was born in Houston, Texas, and moved with his mother to her native Caracas, Venezuela, when his parents separated. The family relocated to Los Angeles during his teenage years; it was there that he learned to speak English, skateboard, and play music. Banhart first began to perform in public while attending the San Francisco Art Institute.
  • An accomplished visual artist, Banhart’s distinctive, minutely inked, often enigmatic drawings have appeared in galleries all over the world, including the Art Basel Contemporary Art Fair in Miami; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels; and Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art.
  • Boxed In - Melt
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    • Boxed In  Melt 
  • Following the critically acclaimed self-titled debut that NME said “will enhance your life,Boxed In releases Melt. With comparisons to LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip, Boxed In is intellectual without being pretentious, wide-ranging yet accessible and will unite club and indie-rock crowds in a way so few can do.
 

 

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Releases for 16 September 2016

Once again it’s been a real struggle to get down to just eight recommended releases. First up for 16 September is The Handsome Family with Unseen, which is Americana Gothic of the highest order – you can practically see the tumbleweed blowing whilst listening. The ever prolific Dawes release the cheerfully titled We’re All Gonna Die, managing the conjuring trick of sounding both vintage and modern all at the same time. Seth Lakeman’s eighth (how did that happen?), Ballad Of The Broken Few, benefits greatly from the addition of Wildwood Kin on harmony backing delivering a more intimate, soulful and emotional feel to this album. Hundred Records favourite Madeleine Peyroux has always managed to produce an sound all of her own, mixing jazz, blues and soul with impassioned vocals; her latest album, Secular Hymns, is no different. The Small Hours is Matt Berry’s most personal release to date, a reflection on those things that go through all our minds in the quiet hours of the night. Trentmøller’s Fixion takes his trademark melancholy and wraps it around an atmospheric and darkly romantic album, and might be his best yet. Silver ApplesClinging To A Dream is an album of unique electronic experimentation which is uniquely accessible at the same time.

Release of the week is Led Zeppelin’s Complete BBC Sessions, which represents peak Zeppelin in all their glory over 3 CDs expertly remastered under Jimmy Page’s guidance.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • Led Zeppelin - The Complete BBC Sessions
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    • Led Zeppelin  The Complete BBC Sessions 
  • The Complete BBC Sessions builds on the original BBC Sessions, released in 1997, with a third disc that boasts eight unreleased performances, plus ‘White Summer’, a recording that first surfaced in 1990 on the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set. In addition, the set includes extensive session-by-session liner notes written by Dave Lewis. For the first time ever, it provides accurate details and notes about all of the band’s BBC sessions.
  • Musical highlights on this new collection include the debut of a long-lost radio session that has achieved near-mythic status among fans. Originally broadcast in April 1969, the session included three songs: ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’, ‘You Shook Me’ and the only recorded performance of ‘Sunshine Woman’.
  • Also included are two unreleased versions each of ‘Communication Breakdown’ and ‘What Is And What Should Never Be’. Separated by two years, the performances vividly demonstrate the young band’s rapid evolution over a short period of time.
  • As with the previous issues, the audio has been newly remastered under supervision from Jimmy Page.
  • The deluxe CD edition includes the remastered original album on two discs, plus a third disc of unreleased audio.
  • The deluxe vinyl box set contains the same audio spread over five LPs.
  • The super-deluxe box set features the two-disc remaster; the third disc of new songs; the remastered vinyl; a high-def audio download card with all of the content; a 48-page book with photos of the band, the recording locations, BBC memorabilia and session information; and a high-quality print of the original album cover.
  • The first 20,000 copies of The Complete BBC Sessions will also be individually numbered.
  • The Handsome Family - Unseen
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    • The Handsome Family  Unseen 
  • Unseen is a collection of 10 songs by a couple both world-famous and happily invisible. The Handsome Family’s Rennie is also a painter known for her vivid and surprising use of colour, and she finds herself painting even when her brushes are made of words. Each song on the record has a guiding colour (gold, silver, green, red, white). The stories of Unseen are mostly inspired by real events. ‘Gold’ began when a bunch of twenty-dollar bills blew in Brett’s face in a parking-lot dust storm. ‘Gentlemen’ is a tribute to William Crookes, who built the first vacuum tube in 1875, hoping to detect spirits from unseen dimensions. And ‘Tiny Tina’: Rennie still hasn’t seen that little horse. Unseen is about the light that emanates from things we can’t see behind (‘The Red Door’), in the empty hands of blackjack losers (‘The Silver Light’), and amidst desert bones bleaching in the sun (‘King of Dust’). The music of ‘The Sparks’ is steeped in the western gothic of New Mexico life. The unseen is powerful here. Nothing rusts, but entire oceans have disappeared. Ski masks mean robberies, but in the slow dive of the sun, enormous bugs awaken in thorny yards and unseen sirens and coyotes cry out to the purple sky. Just about anywhere you stand there’s been some blood drawn.
  • Dawes - We’re All Gonna Die
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    • Dawes  We’re All Gonna Die 
  • Dawes are one of the most prolific rock bands working today. It has only been a year since they released their previous, fourth, album, All Your Favourite Bands. That record was defined by lead singer Taylor Goldsmith’s tales of post-break-up reflection and acceptance. Lines like “I could go on talking, or I could stop / Wring out each memory til I get every drop” (from opener ‘Things Happen’) seemed to define the recriminations and fall-out from a relationship dislocation – all delivered and performed by a band in the form of their career. We’re All Gonna Die emphasises and underlines this emphatically.
  • The sound of Dawes can be described as folk-rock: vintage-sounding and something that could have easily been crafted by influences Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Neil Young. Despite their upbringing and idols, the Los Angeles band never sound too familiar or uninspired.
  • Seth Lakeman - Ballads Of The Broken Few
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    • Seth Lakeman  Ballads Of The Broken Few 
  • Seth Lakeman’s eighth studio album is a stunning collaboration between his dynamic song-writing, the genius of legendary producer Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon, Ray LaMontagne, Laura Marling) and the sublime harmony backing vocals of emerging girl trio Wildwood Kin. Between them they have conjured up an epic, soulful album of intense songs that are stripped back to their very essence. They recorded the 11 tracks that make up Ballad Of The Broken Few ‘live’ with an organic, acoustic vibe created in the great hall of a Jacobean Manor House and the album oozes with the atmosphere of this setting.
  • Madeleine Peyroux - Secular Hymns
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    • Madeleine Peyroux  Secular Hymns 
  • Twenty years after her recording debut, Dreamland, Madeleine Peyroux continues her musical journey with Secular Hymns, a spirited and soulful work loping, sassy and feisty tunes delivered in a mix of funk, blues and jazz. Recorded with her regular live trio, she has set out to record a collection of songs that justify the album title, she has succeeded.
  • Matt Berry - The Small Hours
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    • Matt Berry  The Small Hours 
  • Matt Berry announces the follow-up to his critically acclaimed string of records with his latest album, The Small Hours. This album is perhaps Matt’s most personal yet, exploring themes of death, religion, loneliness and the changing of the seasons. Like its predecessor, The Small Hours is themed in a transient state full of mystery and intrigue. Matt says: “[The album] refers to the small hours before dawn when you and me worry about things. It can be an intensely quiet time and so all your thoughts and fears can be amplified.” Drawn to the electrified ’70s of Miles Davis, The Small Hours finds Berry for the first time using his band live in the studio for the basic tracks, before embellishing and completing the songs himself in his own studio. He’s expanded his sonic palette even further than previous albums, with an arsenal including an electrified Rhodes piano, xylophone, bass clarinets, horns and even a waterphone to create his most high-fidelity work yet.
  • Trentmøller - Fixion
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    • Trentmøller  Fixion 
  • With Fixion, Anders has crafted a logical successor to 2013’s Lost – a record that in many ways managed to truly capture the visceral live experience of Trentemøller as a full band. In much the same manner that Lost built on from the somber cinematic classic that was Into The Great Wide Yonder, Fixion has embraced the Danish artist’s trademark melancholy and matured it into something uniquely atmospheric and darkly romantic
  • Silver Apples - Clinging To A Dream
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    • Silver Apples  Clinging To A Dream 
  • Clinging To A Dream, the first new album from Silver Apples in 19 years, features 11 new songs. These new songs carry on the tradition begun by Silver Apples in 1967 of merging pure, raw electronic sounds with melodic poetic content and represents 40 years of polishing and refining this experiment. The result, as usual, is surprisingly original. As the sleeve notes say, this album is: “A voyage of pure exploration beyond the broad established horizons of electronic music. It is an adventure into the perceptions of an unparallel universe all it’s own.
 

 

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Releases for 9 September 2016

It’s been a squeeze trying to reduce all the great releases due on 9 September to just eight, but we managed it eventually.

To kick off, Teenage Fanclub make a long-awaited return and – to our complete non-surprise – their 10th album is a beauty, chock-full of songs about the stuff that really matters: life and love. Wilco ring the changes again with the release of Schmilco, a mostly acoustic album with a spaciousness to allow the exceptional songwriting to breathe. Jack White’s Acoustic Recordings 1998–2016 represents an eclectic mix of his work from these years; in typical fashion he ranges from a bluegrass version of a Raconteurs song to a song written for a soft-drink ad. The Allah Lahs may not be a familiar name but they produce effervescent, thoughtful pop, so give then a listen. The haunting soundtrack from The Man Who Fell To Earth at long last gets a full release, for all the Bowie completists out there! St Paul & The Broken Bones are an eight-piece from Birmingham, Alabama who specialise in joyful rock’n’soul. We are longtime admirers of Okkervil River, whose new album, a follow-up to 2013’s Silver Gymnasium, won’t disappoint fans new or old. Finally there is a constant flood of reissued classics appearing on vinyl, and this week sees both Neil Young and The Verve release some albums that belong in any collection.

Release is Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, not because we have heard it – very few have – but because it’s Nick Cave. And what better reason could there be than that?

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
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    • Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds  Skeleton Tree 
  • Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree, follows the Bad Seeds’ most critically and commercially successful release of recent times, 2013’s Push The Sky Away. Skeleton Tree began its journey in late 2014 at Retreat Studios, Brighton, with further sessions at La Frette Studios, France in autumn 2015. The album was mixed at AIR Studios, London in early 2016.
  • The album is released alongside a companion film, One More Time With Feeling, which will be showing in cinemas nationwide on 8 September.
  • Teenage Fanclub - Here
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    • Teenage Fanclub  Here 
  • One of the UK’s most celebrated bands, Teenage Fanclub, make their their long-awaited return with the release of their tenth album. Here is the effortless work of a band entirely confident in their own craft – the consolidation of nearly three decades of peerless songwriting and almost telepathic musicianship amongst the band’s three founder members: Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love. This is a record that embraces maturity and experience and hugs them close. Here is a a collection of twelve songs about the only things that truly matter – life and love.
  • Wilco - Schmilco
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    • Wilco  Schmilco 
  • Schmilco, the 10th studio album by the Grammy-award winning Chicago rock band Wilco, is a mostly acoustic record, but that doesn’t mean it’s a tame one. It bears neither the vicious, fuzz-glam guitars of 2015’s Star Wars, nor the dazzling, baroque arrangements that fans have come to expect. But in their place is a spaciousness and chaos that might feel welcome after twenty-some years of enjoyed but now-familiar releases from Grammy-award winning Wilco. Schmilco is loose, and that’s a good thing.
  • Track Listing: Normal American Kids / If I Ever Was A Child / Cry All Day / Common Sense / Nope / Someone To Lose / Happiness / Quarters / Locator / Shrug and Destroy / We Aren’t The World (Safety Girl) / Just Say Goodbye.
  • Jack White - Acoustic Recordings 1998–2016
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    • Jack White  Acoustic Recordings 1998–2016 
  • Acoustic Recordings 1998–2016 promises alternate takes, new mixes, and never-before-heard recordings touching on all eras of Jack White’s career, from his work with The White Stripes and The Raconteurs to his solo efforts.
  • One of the tracks, ‘City Lights’, is an unused White Stripes song originally written for 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan. White rediscovered the track while prepping that album’s 2015 Record Store Day reissue and decided to finish it. ‘City Lights’ therefore becomes the first commercially available new material from The White Stripes since 2008.
  • The 26 songs on Acoustic Recordings 1998–2016 are presented in chronological order from The White Stripes (remixed versions of ‘Apple Blossom’ and ‘I’m Bound to Pack it Up’, ‘Hotel Yorba’, the Beck-produced ‘Honey, We Can’t Afford to Look This Cheap’) to White’s solo material (an alternate mix of ‘Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy’, an acoustic mix of ‘Just One Drink’, ‘Love Interruption’). Also included is a bluegrass version of Raconteurs’ ‘Top Yourself’, plus White’s contributions to 2003’s Cold Mountain, ‘Never Far Away’, and Coca-Cola’s 2006 What Goes Around ad campaign, ‘Love is the Truth’.
  • Allah-Las - Calico Review
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    • Allah-Las  Calico Review 
  • Calico Review shows a band that has grown confident enough in its own style to reflect the perspectives of each member and to craft an album that changes approach from song to song, while retaining their abilities as a cohesive unit.
  • ‘Strange Heat’ reflects a control and character that burns out of Allah-Las’ knack for restraint. Songs like ‘Famous Phone Figure’ cradle character sketches over delicate strains of violin, organ and Mellotron, Matthew Correia’s drumming carefully underlining a three-note theme that casts a phantom sadness over the proceedings, the group exerting a touch both light and steady enough to bring your mood to theirs. ‘Could Be You’ works off a steady percussive gallop, guitarist Miles Michaud waxing reflexively on second chances while the band focuses on forward motion. ‘Roadside Memorial ‘ applies the Bo Diddley beat to the open road, Pedrum Siadatian stepping up on vocals and finding new ways to match his talents to propulsive musical ends. Elsewhere, ‘High and Dry’ features Correia on lead vocals, focusing on Allah-Las’ most quintessential and peerless quality: writing emotionally resonant pop, at once direct and detached, casual and knowing, and instantly memorable. The dream factory itself gets called out in the fun, surf-stung number ‘200 South La Brea’, its carnival-like atmosphere reflecting the excitement and anxiety of those who await their judgement.
  • Various Artists - The Man Who Fell To Earth o.s.t.
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    • Various Artists  The Man Who Fell To Earth o.s.t. 
  • To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Nicolas Roeg’s enigmatic film The Man Who Fell To Earth, which starred David Bowie, comes the release of the original movie soundtrack. Previously unavailable in any form until now, the soundtrack contains seminal pieces by Stomu Yamash'ta and John Phillips, who composed specifically for the film.
  • The film’s score has always been highly celebrated and long sought-after by fans but until now unavailable as a body of work: it can now finally be acknowledged in its own right. Little is known, and much has been asked, as to why the soundtrack was never originally released. With the lost tapes recently having been uncovered, it is now possible to present the original recordings restored and remastered.
  • St Paul & The Broken Bones - Sea Of Noise
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    • St Paul & The Broken Bones  Sea Of Noise 
  • St Paul & The Broken Bones, an electrifying rock and soul octet from Birmingham, Alabama, return with their second album, Sea Of Noise. This features the heart pounding infusion of old-school R&B, soul, funk and rock that built their reputation. Many of the new songs are tied together by a common theme that serves as overall commentary on society. Exhilarating!
  • Okkervil River - Away
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    • Okkervil River  Away 
  • Okkervil River’s last album was 2013’s The Silver Gymnasium. Will Sheff is back this year with Away. He recorded the new album at a Long Island studio on the same Neve 8068 console that recorded Steely Dan’s Aja and John Lennon’s Double Fantasy. The album features contributions from Marissa Nadler & Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg (formerly a member of Okkervil River).
    • Neil Young  Classic Vinyl Reissues
  • Neil Young - Time Fades Away
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    • Time Fades Away  LP £21.99
  • Neil Young - On The Beach
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    • On The Beach  LP £21.99
  • Neil Young - Tonight’s The Night
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    • Tonight’s The Night  LP £29.99
    • The Verve  Classic Vinyl Reissues
  • The Verve - A Storm In Heaven
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    • A Storm In Heaven  LP £19.99
  • The Verve - A Northern Soul
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    • A Northern Soul  LP £24.99
 

 

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Releases for 2 September 2016

September looks like being a monumental month for releases. Our recommended new albums for 2 September start with Ward Thomas, whose startling new album, Cartwheels, they say themselves, is not just a country album. Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy is one of the UK’s most accomplished and distinctive songwriters, and he’s in fine form on Foreverland. King Creosote’s Astronaut Meets Appleman explores the tensions between traditional and digital music-making, and is fabulously original because of it. Going, Going… tells the story of a US road trip undertaken by indie stalwarts The Wedding Present and represents one of the finest releases of their career, with each song accompanied by a video. Shaun Escoffrey’s Evergreen features his gorgeous voice, which mixes an undeniable power with soulful subtlety. Jamie T’s fourth album Trick is by some distance his darkest, and Messenger Of The Gods neatly ties up all Freddie Mercury’s solo singles into one package.

Our release of the week is Angel Olsen’s astonishing and exhilarating My Women.

Click here to hear a taster of these albums in our weekly playlist.

  • Angel Olsen - My Women
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    • Angel Olsen  My Women 
  • Anyone reckless enough to have typecast Angel Olsen according to 2013’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness is in for a rethink with her third album. The fire is now burning wilder. Her disarming, timeless voice is even more front and centre. Yet the strange, raw power and slowly unspooling incantations of her previous releases remain. Over two previous albums, she gave us reverb-shrouded poetic swoons, shadowy folk, grunge-pop band workouts and haunting, finger-picked epics. My Women is an exhilarating complement to her past work, and one for which Olsen recalibrated her writing/recording approach and methods to enter a new music-making phase. An intuitively smart, warmly communicative and fearlessly generous record.
  • Ward Thomas - Cartwheels
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    • Ward Thomas  Cartwheels 
  • Ward Thomas could tell that change was afoot from the moment they wrote ‘Cartwheels’, now the punch-to-the-stomach title track of their sensational second album. Straight away, Catherine and Lizzy knew the song was special. Whenever they performed it live, they felt an intense connection to the crowd. The song tells the sad tale of someone who refuses to accept that a relationship is over, who longs to be noticed, but is only ignored, who “bends so we won’t break”. It’s both heartbreakingly sad and sonically beautiful, a gut-wrenching tear-jerker whose stripped-back sound leaves nowhere to hide. ‘Cartwheels’ was written two years ago, at a session in Nashville. It wasn’t just the first track in the bag, it inspired what was to follow. “It established our new sound,” says Lizzy. “Lyrically, it was much more grown-up than anything on our debut. Sonically, it was a move away from country. We’re still influenced by country, we still adore the Dixie Chicks and Kacey Musgraves, but this isn’t just a country album.
  • The Divine Comedy - Foreverland
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    • The Divine Comedy  Foreverland 
  • Since The Divine Comedy’s inception in 1989, Neil Hannon has proved himself time and again to be one of the UK’s best and most original songwriters. New album Foreverland exemplifies this, with references to everything from Catherine The Great to the French Foreign Legion. Neil says of the new record: “It’s about meeting your soul mate and living happily ever after … and then what comes after happily ever after.
  • King Creosote - Astronaut Meets Appleman
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    • King Creosote  Astronaut Meets Appleman 
  • Astronaut Meets Appleman explores the tension and harmony between tradition and technology – between analogue and digital philosophies. The album arrives replete with a chamber rock rabble and then some: harps and bagpipes come as standard, as does silence. Astronaut Meets Appleman follows King Creosote (Kenny Anderson)’s breakthrough record From Scotland With Love (2014) and his Mercury-nominated collaboration with Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine (2011).
  • The Wedding Present - Going, Going…
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    • The Wedding Present  Going, Going… 
  • Going, Going… is the title of the widely anticipated ninth studio album from UK indie darlings The Wedding Present – but, in typical Wedding Present fashion … it’s not a conventional release! The album tells the story of a road trip across the USA, revealed across a collection of twenty linked songs, each with an accompanying short film. Always challenging and experimental, the idea to release the new project in a multi-media format is something that has been marinating with bandleader David Gedge for some time. The resulting twenty tracks represent arguably The Wedding Present’s finest work to date.
  • Shaun Escoffrey - Evergreen
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    • Shaun Escoffrey  Evergreen 
  • The return of one of the UK’s finest vocalists with an album that once again combines gospel-tinged power with soulful subtlety. Shaun Escoffrey’s follow-up to 2014’s In The Red Room, Evergreen features duets with Andreya Triana and Joss Stone along with the single ‘When The Love Is Gone’.
  • Jamie T - Trick
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    • Jamie T  Trick 
  • Trick is Jamie T’s fourth album. At beginning and end, it is the darkest, toughest and most pessimistic of his decade in the limelight. But in the middle, it’s a rock’n’roll party album, albeit an edgy, punky reggae party where lost girls clash with 17th-Century prophets of doom, exiled Brits clash with deserted American cities, trad-rock guitars clash with speed raps and dubby bass lines.
  • Freddie Mercury - Messenger Of The Gods – The Singles
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    • Freddie Mercury  Messenger Of The Gods – The Singles 
  • Freddie Mercury was a man of many talents and many different sides. The songs he wrote for and with Queen filled stadiums around the globe and have rightly gone down in history, but he also embarked on a solo career that took him from the clubs of Munich and New York to the great opera houses of the world.
  • This collection comes in double CD and as a box set of coloured-vinyl 7" singles.
 

 

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Other releases for 2016

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