Releases from September–October 2018

Great albums from around the world

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Find releases from 2019 | 2017.

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

 

The hottest pre-sale releases

Pre-sale of the week is Wild God by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, out on 30 August.

Special pre-sale offer: Paul Weller – 66Special 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: Goat Girl – Below the WasteSpecial pre-sale offer: Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – LoopholeSpecial pre-sale offer: Richard Thompson – Ship to ShoreSpecial pre-sale offer: Pearl Jam – Dark MatterSpecial pre-sale offer: St. Vincent – All Born ScreamingSpecial pre-sale offer: The Zutons – The Big DeciderSpecial pre-sale offer: Lucy Rose – This Ain’t the Way You Go Out

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Jump to: 26 October  |  19 October  |  5 October  |  28 September  |  21 September  |  14 September  |  7 September

 

Releases for 26 October 2018

Our six treats for 26 October open with Aviary, the most breathtakingly expansive album yet from Julia Holter: an epic journey full of startling turns and dazzling instrumental arrangements, reflecting on “the internal and external babble we experience daily.Public Service Broadcasting’s new EP, White Star Liner, weaves music and archive audio footage to tell the story of the construction and tragic early demise of the iconic SS Titanic. Fudge Sandwich is a tour through Ty Segall’s musical psyche, in which he gets inside songs originally recorded by other people and transforms them with equal parts reverence and reimagination. Jubilee Road may well be Tom Odell’s most honest and personal outing so far, intertwining real-life stories in music packed with grandstanding melodies and scintillating performances in what may well prove to be a career-defining record. Platinum-selling indie-rock heroes Razorlight make a triumphant return with Olympus Sleeping, their first album in ten years, which sees lead singer and songwriter Johnny Borrell in top form, dishing up instant classics.

Album of the week is Suspiria, 25 original compositions written by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke specifically for Luca Guadagnino’s reimagining of the 1977 Dario Argento horror classic. The challenges and opportunities of scoring a horror film have produced a chaotic yet cohesive musical spell that stands apart from any of his other work.

  • Thom Yorke - Suspira O.S.T.
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    • Thom Yorke  Suspira O.S.T.  2-CD £11.99 / 2-LP £25.99
  • Suspiria contains 25 original compositions written by Thom Yorke specifically for Luca Guadagnino’s reimagining of the 1977 Dario Argento giallo horror classic. Instrumental score work is mixed with interstitial pieces and interludes and more traditional song structures featuring Thom’s vocals, such as ‘Unmade’, ‘Has Ended’ and ‘Suspirium’, which introduces the melodic theme that recurs throughout the film and its score.
  • As scoring a horror film presented Thom with altogether new challenges and opportunities, Suspiria stands apart from any of his other work. Piano/vocal ballads, Krautrock-esque modular synth work inspired by the film’s Berlin 1977 setting, multi-layered vocals, and melodies that convey terror, longing and melancholy combine to create a chaotic yet cohesive musical spell.
  • Suspiria was written and arranged by Thom Yorke, recorded and produced by Thom and Sam Petts-Davies. The album also features the London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir, Thom’s son Noah Yorke on drums on ‘Has Ended’ and ‘Volk’, and Pasha Mansurov on solo flute on ‘Suspirium’.
  • Julia Holter - Aviary
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    • Julia Holter  Aviary  CD £15.99 / LP £22.99
  • Aviary is an epic journey. It’s Los Angeles composer Julia Holter’s most breathtakingly expansive album yet. The follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2015 album Have You In My Wilderness is full of startling turns and dazzling instrumental arrangements. “Amidst all the internal and external babble we experience daily, it’s hard to find one’s foundation,” says Holter. “I think this album is reflecting that feeling of cacophony and how one responds to it as a person – how one behaves, how one looks for love, for solace. Maybe it’s a matter of listening to and gathering the seeming madness, of forming something out of it and envisioning a future.
  • Public Service Broadcasting - White Star Liner
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    • Public Service Broadcasting  White Star Liner  CD £7.99 / 12" EP £16.99
  • Public Service Broadcasting present their brand-new EP, White Star Liner, whose tracks were first performed on the slipways on which the SS Titanic was built at the BBC’s Biggest Weekend event earlier this year. The EP tells the story of the construction and tragic early demise of the iconic liner, using a mixture of music and archive audio footage to focus on the perspectives of those who built and sailed her.
  • Ty Segall - Fudge Sandwich
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    • Ty Segall  Fudge Sandwich  CD £13.99 / LP £24.99
  • Take a tour through Ty Segall’s musical psyche with his new solo album, Fudge Sandwich, a collection of Segall’s take on eleven songs originally recorded by other people. These aren’t just cover versions, however; the songs here are what happens when someone loves a song so much, they need to get inside it and let it propagate and transform into what it would have been if they had actually written it. Equal parts reverence and reimagination, this album shows Segall inhabiting the world of a song’s intent.
  • Tom Odell - Jubilee Road
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    • Tom Odell  Jubilee Road  CD £10.99 / LP £18.99
  • Tom Odell’s third album, Jubilee Road, may well be his most honest and personal outing so far. Packed with grandstanding melodies and scintillating performances, it intertwines real-life stories of the time Tom spent living in a house in East London. Still only 27, this multi-talented young artist has taken full control of his music, not only writing, singing, and vamping up his vibrant piano style on all ten songs, but also self-producing them. Jubilee Road may well prove to be a career-defining record for him.
  • Razorlight - Olympus Sleeping
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    • Razorlight  Olympus Sleeping  CD £10.99 / LP £19.99
  • Platinum-selling indie-rock heroes Razorlight are set to make a triumphant return with Olympus Sleeping, the band’s first album in ten years. The record sees lead singer and songwriter Johnny Borrell in top form, dishing up instant classics like the insanely catchy ‘Carry Yourself’ and the album’s eponymous lead single.
 

 

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Releases for 19 October 2018

We kick off 19 October’s six of the best with the aptly titled Natural Rebel from Richard Ashcroft, best-known as frontman of The Verve until they multi-imploded. “My strongest set of songs to date,” says Novello winner Ashcroft about this latest chapter in a hugely successful solo career. Will Oldham yet again mines his own back catalogue, this time as a solo singer-songwriter armed with just voice and guitar in an intimate, spare setting, making a companion piece to a soon-to-be-published lyric book. Greta Van Fleet’s full-length debut nods unashamedly to the classic heavy blues-rock of Led Zeppelin, with ten original songs exploring a variety of topics covering the cycle of life, powered by blazing guitar riffs, soaring vocals, thunderous drums and swaggering basslines. Wanderlust contains ten songs composed by Blancmange’s Neil Arthur on themes of wistfulness, anger, dislocation and fighting for forward motion while seeing, as Arthur puts it, “the pretence of a normal world being erased”. This spirit is also in the music, which is vital, percussive, full of analogue machine-noise and chunky basslines. R.E.M. grew up with the BBC, and this historic relationship is lovingly celebrated across R.E.M. At The BBC, an incredible collection of live and studio gems from the archives between their early days in 1984 right up until 2008, and is a must-have for fans.

Our album of the week is Live From The Ryman, an absolute stormer of a set from Jason Isbell with The 400 Unit that covers songs from both the wildly successful Grammy-nominated recent album The Nashville Sound and classics from across his career. Jason is one of the more important singer-songwriters working in America today, and no home should be without a copy of this album!

  • Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - Live From The Ryman
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    • Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit  Live From The Ryman  CD £13.99 / 2-LP £25.99
  • Live From The Ryman is an absolute stormer of a set from Jason Isbell with The 400 Unit that covers songs from both the wildly successful Grammy-nominated recent album The Nashville Sound and classics from across his career. Jason is one of the more important singer-songwriters working in America today, and no home should be without a copy of this album!
  • Richard Ashcroft - Natural Rebel
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    • Richard Ashcroft  Natural Rebel  CD £11.99 / LP £25.99
  • As the frontman of epic British drone-pop band The Verve, Richard Ashcroft proved himself the spiritual descendant of rock & roll icons like Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison – rivetingly charismatic, menacingly serpentine, and possessed of an almost shamanic intensity, he embraced and articulated the anthemic fervour of rock music with a power and eloquence unparalleled by any of his contemporaries.
  • He’s now set to release his new album, Natural Rebel, on his own label, RPA. About the album, he said: “With experience comes knowledge and for me this is my strongest set of songs to date. All my favourite sounds distilled into something that will hopefully give my fans lasting pleasure. It is for them. Music is power.
  • Will Oldham - Songs Of Love And Horror
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    • Will Oldham  Songs Of Love And Horror  CD £13.99 / LP £21.99
  • Will Oldham yet again mines his own back catalogue, this time as a solo singer-songwriter armed with just voice and guitar. It will be interesting to hear how everything sits in such an intimate, spare setting. The album has also been made as a companion piece to a book of his lyrics that is about to be published.
  • Greta Van Fleet - Anthem Of The Peaceful Army
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    • Greta Van Fleet  Anthem Of The Peaceful Army  CD £11.99 / 2-LP £26.99
  • Greta Van Fleet’s full-length debut nods unashamedly to the classic heavy blues-rock of Led Zeppelin. Written collectively by all four band members, the ten original songs explore a variety of topics that include fresh starts, love, integrity, innocence, adventure, diversity and peace, the life cycle and its inherent responsibilities, courage, masked deceptions, revolution, and truth. Blending rock, soul and blues, Jake’s blazing guitar riffs, Josh’s soaring, powerful vocals, Danny’s thunderous drums, and Sam’s swaggering basslines and keys create a menagerie of musical elements throughout.
  • Blancmange - Wanderlust
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    • Blancmange  Wanderlust  CD £11.99 / LP £17.99
  • Wanderlust contains ten songs composed by Blancmange’s Neil Arthur, arranged, co-produced and mixed with Benge. The focus here is on themes of wistfulness turning to anger, dislocation morphing into a powerful desire to be somewhere else, and always a sense of someone fighting for forward motion, dreams, family and the joys of life while seeing, as Arthur puts it, “the pretence of a normal world being erased”. This spirit is also in the music, which is vital, percussive, full of analogue machine-noise and chunky basslines.
  • R.E.M. - R.E.M. At The BBC
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    • R.E.M.  R.E.M. At The BBC  8-CD + DVD box set £64.99 / 2-LP £29.99
  • R.E.M. grew up with the BBC, and this historic relationship is lovingly celebrated across an incredible collection that beautifully illustrates the career trajectory of one of modern music’s greatest bands. This treasure trove of rare and unreleased live and studio recordings culled from the BBC and band archives is a must-have collection for R.E.M. fans and an authoritative introduction for newcomers. In-studio performances featured include a 1998 John Peel session, Drivetime and Mark & Lard appearances from 2003 and a glorious Radio 1 Live Lounge performance from 2008. Live broadcasts include a rough-and-tumble show from Nottingham’s Rock City in 1984, the stunning 1995 Milton Keynes show from the Monster Tour (their first after a six-year break), a blistering 1999 Glastonbury headline set and an invitation-only 2004 show at St James’s Church in London.
 

 

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Releases for 5 October 2018

5 October sees the release of The Stars, The Ocean & The Moon, on which Echo & The Bunnymen, still led by the indomitable Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, revisit some of their greatest songs to rearrange and transform them … with strings and things. Prog titans Coheed And Cambria release The Unheavenly Creatures – a 15-track, 78-minute dark epic that will thrill existing fans and draw in a host of new ones; ‘grand’ doesn’t even come close to summing it up adequately. Critically acclaimed pop/hip-hop duo Twenty One Pilots return with Trench, which finds them fearlessly reimagining the possibilities of their music through the same candid expression and genuine identity that has made them one of the biggest acts in the world. Shades is a spellbinding blend of grungy blues, raucous garage rock, transcendent psychedelia and soothing, soul-stirring ballads on which Doyle Bramhall II reaches new heights as a multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer.

Our album of the week is Wanderer, the new album by vocalist, songwriter, musician and producer Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, a remarkable return from an iconic American voice. The album’s 11 tracks encompass Marshall’s journey so far: “telling my tale, with reverence to the people who did this generations before me. Folk singers, blues singers, and everything in between. They were all wanderers, and I am lucky to be among them.

  • Cat Power - Wanderer
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    • Cat Power  Wanderer  CD £11.99 / LP £22.99
  • Wanderer is the new album by vocalist, songwriter, musician and producer Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power. It features appearances by long-time friends and compatriots, as well as guest vocals courtesy of friend and recent tour-mate Lana Del Rey. Written and recorded in Miami and Los Angeles over the course of the past few years, Wanderer is a remarkable return from an iconic American voice. The album’s 11 tracks encompass Marshall’s journey so far. “The course my life has taken in this journey – going from town to town, with my guitar, telling my tale; with reverence to the people who did this generations before me. Folk singers, blues singers, and everything in between. They were all wanderers, and I am lucky to be among them.
  • Echo & The Bunnymen - The Stars, The Ocean & The Moon
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    • Echo & The Bunnymen  The Stars, The Ocean & The Moon  CD £12.99 / LP £24.99
  • The Stars, The Ocean & The Moon marks the long-overdue return of Echo & The Bunnymen. This new studio album will see The Bunnymen, still led by the indomitable Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, revisit some of their greatest songs to rearrange and transform them with co producer Andy Wright … and strings and things. There’s also a couple of brand-new tracks. Ian McCulloch says: “I’m not doing this for anyone else. I’m doing it as it’s important to me to make the songs better. I have to do it.
  • Echo & the Bunnymen’s dark, swirling fusion of post-punk and The Doors/Velvet Underground-inspired rock psychedelia has brought the group twenty top 20 hits and nine top 20 albums in the UK so far in their 40-year career. The band have come a long way from their infamous debut gig as a three-piece with a drum machine in 1979 at the legendary Erics club in Liverpool, and still perform sell-out concerts across the world today. Their seminal albums Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here, Porcupine and Ocean Rain have been a major influence for acts such as Coldplay, The Killers and The Flaming Lips, while later albums Evergreen, What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? and Siberia & Meteorites demonstrate what an amazing body of work The Bunnymen have.
  • Coheed And Cambria - The Unheavenly Creatures
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    • Coheed And Cambria  The Unheavenly Creatures  CD £12.99
  • Prog titans Coheed And Cambria release their ninth album, The Unheavenly Creatures – a 15-track, 78-minute dark epic that will thrill existing fans and draw in a host of new ones. All in all, The Unheavenly Creatures showcases what a well-oiled machine Coheed And Cambria is. It’s a prime example of what a album can and should be, when every instrument works in a carefully concerted effort, striving to achieve something grand. The Unheavenly Creatures is grand, and that doesn’t even come close to summing it up adequately.
  • Twenty One Pilots - Trench
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    • Twenty One Pilots  Trench  CD £11.99 / LP £22.99
  • Twenty One Pilots, the critically acclaimed pop/hip-hop duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, have returned to write the next chapter of their story. Three years after Blurryface, the duo release highly anticipated new studio album Trench, which finds them fearlessly reimagining the possibilities of their music through the same candid expression and genuine identity that helped to cement their place as one of the biggest acts in the world.
  • Doyle Bramhall II - Shades
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    • Doyle Bramhall II  Shades  CD £11.99 / LP £21.99
  • Shades is a spellbinding blend of grungy blues, raucous garage rock, transcendent psychedelia and soothing, soul-stirring ballads. In it, Doyle Bramhall II reaches new heights as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays guitars, bass, drums and keyboards), producer and vocalist while responding to his heart’s most urgent commands as an arranger and lyricist.
  • What is it about Doyle Bramhall II, and why does everybody want to work with him? Shades features a host of friends and luminaries who have all, in one way or another, played significant roles in Bramhall’s musical story: Eric Clapton, Norah Jones, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and Austin buddies The Greyhounds.
 

 

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Releases for 28 September 2018

Our six lovelies for 28 September start with Cavalier, the new studio album from Eddi Reader, who celebrates her 40th(!) year as a live performer with a new creative peak in an already prestigious career. New studio album Can U Cook finds Seasick Steve mixing up all of his much-loved ingredients to deliver a fresh new record that’s full of sunshine, as well as being a good ol’ Seasick mix of boogie, blues, rock, americana and folk music. The inimitable Graham Parker is back with a new album, Cloud Symbols. With his Rumour packed away, Graham enlists a new gang, The Goldtops – featuring former Rumour member Martin Belmont. “The end result captures exactly the kind of music I should be making today,” says Graham. The eighth album from Marissa Nadler is the sound of turmoil giving way to truth. On For My Crimes, Nadler has found a stronger sense of self and a sharper voice as both a songwriter and a vocalist, culminating in her most evocative entry in an already impressive discography. Welsh rock trio The Joy Formidable take yet another huge step forward with fourth album AAARTH, a transformative, near-psychedelic rebirth that channels long-held anger. Propelled by restlessness and curiosity, the band continue to sit at the forefront of inventive and aggressive guitar music.

Release of the week is An American Treasure, a 60-track career-spanning retrospective celebrating the life and work of Tom Petty. The set unveils dozens of newly discovered recordings from Tom’s vaults that spotlight his remarkable depth and evolution as a revered and tremendously influential songwriter and performer. It has been curated with care by family and bandmates as a tribute and a love letter to the Tom Petty they knew, and comes strongly recommended.

  • Tom Petty - An American Treasure
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    • Tom Petty  An American Treasure  2-CD £13.99 / Deluxe 4-CD £27.99 / 6-LP box set £114.99
  • An American Treasure is a 60-track career-spanning retrospective celebrating the life and work of Tom Petty. The set unveils dozens of previously unreleased recordings, alternate versions of classic songs, rarities, historic live performances and deep tracks that spotlight Tom’s remarkable depth and evolution as a revered and tremendously influential songwriter, recording artist and performer.
  • An American Treasure will be released in multiple formats:
  • A 2-CD set that features 26 career-spanning tracks chosen from the deluxe edition, as well as Bud Scoppa’s detailed track-by-track.
  • A deluxe 4-CD set that features all 60 tracks, plus a 52-page book with rare and previously unseen photographs of Tom, his bandmates, family and friends. The booklet also features detailed track-by-track liner notes by noted journalist and Tom Petty aficionado Bud Scoppa, who drew upon his previous interviews with Tom and new conversations with Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench and Ryan Ulyate, as well as Adria and Dana Petty.
  • Tom Petty – An American Treasure deluxe CD box set
  • A 6-LP set that features all 60 tracks and a 48-page book containing all of the photographic and editorial elements found in the CD deluxe edition. This set also includes an essay by renowned author Nicholas Dawidoff – written especially for An American Treasure – that speaks to Tom Petty’s presence in our lives and influence on our culture for more than 40 years.
  • Tom Petty – An American Treasure LP box set
  • Eddi Reader - Cavalier
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    • Eddi Reader  Cavalier  CD £11.99 / LP £25.99
  • Eddi Reader’s brand new studio album, Cavalier, features sixteen songs, including current live favourites ‘Wonderful’, ‘My Favourite Dress’, Starlight, ‘Meg O’ The Glen’ and ‘Maiden’s Lament’. It was recorded and produced in Glasgow by Eddi with John Douglas. Eddi is currently celebrating her 40th(!) year as a live performer, and Cavalier represents a new creative peak in an already prestigious career, featuring just under an hour of new music and incorporating both contemporary and traditional songs.
  • Seasick Steve - Can U Cook?
      order
    • Seasick Steve  Can U Cook?  CD £11.99 / LP £25.99
  • New studio album Can U Cook finds Seasick Steve mixing up all of his much-loved ingredients to deliver a fresh new record that’s full of sunshine, as well as being a good ol’ Seasick mix of boogie, blues, rock, americana and folk music.
  • Graham Parker - Cloud Symbols
      order
    • Graham Parker  Cloud Symbols  CD £10.99 / LP £18.99
  • The inimitable Graham Parker is back with a new album, Cloud Symbols. With his Rumour packed away, Graham enlists a new gang, The Goldtops – featuring former Rumour member Martin Belmont – on this new record. “The end result captures exactly the kind of music I should be making today,” says Graham. “There’s a few heavyweight emotional tracks it’s true, but the main thrust of the album is concerned with my signature swing and lyrical playfulness that goes all the way back to the start. And there’s six songs with the RumourBrass on! As stated earlier, Martin Belmont was the musical lynchpin and his suggestion of the basic rhythm section – Simon Edwards on bass and Roy Dodds on drums, was perfect.
  • Marissa Nadler - For My Crimes
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    • Marissa Nadler  For My Crimes  CD £11.99 / LP £22.99
  • The eighth album from Marissa Nadler is the sound of turmoil giving way to truth. The songs on For My Crimes stare down the dark realisation that love may not be enough to keep two people together through distance and differing needs. By asking these difficult questions about her relationships, Nadler has found a stronger sense of self and a sharper voice as both a songwriter and a vocalist, culminating in her most evocative entry in an already impressive discography.
  • The Joy Formidable - AAARTH
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    • The Joy Formidable  AAARTH  CD £12.99 / LP £19.99
  • Welsh rock trio The Joy Formidable return with yet another huge step forward in the shape of fourth album AAARTH. Propelled by restlessness and curiosity, the band continue to sit at the forefront of inventive and aggressive guitar music, taking what can be done with the instrument to new levels with each album. AAARTH marks a transformative, near-psychedelic rebirth that channels long-held anger, soundtracking a chaotic global period of injustice and division, setting it against a deeply poignant backdrop of personal experiences and healing. Although the album came into being as the band travelled the globe and recorded in their mobile recording studio, the music intertwines the whispering hills of Wales with the otherworldly rainbow canyons of the Utah / Arizona border.
 

 

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Releases for 21 September 2018

21 September’s recommendations start with ZZ Top’s Billy F Gibbons, who returns to his first love on The Big Bad Blues: a superb collection of down and dirty, raw rock ’n’ roll blues, with Billy – one of the world’s finest guitarists working in the blues-rock idiom – clearly relishing the chance to celebrate his musical roots. Beak>’s third album, >>>, continues the band’s journey through their own genre of oddness, bringing their sound into sharp focus without forfeiting what the band see as its ‘wrongness’. Slash returns with Living The Dream, once again featuring the Conspirators. It sounds like a funked-up, souped-up version of vintage Aerosmith, and you can’t say fairer than that! Redemption, the third consecutive album of all-original material from Joe Bonamassa, is an exhilarating collection of ambitious and diverse material, continuing to redefine and push back the barriers of blues-rock. Macy Gray reaffirms and reasserts her place in the canon of modern music, channelling the spirit of the ‘grimy’ R&B and smoky jazz closest to her heart. Her new album, Ruby, represents Macy at her most passionate, poetic and powerful.

Our album of the week comes from Villagers. Always restless and inventive while always true to the power and glory of song-writing and melody, their fourth studio album, The Art Of Pretending To Swim reconnects with the multi-faceted approach of earlier work while adding a new-found soulfulness, rhythmic nous and dazzling panoply of sonic detail, and is the most brilliantly realised Villagers album to date.

  • Villagers - The Art Of Pretending  To Swim
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    • Villagers  The Art Of Pretending To Swim  CD £11.99 / LP £22.99
  • Always restless and inventive while always true to the power and glory of song-writing and melody, Conor O’Brien has made another great leap forward with Villagers’ fourth studio album, The Art Of Pretending To Swim. Following the exquisitely sparse, intimate aura of 2015’s Darling Arithmetic, O’Brien’s new record reconnects with the multi-faceted approach of Villagers’ 2010 album debut Becoming A Jackal and 2013’s {Awayland} while adding a new-found soulfulness, rhythmic nous and dazzling panoply of sonic detail, both analogue and digital, creating feverish moods while writing effortlessly accessible tunes. Balanced with subtle aspects and lyrical themes that embrace existential fears and hopes in this desperate, technologically-centred dystopian age, The Art Of Pretending To Swim is the most brilliantly realised Villagers album to date.
  • Billy F Gibbons - The Big Bad Blues
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    • Billy F Gibbons  The Big Bad Blues  CD £11.99 / LP £25.99
  • Billy F Gibbons is of course best-known as one-third of ZZ Top, and The Big Bad Blues sees him return to his first love, the blues. The album follows on from his Afro-Cuban-flavoured 2015 solo debut Perfectamundo and is a superb collection of down and dirty, raw rock ’n’ roll blues, with Billy – one of the world’s finest guitarists working in the blues-rock idiom – clearly relishing the chance to celebrate his musical roots.
  • Beak> - >>>
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    • Beak>  >>>  CD £12.99 / LP £23.99
  • Beak>’s third album, >>>, was written over the course of the past year and, for the most part, recorded live in the Invada studios. The band continue to forge their own path through their own genre of oddness. “>>> definitely sounds like a step forward. The production and feel of the first two albums was like listening through frosted glass; a band playing behind a curtain. Now we are hearing Beak> in sharp focus, but without forfeiting what the band see as its ‘wrongness’.
  • Slash - Living The Dream
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    • Slash  Living The Dream  CD £12.99 / LP £24.99
  • After a wait of 4 years, Slash’s fourth solo album, Living The Dream, is here. This is the third album featuring his Conspirators bandmates Myles Kennedy (vocals), Brent Fitz (drums), Todd Kerns (bass, vocals) and Frank Sidoris (guitar, vocals). The songs on the album feel, very much, like a logical progression of World On Fire, Slash sounds like a funked-up, souped-up version of vintage Aerosmith, and you can’t say fairer than that!
  • Joe Bonamassa - Redemption
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    • Joe Bonamassa  Redemption  CD £12.99 / Deluxe CD £15.99 / 2-LP £23.99
  • Redemption, the 13th solo studio album from Joe Bonamassa and his third consecutive album of all-original material, sees him at his most ambitious and diverse as he continues to redefine and push back the barriers of blues-rock. It features a collection of 12 exhilarating songs that reflect the re-birth that he is currently going through. “I’m going through some other stuff in my life I didn’t expect to be going through,” he explains. “It’s a rising, it’s contrition, it’s acceptance, it’s everything. It’s painful, but knowing that there’s a rising coming.
  • Macy Gray - Ruby
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    • Macy Gray  Ruby  CD £13.99 / LP £22.99
  • For her tenth full-length album, Macy Gray reaffirms and reasserts that rare space in the canon of modern music that she occupies. On Ruby, Macy channels the spirit of the ‘grimy’ R&B and smoky jazz closest to her heart, leaping forward by looking back to her formative inspirations. However, she has updated those elements with enriched, entrancing, and enigmatic soundscapes. In the end, Ruby represents Macy Gray at her most passionate, poetic and powerful.
 

 

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Releases for 14 September 2018

14 September is a vintage week, and our smashers start with True Meanings, a record unlike any Paul Weller has ever made before – a dreamy, peaceful, pastoral set of nakedly honest songs that will delight his long-time fans and woo people outside of that audience. 13 Rivers is another bare-bones, emotionally direct album that speaks from the heart with no filters, as Richard Thompson explains: “There are 13 songs on the record, and each one is like a river. You find deeper meaning in the best records as time goes on. The reward comes later.Dawn Landes has blazed her own path with songs that are as fresh as they are timeless. Now, with her fifth album, Meet Me At The River, she brings her Nashville influences to centre stage. Alejandro Escovedo returns with an epic concept album, The Crossing, that is perhaps his most varied and expansive to date. It tells the story of two young immigrants to the US who bond over a mutual love of punk rock as they struggle with racism and discrimination. Britain’s giants of electronic music Orbital are back for good. This recent surge of creativity, leading up to the release of new album Monsters Exist, shows how reunited brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll have rebuilt one of electronic music’s best-loved partnerships after a surprisingly bitter break-up in 2012.

Our album of the week comes from Minnesotan legends Low, who turn twenty-five in 2018. Double Negative is Low’s most brazen, abrasive – and, paradoxically, most empowering – album ever: an unflinching eleven-song quest through snarling static and shattering beats that somehow culminates in the brightest pop song of Low’s career.

  • Low - Double Negative
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    • Low  Double Negative  CD £11.99 / LP £20.99
  • Low turns twenty-five in 2018. Since 1993, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker – the married couple whose heaven-and-earth harmonies have always held the band’s centre – have pioneered a subgenre, shrugged off its strictures, recorded a Christmas classic, become a magnetic onstage force and emerged as one of music’s most steadfast and vital vehicles for pulling light from our darkest emotional recesses. But Low will not commemorate its first quarter-century with mawkish nostalgia or safe runs through songbook favourites. Instead, in faithfully defiant fashion, the duo releases its most brazen, abrasive (and, paradoxically, most empowering) album ever: Double Negative, an unflinching eleven-song quest through snarling static and shattering beats that somehow culminates in the brightest pop song of Low’s career.
  • Double Negative is, indeed, a record perfectly and painfully suited for our time. Loud and contentious and commanding, Low fights for the world by fighting against it. It begins in pure bedlam, with a beat built from a loop of ruptured noise waging war against the paired voices of Sparhawk and Parker the moment they begin to sing during the massive ‘Quorum’. For forty minutes, they indulge the battle, trying to be heard amid the noisy grain, sometimes winning and sometimes being tossed toward oblivion. In spite of the mounting noise, Sparhawk and Parker still sing. Or maybe they sing because of the noise. For Low, has there ever really been a difference?
  • Paul Weller - True Meanings
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    • Paul Weller  True Meanings  CD £11.99 / Deluxe CD £15.99 / 2-LP £28.99
  • Put simply, True Meanings, the fourteenth solo album from Paul Weller and the twenty-sixth studio album of his career, is a record unlike any he has ever made before. This is an album characterised by grandiose yet lush, delicate orchestration: an aesthetic to which Paul’s voice, never sounding better and singing some of his most nakedly honest words, is perfectly suited. It’s a dreamy, peaceful, pastoral set of songs to get lost in, both an album that a lot of his faithful audience have been wanting him to make for a long time and an album that many new people outside that audience will relate to.
  • On 25 May this year, Paul Weller turned 60: a milestone that has unquestionably had an impact on the feel, both lyrically and musically, of True Meanings. This comes across in the most singer-songwriter-style album he has ever made. However, it is also the most collaborative, with more guests than any record he’s been involved in before: as well as all the members of Weller’s band, featured guests include Rod Argent of The Zombies, folk legends Martin Carthy and Danny Thompson, Little Barrie, Lucy Rose and Tom Doyle of the White Label project. Even Noel Gallagher makes a sneaky appearance!
  • Perhaps most surprisingly of all, especially given how personal and introspective True Meanings feels, lyrics for four of the fourteen songs here were written, to Weller’s melodies, by others. Connor O’Brien from Villagers came up with the words to opener ‘The Soul Searchers’, while ‘Bowie’, ‘Wishing Well’ and the closing ‘White Horses’ are all the work, lyrically, of Erland Cooper from Erland & The Carnival.
  • The limited, deluxe edition CD is housed in a case-bound book package and includes a 28-page booklet of photos and lyrics.
  • Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers
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    • Richard Thompson  13 Rivers  CD £11.99 / LP £18.99
  • 13 Rivers is a bare-bones, emotionally direct album from Richard Thompson that speaks from the heart with no filters. “There are 13 songs on the record, and each one is like a river,” Thompson explains. “Some flow faster than others. Some follow a slow and winding current. They all culminate on this one body of work.” Of the album, Thompson says: “The songs are a surprise in a good way. They came to me as a surprise in a dark time. They reflected my emotions in an oblique manner that I’ll never truly understand. It’s as if they’d been channelled from somewhere else. You find deeper meaning in the best records as time goes on. The reward comes later.” He continues: “I don’t know how the creative process works. I suppose it is some kind of bizarre parallel existence to my own life. I often look at a finished song and wonder what the hell is going on inside me. We sequenced the weird stuff at the front of the record, and the tracks to grind your soul into submission at the back.
  • Dawn Landes - Meet Me At The River
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    • Dawn Landes  Meet Me At The River  CD £11.99 / LP £22.99
  • Over the course of four albums, Dawn Landes has blazed her own path with songs that are as fresh as they are timeless. Still, there’s no mistaking that the strains of Nashville reside in her voice and in her musical soul; and now, with her fifth album, Landes is finally bringing them to centre stage. Meet Me At The River is Landes’ self-described ‘Nashville record’, and she has ensured its pedigree by enlisting the production skills of Fred Foster, the Country Music Hall of Fame member who played a pivotal role in the careers of Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, and Kris Kristofferson.
  • Alejandro Escovedo - The Crossing
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    • Alejandro Escovedo  The Crossing  CD £13.99 / LP £24.99
  • Alejandro Escovedo returns with a brand-new album, The Crossing, that is perhaps his most varied and expansive to date. It is the first album he has recorded outside America – in northern Italy, with co-writer Don Antonio Gramentieri and a band of Italian musicians. It is also his first ever concept album, drawing the story of two young immigrants to the US who bond over a mutual love of punk rock as they struggle with racism and discrimination. Special guests on the album include Wayne Kramer (MC5), Joe Ely, and Peter Perrett and John Perry of The Only Ones. The sound ranges from straight-ahead rockers like ‘Sonica USA’ to ballads like the classic Joe Ely-penned ‘Silver City’, and everywhere in between. To describe this album as epic might be an understatement.
  • Orbital - Monsters Exist
      order
    • Orbital  Monsters Exist  CD £13.99 / LP £24.99
  • Britain’s giants of electronic music Orbital are back for good. This recent surge of creativity, leading up to the release of new album Monsters Exist, shows how reunited brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll have rebuilt one of electronic music’s best-loved partnerships after a surprisingly bitter break-up in 2012. They’d been onstage with Stephen Hawking at the Paralympics, in front of the whole world. They’d remixed Madonna, they’d played Glastonbury many times and travelled the world – yet were driven apart by music’s strange and infamous brother-vs-brother dynamic. But now the brothers have a pact: whatever happens, Orbital does not stop. They’ve learned to talk and accept each other. As Paul says, “If we were both the same, then it wouldn’t be Orbital.
 

 

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Releases for 7 September 2018

7 September’s sublime six kicks off with Teleman’s new 11-track album, Family Of Aliens, a fluid collection of glorious pop songs with a new electronic texture but retaining the sharp lyricism, buoyant guitars and instantaneous melodies for which Teleman are rightly famous. Maryland rockers Clutch deliver their 12th studio album, Book Of Bad Decisions, which contains 15 new tracks and sounds exactly like you’d expect a Clutch album to sound, and that is definitely a very good thing! You’ve seen him on Car Karaoke, you’ve seen his impromptu performance back at The Cavern in Liverpool; now Paul McCartney brings you 16 new songs on his new album, Egypt Station. Led Zeppelin was at the peak of its powers when the band’s performances at New York’s Madison Square Garden in July 1973 were recorded for the concert film The Song Remains The Same. The soundtrack to the film, produced by Jimmy Page, is presented here with newly remastered audio. During 2016 Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman performed a series of concerts celebrating the Yes musical legacy. Live At The Apollo captures a superb set featuring ‘Roundabout’, ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ and a host of others, and earns its place in the Yes canon.

Our release of the week is And Nothing Hurt, the eighth album from Spiritualized. From the opening lullaby to the fading Morse code, it wraps layer upon layer of gloriously transcendent sound together to create a mesmerising, cinematic collection of songs that matches the scale and power of Spiritualized’s previous releases.

  • Spiritualized - And Nothing Hurt
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    • Spiritualized  And Nothing Hurt  CD £11.99 / LP £23.99 / Deluxe LP box set £36.99
  • And Nothing Hurt is the eighth album from Spiritualized, the follow up to 2012’s Sweet Heart, Sweet Light. From the opening lullaby of ‘A Perfect Miracle’ through to the fading Morse code at the close of ‘Sail On Through’, it painstakingly wraps layer upon layer of gloriously transcendent sound together to create a mesmerising, cinematic collection of songs.
  • For the listener, the nine tracks on And Nothing Hurt effortlessly replicate the scale and power of Spiritualized’s previous releases, whether it’s the sonic blowback of ‘On The Sunshine’, the last dime in the jukebox love letter of ‘Let’s Dance’ or the swell of an imaginary orchestra that seems to lift ‘Damaged’ towards the heavens as it plays out.
  • Spiritualized – And Nothing Hurt deluxe LP box set
  • Note: The LP is available on indies-only white vinyl. The LP in the deluxe box set is on limited orange vinyl, and comes with a 24-page saddle-stitched book.
  • Teleman - Family of Aliens
      order
    • Teleman  Family of Aliens  CD £13.99 / LP £25.99
  • Teleman’s new 11-track album, Family Of Aliens, is a fluid collection of glorious pop songs with a new electronic texture but retaining the sharp lyricism, buoyant guitars and instantaneous melodies for which Teleman are rightly famous. It’s evident that the much-loved quartet have evolved, cultivating and honing their sound in a way that is very welcome.
  • Clutch - Book Of Bad Decisions
      order
    • Clutch  Book Of Bad Decisions  CD £13.99 / 2-LP £26.99
  • Maryland rockers Clutch deliver their 12th studio album, Book Of Bad Decisions, which contains 15 new tracks and sounds exactly like you’d expect a Clutch album to sound, and that is definitely a very good thing!
  • Paul McCartney - Egypt Station
      order
    • Paul McCartney  Egypt Station  CD £13.99 / LP £36.99 / Limited deluxe 2-LP £40.99
  • You’ve seen him on Car Karaoke, you’ve seen his impromptu performance back at The Cavern in Liverpool; now Paul McCartney brings you 16 new songs on his new album, Egypt Station!
  • Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains The Same
      order
    • Led Zeppelin  The Song Remains The Same  2-CD £15.99 / 4-LP box set £105.99
  • Led Zeppelin was at the peak of its powers when the band’s performances at New York’s Madison Square Garden on 27–29 July 1973 were recorded for the concert film The Song Remains The Same. The soundtrack to the film, produced by Jimmy Page, was originally released on Swan Song in 1976.
  • This reissue features newly remastered audio. On the 4-LP set, Page made a change to the track sequence, allowing the epic, 29-minute version of ‘Dazed And Confused’ to be featured in its entirety on one side of vinyl for the first time.
  • Led Zeppelin – The Song Remains The Same deluxe LP box set
  • Yes - Live At The Apollo
      order
    • Yes  Live At The Apollo  2-CD £16.99 / 3-LP box set £29.99
  • During 2016 Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman performed a series of concerts celebrating the Yes musical legacy. Live At The Apollo captures a superb set from the Manchester Apollo, featuring ‘Roundabout’, ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ and a host of others, and ensures that this set earns its place in the Yes canon.
 

 

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Other releases for 2018

Find releases from 2019 | 2017.

 

 

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