Releases from September–October 2023

Great albums from around the world

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Find releases from 2022.

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

 

 

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Jump to: 29 September  |  22 September  |  15 September  |  8 September  |  1 September

 

Releases for 29 September 2023

29 September’s blockbusters open with The Harmony Codex, a genre-spanning collection from Steven Wilson that opens up like a musical puzzle box, presenting a series of endlessly beautiful vistas that roll out and shift in front of you, and this is arguably the best album of Wilson’s career. When Larkin Poe started a YouTube series paying tribute to their musical heroes, fans began requesting recorded versions of the songs, and Kindred Spirits features some of these songs stripped back to the bones and recorded live and raw. Black Stone Cherry’s behemoth of an album, Screamin’ at the Sky, explodes with urgently emotive pop-rock hooks, heartfelt, redemptive lyrics, headbanging riffs, powerful dynamics and thunderous drums, and sounds like the smashing down of the hammer of the gods. Global pop phenomenon Ed Sheeran’s second album of 2023, Autumn Variations, contains 14 tracks that explore shared emotions of love, heartbreak, depression and loneliness among Sheeran and his friends. Finally, Isn’t It Now?, the latest addition to Animal Collective’s expansive catalogue, has something for everyone, from the catchy bassline on the highly-repeatable single ‘Gem and I’ to the heady 22-minute centrepiece, ‘Defeat’.

Our release of the week is Wilco’s thirteenth studio album, Cousin, on which the band return to the more familiar progressive and experimental rock territory after a short detour back into their country-influenced roots via last year’s Cruel Country, with band-leader Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics weaving across a variety of topics from the iconoclastic to the introspective.

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  • Wilco  Cousin  CD £14.99 / LP £25.99
• Wilco’s thirteenth studio album, Cousin, was recorded in the band’s legendary Chicago studio The Loft over a period of two years. The ten new tracks were written by band leader Jeff Tweedy and feature musical performances by the long-time line-up of Nels Cline, Mikael Jorgensen, Glenn Kotche, John Stirratt, Pat Sansone and, of course, Tweedy on lead vocals.
• After a short detour back into their country-influenced roots via last year’s Cruel Country double album, Cousin finds Wilco back in their more familiar progressive and experimental rock territory. Tweedy’s singular songwriting voice is in full evidence, with lyrics weaving across a variety of topics from the iconoclastic to the introspective.

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  • Steven Wilson  The Harmony Codex  CD £14.99 / Blu-ray £19.99 / 2-LP £33.99 / Orange 2-LP £35.99
• The Harmony Codex – the seventh solo album by Steven Wilson – takes you on a trip. A genre-spanning collection that opens up like a musical puzzle box, it presents a series of endlessly beautiful vistas that roll out and shift in front of you. Arguably the best album Wilson has made during a career that’s spanned more than three decades both as a band leader and as a solo artist, it represents the apotheosis of a life spent fully absorbed in music.
• While The Harmony Codex nods to records from Wilson’s recent past, at times echoing the paranoid rumble of 2008’s Insurgentes, the crystalline electronics of 2021’s The Future Bites and the expansive storytelling of 2013’s The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories), here he has managed to create something entirely unique, a record that exists outside of the notion of genre. And although The Harmony Codex is a record made with spatial audio in mind, it’s not one that needs an elaborate sound system to lift you out of body – two speakers and an open mind will do just fine.
• Note: The LP is initially available on transparent orange vinyl, exclusive to physical record shops.

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  • Larkin Poe  Kindred Spirits  Limited edition LP  £26.99
• Growing up in a family of music lovers, a lot of the songs Megan and Rebecca Lovell have always gravitated towards learning have been with them since childhood. In 2015 they started a YouTube series dedicated to paying tribute to their musical heroes that unexpectedly took off; then, when fans of Larkin Poe began requesting recorded versions of the songs, the sisters started daydreaming about how an interpretive album might take shape. In recording Kindred Spirits, their admiration for the artists who originally wrote and performed the songs blossomed into an even deeper reverence. Bringing these songs into the studio, stripping them back to the bones and recording them live and raw felt like a ritual.
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition blue vinyl.

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  • Black Stone Cherry  Screamin’ at the Sky  CD £11.99 / LP £23.99
• Proud Kentucky rockers Black Stone Cherry emerge triumphantly from a challenging few years with a behemoth of an album, Screamin’ at the Sky. The four-piece band’s eighth album explodes with urgently emotive pop-rock hooks, heartfelt, redemptive lyrics, headbanging riffs, powerful dynamics, thunderous drums and its most thrilling musicianship yet. The 12-song collection is also BSC’s biggest and best-sounding album. The self-produced studio record was tracked at a classic Kentucky theatre, and it sounds like the guys are smashing down the hammer of the gods.
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition clear vinyl.

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  • Ed Sheeran  Autumn Variations  CD £13.99 / LP £29.99
• Ed Sheeran is an era-defining artist who has sold over 52 million albums and 150 million singles across the globe. Through his fusion of thought-provoking songwriting, universal pop and multi-genre influence, his rich tapestry is not only perfectly suited to his audience; it’s something that transcends generations. Like – (‘Subtract’), which came out in May, Ed’s second album of 2023 was produced by Aaron Dessner, guitarist for The National. The 14 tracks on this collection explore shared emotions of love, heartbreak, depression and loneliness among Sheeran and his friends.
• Note: The LP is initially available on white vinyl.

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  • Animal Collective  Isn’t It Now  CD £11.99 / 2-LP £26.99 / Orange 2-LP £29.99
• Distinguishing itself from Animal Collective’s expansive catalogue, Isn’t It Now? is their first album since Centipede Hz (2012) to be recorded with all four members in the same room at the same time. To bring it all together, the band enlisted multi-Grammy-winning producer Russell Elevado (D’Angelo, Al Green, Alicia Keys, The Dandy Warhols) to co-produce alongside the band. Across its 9 tracks, Isn’t It Now? has something for everyone, from the catchy bassline on the highly-repeatable single ‘Gem and I’ to the heady 22-minute centrepiece, ‘Defeat’.
• Note: The LP is initially available on orange vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

 

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Releases for 22 September 2023

First out of 22 September’s box of delights is João, a love letter from Bebel Gilberto to her father, widely regarded as the father of bossa nova music, and it’s the first time she has covered the music that influenced her during her youngest years. Georgia native Brent Cobb always looks to the Southern Star to find his way back home, and on his new album he pays tribute to the rich musical heritage of the American south. Kylie’s brand-new studio album, Tension, is a record of euphoric, empowered dancefloor bangers and sultry pop cuts – eleven tracks of unabashedly joyful, pleasure-seeking, seize-the-moment pop tunes. Devendra Banhart has teamed up for the first time with his long-term friend Cate Le Bon on Flying Wig – an album of recurrent dualities: a can of paradoxes, a box of worms. Buddy & Julie Miller bring us In the Throes, a deeply soulful collision of mournful gospel, dusty country, cosmic blues, lusty rockabilly, ecstatic r&b and anything else that crosses their minds.

Our release of the week is Teenage Fanclub’s eleventh full studio album, Nothing Lasts Forever – a beautifully rich and melodic album that is the sound of a season’s end, of the last warm days of the year as nights begin to draw in and thoughts become reflective and more than a little melancholy, but with still a spark of hope.

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  • Teenage Fanclub  Nothing Lasts Forever  CD £11.99 / LP £24.99 / Limited Edition LP £25.99
• Teenage Fanclub’s eleventh full studio album, Nothing Lasts Forever, is a beautifully rich and melodic album that is the sound of a season’s end, of the last warm days of the year as nights begin to draw in and thoughts become reflective and more than a little melancholy.
• That reflection is everywhere on the record, whether on the autumnal folk-rock of ‘Tired of Being Alone’ that repositions Laurel Canyon to somewhere deep in the heart of the Wye Valley, the William Blake-quoting ‘Self-Sedation’ or the song that preceded Nothing Lasts Forever’s completion, last year’s ‘I Left a Light On’, where a spark of hope is kept alight at the end of a relationship.
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition translucent red vinyl.

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  • Bebel Gilberto  João  CD £11.99 / LP £24.99
• João is a collection of songs made famous by Bebel Gilberto’s father. João Gilberto, widely regarded as the father of bossa nova, passed away in 2019 after a 70-year career in music. Bebel began singing with him as a small child and the songs she sings on this new album have been with her all her life. Says Bebel: “João is a love letter to my father. Since my first album I’ve never really covered any of my Dad’s music. Now it’s time to present to the public the songs from João Gilberto that have influenced me since I was born – and even before.”

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  • Brent Cobb  Southern Star  CD £14.99 / LP £24.99
• Southern Star is the brand-new album from Grammy-nominated, critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Brent Cobb. He explains the album: “You know how when you’re growing up you’re told that if you ever get lost out there, look for the northern star to help find direction back home? Well, I’m from Georgia, so I always look for the southern star. This album, the songs, the sounds … it’s all a product of where I’m from both musically and environmentally. Historically and presently that place also happens to be the same place that cultivated a good many of the most influential artists in the whole world of music. Music as we know it would not exist without the American south. It’s funky and sentimental. It’s simple and complex.”
• Note: The LP is initially available on Coke-bottle clear vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Kylie  Tension  CD 13.99 / Deluxe CD £17.99 / LP £24.99 / Orange LP £28.99
• Kylie’s brand-new studio album, Tension, is a record of euphoric, empowered dancefloor bangers and sultry pop cuts – eleven tracks of unabashedly joyful, pleasure-seeking, seize-the-moment pop tunes – with the hypnotic electro of ‘Padam Padam’ opening the album. Discussing Tension, Kylie says: “I started this album with an open mind and a blank page. Unlike my last two albums there wasn’t a ‘theme’; it was about finding the heart or the fun or the fantasy of that moment and always trying to service the song. I wanted to celebrate each song’s individuality and to dive into that freedom. I would say it’s a blend of personal reflection, club abandon and melancholic high.”
• Note: The LP is initially available on transparent orange vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Devendra Banhart  Flying Wig  CD £14.99 / LP £28.99
• Flying Wig is an album of recurrent dualities: a can of paradoxes, a box of worms. The cabin studio, surrounded by redwood and pine trees, in which Devendra Banhart was constantly listening to The Grateful Dead somehow birthed something slick, modernist, city pop-adjacent and Eno-esque. Banhart’s eleventh record is the actualisation of a precious friendship with the acclaimed solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and Mexican Summer stable-mate Cate Le Bon – a coming together prophesied by the mirror-image titles of their early solo albums (Banhart’s 2002 Oh Me Oh My to Le Bon’s 2009 Me Oh My) and a tenderness built on crude haircuts (“we finally met, soon after she was cutting my hair with a fork and that was that”) and home-made tattoos – but never previously translated into the recording studio.
• Note: The LP is initially available on blue vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Buddy & Julie Miller  In the Throes  CD £14.99 / LP £28.99
• After forty years of marriage, Buddy & Julie Miller have learned to welcome a song however it arrives, questioning only where the song is taking them rather than where it originated. There’s no process, no assembly-line procedure, just an openness to those bursts of inspiration and those hours of refinement. This means their fourth album together, In the Throes, sounds lively and diverse, eccentric and slightly askew: a deeply soulful collision of mournful gospel, dusty country, cosmic blues, lusty rockabilly, ecstatic r&b and anything else that crosses their minds.

 

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Releases for 15 September 2023

The first of 15 September’s late summer sizzlers is Race the Night, the eighth studio album from Ash, which is both a party with old friends and a message to leap into the present with arms wide open, 29 years since their recorded debut. Grammy-winning duo Brothers Osborne are constantly evolving and pushing themselves to new heights and on their new, self-titled album they teamed up with producer Mike Elizondo, who blew their minds with his skill and sensitivity. Black Rainbows explores black femininity, spell work, inner space/outer space, time collapse and ancestors, the erasure of black childhood and music as a vessel for transcendence through objects that Corinne Bailey Rae encountered at the Stoney Island Arts Bank in Chicago. End, the enigmatic seventh album by Explosions In The Sky, is perhaps their ‘grandest’ album – melding the quiet restraint and crushing feel of their early work with the sonic texturing and ornate experimentation of their more recent releases, influenced by personal tastes stretching from classical to soul to experimental ambient music. Mitski’s seventh album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, feels like a profound act of witnessing America in all of its private sorrows and painful contradictions, full of the ache of the grown-up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous; it’s a tiny epic.

Our release of the week is Valley of Heart’s Delight, the second album from Margo Cilker, whose title refers to a place she can’t return: California’s Santa Clara Valley, as it was known before the orchards were paved over and became more famous for silicon than apricots. In this 11-song follow-up to 2021’s critically acclaimed Pohorylle, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting.

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  • Margo Cilker  Valley of Heart’s Delight  CD £14.99 / LP £21.99
• The title of Margo Cilker’s second album, Valley of Heart’s Delight, refers to a place she can’t return: California’s Santa Clara Valley, as it was known before the orchards were paved over and became more famous for silicon than apricots. In this 11-song follow-up to 2021’s critically acclaimed Pohorylle, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting.

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  • Ash  Race the Night  CD £14.99 / LP £34.99
• Race the Night, the eighth studio album from Ash, comes 29 years, 18 hit singles, seven studio albums and an unfathomable number of tour dates since their appearance on the 1994 Crazed and Confused compilation. Race the Night is both a party with old friends and a message to leap into the present with arms wide open. Frontman Tim Wheeler comments: “Race the Night is the sound of the band revelling in the sheer joy of being a band after being separated by time and distance through the insanity of the early 2020s. Lyrically it’s all about seizing the crossroads moments in life with both hands. Take every chance as if it could be your last.”
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition violet vinyl.

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  • Brothers Osborne  Brothers Osborne  CD £14.99 / LP £28.99
• The new, self-titled album from Grammy-winning duo Brothers Osborne features 11 new tracks including the current Top-20 hit ‘Nobody’s Nobody’. John Osborne of the band shared: “As musicians, we’re constantly evolving and pushing ourselves to new heights. On our fourth album we’ve teamed up with a new producer, Mike Elizondo, and embraced his approach to our sound and story. Our expectations were already high and he absolutely shattered them. It’s exciting to see where this journey will take us and we can’t wait to share this sound with everyone. Life and art are about growth and taking risks, and we’re ready to take on the challenge.”

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  • Corinne Bailey Rae  Black Rainbows  CD £12.99 / 2-LP £28.99
• Corinne Bailey Rae performed at the Black Artists Retreat at the Stoney Island Arts Bank in Chicago in 2017, and the subjects of Black Rainbows are drawn from encounters with objects in the Arts Bank. Taking us from the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia to the journeys westward of black pioneers, from Miss New York Transit Queen 1957 to how the sunset appears from Harriet Jacobs’ loophole, Black Rainbows explores black femininity, spell work, inner space/outer space, time collapse and ancestors, the erasure of black childhood and music as a vessel for transcendence.
• Note: The LP is initially available on red vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Explosions In The Sky  End  CD £11.99 / LP £24.99 / Yellow LP £24.99
• End, the enigmatic seventh album by Explosions In The Sky, was inspired by darkness but became a loud, dramatic, wild rumination on life and death. “Our starting point was the concept of an ending – death, or the end of a friendship or relationship,” says the band about the album. “Every song comes from a story, or an idea one of us has had that we’ve all expanded on and made its own world. Maybe it’s our nature, but we kept feeling that the album title was ultimately open to a lot more interpretation – the end of a thing or a time can mean a stop, but it can also mean a beginning, and what happens after one thing ends might pale in comparison to what it becomes next.”
• End is perhaps the ‘grandest’ Explosions in the Sky album – melding the quiet restraint and crushing feel of their early work with the sonic texturing and ornate experimentation of their more recent releases and their increasing catalogue of film and television scores, influenced by personal tastes stretching from classical to soul to experimental ambient music.
• Note: The LP is initially available on yellow vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Mitski  The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We  CD £9.99 / Cassette £16.99 / LP £26.99 / Blue LP £30.99
• Mitski’s seventh album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, feels like a profound act of witnessing America in all of its private sorrows and painful contradictions. The songs – sonically Mitski’s most expansive, epic, and wise yet – seem to be introducing wounds and then actively healing them. Here, love is time-travelling to bless our tender days, like the light from a distant star. The album is full of the ache of the grown-up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous. It’s a tiny epic. Love is that inhospitable land, beckoning us and then rejecting us. To love this place – this earth, this America, this body – takes active work. It might be impossible. The best things are.
• Note: The LP is initially available on duck-egg blue vinyl with a free postcard, exclusive to independent shops.

 

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Releases for 8 September 2023

First out of 8 September’s treasure chest is An Ever Changing View: an expansive, immaculately conceived project that presents trumpeter, bandleader and composer Matthew Halsall’s signature blend of jazz, electronica, global and spiritual jazz influences to create a unique brand of deeply meditative music. Recorded in The Chemical Brothers’s own studio near the south coast, For That Beautiful Feeling captures that wild moment when sound overwhelms you and almost pulls you under yet ultimately lets you ride its wave, surrendering to let the music move you as if pulled by an invisible thread. Fleetwood Mac was at the top of its game in August 1977 when the band returned to Los Angeles after touring for six months, and Rumours Live captures the energy and excitement of the band’s opening night at The Forum on 29 August 1977, performing that now-iconic album. Kristin Hersh’s new album, Clear Pond Road, is a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking from a fiercely independent auteur: more inward-looking than her work with Throwing Muses and 50FOOTWAVE, underpinned by background noise for ambience and awkwardness. The Handsome Family’s new record, Hollow, had its genesis when Rennie Sparks screamed “Come into the circle, Joseph! There’s no moon tonight” in her sleep one night, and husband Brett thought “Man, that’s a good chorus!”

Our release of the week is a poignant but exciting one: Bird Machine is a never-before-heard album by Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous, originally recorded in 2010, in the months before Mark’s untimely death. Sparklehorse released a number of influential and acclaimed albums in the ’90s and 2000s.

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  • Sparklehorse  Bird Machine  CD £10.99 / LP £26.99
• Bird Machine is a never-before-heard album by Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous that was originally recorded in 2010, in the months before Mark’s untimely death, and mixed by Mark Hamilton (who also worked on It’s a Wonderful Life). Mark’s brother Matt notes: “Great care has been taken to archive and preserve Mark’s music. We are very thankful for Mark and the beauty he brought to this world.” Described as an artist who “compelled listeners to heed the beauty of darkness” by Pitchfork, Linkous released a number influential records with Sparklehorse, including the renowned albums Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and Good Morning Spider in the ’90s, It’s a Wonderful Life and Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain in the early aughts, and collaborative album Dark Night of the Soul in 2010.
• Note: The LP is initially available on clear vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Matthew Halsall  An Ever Changing View  CD £15.99 / 2-LP £28.99 / Clear 2-LP £29.99
• An Ever Changing View is an expansive, immaculately conceived project that presents trumpeter, bandleader and composer Matthew Halsall’s signature blend of jazz, electronica, global and spiritual jazz influences. Halsall, who has been hailed as one of the leading figures of the UK jazz renaissance, has never seen himself as part of any one sound or scene: he builds his own sonic universe instead. An Ever Changing View finds him at his most experimental yet, once again expanding his sound and production techniques to create his unique brand of deeply meditative music.
• Note: The LP is initially available on clear vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • The Chemical Brothers  For That Beautiful Feeling  CD £14.99 / 2-LP £39.99
• Recorded in The Chemical Brothers’s own studio near the south coast, For That Beautiful Feeling is a record that hunts for and captures that wild moment when sound overwhelms you and almost pulls you under yet ultimately lets you ride its wave, to destinations unknown. It’s a record that pinpoints the exact moment you lose all control, where you surrender and let the music move you as if pulled by an invisible thread.

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  • Fleetwood Mac  Rumours Live  2-CD £17.99 / 2-LP £39.99 / Clear 2-LP £44.99
• Fleetwood Mac was at the top of its game in August 1977 when the band returned to its adopted home in southern California to play three shows at The Forum in Los Angeles. Rumours had only been out a few weeks when the band left in February to tour the world before returning six months later to play three shows at The Forum for nearly 50,000 fans. Rumours reached #1 in the UK and went well on its way to becoming one of the most successful albums ever released, which has been certified 14x platinum in the UK. Rumours Live captures the energy and excitement of the band’s opening night at The Forum on 29 August 1977. The nearly 90-minute performance includes live versions of most of the songs from Rumours and Fleetwood Mac, the group’s first multi-platinum #1 album, which came out in 1975.
• Note: The LP is initially available on clear vinyl, exclusive to physical record shops.

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  • Kristin Hersh  Clear Pond Road  CD £14.99 / LP £24.99
• Kristin Hersh’s new album, Clear Pond Road, is a cinematic road trip: a series of personal vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, sitting plush with layers of all-consuming strings and mellotron. It’s a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking: an elegant piece of personal reportage, a home movie caught in time. The juxtaposition of light and dark has been essential to the drama of Throwing Muses and 50FOOTWAVE, but this solo set is something of a departure: more inward-looking, quieter but outspoken, underpinned by background noise for ambience and awkwardness.
• Clear Pond Road is a life-affirming statement, a further part of the jigsaw, a very personal memoir, from street signs to snapshots; a late blossoming and coming-of-age from a true icon of independence. The record is both intimate yet expansive, written largely within the confines of Hersh’s home, making the proceedings ever more personal.
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition clear vinyl.

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  • The Handsome Family  Hollow  CD £11.99 / LP £21.99
• The Handsome Family’s new record, Hollow, began with a scream in the night. “It was a bleak winter during the middle of the pandemic,” says Brett Sparks. “One night around 4 a.m. Rennie started screaming in her sleep. She screamed, ‘Come into the circle, Joseph! There’s no moon tonight.’ Scary as it was, I thought, man, that’s a good chorus!” The Handsome Family (songwriting and marriage partners Brett and Rennie Sparks) have been defining the dark end of americana for over 30 years.

 

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Releases for 1 September 2023

We kick off 1 September’s sizzlers with everything is alive, an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it from Slowdive: full of psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating ’80s electronic elements and John Cale-inspired journeys. The inimitable Pretenders are back with their 14th studio album, Relentless, which features 12 new songs co-written by the iconic Chrissie Hynde and the band’s guitarist, James Walbourne. Royal Blood ignite an epic summer with the release of their fourth album, Back to the Water Below: after years together playing to half-empty bars around Brighton they suddenly become a ‘decade-in-the-making overnight success story’, reaching the top of UK album charts within a year. This House, the new album from Pale Blue Eyes, is defined by closure and moving on following the grief of recent parental loss: alongside uplifting melodies that dance like no-one’s watching, the album is rich in life-affirming human connections, where music-making becomes a means of recovery. And Empire State Bastard is a project of Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil and Mike Vennart to produce the most extreme, confrontational or just downright twisted music they can, and the results are unleashed on their debut album, Rivers of Heresy.

Our release of the week is a biggie: ÁTTA, the first new studio album in ten years from Sigur Rós, is their most intimate and emotionally direct record to date, with the return of multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson bringing a new compulsion and drive to the band. Few bands cut through the noise and distractions of the world to bring you pure elemental truth or feeling like Sigur Rós.

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  • Sigur Rós  ÁTTA  CD £15.99 / 2-LP £32.99 / Yellow 2-LP £36.99
• Sigur Rós’s first new studio album in ten years, ÁTTA, is their most intimate and emotionally direct record to date. Few bands cut through the noise and distractions of the world to bring you pure elemental truth or feeling like Sigur Rós. As you hear on ÁTTA, there’s a new compulsion and drive to the band that comes with the new formation of the line-up. Multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson is back in the fold – having left the band in 2012 – to join frontman Jónsi and bassist Georg Holm. ÁTTA leans heavily towards the orchestral, and touches on everything that has made Sigur Rós one of the most ambitious and acclaimed bands of recent times.
• Note: The LP is initially available on sun yellow vinyl, exclusive to physical record shops.

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  • Slowdive  everything is alive  CD £10.99 / LP £25.99
• everything is alive, the fifth album from Slowdive, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it. While there are parts of this record that could sit neatly next to the atmospheric quality of 1995’s Pygmalion, it also manages to break down the boundaries of what has come before it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating ’80s electronic elements and John Cale-inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for 2023 and beyond.
• Note: The LP is initially available on pink vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Pretenders  Relentless  CD £13.99 / LP £30.99
• The inimitable Pretenders are back with their 14th studio album, Relentless, which was produced by David Wrench and recorded at Battery Studios in West London. The album features 12 new songs co-written by the iconic Chrissie Hynde and the band’s guitarist, James Walbourne.
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition dark green vinyl.

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  • Royal Blood  Back to the Water Below  CD £13.99 / LP £24.99 / Clear LP £26.99
• Royal Blood ignite an epic summer with the release of their fourth album, Back to the Water Below. From the very beginning, the story of Royal Blood has been one of two life-long friends whose shared passion for writing and performing has led them on a remarkable adventure together – a story that has yet to be repeated, and is a feat as rare as it is remarkable. Long before Royal Blood were even formed, they spent years together in various bands playing to half-empty bars around Brighton, and only then did they suddenly become a decade-in-the-making overnight success story: from plotting how to recoup the meagre £300 they had spent on their first recording to the top of UK album charts within a year.
• Note: The LP is initially available on clear vinyl, exclusive to physical record shops.

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  • Pale Blue Eyes  This House  CD £14.99 / Clear LP £23.99 / Green LP £24.99
• Delirious chatter … the clink of cans of warm beer … Cocteau Twins played at full blast. Lively memories of parties and people live on through This House, the new album from Pale Blue Eyes. The house in question is there on the front cover, the childhood home of the trio’s vocalist and guitarist, Matt Board. Defined by closure and moving on, This House is shaken to its rafters as the band navigate the grief of recent parental loss. Alongside uplifting melodies that dance like no-one’s watching, the album is rich in life-affirming human connections, where music-making becomes a means of recovery.
• Note: The LP is initially available on both limited-edition clear vinyl and on green vinyl, exclusive to independent shops.

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  • Empire State Bastard  Rivers of Heresy  CD £14.99 / LP £30.99
• A decade ago, Simon Neil and Mike Vennart would be found sitting at the back of the Biffy Clyro tour bus sharing the most extreme, confrontational or just downright twisted music they could find. Simon had always had the name Empire State Bastard lurking in the back of his mind if he ever formed a sickeningly heavy band, leaving Mike with the challenge of writing music that could live up to that moniker. Now the results are about to be unleashed on their debut album, Rivers of Heresy.
• Note: The LP is initially available on limited-edition poison-green vinyl.

 

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