Beats News

Pattern-Seeking Animals is a quartet featuring Spock's Beard members Ted Leonard, Jimmy Keegan and Dave Meros alongside long-time contributing songwriter-producer John Boegehold.

Of the musical direction, Boegehold comments: “Progressive, intricate and melodic, P-S A is a clean slate, so I found myself drawing on a few different musical influences and using some contemporary production ideas and sounds that I probably wouldn’t use with Spock’s Beard for various reasons.”

Double vinyl in gatefold sleeve with CD.

Liverpool’s Paul Den Heyer: after auditioning for Magazine and Spizz Energi and playing in a string of local bands, the initial fifteen minutes finally came in the 90s with Fishmonkeyman. Probably best known for the indie-hit 'If I've Told You Once' which led to deals with Warners and Virgin Music and put the band on Tv, radio and the road.
More recently known as producer for Sunstack Jones and member of The Red Sided Garter Snakes with ex-members of The Chameleons, Bauer, Puressence and Inspiral Carpets.
Everything So Far is the first release under his own name, made with the help of good friends and featuring songs recorded in summertime on the leisure peninsula.
With hints to Mojave3 (Neil Halstead - Slowdive) or Mazzy Star, even The Byrds shine through, Paul Den Heyer creates moody acoustic landscapes and melodic miniatures with fantastic harmonies and a rich set of instrumentation.
He describes the style as „Britanicana“ and indeed his music blends British folk songwriting with 60s/70s American psych-POP.

Pelican, the instrumental quartet whose singular vision of heavy music eschews classification, have announced their first full length in six years, Nighttime Stories, is due June 7th via Southern Lord Recordings.

The eight-song set marks the band’s first release written front to back with guitarist Dallas Thomas, who took over guitar duties upon founding member Laurent Schroeder-Lebec’s departure in 2012. In the process of writing the album the quartet endured a slew of realisations, tragedies, and glimmers of optimism that guided the creative process to the most potent work of their nineteen-year career.

Though the new material veers towards the darker tone characteristic of Pelican’s early songwriting, it’s hard to imagine a previous incarnation of the band writing songs as meticulously crafted and detail-oriented as those within Nighttime Stories, where the compositions recall everything from the triumphant call-to-arms of classic Dischord, to the vicious troglodyte battery of the Melvins, to the dynamic interwoven melodies of bottom-heavy indie cult heroes Chavez.

Nighttime Stories was an album title initially proposed for Tusk, the hallucinatory art-grind band that included Pelican members Trevor Shelley de Brauw, Larry Herweg, and Schroeder-Lebec, in addition to vocalist Jody Minnoch. The writing of Nighttime Stories was instigated shortly after Minnoch’s unexpected death in 2014, and some of the dissonant viscera and dark psychedelic structures that were characteristic of Tusk’s sound began to unconsciously inform the album’s direction. In homage to their departed colleague, Pelican applied the previously discarded title and pulled many of the song titles from notes Minnoch had sent to inspire the direction of the unrealized album. As the writing of Nighttime Stories progressed Thomas also experienced a heavy loss with the passing of his father, to whom the album pays tribute on opening track “W.S.T.” (on which Dallas performed his guitar parts on his father’s Yamaha acoustic).
 
Pelican have always excelled at vacillating between the savage sounds of various niches of metal underground and the more delicate and nuanced sounds of Midwest’s cerebral indie community, proving that they can make either end of the spectrum more vibrant and compelling through the art of contrast. With Nighttime Stories, the pendulum has swung back to the angst and ire of their younger years while delivering it with the nuance and wisdom that’s come with nearly two decades of writing and performing. Pelican head out on a ten date US tour in June with more dates in the works for later in the year (see dates below).

One trio that not only succeeded, but blossomed following the onset of reggae, is The Pioneers, who in 1969 became one of the first Jamaican acts to achieve international success with their UK hit, “Long Shot Kick The Bucket”. Their third album Battle Of The Giants is a little bit softer compared to their previous records, and even features a soul ballad. “Consider Me” and the title track “The Battle Of The Giants” are two of the best known songs from this album. The collection is a must-have for all self-respecting fans of boss reggae and is now finally available once again.

Battle Of The Giants is available as a limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on orange coloured vinyl.

Prong’s distinctive industrial Metal sound influenced subsequent bands such as Korn and Nine Inch Nails.

Former New York club CBGB’s soundman Tommy Victor founded Prong in 1987 as his outlet for sonic fury. Having their roots in the Thrash Metal and Hardcore scenes, Prong carved a niche for themselves - groovy, angry, massive; just perfect mosh music.

The trio wrecked stages and impressed audiences all over the world. They built on their signature sound with their 4th full length album Cleansing. Aptly titled, the album indeed cleansed their sound, resulting in 12 stripped down, highly effective musical precision bombs. The single “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” became one of their significant highlights.

Cleansing is produced by Terry Date and feat. ex-Killing Joke members Paul Raven and John Bechdel. Prong will be performing the album live around the globe in 2019.

This is a limited 25th anniversary edition of 666 individually numbered copies on silver & black marbled vinyl.

One of the fiercest, most violent punk sessions ever recorded, the legendary Italian hardcore outfit’s 1983 ‘Brown Studio’ demo has unbelievably never appeared on vinyl in its original form (although you’ll recognise ‘Fuck Authority’, culled from here to appear on MRR’s ‘Welcome to 1984’ comp). Nineteen songs of feral thrash in 23 minutes, kicked out with unreal fury, chainsaw guitars and savage vocals. Remastered by Raw Power freak James Cavalluzzo (Malhavoc) from an original copy of the demo, this has been beefed up without sacrificing the essential rawness. Ugly Pop is proud to present this killer 12”, released in a limited pressing with the band’s cooperation.

Reality, originating from summer '70 was the first Caribbean Latin funk group in Amsterdam and even the whole of the Netherlands. With their self-titled debut album, Franky Douglas (guitar), Tony Sherman (vocals), Roël Burnet (percussion), Glenn Gaddum (organ) and Leslie Vos (vocals) presented a highlight in the burgeoning Dutch Latin, funk and soul scene. Just like the second album 'Tony And Reality', the LP has become a coveted collector's item that people paid large sums of money for. Pseudonym Records is very proud to present the first legitimate reissues of Reality, remastered from the original tapes, and with the full cooperation of the band. From now on, Reality's music is available to everyone. The album 'Reality' (1972), with the sensitive and still up-to-date 'War', contains the original artwork. Reality later continued under the name Solat. Limited blue vinyl version.

René Huthwelker’s solo performances emphasize minimalistic repetitions that are created foremost by analogue-synthetic spheres. "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII" is Huthwelker‘s solo debut in which he presents an insightful exploration of polyrhythmic networks, based primarly on the analogue synthesis of the Buchla system.

Futuro Antico, the mesmerizing collaboration of Riccardo Sinigaglia with Walter Maioli and Gabin Dabirè evoked in its name the uncanniness of simultaneously witnessing past and future. Ambient Music, Riccardo Sinigaglia’s first solo work – recorded in Dec. 1984 and originally out on cassette from ADN Tapes in 1985 — ultimately delivers on that idea, embodying different irreconcilable time frames not just in name.

From our vantage point, the sounds of the two performances --“Watertube” and “Ringspiel”-- appear as though they arrive to us from a past which we have great difficulty in recognizing and imagining ourselves coming from while simultaneously working as a projection of a future that is both our contemporaneity yet also surpasses it. It’s this ability that Riccardo Sinigaglia’s work has of being both rooted in its context while instantaneously capable of transcending our own that makes him one of the key figures of that explosion of beauty and creativity that defines the peculiar iteration of radical minimalism that characterized the experimental and avant-garde music scene in Italy, particularly the Milanese one with its rich countercultural scenes crossing over into the long reverberating academic legacy of the Studio di Fonologia Musicale RAI di Milano during a hyperactive decade starting in the late 1970s. An aggressively conquered freedom which resulted in works of an incredible gracefulness aimed towards a future at a moment when both grace and the future had seemingly begun their slow obliteration under the blows of powerful destructive forces.

“Watertube” starts as a synth and magnetic-tape based ambient soundscape that slowly adds what appears to be a prepared piano which eventually competes for audibility with a phrase that evokes the titular watertube, treated, looped and stacked as it phase-shifts producing a busy polyrhythm that asynchronously gurgles and bubbles, approaching but never breaking into chaos. It’s some strange version of Eno’s oblique discreetness ostensibly being overwhelmed by the perversity of a Stevereichian shape-shifting pattern but the moment the former is about to be overwhelmed the composition begins a slow recession back towards the system it originated from.

“Ringspiel” is a more playful yet warped affair, a complex ecology rather than a simple economy of sounds. Opening with a whimsical melody seemingly played on a prepared toy piano this gives way to a tape loop punctuated throughout the rest of the piece by individual sounds whose origins remain uncertain. These produce scattered melodies that underscore an electronic based minimalism with a synthetic heart that nonetheless showcases a pulsating, wet, fibrous core that beats with organic life. It ends not in the opening whimsy but in fragmenting percussive shards of sounds. While it might superficially appear deceitfully familiar and comforting and evoke recognizable pleasures this is neither your father’s ambient nor your mom’s minimalism. And it sure as hell ain’t your older brother’s lame substanceless new age noodling. There’s a dark heart to Sinigaglia’s record – listened to today we are conscious that the future “Watertube” and “Ringspiel” pointed towards never arrived and yet we are aware of nonetheless inhabiting it. That is ultimately the tragedy and the thrill of these compositions. We are told that the future’s been annulled due to a degenerative process that began precisely around the time in which this music was first recorded. And yet. As time folded in on itself and we were made to inhabit the futureless predicament of an eternal present these recordings act as relics from the last possible instance where a future could still stand to be imagined. A little sliver of opportunity. Look into it. It just might give you a peek into tomorrow. The time is out of joint.

Peter Sarram/Rome, March 2019

"Captain Rip Hayman is a traveller: on the seas, across the lands, and in the realm of music. He has been around the world 51 times to date. Like the proverbial cat, Rip has lived many lives and beaten death more than most. Rip’s playlist here is a mix of his compositions and music gathered in his travels. The sounds of the world are all music to the Captain’s ears." - Charlie Morrow, December 2018

Dreams of India & China is the first retrospective LP of artist and sailor, Rip Hayman. Recorded from 1975-1986, the two side-long works were collaged from a dozen hours of tape recordings (which laid dormant for over 30 years). It ebbs as the tides; pulsing from one location to the next in a faint stupor, Dreams turns to be an autobiographical sound map.

Audio capsules of Hayman's installation performances, private experiments, and every ethnographic voyage in between are charted. Outdoor recordings canopy over indoor recordings, thatching surreality. Tonal quilts lap over "Dreamwaves" on the first side: an all-night sleep concert hosted by Rip as the sandman. Whispers of recounted dreams, birds and trees, organ waves. The second side traverses more saturated memories: bicycle spokes ripping against half-speed piano, bleeding cymbal dances over saxophone gusts, the tumbling of Rip's body affixed with bells and metal.

Hayman was a collaborator in New Wilderness Foundation, Ear Magazine, and The Land (a parcel in upstate New York to where John Cage, John Lennon, David Tudor, etc. would escape the city in the 1970s). He is the owner of the oldest bar in NYC, The Ear Inn. Focusing on nautical inventions and intentions these days, Rip has veered away from composition; hopefully that will change. For now, let us enjoy the sea-faring sound journeys of his past. Dreams of India & China charters a beautiful confusion – come aboard and push off into his waters.

Sean McCann, February 2019

A deep cut non skip 7" DJ scratch tool by Ritchie Ruftone, with one side at 100 bpm and the flip-side at 83 bpm.

Roberto Crippa is an italian sound-artist based in London and here is his third album. The refined work of Abscent is a deep dive into a dense and gloomy mixture of boulder rhytms, distressing atmospheres and sinister clangors. Although it could be easily ascribed to the industrial genre as well to more sleepy, nebulous and crumpled drifts of (post)techno realms, there’s something strongly personal and idiosyncratic that flows as decisive detail through the furrows of this record. Human warmth envelopes the sound matter like a shroud, machines spread organic fragances to settle a hyper-realistic soundtrack for the confusing and dark times we’re living in.

After releasing two critically acclaimed albums with his first band, Taste, and playing the Isle of Wight in 1970, Rory left the band to pursue a solo career. His eponymous debut solo album was released in 23rd May 1971. Gallagher auditioned some of the best musicians available at the time including Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell the bassist and drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He decided on two Belfast musicians; drummer Wilgar Campbell, and bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy to be the core of his new power trio band. The album was recorded at Advision Studios. Standout tracks include “Laundromat”, “I Fall Apart” and “Sinner Boy”. This 2012 remaster used the original vinyl artwork and 1/4″ master tapes so that they look and sound exactly as Rory intended. DL code included.

Day Glo Daze collects all the singles released by Rubella Ballet commencing with Ballet Dance originally released in 1979.
Many of the singles are highly collectable and are now extremely difficult to find. In addition to providing the definitive collection of the group’s A-sides, the album
also includes all the B-sides. All tracks have been remixed by the group’s founding mainstay, Sid Truelove, enabling the material to be heard in the manner in which it was originally
intended. Now celebrating their fortieth anniversary, Rubella Ballet have been hailed as “a unique sensory phenomenon who transcended their Anarcho punk roots to
explore and define postpunk, goth and dance”. Their spectacular uultraviolet/day-glo stage show has thrilled audiences across
the UK, US and Europe, and the band fronted by original members Zillah Minx and Sid Truelove continue to tour. In August they tour America headlining the
Skull Festival. UK fans can catch a special UV show at Rebellion.

During the last few years, I’ve found myself more and more attracted to sounds that are somehow connected to slow, intentional musical gestures. This slowing down of the musical gesture makes it possible for me to pause, to observe and listen to the richness, the details and nuances of the timbres. It also reveals the relationships between sounds in space and time. This kind of listening from a closer perspective also amplifies the connection between timbre and frequency making it possible to investigate even the smallest differences in the intervals. EEEOOOSSS is the encounter between three instruments, each one tuned according to a different tuning system. This meeting was conceived and designed over a period of years but only once took place in the Church of S. Giusto, Volterra, Italy, during the night of the 12th of August, 2018, in the nave, the transepts and the choir.

Each of the three temperaments embodies specific characteristics, amplified by the instrument assigned to play it. The dark (almost pure and “spaceless”) tone produced by the e-bow on the strings of the guitar gives voice to the clear tones of the Pythagorean Tuning. The air resonating into the clarinet produces the frequencies of a system derived from the tuning of the ancient Greek flute. As a conclusion, I recorded on the cello one of the scales obtained from the exact relations observed in the partial harmonics of the second octave. Each of these three sounds possesses, in fact, a very different balance between inharmonic and harmonic qualities, from the almost pure sound of the e-bowed electric guitar to that of the most inharmonic, horse-hair bowed cello. Thus electric guitar, clarinet and cello are treated as raw material, modelled in their form (primarily through filters and envelope constraints), but without changing their individual distinctive timbral character. The real shaping factor, is, in fact, the architectural space, which added multiple reflections to these materials during the live session, amplifying asymmetric partials, dilating some of the frequencies and interweaving these three scale systems one into the other.

Temporarily structured into the domain of software, the gestures acted upon by these sounds are complete in itself. Repetition is illusory, it appears only on the surface. These three meditations are also an occasion to investigate the boundaries between the abstract dimension of electronic music and the living body of a concert.

Sandro Mussida / Firenze, 5 Aprile 2019

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE COVER
After working on these pieces for a while I began to associate the sounds with the colour pink. Eos, for Homer, is the rosy-fingered goddess of dawn, whose light during this special moment transforms gradually before our eyes into many tonalities of oranges and blues. Since the three instruments and tuning systems interweave with each other in the acoustic space, similarly the idea of taking this relationship into the realm of the visible appealed to me, thus the three different materials are overlapped one on the other creating a sort of interaction with the light.

Alessandra Novaga, electric guitar samples (e-bow); tuning: twelve true fifths (*Renold I)
Edgardo Barlassina, bass clarinet; tuning: hypodorian aulos
Sandro Mussida, cello; tuning: just intonation (*II partials)

The trio Susana Santos Silva / Torbjörn Zetterberg / Hampus Lindwall emerged in 2015 with their first album If Nothing Else (Clean Feed CF348) which was received with critical acclaim. The unique conceptual approach to composition & improvisation rooted in both free jazz and contemporary classical music was described as “guaranteed a unique listening experience” (JazzIn), “It is art!” (Gapplegate Music Review) and “unique sound and style” (New York City Jazz Record). On their new album “Hi, who are you?” (Matière Mémoire MATME004LP) they have taken the musical creation a step further by adding live electronics for real time sound treatment. Different techniques from experimental electronic music is juxtaposed with simple use of electric guitar effects to obtain tight and highly emotional sound.

Susana Santos Silva - trumpet
Torbjörn Zetterberg - double bass, and electric noise on track 5 and 10
Hampus Lindwall - pipe organ and live electronics

Released in a mere 300 copies for Record Store Day 2019 on Radiation, and sold out instantly, this radio FM-quality live broadcast from Rome, Italy's Stadio Olimpico, July 10th 1996 is now reissued by popular demand in an extremely limited edition of 150 copies on black vinyl, packaged in a proper lp sleeve.

Sleeper release their brilliant new single “The Sun Also Rises”

Taken from their hotly anticipated new album “The Modern Age”, the single will be released as limited edition transparent blue vinyl 7" coming out on 26th April

The New album, “The Modern Age”, released 22nd March is the band’s first album for 21 years. The band spent the summer of 2018 recording The Modern Age with their long time producer, Stephen Street - a relationship that clicked into place again right away.

The sparkling ‘The Sun Also Rises’ sees vocalist Lousie Wener offering hope and positivity after a personal loss with the song giving the album it’s most uplifting moment. “It’s a song about celebrating life. Living every moment, appreciating what you have and letting optimism back in.” says Louise.

The 7” comes backed with a brand new track “I Am Not a Computer”

Milan based Die Schachtel presents In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni (We turn round in the night and, behold, we are consumed by Fire) - a work for solo guitar by the Italian composer Stefano Pilia, the second release to appear on a new series from the imprint - Decay Music, highlighting inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract.

Born in Genoa and based in Bologna, Pilia is a guitar player and electro-acoustic composer concerned with the sculptural properties of sound, offering particular focus to its relationship to space, memory, and the suspension of time - the conceptual undercurrent of In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni. Comprised of corresponding compositional triptychs on each of its two sides - the final act of both featuring contributions from experimental music heavyweights, Rodrigo D’Erasmo on violin and David Grubbs on piano, the album builds vast, inhabitable expanses of ambience from long tones and shattered cuts and collisions, punctuated by clusters, sweeps, and careful interventions of texture and note. In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni – as this eerie palindrome and endecasillabo (a syntactic form in classical Italian verse) from Virgil suggests – moves through a path of alchemical symbolic narratives and poetic abstraction humbly reminiscent and allegorically inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and by the Nekyia (‘evocation of the dead’) parts found in Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey.

Based on symmetrical harmonic, melodic and narrative properties and filled with intangible narrative, haunting abstraction, fleeting visions of eerie space, and slow motion melody, Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni pushes electroacoustic music toward symphonic dimensions - dramatic arcs with echoes of high Minimalism, historic ambient music, and the radicalism indeterminate forms. Through a wise, peculiar and abstracted use of guitar instrumentation, the sound surface of the compositions reaches deeper electroacoustic-symphonic dimensions, echoing minimalist works, ambient music and indeterminate contemporary forms. The perfectly sounding Decay Music records have been perfectly cut and pressed using a surprising thick grey hi-quality vinyl featuring a "decay-like" marbling effect. The overall design is by the usual suspect Bruno Stucchi, who created a "half alchemic-half decadent" custom typeface for the series. The covers - featuring mysterious and obscure drawings by obscure artists – are printed in silver on heavy matt black paper stock, and hosted in a transparent outer sleeve, on which the typography is silkscreened in white on clear acetate.

Edition of 250 copies and pressed to 180g grey-marbled vinyl, one-time pressing, housed in pro-printed inner sleeve and jacket, itself contained in a silkscreened pvc sleeve.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

In 2018, the legendary Steve Miller Band’s Complete Albums Volume 1 (1968-1976) debuted as an unprecedented and acclaimed 9LP vinyl box set and individual 180-gram black vinyl LPs. Today, Steve Miller and Capitol/UMC are incredibly excited to announce plans for the May 24 global release of the collection’s second volume, presenting nine more Steve Miller Band studio albums in a new 180-gram vinyl box set called Complete Albums Volume 2 (1977-2011). Spanning the band’s multi-platinum 10th studio album, 1977’s Book of Dreams, through 2011’s Let Your Hair Down, the albums have all been remastered and are available now for preorder. Each album is also available for preorder as individual 180-gram black LPs to be released on the same date.

Stone Foundation return with a limited edition double A side featuring studio versions of two covers that have featured on the recent Everybody, Anyone Tour. Paul Weller once again joins the band on piano for both tracks. Graham Parker sings co-lead vocals for a soulful new version of the Ann Peebles track I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down, a song which he previously covered

The first vinyl release for Sublime’s Greatest Hits, featuring all the band’s biggest hits such as “What I Got,” “Wrong Way,” “Santeria,” “Date Rape” and “40 Oz. To Freedom,” comes in a matchbook-style jacket.

Duo recordings by Sven-Åke Johansson (vocals) and Simon James Phillips (piano), made in 2017 in Johansson's studio in Berlin.

"Simon arrived in my studio with songs by Jean Sibelius to try out. However, being bad at singing from sheet music, I wasn't quite able to perform them as intended. So we instead went for an improvisational approach, using existing texts of mine and, in parts, of his as the basis for our performances and recordings. The two voices are contrapuntal, the piano cannot really be called the accompaniment, it is almost autonomous: more melody than accompaniment." (Sven-Åke Johansson)

Simon James Phillips is an Australian composer and pianist working in the contexts of classical, experimental, and improvisational music. Sven-Åke Johansson is a Swedish percussionist and performer in the circles of fine arts, new music, and free improvisation. Both live and work in Berlin.

LP edition of 300 in gatefold sleeve, including printed inner sleeve with lyrics.

Limited edition pressing 500 copies on blue vinyl in the new T. REX house bags. Alternate recordings of classic T. REX songs. Telegram Sam was recorded in Denmark in 1971 as a pre-recording band run through. What you hear is T.Rex the group playing without the cameras of TV, or radio broadcast, or to an audience, but as a tight knit group getting on with it...the result is amazing. Baby Strange is a recording of an early television broadcast from the same time period. Both songs would appear the following year on the legendary “Slider” album. Taken from Marc’s own recordings and mastered in 2019, they are not mixed or remixed or tampered with in any way

STATES started out as a live electronics setup, developed back in early 2016 by Tijs Ham. The first version combined analogue feedback with digital manipulations which resulted in a self-balancing and self-generating chaotic system, capable of producing deep, melodic and textured soundscapes. During a performance, the setup would be played until it would reach a state in which it was generating its own sonic material. The performer would then take a step back, allowing the system to run on its own. Carefully listening to the movements, progressions, noises, drones, and arpeggios until the urge to intervene took the upper hand and the system would be performed and nudged towards a new state of balance.

The STATES setup went through a series of revisions and alternative versions, each playing with the same basic ingredients, mixed up and prepared in various ways. In the summer of 2017, Tijs started to collaborate with Gareth Davis, well renowned for his work with contemporary and experimental music on the bass clarinet. During an inspired series of recording sessions at STEIM, the STATES setup was reinvented once again and lifted up through the spacious and engaging interplay between reed and recursion.

Tears for Fears debut album The Hurting was released on 7 March 1983, and peaked at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart in its second week of release. The album reached Platinum status in January 1985 and contains Tears for Fears’ first three hit singles – “Mad World”, “Change”, and “Pale Shelter” – all of which reached the top five in the UK. This re-pressed 180gm vinyl (with Download Code) comes on the back of a massively critically acclaimed successful UK tour which saw the band play to thousands of fans

VINYL IS RANDOMLY PACKED black/yellow vinyl, clear/yellow vinyl and clear/red vinyl)
With the knife-wielding, toothy-grinned Martha Splatterhead at their side, Seattle’s own THE ACCUSED carved their way into the underground music scene by becoming one of the cornerstones of crossover music that melted faces in the 80s across the globe––A punk/metal fusion that planted its ever-growing seed in modern heavyweights such as MUNICIPAL WASTE, LAMB OF GOD, CANNIBAL CORPSE, the Patton/Lombardo project DEAD CROSS, and many more.
Following in the footsteps of bands like VENOM INC. KNOW, FLAG, and ENTOMBED AD––and after recruitment of POISON IDEA’s drummer, Mickey Widmere––the blender baby known as MARTHA’S REVENGE now proudly sports the moniker THE ACCUSED AD.
The cult of Splatter is alive, and the Kool-Aid is being consumed insatiably so, and we here at Blackhouse are honored to have them aboard for their brand new full length album coming this year. Produced and engineered by iconic Seattle producer Jack Endino (Mudhoney, Nirvana, U-Men, Tad, the list goes on...), and mastered by Pig Destroyer’s Scott Hull at Visceral Sound, this album is sure to deliver the Splatterrock without skipping a beat from where they left off.
Important Release Info:
Produced by Jack Endino (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Tad, and more) Mastered by Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer / Agoraphobic Nosebleed) Full US tour kicking off during pre-order well into street date including Maryland Deathfest date! Full UK tour to follow into Summer 2019 following street date. Full PR campaign surrounding the release featuring videos and unreleased new tracks.

Re-released. Note new price. Was 11.99 now 13.95

180 gram vinyl, limited to 500 copies, replica re-issue of the cover and artwork.
Second album by The Adicts, originally released on Razor Records in 1982. "Sound of Music" was a new and forward step for The Adicts, it was a fantastic record that also combined some other musical influences beside punk. The final result is a great record, one of the most important for the time and for the genre for sure.

There is no English or British equivalent of Americana. If there were it might sound something like the New Industrial Ballads and The Claim would be seen as one of the originators of the genre. What we’re talking about here is not an English group playing American music. This is a group of musicians making a beautiful and original hybrid that channels the root ingredients of classic English guitar music – folk (Bert Jansch, Nick Drake), thoughtful, melodic pop (Michael Head, Ray Davies) and angular politically tinged pop (Paul Weller, Elvis Costello, Wolfhounds), into something that is contemporary and original.
A recent feature in El País, Spain’s biggest selling newspaper, described the band's reissued 1988 album Boomy Tella as the missing link between the Kinks and Blur. The New Industrial Ballads (released by A Turntable Friend Records on 24th May), are the group’s first new recordings since 1992. It is how the group sound 30 odd years later if they’d continued to play and develop, rather than quit.
The idea behind the New Industrial Ballads is to celebrate the noble tradition (the lineage of which runs through folk, ballads, skiffle, the Kinks, to punk and beyond) of ordinary people singing about everyday concerns and the issues of the day that impact on working lives. Three quick examples. Journey is about economic migration, the characters involved, the need to fight passionately for a fight the right of all to move to work. In Estuary Greens and Blues David Read reflects on the passing years and a changing industrial landscape as he walks the shore of the Thames estuary. 30 Years is a collaboration with writer Vic Templar who narrates a poignant and prescient tale contrasts mankind’s inability to progress politically and spiritually with technological advances (this is a follow-up to The Claim’s cult classic Mike the Bike, released on Bob “Saint Etienne” Stanley’s Caff label in 1990)
In the group’s earlier period (1985-92) they secured Single of the Week in Melody Maker (Loser’s Corner), got 8/10 in NME for their album (Boomy Tella) and received regular airplay on John Peel and Andy Kershaw. The Manic Street Preachers, who used to write The Claim long love letters, performed their first ever London show supporting The Claim

Ltd pressing of 300 copies on Red & Black splatter vinyl.

This originally came out 4-5 years ago as a very limited pressing on Black vinyl with only a few 100 copies available.
This highly saught after LP is considered to be one of the better unofficial releases as the sound quality is almost perfect (from the sound board). Great sleeve and an essential part of any Cramps collection.

Good luck as this will be gone fast.

Dauw welcome the Helsinki based band The Gentleman Losers to the label for a vinyl issue of “Make We Here Our Camp of Winter” which was initially released late 2018 on Sound in Silence.

'Make We Here Our Camp of Winter' is The Gentleman Losers’ fourth full-length album, featuring eight new compositions, most part of which was written during the summer of 2018 at a cabin by a lake in southern Finland. All in all, this is a much more spontaneous record than their earlier ones. After being stuck with the previous album for many years, the Kuukka brothers wanted to make a simple, quiet album this time around. It was all much unplanned, but as the songs were nearing completion, it was clear that there was a coherent whole there, a feeling. They felt that this album has a sense of introversion to it, a feeling of winter approaching, and of holing up to wait for the seasons to change. Make We Here Our Camp Of Winter is a sublime album that intelligently mixes elements of ambient, lo-fi, electronica and post-rock. Recorded using both vintage analogue equipment and modern production techniques and with a sound palette that blends layers of haunting guitar melodies, slowly picked lap steel guitar, warm analogue synths, subtle bass lines, minimal beats and spoken word, it’s an emotive album that showcases the trademark sound of The Gentleman Losers at its best.

The Gentleman Losers is the experimental musical group of brothers Samu and Ville Kuukka, based in Helsinki, Finland. Since their formation in 2004, they have released three albums and one EP on labels such as Büro, City Centre Offices, Grainy Records and Standard Form. All their releases have gained high worldwide praises and placements on several year-end lists. They have contributed their music to various compilations, including an original track for Duskscape Not Seen compilation on Nothings66 label, along with the likes of Helios and Stafrænn Hákon, amongst many others and a feature on Nils Frahm’s LateNightTales compilation album. They have also written some commissioned music, including a film score, done remixes for the likes of Bibio, Epic45, Will Samson and others, and released an EP with their synth pop side-project Lessons, along with singer Patrick Sudarski, on Sinnbus label.

A masterclass in nuance, interpretation and the purifying power of the human voice, Standards Vol. V represents another captivating chapter in the career of a singular figure in contemporary music.

For his fifth album as the mischievously named National Jazz Trio Of Scotland, the prolific jazz outsider Bill Wells posits yet another collaborator in the diffuse light cast by his tender chord shifts and understated arrangements. Where Standards Vol. IV spun around the vocal talents of Kate Sugden with contributions from Gerard Black and Aby Vulliamy, the voice on Standards Vol. V is that of Black, whose other musical activities include the band Babe, François And The Atlas Mountains, Rozi Plain and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

For much of Standards Vol. V, Black’s unstained tenor is the paint with which Wells fills the canvas on songs including four originals – among them the beatific wordless chorale Gradual Inclination and the contrasting So Much Power, an energetic stomp propelled by keyboard brass and drum machine – and versions of songs from the musical Fiddler On The Roof and George and Ira Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing (Sunrise, Sunset and Of Thee I Sing respectively).

As ever with Wells’ work, whether under the NJTOS monicker or his own name (which typically appears alongside those of collaborators including Yo La Tengo, Jim O’Rourke and Annette Peacock), the melodic and lyrical elements are embellished with jazz-accented piano, samples and keyboards, with minimal rhythmic accompaniment other than electronic percussion.

Adding to the intrigue on Standards Vol. V are a new arrangement of the Scots/Irish ballad I Know Where I’m Going (from which Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger took the title of their 1945 film of the same name), an entirely new musical interpretation of Sigh No More Ladies from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and the album’s appropriately named finale, A Quiet Goodbye, with words by Aidan Moffat, Wells’ partner on Everything’s Getting Older (2011) – winner of the inaugural Scottish Album Of The Year award – and follow-up The Most Important Place In The World (2015).

The Rhythm Method recently announced their debut album How Would You Know I Was Lonely? with first single ‘Sex And The Suburbs’. Described by The Guardian as “a Balearic vision of romance as imagined from a parochial nightclub dancefloor,” it won further attention from publications including Noisey, Dazed, The Line Of Best Fit, Clash, DIY and others.

Formed half a decade ago in a Thameside squat protection scheme intended for professionals but inhabited by the barely-employed, the duo of lyricist/vocalist Joey Bradbury and top-liner/singer-songwriter Rowan Martin turned a summer of FIFA tournaments, cosmic breakdowns and 4pm beers into a series of bizarre, outsider-music iPhone demos that became a Soundcloud, then a band, then a live show and now an album.

How Would You Know I Was Lonely? is a journey through the present – a descent into late 20's, late-capitalist mind-funk; 12 stories of near-romances, yellow label dinners, chemical catatonia and lack-of-identity politics. Its influences are strange and diverse, not always entirely credible or tangible; Scritti Politti, Aswad, Irish Pub karaoke, ITV4, YouTube freestyles, Celtic standards, Golborne Road radios and more than a dose of Rod Stewart.

Pocket symphonies such as 'Sex and The Suburbs', 'Local, Girl' and 'Cruel' sound like the Saturday night playlist from a Quantum Leap FM Radio station – ostensibly pop songs, but ones in possession of a rare intelligence, frankness and deep weirdness. The references may be initially esoteric, but the themes are palpably universal. Opener ‘Salad Cream’, referring to a mid 90’s Heinz campaign, is about creating social demand for yourself via scarcity. ‘Cruel’ is pub-karaoke paean to the spectre of addiction. ‘Single Life’ explores the dark, bleak desperation of romantic dejection, set to sleazy noir funk and muted trumpets. Joey Bradbury's verses could be a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown recording the voice notes of his crack-up, whilst Rowan Martin's choruses ask questions you never thought you'd hear in such hummable form.