Pop & Rock News

Forever lost single track from Caroline K real name Caroline Kaye Walters - founder member of Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best UK experimental/industrial music groups in the 1980s. Conceived at her Brixton studio in 1983 during the same sessions of "Don't Believe It's Over, "Mirrorball" sounds heavily inspired by "Blue Monday" from New Order, unveiling an unexpected pop side from the British experimental artist, here with the help of Beverley Ireland at the voice.

Caroline Kaye Walters formed Nocturnal Emissions in 1980 with Nigel Ayers, contributing voice, synthesizer, bass and drum programming to the group’s early releases. She and Ayers also co-founded Sterile Records (1979-1986), one of the key underground imprints of its time, home to music from the likes of SPK, Lustmord and Maurizio Bianchi. In later life Walters retreated from the public eye, and in 2001 married Daniel Ayers (Nigel’s brother, also of Nocturnal Emissions, and her collaborator in The Pump), moving to Garfagnana, Italy, where she resided until her death from leukaemia on July 12, 2008.

Mannequin Records head Alessandro Adriani goes once again at the remix duties with a nearly 7 minute minimal-electro-balearic remix, overheating his Roland Tr-808/909/707 with delays reverbs and flangers and updating the original track for the dance - floor.

Los Pirañas’ Greatest Hits, with an added brass section, in a disused kerosene tank, what else! The Colombian trio return with an echo blast after their last delivery Historian Natural (2019, Glitterbeat) to make their own way through the psychedelic tunnel visions of cumbia, champeta, psych surf rock and everything else in between.
Made up of Bogota natives, Eblis Alvarez (Meridian Brothers, Chupame El Dedo), Pedro Ojeda (Romperayo, Chupame El Dedo) and Mario Galeano (Frente Cumbiero, Ondatropica), the trio have been playing their own brand of tropical music together for over two decades now. ‘Infame Golpazo en Keroxen’ reunites the trio’s subversive way of making music as they re-configure and re-record their sound live in a disused gasoline tank situated in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands. As that wasn’t enough they meet with local brass players Pablo Arocha on Trumpet, Pablo González on Trombone and Eduardo Martín on Tuba to mash up the already mucho tropical humid vibe into a unique gasoline implosion of tropical fervour.
After three unique albums showcasing their trajectory as a trio through the South American music ethos the Colombian powerhouse return to the scene of the crime with a solid set of high energy reversions of their most memorable tunes.
1. Toma Tu Jabón Kapax (Lambada de Oceania, Africa y America, Champeta de la corrupcion y la desgana, Monstruo Prometedor)
2. La Diversion que Hacia Falta en mi País (Dragones Chinos, Sir De Gusano),
3. Historia Natural (Infame Golpazo, Espíritu de los seres humanos, Todos tenemos hogar).
Part of a new collaboration between Discrepant and Keroxen labels, firing up the less obvious island-made music into the wide world.

Soul Jazz Records new 'Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine' is a new collection of current D-I-Y post-punk bands shaped by the mutant sounds of no wave, punk funk and New York Noise bands from the late 70s and early 80s that collided with the world of underground dance music found at the Paradise Garage, Mudd Club in New York City (ESG, Arthur Russell, Bush Tetras, Talking Heads, Suicide, Liquid Liquid). Other influences cited here include Manchester and Sheffield's industrial post-punk sounds of the 1980s (Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Gang of Four) as well as the 1970s German electronic experimentalism of Cluster, Neu!, Harmonia and Can. Featured artists from around the globe include Los Angeles D-I-Y band Automatic, New Fries from Toronto, artist/music collaborators Toresch from Germany, Susumu Makai from Japan/UK, VexRuffin from the Philippines/California and Madmadmad, Gramme, Tom of England and other UK groups. That all the bands featured here manage to make distinctive contemporary music out of these 80s roots is testament to the wide range of other musics that are seamlessly absorbed into a modern melting pot of sound - hip-hop, the electronic European avant-garde, rave culture, and more.

Quietschbunte Indie-Pop-Tunes Nachdem das letzte Tune-Yards-Album "I can feel you creep into my private life" 2018 auf 12 Songs Themen wie Geschlechterteilung, Politik, Feminismus und die nach wie vor um sich greifende Umweltverschmutzung behandelte, hinterfragen sich Merrill Garbus und ihr langjähriger Mitstreiter Nate Brenner auf dem fünften Studioalbum "sketchy." selbst. "We had really been non-stop hustling," reflektiert Merrill, die zwischen 2009 und 2018 vier hoch gelobte Alben als Tune-Yards veröffentlicht hat, durchgängig auf Tour war und zusätzlich noch den Score zum surrealistischen Boots Riley-Film "Sorry To Bother You" kreierte. Ihre eigene Rolle in den von ihr so verhassten, eingefahrenen Systemen, lähmte Merrill, ohne Idee, wie sie nun weitermachen sollte. Inspiriert vom Buch der Beastie Boys und von Questloves "Creative Quest" machte sich das Duo daran täglich für mehrere Stunden in ihrem Proberaum zu jammen, um sich ähnlich wie Athleten vor einem Wettkampf zu trainieren. Dabei tauschten sie Computer-Samples gegen Live-Instrumente ein (Merrill an den Drums, Nate am Bass) und schon nach kurzer Zeit entstanden die ersten neuen Songs. Das Ergebnis ist ein farbenfrohes und fröhliches Album mit Lyrics, die es in sich haben.

lushly layered and delicate songs from this new artist..tip!

(180gr vinyl) Polysom re-issue of Gilberto Gil rare 3rd album, and a key piece of the Tropicalia puzzle – one of the most wildly experimental albums from those years, and Gil's last before going into exile! Tracks include "Cerebro Eletronico", "Volks Volkswagen Blue", "Futurivel", and "2001", which was written by Tom Ze and Rita Lee – plus the wild cut "Objecto Semi-Identificado" with vocals by Gil!

Katy Kirby is a Texas-based songwriter and indie rock practitioner with an affinity for unspoken rules, misunderstanding and boredom. She was born, raised and homeschooled by two ex-cheerleaders in small-town Texas and started singing in church, amidst the pasteurised-pop choruses of evangelical worship. Like many bible belt late-millennials, Katy grew up on a strict diet of this dependably uncool genre and accordingly, Cool Dry Place finds her dismantling it. "I can hear myself fighting that deeply internalized impulse to make things that are super pleasant or approachable," she says. Though Katy hasn't fully overcome the itch to please, it's to a listener's benefit. Instead of eradicating the pop sensibilities of her past, she warps them, lacing sugary hooks with sneaky rage, twisting affectionate tones into matter-of-fact reproach, and planting seemingly serene melodies with sonic jabs. The fun is in the clash. The nine tracks that make up Cool Dry Place are miscellaneous in subject (motherhood, late capitalism, disintegrating relationships) but unified by the angle from which they're told: from a person re-learning to process life with intense attention. Each song is a catalogue of fragments, the number of segments in an orange or the cut of an obsessively-worn shirt, distilled into meditations on the bizarre and microscopic exchanges that make up modern life - a relationship splintering, an uncomfortable pause, an understanding finally found. These emotional dioramas are moderated by the angular storytelling that unites Gillian Welch and Phoebe Bridgers, a favour for the conventions of short fiction over confession.

Currently in the process of recording their third album, after their acclaimed 2015 debut Hi-Fi Classics (having opted out of recording a second record to avoid the dreaded 'difficult second album' syndrome), 'Brother' is a continuation of the engrossing, yet unpredictable and hard-to-pin-down intelligence of the South London band's output.

Speaking on the single, Meatraffle say:

Brother is about the platonic love you have with your friends (sex is forbidden). It's about sharing and having things in common. The ups and downs, of course - about who buys more rounds of drinks than the others. It's a dry orgy, that's all it is.'

The origins of the band are lost in obscurity and legend, with some believing they are the result of a drunken afternoon shared by Mutado Pintado (Warmduscher, Paranoid London) and Zsa Zsa Sapien in a Wetherspoon pub, with their original concept being to actually host a Meat Raffle, evidence found in the fact that pigs' heads and raffle tickets are visible in early photos of the band.

Raffle or not, the band kept the moniker, and their musical offerings since that fateful meeting have spawned a loyal fan base following - birthed from their raucous early residencies at Brixton's The Windmill and The Queen's Head.

Shared bills with the likes of the Fat White Family (whose Lias Saoudi named them the 'best band in the country'), Shame and Sleaford Mods turned to busy headline tours, and a recent Speedy Wunderground (Kate Tempest, Natasha Khan) single 'Birdsong', recorded by the label's Dan Carey saw various radio airings and a legendary live session on Marc Riley's 6 Music show.

Musical mavericks Sparks are back with their 23rd studio album. One of their most accessible albums to date and a master class in pop songwriting

Jack Black and Kyle Glass release a 6 part series of animated videos, with one being released each Friday from September 28th. Each episode was hand drawn by Jack Black and every character voiced by Black/Glass. This new 21 track album is released by Columbia Records to accompany the animated videos and all tracks feature across the series. Formats are a single translucent green LP (initial pressing) and standard CD. Produced by John Spiker and features Dave Grohl on drums. Satellite TV ads. Online/social media activity. Ads, features and reviews across all press. Video plays across MTV/Vevo. Radio support across Kerrang and other rock music specialist shows. Poster campaign and database mailout.

Pouco após iniciar sua carreira com o notável “Grande Liquidação” (1968), Tom Zé provou que tinha repertório de qualidade para uma longeva carreira e lançou, em 1970, seu segundo disco, homônimo, que retorna às lojas em discos de 180 gramas pela coleção “Clássicos em Vinil”. A novidade é uma parceria da Polysom com a Som Livre.

Completando 50 anos em 2020, “Tom Zé” tem direção artística de João Araújo, além de arranjos assinados por Chiquinho de Morais, Lagna Fietta e Capacete. Gravado nos estúdios da Gazeta, em São Paulo, o disco traz em seu repertório clássicos como “Jimmy Renda-se” (Tom Zé/Valdez) e “Qualquer Bobagem” (Tom Zé/Mutantes). Os encartes originais, que foram mantidos e restaurados pela Polysom, trazem um curioso protesto que o artista fizera contra a Prefeitura de São Paulo. Na ocasião, o órgão ainda não havia pagado o prêmio em dinheiro que o artista ganhara com a música “São, São Paulo Meu Amor”, vencedora do Festival da Record de 1968 na categoria Júri Especial.
Além de "Tom Zé", fazem parte do catálogo da Polysom "A Grande Liquidação", "Todos os Olhos", "Estudando o Samba", "Correio da Estação do Bras" e "Se o Acaso é Chorar”.

Soul Jazz Records new 'Two Synths, A Guitar (and) A Drum Machine' is a new collection of current D-I-Y post-punk bands shaped by the mutant sounds of no wave, punk funk and New York Noise bands from the late 70s and early 80s that collided with the world of underground dance music found at the Paradise Garage, Mudd Club in New York City (ESG, Arthur Russell, Bush Tetras, Talking Heads, Suicide, Liquid Liquid). Other influences cited here include Manchester and Sheffield's industrial post-punk sounds of the 1980s (Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Gang of Four) as well as the 1970s German electronic experimentalism of Cluster, Neu!, Harmonia and Can. Featured artists from around the globe include Los Angeles D-I-Y band Automatic, New Fries from Toronto, artist/music collaborators Toresch from Germany, Susumu Makai from Japan/UK, VexRuffin from the Philippines/California and Madmadmad, Gramme, Tom of England and other UK groups. That all the bands featured here manage to make distinctive contemporary music out of these 80s roots is testament to the wide range of other musics that are seamlessly absorbed into a modern melting pot of sound - hip-hop, the electronic European avant-garde, rave culture, and more.

You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In, which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version). Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth

documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole

Over two years in the making, and it’s finally here. Amsterdam based, brand new old-school label “Betonska” kicks off with this highly diverse release for the selector, collector, radio host and club DJ.

Crisp instrumentation, tight retro drum computer programming and propulsive danceable bass lines are what you will find here. The Amsterdam based label will be focusing on previously unreleased and tough-to-find material from the 80s and 90s – all re-mastered, officially licensed and in collaboration with the original artist. In addition to the original material an occasional modern twist will be given by contemporary artists who cherish that signature sound.

The first release is an alternative issue of Flo Sullivan’s “Higher” release, originally recorded in 1984 in the world famous Amazon Studios in Liverpool and released in 1985. On the A-side both the 12” and the 7” version of the hard-to-get, firm synth-pop track “Higher” will be pressed on a loud 45rpm vinyl. The 12” version is the (bass-)heavier one, while the 7” version sounds more “organic” with an extended intro and an added horns part. The tracks on the A-side have been pressed before and are made available now again for the wider public, giving those tracks the recognition and attention they deserve.

The B-side focuses on previously unreleased original downtempo material by the same artist but released under her real name: Gayna Rose Madder. This, accompanied by a refreshing club-ready remix of one of those tracks by Vienna’s top-notch selector, producer and Neubau label owner: Heap.

Neither of the two original tracks “Over” and “Element” have ever been released on vinyl before, up until now. “Over” was written and recorded in 1983 in Splash Sound Studios in Liverpool. A beautiful melancholic synth-pop track, which was meant to be released, but unfortunately never saw the light of day. At the time it was recorded Gayna left her band “Shiny Two Shiny” and therefore needed a new deal from a different company for her solo releases. But by the time she found the right one, many newer songs needed release. Much later, in 2005, Gayna decided to self-release “Over” on a compilation CD to sell copies online.

“Element” is a spoken-word poem accompanied by a fire-crackling tribal kind of rhythm. It was written for a musical play and recorded in Sparks Studio Liverpool in 2004 and has never officially been released before. (For a short period it was available on a self-released CD on Gayna’s website; a compilation of the songs written for one of her musicals).

And last but not least, the icing on the cake is Heap’s remix of “Element”. He translated this spoken word poem into a refreshing 90s-style and danceable club-track to complete the diversity of Betonska’s first release. A chugging acid bass, breakbeat rhythms, crisp claps and sharp snares and a screeching lead synth to get you screaming on the dance floor.

Limited Edition LP.


High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk.

Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their language. Mine is not the knowledge of the traveler or the colonial composite of dear memories, words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge that which servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious. They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my tired eyes and I see them ever stripped,—ugly, human.

The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing,—a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. The Middle Age regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, emotional conversion has discovered that it is white and by that token, wonderful!

This assumption that of all the hues of God whiteness alone is inherently and obviously better than brownness or tan leads to curious acts; even the sweeter souls of the dominant world as they discourse with me on weather, weal, and woe are continually playing above their actual words an obligato of tune and tone, saying:

"My poor, un-white thing! Weep not nor rage. I know, too well, that the curse of God lies heavy on you. Why? That is not for me to say, but be brave! Do your work in your lowly sphere, praying the good Lord that into heaven above, where all is love, you may, one day, be born—white!"

I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly:

"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!

— W.E.B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920)

Limited Edition LP.

So that moving from the middle passage forward (and backward), as Jacques Roumaine said, from that “railroad of human bones . . . at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean,” one traced the very path and life and development, tragedy, and triumph of Black people. How they had been “removed” from Africa and had been transformed by this hideous “trip,” and by the context of their lives in the actual “West,” into a Western people. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Du Bois points out, the majority of us were “Americans.” (Here, a pause, for “canned” studio laughter!)

At each juncture, twist and turn, as Black people were transformed, so was their characteristic music. It became emphatically clear to me that by analyzing the music, you could see with some accuracy what and why that change had been. To reflect that “newer” them, which I later termed, in the book Black Music, “The Changing Same.” In the continuously contrasting contexts of their actual lives. My deep concentration on the continuing evidence of surviving “Africanisms” and parallels between African customs and philosophies, mores, etc., and the philosophies and their Afro-American continuum were to teach myself, and whoever, that Black people did not drop out of the sky, although, “fo’ sho’,” they continue to be, despite the wildest of ironies, the most American of Americans.

But for all the syncretic re-presentation and continuation of African mores and beliefs, even under the hideous wrap of chattel slavery (“many have suffered as much as Black people ... but none of them was real estate” –– Du Bois), there is one thing that I have learned, since the original writing of Blues People, that I feel must be a critical new emphasis not understood completely by me in the earlier text. That is, that the Africanisms are not limited to Black people, but indeed American Culture, itself, is shaped by and includes a great many Africanisms. So that American culture, in the real world, is a composite of African, European, and Native or Akwesasne cultures, history, and people. ...

Actually, Blues People is a beginning text. There is much work yet to be done to properly bring the music into the open light of international understanding and collective social development and use –– despite the massive commercial exploitation...*

— Amiri Baraka, Blues People: Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963)

*excerpt from the introduction of the 1999 First Quill edition by Amiri Baraka

Born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Alexander Molero is no stranger to the exotic idealism that westerners have towards South America. A move to Barcelona a few years ago gave him new notions of how the Amazon was imagined by the west. The inspiration for this record came from the book by Anton Goering "Vom tropischen Tieflande bis zum ewigen Schnee" and was also influenced by the writings of Victor Segalen and the visions of Werner Herzog in “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre”. The way that these artists explored and romanticised ideas of the unknown were the trigger for the creation of the sounds heard in “Ficciones Del Trópico".

Using a Yamaha CS-60 Synthesizer, Molero creates an enigmatic and utopian voyage inspired by the tropical and exotic desire of European’s first contact with these foreign and unexplored sites. For his first record, he wanted to create soundscapes for the wilderness reminiscent of the European explorers that faced the unknown and beyond of the Amazon forest in the 19th century. Eight pieces, 44 minutes, with titles referencing birds, animals and landscapes that simulate a continuous discovery.

The spirited patterns of the pieces invite you into Molero’s mind and to explore the way his imagination materialises into sound. Developed and recorded during 2017 and 2018, “Ficciones del Trópico” resonates references and soundscapes that Molero has conceptualised over the last decade.

The constant structure and rhythms created a unique – and continuous – sound-aesthetic. Molero’s tropical fiction is like diving into the sea with Jürgen Müller, exploring Alpha Centauri with Tangerine Dream or building new exotica through the lens of Mike Cooper. But this time everything happens in a jungle.

RECORD STORE DAY 2021 TITLE!!!
The Bruisers - Singles collection 1989-1997 - Vinyl re-issue - long out of print now available once again on limited collector's classic black double vinyl!!

Here is one of the most sought after Turkish records.

Really a rare single from Turkey.

Turkish psych folk-rock sound with killer electric saz/fuzz heavy funk single from 1975.

Remastered sound, arranged by Zafer Dilek.

Heavy psych insanity from 1989, featuring MONSTER MAGNET founding members John McBain, Dave Wyndorf and Tim Cronin plus Shaune Kelley (Ripping Corpse) and Joe Paone (hellSausage). Long tracks with raw & in your face lo-fi sound, wall of fuzz-wah guitars, caveman drums, echo-laden treated vocals… As John McBain said: “We sounded like Amon Düül with Uli Jon Roth sitting in”.

Originally released as a private cassette on Tim Cronin’s Cool Beans “label”, here’s the first ever “real” release. Insert with liner notes by Plastic Crimewave.

Unearthed by Steve Krakow aka Plastic Crimewave, the Acid Reich cassette is a cool testimony of the origins of Monster Magnet and the Cool Beans label, a vehicle for McBain, Cronin and Wyndorf to experiment with homemade four-track cassette recordings, influenced by their love for 60s garage / freakbeat sounds and 70s space / hard-rock.

Using a couple of four-track cassette recorders plus an array of vintage Orange & Ampeg amps, fuzz and echoplex pedals, Danelectro guitars, etc, many fake bands and side projects were created, some of them recorded between rehearsals of their “main band”, Dog of Mystery (pre-Monster Magnet). Acid Reich was born when they decided to record something “very heavy, weird and raw”. They recruited a couple of friends, Shaune Kelley (a top guitar player who was also a member of death/trash metal band Ripping Corpse) and drummer Joe Paone (of experimental / noise solo project hellSausage). The result was “Mistress Of The Perpetual Harvest”, a cassette comprised of four long tracks (including a freaked out cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set The Controls From The Heart Of The Sun”). Limited to 300 copies on black vinyl.

“A couple of mics thrown up in the rehearsal room + some free time= Acid Reich, the Cool Beans Super Group. What a fucking lo-fi mess.” – Tim Cronin

“We will sacrifice Puff The Magic Dragon to the great God, Sandoz, while speeches by the founding fathers, Leary, Owsley, and Hoffman fill every home with the power of the Revolution. Heil Sandoz. Long live the Reich.” -Greg Chapman (Ugly American fanzine).

A Holy Grail item for psychedelic pop aficionados, Forever Amber’s The Love Cycle is, along with Dark and the first Complex album, one of a triumvirate of must-have private pressings from the UK.

Sounding like a blend of Pet Sounds and Odessey & Oracle but with a charming, homemade, lo-fi vibe, The Love Cycle was a concept album masterminded by talented songwriter / arranger John M. Hudson (a kind of Brian Wilson figure), who found in Cambridge band Forever Amber the perfect vehicle for his songwriting ideas.

The Love Cycle was recorded in the summer of 1968 at a makeshift studio, located in the basement of a music shop. Consisting of a song-suite revolving around the meeting, courtship and break-up of a young couple, the result was a stunning album filled with heavenly vocal harmonies, electric harpsichord and memorable hooks, including some intense psychedelic moments (the heavy phasing of “The Dreamer Flies Back” and more).

Released in 1969 as a private edition of 99 copies, The Love Cycle remained buried until its discovery in the late 80s by psychedelic collectors.

Bootlegged several times, the first official reissue came in 2007 thanks to David Wells / Tenth Planet.

Out of print for several years, we’re thrilled to offer a new vinyl reissue of this essential psych album.

*Original artwork in backflaps sleeve.

*Includes colour insert with rare photos and detailed liner notes by David Wells.

RIYL: ZOMBIES, BEATLES, BEACH BOYS, LEFT BANKE, HONEYBUS, BEE GEES…


“One of the dozen best British pop albums of the late Sixties” – Mojo

“Forever Amber’s The Love Cycle, though, resides in a secret garden all of its own, bursting with unfettered melodic glee and the pop experimentation prevalent in the provinces in 1968.”
- Bob Stanley (The Times)

“…There are more memorable musical hooks per inch on this album than any other record I've heard…” – Stan Denski

Knotpop is a revelatory lost album of deviant new wave from San Fransisco duo Ixna. Like Brian Eno and The Flying Lizards, the album is a sideways and inverted take on pop music. Jay Cloidt and Marina La Palma were students of David Behrman and Robert Ashley at Mills College, inspired by their infamously irreverent faculty to nudge the avant-garde out of its stuffy tweed and into something more exciting, something clad in denim & leather. Recorded at the Center For Contemporary Music at Mills in 1981, the album combines Cloidt's studio wizardry, sampling abilities and vibrant bass with La Palma’s expressive vocals, and love of made-up and invented languages (Esperanto). Ixna only released one 7" during that time, featuring two songs from this unrealized album, which became sought after over the decades. The discovery of Knotpop will feel like manna from heaven for previous fans, and a welcome addition to the cannon of avant-inverted-pop ur-classics by Suicide, impLOG, Naffi, General Strike, Thick Pigeon and UnknownMix. Concentric Circles is honoured to present Knotpop to the world for the first time. Mastered from the original reels, DMM pressing.

Mick Jagger is set to release a double A side of 2 new tracks, 'Gotta Get A Grip' & 'England Lost', on Friday 21 July.
There will be no pre-awareness/pre-order for this release, we will be dropping it as a 'surprise' letting the lyrics and creative speak for themselves.
The project is a solo Mick Jagger singles release.
There will be a video for both tracks with a known lead actor in each.
'Gotta Get A Grip' will be the focus track.

From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese
Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it
‘Jubilee’. After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time
- a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor.
Zauner’s first two albums garnered acclaim for the way they
grappled with anguish; ‘Psychopomp’ was written as her mother
underwent cancer treatment, while ‘Soft Sounds From Another
Planet’ took the grief she held from her mother’s death and used it
as a conduit to explore the cosmos.
Now, at the start of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to
fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly
crumbling world.
‘Jubilee’ finds Michelle Zauner embracing ambition and, with it, her
boldest ideas and songs yet. Inspired by records like Bjork’s
‘Homogenic’, Zauner delivers bigness throughout - big ideas, big
textures, colours, sounds and feelings. At a time when virtually
everything feels extreme, ‘Jubilee’ sets its sights on maximal joy,
imagination and exhilaration. It is, in Michelle Zauner’s words, “a
record about fighting to feel. I wanted to re-experience the pure,
unadulterated joy of creation… The songs are about recalling the
optimism of youth and applying it to adulthood. They’re about
making difficult choices, fighting ignominious impulses and
honoring commitments, confronting the constant struggle we have
with ourselves to be better people.”
Throughout ‘Jubilee’, Zauner pours her own life into the universe
of each song to tell real stories and allowing those universes, in
turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution - these things take
real time and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it.
Available on clear with yellow swirl coloured vinyl.

Squid announce their debut album, ‘Bright Green Field’, already one of 2021’s most highly anticipated releases.
Produced by Dan Carey, ‘Bright Green Field’ is an album of towering scope and ambition, it is deeply considered, paced and intricately constructed. With all band members playing such a vital and equal role, this album is very much the product of five heads operating as one.
Some bands might be tempted to include previous singles on their debut - and the band already released two more in 2020 via ‘Sludge’ and ‘Broadcaster’ - but instead ‘Bright Green Field’ is completely new. This sense of limitlessness and perpetual forward motion is one of the key ingredients that makes Squid so loved by fans and critics alike, from 6 Music, who have A-Listed previous singles ‘Houseplants’, ‘The Cleaner’ and ‘Match Bet’, to publications such as The Guardian, NME, The Face, The Quietus and countless others. The band was also on the longlist for the BBC Music Sound Of 2020 poll.
‘Bright Green Field’ features field recordings of ringing church bells, tooting bees, microphones swinging from the ceiling orbiting a room of guitar amps and a distorted choir of 30 voices, as well as a horn and string ensemble featuring the likes of Emma-Jean Thackray and Lewis Evans from Black Country, New Road.
Squid’s music - be it agitated and discordant or groove-locked and flowing - has often been a reflection of the tumultuous world we live in and this continues that to some extent. “This album has created an imaginary cityscape,” says Ollie Judge, who writes the majority of the lyrics and plays drums. “The tracks illustrate the places, events and architecture that exist within it. Previous projects were playful and concerned with characters, whereas this project is darker and more concerned with place - the emotional depth of the music has deepened.”
For all the innovative recording techniques, evolutionary leaps, lyrical
themes, ideas and narratives that underpin the album, it’s also a joyous and emphatic record. One that marries the uncertainties of the world with a curious sense of exploration as it endlessly twists and turns down unpredictable avenues.

HELL ist ein neues, 61-minütiges Album von die ärzte und erscheint am 23. Oktober 2020 als CD und auf
181-Gramm-Doppelvinyl.

Sixteen unheard works from Mexican jazz synesthete, Germán Bringas. Bringas plays with a delicate balance between experiment & pastoral spaciousness, sounding like Coltrane scoring a Tarkovsky film. To Accompany this release, we’ve made a documentary about Germán’s life.

Tunel Hacia Tí (Tunnel Toward You) is a collection of early compositions by Germán Bringas of Portales, Mexico City. This album features songs from his lost cassette ambient jazz opus, "Caminatas" (Hikes), it’s spiritual successor, "Exposción Al Vacio" (Vacuum Exposure), and unreleased works created between '91-'00. Every instrument heard on this release was played by Bringas, and recorded in a studio in the back of his home.

Germán’s pieces are informed by his synesthetic experience. As he plays, he witnesses color coordinating with each note. His earliest experience of this cross-sensory ability came from playing his parents piano when he was young. Exploring the keys, a spectrum of color presented itself, and he began searching for colors he preferred. He discovered an enticing shade of blue, which unbeknownst to him at the time, was a jazz chord. In the following years, he attended school at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música and was classically trained in piano and composition. The Conservatorio was extremely demanding, and didn’t appreciate his innate talents to play by ear. He was fed up with the indoctrinating way they taught, which coincided with a lecture he attended by Carlos Casteñeda. Inspired by the teachings, he left school behind to start a group with his friends to practice meditative exercises loosely based off Casteñeda’s Tensegrity movements to expand the body and mind. His friends and he spent years going into the woods and training as quasi-disciples of the Castañedian path. In those times, Germán developed a new approach to music, letting go of the formality of his classical training, and rediscovering his childhood experience to play from feeling. Learning trumpet, saxophone, and native Mexican instruments all to his own design, he followed his synesthetic experience to guide his compositions. He was compelled to record the discoveries he was making, so he produced a string of cassettes, only enough to pass around to friends & local collectors.

In his earliest works, you can hear the influence of his time spent in the tranquility of the woods colliding with the frenzy of the city he grew up in. Combining inspiration he obtained from ECM Records virtuosos, Mexican Rock-in-opposition, visionary jazz artists, and otherworldly sci-fi films like Blade Runner and Stalker, his songs ebb and flow between serene synths and chaotic bursts of emotive horns. In addition to these compositions, he started an experimental music club in his house in Portales called Jazzorca. At Jazzorca, which is still running to this day, he would share his pensive movements with a small group of dedicated music lovers. Germán truly created a world of his own through these works, and his sound is singular when held up to Mexican music from the same era.

Currently, Germán makes drums out of propane tanks in his backyard, he produces experimental CDs under his own label, and plays live regularly at Jazzorca. You might catch him strolling through his neighborhood in Portales at sunset, soaking in the influence of the city sounds and their associated colors he witnesses.

Events currently taking place throughout the world only serve to stoke a fire under the likes of Pillow Queens, who find themselves continually inspired by a Dublin that is no stranger to fighting social injustice. Street artists, fashion designers, musicians, film makers and more comprise a scene which routinely champions queerness and marginalized groups, and engages with and activates young people in response to the likes of the city’s ongoing housing and mental health crises. Pillow Queens’ songs of togetherness and unity ring out louder than ever before.

In their short lifespan as a band they've released two demo EPs, performed on a successful string of UK & Irish dates & festival appearances, had playlisting from BBC 6 Music, and found themselves opening for the likes of American Football and Pussy Riot, as well as stadium performances opening for IDLES and Future Islands.

With all this under their belt, the band began working with Mercury Prize nominated producer Tommy McLaughlin for their single 'Gay Girls' – which received a nomination for the RTE Choice Music Prize song of the year, as well as International pickup from NPR’s World Cafe and KEXP. The song also found its way into the heart of actor Cillian Murphy and his BBC6 mixtape show.

2019 saw Pillow Queens venture into mainland Europe, as they lit up the Eurosonic festival and completed a string of tour dates opening for Soak. The tour was a messy and joyous affair captured beautifully in the DIY video for the bands summer single 'HowDoILook'.

In Waiting is Pillow Queens’ debut album, the result of four years of brotherly love in a sisterly unit from Ireland’s most urgent, yearning, rock band. Crafted from our lives, and honed in a studio in rural Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, this is a record by queens in waiting and kings in the making. It’s an album about love; self-love, queer love, the anxiety-inducing fault lines of romantic love, and the love for a city and a country that simultaneously has your back and is on your back.

In October 2019, RY X stepped on stage at the Royal Albert Hall and completed a lifetime ambition. Not only was he performing in one of the most historic and dazzling venues in the world, but his tremulous voice and stark emotional songwriting was complemented by the London Contemporary Orchestra.

It was a special, once-in-a-lifetime event that has been documented in the album which will be released on digital formats on January 15th via Infectious Music / BMG.

This will be released on a limited edition maroon smoke-effect double vinyl in gatefold sleeve on Friday 14th May 2021.

'Music For Theatre And Dance – Volume Two' is the second in a small series of EPs that will focus on music which was initially created for or inspired by dance and performance. Created as a dialogue with the avant-garde and highly experimental work in dance, theatre and art evolving at the time, the music was in turn at times greatly innovative.

That it was created for a dance or performance though means that such music was also often highly rhythmic and a number of pieces from this time stand out and seem greatly deserving of a new context.

Whether it's more ambient or atmospheric works or whether it's in the more rhythmic or percussive pieces, Music From Memory brings together another selection of tracks that aims to highlight this highly innovative direction in music.

Fueled By Ramen will be reissuing one seminal album from our 25- year history each month throughout the calendar year of 2021. For April 2021, we will be releasing Paramore’s second studio album ‘Riot!’ on silver vinyl.

Official repress of Love & Regret, the long out-of-print 2012 debut album from LA-based post punk outfit Cold Showers.

Cold Showers, a unit formed in Los Angeles, CA in 2010, fuses the brash power of their shoegaze predecessors with the smoky compulsions of accessible synth pop standards. Cold Showers fits comfortably within the dusty catalog of Factory Records, if only for their modern interpretation of the romantic isolation that signified that long past era. Piston-precision rhythms and angular guitar patterns that drive along songs such as “Alight” and “BC” sit comfortably alongside the opposing raucous-tinged tracks such as “I Don’t Mind” and “Seminary”. This is the pervasive pop mode against which Cold Showers cast themselves. Versatile, memorable and romantically wistful are all common themes that listeners relate to when diving into Love & Regret.

Looking back on the past seven years and the album’s ultimate impact, Love and Regret created and solidified the band’s stark identity in a single, well crafted release. While their early singles on Art Fag & Mexican Summer introduced listeners to Cold Showers simply as a band, Love & Regret debuted the group as something to be taken more seriously. Songs that are intended to be personally unpacked with the listener’s pleasure and heartbreak as personal reminders of more innocent times.

The story of Seattle's rise to global rock supremacy in the late 80s and early 90s begins with Green River. Made up of Jeff Ament (bass), Mark Arm (guitar/vocals), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar) and Alex Shumway (drums), the
quintet put out three 12's and a 7' single during its brief existence.
Green River's influence on Seattle's music scene spread far and wide thanks to the members' dispersion into bands including Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Love Battery, as well as the punk glam sludge rock songs they left behind. 'By '83, '84, there was
definitely a movement that was happening within hardcore, like Black Flag slowing down for My War,' says Arm. 'The Replacements and Butthole Surfers were rearing
their heads, and they're very different bands, but they're not hardcore - the Replacements are pretty much straight-up rock, and Butthole Surfers were God knows what. Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising was around, and a lot of really
interesting post-hardcore things were happening.'
Green River, formed in 1984, were part of that evolution, with a sound that straddled a lot of different genres - blues, punk, bloozy straight-ahead rock. The mini-LP 'Dry As A Bone' - which came out in 1987 - and the band's lone full-length
'Rehab Doll' - which came out in 1988 - were released as a single CD with a few bonus cuts, including their sneering cover of David Bowie's 'Queen Bitch' and their marauding version of Dead Boys' 'Ain't Nothin' to Do', in 1990 - but they've been
unavailable on vinyl for years.
Now, these slices of Seattle music history are not only back in print, they're accompanied by items from the vaults that had been forgotten about for decades.
'Dry As A Bone' was recorded at Jack Endino's Reciprocal Recording in 1986 and it shows the band in furious form, with Arm's yowl battling Fairweather and Gossard's
ferocious guitar playing on 'This Town' and 'Unwind' opening as a slow bluesy grind then jump-starting itself into a hyperactive chase. The deluxe edition includes Green
River's cuts from the crucial Seattle-scene compilation 'Deep Six', as well as long-lost songs that were recorded to the now-archaic format Betamax.
'Rehab Doll', recorded largely at Seattle's Steve Lawson Studios., bridges the gap between the taut, punky energy of 'Dry As A Bone' and the bigger drums and thicker
riffs that were coming to dominate rock in the late 80s. This new edition of 'Rehab Doll' includes a version of 'Swallow My Pride' recorded to 8-track at Endino's Reciprocal Recording, which features a more accurate depiction of how the band
sounded when they played live. 'When I listen to these mixes, I think, 'This is how we actually sounded - this is the kind of energy we had,'' says Shumway.
Green River's place in American music history is without question but these recordings paint a more complete picture of the band - and of rock in the mid to late 80s, when punk's faster-and-louder ideals had begun shape-shifting into other ideas.
CDs in digipack with 12-page booklet. 2LP formats in gatefold jacket with custom dust sleeve and digital download code.

Gatefold, best of Kopplung der RCA 70er

Reissue on vinyl of the 2006 collection of PJ Harvey sessions with the late BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, spanning recordings from the start of her career in 1991 up to 2004. Reissue is faithful to the original recording and package, with cutting by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of longtime PJ Harvey producer John Parish.

*This is the 2nd edition (does not come with original fold out insert)* 1 sided LP, comes with an additional info card. Another stunning extraction from the hallowed archive of late Serbian musician, Mitar Subotic (AKA Suba). Here the 'King Of Illusions' demonstrates the art of burial and reveal over an expansive 23 minutes. A master mix. Date of recording unknown (It sounds like his mid/late 80s output, but this unconfirmed).

'J. Spaceman recorded this strange record at his own Amazing Grace Studio in June 2005.

Hard to describe in words, it contains elements of systems musics with gamelan-like overtones. Looped cells are contained within longer improvisations, forcing the listener to engage with and make some order from the insistent chaos.

Music without precedent or tradition- a perfect companion piece to the new Spiritualized LP.'