Pop & Rock News

Bob Dylan and Tom Petty formed one of the most legendary live pairings of the 1980s. On this superb set, live together at the Entertainment Centre, Sydney Australia in 1986, broadcast on KSAN-FM, Petty's band, the Heartbreakers, are polished to brilliance, while Dylan's delivery is flawless on every song. Taking in a cross-section of classic material by both headliners, it's presented here in superb fidelity, and comes with background notes, images and a bonus CD.

Tom Petty's greatest hits from performances in 1989 and two bonus tracks from 1986.

Tom Petty was at the peak of his career and fast becoming a cornerstone of American blue-collar rock as well as an MTV regular. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' 1989 Strange Behaviour tour found the band in somewhat troubled territory promoting what was Petty's acclaimed debut solo album Full Moon Fever, a collaborative effort that involved most of The Heartbreakers and ELO's Jeff Lynne. To add to the discomfort, Petty and Lynne were also cavorting to great success as the Travelling Wilburys with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and George Harrison.
The Heartbreakers gave an energetic and charged performance showing that the band were still very much intact and in control, teasing the crowd with a selection of their revered repertoire spanning eight albums and thirteen years of all-American appeal.
Rox Vox proudly presents Tom Petty's Greatest Hits, featuring tracks performed live at the Dean E. Smith Activity Center, Colorado on 13th September 1989, originally broadcast on WBCN-FM, providing an abundance of well-known hits to satisfy even the most hardened spectator with, Refugee, Breakdown, The Waiting, Don't Come Around Here No More, Free Fallin', an acoustic take on Even The Losers and his then current single, I Won't Back Down. This release celebrates the blistering career and life of the late Tom Petty as well as highlighting two bonus tracks performed live with the legendary Bob Dylan from 1986, All Along The Watchtower and Knockin' On Heaven's Door in 1986. It's presented here in superb fidelity and comes with background notes and images.

First single off the forthcoming David Kitt LP - Yous. His first solo LP in 9 years is preceded by a four track 10 inch - Still Don't Know'. The title track sits alongside three non LP tracks. A special LP recorded with no pressure whatsoever with this record,' according to the artist No label or manager, or anyone breathing down my neck. I was happy to wait as long as it took to have the right 10 songs'.

The last number of years have seen him touring and recording as a member of Tindersticks, producing other musicians' work, exploring techno, disco, and house under his New Jackson moniker, remixing everyone from Shit Robot to The XX, and producing intriguing, eclectic DJ sets and radio shows.

All of these experiences have been brought to bear on his forthcoming LP which mingles a sense of freedom and calm reflection, with an independent impulse.

The Levellers decided they wanted to do something a bit different with their back catalogue to kick off celebrations for their 30th anniversary year in 2018. They brought in a string section and enlisted legendary producer John Leckie (Radiohead, The Stone Roses) to help develop new acoustic arrangements for eight of their previous singles including Liberty, Hope Street and One Way which they recorded straight to tape at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios.

They also recorded two brand new songs 'The Shame' and 'Drug Bust McGee' and the result is 10 track album 'We The Collective' which will be released on Deluxe CD and Vinyl on 09 March 2018 on the band's own On The Fiddle Recordings label. Lead singer Mark Chadwick says The different musicians, producer and the studio combined to make something really special'.

Levellers head out on a full Acoustic Tour in the Spring where they be playing the new arrangements, with guest musicians, starting at Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival. They will play at the Roundhouse in London as part of the In The Round festival as well as a number of theatres and concert halls around the country. Support on the tour comes from Ginger Wildheart on all dates except Glasgow & London. Despite only just being announced, the tickets for Preston, Milton Keynes and Winchester have already sold out.

Rifles and Rosary Beads is a brand new collection of songs by Mary Gauthier, co-written with U.S. veterans and their families, through Songwriting With Soldiers, a non-profit organization that pairs US veterans with professional songwriters. These songs are a glimpse inside the hearts and souls of both male and female soldiers, and their spouses. An emotionally honest song can dislodge a seemingly frozen trauma story, thaw it, and release some of the infection. Through song, the dominant story of a person's life can be written in a way that others can relate to. This happens not by trying to write a healing' song but through vulnerability. In this way, a song then becomes a step beyond the self, towards others who perhaps have felt the same way. Powered by alchemy, the songs can then make beauty out of the beast, and change lives. Every song on this record gives the listener a glimpse into the veteran's personal experiences, showing their insides, on the outside. Veteran's songs inevitably end up as prayers for love and peace. The process of writing them is deeply therapeutic, but it's not therapy. It is the making of art.
Mary Gauthier has received countless critical accolades over the last decade and a half for her seven studio albums and captivating live performances. Her previous album Trouble & Love was praised by the press, including glowing coverage from outlets including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, NPR Music, Huffington Post, American Songwriter and many more.

First Word kicks off 2018 with the welcome return of Quiet Dawn, and a new EP, 'Human Being: The Short Story of The Reed'. A suitably ice-thawing six-track opus to compliment the change of seasons, dedicated to the winter blooming plant's desire to be human.

Parisian Will Galland first appeared on the label in late 2014, releasing his debut album 'The First Day' the following year. Collaborations on that album and subsequent mixes since have included offerings from Oddisee, Miles Bonny, Eric Lau, Bastien Keb, Sauce81 (Eglo), Mayaka McCraven and Sarah Williams White.

Evolving his music from a palette accumulated over the years of Hip Hop, Broken Beat and House, he has expanded his talents for arranging and composing, and now drafted in a wealth of musicians for this sublime new EP, his most ambitious yet. Strings glide effervescently atop of Quiet Dawn's assorted analogue synths, and an array of percussive organics combine to build the tale of The Reed. In-places, the set transcends into the kind of grooves that saunter somewhere between the land of Bonobo and Quantic, and the cinematic library record craft of Alan Hawkshaw et al. Deep, organic and epic.

"The reed from the earth and waters,
Human by the flesh and bones,
Bring by the love and others,
Now, you're not alone."

Each track of the EP tells a different chapter of the story. In the words of Quiet Dawn, "This record is about human behaviour, relationships, happiness, sadness, peace, anger, sex, love, birth, death... But as viewed by The Reed. The Reed is a plant that wants to be human, after observing them all around her. Over the course of the record, The Reed evolves and desires to feel feelings, gradually learning that becoming human is not so simple... ."

Also with artwork by Sophie Bass and Grégoire Marty, this glorious six-track vinyl and digital EP is released February 2018 on First Word Records.

Quality pressing / hand-made sleeve + English-Japanese liner notes.

- Second collaboration release of EM + Meditations (Kyoto)
- A collection of his early recordings mostly issued on 78rpm SP which are even difficult to hear
- First release outside of India and the first-time ever reissue in worldwide
- Biographical note in English

LP vesion: split on track 8 & track 9

In the spring of 1962, folk music manager Albert Grossman began to take an active interest in Dylan. He proposed that Dylan sign with the prestigious publisher M. Witmark & Sons. Dylan signed a contract with Witmark on July 12 and immediately recorded a demo of what would become his breakthrough song, "Blowin' in the Wind". Four months passed before Dylan returned to record another song, "Ye Playboys and Playgirls", but the next month, in December, he showed up with many new compositions, including three that would become classics of his, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Ballad of Hollis Brown", and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time". All of Dylan's 1962 demos for Witmark are reproduced here on Wax Love.

Official Mr Bongo reissue. Replica original artwork, including the insert with listening instructions, in Spanish and English.
Luis Pérez was born in Mexico City on July 11, 1951. From 1971 onwards he dedicated much of his time to the research of pre-Columbian instrumentation.
This research that allowed him to travel the Mexican territory and study musical traditions of the native peoples of Mexico. He learned directly from the living sources of the music and collected samples of musical instruments and the songs of different native speakers including Maya, Nahuatl, Mazateco, Yoemem, Comcaac, Raramuri, Wixarika and more. His personal collection of native Mexican instruments includes ethnographic instruments still in use by ethnic groups, along with archaeological artifacts some of which are more than 2,000 years old. He continuously utilises these instruments in performances, concerts, lectures, exhibitions and recordings, in a sense, keeping them alive.
Following a decade playing in Mexico City's psychedelic rock scene, his early solo work was a mixture of sounds derived from his vast array of pre-Hispanic and ethnographic wind and percussions which he managed to blend with electronic devices including tape delay units, electric guitars and synthesisers. During this time, he was given the name 'Ixoneztli' (or one who makes music') by the legendary 'curandera' Pachita and her son Enrique, to whom, like Alejandro Jodorowsky before him, Luis served as assistant.

In 1981, the Mexican government became very interested Pérez work and sponsored the production of what became the first recording of the fusion of native mexican instruments with electronics - entitled 'Ipan In Xiktli Metztli,' in the Nahuatl language, or 'En el Ombligo de la Luna' in Spanish... 'In the Navel
of the Moon.' The impact of this recording and subsequent performances among media, ethnomusicologists and audiences alike established Luis Perez 'Ixoneztli' as a precursor to a new musical genre followed by a generation of young Mexican
musicians - Ethno-Rock, Ethno-Jazz, Ethno-Experimental and the like. 'El Ombligo de la Luna' reaches us from deep in the past but it also exists entirely outside of time, as Luis Pérez 'Ixoneztli''s offering to the world - the soul of Mexico channeled through the hands of a master musician.

Rock'n'roll was born in the Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, then it's arguable it came of age on the street corners of New York's Bronx district where city kids like Dion DiMucci belted out songs with only their bandmates' voices for company. The influence Dion had on the Beatles and many others was recognised in 1989 when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Those early songs (an amazing 18 Hot 100 hits in three years) ensured he could always make a living on the oldies circuit, but he continued to attempt to reinvent himself. Despite his reign as a chart-topping star may have been brief, but the influence of the doo-wop music contained on this LP was incalculable: listen, marvel and enjoy.

One of the most influential artists from the southern parts of the United States is undoubtedly Lead Belly. Gifted with the ability to write thought provoking lyrics, he became a true master of the folk and blues scene. The list of artists that have paid tribute to him by covering his songs is endless, among these are Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Animals, Bruce Springsteen and Lonnie Donegan to name but a few. Although many people are familiar with Lead Belly's songs, only few know the true story of the interesting person behind them.

Maya Deren (1917-1961) was a Russian-American filmmaker and one of the most important voices in avant-garde cinema of the mid-20th century. When she decided, between the end of the 40s and the beginning of the 50s, to make an ethnographic film in Haiti, she was criticized for abandoning the avant-garde film world where she had made her place, but she was ready to expand to a new level as an artist. Deren not only filmed, recorded and photographed many hours of voodoo ritual, but also participated in the ceremonies. It was in working on this film that Deren recorded the Haitian musicians found on these sides originally released in the very early days of Elektra records. 'Voices Of Haiti' (here repressed as a 12" with new mastering) -a beautiful artifact of percussion and chant heavy ritual music- is one of the earliest and best Western ethnographic documents of voodoo culture in Haiti. It is unmissable both for its historical value and for the beauty and spiritual power of the music it contains.

The pop contains on this compilation is timeless - 18 stories of teenage angst that can still stir emotions in the Facebook age. Don and Phil Everly brought another dimension to pop music, not only in their distinctive vocal harmonies but also in addressing the concerns of school-age American teenagers. While Elvis Presley bellowed his raw desires like the bluesmen of old, the brothers from a musical Kentucky family expressed the feelings of being
caught between an eternal triangle of school rules, parental expectation and a growing interest in the opposite sex.

Limited Edition Yellow Vinyl

Have You ever seen this It's one of the rarest rock & roll records ever made!

"Calm Before... remains one of the finest and most important LPs by a US '60s group, never mind one that was still attending high school when it was released on the privately-pressed Remnant label. From a cache of moody ballads to highly-charged, all-out flashing teen rock, everything here is broodingly and sensationally played out, including highly-personalised covers of Love's 'Message To Pretty', 'In The Midnight Hour' and The Remains' gold-plated nugget 'Don't Look Back'. The album's mix of deep beat-pop introspection and thoroughly intense modern R&B-instigated rock remains unique among most of their peers' long-play outings, and thus played a big part in the inordinately strong pull the group would have on many young '60s-fixated longhairs in the '80s and '90s.' - Shindig Magazine


This deluxe limited edition, original mono issue of an unfathomably rare garage LP, is accurately mastered, pressed on colored vinyl and packaged with a poster in a gatefold jacket, with unseen photos from the band's personal archive!

300 yellow vinyl repress, the original black vinyl sold out.
Starting out as a recording project between Angus Lord, Claudia Serfaty and Stephanie Hughes, the germ of what would eventually become the Stroppies was formed around a kitchen table in Melbourne's inner west early 2016. The initial idea was to create open ended music, collaged quickly and haphazardly together on a Tascam 4 track Portastudio that drew on stream of consciousness creativity and a DIY attitude a la Guided By Voices and The Great Unwashed. The desire to move beyond the pre programmed drum patterns available on their Casio Keyboard led to the addition of Rory Heane on drums and a more conventional band dynamic. In Late 2016, Alex Macfarlane recorded the band in their lounge room direct to 4 track, capturing 7 songs that would become their 2017 self titled cassette tape debut. The songs were bounced back and forth from tape machine to computer to tape machine to computer again. In keeping with the bands initial aesthetic, dubs were laid over a 4 month period incrementally on different devices as members had babies, explored intercontinental love affairs and set up homes together. Since the release of the tape, Adam Hewwit has joined the group on third guitar as they settle down into exploring the new band dynamic and focus on their next recording project. The Stroppies is composed of members of many Melbourne and UK bands (Claudia is originally from London) including Dick Diver, Primetime, Possible Humans, White Walls, Boomgates, The Stevens, See/Saw to name a few. They make modest, idiosyncratic pop songs that reward with repeated listening.

Even though the original recordings are crackly and in low fidelity (but also deeply charming) it seemed necessary to repress this record for its immense historiographic value. Here these recordings are made available with new mastering, in as clear fidelity as possible. Fans of Indian classical music will no doubt know the name Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan. He founded the Kirana gharana musical family with his cousin Abdul Karim Khan in late 19th century, which was one of the most prolific and revered gharanas in Hindustani classical music. A celebrated singer and sarangi player, Khan forbade recording of any of his performances to avoid imitation by other singers. Only these 3 pieces survived, recorded in secret for a radio broadcast in 1947, just 2 years before the singer's death. A truly stunning document that is essential to understanding the modern era of Hindustani classical music, whose influential reach is immeasurable.

Southend quartet Ghost Music release their evocative debut album I Was Hoping You'd Pass By Here via Arlen on 19 January. They create careful, considered songs, weaving lo-fi lullabies with gliding guitars and understated arrangements. Influenced by Silver Jews, Flying Nun and K Records, they explore themes of nature, love, loss and a melancholic English romanticism embellished with beautifully spectral melodies and executed with startling subtlety.

Despite this record being their debut, the band has produced a veritable wealth of music over the past 20 years in various guises. Ghost Music revolves around the songwriting partnership of Matt Randall and Lee Hall, who had played together in the 90s with John Peel favourites Beatglider. More recently Randall has received critical acclaim as Plantman, with his three albums Closer to the Snow, Whispering Trees and To The Lighthouse receiving praise from The Guardian, Uncut and Mojo. When Randall and Hall reunited to collaborate on another album together, they brought in the talents of Roy Thirlwall on bass (Melodie Group) and Leighton Jennings on drums (Dark Globes) to complete the band.

The original idea would be that the songs would be 'ghosts' and create 'ghost music' to resurrect and dust off old songs that they had already started. Lee had found the beginnings of 'Home Dog' on a dusty old 4-track and he had recorded 'Strange Love' on his iPhone in 2014, whilst Matt had written 'My Cloud' as far back as 1997 (the night he moved out of his parents' house). As the album began to take shape, the ghostly premise took a back seat, as they began to breathe new life into the songs they found the impetus to write new ones.

Randall explains the songwriting process; 'When we were in Beatglider together and in the past we'd made a 'thing' out of writing long songs with a lot of changes. This time we pared it back a bit and stuck to the melodies more. We really wanted to make a proper guitar record. Lee's my favourite guitarist and it was lovely to see him stretch out on these songs with his diamond fingers.'

Not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves, Ghost Music's sound is instantly familiar, echoing beloved bands from the 90s such as Pavement ('Home Dog' has a definite 'Range Life' feel), Galaxie 500 ('Blindspot'), Yo La Tengo ('Heart Shaped Holiday' is influenced by the languid YLT songs that peak after a short intro) and even old-school rock'n'roll ('Strange Love' was born out of an appreciation for the instantly engaging opening riff in 50s songs). Yet Ghost Music's work never feels derivative, being instead effortlessly emotive, melancholic and affecting, creating a world of sound that is hugely reassuring and a tonic for the modern age.

Vinyl reissue of the quickly sold-out cassette by North Carolina based 12-string guitarist and multi instrumentalist Sarah Louise. Field Guide is her first solo record before releasing a solo record on VDSQ and her debut duo album with Sally Anne Morgan (Black Twig Pickers) as House And Land on Thrill Jockey earlier this year.

In the fertile terrain of New Zealand's 1980s post-punk scene, few figures loom as large as the Jefferies brothers. Graeme Jefferies and Peter Jefferies - the primary forces behind This Kind of Punishment - wrote some of the best music to come out on Flying Nun, Xpressway or elsewhere. A dizzying mix of pastoral ballads and DIY experimentation, TKP's songwriting was at once classic and acutely raw.

On their self-titled debut, the Jefferies brothers and Chris Matthews eschew the punk-informed modes of their contemporaries for a sound that is decidedly more deliberate / intimate. Rooted in a marriage between simplistic, classically-influenced piano, alternating guitar chime and sparse, subtle violin drone, This Kind Of Punishment is a contemplative, inventive collection of ideas corralled via economic 4-track recordings, minimal instrumentation and an austere performance style entirely of the Jefferies' own making. Songs like "After The Fact," "In View Of The Circumstances" and "Two Minutes Drowning" boast a living quality whereby the listener can act as bystander to these moments of creation - a trait that the band would expand upon throughout the course of their brief tenure.

First-time vinyl reissue since its initial release in 1983.

12 track compilation of UK & Irish progressive and psych gems from the early 70s. Featuring magnificent Cheltenham based Tapestry, Irish legends Ceathrar, Sandgate, Foister featuring a young Mark Fry of 'Dreaming with Alice' fame, bizarre psych outfit Guggenheim, Witches Brew, a rare Gnidrolog offering plus an ultra rare cut by Listen winners of a 1972 Melody Maker folk-rock contest.

Limited to just 300 individually numbered copies on heavy vinyl accompanied by detailed info on each band.

You are holding the first release from 'Stolen Toy', a new independent record company, dedicated to releasing limited edition collectors recordings and chart smashes. Stolen Toy favours sound over technique and feeling over style... which brings us to...

The Western Caravan featuring Thirsty Dave Hansen - 'Psycho Santa'

Long talked about, often traded but, until now, never commercially released...

The story starts in New York City... but hey, enough of my yakkin' let Thirsty Dave Hansen the esteemed vocalist in The Western Caravan pick up the story...

I was invited to sing a Christmas song with the band Beat Rodeo in 1995. They had a steady Monday night gig at The Ludlow Street Café, Lower East Side NYC. I sat in with them regularly, and they knew 'Psycho' (The Leon Payne penned murder ballad). I got the idea at the last minute and wrote the lyrics in the back of the cab in the hour it took to get across town to the venue. When I was called up on stage, I sang 'Blue Christmas', then I called 'Psycho', and was told That's not a Christmas song'. I said Please, just do this for me,' and took out my scribbled piece of paper. They played... No one knew what was coming... and the crowd went crazy'.

Cooler than most ice-boxes... it doesn't get much better' - Bob Dylan
Possibly the third best Christmas record' - Shane MacGowan
Somebody should release that, it rocks!' - Bruce Springsteen

Jerry David DeCicca

Time the Teacher

Impossible Ark (Europe)/ Bandcamp (US)

Jerry David DeCicca's second solo album,Time the Teacher, resides in the Texas Hill Country where dance halls and cedar post fences are as naturally occurring as a river or a cavern. But the fiddles and acoustic guitars of this terrain's Godfathers, like Jerry Jeff Walker and Townes Van Zandt, has been replaced by saxophones, piano, trumpet, and soulful backing singers.

Produced by Jeb Loy Nichols and Benedic Lamdin (Nostalgia 77) in London, DeCicca recorded his vocals with Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, White Stripes) in Austin, Texas between bites of BBQ. Nichols met DeCicca when he was a 20 year old working in a used record store in Ohio, while touring hisLover's Knotalbum. Years later, in 2007, they collaborated on producing the final recordings of Larry Jon Wilson.Time the Teacheris the hymn and highlight of their 20 year friendship.

DeCicca is the former leader of The Black Swans. His 2014 solo debut,Understanding Land, was a collection of home recordings featuring Will Oldam, Kelley Deal, and Spooner Oldham. He is also the producer of outsider songwriter albums by Ed Askew (Tin Angel), Chris Gantry (Drag City), and Will Beeley (Tompkins Square). He works in social services and lives in the rural town of Bulverde, Texas.

"Jerry David DeCicca'sTime the Teacherengages with the big, timeless subjects we expect to find in poetry—love, place and the ghosts of place, loss, memory—but it's also full of the delicious particulars of a particular life, from 'watermelon/ pink as a sunset' to a neon Pegasus sign. Textured with piano, horns, even some gospel choir, the songs relaxed and soulful, they pan wide in narrative mode but also come in for the lyric close-up. What strikes me most aboutTime the Teacheris how dialed in DeCicca is to pleasure, and how that pleasure translates to the listener. This album feels true. I believe, again and again, every word."

—Maggie Smith, author ofGood Bones

Les Disques du Crepuscule present an extended double disc reissue of Shiver, the acclaimed debut album by seminal Swedish artist  Virna Lindt, originally released by The Compact Organization in 1983.

Written and produced by Virna Lindt and Tot Taylor, Shiver offers 12 slices of chic orchestrated pop informed by 'foreign film' soundtracks, movie composers John Barry and Ennio Morricone, Modernist musique concrete and Cold War spy thrillers. The album spawned three singles: Attention Stockholm, Intelligence and I Experienced Love. For the most part Lindt provides the voiceover for her own narratives, occasionally striking reflective poses amid orchestral swells and multi-layered atmospherics; a clear influence on later acts such as Pulp, St Etienne and Air.

This new edition of Shiver showcases acoustically-enhanced mixes prepared by Taylor and Lindt in 1997, augmented with non-album singles Model Agent and Young & Hip, and immaculate instrumental versions of key album tracks such as Underwater Boy and The Dossier on Virna Lindt. The extended tracklist also finds room for a leftfield cover of Windmills of Your Mind, originally written by Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman for The Thomas Crown Affair and recorded for the Crepuscule compilation album Moving Soundtracks.

Cover photography is by E.A. Janes. The 2xCD edition is housed in a 6 panel digipack with a 12 page booklet. The double vinyl set comes in a stylish gatefold sleeve and includes a free digital copy.

Praise for Shiver:  'Eurocentric Virna Lindt casts herself as a mysterious blonde in a loving pastiche of Continental movie music' (Sounds); 'I think of Shiver as Ingmar Bergman's All These Women cast as 50-odd minutes of musical dialogue. Tot Taylor's fantastic orchestrations cast a brilliant pale of modern love throughout' (Fond/Sound); 'Instead of mere cool styles, there's far more here than a restrictive stereotype' (All Music Guide);

Houston, Texas' favorite son Sam John Hopkins, better known as Lightnin', was recorded in 1959 by the legendary musicologist Samuel Charters, predating and predicting the folk-blues revival of the early '60s. Highly regarded as one of the finest acoustic blues albums ever, Lightnin' Hopkins established its hero as a legend. The very definition of essential.

New play written & directed by Conor McPherson based on interpretations of classic Bob Dylan songs. Performed at Londons Old Vic theatre to unanimous rave reviews. Recorded at Londons iconic Abbey Road Studios.

First making waves with the almost cult level 'Hype Williams' project, and then more recently solo and as part of the group Babyfather, the new 8 track LP sees Blunt step back into the shadowy role of producer for a new band called Blue Iverson.