Pop & Rock News

A much needed reissue of another obscure Afro-Jazz piece of vinyl. This is legendary percussionist and activist Olatunji's classic album originally released in 1961 and featuring Jazz heavyweights such as Yusef Lateef - Clark Terry, George Duvivier, and master percussionists like Ray Barreto and Montego Joe among others. "Zungo" sounds as some sort of an ongoing orgy in Afro percussion grooves with Olatunji at the head of a large and varied group including horns, guitar, bass, multiple percussion and drums, plus a 13 piece choir.

Since starting Babehoven in Portland, Oregon in 2017, Maya Bon has
shown herself to be a gifted heart-on-sleeve songwriter, using music to
peel back the layers of her own experience "sometimes sad, sometimes
surreal, always vividly rendered " to reveal universal emotional truths
hidden in the most intimately personal of details
After a handful of self- released EPs and their label debut on Double Double
Whammy with 2022's "Sunk" EP, Babehoven's first full-length album "Light Moving
Time" is due October 28 2022.
"Light Moving Time" is emblematic of Babehoven's wide range of dynamics, and
each of those sounds are taken further. You can hear the pared-down languor of
"Yellow Has a Pretty Good Reputation", the smoldering guitars of "Demonstrating
Visible Difference of Height", the peculiar charm of "Nastavi, Calliope", and the
soft tenderness of "Sunk". Alternating seamlessly acrossstyles, Circles and
Philadelphia have the wispy ambient calm of a Liz Harris track, I'm On Your Team
falls somewhere between a flowy country song and an 80s power ballad, Marion
contains the plucky indie- folk warmth of Hovvdy, and Stand It and Pockets are
coated with My Bloody Valentine's wobbly shoegaze. But in contrast with those
EPs, these tracks utilize Bon's voice with greater emotional impact than ever
before. Pressed on Bone Color vinyl

Coming from the city of Gao, on the edge of the Saharan desert, Malian producer Baba `'Babsy'' Konate is one of the key figures in the development of "Gao Rap", a regional genre of modern autotuned Songhoi music. Tounga is Babsy Konate's debut mixtape, collecting a decade of tracks that merge sweet autotuned vocals, crunchy drum loops and plucked digital harpsichord, in a playful testament to 2000s PC music, with the sample packs of a modest FruityLoops project. The result is familiar yet otherworldly, drawing from an abundance of distinct cultural expression: folkloric takamba from the Songhai, Hausa film soundtracks from Northern Nigeria, Hip Hop from Bamako and Ragga from Niamey.

Bare Sole fueron sin duda la banda más ruidosa de Hull durante los 60. Ajenos a las moda progresiva, en 1969 su sonido era puro hard–rock psicodélico y heavy–blues con cruda guitarra fuzz. Algo así como The Troggs mezclados con Black Sabbath!

Con el apoyo de un granjero local que se convirtió en su manager y benefactor, el grupo grabó en 1969 en los estudios Fairview un cinta demo para presentarla al sello Decca, que había mostrado interés en el grupo. El sello los rechazó al instante pero gracias al dueño de Fairview, Keith Herd, que conservó la cinta en su archivo, el únido disco de Bare Sole ve la luz ahora.

Todo un oscuro documento que alucinará a culquier aficionado a las recopilaciones "Bonehead Crunchers" o a grupos como Blue Cheer, Iron Claw o Stack Waddy. Remasterizado de las cintas originales, notas detalladas con toda la historia del grupo.

The sky goes on forever in Barry Walker Jr.’s Shoulda
Zenith, and it’s crackling with unexpected lightning. The
Tennessee-bred, Portland-based pedal steel master subverts
his instrument’s tradition for lachrymose, innocuous
Rootzak™. Instead, he ventures to outward-bound strata
more frequently traversed by Sonny Sharrock than Gram
Parsons. “So often, the pedal steel is used as a textural flavor,”
Walker says, “but it really can breathe fire itself.” Evidence
for that claim abounds on Shoulda Zenith. Sprouting out of
the strategies Walker used on his 2012 LP of Henry Flynt
and Paul Metzger-like fiddle aberrations, Banjo Knife, the
music on Zenith goes on similar extravagant tangents—but
with pedal steel.
Assisted here and there by bassist Scott Derr and
drummer Dana Valatka, and others, Walker has
synthesized his love for country, New Age, freeform
freakouts, and ecstatic music on Zenith. One can hear
traces of the laid-back sinuousness of Texas psych-rockers
Cold Sun, Fushitsusha’s craggy, acid-rock excoriations,
and Doug Sahm’s sprightly melodic sweetness. One may
notice “Insect Interlude” adding new colors to Terry Riley’s
Rainbow In Curved Air and “Up The Fan, Into The Keyhole”
taking Sharrock’s Black Woman to Appalachia. Tilt the
head just right and “Shoulda Zenith” and “Trinity Payload”
may be the most psychedelic things a pandemic-besieged
mind will encounter in 2020. Cosmic country didn’t know
it needed its own Inventions For Electric Guitar, but now
that it’s arrived, the Gilded Palace Of Sin is starting to seem
like a dilapidated bungalow.

Bear’s Den have today announced the release of their eagerly anticipated fourth studio album, Blue Hours.

Set for release on May 13th via Communion Records, the album sees the much-loved folk-rock duo – made up of Andrew Davie and Kevin Jones – once again team up with producer Ian Grimble on what is one of their most personal records to date.

Speaking about the new album, Davie says: “Blue Hours is a kind of imaginary space you get into at night, a place where you process difficult things or where you try to figure everything out.”

Themes on the album include both self-reflection and mental health after both struggled with the latter in recent years. “It’s the main over-arching theme with this record,” Davie explains. The group, who have worked with mental health charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) previously added: “It probably speaks to our struggles and hopefully many other people’s too. Men are not very good at talking. We’re not really taught how to – men have no idea how to talk about this stuff, certainly to each other.”

The pair describe the conceptual blue hours headspace that gives the new album its title as being “somewhere between a hotel, a mental health hospital, a bar that stays open later than anywhere else, a paradise, a dream, a nightmare and an endless sea of corridors and staircases leading you to rooms that represent memories – good, bad, happy or difficult.”

Despite the album’s challenging themes, it’s an album drenched in hope too. “We wanted this to be a celebration of music,” Jones continues. “I think that informed some of the bolder decision making on this record. At a time when music was so distant, it felt important to make an album that sounded hopeful, celebratory, ambitious and beautiful in spite of the heavy subject matter in some of the songs.” Jones adds: “It was almost like we needed to shout louder than before because we felt that there were more barriers between the audience and us. We needed something to transcend that.”

Following on from the album’s lead single, ‘All That You Are’, which was released late last year, the group have also given a further taster of what to expect from the new album with the release today of their bold, electronic-driven latest single, ‘Spiders’. Stream the new single here.

Speaking about the song, Davie says: “I started writing ‘Spiders’ around the time we left London. In my head, I thought moving would solve lots of problems, like everything will be better – almost like this Neverland vibe,” he laughs. “‘Spiders’ is a song dealing with the fact that this absolutely wasn’t the case. I had this vision in my head that I’d be at one with nature, that I’d be calmer – but all the things that were rattling around in my brain before were still there after the move. The song is about the fact you can’t run away from the things that are bothering you.”

Adding, “While making the record we wanted to get across a kind of simmering intensity with the song and the idea of someone trying to keep their shit together while wrestling with these darker thoughts and feelings. We wanted to get across a sense of bravery & triumph in saying, “sometimes I can’t pull myself out” of these difficult situations. To celebrate the difficult moments because we all have them. They are a universally shared experience even if it feels sometimes like they’re not and you’re the only one who feels them.”

Melodically, the song is a gentle Wurlitzer and guitar-driven track filled with hope thanks to the electronic elements added by long-term producer, Ian Grimble. “This song maybe sparked a lot of detail that ended up coming out on other songs on the album,” Davie says. “The sound of this felt exciting to us both,” Jones adds.

Bear’s Den werden von ihren Fans für die Art und Weise geliebt, wie sich ihre Lieder in den Stoff einiger der bittersüßesten Kapitel ihres Lebens einweben. Im April letzten Jahres veröffentlichte die Band ihr drittes Album ”So that you might hear me”, das auf Platz 13 der britischen Charts debütierte und es unter die Top 40 in Deutschland schaffte.

”Fragments” ist ein Gemeinschaftsalbum zwischen Bear’s Den und dem preisgekrönten Komponisten Paul Frith, das aus einigen Live-Shows im Jahr 2018 stammt. Auf ”Fragments” überarbeitet und arrangiert Paul Frith eine Reihe von Songs aus dem Bear’s Den-Katalog mit einem Orchester; von der Ergänzung orchestraler Schnörkel zu den Originalen bis hin zur vollständigen Zerlegung und Neugestaltung der Lieder. Bear’s Den haben im Laufe ihrer Karriere fast 500.000 Platten und über 120.000 Konzerttickets in ganz
Europa verkauft, darunter ausverkaufte Shows in Londons Roundhouse, der Brixton Academy und Hammersmith Apollo sowie unzählige Arena-Shows. Die Band hat auf Festivals in der ganzen Welt gespielt, darunter Glastonbury, Coachella, Bonnaroo, Pinkpop, Lowlands, Reading & Leeds, Pukkelpop, Lollapalooza und viele andere. Letzten Sommer unterstützten sie Neil Young bei einer Reihe von Stadion-Shows in Deutschland.

On her new album, Neon Summer Skin, Bedouine, the project of Azniv Korkejian, explores this feeling of safety long before one can fully understand the concept. Written with vivid, honest and intimate imagery after visiting her family in Saudi Arabia, it tells the story of family and upbringing, and mourns the end of her childhood. There is a singular resonance and newfound heft in this music previously unheard in Bedouine’s discography. Bedouine is known for making gentle, lilting folk songs that build fingerpicked guitar melodies into tsunamis of emotion. Her masterful songwriting and timeless melodies have earned her praise from publications like Pitchfork, who said her music “boasts a surreal calm and lived in glow,” and Rolling Stone, who lauded her “humble folk-pop brilliance,” plus an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, and tours with the likes of Fleet Foxes and Father John Misty. While working on the record, Bedouine realized the pain of displacement, of searching for home, has been a throughline in her family history. Other relatives have also experienced this sense of loss as they’ve migrated between Armenia, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. “I felt so frustrated about the places that I'm from becoming war torn or difficult to return to,” she says. “My family has been split apart time and time again.” This realization prompted her to document and honor her parents’ lives and stories. On a family trip to Houston, Bedouine recorded a conversation with her mother and sampled the introduction to “Canopies.” The song tells the story of her mother’s time in an orphanage. She was put there by her own mother as a way of escaping her abusive father. Nearby, her mother would sing about feeling her daughter’s essence in the air: "The waves of Beirut's beaches flutter, and how sweetly they blow my darling's air." It’s a story of profound yearning told with the quiet profundity of a flower blossoming.

The group takes a psychedelic turn, adding lush orchestral arrangements to the group’s tight harmonies and narrative lyrics. The album was recorded at the famed IBC Studios in London. Barry Gibb commented that their recording process was one of impromptu creativity, in which they’d “think up a subject, then write a song on the spot.” The instrumental parts were added later, adding a fullness to the songs. For instance, ‘Bee Gee’s 1st’ opens with strains of oboe and harpsichord on the whimsical “Turn of the Century,” while “Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You” begins with dark Gregorian chants.

Reuniting after 35 years, multi-platinum selling artist Belinda Carlisle and iconic songwriter Diane Warren come together to release Kismet – a 5-song EP that comes out on Diane’s imprint RAF through BMG.

Discussing working with Diane Warren, Belinda Carlisle commented, “Twenty-seven years on from making my last English language pop record I really wasn’t thinking I would ever make one again...... and I was quite happy with that idea. Then a chance encounter in a coffee shop led me back to the wonderful Diane Warren and she gave me the incredible gift of this song and the other songs on my upcoming EP.”

Carlisle goes on to add, “Diane’s songwriting is both a joy and mystery to me. She makes it look so easy, where I imagine it must be unbelievably hard, to do what she does so amazingly well over so many years

Bella White’s new album Among Other Things sees her music evolving as she embraces a fuller band sound while continuing to write the kind of deeply personal, intimate lyrics that made Just Like Leaving such a captivating debut. Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, Margo Price, Billy Strings) at his Topanga Canyon Studios and featuring an array of first-rate musicians including Wilson on drums, Big Thief’s Buck Meek on guitar, and string arranger and keyboard player Drew Erikson (Lana Del Rey).

Ltd Edition, Double LP!
After 12 amazing years together, the UK’s most successful folk band
Bellowhead called it a day in 2016 going out in characteristic style with a
sell-out show at the London Palladium.
It took a few years and a global pandemic, but to the delight of their many fans,
the band reassembled for a one-off worldwide concert stream in December
2020, marking the 10th anniversary of their 3rd album ‘Hedonism’.
Hudson Records are excited to release the release of that live session recording
- ‘Reassembled’ - which will be the bands’ first release on double vinyl LP and
will also be available on CD and digital.
The band re-connected online during the lockdown in 2020 and for the sheer
fun of it remotely made and released ‘New York Girls At Home’ - all from their
respective homes around the UK.
This unplanned performance was warmly received and ignited another idea: to
reunite in person for a one-off broadcast performance. ‘Reassembled’ features
a host of favourites, including New York Girls, Roll Alabama, London Town and
Roll the Woodpile Down

In the five years since, Larsen has moved across the country, studied philosophy
at a small liberal arts college, dropped out, and then moved across the country
again. Their life was also put on pause after the sudden death of their first love.
“This loss left so many people with so many unanswered questions, myself
included. I haven’t always arrived at answers to these questions, but songwriting
has provided me with a way to at least ask.” The first voice we hear on Good Grief
does not belong to Larsen, but to their first love. “Ready?” she asks. As if to
answer her, the album begins with an audio recording from 2013 of Larsen and
their high school friends singing Sufjan Stevens’ song "The Predatory Wasp Of
The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!" around a campfire. “When the record starts and
my ex says “ready?” there’s a part of me that feels like - in some way - she’s
asking grown-up-me if I’m “ready” to share my songs about grief now.” Good Grief
captures a coming-of-age story - of an artist and of a human being - as they try to
navigate the terrain of their existence and that of those around them. It’s an
experience of their loss but also honours the person that was lost to them. The
record closes with a reprise of the “Wasps” audio recording, marrying the past
and present as the old voice memo slowly fades into a newer one. Present-day
Larsen sings, “I can tell you I love her each day”: a testament to the fact that their
grief is-- finally--good.Packaging: LP Opaque "Yellowjacket" LP, with cover mount
marketing sticker

Ben Caplan’s debut 2011 album is a mish-mash of many styles, all of which would find their home in roadhouses and smoking dens. The album’s predominate vibe is bluesy shanties, with Caplan’s deep growl reverberating like a hybrid of Eddie Vedder and the throaty rasp of Tom Waits. His band, The Casual Smokers find themselves accompany a variety of traditional instruments veering between jugband and gypsy punk. The odd flash of far-eastern exoticism can be heard in the likes of the stomping Conduit, but the overall effect is like a group of hillbillies have infiltrated a Brechtian cabaret. This collection of songs is pleasingly ramshackle, as unkempt as Caplan’s picture on the sleeve. “Seed Of Love” is a certain highlight that sees Caplan dueting a song that turns swapping phone numbers into something much more epic and significant. Elsewhere, the break-up song “Drift Apart” builds up to some tremendously hand-wringing moments of despair. The tribal infused folk lullaby “Rest Your Head” feels a bit like an odd fit as Caplan’s vocals seem to overpower a song that probably demanded a subtler approach. However, the blues/gospel of “Down By The River” is the right showcase for Caplan – booming, bellowing and sweeping across the music. In contrast, “Leave Me Longing” is comparatively minimal approach provides one the album’s more powerful moments. The album was originally released in October 2011 and now see its distribution back to the marketplace through Rhyme & Reason Records Ben continues to the tour the world with his award winning ground breaking theatrical production “Old Stock”. Upcoming dates include: London, UK-September 18-28 Ottawa, Canada-October 16-27 Halifax, Canada-October 30-November 17 Calgary, Canada-February 5-16

Ben Caplan makes being haunted sound like a helluva good time on Birds With Broken Wings. The Halifax-based troubadour's second album is rife with rattling offbeat percussion, creaking fiddle playing and spine-tingling nimble fretwork in the guitar parts. But nothing sounds more devilish on the LP than the songwriter's own voice, with which he howls and growls like an eternally damned scoundrel on many of the tracks.
Caplan's lyricism is chillingly bizarre throughout much of the album. On the title track, he hoarsely demands that he be brought "mounds of human hair" and that "all the trees get in single file." Those lyrics are complemented by the tune's instrumentation, which sounds like an incantation that mixes elements of Django Reinhardt and Tom Waits. Midway tunes "Dusk" and "I Got Me a Woman" will also raise listeners' eyebrows, what with the former's mariachi horns and the latter's fairly wholesome female accompaniment to Caplan's
abrasive singing.
The album was originally released in May 2015 and now see its distribution back to the marketplace through Rhyme & Reason Records

Anlässlich des 10-jährigen Jubiläums von Ben Howards Debütalbum ”Every Kingdom” erscheint am 21.
Januar 2022 eine limitierte Coloured LP ”10th Anniversary”-Edition des Erfolgsalbums.
Mit fast 1 Million verkauften Exemplaren allein in Großbritannien und 2,5 Millionen verkauften Exemplaren weltweit ist ”Every Kingdom” Ben Howards bisher bestverkauftes Album und etablierte ihn in ganz
Europa. In Großbritannien erreichte es Doppel-Platin in Deutschland Gold. Single-technisch überzeugt das
Album ebenso und enthält die Erfolgs-Singles ”Old Pine” und ”Keep Your Head Up”, Bens erstem großer
Hit.
Auch die Kritiker konnte Ben Howard sofort auf seiner Seite wissen: Das Album wurde für den Mercury Music Award 2012 nominiert und Ben gewann bei den Brit Awards 2013 den Preis für den besten
britischen Newcomer und den besten männlichen britischen Solokünstler.
Bei der ”10th Anniversary”-Edition handelt es sich um eine streng limitierte Auflage von farbigem Vinyl in
der Farbe Transparent Curacao, von der weltweit nur 3000 Stück verkauft werden! Wer sich ein Exemplar
dieser Hingucker-Neuauflage sichern will, greift also besser schnell zu!

Grounded in a season of life that has been earned rather than borrowed, Benjamin Tod speaks with the ease of someone no longer running from himself. There is joy now - a steadiness that comes from commitment. With the recent arrival of his son and a deep well of new music on the horizon, Tod is firmly rooted in both purpose and possibility. That clarity is evident in Vengeance and Grace, the Lost Dog Street Band frontman's forthcoming and most expansive solo album to date. Conceived as a "dual-version" release, the project presents two parallel worlds: (Alone) is a stripped solo-acoustic version, along with its full band counterpart.

Together, the two versions form the full range of what Tod is capable of: restraint on one side, force on the other. At the core of Tod's writing is a simple conviction: music should serve something larger than the moment. His writing speaks to mind, body, and soul, shaped by faith, discipline, and a hard-earned understanding of consequence. The darkness that once defined him is neither denied nor indulged. It is understood and no longer in control. Today, Tod moves with a sense of calm that wasn't always there. He is grateful, settled, and intentional, continuing to follow the compass that's guided him from the beginning. Rooted in traditional country and folk, his work stands firmly in the modern music landscape, shaped by experience, restraint, and the life he's built around it.

"Acclaimed singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich returns with his 5th studio album ‘Some Things Break’ which sees a subtle reinvention in Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s sound and some of his most daring lyrics to date. The album consists of ten brand new tracks, all written and performed by Leftwich and follows his previous album ‘To Carry A Whale’, released in 2021.
‘Some Things Break’ was written over the course of the past two years at locations across the globe including London, Nashville, Washington and Stockholm. It was produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Jimmy Hogarth (Amy Winehouse, Sia, Anohni & The Johnsons) and features collaborations with fellow songwriters including Mikky Ekko, The 1975’s Jamie Squire, Jon Green and more.
Album available on CD and ‘Evening Sky’ vinyl."

Das vierte Soloalbum von Lost Dog Street Band-Frontmann Benjamin Tod, Shooting Star, ist eine Hommage an mehrere Jahrzehnte Country-Musik
durch Tods hochgeschätztes und ehrliches Songwriting.

Bert At the BBC is a comprehensive collection of Jansch’s appearances at the BBC, featuring over eight hours of rare and unreleased recordings, including live-on-air spots, studio sessions and full concerts straight from the BBC vaults, delving further into this legendary performer’s canon. Bert Jansch was the very essence of folk music, providing inspiration for everyone from Paul Simon and Neil Young to Led Zeppelin and countless folk revivalists. This unparalleled limited-edition compendium is available as a 4xLP and 8xCD set, housed in a coffee-table book set with a lavish 40-page book tracing the recordings from Bert’s earliest moments at the BBC. It includes interviews and insights from Lauren Laverne, Jools Holland, Johnny Marr, Jacqui McShee, Bob Harris, Bernard Butler, Mark Radcliffe and many more. Twenty broadcasters, producers and collaborators contribute at length to the booklet, with great affection for this gentle, maverick genius. Bert’s BBC legacy remains the most significant and exciting untapped reservoir of his music. The undeniable advantage of recordings made for broadcast is that they were, by their nature, created for public consumption and, barring live-on-air appearances – which might go well or go badly, but were going out either way – were explicitly signed-off by the artist as representations of his art that were good enough to be heard. The set is compiled by Colin Harper, author of Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British folk and blues revival (Bloomsbury, 2000), who contributes detailed liner notes to the package. The release is mastered by IFTA award-winning engineer Cormac O’Kane. The vinyl release features 48 tracks on LP and is accompanied by a download card with over six hours of extras spanning 1966–2009, including BBC4’s St Luke’s concert (2003), and a complete Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh concert (2004) for BBC Radio Scotland. It is also available as a special 8xCD set containing all 147 tracks and encased within a coffee-table book. Bert Jansch At The BBC is an epic and enduring trail, 45 years in the making. “He was that rarity, a musician who really did deserve to be regarded as a legend.” The Guardian // “As a guitar player there was no one like him. He was jazz and blues and folk but there was a whole world in there that was just him, esoteric”

The vinyl edition comes with 6 high-quality lithograph art prints (by UK illustrator Hannah Alice) representing each of the birds on the album, held in a heavy board die-cut gatefold sleeve. This unique packaging is fully interactive - the cover image is interchangeable with any of the prints. Remastered by Brian Pyle from original tapes. Bert Jansch was often quoted as saying "I'm not playing for anyone, just myself" and this feels no more apparent than on 1979's 'Avocet', his beautifully meditative paean to British birds. For fans of Jansch this is often the album that is singled out as his best work. The freedoms of a post-Pentangle career are much in evidence; folk rock and even trad folk give way to an album that is not only without lyrical accompaniment but really quite orchestral, classical even, in its composition. There are surprises in particular in 'Lapwing' (a dirge-like waltz that wouldn't be out of place on a Nils Frahm album) and 'Bittern' (which speaks of Arthur Russell's more experimental pieces). Featuring ex-bandmate Danny Thompson, alongside Martin Jenkins (Dando Shaft, amongst others) with sleeve notes by Jansch aficionado Colin Harper (author of 'Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues revival'). Ltd ART PRINT EDITION, Classic Black vinyl, plus DLC w/ bonus live tracks.

1000 pressed. Classic Black vinyl, DL card. Toy Balloon receives its long overdue debut vinyl pressing, featuring new artwork. Caught somewhere between traditional folk and Jansch's penchant for the blues, 'Toy Balloon', from 1998, was the elder statesman of British folk's 20th studio album. Featuring a host of fantastic solo performances along with a brace of bigger sounding moments with a band including former Dire Straits' Pick Withers on drums and the legendary Pee Wee Ellis on sax, the mainly self-penned opus also boasts a hypnotic cover of the standard 'She Moves Through The Fair' and an evocative reading of Jackson C Frank's 'Carnival'.

On May 6th 2022 two-time Grammy nominee Beth Nielsen Chapman returns with her bluesy new single ‘Hey Girl’, her first new music in over four years, and the first taste of her upcoming 15th album, CrazyTown, out this autumn on Cooking Vinyl With a career spanning nearly 40 years, Beth proves she’s still as vital as ever with this anthemic new track written in reaction to the ‘Me Too’ movement, a song Beth calls her “celebratory shout out to our sisters making their way in the world.”

We're absolutely thrilled to present a landmark album in Afro-Venezuelan music on vinyl for the first time. Originally released in 2017 on CD and Digital formats, Loé Loá gained critical acclaim in North America and Europe from the likes of NPR, The New York Times, and Songlines.

Most of the music on the album is in the style of 'Parranda', a traditional Venezuelan genre that literally translates into party. However, not every song is about joy and celebration as the band often sing about many of the most painful topics of daily life in Venezuela, as prevalent in 2019 as they were in 2017 when originally released: hunger, poverty, and shortages of basic medicine.

The entire album was recorded out in the open in Betsayda's home town of El Clavo in Barlovento, a region in the central Caribbean coast of Venezuela known for its cacao plantations and African heritage. It features 17 singers and 12 percussionists compared to the hundred or so that might be part of a real-life celebration. Yet the spirit, one of defiant survival and sheer joy, resounds the moment they strike the drum or sing the first note.

Earlier this year, Transgressive reissued American
Canadian composer and activist Beverly GlennCopeland’s 1986 masterpiece, ‘Keyboard
Fantasies’, marking the 35th Anniversary of its
original release. Now, the label present ‘Keyboard
Fantasies Reimagined’, a collection of songs from
the legendary album, re-worked and re-imagined
by a collection of creative kindred spirits.
 The remix album and reissue of the original work
follow the Autumn 2020 release of Glenn’s album,
‘Transmissions: The Music of Beverly GlennCopeland’. ‘Transmissions’ was a career-spanning
album that includes compositions from his early
works including selections from ‘Keyboard
Fantasies’. It also included both new and archival
unreleased tracks and live versions. This collection
marked the first new release from Glenn-Copeland
since 2004. The New York Times called it a “lifespanning mixtape that moves from the mournful
torch songs of his youth to joyously soulful odes to
survival.”

Beverly Glenn-Copeland announces his long-awaited new album, The Ones Ahead, due out 28th July via Transgressive and available to preorder here. The Ones Ahead is Glenn-Copeland’s first studio LP in almost 20 years and the first since the extraordinary career renaissance triggered by the rediscovery of his now-classic Keyboard Fantasies album.

Bluegrass band Big Richard makes music for the 21st century’s twisted cultural unease. Their Signature Sounds debut Pet, is a fierce, provocative, rejoinder to what troubles them and the world right now, and was recorded live to tape in order to capture the fervor of their live shows.

“Big Richard is so much about our energetic delivery, and so I think it's been really important for us as a group to figure out how to do that for a record,” says mandolin and guitar player Bonnie Sims. And figure it out they did. Pet delivers, successfully translating the supergroup’s live kinetic harmonies and string virtuosity. Unapologetically outrageous and provocative, the band’s name is a wink to the ‘big dick’ energy Big Richard is reclaiming from male bluegrass bands. Since exploding onto the Colorado scene in 2021, the four women have been on a wild ride, slapping as hard as possible on the festival circuit, working up their stamina on nationwide headlining tours, and leaving a wake of die-hard Big Richard Heads across the country swooning for their honest songwriting, chilling vocals, and fiddle-driven barn-burners.

“Our live performances are so raw and so gritty, and I think that our sound never really flourished in that digital landscape.” GRAMMY and Emmy Award-winning cellist Joy Adams says. “Recording live to tape we were all in the same room together, very close together, with a lot of mic bleed, etc. And the energy was insane. It felt so good to record this way. Even on the first day, we were like ‘wow, this sounds like our band.’ And to do something that's very real and gritty and has little mistakes in it just feels alive and human.”

Big Thief ’s debut album, Masterpiece, met wide critical acclaim, landing spots on countless “Best of 2016” lists. Their music, rooted in the songs of Adrianne Lenker, paints in vivid tones “the process of harnessing pain, loss, and love, while simultaneously letting go, looking into your own eyes through someone else’s, and being okay with the inevitability of death,” says Adrianne. “Mythological Beauty” was the first track released from the band’s 2017 album, Capacity.

Bilders new album, Neverlasting is a mix of psychic adventures, hard psychedelia and commentary with a bite. Bilders have always sung outliers with a heap of empathy—exploitation of migrants, unmitigated killing and the state of our depleted planet. This album maintains an analog feel with technical finesse as it casts a cold eye on uses and abuses of power in the higher echelons. It is pure Bilders. Surprise collaborations bring in fresh tangents of colour and emotional edge. “We are the Neverlasting renter-squatters of Earth exhausted”. The band is once again the voice/guitar of Bill Direen, bass of Matt Swanson and near everything else by Alex McManus, with guesting by former Bilders. It’s the same lineup as last year’s acclaimed Dustbin of Empathy, released by Grapefruit and Sophomore Lounge, and the first ‘core’ Bilders lineup to remain constant for more than one album. The new compatibility shows. It’s an album that builds on current strengths. Notable guestings include Athens Georgia lights Claire Horne of 1980s BBQ Killers, and Curtiss Pernice, guitarist of heavy vanguard Porn Orchard, with a snook-in from experimental and electronic prince Todd Gerber. Two never-released tunes by vintage Bilders (Stu Page and Greig Bainbridge) sit perfectly with the new material. This is quite simply the strongest Bilders album ever.

Das Album wurde ursprünglich 1982 veröffentlicht. Auf der LP finden sich Bilgeri Hits wie: "Video Life" und "In The Night". Der Vorarlberger ist gelernter AHS-Lehrer und außerdem erfolgreich als Musiker, Schauspieler und Künstler.Die Re- Edition seines Albums "Bilgeri" ist ab November remastered auf Vinyl erhältlich, limitiert und nummeriert und ausgestattet mit einer transparent roten marbled Vinylplatte.

The Blind Date Party hosted by Bill Callahan and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
and featuring AZITA, Matt Sweeney, Alasdair Roberts, Matt Kinsey,
Sean O’Hagan, Bill MacKay, George Xylouris, Dead Rider, David Pajo,
Mick Turner, Meg Baird, Ty Segall, Emmett Kelly, Cory Hanson, Six
Organs of Admittance, David Grubbs, Cassie Berman, Cooper Crain and
Sir Richard Bishop happened online in the autumn and winter of 2020 -
2021 but the party planning dated back to the spring of 2020.
 Stuck at home, with no gigs in the foreseeable future, Bill, Bonnie and
Drag City needed an outreach program to keep themselves busy, not to
mention sane. In the absence of any company or anything on the
calendar, playing songs they loved was an idea; playing with people they
loved, the desire. And making it fun - so pairing someone with someone
else having no say in the matter, the essence of the blind date, was the
plan. Favourite songs were chosen; players from around the Drag City
galaxy were messaged. Pretty soon, songs were flying back and forth -
music in the air.
 By autumn, the songs started to appear online: Bill and Bonnie singing a
song by someone they loved and admired; each song cut by another
artist they loved and admired, then sent to Bill and Bonnie to provide the
finishing touches. The spotlight pointed in every direction each week:
toward the singers and writers who’d originally played the songs (Yusuf
Islam, Hank Williams Jr., Dave Rich, The Other Years, Billie Eilish,
Steely Dan, Lou Reed, Bill Callahan, Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert Wyatt,
Lowell George, Johnnie Frierson, Air Supply, Will Oldham, Leonard
Cohen, David Berman, Iggy Pop and John Prine), toward their featured
collaborators, the artists whose artwork adorned each digital single and
videos made by still more collaborators.
 Like the best parties, it turned out to be everything and more than they’d
even hoped for. So many more people were involved in the process that
would on the page here. Suffice to say, making records over the years
has required a broad sense of community and an always-surprising mix
of independence and unity, inspiration and utility. Some of the best
memories are those where as many of our folks as possible were
together in one place at one time. The Blind Date Party was one of
these, maybe the most improbable one yet. It’s for everyone who’s here
and it’s in the name of everyone who’s gone but will never go and will
always live with us here. This album will too.

Bill Fay has always sung about attempting to understand the
most universal questions: those of nature, spirituality,
humanity. His songs are “calming hymns for another chaotic
time,” he says. His influence can be traced through many
artists’ work, and so it only seemed right to celebrate this
with a collection of newer voices interpreting his timeless
tracks.
 Originally released in 2010 by David Tibet (Current 93), ‘Still
Some Light’ was released as a double CD, made up of 70’s
album demos (Disc One) and 2009 home recordings (Disc
Two). This year, for the first time, this collection of recordings
will be pressed to vinyl, presented alongside contemporary
re-imaginings of the tracks by Kevin Morby, Steve Gunn,
Julia Jacklin and Mary Lattimore.
 Bill Fay’s words and melodies remain unaffected by the
passing of time and changing trends; and here alongside the
original recordings, these reinvented versions still calmly
guide us through another moment of chaos.
 Bill Fay’s ‘Still Some Light’ was originally released on
compact disc as a two CD collection in 2010. Reimagined
with new artwork and available for the first time ever on vinyl,
Dead Oceans are pleased to present ‘Still Some Light: Part
1’, collecting Fay’s archival recordings from 1970 and 1971.
 Many of the songs are intimate sketches which were
eventually re-recorded for Fay’s self-titled debut and for his
landmark album, ‘Time of the Last Persecution’. This double
LP set includes heart wrenching versions of some of his
timeless works, such as ‘I Hear You Calling’ and ‘Pictures of
Adolf Again’ and features equally powerful songs like ‘Arnold
is a Simple Man’ and ‘Love is the Tune’, which only appear in
this collection.