Cerca:matt love

Nothings Real, So Nothing’s Wrong is Kevin’s 10th full length record. His career began in the early 2000s with the band Miracle Of ’86. Along the way Kevin has amassed a loyal and rabid fan base. He has built an interesting career with the ability to play as a solo artist, his own band – The Goddam Band – and as a member of Bad Books alongside Manchester Orchestra, and as a touring member of The Front Bottoms and Brand New. In 2015 Kevin started his split 7” series – artists involved included Craig Finn, The Front Bottoms, Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), David Bazan, Meredith Graves and many others. This helped open up a new audience. Kevin has toured the world as a headliner and toured with a wide variety of artists including Manchester Orchestra, Frightened Rabbit, John K Samson, Julien Baker and Pinegrove to name a few. Also, Devine has appeared at numerous festivals including Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Ohana, Shaky Knees and many more. From Kevin: Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong is a grown-up break-up record, for strugglers by a struggler. It’s a record about fatherhood written during a pandemic. It’s a kitchen-sink 10th album pivot, painstakingly brought to life by two career-long collaborators and their shared and split obsessions. Lyrically evocative, excavating and unflinching without irresponsibly printing your journals.

Nothings Real, So Nothing’s Wrong is Kevin’s 10th full length record. His career began in the early 2000s with the band Miracle Of ’86. Along the way Kevin has amassed a loyal and rabid fan base. He has built an interesting career with the ability to play as a solo artist, his own band – The Goddam Band – and as a member of Bad Books alongside Manchester Orchestra, and as a touring member of The Front Bottoms and Brand New. In 2015 Kevin started his split 7” series – artists involved included Craig Finn, The Front Bottoms, Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), David Bazan, Meredith Graves and many others. This helped open up a new audience. Kevin has toured the world as a headliner and toured with a wide variety of artists including Manchester Orchestra, Frightened Rabbit, John K Samson, Julien Baker and Pinegrove to name a few. Also, Devine has appeared at numerous festivals including Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Ohana, Shaky Knees and many more. From Kevin: Nothing’s Real, So Nothing’s Wrong is a grown-up break-up record, for strugglers by a struggler. It’s a record about fatherhood written during a pandemic. It’s a kitchen-sink 10th album pivot, painstakingly brought to life by two career-long collaborators and their shared and split obsessions. Lyrically evocative, excavating and unflinching without irresponsibly printing your journals.

We finally made it: BEWITH100LP! And what better way for a re-issue label to celebrate such a landmark catalogue number than to give it to a record of new music. We couldn’t resist when the artist is Official Be With Family Member Kenny Dickenson and when the music is his lovely, lovely score to French-Vietnamese artist Mai Hua's 2020 documentary film “Les Rivières”. If you enjoy the more minimal, intimate piano of the likes of Nils Frahm or John Carroll Kirby’s solo work, you’re certain to fall for this beautiful album.

Taking six years to make, Mai’s film explores what happened when she brought her dying grandmother to France, pulling together four generations of women from the same family. Kenny’s score accompanies all the pretty things, sad things, dirty, beautiful, happy, broken and reborn moments of these women’s experiences.

The whole score is built around delicate, sparkling piano motifs. At times they’re joined by cello and complemented with ambient chords and other flourishes. It’s a very particular palette that Kenny and Mai established early on, as Kenny explains: “We had agreed on a particular sonic aesthetic early on in the process - to use specific and relatively minimal instrumentation, reflecting the intimacy of the picture. So piano and cello were quite prominent in instructing a sense of space and immediacy. Until I had to get the junkyard percussion out… ”

When it comes to describing the end results, Kenny’s happy to wear his influences on his sleeve:

“When the director and I sat down for the creative meetings early in the process, we watched ‘Wolf Children’, a Japanese animation film by Mamoru Hosoda. The amazing soundtrack by Masakatsu Takagi was a launching point for me and thereafter I leaned into more modern classical composers - Reich, Sakamoto, Glass as well as Jon Hassell’s Fourth World output. Richard Reed Parry’s ‘Music for Heart and Breath’ was a good early touchstone for me and Mark Hollis’ sparse, considered and deliberate approach was a constant presence. Also labels like Ghostly, ASIP and the ubiquitous Erased Tapes should probably get a nod here too…”

We’d even suggest there’s the occasional Yann Tiersen moment in there too.

Out of sheer necessity the collaboration between Kenny and Mai continued beyond this initial creative direction. With Kenny speaking neither French nor Vietnamese, Mai acted as translator, a process that naturally lead to discussing the film beyond just what was being said in the footage. Mai herself explains just how successful this relationship felt to her: “Music plays a very important role in all my work, particularly in Les Rivières. I cried every time Kenny sent me a new composition. I felt understood in a way that words cannot describe. It was absolutely magical and I am so happy if this music can make your soul vibrate too.”

Kenny composed much of the music in London, at the same time that Mai was shooting and editing. As the film took shape and the music also evolved, another challenge presented itself when Kenny relocated to Los Angeles part way through, resulting in Arnulf Lindners beautiful cello taking on new shapes- multi sampled, played and manipulated by Kenny into new compositions.

What Kenny has put together for the film score release is definitely a “soundtrack LP”, with the music arranged to work as a proper album in its own right that should be listened to from start to finish. Indeed the album also includes a new piece “Pour Marthe” that Kenny composed in memory of Mai’s grandmother who died after the film was finished.

Kenny’s personal highlight is also ours: “When I listen back to the album as a whole now, I never want part II of the Trilogy (Belles Larmes) to end. I have fond memories of recording it and I love how the dynamic of the piece gradually evolves from falling on the ‘1 and the 3’ to the ‘1 and the 2’. It’s so short and sweet, I keep wanting it to last for longer. But it’s kind of perfect as it is.”

Pretty much our sentiment for the album as a whole.

Running a record label means we often get asked advice about pressing a record. In this case the music was too good not to offer to release it ourselves. To Kenny, having the Les Rivières score on vinyl also feels like the final part of the project.

“It’s a beautiful thing to have it on vinyl. It’s quite an intimate soundtrack so there’s something really perfect about being able to listen to it on that format. When I was a kid, my Uncle Pat who used to work at Woolworths would visit and bring random records from their record department over to us. I can remember listening to “Theme From Exodus” by Ernest Gold. I had no idea what it was about but the imagery it conjured up when listening to that record was just mind blowing to me at that age. Soundtracks can have their own life on vinyl I think, and removed from their original context is this unique format for reinvention. So I’m excited that people who haven’t (and have for that matter) seen the film can have that experience.”

This might not be a re-issue, but the Les Rivières film score album has still been given the full Be With treatment. The vinyl has been mastered by Simon Francis (under Kenny’s ever-watchful eye/ear, of course), cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. The sleeve follows the film’s poster and other promotional material, including Lucile Gomez’s almost magical illustration.

We’re under no illusions that many people reading this will have seen “Les Rivières”, but that doesn’t really matter when it comes to listening to the score. Just on its own, Kenny’s music still captures the robustness and the delicacy of lives lived.

Loss and hope, isolation and communion, the cessation and renewal of purpose. Timeless and
salient, these themes echo throughout the fifth album from Midlake, their first since ‘Antiphon’
in 2013.
 From the cover to the title and beyond, a longing to reconnect with that which seems lost and
seek purpose in its passing sits at the record’s core. The cover star is keyboardist/flautist Jesse
Chandler’s father, who, tragically, passed away in 2018. As singer Eric Pulido explains, “He
was a lovely human, and it was really heavy and sad, and he came to Jesse in a dream. I
reference it in a song. He said, ‘Hey, Jesse, you need to get the band back together.’ I didn’t
take that lightly.”
 A desire to commune with the past and connect with present, lived experience asserts itself
from the opening of the album. ‘Bethel Woods’ sustains and develops that reconnection,
evoking the steadfast and contemplative urgency of ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ to back a
lyric steeped in yearning for a paradisal time and place of hope and optimism. Soaring guitars
and atmospheric noise effects extend a sonic scope further developed by ‘Glistening,’ where
arpeggios dance like light glancing off a lake. In just three songs, Midlake reintroduce
themselves and reach out into fresh territory with a richly intuitive dynamism, honouring their
past as a seedbed of possibility.
 Elsewhere, the prog-enhanced funk-rock of ‘Gone’ seeks to find hope in relationships that
seem fragile. The ELO-esque ‘Meanwhile…’ draws inspiration from what happened when
Midlake paused after ‘Antiphon’, developing universal resonance as a song about the beautiful
growths that can emerge from the cracks and gaps between things. ‘Dawning’ draws on 1970s
soft-rock stylings for another song searching for hope, its keyboard line reaching out towards
an uncertain future while everything seems to collapse around it; ‘The End’ reflects on the
difficulties of partings.
 On-hand was new collaborator John Congleton, who produced, engineered and mixed the
album, marking Midlake’s first record with an outside producer. “I can’t say enough just how
much his influence brought our music to another sonic place than we would have,” says Pulido.
“I don’t want to record without a producer again. Part of that is the health of the band, because
as you get older you get more opinionated and you kind of need that person who says, ‘No, it’s
going to be this way!’ It’s hard to do that with your friends.”
 The result is a powerful, warming expression of resolve and renewal for Midlake, opening up
new futures for the band and honouring their storied history. Formed in the small town of
Denton, with roots in the University of North Texas College of Music, Midlake delivered an
auspicious debut with 2004’s ‘Bamnan and Slivercork’. For the follow-up, they looked further
afield and deeper within to deliver 2006’s wondrous ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’, a modern
classic pitched between 1871, 1971 and somewhere out of time: between Henry David
Thoreau and Neil Young’s ‘After the Gold Rush’, between 1970s Laurel Canyon thinking and a
longing for something more mysterious.
 Confidence bolstered by a growing fanbase and a developed sense of their own far-reaching
abilities, Midlake - a band acutely attuned to seasonal shifts - then embraced change. In 2010,
they visited darker psych-folk thickets for ‘The Courage of Others’ and backed John Grant on
his lustrously spiky breakthrough album, ‘Queen of Denmark’. When singer Tim Smith departed
Midlake in 2012, Pulido stepped up to the lead vocal role for 2013’s freshly exploratory
‘Antiphon’, teasing out singular routes through vintage electric-folk pastures.
 In reuniting, the bandmates were adamant that Midlake needed their absolute focus. The result
is an album of tremendously engaged thematic and sonic reach with a warm, wise sense of
intimacy at its heart: an album to break bread and commune with, honour the past and travel
onwards with. In ‘Bethel Woods’, Pulido sings of gathering seeds. On ‘For the Sake of Bethel
Woods’, those seeds are lovingly nurtured, taking rich and spectacular bloom.
 LP pressed on 180g vinyl in a gatefold sleeve printed on matt card and printed inner sleeve
with lyrics and digital download card.

In an era where technology is increasingly shaping music, 'The Garden Of Eve explores the opposite: it's an organic album, made by real musicians recording simultaneously, giving it a live mood while at the same time having wonderfully brilliant sound. It has been a long time since a contemporary artist has made such a beautiful homage to the blues.

"Blues has always been dear to my heart: it's a cathartic experience, precious and profound, whether it's playing it or listen to it on the radio. When I first heard Billie Holiday sing 'Blue Moon', I could feel it with every cell of my body. She had such a powerful effect on me. Sentimental blues, originating from tragic situations, sometimes even reflecting my own experiences... No matter how bad family, friends, politics, lovers, governments or society might be, they can never destroy the forces for good in this world. And as time passes by, I more and more find the truth that is rooted in my soul. And I finally feel mature enough to understand this wonderful musical tradition - because blues means life."

And if blues means life, Malia is the energy that allows the blues to have a soul, a voice. Characterised by her unique timbre - that doesn't need any further explaining - Malia gives us a thrill throughout the 12 tracks of this album, that has everything to become a classic.

Loss and hope, isolation and communion, the cessation and renewal of purpose. Timeless and
salient, these themes echo throughout the fifth album from Midlake, their first since ‘Antiphon’
in 2013.
 From the cover to the title and beyond, a longing to reconnect with that which seems lost and
seek purpose in its passing sits at the record’s core. The cover star is keyboardist/flautist Jesse
Chandler’s father, who, tragically, passed away in 2018. As singer Eric Pulido explains, “He
was a lovely human, and it was really heavy and sad, and he came to Jesse in a dream. I
reference it in a song. He said, ‘Hey, Jesse, you need to get the band back together.’ I didn’t
take that lightly.”
 A desire to commune with the past and connect with present, lived experience asserts itself
from the opening of the album. ‘Bethel Woods’ sustains and develops that reconnection,
evoking the steadfast and contemplative urgency of ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ to back a
lyric steeped in yearning for a paradisal time and place of hope and optimism. Soaring guitars
and atmospheric noise effects extend a sonic scope further developed by ‘Glistening,’ where
arpeggios dance like light glancing off a lake. In just three songs, Midlake reintroduce
themselves and reach out into fresh territory with a richly intuitive dynamism, honouring their
past as a seedbed of possibility.
 Elsewhere, the prog-enhanced funk-rock of ‘Gone’ seeks to find hope in relationships that
seem fragile. The ELO-esque ‘Meanwhile…’ draws inspiration from what happened when
Midlake paused after ‘Antiphon’, developing universal resonance as a song about the beautiful
growths that can emerge from the cracks and gaps between things. ‘Dawning’ draws on 1970s
soft-rock stylings for another song searching for hope, its keyboard line reaching out towards
an uncertain future while everything seems to collapse around it; ‘The End’ reflects on the
difficulties of partings.
 On-hand was new collaborator John Congleton, who produced, engineered and mixed the
album, marking Midlake’s first record with an outside producer. “I can’t say enough just how
much his influence brought our music to another sonic place than we would have,” says Pulido.
“I don’t want to record without a producer again. Part of that is the health of the band, because
as you get older you get more opinionated and you kind of need that person who says, ‘No, it’s
going to be this way!’ It’s hard to do that with your friends.”
 The result is a powerful, warming expression of resolve and renewal for Midlake, opening up
new futures for the band and honouring their storied history. Formed in the small town of
Denton, with roots in the University of North Texas College of Music, Midlake delivered an
auspicious debut with 2004’s ‘Bamnan and Slivercork’. For the follow-up, they looked further
afield and deeper within to deliver 2006’s wondrous ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’, a modern
classic pitched between 1871, 1971 and somewhere out of time: between Henry David
Thoreau and Neil Young’s ‘After the Gold Rush’, between 1970s Laurel Canyon thinking and a
longing for something more mysterious.
 Confidence bolstered by a growing fanbase and a developed sense of their own far-reaching
abilities, Midlake - a band acutely attuned to seasonal shifts - then embraced change. In 2010,
they visited darker psych-folk thickets for ‘The Courage of Others’ and backed John Grant on
his lustrously spiky breakthrough album, ‘Queen of Denmark’. When singer Tim Smith departed
Midlake in 2012, Pulido stepped up to the lead vocal role for 2013’s freshly exploratory
‘Antiphon’, teasing out singular routes through vintage electric-folk pastures.
 In reuniting, the bandmates were adamant that Midlake needed their absolute focus. The result
is an album of tremendously engaged thematic and sonic reach with a warm, wise sense of
intimacy at its heart: an album to break bread and commune with, honour the past and travel
onwards with. In ‘Bethel Woods’, Pulido sings of gathering seeds. On ‘For the Sake of Bethel
Woods’, those seeds are lovingly nurtured, taking rich and spectacular bloom.
 LP pressed on 180g vinyl in a gatefold sleeve printed on matt card and printed inner sleeve
with lyrics and digital download card.

Sprints unveil details of their ‘A Modern Job’ EP, out on Nice Swan
Records.
 Lyrically, ‘Modern Job’ finds singer Karla Chubb at her sardonic and
angry best, detailing her own personal wish list: “I wish I had the guts / I
wish I had the gall / I wish I had a girl,” all set to cascading guitars and a
formidable rhythm section; working in unison to create unrelenting
tension, all the while echoing the subject matter Chubb explores in her
lyrics.
 On the new single, Karla offers the following: “‘Modern Job’ is a critique
of modern existence but also an exploration of growing up queer. In your
formative years, you are bombarded with media, books, news that depict
what a ‘normal’ life should be. Grow up, fall in love, get married… long
live the nuclear family.
 “By contrast when you grow up queer all these ordinary things can seem
extraordinary, out of reach and in some parts of the world, illegal. It
leaves you feeling lost, excluded and confused. I wanted ‘Modern Job’ to
capture those feelings; chaotic energy, loneliness and longing of
normality while trying to find acceptance within yourself.”
 Sprints have received support from the likes The Guardian, Clash, NME,
DIY and Dork, as well as love at Radio 1 and Radio 6 Music. Recent
single ‘How Does The Story Go?’ (also on the EP) was premiered by
Steve Lamacq, who praised it as “their best song yet! These guys are
going to be something,” The single was also leading in playlists from
NME, Loud & Quiet and others.
 Sprints combine guitar-driven hooks, motoric rhythm and emotive
lyricism to create a unique sound that pulls from garage, grunge, punk
and beyond. Like the Irish guitar acts who have paved the way for them -
Fontaines D.C., Silverbacks and Girl Band - the sound of Sprints is
urgent and vital at every turn.
 Sprints have hit a nerve. Driven by experience, tough political climates
and social and economic uncertainty - their music is honest, often
politically charged and authentic.
 “On course towards future raucous, beer-soaked headline festival sets.” -
NME
 “Screw-you power, relentless motorik rhythms and impressively large
choruses.” - The Guardian
 "Sprints may be the latest to emerge from Dublin’s fertile stable of guitarwielding new heroes, but their two-fingers-up, no-nonsense rattle ‘n’ roll
arrives as the natural heir to Amyl and the Sniffers’ grot punk” - DIY

Faitiche presents Beispiel (German for "example", also suggests playing together), a joint project by Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek. Muster is their first album.

Free electronic music, the result of spontaneous improvisations.

“Meaning” is a concept that is overused in connection with music. Muster does not call for the same kind of air quotes. With its title, German for patterns/exemplars, Beispiel’s album frees itself from the ballast of teleological semantics. There is no overarching theme, no preparation, no reading list, no reason for this music. Just two facts: Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek have known each other a long time and appreciate each other’s work; and they share a love of modular synthesizers and of experimental set-ups designed to capture surprise.

Bretschneider and Jelinek got together for their first joint session in 2016 and the years that followed brought more such meetings at Jelinek’s studio for open-ended musical dialog – at irregular intervals and with no clear objective. The improvisations were recorded in two stereo tracks: one track for Bretschneider’s audio, one for Jelinek’s. After each session, the recordings were processed separately, the options essentially limited to cutting and altering the frequency range. The nine pieces for Muster were selected from the resulting material.

This approach reflects an ideal: music is when you play your first note without knowing what the third or fourth will sound like. When your 290th note still sees you leaving the beaten track, and when curiosity grows as the piece unfolds. Duping is part of Beispiel’s practice. Improvisation is about disagreement. It’s a matter of addressing the right issues. What’s happening here? What’s mine, what’s yours? Are “why” and “where next” legitimate questions?

Muster is an exemplary work. Nine suggestions for what can be. Nine ideas for possibilities of listening.

Arno Raffeiner

Long-awaited vinyl edition of Adia’s 2021 album. UK live dates due in the summer (announced soon!).

In Adia’s words: "This album is the culmination of years spent digging for the subtext of southern identity, and the bones of belonging down in Dixie. it was the challenge issued forth by Skip James, Victoria Spivey, Bessie Smith, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Junior Kimbrough to keep on contextualizing the blues."

With A Southern Gothic Adia continues her journey through the conflicts of the American South and the troubling resonance of its past. Sonically, the album is full of frequent juxtaposition. It is equal parts historical montage and modern prophesy, dark and light, love and loathing. The 14 tracks are the musical embodiment of the relationship that so many people, especially Black women, have with the South.

A Southern Gothic, was executive produced by T Bone Burnett, and features guest contributions from Jason Isbell, Margo Price, and Matt Berninger.

"If I could watch any jazz band in the UK, any, I would choose Matthew Halsall's band, just love what he's been doing over the last few years... It's always high level, spiritual jazz music" Gilles Peterson BBC Radio 1.

Matthew Halsall (born September 11, 1983, in Manchester, England) is a Worldwide Award winning and MOBO nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and DJ.

Since 2008, Matthew has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and has been a key figure in the rise of a new jazz sound in the UK. In addition to his own releases Halsall has collaborated with many DJs and producers, most notably DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, and in 2013 Matthew's music was selected by Bonobo for his Late Night Tales compilation. Halsall is also the founder of Gondwana Records, a genre bending independent record label featuring a wealth defining albums by the likes of Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Hania Rani and Mammal Hands.

His own rich music draws on the spiritual-jazz of Alice Coltrane and Phaorah Sanders, contemporary electronica and dance music alongside his travels in Japan, the traditional art and music of which, has left a lasting impression on his compositions.

Sending My Love (2008) and Colour Yes (2009) were his first releases and document Halsall's first great bands featuring the likes of flautist Chip Wickham, saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes. Joyful, life-enhancing albums, drawing on UK jazz and spiritual jazz influences but with a decidedly modern bounce, they introduced Halsall's music to the world gathering support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum, Mojo, Straight No Chaser and beyond.

But Halsall was never completely happy with how the records were presented and as part of Gondwana Records 10th anniversary decided to revisit the recordings, meticulously remixing and remastering them for vinyl and commissioning new artwork from Ian Anderson, one of his favourite designers. These then are the definitive editions of the records.
Sending My Love comes complete with the beautiful bonus track This Time, while Colour Yes features the equally striking It's What We Do and Ai.

"I am very proud of these early recordings. They represent the starting point of my musical journey in Manchester and showcase some of the cities finest musicians such as: Nat Birchall, Chip Wickham, Rachael Gladwin, Adam Fairhall, Gavin Barras and Gaz Hughes. They are also the very first recordings my brother and I decided to release on our record label (Gondwana Records). Listening back they sound full of energy and joy and really reflect how I was feeling at that precise moment. But as much as I loved the music, I was never 100 percent happy with the sound of the mixes and mastering.
So I decided to go back to the original tapes to remix and remaster them and present them the way I'd always wanted, and along the way we unearthed a couple extra unreleased tracks, which we decided to include as bonus material. Myself and my brother also decided to bring in Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic to re-imagine the artwork and we are super blown away by the results!" Matthew Halsall, Oct 2019

Special Edition Double Vinyl LP - Pressed at Optimal

Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and band-leader Matthew Halsall is one of the rising stars of the UK jazz scene. His unique sound was brilliantly described as "Rain-streaked spiritual jazz from Manchester" by the Independent On Sunday and as a label-boss he has nurtured the careers of Mammal Hands and GoGo Penguin via his Gondwana Records imprint, while his own recordings have explored modal and spiritual jazz, string-laden minimalism and hard-bop. ON THE GO was Halsall's 2011 breakthrough disc, drawing inspiration from the late 60s hard-bop sounds of Max Roach and Art Blakey as well as the Strata-East and Black Jazz labels. it's Halsall's punchiest recording and won Jazz Album Of The Year at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards while the tracks Music For A Dancing Mind and Song For Charlie have proved amongst Halsall's most requested compositions.

Re-mixed and re-mastered at Gondwana's home from home, 80 Hertz studios in Manchester and reissued here due to popular demand, ON THE GO appears here in an extended format that adds three new tracks alongside the original album and appears on vinyl for the first time. Halsall explains the decision to reissue On The Go,

"I have always loved this album, and when fans kept asking me for a vinyl version I decided to make a special edition release, so I remixed and remastered the whole album with George Atkins at 80 Hertz Studios and in the process decided to include three bonus tracks that were recorded around the same time and took inspiration from one of my favourite jazz records, Miles Davis's Lift To The Scaffold "

Konvicted is the second studio album by Akon. It was released on 14th November, 2006. The album features collaborations with rappers Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Styles P and T-Pain. Konvicted is Akon’s most successful album worldwide.

On their Dualtone Records debut 'Sticking With It', Seattle-based sevenpiece The Dip deliver the kind of unbridled soul/R&B that hits on every
emotional level, inciting everything from raw catharsis to heavy-hearted
reckoning to wildly exuberant joy
In a major breakthrough for the band, the self-produced album fully channels the
vitality of the freewheeling live show that's earned them an ardent following over
the last decade, expertly matching their sophisticated musicianship with a
fantastically loose energy. When met with The Dip's lyrical reflection on matters
both timely (the crush of late capitalism, the glaring need for true community)
and undeniably timeless (the vast complexities of love and loss), the resulting
body of work captures the mood of the current moment while offering immediate
escape into a more elevated state of mind.

Konvicted is the second studio album by Akon. It was released on 14th November, 2006. The album features collaborations with rappers Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Styles P and T-Pain. Konvicted is Akon’s most successful album worldwide.

Her debut LP, Banshee, was released on Wax Poetics. Has collaborated with MF Doom, Czarface, Ghostface Killah, Dennis Coffey, and more. Kendra Morris’s Nine Lives, to be released on Karma Chief Records (a division of Colemine Records) in early 2022, marks not only the culmination of the decade since the release of her first LP Banshee, but also a turning point in Kendra’s life. Nine Lives heralds the beginning of a new chapter; label, and an evolution to the next level of adulthood. This collection of her original songs encapsulates moments from what could be nine lifetimes. Kendra, while very much a New Yorker and veteran of almost 2 decades on the NYC scene, hails from Florida and aesthetically embodies the broader sense of American culture, bringing to her contemporary sound influences found in music and cinema dating back to the mid 20th century. Her music conjures imagery evocative of road trips to weird and wonderful places. Concurrently a visual artist, filmmaker and animator, Kendra harnesses the feline nine lives metaphor repeatedly. In the context of the chapters of her musical trajectory alone, we see at least 9 lives. From discovering multi-tracking on a karaoke machine as a child, to playing in bands in Florida, moving to NYC and creating music alone on an 8 track, releasing her first 2 LPs on Wax Poetics, releasing her 2016 EP Babble and collaborating with DJ Premier, 9th Wonder, MF Doom, Czarface, Ghostface Killah, Dennis Coffey, and David Sitek, to name a few. The life of this multi-disciplinarian artist contains units of time and story lines through which we can all relate to universal themes of love, loss and overcoming one's fears. Kendra, never ceasing to heed her spiritual calling to continue creating music and art, no matter what, has no plans of slowing down but a belief in only evolving, eager to begin experiencing her next nine lives.

Upcoming new album release from JD Simo entitled 'Mind Control' will be released at the end of October while JD is on tour (9/28 - 11/21 & 1/7/2022 - 1/29/2022 JD Simo... The Chicago-born, now Nashville transplant is like a one-man crusade dedicated to keeping music real, raw, and honest. No matter the setting and no matter his role (whether it’s wingman or bandleader) J.D.’s presence infuses the situation of the moment with the music that’s been fueling him pretty much his whole life, spiced with influences that straddle both decades and dimensions. As a songwriter, guitarist, and producer, he has worked with Jack White, Tommy Emmanuel, Luther Dickinson, Dave Cobb, Blackberry Smoke, and even been a member of Grateful Dead founder Phil Lesh' "Phil & Friends." Now he comes forth with his most unique, original, and rawest effort yet… “Mind Control,” which drops November 5th, 2021. During lockdown in '20, he started cutting tracks in his makeshift studio weekly. Joined by longtime collaborator Adam Abrashoff on drums and longtime friend bassist-producer-engineer Adam Bednarik (Justin Townes Earle), they mused a proverbial soup of shared influences - Hill country trance blues of Junior Kimbrough, RL Burnside, and Asie Payton, hypnotic Afro Beat of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen, psychedelic warps of Captain Beefheart, Funkadelic, and Jimi Hendrix, the old school blues of John Lee Hooker, Earl Hooker, and Lightnin Hopkins and the raw, fuzzy rock of The Stooges and Nirvana. 'Mind Control' is the product of 3 like-minded buddies huddled in a humble setting, making music to make them feel good. The songs' stark, revealing nature is the product of them using the creative process for therapy and enjoyment. Because they had to, for no other reason than they couldn’t not! They love it too much. A positive theme of growth, self-help, and struggles with addiction and mental health lay alongside a haunting, low-down musical landscape. It's raw, funky, and real. Such is life.

The words legendary, seminal, and classic get thrown around at will these days, but Rudimentary Peni’s debut album is all of them. Recorded over two days at Southern Studios by John Loder and originally released in 1983 by CRASS off-shoot label Corpus Christi, “Death Church” showed a band moving away from the urgency of their two early 7”s and into their own realm. Creating a template that bands have been trying to replicate ever since, while ticking all the boxes to become a genre-defining album. Iconic artwork, a unique sound and their own lyrical universe. All merging seamlessly. Sonically the album is full of Nick Blinko’s extraordinary vocals and equally remarkable guitar, Grant Matthews’ big meandering driving basslines and Jon Greville's tight and relentless drum work which together made something intricate and hard hitting, with a sequence that makes the 21 songs on the album flow perfectly. Visually, the album is every outsider art lover’s wet dream. A six-panel poster sleeve with every inch covered in Nick Blinko’s claustrophobic black and white line drawings, while lyrically the songs deal with madness, religion, death, and questioning humankind from a dark poetic place rarely found in any art form. Remastered from the original master tapes by Arthur Rizk and housed in a replica poster sleeve, including the original insert, “Death Church” is back in print in LP, CD and cassette after nearly a decade of no official reissues.

Splash Blue is proud to present a brand new album borne from the latest collaboration between Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick and Francisco Sales of Incognito – ‘The New Guitar Underground Vol 1’.

THE NEW GUITAR UNDERGROUND
The New Guitar Underground are Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick and Francisco Sales of Incognito. Neither require introduction – Bluey – founder of the legendary Incognito, Inner Shade, CitrusSun and co-conspirator on the STR4TA project, solo artist, Composer and Record Producer & Francisco Sales, guitarist of Incognito and Citrus Sun, as well as being a solo artist in his own right, have come together to deliver a set of 10 highly crafted and accomplished tracks that lift the spirits and soothe the soul.
Inspired by the inspirational playing of the giants of the guitar world – Tony Mottola, Denis Budimir, George Benson, Bill Jennings & Melvin "Wah Wah" Watson to name but a few, the album reflects the deep love that Bluey and Francisco have for this multi faceted and beautiful instrument.
Guests on this album include bass players Francis Hylton, Hendrik Linder, Rui Pedro Pity and Julian Crampton, keyboardists Matt Cooper, James Berkeley and drummer Francisco Mendolia.
Of course the quality and depth of this musical composition should not be a surprise – given the pedigree of the artists involved, however, as Bluey says himself in the album notes, ‘’This is not a project seeking chart success. Just two guitar buddies having fun chasing musical waterfalls, and not sticking to the rivers and the lakes they’re used to.
We are just making ourselves happy. And if in doing so we make you happy too, then that, as they say, is "the payoff!" The result is an intoxicating fusion of guitars, samba, latin jazz, drum-driven beats, heavy bass lines - with some scratching and sampling thrown in for good measure!

First and foremost, deathcrash approached the task of putting together their debut album as music lovers. To all four members, a good album seemed to stamp out periods of their life, capturing a time, a feeling, a mood. This was their approach when trying to make whole two-years-worth of fragmented songwriting. Their songs may differ from each other in certain ways, but they manage to conjure similar feelings. ‘Return’ captures many of the difficult moments of the last couple years in the band members’ personal lives and yet, as a whole its complexity emerges as a beautiful and hopeful message. Amongst other things, writing the album was a cathartic process for the band, and so it can be for the listener too. The first parts of ‘Return’ came from quite a dark and jaded place. To get better can be a path marred by self-sabotage and a desire to hide. It can be easier to have no faith in something new, and rely on the comfort of an old feeling, even if it hurts. There is a reassurance in pain, a familiarity in its narrative. Return asks when things heal, where does the wound go? deathcrash recorded Return with their close friend and producer Ric James, who they’ve worked with since their early recordings. The album was recorded live, with an emphasis on dynamics, bringing together tense intimacy with atmospheric vastness. The members brought things to light they previously hadn’t, and shared words, riffs, ideas and thoughts for the first time. Each band member is able to see something that the others can’t, and write something unique. For deathcrash that is where the magic of making the album happens, when it clicks for everyone. As the album took form, a lot went on, and in many ways deathcrash got back in touch with a newer, more open feeling, sometimes happy, sometimes fearful. Something good returned that had previously been lost, and this is captured on the album. The album aims not to romanticise a dark place however, being equally about hope and renewal.

Curtis Godino’s first album producing for The Midnight Wishers. Mastered by Shimmy-Dic’s Kramer. “Golden Wish” Yellow Vinyl LP ltd edition of 500. RIYL: the Shangri-Las, the Chiffons, the Crystals, the GTOS, Ween. What if a cute girl group scored a hit song about a car crash, then actually died in a car crash, but decades later, David Lynch conjured their spirits for a beach-themed Halloween special? That’s a feeble attempt to describe the fun, spooky universe evoked by musician, songwriter and producer Curtis Godino with his latest project, Curtis Godino Presents the Midnight Wishers. “I’ve always been a fan of girl groups and old generic love songs,” says the Brooklyn-based artist, previously known around town for his psychedelic band Worthless and his ’60s-style light projection shows. “No matter how cheesy, they always get stuck in my head, so I decided I would try to make some of my own, with the help of my friends.” Chief among those friends are the Midnight Wishers: lead vocalist Jin Lee and backing singers Rachel Herman and Jessica McFarland, all of whom Godino recruited for the project. Lee also contributed lyrics, which she tends to recite as often as she sings in a dreamy, earnest voice. The trio are the perfect messengers for Godino’s tunes, visually as well as sonically. In photos, they pose before bubble-gummy backgrounds, playing with a ouija board by candlelight, elemental like a cartoon crime-fighting team with their respective black, red and blonde hair. But make no mistake: This project belongs to Godino, a musical ringmaster in the tradition of Phil Spector or more aptly Shadow Morton, whose noir sensibilities spawned such uncanny pop marvels as the Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand).” In this case, Godino built the wall of sound almost entirely by himself, recording on his eight-track tape machine during the pandemic shutdown. Starting with drum tracks from Andrew Max and Adam Amram, he would add picked bass guitar in the style of L.A. studio legend Carol Kaye, then go bonkers with fuzzy guitars, Farfisa organ, mellotron, analog synthe- sizers, glockenspiel, an arsenal of other percussion instruments and an array of mysterious electronic effects. To fully realize the vision, however, Godino knew he needed more firepower. The Wishers’ multilayered harmonies and other vocal tracks were recorded and engineered by his roommate, Paul Millar, at Millar’s Bug Sound East studio. “I'm sure all those incredible old records were recorded on a four-track or whatever, but I don’t have the same discipline,” says Godino, whose stated goal was to create “songs so sweet they’ll give you a cavity

The Grammy-nominated powerhouse vocalist Beth Hart takes on one of
her most profound undertakings to date by channelling the legendary
voice of Robert Plant on A Tribute To Led Zeppelin
The album will be released on CD, double black vinyl and doulbe orange vinyl via
Provogue/ Mascot Label Group. The nine- song album highlights the incredible
spectrum that Led Zeppelin operated in, from powerhouse rock to psychedelia,
folk, jazz, prog, blues, funk, soul and beyond. Rumours about the album had been
circulating for a few years. At the helm was super- producer Rob Cavallo and
engineer Doug McKean. The A-list musicians include Cavallo on guitar along with
Tim Pierce, Chris Chaney on bass, Jamie Muhoberac on keyboards, Dorian
Crozier on drums and Matt Laug, with Orchestral arrangements by David
Campbell. All that was left was the final piece of the puzzle… the voice.
Things clicked into place when Cavallo was producing Hart's previous album, War
In My Mind (2019), and she did an impromptu version of "Whole Lotta Love" in the
control room during the session. Maybe this was always in the cards. It's fitting
that the song that started it all, "Whole Lotta Love", is the opening song of the
album. From there, it's a non-stop, palpitating journey.
Talking about the music and legacy of Zeppelin, Beth says, "it's so beautifully
done, it's timeless. It will go on forever. Sometimes people come along, and
they're from another planet, and they make these pieces of art which will forever
be, like the Mona Lisa."

The Grammy-nominated powerhouse vocalist Beth Hart takes on one of
her most profound undertakings to date by channelling the legendary
voice of Robert Plant on A Tribute To Led Zeppelin
The album will be released on CD, double black vinyl and doulbe orange vinyl via
Provogue/ Mascot Label Group. The nine- song album highlights the incredible
spectrum that Led Zeppelin operated in, from powerhouse rock to psychedelia,
folk, jazz, prog, blues, funk, soul and beyond. Rumours about the album had been
circulating for a few years. At the helm was super- producer Rob Cavallo and
engineer Doug McKean. The A-list musicians include Cavallo on guitar along with
Tim Pierce, Chris Chaney on bass, Jamie Muhoberac on keyboards, Dorian
Crozier on drums and Matt Laug, with Orchestral arrangements by David
Campbell. All that was left was the final piece of the puzzle… the voice.
Things clicked into place when Cavallo was producing Hart's previous album, War
In My Mind (2019), and she did an impromptu version of "Whole Lotta Love" in the
control room during the session. Maybe this was always in the cards. It's fitting
that the song that started it all, "Whole Lotta Love", is the opening song of the
album. From there, it's a non-stop, palpitating journey.
Talking about the music and legacy of Zeppelin, Beth says, "it's so beautifully
done, it's timeless. It will go on forever. Sometimes people come along, and
they're from another planet, and they make these pieces of art which will forever
be, like the Mona Lisa."

The Grammy-nominated powerhouse vocalist Beth Hart takes on one of her most profound undertakings to date by channelling the legendary voice of Robert Plant on A Tribute To Led Zeppelin
The album will be released on CD, double black vinyl and doulbe orange vinyl via Provogue/ Mascot Label Group. The nine- song album highlights the incredible spectrum that Led Zeppelin operated in, from powerhouse rock to psychedelia, folk, jazz, prog, blues, funk, soul and beyond. Rumours about the album had been circulating for a few years. At the helm was super- producer Rob Cavallo and engineer Doug McKean. The A-list musicians include Cavallo on guitar along with Tim Pierce, Chris Chaney on bass, Jamie Muhoberac on keyboards, Dorian Crozier on drums and Matt Laug, with Orchestral arrangements by David Campbell. All that was left was the final piece of the puzzle… the voice.

Things clicked into place when Cavallo was producing Hart's previous album, War In My Mind (2019), and she did an impromptu version of "Whole Lotta Love" in the control room during the session. Maybe this was always in the cards. It's fitting that the song that started it all, "Whole Lotta Love", is the opening song of the album. From there, it's a non-stop, palpitating journey.

Talking about the music and legacy of Zeppelin, Beth says, "it's so beautifully done, it's timeless. It will go on forever. Sometimes people come along, and they're from another planet, and they make these pieces of art which will forever be, like the Mona Lisa."

Bristol-based singer, songwriter and bandleader, who has powered her
way to the-forefront of the British blues and roots scene in recent years,
unveils her eagerly-awaited third album 'Shining in the Half Light'
Crammed with vibrant originals brought to life with her A-list touring band, it's yet
another significant step forward in a career already feted with awards and
acclaim.'Shining in the Half Light' is Bailey's first full length album recorded in the
UK & feature's Joe Wilkins on Guitar, Jonny Henderson on Ivories, Matthew Waer
on Bass duties and Matthew Jones on drums. It was recorded in deepest Devon
in December 2020 at Middle Farm Studios and produced by Dan Weller, best
known for his long working relationship with Enter Shikari. Elles wanted this
record to feature 'gospel style vocals' so in steps Izo Fitzroy, an incredible artist in
her own right, who arranged the stunning background vocals on 'Shining In The
Half Light', and performed them alongside Jade Elliot and Andrusilla Mosley.
An exciting team of co-writers feature with three credits for Ashton Tucker & Will
Edmunds, who both wrote with Elles for 'Road I Call Home', plus she teamed up
with longtime guitarist Joe Wilkins to write the slow-flowing, philosophical 'Riding
Out The Storm'. Other kindred spirits include guitar maestro Martin Harley, for the
gentle and romantic 'Different Kind Of Love' and Matt Owens, co-founder of the
hugely successful indie- folk outfit Noah and the Whale, on the aforementioned
'Sunshine City'. The album comes to a striking conclusion with its title track, cowritten with Nashville's Craig Lackey, written over Zoom in May 2020.
Front cover features in Blues in Britain (Jan) and MNPR (May) Features in Record
Collector, Rock and Reel, Blues Matters, HRH Magazine, Fireworks Mag,
Powerplay, and Maverick
Reviews in Record Collector, Maverick, Powerplay,Fireworks,Blues Matters,HRH
Mag
Online press in Music News, Maximum Volume, Rush On Rock, All About The
Rock, Vents, Bluesdoodles, Rock and Blues Muse,Blues Rock Review, Blazing
Minds, Decibal Report, Maverick Country
Radio- BBC Radio 2 Cerys Matthews and Johnnie Walker, Planet Rock A playlist.

Matthew Halsall unveils new band and announces 'Salute to the Sun'

his new album on Gondwana Records

Limited edition Double Clear vinyl, printed on reverse board with Gold foil artwork plus double printed reverse board inner sleeves including download code. Cover Artwork by Daniel Halsall with design and layout by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic.

Comes packaged in a resealable, re-usable Polypropylene anti-static, acid-free, crystal clear sleeve for maximum protection.

Composer, trumpeter, producer, DJ and founder of Gondwana Records, Matthew Halsall has always worn many hats. But at the heart of everything that he does Halsall is first and foremost an artist and a musician. A trumpeter whose unflashy, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty and a composer and band-leader who has created his own rich sound world. A sound that draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own. A music that is rooted in Northern England but draws on global inspirations.

Salute to the Sun is his first album as a leader since Into Forever (2015) and marks the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester's finest young musicians: Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion as well as long-time Halsall collaborator, bassist, Gavin Barras who has been at the heart of Halsall's bands for over a decade. For Matthew it was important to have a band based locally and able, pre-Covid, to meet and play each week, and who also performed a sold-out monthly basement session at Yes in Manchester. The album draws energy from these sessions and inspiration from themes and ideas that have inspired Halsall through the years (on albums such as Oneness, Fletcher Moss Park and When the World Was One) ideas of ecology, the environment and harmony with nature.

"I feel Salute to the Sun is a positive earthy album. I wanted to create something playful but also quite primitive, earthy and organic that connected to the sounds in nature. I was listening to lush ambient field recordings of tropical environments such as jungles and rainforests and found myself drawn to percussive atmospheric sounds which replicated what I was hearing (bells / shakers / chimes / rain sticks) and I started to experiment with more wooden percussive instruments such as kalimba and marimba".

Salute to the Sun features lush wholly improvised tunes inspired by ambient rainforest and jungle field recordings, deeply soulful tunes built around hypnotic harp and kalimba patterns, deep Strata-East inspired spiritual jazz grooves and some of Halsall's most beautiful playing and inspiring healing melodies yet recorded.

The album was recorded at the band's weekly sessions, using Halsall's own recording set-up, giving the recordings a relaxed vibe and unforced energy that really lets the music breath. The album is also very much a family affair as Halsall's brother Daniel Halsall, artistic director of Gondwana Records, was an important presence at the sessions and co-produced the album. It is also his memorable artwork that adorns the cover of Salute to the Sun, an album beautifully designed by legendary designer Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, who also created the covers for the recent archival releases Oneness, Sending My Love and Colour Yes and is one of Halsall's favourite designers. Together Daniel Halsall and Ian Anderson have designed all of Matthew's seven albums to date, so it felt extra-special to bring them together for, Salute to the Sun, an album that Halsall was determined to present in the very best way possible. The album was mixed with another long-time collaborator, George Atkins at 80 Hertz in Manchester, who works tirelessly with Halsall to perfect the sound and was mastered by noted engineer Peter Beckmann who brings an added depth to the sound specially around the bass notes as well as Halsall's trumpet. The magnificent double vinyl was cut as a Half Speed master by Barry Grint at Alchemy Mastering for the best possible analogue experience.

The result is arguably Halsall's most beautiful and complete recording to date, playful, charming and imbued with the warmth of the sun and the energy of life.

Demon Records is proud to reissue this album as part of the Gary Crowley’s Lost 80s project. This Classic LP
reissue is presented on double 140g translucent blue vinyl.
Blue Rondo A La Turk were a lively 6 piece British latin/jazz/pop group, formed in 1981 by singer/lyricist Chris
Sullivan, and disbanded in 1984 when several members moved on to form the hit-making band Matt Bianco.
‘Chewing The Fat ‘ is the debut album, originally released in 1982 and includes the charting singles ‘Me And
Mr. Sanchez’ and ‘Klacto Vee Sedstein’
Included in the release is a bonus LP of official remixes on vinyl for the first time.
“If there was one band I wanted to be in back in 1982 it was Blue Rondo A La Turk. Named after the classic
Dave Brubeck song, they were a bunch of sharp suited hedonists with a philosophy straight out of Spinal Tap,
have a good time, all the time! Thinking about it though they probably would have left a lightweight like me
for dead in some Soho gutter after the first couple of drinks on a night out. Known and loved for their
infectious blend of salsa, funk, pop and cool bop and swing as well as their renowned live performances, why
they didn't break through to the nations charts remains one of pop's great conundrums. But those who
knew, knew and for energy and sonic pleasure this, their debut album "Chewing The Fat" takes some beating
and I'm thrilled it's available once again on vinyl under our GC Lost 80s moniker. It really is a wonderful
reminder of their collective talent that was sadly never given time to flourish.

Curtis Stigers veredelt seine großen Hits und Lieblingssongs mit neuen, unter die Haut gehenden Versionen.
Vom langhaarigen Frauenschwarm mit Nummer-Eins-Balladen zum gereiften R’n’B- und Jazz-Sänger -
in den 30 Jahren seiner Karriere hat Curtis Stigers nicht nur Millionen von Alben verkauft, sondern auch
internationale Hits hervorgebracht, die man heute noch im Ohr hat.
Jetzt schließt sich der Kreis: auf seinem neuesten Album ”This Life” blickt Stigers zurück auf Welterfolge wie “I Wonder Why” und “Never Saw A Miracle”, und Songs aus seinem Schaffen, die ihm besonders
am Herzen liegen. Er interpretiert die Pop-Klassiker neu in der jazzig-intimen Weise, für die er heutzutage
beliebt ist. Das ist mehr als ein nostalgischer Rückblick: ein zeitloses Album eines Sängers und Musikers,
der lässig Genre-Grenzen überschreitet.

A welcome vinyl issue for Matthew Halsall's 2012 masterpiece, Fletcher Moss Park, specially re-mastered for this limited edition release.

Released to critical acclaim and arguably Halsall's most complete recording Fletcher Moss Park is inspired by one of Manchester's most beautiful places. A rambling, multi-tiered park of walkways and dreamy gardens that offers the contemplative Halsall a place of peace and respite from the city, a meditative space to think and write in. The stillness and beauty of the surroundings have steeped into his beautiful compositions for this album. Elegant and sincere, Halsall's compositions draw on his love of spiritual jazz, modern dance music and favour an earthy honestly and direct communication over tricksy arrangements and it is this deceptively simple openness that gives his music such a unique flavor.

Featuring saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, pianist Adam Fairhall & Taz Modi, bassist Gavin Barras and drummers Gaz Hughes & Luke Flowers plus a string quartet.

Deluxe 2LP editions with artwork re-imagined by Ian Anderson of 'The Designers Republic'. "If I could watch any jazz band in the UK, any, I would choose Matthew Halsall's band, just love what he's been doing over the last few years ... It's always high level, spiritual jazz music" - Gilles Peterson BBC Radio 1. Matthew Halsall (*September 11th' 1983, in Manchester, England) is a Worldwide Award winning and MOBO nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and DJ.

Since 2008, Matthew has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and has been a key figure in the rise of a new jazz sound in the UK. In addition to his own releases Halsall has collaborated with many DJs and producers, most notably DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, and in 2013 Matthew's music was selected by Bonobo for his Late Night Tales compilation. Halsall is also the founder of Gondwana Records, a genre bending independent record label featuring a wealth defining albums by the likes of Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Hania Rani and Mammal Hands. His own rich music draws on the spiritual-jazz of Alice Coltrane and Phaorah Sanders, contemporary electronica and dance music alongside his travels in Japan, the traditional art and music of which, has left a lasting impression on his compositions.

Sending My Love (2008) and Colour Yes (2009) were his first releases and document Halsall's first great bands featuring the likes of flautist Chip Wickham, saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes. Joyful, life-enhancing albums, drawing on UK jazz and spiritual jazz influences but with a decidedly modern bounce, they introduced Halsall's music to the world gathering support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum, Mojo, Straight No Chaser and beyond. But Halsall was never completely happy with how the records were presented and as part of Gondwana Records 10th anniversary decided to revisit the recordings, meticulously remixing and remastering them for vinyl and commissioning new artwork from Ian Anderson, one of his favourite designers. These then are the definitive editions of the records. Sending My Love comes complete with the beautiful bonus track This Time, while Colour Yes features the equally striking It's What We Do and Ai.

"I am very proud of these early recordings. They represent the starting point of my musical journey in Manchester and showcase some of the cities finest musicians such as: Nat Birchall, Chip Wickham, Rachael Gladwin, Adam Fairhall, Gavin Barras and Gaz Hughes. They are also the very first recordings my brother and I decided to release on our record label (Gondwana Records). Listening back they sound full of energy and joy and really reflect how I was feeling at that precise moment. But as much as I loved the music, I was never 100 percent happy with the sound of the mixes and mastering. So I decided to go back to the original tapes to remix and remaster them and present them the way I'd always wanted, and along the way we unearthed a couple extra unreleased tracks, which we decided to include as bonus material. Myself and my brother also decided to bring in Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic to re-imagine the artwork and we are super blown away by the results!" Matthew Halsall, Oct 2019.

Introducing jazz harpist Amanda Whiting. From Wales, the home of the harp, Amanda has taken her classical roots and forged them in the path of jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby.

She has toured extensively with Matthew Halsall and the Gondwana Orchestra performing at Jazz festivals around the world. More recent collaborations have included recording with DJ Yoda and Chip Wickham and touring Wickham's latest album including appearances at Ronnie Scotts and Le Petit Halle, Paris.

Whiting's first album was recorded as a trio for CD in 2013, and pays tribute to Coltrane and Ashby with her own take on standards. She's joined by Deej Williams (bass) and Tony Robinson (drums). Here we've taken a selection of tracks for inclusion on vinyl, the best medium for serious music lovers.

Just 500 copies pressed and housed in a beautiful bespoke flip-back sleeve.

The Zephyr Bones’ psychedelic rock expands in a precise and determined sophomore album. A warm and accessible record that speaks about love, self-affirmation, loss and hope.

A quicksilver track that glides on a buoyant bassline and glistening melodic interplay, “No One” is the sound of joy. While it’s easy to pigeonhole it as a dreampop track, there’s undoubtedly hints of psych, funk and Kraut all nestled in there, The Zephyr Bones blurring the lines with ease in this intoxicating track that shows growth in their sonic heft without losing their feathery lightness.
Beats per Minute
"No One" opens up like a traditional indie dance track, with sparkling guitars and a vibrant synth lead reminiscent of a cut from The Strokes or Tame Impala. But it progresses in a fascinating way, bringing in a crunchy psychedelic guitar solo and a funky instrumental breakdown at the end. This track has a variety of sounds, but it's prog rock more than anything, as the dynamic instrumentation sticks out the most. Every layer here is not only an excellent piece to the larger puzzle while also being technically impressive on its own. Despite these nods to the more experienced rock nerd, what's the most fascinating is how accessible the tune really is. The wild drum beats, dense synth layers, and lightning-quick guitars demonstrate the true cerebral chemistry of the group. The sheer musical talent doesn't hurt either.
Earmilk
When The Zephyr Bones first burst into the scene they crushed everything that got in their way. Their music slapped us like a wave when it reaches shore. It took us by surprise and left us asking yearning for more. They coined their style “beach wave”. All this became a first album titled Secret Place, something like the sonic coordinates of a sunny place with a soundtrack of guitars with reverb and intoxicating melodies. You can’t tell whether you’ve been there or not, but you definitely want to go back.
In Neon Body they are the same people, but it hits differently. Their melodies and suggestive guitar riffs are on point. They are able to take you back to places. You will never finish these 10 tracks in the same place where you were when you first hit play. Speaking of The Zephyr Bones is speaking of pure freedom. And yet, in this second album we get to know them in a different way, more determined and with a renewed intensity. The landscape has also changed and now the tone reminds us of the twilight, and in some songs you can even feel the reflection of neon light on your skin.
But let’s not lose the point. What matters here are the songs, and in this album you can find pretty damn good ones. “No One”, the first single, is an excellent entry into the universe created in Neon Body. Addictive and irresistible, it will instantly get you dancing and singing along. “So High” is a dizzying and fast-paced first track. By the time “Verneda Lights” arrives, you have fully surrendered to Brian Silva (vocals, guitar and synthesizers), Jossip Tkalcic (guitar and vocals), Marc López (drums) and Carlos Ramos (bass). “Sparks” shines with its own light: it is a controlled fire until the final part of the song makes everything burn again. “Plastic Freedom” goes all-in with an infallible riff. “Velvet” is as elegant as its title suggests, and “Rocksteady” hits the bullseye again with a chorus that hits like a poisonous dart. “Neon Eyes’’ lifts you up with heavenly back up vocals and “Afterglow” keeps you with your feet on the ground – Why? Because begs you to dance. And then comes “Celeste V”, a song that speaks about loss that puts an end to the recording.

Neon Yellow
The Zephyr Bones’ psychedelic rock expands in a precise and determined sophomore album. A warm and accessible record that speaks about love, self-affirmation, loss and hope.

A quicksilver track that glides on a buoyant bassline and glistening melodic interplay, “No One” is the sound of joy. While it’s easy to pigeonhole it as a dreampop track, there’s undoubtedly hints of psych, funk and Kraut all nestled in there, The Zephyr Bones blurring the lines with ease in this intoxicating track that shows growth in their sonic heft without losing their feathery lightness.
Beats per Minute
"No One" opens up like a traditional indie dance track, with sparkling guitars and a vibrant synth lead reminiscent of a cut from The Strokes or Tame Impala. But it progresses in a fascinating way, bringing in a crunchy psychedelic guitar solo and a funky instrumental breakdown at the end. This track has a variety of sounds, but it's prog rock more than anything, as the dynamic instrumentation sticks out the most. Every layer here is not only an excellent piece to the larger puzzle while also being technically impressive on its own. Despite these nods to the more experienced rock nerd, what's the most fascinating is how accessible the tune really is. The wild drum beats, dense synth layers, and lightning-quick guitars demonstrate the true cerebral chemistry of the group. The sheer musical talent doesn't hurt either.
Earmilk
When The Zephyr Bones first burst into the scene they crushed everything that got in their way. Their music slapped us like a wave when it reaches shore. It took us by surprise and left us asking yearning for more. They coined their style “beach wave”. All this became a first album titled Secret Place, something like the sonic coordinates of a sunny place with a soundtrack of guitars with reverb and intoxicating melodies. You can’t tell whether you’ve been there or not, but you definitely want to go back.
In Neon Body they are the same people, but it hits differently. Their melodies and suggestive guitar riffs are on point. They are able to take you back to places. You will never finish these 10 tracks in the same place where you were when you first hit play. Speaking of The Zephyr Bones is speaking of pure freedom. And yet, in this second album we get to know them in a different way, more determined and with a renewed intensity. The landscape has also changed and now the tone reminds us of the twilight, and in some songs you can even feel the reflection of neon light on your skin.
But let’s not lose the point. What matters here are the songs, and in this album you can find pretty damn good ones. “No One”, the first single, is an excellent entry into the universe created in Neon Body. Addictive and irresistible, it will instantly get you dancing and singing along. “So High” is a dizzying and fast-paced first track. By the time “Verneda Lights” arrives, you have fully surrendered to Brian Silva (vocals, guitar and synthesizers), Jossip Tkalcic (guitar and vocals), Marc López (drums) and Carlos Ramos (bass). “Sparks” shines with its own light: it is a controlled fire until the final part of the song makes everything burn again. “Plastic Freedom” goes all-in with an infallible riff. “Velvet” is as elegant as its title suggests, and “Rocksteady” hits the bullseye again with a chorus that hits like a poisonous dart. “Neon Eyes’’ lifts you up with heavenly back up vocals and “Afterglow” keeps you with your feet on the ground – Why? Because begs you to dance. And then comes “Celeste V”, a song that speaks about loss that puts an end to the recording.

Tape

The Zephyr Bones’ psychedelic rock expands in a precise and determined sophomore album. A warm and accessible record that speaks about love, self-affirmation, loss and hope.

A quicksilver track that glides on a buoyant bassline and glistening melodic interplay, “No One” is the sound of joy. While it’s easy to pigeonhole it as a dreampop track, there’s undoubtedly hints of psych, funk and Kraut all nestled in there, The Zephyr Bones blurring the lines with ease in this intoxicating track that shows growth in their sonic heft without losing their feathery lightness.
Beats per Minute
"No One" opens up like a traditional indie dance track, with sparkling guitars and a vibrant synth lead reminiscent of a cut from The Strokes or Tame Impala. But it progresses in a fascinating way, bringing in a crunchy psychedelic guitar solo and a funky instrumental breakdown at the end. This track has a variety of sounds, but it's prog rock more than anything, as the dynamic instrumentation sticks out the most. Every layer here is not only an excellent piece to the larger puzzle while also being technically impressive on its own. Despite these nods to the more experienced rock nerd, what's the most fascinating is how accessible the tune really is. The wild drum beats, dense synth layers, and lightning-quick guitars demonstrate the true cerebral chemistry of the group. The sheer musical talent doesn't hurt either.
Earmilk
When The Zephyr Bones first burst into the scene they crushed everything that got in their way. Their music slapped us like a wave when it reaches shore. It took us by surprise and left us asking yearning for more. They coined their style “beach wave”. All this became a first album titled Secret Place, something like the sonic coordinates of a sunny place with a soundtrack of guitars with reverb and intoxicating melodies. You can’t tell whether you’ve been there or not, but you definitely want to go back.
In Neon Body they are the same people, but it hits differently. Their melodies and suggestive guitar riffs are on point. They are able to take you back to places. You will never finish these 10 tracks in the same place where you were when you first hit play. Speaking of The Zephyr Bones is speaking of pure freedom. And yet, in this second album we get to know them in a different way, more determined and with a renewed intensity. The landscape has also changed and now the tone reminds us of the twilight, and in some songs you can even feel the reflection of neon light on your skin.
But let’s not lose the point. What matters here are the songs, and in this album you can find pretty damn good ones. “No One”, the first single, is an excellent entry into the universe created in Neon Body. Addictive and irresistible, it will instantly get you dancing and singing along. “So High” is a dizzying and fast-paced first track. By the time “Verneda Lights” arrives, you have fully surrendered to Brian Silva (vocals, guitar and synthesizers), Jossip Tkalcic (guitar and vocals), Marc López (drums) and Carlos Ramos (bass). “Sparks” shines with its own light: it is a controlled fire until the final part of the song makes everything burn again. “Plastic Freedom” goes all-in with an infallible riff. “Velvet” is as elegant as its title suggests, and “Rocksteady” hits the bullseye again with a chorus that hits like a poisonous dart. “Neon Eyes’’ lifts you up with heavenly back up vocals and “Afterglow” keeps you with your feet on the ground – Why? Because begs you to dance. And then comes “Celeste V”, a song that speaks about loss that puts an end to the recording.

 The Slow Show release their fourth studio album, their first for three years, entitled ‘Still Life’,
via PIAS. The four-piece, who first formed in Manchester, will support the release with a
European tour in February and March 2022, culminating in an already sold-out hometown show
at Manchester’s Hallé St Peters on 4th March.
 Lead track ‘Blinking’ is a perfect taster to the new direction ‘Still Life’ offers. Same but different
again. “An ode to love and loyalty. The song is a defiant pledge to never giving up on the
people you love. Musically we wanted the song to have impact, a directness and powerful
punch that we’d previously shied away from.” - Robert Goodwin (vocals)
 The making of ‘Still Life’ has been quite the ride. Following their breakthrough album, ‘White
Water’, it was clear The Slow Show were not just ‘another band from Manchester’. The legacy
of The Smiths, Joy Division and all those other great predecessors is not something to be trifled
with, but The Slow Show didn't need to wear their address on their sleeve: this was something
else, fully formed, with a mesmerising sound, rich in atmosphere and melody.
 With the band’s desire to push each other outside of their respective comfort zones during the
recording process, ‘Still Life’ subsequently offers a more diverse, rich and interesting sound
than previous albums.
 “We did develop our sound,” says Rob Goodwin. “We had to try something else. We felt we
owed that to ourselves, and to the people that come and enjoy the music. We explored a lot of
stuff: different sounds, different feelings, different ideas, different processes as well. Some of
them didn’t work at all, but some did. It was difficult and challenging, but it felt good in the end.”
 This experimental side to the creative process allowed the band to introduce new elements to
their work. “Some new approaches and sounds crept in,” keyboardist Frederik ‘T Kindt admits.
“Some were far from our older work. For instance: after some initial encouragement from me,
Rob was keen to sing a bit higher on this record. Chris was encouraged to make his drums a
bit more present; some things almost sound like a breakbeat to my ears.”
 Recorded remotely over the course of the past year, with Goodwin recording vocals from
Dusseldorf in Germany and the rest of band recording in the UK, ‘Still Life’, as a concept, takes
inspiration from the experiences of lockdown: “Before the virus arrived, I had a busy life;
spending two weeks in Germany with my girlfriend, and then flying to Manchester to work with
Fred or to a gig.” Goodwin remarks: “And then all of a sudden, life came to a halt. It took a little
getting used to, but I actually had a really nice realisation during that time. I understood that the
slower life got, the more I saw. I spent a lot of time in nature, seeing things in a different
perspective. And that's what you need when you're trying to create. You have to really look,
and then you see things happening everywhere.”
 The tracks themselves are brimming with emotion and reverence towards the significant
relationships we encounter in life. Stand-out anthem ‘Blinking’ is a defiant pledge to never
giving up on the people you love. Musically the band wanted the song to have impact, a
directness and powerful punch that they’d previously shied away from. Whilst ‘Woven Blue’
deals with the aftermath of uncoupling. The idea that meaningful relationships are very often
woven and complex, making resolve difficult.
 These very personal tracks are counterbalanced with the more topical, ‘Breathe’, which
documents some of the unjust and heart-breaking scenes of 2020 with spoken word references
to John Boyega’s emotional rallying cry in support of Black Lives Matter movement in London’s
Hyde Park.
 In all, Still Life marks another evolution of a band that have never tried to fit in any particular
box but have inhabited their own unique universe.
 LP pressed on white viny

One of the holy grails of ‘70s soul-funk collectors
finally gets a proper reissue (and yes, original copies
of this 1974 release on the Money label will cost you
a lot of, er, money)! Don Julian was a Los Angelesbased doo wopper who got his start leading The
Meadowlarks, who recorded a number of sides for
Dootone Records. The Meadowlarks then became
The Larks, who, like so many other R&B groups of
their era, achieved one hit wonder immortality with
a dance craze song, 1964’s “The Jerk.” They spent
the rest of the ’60s trying to recapture that magic
with tracks like “Soul Jerk” and “The Penguin”
(on Jerk Records, natch) before resurfacing with
a couple of longplayers on the Money label. But
this is where things get a little murky. The group
also recorded a soundtrack for a long-rumored, never seen blaxploitation film called Shorty the
Pimp (supposedly Quentin Tarantino has the only copy). In 1998, Ace Records assembled tracks from
the Shorty the Pimp score on a CD release, but while seven of the ten tracks on Super Slick appear on
that collection, many of them differ markedly from their soundtrack incarnations. So, the how, when,
and where of this recording remain very much a mystery. But no matter; with its blend of Isaac Hayes,
Curtis Mayfield, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”-era Temptations, and ‘70s sweet soul (e. g a cover of
David Gates & Bread’s “Make It with You”), Super Slick wears its influences very much on its sleeve
while transcending them with soaring, falsetto-filigreed harmonies, percolating bass, and note-perfect
arrangements. Trivia note: that’s Richard Berry of “Louie Louie” fame doing the deep-voiced spoken
word parts on “Super Slick” and “Shorty the Pimp.” We’re pressing this in blue vinyl to match the album
cover…this is a reissue that’s been a long time comin’!

St. Paul and the Broken Bones announce their new album ‘The Alien
Coast’, released on ATO Records. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang and
featuring eleven new, original songs, ‘The Alien Coast’ is the first St.
Paul and the Broken Bones album tracked in the band’s hometown of
Birmingham, AL. The arrangement allowed the octet to spend more time
and tap a broader creative community than ever before, resulting in their
most ambitious work to date.
 Led by singer and lyricist Paul Janeway - a former bank teller and
preacher-in-training who learned to sing in his church choir - the octet
explore thrilling new territory on ‘The Alien Coast’, a fever dream
convergence of soul and psychedelia, stoner metal and funk, animated
by the very “fire and brimstone” which Janeway invokes in the album’s
opening line. Unlimited studio-time allowed individual members of the
band to experiment with synths and samples on ‘The Alien Coast’, and
even collaborate with Birmingham beatmaker and hip-hop artist Randall
Turner.
 Janeway cites a similarly disparate range of influences that wove their
way into the writing for ‘The Alien Coast’, from Greek mythology and
dystopian sci-fi, to works of art like Bartolomé Bermejo’s Saint Michael
Triumphs over the Devil and 17th Century Italian sculpture, to colonialperiod history books. “The title actually came from reading about the
history of the Gulf of Mexico, which is home for us,” he recalls. “When
the settlers - or invaders, really - first came to the Gulf Coast they
couldn’t figure out what it was, and started referring to it as the Alien
Coast. That term really stuck with me, partly because it feels almost
apocalyptic.”
 St. Paul and the Broken Bones have reached incredible heights since
breaking out with their first album in 2014. Their previous three albums
each debuted in the Billboard 200, their legendary NPR Tiny Desk has
over 7 million views, they’ve opened for the Rolling Stones, shared the
stage with Elton John, and appeared on several television shows
including Jimmy Kimmel Live, Austin City Limits and more. They were
also the first-ever musical performance on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.
St. Paul and the Broken Bones announce their new album ‘The Alien
Coast’, released on ATO Records. Produced by Matt Ross-Spang and
featuring eleven new, original songs, ‘The Alien Coast’ is the first St.
Paul and the Broken Bones album tracked in the band’s hometown of
Birmingham, AL. The arrangement allowed the octet to spend more time
and tap a broader creative community than ever before, resulting in their
most ambitious work to date.
 Led by singer and lyricist Paul Janeway - a former bank teller and
preacher-in-training who learned to sing in his church choir - the octet
explore thrilling new territory on ‘The Alien Coast’, a fever dream
convergence of soul and psychedelia, stoner metal and funk, animated
by the very “fire and brimstone” which Janeway invokes in the album’s
opening line. Unlimited studio-time allowed individual members of the
band to experiment with synths and samples on ‘The Alien Coast’, and
even collaborate with Birmingham beatmaker and hip-hop artist Randall
Turner.
 Janeway cites a similarly disparate range of influences that wove their
way into the writing for ‘The Alien Coast’, from Greek mythology and
dystopian sci-fi, to works of art like Bartolomé Bermejo’s Saint Michael
Triumphs over the Devil and 17th Century Italian sculpture, to colonialperiod history books. “The title actually came from reading about the
history of the Gulf of Mexico, which is home for us,” he recalls. “When
the settlers - or invaders, really - first came to the Gulf Coast they
couldn’t figure out what it was, and started referring to it as the Alien
Coast. That term really stuck with me, partly because it feels almost
apocalyptic.”
 St. Paul and the Broken Bones have reached incredible heights since
breaking out with their first album in 2014. Their previous three albums
each debuted in the Billboard 200, their legendary NPR Tiny Desk has
over 7 million views, they’ve opened for the Rolling Stones, shared the
stage with Elton John, and appeared on several television shows
including Jimmy Kimmel Live, Austin City Limits and more. They were
also the first-ever musical performance on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.

One concerned with illness (no, not that one) and recovery. Inside to outside. Darkness into light. A way through the woods. The Doozer aka Simon Loynes is now seven LPs into a subterranean solo voyage begun in 2007, and to those of us who have followed it, the songs that make up Convalescence could be seen to embody a kind of late style - ultra-lucid, pared-down, precise; seemingly simple in form, richly complex in effect. Where The Doozer’s last outing, 2018’s Figurines (FTR360), showcased his songs at their most propulsive and and electrified, Convalescence is a more hushed, hermitic, even claustrophobic affair - dispensing with percussion almost entirely, the focus is tight on Loynes’ voice and plangent acoustic guitar, with occasional daubings and interludes of wheezing keyboard, all recorded to Tascam 246 4-track cassette in Edinburgh, Summer 2019. For a considerable chunk of time, health issues had left Loynes unable to sing. On this record you can hear him rediscovering his voice: its unique grain, its responsiveness, its capacity for creating and sustaining emotional ambiguity, for oscillating elegantly between whimsy and woundedness. As with previous Doozer albums, there’s an arcadian impulse at the heart of Convalescence: a sense of exile, or withdrawal, from ‘The Garden’ - and the need to return. The idea that, in your lowest ebb, you might recover your sense of self somewhere in the pastoral landscape of your memories. We're told the shadow of Malcolm Lowry looms large over the record – Lowry the void-chaser, the great misadventurer. Does Convalescence report from the abyss? If so then it's with a coolness and control, a lightness of touch, that conceals as much as it reveals. But beyond the neurosis, the ironic deflections, the flashes of matter-of-fact bleakness (“there isn’t time / there isn’t love”), there lies a deep, Lowry-ish romanticism, and a rejection of pessimism: even at its lowest ebb, Convalescence gestures towards an immense and loving truth – and knows that the possibility of that truth is far more interesting than the numerous ways in which it might be denied. A co-release with Feeding Tube Records USA.

Russell Marsden and Emma Richardson first started writing songs together in their teens after meeting at school in their Southampton hometown. Forming Band of Skulls 17 years ago with drummer Matt Hayward, they went on to make five acclaimed studio albums together. Now, the pair have temporarily stepped away from Band of Skulls to focus on a new musical project they’ve been dreaming about since their earliest songwriting days.

The album covers the full breadth of human emotions, mining deeply into songs about human connection, vulnerability, loss, change, love, identity and forgiveness – as well as the future and hope. It’s vast in scope, something magnified by its grandiose cinematic feel that leans towards the soaring jazz arrangements of the 40s and 50s. The album’s strings were scored and directed by Tom Edwards, who had worked with Band of Skulls previously when he’d reimagined several of their songs. “When Tom sent back the first song, ‘Outsider’, it was a jaw-dropping moment for us to see what he’d done with it,” Emma says. “We challenged him to take inspiration from the incredible composers and arrangers from the 40s and 50s jazz era