Review: In honour of Record Store Day 2025, Canadian-American alt-rockers Big Wreck have decided to reissue one of their most popular albums, 2012's The Albatross. Available in limited numbers (only 1,000 of this CD version was pressed), it not only includes the freshly remastered original album in full, but also three alternate versions, rare bonus cut 'Fade Away', and a raucous live recording of title track 'Albatross'. The original album remains a timeless alt-rock classic where raw guitar riffs, bluesy solos and Ian Thurnley's distinctive lead vocals wrap around thickset bass and punchy drums. For proof, check standouts 'Wolves', 'Glass Room' and the rowdy 'The Rest of the World'.
Review: While not one of David Bowie's best-known achievements, masterminding the world's biggest-ever 'non-TV' satellite broadcast is undoubtedly an impressive one. It took place at London's Riverside Studios in 2003, with the Thin White Duke - accompanied by his regular backing band - performing then new album Reality in its entirety, live to 86 cinemas in 26 countries. This Record Store Day release presents the concert in its entirety (the encore was not broadcast at the time), delivering a superb document of a unique event. Of course, Bowie was in fine form, with the immersive sound mix by regular collaborator Tony Visconti capturing the legendary artist at the peak of his powers.
Review: BT Gate X-138 returns to Greyscale with Gravitational Grooves, deepening his relationship with the label following 2023's kV Pylon. Ten sousing sonorities hear him reshape his signature dub techno sound with growth-mental finesse, emitting foggy atmospheres and slicing percs. 'Inertia' leans into soft chords and faint crackle before giving way to the stripped-down shuffle and understated melodic turns of 'Gravity', while 'Orbit' builds over and delay-heavy phrasing; 'Float' offers a breather with its ambient drift, while an embossed 'Mass' sears the ears with churlish mood-texture. Touchstones such as Konigsforst and In Moll are alluded to most subtly.
The Next Time You See Me, Things Won't Be The Same
The Take Off
Birks' Works (alternate take)
Lady Be Good (alternate take)
Love Walked In
36-23-36/The Theme
Review: By the time Kenny Burrell took the stage at the Five Spot Cafe in August 1959, he had already 90-degree head-turned his best jazz fellow travellers with a glissando of Blue Note LPs. But this gig, his first live date as a leader, brought a new kind of magic. Contracting Art Blakey, Tina Brooks, Roland Hanna, Bobby Timmons, and Ben Tucker on band duties, Burrell confidently executed a suite of hard bop soaked in sweat, swing, and soul. This 3xLP brings that steamy summer evening back to life in full analogue detail; housed in a tip-on trifold jacket with an accompanying booklet of rare Francis Wolff photos, an essay by Syd Schwartz, and new reflections from Burrell himself, it's a vivid snapshot of a moment when everything clicked.
Review: Melancholy maestro Brock Van Wey aka Bvdub returns with more immersive and beautifully sad sounds on his latest album In Iron Houses. It is an ambient work that is far too evocative to serve simply as aural wallpaper. Opener 'Madness To Their Methods' for example has a vocal swirling about the synthscapes that is utterly arresting and conveys great emotional pain. 'The Broken Fixing The Broken' is another lament of epic proportions and 'Iron Houses At Night - Star Track' has a little sense of hope in the brighter melodies and another vocal, which this time carries love not loss. 'Perpetual Emotion Machine' shuts down with subtle celestial celebration.
Carol Bailey - "Understand Me (Free You Mind)" (Dreams Piano remix)
The True Underground Sound Of Rome - "Secret Doctrine" (feat Stefano Di Carlo)
Don Carlos - "Boy"
Lady Bird - "Jazzy Doll" (Odyssey dub)
Montego Bay - "Everything" (Paradise mix - CD2: The Birds Of Paradise)
Atelier - "Got To Live Together" (club mix)
Golem - "Music Sensations"
The True Underground Sound Of Rome - "Gladiators" (feat Stefano Di Carlo)
Eagle Parade - "I Believe"
DJ Le Roy - "Yo Te Quiero" (feat Bocachica - Detroit version)
Green Baize - "Synthetic Rhythm"
MCJ - "Sexitivity" (feat Sima - Deep mix)
Kwanza Posse - "Wicked Funk" (feat Funk Master Sweat - Afro Ambient mix)
Progetto Tribale - "The Bird Of Paradise"
MBG - "The Quiet"
Review: Italian house didn't need the glitz of Ibiza or the muscle of Chicago and Detroit. It carved out its own spaceismoky, dreamlike, and effortlessly cool. This collection captures the full spectrum of that golden era, from the hypnotic tribal rhythms of Progetto Tribale's 'The Sweep' to the shimmering, euphoric synths of Onirico's 'Echo'. There's the deep, rolling pulse of Don Carlos' 'Boy', the jazz-infused elegance of Lady Bird's 'Jazzy Doll (Odyssey Dub)', and the raw energy of Green Baize's 'Synthetic Rhythm'. Elsewhere, 'Titanic' by Mato Grosso offers an atmospheric voyage, while 'The True Underground Sound of Rome' delivers deep, sophisticated grooves. These weren't just club tracks; they were portals to another world. Whether it was the funky shuffle of Alex Neri's 'The Wizard', the soulful pianos of Carol Bailey's 'Understand Me (Free Your Mind)', or the after-hours pulse of MCJ's 'Sexitivity', this was music made by studio obsessives who understood that house wasn't just a soundiit was a feeling. Underground, inventive, and deeply emotional, this collection is a snapshot of an era where the Italian touch brought warmth, sensuality and an undeniable groove to dancefloors worldwide.
Review: Doechii drops a vivid, genre-blurring mixtape, riffing on her Floridian roots and personal battles, relaying them over an arresting artistic statement. Raised in Tampa, she first gained attention with the viral hit 'Yucky Blucky Fruitcake' before signing with Top Dawg Entertainment in 2022. The mixtape's title and cover, with Doechii holding an albino alligator, nod to her "Swamp Princess" nickname and symbolize resilience" as she explained, "This mixtape is my riposte. I am no one's prey; I was born to be the predator." Doechii confronts industry pressures, sobriety, and self-worth with sharp lyricism and stylistic versatility, over standouts like 'Denial Is A River' and 'Boom Bap'.
Review: Soul legend Isaac Hayes' enduring legacy as a soul visionary echoes through this second volume of his singles, which picks up from where the first left off. The collection spans 1972 to 1976, a time when Hayes transitioned from Stax to his own Hot Buttered Soul label. Tracks like 'Hung Up On My Baby' and the relentlessly funky 'Chocolate Chip' showcase his blend of lush orchestration with raw, gritty grooves, a style deeply rooted in the soul-rich streets of Memphis, where Hayes' early musical foundations were laid. As he moved away from Stax's structure, Hayes embraced a new sense of creative freedom, merging cinematic soul with the emerging sounds of disco, perfectly captured in 'Disco Connection'. The production, unpolished and alive, channels the intensity of Hayes' sound from the early 70s, pushing boundaries while remaining deeply personal. This release is a reflection of the man's profound influence on soul music, one that continues to reverberate through generations.
Review: Ezekiel Honig is a New York City-based artist who founded two vital labels, Anticipate Recordings and Microcosm, and now he is back with a new album on 12K. Unmapping The Distance Keeps Getting Closer is a tender and honest work of art that wears its heart on its sleeve with piano, horns and broken rhythms all characterising the palette. Field recordings are also worked into the arrangements to add a real narrative and to really evoke a sense of place. Add in plenty of textural and tactile motives and you have a journeying album full of melancholy but also a sense of hope.
Review: During the late 1970s and early '80s, Miami was a hotbed of percussion-rich disco-funk that blended popular Black American grooves of the day with nods to the drum-heavy rhythms of Afro-Cuban music. Herman Kelly & Life were amongst the outfits at the vanguard of this movement, though unusually they only released one album, 1978's Percussion Explosion! Here it gets a remastered CD reissue. It's naturally best-known for boda-fide disco anthem 'Dance To The Drummer's Beat', but there are plenty of other hot, break-heavy classics on display - not least the low-slung, high-octane brilliance of 'Who's The Funky DJ?', the string-drenched disco-soul sweetness of 'Share Your Love' and the low-down, extra-heavy funk rinse-out that is 'Do The Handbone'.
Review: Journey Through Life witnesses Afrobeat pioneer, pallbearer and powerhouse Femi Kuti's very latest transformation in sound, as we witness the artist turn vividly, self-reflectively inward. The LP proposes a rare self-produced window into Femi's personal evolution, spanning childhood memories to fatherhood and, of course, the unshakable presence of family. As he puts it: "At the end of the day for me family is all that matters. The essence is to manage such events and let love prevail." Long celebrated for his uncompromising political voice, Femi leans evermore into an already evident vulnerability, revisiting earlier material through several, pylonic stylistic anchors: his signature horn-laced grooves, not to mention themes of personal legacy and posterity.
Review: Will Long aka Celer, Mississippi-born but now permanently resident in Tokyo, intensifies his investigation in personal house music with the fourth edition in his Long Trax series. A quartered circle of evolving textures of at first seemingly diminutive character, this manifest impression is dashed once we learn that each track on the record is given its own side, allowing each ample space to unfold within an economically restrained formula: dry drum machines, subtle chords, hygge bass. Clearly an ode to productive limitation: 'The Right Choice' tosses us the first chord against gambolling percs, while 'You Cannot Reform A Sin' brings marching, DC-offset acid. The release redresses historic wrongs too, using carefully extracted, recorded samples of key voices in the Afro-American civil rights movement.
Announcements & Tuneups (9th National Jazz & Blues Festival, Plumpton Racecourse, Plumpton, Sussex, England 8th August 1969 - Audience Recording)
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
Tuneups
Cymaline
The Beginning
Beset By Creatures Of The Deep
The Narrow Way
Interstellar Overdrive (Afan Lido Sports Centre, Port Talbot, Wales 6th December 1969 - Audeince Recording)
Green Is The Colour
Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
Review: A treat for Pink Floyd fans, as recordings of two legendary concerts from 1969 - sneakily captured by members of the audience - are bundled together on one must-check CD. The first seven tracks showcase a portion of the legendary band's distinctively psychedelic performance at Plumpton Racecourse, Sussex (then host to the 'National Jazz and Blues Festival'), offering up twisted, elongated takes on early material (including 'Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun' and a fine medley known as 'The Journey'. The final four tracks were recorded in Port Talbot and include breathtakingly brilliant, jammed-out interpretations of 'Careful With That Axe Eugene' and the pinnacle of psychedelic-era Floyd, 'Interstellar Overdrive'.
Review: Deep Valley is a new collaborative work by Australian artists Seaworthy aka Cameron Webb and Matt Rosner and they came together for it during a week-long residency at Bundanon Art Museum in New South Wales. The property which was gifted to the Australian public by artists Arthur and Yvonne Boyd in the 1990s offers a unique landscape along the Shoalhaven River and is surrounded by sandstone cliffs and diverse wildlife. Drawing inspiration from Boyd's belief that "you can't own a landscape," Deep Valley combines the inspiration of that setting with environmental recordings, guitars, piano, and electronic processing all of which aim to highlight the transient nature of ecosystems and encourage you to reconnect with the sounds of nature.
God Save The Queen (Cd1: South East music Hall Atlanta January 5th 1978) (4:43)
I Wanna Be Me (2:57)
Seventeen (3:12)
New York (3:08)
Bodies (3:17)
Submission (4:10)
Holidays In The Sun (4:10)
EMI (3:36)
No Feelings (3:27)
Problems (5:03)
Pretty Vacant (7:07)
Anarchy In The UK (4:22)
Radio Ad (CD2: longhorn Ballroom Dallas January 10th 1978) (2:08)
God Save The Queen (3:45)
I Wanna Be Me (4:01)
Seventeen (3:17)
New York (4:35)
EMI (3:43)
Bodies (5:20)
Belsen Was A Gas (2:33)
Holidays In The Sun (4:36)
No Feelings (4:28)
Problems (4:31)
Pretty Vacant (3:32)
Anarchy In The UK (6:11)
No Fun (7:04)
God Save The Queen (CD3: Winterland Ballroom San Francisco January 14th 1978)
I Wanna Be Me
Seventeen
New York
EMI
Belsen Was A Gas
Bodies
Holidays In The Sun
Liar
No Feelings
Problems
Pretty Vacant
Anarchy In The UK
No Fun
Review: Nowadays regarded as the stuff of punk legend, the chaotic and ill-fated jaunt undertaken by the Sex Pistols across the US in January of 1978 was hindered by so many differing factors, it was almost as if they were set to fail. Plagued by poor management while trapped on a label with no real idea how to market such a tumultuous roster outlier, the band found themselves performing for those there out of mere curiosity more than their targeted audience or genuine fans, culminating in severe burn-out in real time, captured on these recordings. Finally, for the first time, several of these shows have been retooled to their correct sequencing with this collection reflecting the debaucherous live sets in all their feral glory that took place on January 5th at the South East Music Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, January 10th at the Longhorns Ballroom in Dallas, Texas, and January 14th at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, California. Boasting all of the essential anthems from 'God Save The Queen' to 'Pretty Vacant' and 'Anarchy In The UK', behind the energy is the sound of a band imploding, while today not all wounds have healed with the surviving members currently enjoying a celebration of their iconic Never Mind The Bollocks LP with former Gallows frontman Frank Carter stepping in for MAGA man Jon Lydon, who continues to lob barbs at his former bandmates whenever given half the chance.
Gretchen - "Ela Tem Raca, Charme, Talento E Gostosura"
Coisa Quente - "Edmundo (In The Mood)"
Ze Carlos - "Venha" (remix)
Robson Jorge & Lincoln Olivetti - "Suspira"
Os Carbonos - "Passaro Selvagem"
San Rodrigues - "Fofa"
Marcos Valle - "Parabens (Danca Do Daniel)"
Lafayette - "Sol De Verao"
Roberto Cesar - "Fevereiro (O Bamba)"
Arlete - "Quero Ser Sua Mulher"
Waldirene - "Queima Como Fogo"
Luiza Maura - "Deixa Girar"
Jorge Ben - "Rio Babilonia"
Carlos Bivar - "Elo"
Review: International favourites on the boogie-and-beyond selection circuit, Horse Meat Disco deliver the first edition in a brand new compilation tracking yet more heat disco of a Brazilian flavour. Some 13 years in the making, much love and attention has been poured into this compendium, which unearths tracks from the seemingly endless urban goldmines of Brasilia and Rio, twin obsessive loci, nurtured by founding member Luke Eagle amid an extended exploration of the South American nation's dance music culture. Having learned to dance samba and paraded the Rio Carnival, this is a compilation rooted in worldly experience, made up largely of 7" finds. Chief among the brilliants are Ze Carlos' Italoesque wonder 'Venha' and the well-spiced 'Sol De Verao' by Lafayette, spanning years' worth of digging.
Review: There's a good reason that the Viagra Boys' latest album is self-titled. Unlike their previous album, 2022's satirical, politically-charged Cave World, the Swedish post-punkers' latest set is lyrically far more introspective, with frontman Sebastian Murphy offering (in the band's own words), a "self-deprecating exploration of his own absurdity" (or, in the case of opener 'Made of Meat', "your mom's Only Fans"). Musically sitting between energetic, horn-heavy early 80s post-punk and grunge-fired US alt-rock - with occasional nods to more tropical and melody-driven flavours - the album is heaps of fun with strong songs aplenty, not least the jaunty 'Pyramid of Health', the low-slung, synth-sporting 'Waterboy' and the surprisingly pastoral 'River King'.
The Spinners - "Dont Let The Green Grass Fool You"
Syl Johnson - "Black Balloons"
Peggy Scott & Jo Jo Benson - "Soulshake"
Richie Havens - "I Can't Make It Anymore"
The Exits - "You Got To Have Money"
The Joneses - "Pull My String (Turn Me On)"
The Dells - "Run For Cover"
O.C. Smith - "On Easy Street"
The Radiants - "It Ain't No Big Thing"
Billy Stewart - "Summertime"
Brother To Brother - "In The Bottle"
Baby Huey - "Hard Times"
Johnny Williams - "Maggie"
Joe Simon - "When"
James Carr - "Pouring Water On A Drowning Man"
Roscoe Robinson - "That's Enough"
Blackrock - "Blackrock Yeah Yeah"
American Gypsy - "Golden Ring"
Jon Lucien - "Search For The Inner Self"
The Mist - "Life Walked Out"
Betty Davis - "In The Meantime"
Darrell Banks - "Beautiful Feeling"
Review: Paul Weller is perhaps one of the best non-soul musicians to ask to compile a rare soul compilation. Rather than documenting soul music as it proliferated in the 1960s, Ace Records' soul aim was to capture a genre, fashion and style as one man saw it in retrospect, in light of his involvement in the mod revival of the mid 1970s. Weller would later go onto form and front The Jam, but in late 1974, shortly before his involvement in the punk movement, he was about none of that business at all. Punk partly grew on febrile tissues of mod, which was in turn an offshoot of 60s soul; and it is true that we may hear a foetal form of the sound in the brasher cuts on this record, be it Billy Stewart's 'Summertime' or James Carr's 'Pouring Water'. Also clock Brother To Brother's 'In The Bottle', a super-early drum machine blues gem perfect for the house heads.
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