…features the original album as well as sessions, B-sides, a live show from the time and a complete disc of demos from Chapel Studios.
Having exorcised enough bile for two bands on their rickety release Interim, The Fall loosen up their attitude, tighten up their delivery, and squeeze out a rocking album that relies heavily on its highlights. Fortunately, there’s plenty, most hitting with the thwack of the “Sparta FC” single or the Light User Syndrome album. “Pacifying Joint” is a punchy exercise in hooks and sheen, “What About Us” is snide Mancabilly of the highest order, and “Blindness” hypnotizes and chugs its way into the Top 25 original Fall tracks ever. Flashiest of the lot has to be a soaring cover of the Move’s hippy anthem “I Can Hear the Grass Grow,”…
Category: *editions*
Author Philip K. Dick spent his career poking at the porous boundary between reality and illusion, questioning the reliability our perception and memory. Using motifs such as artificial intelligence (AI), mind-altering drugs, simulated realities, and corporate and governmental power, he examined our sense of identity, the nature of truth, and the very essence of reality. Given recent advances in AI as well as ongoing sociopolitical changes, Dick’s work now seems more prescient than ever.
Ubikuitous, yet another thematic compilation from Unexplained Sounds Group, uses experimental ambient and acousmatic music – with a touch of glitch and techno – to explore these concepts. Many of the 14 tracks employ synth-based droning with dark overtones as a core element,…
Magma’s Cosmic Masterpiece: The Absolute Classic Live Album That Redefined Progressive Music Magma’s mythic 1975 live set, captured in full fire at Paris’ Taverne de l’Olympia, returns to mark its 50th anniversary with a stunning new edition. Presented as an exclusive 2LP pressing on translucent blue vinyl and housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, this release honors one of the most powerful live documents in progressive music history. Widely hailed as one of the greatest live albums ever recorded, Live captures the band at their most transcendent, delivering a performance that shattered genre boundaries and redefined the possibilities of rock. The recording radiates raw intensity, precision, and an otherworldly vision that remains unmatched decades later.
Chicago-born record label International Anthem capped off an entire year of anniversary activities (under the IA11 chrysanthemum banner) with a very special event celebrating the label’s actual eleventh solar return at their new Southside Chicago HQ inside Theaster Gates and Rebuild Foundation’s latest space-based project, The Land School.
The evening featured a performance by Rob Mazurek with Matthew Lux and Mikel Patrick Avery (the ensemble behind Alternate Moon Cycles, the very first album in the IARC catalog, which was originally released December 2nd, 2014), in what Mazurek refers to as “A Polysonic Resonance Field in One Continuous Movement.”
About the performance, Mazurek recalls: “At the invitation of International Anthem, I gathered…
1. The Black Crowes – Cruel Streak
2. Snail Mail – My Maker
3. Andrew Wasylyk – Private Symphony #2
4. Courtney Barnett – Mantis
5. Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection – Rowan Tree
6. Flea – Traffic Lights (feat. Thom Yorke)
7. Bruce Hornsby – Indigo Park
8. Tinariwen – Imidiwan Takyadam
9. Ellie O’Neill – Anna with the Silver Arrow
10. The Long Ryders – Stand a Little Further in…
11. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Hey Little
12. Memorials – Dropped Down the Well
13. Charlotte Cornfield – Lost Leader
14. Billy Fuller – Rummer
15. The New Pornographers – Ballad of the Last Payphone
1. The Studio 68! & Dani Turner – Funky People
2. The Delines – The Meter Keeps Ticking
3. Altin Gun – Öldürme Beni
4. Bill Callahan – Stepping Out for Air
5. Marielle V Jakobsons – Everything Lost Remains
6. Ulrika Spacek – Picto
7. Iron & Wine – In Your Ocean
8. Cardinals – I Like You
9. Crooked Fingers – Haunted (feat. Sharon Van Etten)
10. KMRU – With Trees Where We Can See
11. Hen Ogledd – Clara
12. The Wave Pictures – The House Painted Blue
13. Buck Meek – Ring of Fire
14. Clémentine March – Lucie
15. Isabel Pine – Fables
After topping the U.K. dance charts with his first two albums and garnering Brit Award nominations, Barry Can’t Swim presented a volume of the Late Night Tales mix series, showcasing music he’s fond of but wouldn’t necessarily be appropriate for him to drop in a club. While there’s a little of the type of lush, organic house that he produces, much of the mix is more downtempo, often exploring Balearic chillout territory, but also venturing into a few other directions.
Loket’s cosmic trip-hop number “Afternoon at Barenquell” is an early highlight, working up a jazzy groove before clearing out for a lovely string-based coda. Following a short excerpt of Superpitcher’s 20-minute, harp-based chugger “Yves,” a handful of introspective pieces…
In the five years that they’ve been active, it sometimes seems as if Purelink are dissolving right before our eyes. They’ve never again released anything quite as corporeal or propulsive as their debut EP, which paired visceral dub techno with rolling drum’n’bass.
On their 2023 debut album, Signs, glitchy drums crackled in a pastel haze, and last year’s Faith was even more ethereal; the trio’s individual identities melted together under cover of amorphous arrangements that suggested fogbanks, blizzards, and other zero-visibility conditions.
Anyone who has seen Purelink live, however, knows how much physical heft they’re capable of conjuring — a bold, bassy throb that sets bodies in motion even in the absence of obvious…
Why it’s volume two from the Rotting Tapes series that’s being given a vinyl reissue, rather than volumes one, three or four is anybody’s guess, but why not? All four tapes contained two tracks each, all were recorded live in Tokyo in the first half of 1982, and all feature the duo Michio Kadotani (1959-1990, vocals/guitar) and Nanjo Asahito (bass), this time joined by an uncredited drummer. The group was well-named; although the music at times seems like impenetrable, formless sludge, there’s often a real beauty and poetry to it, too. When Rotting Telepathies performed together, there was, perhaps fitfully, a unique alchemy, and when it works, it’s glorious, presaging the more fully formed music of noisy, doomy Japanese bands like Gallhammer, but it’s also…
Intensely expressive free-verse vocal laments over sliding violins, hammered santouri, guitar, and oud – the hybrid sounds of the Mediterranean in the early 20th century.
“Aman Aman” cry the singers on these recordings, their voices preserved on 78rpm discs cut between 1911-1935. The phrase roughly translates to “mercy,” a call of despair, but also one of joy and admiration. On many of these sides, that full range of emotion is transmitted at once.
Some of these artists are legends, others lost to time. Nearly half are female vocalists, a big part of the Cafe Aman tradition but not as well represented on contemporary releases. All were affected by conflicts leading up to the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1923, and the forced…
One of the clearest examples of an album that crafts a strange and beautiful world not quite like any other is Rocketship’s 1996 full-length debut A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness. Even upon arrival, this was an experience unto itself, and 30 years later, these eight songs of bittersweet bliss still feel new.
Rocketship spiked their deliciously melodic indiepop with buzzing organs, spacey interstitials and motorik repetition, aligning them with mid-90s peers like Stereolab and Unrest. “A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness” is an album of unrepentantly vulnerable melodies, unusual seventh chords, lingering ambient interludes, and soft sentiments released at a time when unfriendly, self-conscious punk rock was the order of the day…
Many extraordinary works fade quietly into obscurity, only to be rediscovered years later. Roland Brival’s Créole Gypsy belongs firmly to this overlooked category, a staggering, deeply political, and intensely beautiful work of Pan-Caribbean spiritual jazz that has remained a ghost in the annals of music history since 1980. Now, rescued from obscurity and newly remastered by Soundway Records, this holy grail of Antillean music finally demands the reckoning it has always deserved. Appreciating Créole Gypsy begins with understanding the life and perspective of its creator. Born in 1950 in Fort-de-France, Martinique, music represents just one dimension of Roland Brival’s versatility. He is a celebrated novelist, poet, literature critic, painter,…
St. Vincent has released Live In London!, a new digital album capturing her acclaimed orchestral performance at Royal Albert Hall.
Recorded during last year’s BBC Proms, the album documents a unique collaboration between Annie Clark and conductor Jules Buckley, backed by a 60-piece orchestra. The performance saw St. Vincent reimagine material from across her career, transforming fan favourites and deeper cuts into sweeping, cinematic arrangements.
Spanning 19 tracks, Live In London! draws from a catalogue that stretches from her 2007 debut Marry Me through to 2024’s All Born Screaming, showcasing the evolution of one of modern music’s most inventive artists. Songs including Digital Witness, Los Ageless and Slow Disco are given…
Supertramp followed an unusual path to commercial success in the 1970s, fusing the stylistic ambition and instrumental dexterity of progressive rock with the wit and tuneful melodies of British pop, and the results made them one of the most popular British acts of the ’70s and ‘80s, topping the charts and filling arenas around the world at a time when their style of music was supposed to have fallen out of fashion.
Supertramp was formed in 1969 by pianist and vocalist Rick Davies. Davies had been a member of a group called the Joint, who had found a financial backer in Dutch millionaire Stanley August Miesegaes; Miesegaes had grown disenchanted with the Joint, but saw promise in Davies, and he offered to bankroll a new band if Davies wanted…
Pianist Harold Mabern (1936-2019) was talented beyond measure. Though he never received the honor and distinction of the prestigious NEA Jazz Master designation, his music and the musicians who knew him tell a different story. That story unfolds beautifully throughout the 10th anniversary reissue of Mabern’s 2015 recording, Afro Blue. The newly remixed and remastered recording features performances from some of the most celebrated names in vocal jazz, including Gregory Porter, Norah Jones, Kurt Elling, Jane Monheit, and Alexis Cole. The recording also features contributions from an all-star band, including longtime bandmates Joe Farnsworth (drums), Eric Alexander (sax), and John Webber (bass), alongside Steve Turre (trombone), Jeremy Pelt…
On May 15 and 16 in 2025, the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet entered the Village Vanguard, New York City’s legendary jazz room, to record the saxophonist’s first ever live outing. It is the first of three volumes from those shows: Vol. 2 was released in April, and Vol. 3 in May. In addition to Wilkins’ alto horn, the quartet consists of pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Ryoma Takenaga, and drummer Kweku Sumbry. The entire project contains just 13 tracks: four lengthy tracks appear here. This music is wildly creative, making for intense listening as this group improvises in the moment and communicates seemingly instinctively.
The 14-minute-plus “Warriors” opens the set. Its introduction is balladic before the band follows Sumbry’s frenetic drumming and the pace…
The Draft was recorded by Trent Bell at Bell Labs in Norman, OK in October 2010 and originally released by Count Your Lucky Stars (#26) and strictly no capital letters (#25) in March 2011.The 15th Anniversary Edition was remixed by J. Robbins at the Magpie Cage Recording Studio in Baltimore, MD and remastered by Dan Coutant at Sunroom Audio, Cornwall, NY in September 2025.
For a genre that seems to have a stigma attached that it’s “girly,” emo has a surprising lack of women in the genre. This fact alone automatically sets Football, etc. apart because they have not one, but two females in the band. Football, etc. are a three piece emo band based out of Houston, Texas that play a refreshing blend of the highs and lows of the genre. While most emo bands set out to…
Hurray for the Riff Raff release Live Forever, a new live record on the exact two-year anniversary of The Past Is Still Alive-named one of the Best Albums of the 2020s So Far by Pitchfork, and one of the Best Albums of 2024 by the New York Times, Atlantic, Associated Press, NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Out, Mojo, Uncut, and a multitude of others.
Live Forever was captured over the course of two sold-out summer nights at the Old Town School of Folk Music in bandleader Alynda Segarra’s new home of Chicago. Spanning 14 songs, Live Forever presents The Past Is Still Alive in its entirety, as well as a selection of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s show-stopping, set-defining staples: decrying ICE on the poetic “Precious Cargo”…
The year is 2026, the rollercoaster ride that was Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine has long since been shut down and covered in tarpaulin to make way for a 21st century theme park of bland pop.
Formed in 1987 by Fruitbat and Jim Bob, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine burst onto the scene with their signature style of punk-pop infused with samples, drum machines, and social commentary. Join Jim Bob and Fruitbat, as they take a retrospective look back at the complete Carter U.S.M. singles, from 1988 to 1997.
First released in 1995, Straw Donkey is an essential introduction to Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, featuring the U.K. Top 20 singles ‘The Only Living Boy In New Cross’, ‘After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)’, ‘Rubbish’…
…“Legendary Edition” of the band’s self-titled debut offers the remastered original album (featuring tracks like “Mama Kin,” “Movin’ Out” and the eventual smash hit “Dream On”) alongside a new remix of the album, overseen in 2024 by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry with producer/engineer Zakk Cervini and producer Steve Berkowitz, plus a further 17 unreleased tracks including studio outtakes and a vintage live performance in the band’s hometown.
…The quintet – singer Steven Tyler, lead guitarist Joe Perry, rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer – had been playing together since 1970 – even sharing a home together on Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue – and were famously signed to…