…Remastered by Mark Beazley.
‘Will’ might have been released in 2001, but it’s not anywhere near as well known as Grinning Cat. That might simply be because up until that point, Susumu Yokota‘s dancefloor material had been supplied via Tokyo’s Sublime imprint, who released the epochal ‘1998’ and ‘1999’. Having become disillusioned with Japan’s club scene, Yokota handled ‘Will’ himself, putting on Skintone and although it made sense sonically – the release is considered an ode to his loose-limbed Skintone nights in Tokyo – it’s one of his more obscure collections. Listening now, it sounds at times like a speeded up, fattened version of ‘Grinning Cat’, all rickety drum breaks and piano loops. It’s almost like Yokota is challenging himself…
Category: *editions*
The infectious energy and bombastic grooves of jazz/soul drummer/band leader Makaya McCraven are channelled into the most focused and cohesive overall recording of his career so far on Universal Beings. That the sound quality is more pristine than previous releases certainly helps — it’s no easy feat to get this kind of clarity on a live recording — but it’s the songs themselves that feel the most honed.
While the music is clearly rooted in jazz, the influences on this ensemble’s sound are vast and worldly, if not measurably universal. With “Black Lion,” McCraven and company tap into the deep pocket and simple repetitive hooks of hip-hop, while allowing room for jazzy flourishes filled with subtle nuance to sub in for the absent vocals. Elsewhere, surprisingly baroque violin…
After an eight-year lay-off from the recording studio, the Smithereens released two albums in 2007. However, it doesn’t bode well for their creative process that the first of those albums was comprised entirely of Beatles covers, and the second was a Christmas disc.
However, Christmas with the Smithereens at least features three original tunes (which is three more than Meet the Smithereens!), and as rock & roll Christmas albums go, this is good fun and admirably eclectic. The Smithereens are pretty broad-minded when it comes to what constitutes a Yuletide melody, given the presence of “Christmas,” a not especially seasonal tune from the Who’s Tommy, and they dig up the Beatles rarity “Christmas Time Is Here Again,” as well as…
‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’ (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) features 12 new recordings by Jeremy Allen White and the cast of the critically acclaimed film.
…Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere centers on the making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, so the soundtrack finds White playing tracks from the iconic 1982 album. He does not, however, cover the full album, missing out on “Johnny 99,” “Used Cars,” and “Open All Night.” Instead, the soundtrack album includes two hits from Springsteen’s Nebraska successor, Born in the U.S.A.: the title song and and “I’m on Fire.” It also closes with covers of two songs that Springsteen and the E Street Band are known to favor — Little Richard’s “Lucille” and John Lee Hooker’s…
Culled from previously unreleased recordings from Swedish television and radio archives, Golden Flower: Live in Sweden presents Yusef Lateef leading two different quartets in performances in Sweden in 1967 and 1972. Always commanding on both tenor sax and flute, Lateef is in excellent form on both dates, with each showcasing a different side of his artistic character. While Albert “Tootie” Heath is the drummer on both sets, the 1967 material, recorded at a club date in Stockholm, features Swedish musicians Palle Danielsson on bass and Lars Sjösten on piano. This half of Golden Flower tends to be smoother and more straight-ahead, with Lateef and his group cruising through a cool take of “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” the playful and even silly inclusion…
Combing through a family member’s history following their death is a routine, if sombre and difficult task that falls to many a close relative. Committing to publicly honour that person’s life and work in a tangible way is something else entirely. Over seven years, just such a project has occupied Berlin-based producer Joseph Kamaru, who makes leftfield electronic music as KMRU.
His objective was to memorialise and widen awareness outside Africa of his grandfather, also Joseph, a hugely influential figure in Kenya’s music history and a political activist, who died in 2018 aged 79.
Heavy Combination may be a labour of familial love but like the dozens of his grandfather’s recordings that KMRU has remastered and…
There are many nighttime scenarios that can prompt a click of the play button: Stumbling through the door and into a recliner after an arduous day at the office; getting behind the wheel for a head-clearing cruise on nearly deserted streets; inviting friends old and new home from the first party to start the second party. To celebrate 15 years of smooth, velvety beats, L.A.-based dance label 100% Silk has honored such moonlit scenes with the new compilation Late Shift Silk.
Any one of the 11 cuts on Late Shift Silk could work for activities best suited to the cover of darkness. “To the Window” by Florida’s El Nalgón channels the feeling of late hours starting to loosen sensory perception, the last few moments before the mind welcomes much-needed slumber.
There are few bands like Sand. Borrowing from jazz, industrial, techno and post-punk, somehow everything is mixed up to produce some seriously bowel-shifting grooves. Their 1999 debut Beautiful People Are Evil sees the York band still working on their formula which had been perfected by the time of 2002 follow-up Still Born Alive.
Sand musically walk the line between different worlds. They have played with, on the one hand, dance artists such as Robert Hood, Patrick Pulsinger, Andy Weatherall and Carl Craig and on the other hand with groups such as God Speed You Black Emperor, Squarepusher , Add N to X and ESG. Sand play diverse live events. They have performed on stage with the Karas Dance Company in Tokyo (where they played onstage with…
…includes two new, never released songs.
Okkervil River write dreamy songs with slumber-blurred stories and play them with a drifting, somnambulant gait. The band — named for a river outside St. Petersburg, Russia — filled last year’s eye-opening Down the River of Golden Dreams with gentle ballads about beds and war criminals and forgiveness, but the songs on their follow-up EP, Sleep and Wake Up Songs, are more brittle and fragile, like a light sleeper’s snooze. The EP condenses the album’s best qualities and discards most of its weaknesses, and its brevity makes it all the more emotionally forceful.
“Rapt, in Star Wars sheets/ With my hand across your belly/ We waded through the watercolor,” Will Sheff sings on opener “A Favor”. The song…
Volume 8 in the Cinéola series is the sound track the Odyssey, which was was a critical hit following its World Premiere at SXSW 2025. This film is the latest feature from acclaimed director, Gerard Johnson, known for previous adrenaline-fuelled thrillers Tony, Hyena and Muscle.
Fiery, sharp-tongued, and ambitious real estate agent Natasha Flynn lives every day on the verge of total success – or ruin. Her luxurious lifestyle is an unaffordable mask for the lonely void she’s tried to fill with the hustle for success. Then, when a shady lender forces her complicity in a criminal scheme to settle a debt, Natasha seeks out a dangerous old friend for help. As pressure from colleagues, collectors and criminals escalates, so begins a wild, neon-soaked ride through London’s…
Ultravox’s 1984 best-of compilation The Collection sold over 2 million copies worldwide after its release and went triple platinum in the UK. It includes the band’s first 14 singles released between 1980 and 1984. The best-known tracks include the cult song “Vienna”, the anti-nuclear war anthem “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”, the new wave classic “All Stood Still” as well as “Hymn”, “The Voice” and “Reap The Wild Wind”.
Now “The Collection” is being re-released remastered in various formats with different bonus material. This newly remastered compilation has been expanded into a 4CD/2Blu-ray Deluxe Edition. The set includes a second volume of “The Collection” with a further 14 singles from 1986 to 2024, alternative and unreleased versions.
This Christmas, the First Lady of Folk Kate Rusby gifts her fans something truly special – an exclusive and limited run Double-CD titled 20 Christmas Is Merry, a celebration of two decades of magical festive music.
20 Christmas Is Merry features 17 stunning live tracks recorded at several venues over the last five years. The live recordings range from the anthemic soundscape of ‘Glorious’ to the gentle, exquisite beauty of ‘The Frost Is All Over.’ Every performance glows with the spirit of a Kate Rusby Christmas. The recordings capture that unique magic – the feeling of being at home with friends around the fire, a glass of mulled wine in hand, basking in the glow of music that feels both comforting and transcendent.
Alongside the live tracks, there are five…
Available for first time in over 35 years, Clock DVA’s White Souls in Black Suits – originally released in 1980 as a limited-run cassette on Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Records – now returns in a newly remastered edition, reissued via The Grey Area of Mute and expanded with four bonus tracks from the same era.
Led by the visionary Adi Newton, Clock DVA remains one of the most enigmatic and shape-shifting acts to emerge from Sheffield. Their catalog spans mutant funk, noir jazz, and coldwave electronics, with White Souls in Black Suits, paired with the additionals tracks, offering an insight into the early morphology of their sound. The album features a lineup including Newton (voice, synth, clarinet, bowed electric guitar,…
Celebrating 40 Years of one of Britain’s most iconic and era-defining bands, The Factory Singles is the definitive tribute to a group that reshaped the sound of UK music.
“This fully remastered collection brings together their landmark singles from 1985–1992, capturing the raw energy, innovation, and fearless creativity that made them a cornerstone of the Factory Records and Madchester legacy.
From underground club anthems to crossover hits, every track showcases their unique fusion of attitude, electronic experimentation, and dancefloor-ready grooves. These singles not only defined an era but also laid the foundations for the alternative dance and indie scenes that followed.
Adding even more depth, this edition also…
Fully remastered and features previously unreleased B-sides, rarities and remixes by Todd Terry, The Beatmasters, Sly & Robbie and more.
žYou may not know his name, but you’ll probably recognize his voice. Since the death of Klaus Nomi, Somerville has reigned as the best white falsetto singer in pop music; his soaring voice propelled Bronski Beat and the Communards to respectable chart positions (especially in Europe) during the 1980s, and his return to musical activity finds him in excellent form. Dare to Love doesn’t really break much new ground for Somerville. He’s still working the club floor with disco-inflected dance-pop, and his melodic sense is still as strong as ever — from the airborne melodic lines of “Heartbeat” to the down-and-dirty funk of…
The ship of Theseus is a classic paradox of thought that asks whether an object is truly the same after all its component pieces have been replaced. That’s not exactly the case for Sting’s musical The Last Ship, but he is once again revisiting the song score he’s tinkered with several times over the last decade in a new expanded edition.
Coming to 2CD, 2LP and digital on December 5 ahead of a new series of worldwide performances, this new edition of the singer/songwriter’s 2013 concept album take on The Last Ship offers 20 tracks from the original album release and cast recording, plus five new recordings, all resequenced to better reflect the current narrative of the tale. Those new tracks are a re-recording of the song “Shipyard” (with new vocals by…
