Jordan Rakei releases his Live From The Royal Albert Hall album and accompanying full-length concert film – an official record of his two sold-out nights at the historic London venue. The album – recorded on the second night of the run, after the first night sold out in a matter of hours – serves as a document of the GRAMMY-nominated singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist’s biggest shows to date, and brings to a close the campaign for Jordan’s latest long-player, The Loop.
His campaign for The Loop saw Rakei achieve a number of career highlights, including his first Ivor Novello Award nomination, becoming Abbey Road Studios’ inaugural Artist In Residence, selling out shows across Europe, the UK, the USA, Asia, and Australia (including the Sydney Opera House…
Category: *editions*
Nik Kershaw‘s long-awaited The MCA Years offers the most complete look at the British pop/rocker’s career in the ’80s, offering four remastered studio albums, four discs of B-sides and remixes, two discs of mostly unreleased live material, and a DVD of music videos and concert material. Both Human Racing and The Riddle were expanded in the early 2010s by UMC with remixes and live material. The MCA Years includes all of that and more: a dedicated disc of eight non-LP B-sides, a collection of 18 extended 12″ mixes, plus a further nine special single mixes and edits. (A healthy amount of this material is being released on CD for the first time.) The package closes out with the first complete release of a live show recorded by Kershaw at the end of 1984…
‘Can You Fly’ is the second critically hailed album by singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston. It was released in 1992 on Bar/None Records. Remastered with bonus tracks.
A giant step forward from his likeable but ragged debut, Freedy Johnston’s Can You Fly is a stunningly accomplished and coherent album that recalls the raw lyricism of such quintessentially American writers as Raymond Carver and Richard Hugo. Johnston sold his family’s Kansas farm to finance the recording of Can You Fly, a fact that’s cited in the record’s opening line and reflected in several autobiographical songs about the guilty downside of pursuing a dream. Elsewhere, Johnston creates rich character studies of people who are vaguely aware that their lives…
Dominique Fils-Aimé (FEE-yay) is a singer and songwriter from Quebec equally adept at singing jazz, soul, gospel, blues, reggae, and pop.
After taking the runner-up spot on The Voice’s 2015 season, she signed with Montreal’s Ensoul label and released Nameless, her debut, in 2018. With the exception of two standards, she wrote the album, revealing herself as a first-rate jazz singer and composer influenced by Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Miriam Makeba, and Mahalia Jackson. In 2019 she returned with the self-composed Stay Tuned, and in 2021 she released Three Little Words that included one of the greatest covers of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” cut to tape.
In 2023 she released Our Roots Run Deep, composed of original songs.
King Crimson’s performance at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht on September 24, 2015, was a highlight of their “Radical Action” tour. The show, one of the final dates of the tour, featured a blend of classic and reimagined King Crimson material, showcasing the band’s ability to incorporate different eras of their music. The performance was well-received, with particular praise for Jakko Jakszyk’s vocals and the band’s tight musicianship.
The setlist included tracks from various King Crimson eras, including “In the Court of the Crimson King,” “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic,” and material from the “Thrak” and “ConstruKction of Light” lineups.
The TivoliVredenburg show was a strong example of King Crimson’s ability to deliver…
A twenty-minute video filmed at Other Music, a record store in New York, captures Stars of the Lid live in 1996. Shot on a camcorder, the duo, the late Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie, are playing in a seemingly ad hoc space. While the latter stands next to a bookcase and a ladder, the former is perched left of frame by a door opening onto a packed closet. They tune up and chat, a guitar chord hits a longtailed delay and starts looping. The point where the banter stops and performance starts isn’t clear cut.
In terms of video, it captures a sparsely documented stage of Stars Of The Lid’s history, nearly two decades before they would return to NYC to play in a church for Boiler Room, but this time bolstered by a chamber orchestra.
…features a remastered LP of Mic City Sons’ 12 original songs, plus a set of rare demos and unreleased tracks.
Heatmiser was an indie rock supergroup of sorts, featuring songwriters Elliott Smith and Neil Gust (No. 2), as well as Sam Coomes (Quasi) and the multitalented Tony Lash. The quartet’s finest and final album, Mic City Sons features a decidedly more pop feel than its predecessors and marks Smith’s maturation into the role of the band’s visionary. From the opening notes of the swaggering, bass-heavy “Get Lucky” to conclusion of the album with a soothingly soft hidden track, Mic City Sons is an outstanding collection of diverse and invigorating tracks. Songs like “Plain Clothes Man” and “You Gotta Move” exhibit…
A new 4CD clamshell box set by the acclaimed British ‘retro rockers’ Cats in Space. This special collection features the band’s first four albums with original singer Paul Manzi, ‘Too Many Gods’, ‘Scarescrow’, ‘Cats Alive!’ (recorded at The Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff) & ‘Daytrip To Narnia’.
Chapter 1 gathers together these deleted and sold-out albums in this remastered collection which also includes some exclusive bonus tracks, a historical, illustrated booklet with essay and a pull-out colour poster.
Announcing this release Cats in Space said: “Our early albums are no longer available, so it made sense to re-release them with our record label team at Esoteric Recordings and Cherry Red Records orchestrating something extra special…
…features the albums ‘Axe Victim’, ‘Futurama’ and ‘Sunburst Finish’.
Be-Bop Deluxe was the creative vision of Bill Nelson, one of Britain’s most creative and enduring musicians. Thanks to the championing of DJ John Peel (who had been an advocate of Bill Nelson’s work since the release of Bill’s rudimentary self-released solo album Northern Dream in 1971), Be Bop Deluxe signed to EMI Records in 1974 and their debut album Axe Victim was issued in June of that year, featuring fine material such as ‘Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape ‘Jets at Dawn’ and ‘Darkness (L’Immoraliste)’.
The 1975 album Futurama saw a new line-up of the band with the arrival of Charlie Tumahai on bass and Simon Fox on drums.
…featuring the albums ‘Novella’, ‘A Song for All Seasons’, and ‘Azure D’Or’.
Featuring highly gifted vocalist Annie Haslam, Michael Dunford (acoustic guitars), John Tout (keyboards, vocals), Jon Camp (bass, vocals) and Terry Sullivan (drums, percussion), Novella was issued in 1977 and was the band’s first album to be released on the Warner Bros. label in the UK.
Featuring featured the epic ‘Can You Hear Me?’ along with the classic tracks ‘Midas Man’, ‘Touching Once (Is So Hard to Keep)’ and ‘The Sisters’, the album was a top 50 hit album in the USA and assisted in growing the band’s following in Britain.
A Song for All Seasons was issued in March 1978, the album featured the song…
…Deep cuts from John’s rich catalog are given the spotlight on Live from the Rainbow Theatre with Ray Cooper. The 13-song set was culled from a six-show residency in London in May 1977, with John at the piano and his longtime percussionist, Ray Cooper, joining him for the second half of the show.
…While John, of course, performed his biggest hits during the residency, the album wisely focuses on often overlooked material, pointing to the astounding quantity of quality songs John produced early in his career. That includes “Cage the Songbird,” a lilting tribute to Édith Piaf from the underrated 1976 LP “Blue Moves.”
Another highlight from that album is the cabaret jazz ballad “Idol,” which shows John could…
Gary Numan’s Intruder live show at the OVO Arena, Wembley in May 2022 was an electrifying display of innovation, artistry, energy and poignancy.
A Perfect Circle is a perfect blend of past and future, darkness and light, and electronic innovation. As a pioneering figure in music, Numan continues to push the boundaries of performance, proving that his influence on both the electronic and rock genres remains as strong as ever. For those fortunate enough to witness it, the show was a testament to his enduring legacy and a glimpse into the future of live music.
An unforgettable experience for Numan and Numanoids alike, this iconic show is now presented on two limited edition formats including a 3LP live album and a 2CD+Blu-ray containing…
…feature new remastering from the original analog tapes and include two bonus tracks, “Some Kind of Woman” and “Black Moon”.
After years of playing a dispiriting game of musical chairs with various lead singers during the early ’80s, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi finally stumbled upon a dependable frontman when he admitted relative unknown Tony Martin into the fold, thereby initiating the original heavy metal band’s long awaited return to respectability — if not chart-topping success. Martin joined the oft-interrupted sessions for what would become 1987’s The Eternal Idol album already in progress, stepping in for an unreliable Ray Gillen when the latter moved on to Jake E. Lee’s Badlands, and helping Iommi rescue an astonishingly….
…Super Deluxe Edition features the remastered album alongside 11 rarities, including four previously unreleased alternate versions of album tracks. The set also includes a live recording of the band’s August 1978 show at New York’s Entermedia Theatre.
The title of Talking Heads’ second album, More Songs About Buildings and Food, slyly addressed the sophomore record syndrome, in which songs not used on a first LP are mixed with hastily written new material. If the band’s sound seems more conventional, the reason simply may be that one had encountered the odd song structures, staccato rhythms, strained vocals, and impressionistic lyrics once before. Another was that new co-producer Brian Eno brought a musical unity…
Goodnight El Dorado: Strange Bedfellows in the Aftermath is a live album by Guided by Voices, released in 2025, capturing performances from their 2024 tour. The album focuses on the band’s more progressive material from their recent catalogue, showcasing a blend of intricate arrangements and their signature lo-fi sound. It’s a limited-edition, featuring recordings from shows in Indianapolis, Woodstock, and Dallas.
The album presents raw board mixes from three 2024 shows, offering a glimpse into the band’s energetic live performances. The selection of songs emphasizes the more progressive elements found in Guided by Voices’ recent work. The album is described as a bootleg, suggesting a raw, unpolished sound quality…
If you’ve ever wanted to search beyond “Just Got Lucky,” the worldwide hit from British New Wave group JoBoxers, a new triple-disc anthology from Cherry Red has you covered.
The aptly-titled Just Got Lucky: The Complete Works 1983-1986 highlights the release of the band’s sole album, 1983’s Like Gangbusters, along with material from two planned follow-up records and a live recording from the band’s commercial peak – some 28 unreleased tracks in all.
The group, recently reunited in the 2020s, is on board with the release: bassist Chris Bostock has overseen and compiled the unreleased studio material, while all five band members participated for interviews for the liner notes, penned by Lois Wilson of MOJO.