Indierock | Alternative 520 Items

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration.

Blueprints For A Blackout, The Ex's fifth album and first double LP, combines caustic studio experimentations and loose songs from their gripping live-set at the time. The band consisted of singer G.W. Sok, guitarist Terrie Ex, two new recruits on bass, Luc and Yoke, and drummer Sabien Witteman, along with a plethora of guests including Mekons' Jon Langford and long-serving sound engineer Dolf Planteijdt, among others.

Originally released in 1984 on the band's own Pig Brother Productions, Blueprints veers from jagged punk explosions to sharply focused improvisations featuring field recordings that would become a hallmark of their subsequent forays into free jazz and experimental music. The overall effect is not unlike the menace of a slowly building winter storm.

Tracks like "Rabble With A Cause," "U.S. Hole" and "Scrub That Scum" stand out as exemplars of this phase of The Ex. Comparisons can be made to contemporaries Einstürzende Neubauten, NoMeansNo and Svätsox as well as later Crass label bands.

A more than welcomed re-issue for the iconic post-punk band coming all the way from Watford. The album showcase a collection of unreleased recordings – mostly conceived between 1981 and 1983 – and it is a right companion to their two studio masterpiece: "Epic Garden Music" and "Feeding The Flames".

Hounds Of Love was Kate's fifth studio album, and her second no. 1.

Featuring "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)", it has since been certified Double Platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry. Fish People are proud and excited to announce new pressings of all 10 of Kate Bush's albums, featuring a special new edition for independent retailers.

"It’s very exciting to see people appreciating the physical presence of an album released on vinyl. It’s how it’s always been for me, especially when I was a teenager. The whole buzz of the record store was part of the experience. Buying an album was an event." Kate Bush.

The records are all pressed on 180g vinyl at the world-renowned Record Industry plant in the Netherlands. New lacquers were cut from the 2018 remasters by Bernie Grundman and overseen by mastering engineer James Guthrie.

Indie editions were all designed by Kate and feature new Fish People label designs, stunning Color Vinyl combinations and obi strips with pressing date. They are protected in resealable poly-bag liners with a 'Fish People Reissue' sticker, bottom right.

These are unlimited editions and will be in production constantly.

Street date for the first batch is set at 20 November.

Originally released on Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis Dome Records in 1981, Desmond Simmons’s Alone on Penguin Island stands in splendid isolation. Rereleased on Rafftt records with the permission of Desmond’s estate it has been re-mastered from the original tapes by Denis Blackham, the artwork has been re- imagined by the original designer Slim Smith with extensive liner notes on gatefold vinyl rounding out the project.

The year before the Wire pair had initiated Dome: a project where the duo privileged process over the end product. They would often commence recording with little or no material, using the studio itself to create raw instrumentation. After the release of their first Dome album, they then invited Simmons to record an album for the Dome label. Simmons had played bass on Colin Newman’s recently released debut solo album A-Z and he and the Wire frontman were lifelong friends.

His original demos suggested a kinship with the psychedelic guitar pop he’d played on Newman’s A-Z. However, the versions on Alone on Penguin Island enter a very different realm. With Gilbert and Lewis as producers, Simmons’s compositions are abstracted, inverted and warped. It was a bold move on their part to suggest such an approach, yet a far bolder one for Simmons to accept this experimental mindset. Even if the recording sessions were often far from harmonious. Intriguing arrangements, sprightly verses and mournful melodies the album is one that spans many moods, Lewis referring to it as “fragile, mysterious, melancholic” From shimmering electronics and jittery synths to wistful guitar driven post punk. On the unforgettable ‘By Air Or By Sea’ the breathless Simmons vocal was not some incidental effect: the producers instructed the singer to run around the block, then dart back into the studio and record the vocal, before he had a chance to get his breath back. Another of the albums highlights the deeply psychedelic ‘Pathenon’ and the churning rhythms of ‘Man The Lifeboats’ is another of the album’s strongest tracks.

For all Simmons’s Wire connections, Alone on Penguin Island shouldn’t be considered a Wire side project. It’s a fully formed work in its own right, with Simmons’s strangely slanted song writing at its heart. It was produced just at the time a number of post punk’s brightest stars were about to dive into the mainstream. Simmons however, was headed in the opposite direction: creating an album that sounds as unique and challenging as the day it was first released. It is a bleached out coda: chilly and curious. It sounds less like a composition, more like its ghostly remains. Consequently, as the album concludes, the listener is left in an icy, lopsided lacuna.

180 gram audiophile vinyl
Includes insert with lyrics
Limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on translucent red & black mixed vinyl

A Time of Changes is the debut studio album by British heavy metal band Blitzkrieg, originally released in 1985.

Part of the the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, A Time of Changes came out when vocalist Brian Ross decided to reform Blitzkrieg and record the album they wanted to record before their split-up in 1981. After the original split of Blitzkrieg, Ross sang with Avenger, Satan and Lonewolf. "Pull the Trigger" is in fact a Satan song that wasn't featured on their first album Court in the Act [MOVLP3056]. Ross recorded it with Satan, and it appeared on an earlier demo. Satan guitarist Russ Tippins actually makes a guest appearance on the song.

"Blitzkrieg", originally also the B-side of the band's debut single, was covered by Metallica for the B-side of the 1984 single "Creeping Death" and later released on the Metallica album Garage Inc.

A Time of Changes is available as a limited edition of 1000 individually numbered copies on translucent red & black mixed coloured vinyl and includes an insert with lyrics.

180 gram audiophile vinyl
Feature the hits "Someday, Someway" and "Cynical Girl" a.o.
Ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the top 100 albums of the 1980s
Limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on turquoise coloured vinyl

Limited to 500 units, includes a bifold insert with archival images and detailed liner notes.

Rainbow Generator are Australia’s first true experimental electronic music group. Consisting of David Labuschagne AKA Mojo, and Rob Greaves AKA Ras. Starting in the mid-70’s, the pair took it upon themselves to begin exploring the possibilities of the sonic dimension and with an ‘open mind’ began investigating the interface between psyche and sound.

In 1976 David established the ‘Lectric Loo’ studio in Woolloomooloo, Sydney. Known to the ‘heads’ as simply the “Loo”, the 3-story building was owned by the Department of Main Roads, and slated for demolition. So, it was that the entire block became a haven for squatters, and while Mojo had the main 3-story building to himself, the rest of the buildings were taken by a hotch-potch of people that included Anarchists, a Clown School and a collection of other random squatters. Recording in the ‘Lectric Loo’ provided them the ability to record freely. In 1975 they began to experiment, putting Mojo’s Fender Strat through effects pedals, playing with sounds while manipulating shortwave radio stations and also challenging convention by playing the insides of instruments. By 1976 they had built a kit synthesizer and shortly after purchased a full Roland 100 Synthesiser set-up and were on their way.

In 1978, with little resources, or any form of distribution they released their sole LP ‘Dance of the Spheres’. As Mojo puts it, “we were intent on making music with whatever we could beg, borrow, buy, and liberate. Albeit with scant regard for the rules or conventions or niceties of the game. Ultimately, it was all an act of love, of joy. Not just an adventure; it was a musical odyssey”.

This odyssey continued their exploration of the interface between psyche and sound. Fusing genres and boundaries, Dance of the Spheres incorporates elements of 70’s psych and folk with spoken-word and of course the emerging sounds of the synthesizer and drum machines. Furthermore, the addition of traditional instruments such as the didgeridoo and the classical Indian instrumentation technique of a Raga add a timeless layer, all seamlessly complementing the other elements and launching the album to another dimension.

Finally this classic album is available again. All recordings have been mastered by Robert Smith himself.