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Critically-acclaimed, criminally-overachieving Glasgow-based singer and guitarist Alasdair Roberts is known as a superlative original songwriter as well as an interpreter of traditional songs from Scotland and beyond. For the past twenty years, his recordings have alternated between these two complimentary poles, with "pop" records such as The Amber Gatherers and A Wonder Working Stone nestling in his expansive back catalogue alongside "folk" albums such as No Earthly Man and What News (with Amble Skuse and David McGuinness). Additionally, all of these records possess a further dimension, derived from their collation of songs together into one album-length statement. This is part of Alasdair"s great achievement in his career - for him, this thing of music and song hasn"t come the eons it"s travelled to simply entertain.These impulses fully present and well honed, Alasdair returns to his roots with Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall, his fifth full-length collection of traditional song. Recorded live in the studio, it is an entirely solo collection of twelve traditional ballads and songs sparsely arranged for acoustic guitar, piano and voice. The majority of the songs originate in Alasdair"s homeland of Scotland, with a couple from Ireland and one from Prince Edward Island on Canada"s eastern seaboard too.The record takes its title from a line in the final verse of one of its songs, "The Baron o" Brackley" - a ballad of feuding clans and matrimonial betrayal from the north-east of Scotland. Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall: it"s a title which goes some way towards encapsulating many of the record"s themes. Collectively the songs treat of various conflicts and tensions - those of gender; of class, status and position; and of geography and tribal belonging - and the roles and responsibilities expected at the various intersections of these constructs. That we should never forget!As with many of Alasdair"s recordings, Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall contains ballads aplenty...

With a globetrotting 20-year career renowned for being a voice for the people across four decades of political and societal upheaval from the late ‘90s to today, Antibalas celebrates its 20th Anniversary with a stark return to their Williamsburg roots on its latest Daptone Records studio album, Fu Chronicles. Pre-gentrified Williamsburg serves as the backdrop for Fu Chronicles–voyaging back to the early days of when Antibalas and Daptone Records spawned out of lead singer Duke Amayo’s kung fu dojo. A senior master of the Jow Ga Kung FuSchool of martial arts, Duke Amayo along with Antibalas founder/baritone saxophonist Martín Perna guide listeners through an epic journey of where kung fu ingeniously intersects with Afrobeat on Fu Chronicles.

White vinyl

Lamination is starting to come off.

promo white label. Writing on label sticker.

Close to VG+

seam split

White With Green/Brown Speckles vinyl. Without CD. Cover with bumped corner, close to NM

With CD.

Japanese pressing with OBI and insert

Cover has ring wear, booklet included.

Vinyl looks flawless, booklet included. Cover has ring wear.

German reissue. Stained gatefold cover with price tag.

Creased corner.

Record close to NM. Seam splits at spine and top .

OBI is missing. Japanese pressing. With insert. close to NM

tiny saw cut

Promo single sided copy.

Cover and vinyl are close to NM.

Club Edition.

Sticker on cover.

Vinyl with scuffs, hairlines and a couple of deeper marks

Limited Green Vinyl Edition.
Includes booklet.
Still shrink wrapped but opened.
Cover as new with slightly dented corners.

Japanese pressing, no Obi.

Small sticker on cover.

Writing on cover.

Sly, Sly Johnson, Sly The Mic Buddah : since the Saïan Supa Crew up until his solo career, the human beat machine keeps on increasing his numerous identities.

From Hip Hop to Soul, then from Soul to Beatmaking: from flow to singing, then from singing to production, Sly Johnson never really changed universe. He has just changed the direction of his musical compass in order to navigate with more flow.

Today, it’s immersed in the mechanics with processors and printed circuits that we find him, under the alias of TAGi, producer-beatmaker who, for the occasion, has joined the services of Steven Beatberg. It’s together, in artistic autarchy with the only presence of softwares, samplers and sequencers, that they have built their pieces in the light of their computer screens, rhythmizing the days by inserting snares or grindings of plugs taken from their sound database.

If records are, most of the time, Hip Hop’s nourishing materials, TAGi et Steven have however not used any samples. Their favourite recordings were not materials to exploit, but an aesthetic from which to inspire, compose, and search atmospheres and melodies, search his arrangements. After three EP dominated by instrumentals, the duo finally chose to realise their dream: to craft a multi-voice album where customized production for each guest would guide the creative process. To put themselves at the exclusive service of artists they particularly love, all different but connected by an uncompromising resistance to the commercial wind blowing on Hip Hop. For each one of them, they have built a title, keeping in mind the precise idea to put to light he or her that will vocally dress the bars.

Rapper Big Pooh, the former member of the Little Brother group (With Phonte & 9th Wonder), the contemporary soul of Lisa Spada, but also the rapist #madeinfrance Pumpkin (worthy descendant of MC Solaar, Fabe …), multi-faceted Georgia Anne Muldrow, the MC Finale, the new rising wave of artists of the Hip-Hop scene in Detroit. Tiemoko from Paris, Saga an MC who follows the pure tradition of the New York Hip-Hop, the very smooth-jazzy Elodie Rama and Dilouya, the producer of the previous record of Sly (The Mic Buddah), are of this casting where men and women share the roles and where TAGi, as soon as the mic presents itself to him, becomes again Sly Johnson for some refrains, choruses or solo rereading of the sublime “Retrograde” of James Blake.

Guided by Hip Hop since the 90’s until today, worked in great detail, YOUARESURROUNDED highlights vintage keyboards on granular rhythms, injecting a lascivious Soul, P-funk, electro futuristic or melancholic in black and white touches on 13 tracks that are as atmospheric as they are emotional.

The substance, the essence, the soul of the Hip-Hop.

A masterclass in nuance, interpretation and the purifying power of the human voice, Standards Vol. V represents another captivating chapter in the career of a singular figure in contemporary music. For his fifth album as the mischievously named National Jazz Trio Of Scotland, the prolific jazz outsider Bill Wells posits yet another collaborator in the diffuse light cast by his tender chord shifts and understated arrangements. Where Standards Vol. IV spun around the vocal talents of Kate Sugden with contributions from Gerard Black and Aby Vulliamy, the voice on Standards Vol. V is that of Black, whose other musical activities include the band Babe, François And The Atlas Mountains, Rozi Plain and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

A legend to those who know, Todd Sines makes his first appearance on Circus Company in a fit of sharp-edged, wildly expressive house music that harks back to the unhinged early days of the label. Sines has a career that stretches back to the early 9s, having released lauded records under the .xtrak moniker on Peacefrog and 7th City amongst other legendary labels. Under his own name he has delivered equally timeless material on Planet E, Frankie and Morris Audio, but still this summary barely scratches the surface of an artist with a groove so distinctive it would futile to attempt an imitation. A key facet of Sines' material is his ability to match a vivid, futuristic sound palette with a very human soul, and this is no more apparent than on Blowing. The title track alone throws down a challenge to any selector as a bugging line in off-kilter drums and tweaked out synth lines rub up against an utterly soulful vocal turn from Robert Owens in a true definition of 21st century funk. Originally written by Charles Webster, Sines has taken the foundations of the track and twisted it into a shape all of his own. Elsewhere the mood takes a deeper turn, as "Deserted”, "Cave” and "Recover” all plunge into a vision of deep house that retains the emotion while pushing the rhythms into exciting, psychedelic new territory. Even if the tracks go very far out indeed, there's always a tangible beat to hold on to, testing the nerve of the play-it-safe DJ while giving musical explorers music as accessible as it is challenging. While there may be shards of experimentation flying out of these tracks at every angle, the warmth in between the unusual shapes makes Sines' music so very easy on the airs in the same breath.

Red Vinyl.

Record is close to NM.
Upper edge with beginning seamsplit, otherwise VG+.

Exclusive Red Edition of 200 copies.

Cover with seam damage on top spine.

Writing on back cover.