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Over a period of 20+ years Adam Gibson has forged a unique career, his blend of spoken word songs with music gaining him a deeply reverent following for his tales of love, longing and the wide open road, in Australia and beyond. Bringing together a collection of his best tracks, this release shines a light on this underground Australian icon.

Repress with different artwork! Alain Péters is one of the best-kept secrets in the music scene of the Indian Ocean and beyond. His music is a unique blend of Creole blues, maloya and international folk. Péters travelled through the '70s and the '80s like a shooting star, alone or with a band, with his Sahelian lute, his reel-to-reel tape recorder, firewater and ill-fated genius. He died in 1995, aged 43. Poet, musician, singer and melody-maker, he left behind a handful of sublime songs which are gathered here for the first time on vinyl.

With bonus 7". Very close to NM. Original inner sleeve.

I’ve known Alex Bleeker my entire life. Well, okay, maybe not since I was born, but there’s no doubt that I’ve shared a fair bit of memories with him over the years. We’ve acted in high school productions of Shakespeare together, gone on late-night diner runs, argued about which Weezer album is the band’s best, and swapped mutual appreciation for the music of Yo La Tengo on car rides careening around the snaky suburbia of our hometown. Just like his Real Estate bandmates Martin Courtney and Julian Lynch, we attended high school in the New Jersey enclave of Ridgewood, a place where sticky summer days yielded cool nights with a glow so nocturnal that you can practically hear the fireflies buzzing off of this sentence alone.

Indie rock—a type of music that can easily be made or listened to in someone’s garage—often dominates teenage suburban preoccupations, and both Alex and I were no exception. You can hear this legacy of listening on his new album Heaven on the Faultline, which departs from his last full-band outing as Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, 2015’s Country Agenda. Whereas that album had a more full-bodied explicitly folk-y feel, Heaven on the Faultline finds Bleeker getting back to his homespun roots over the course of its 13 songs, from the jangly guitar pop of New Jersey heroes the Feelies and YLT’s hushed, acoustic reveries to the open-hearted folk rock that marks so much of the Grateful Dead’s early catalog.

Written and recorded over the last several years, Heaven on the Faultline’s songs were initially recorded straight to GarageBand in Bleeker’s bedroom before receiving further studio refinement in co-producer Phil Hartunian’s Tropico Beauty space in Los Angeles. With contributions from Confusing Mix of Nations’ Josh Da Costa, Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw, singer-songwriter Kacey Johansing, and Parting Lines’ Tim Ramsey, Heaven on the Faultline achieves a warm and intimate feel that defines Bleeker’s mission for the album: “I wanted to capture the moment in which I fell in love with making music to begin with. This is music for myself—me getting back to music for music’s sake.”

The unsteady times we live in certainly creep into view on Heaven on the Faultline. The deceptively easygoing “D Plus” was written on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration with the cursed event in mind, while the anxiety of climate change hovers just above the lovely guitar loops of “Felty Feel.” “The album is very much about dealing with the anxiety of a sense of impending doom,” Bleeker states while discussing the album’s portentous vibes. “When is the hammer going to fall? How do we go forward in the face of such anxiety and experience the complexity of life?”

Tough questions with few answers, but try not to stress too much. It’s possible to experience such existential doubt while also enjoying the simple pleasures that life has to offer, and that ethos is square at the heart of Heaven on the Faultline. It defines who Alex Bleeker is, too, and is one of many reasons why I’m proud to have known this special person and artist for so long.

Why you'll love it...
Alex Williams became recognized as a one-to-watch outlaw country artist, drawing comparisons to Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson for his signature, cavernous vocal and gritty, go-your-own-way charisma. Now, following his major label debut in 2017 (Better Than Myself / BMLG), he returns with his sophomore record, Waging Peace.

“Before I made my first record, I had not toured. I had no road band and a very slim amount of experience in the studio,” Williams adds. “These past 4 years since leaving Big Machine to become fully independent, and the release of Better Than Myself has been a whirlwind. I’m very glad that I waited 5 years to make another record because it’s given me time to really find my voice as a songwriter, experience life on the road and all the pain and joy that has come my way in more ways than one.”

Limited to 300 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of Alex Williams' Waging Peace is pressed on Clear vinyl at The Vinyl Lab. The 1LP will arrive in a single, direct-to-board, autographed and numbered jacket. It was mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Mastering.

Originally pressed in a limited run of 1000 numbered copies in December 1974 The Alice Island Band is one of the rarest UK folk private pressings, having sold in auction for over 600 pounds. Little would school friends Keith Hughes, Tim Phillips and Roger Moore imagine that when they formed The Conqueroos blues band back and subsequent projects like Cinderella's Party Songbook from 1967.



By 1974, Keith, Tim and Roger were ready for something special, and the arrival of Cinny - the ‘Princess’ from the principality of Wales - completed the line up for the next LP. They became The Alice Island Band and recorded Splendid Isolation - Tim, Keith and Cinny played, Roger produced and recorded the 14 songs, some of which had been conceived back in 1968.



For those into the UK folk and psych scenes who love the homemade recordings of Peter Howell and John Ferdinando's projects (Tomorrow Come Someday, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Agincourt, Ithaca...), the bare, raw sound of Comus or those impossibly rare folk albums cut through the Deroy Sound Services – but also for lovers of good crafted songs with male & female vocals and mostly acoustic performances.



Done in close cooperation with Keith and Roger who have been very kind to provide original masters, information and photos for the gatefold insert which also includes the original lyrics – here are 500 copies for those who cannot afford or find an original copy. Comes housed in a reproduction of its original sleeve. Order yours before they fly!

Amsterdam’s Altın Gün have built a strong reputation for melding past and present to make brilliantly catchy, psychedelic pop music, as seen with their Grammy-nominated second album, Gece. They are also a renowned live band with strings of sold-out shows on three continents, who have consistently brought a muscular groove to their recordings.Yol, their third album in as many years, excitedly continues these trends; while also digging in deep to unveil a new palette of sonic surprises. Though it draws from the rich and incredibly diverse traditions of Anatolian and Turkish folk music,Yol is not just a record that reframes traditional sounds for a contemporary audience. The album often presents a textured, avant-pop sound as evidenced by the debut single "Ordunun Dereleri.” Mysterious and atmospheric, the track is a thrilling evolution for the band. It patiently coaxes the listener into a resonant soundworld of down-tempo electro beats, majestic synths and Erdinç Ecevit's yearning vocal of unrequited love. The album also signals a very different approach in making and recording for the band. Singer Merve Dasdemir takes up the story: “We were basically stuck at home for three months making home demos, with everybody adding their parts. The transnational feeling maybe comes from that process of swapping demos over the internet, some of the music we did in the studio, but lockdown meant we had to follow a different approach.”

With Yol, Altın Gün have maybe patented their own magical process of reimagining and sonic path-finding, one probably not heard since the late 1960s and early 1970s British folk- rock boom. Less of a reworking than a seduction, their recordings transport the listener to a world where the original songs never previously inhabited. Merve Dasdemir again: “After we worked on them, they got a whole new life of their own. Maybe we went a little bit too far (laughs).”

Trolling The De-Enlightenment is a solo live recording from Alan Bishop under his well-known Alvarius B. alias. It was recorded on various occasions throughout western Europe during and after the period he was recording his 2017 trilogy release With A Beaker On The Burner and An Otter In The Oven. Bishop’s presence and charisma, alongside his distinctive voice and the twisted characters he has to offer, filled the rooms he played in, and these recordings transport his unique performance vibe to this vinyl edition. The album contains some tracks you’re possibly familiar with, and some which have never been played before. There’s not only a re-written Bob Dylan song and two interpretations from the Burt-Bacharach-Lounge as we call it, but many of Bishop’s original songs are present on this first ever Alvarius B. live album release.
Alan Bishop is perhaps best known as a founding member of the legendary Phoenix/Seattle underground band Sun City Girls, in which he played alongside his brother Richard Bishop and the late Charles Gocher. During the early 1980s he recorded with his brother Richard and Velvet Underground percussionist Maureen Tucker under the name Paris 1942. Currently Bishop is working under his Alvarius B. moniker, and is a founding member of Cairo’s Invisible Hands and The Dwarfs Of East Agouza where he plays together with Sam Shalabi and Maurice Louca.