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Songwriter and singer Jamie Whelligan is a pop troubadour in the classic late 1960s mode. A busker on the London Underground, an actor in arthouse film. One of those ever present characters who seems weirdly displaced in the modern world. • Whelligan’s songs mine that vein of melodic, psychedelic guitar pop that a certain type of English band are famous for. With songs spinning effortlessly from one genre to another, fans of XTC, Syd Barrett, and even The Rutles won’t be disappointed. • Recent years have seen Whelligan focus on a project called ‘Annexe The Moon’. A modern-psyche collaboration with award winning BBC Sound Designer/Producer Phil Channell (#1 podcast Death In Ice Valley). Their single ‘Full Stop’ was a firm favourite on Bbc6 Music, with notable plays from Guy Garvey, Radcliffe and Maconie, Vic Galloway, Marc Riley and Steve Lamaqc. • 2021 saw the first of a new crop of Whelligan tunes, and his forthcoming album ‘In The Mean Meantime’ is lined up for release in April ‘22. Co-produced by long term collaborator Nick Frater (Big Stir Records/Great Sheiks) whose trademark sonic fairy-dust brings the magic of Whelligan’s tunes to your ears. • Sweet vocals harmonise over warm and wiry guitars, while inventive lyrics are matched with floating melodies. The album promises an enjoyable trip down a psyche-pop rabbit hole

The Endless Coloured Ways is a collection of songs by legendary singer/ songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences From Fontaines D.C. to Guy Garvey, Aurora to Feist, and Self-Esteem to David Gray, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic "Nick Drake was not that concerned with promoting himself as an artist but I think he would have been overjoyed to hear his art promoted by so many vibrant and talented artists such as the ones we approached. Each track is an example of a fellow artist adopting Nick's art as if it was their own, submitting to the song, and the results prove to me that talent can so often win out over mere skill or 'personality'. We are honoured and so grateful to all our friends, old and new, who took part in the making of this set." - Cally Calloman, Bryter Music "Having initially exchanged a list of our favourite artists and realised how much our tastes overlapped, Cally and I set out on this venture with one simple brief - to ask the artists to ignore the original recording of Nick's in terms of arrangement, production and singing style; basically, we were asking them to reinvent the song. First of all, it was humbling to hear so many similar responses, saying how important Nick's music was to them, and how much they wanted to be part of this project. But as the results came in one by one, we were staggered by the brilliance and invention that each artist had shown. They had done what we asked - they had made the song their own." - Jeremy Lascelles, Chrysalis Records

The Endless Coloured Ways is a collection of songs by legendary singer/ songwriter, Nick Drake, performed and recorded by over 30 incredible artists from a range of different backgrounds, genres, age groups and audiences From Fontaines D.C. to Guy Garvey, Aurora to Feist, and Self-Esteem to David Gray, each artist has offered their own incredible take on a timeless classic "Nick Drake was not that concerned with promoting himself as an artist but I think he would have been overjoyed to hear his art promoted by so many vibrant and talented artists such as the ones we approached. Each track is an example of a fellow artist adopting Nick's art as if it was their own, submitting to the song, and the results prove to me that talent can so often win out over mere skill or 'personality'. We are honoured and so grateful to all our friends, old and new, who took part in the making of this set." - Cally Calloman, Bryter Music "Having initially exchanged a list of our favourite artists and realised how much our tastes overlapped, Cally and I set out on this venture with one simple brief - to ask the artists to ignore the original recording of Nick's in terms of arrangement, production and singing style; basically, we were asking them to reinvent the song. First of all, it was humbling to hear so many similar responses, saying how important Nick's music was to them, and how much they wanted to be part of this project. But as the results came in one by one, we were staggered by the brilliance and invention that each artist had shown. They had done what we asked - they had made the song their own." - Jeremy Lascelles, Chrysalis Records

Folksongs and Ballads by Tia Blake & Her Folk-Group, is more than just a “lost classic”. As clear and honest as can be, Folksongs and Ballads is a magnetic record, a refuge like only Nick Drake, Nico, and a few others have been able to create. A graceful, delicately minimalist approach to classic Appalachian and British folk songs.The perfect balance between melancholy and daydream. Originally released only in France in 1971, Ici Bientôt is very pleased to present the first ever reissue on vinyl. When she recorded her only album, Tia Blake was nineteen years old and had just arrived in Paris a year and a half beforehand. She spent most of her time at Disco’Thé, a record shop in the Latin Quarter, a free space, peaceful and inspiring, a hub for students as well as the local artistic community. There, Tia would occasionally sing—when she managed to overcome her shyness. Two young guitarists who were passionate fans of folk music and regulars at the shop began to accompany her, forming “Her Folk Group.” One year later, they cut 11 tracks at Pierre Barouh’s Studios Saravah. Folksongs and Ballads is composed of traditional tunes that have been covered many times, but they’re not the best known folk standards. A collection of stories ranging from the Middle Ages to the 1960s, bringing together sublimely doleful ballads, lamentations for a lost lover, and an unexpected, brilliant version of the road anthem “Plastic Jesus.” Tia Blake's haunting, unaffected voice captivates and comforts us, wrapping us in its cool embrace. Meanwhile, the tasteful, stripped-down, mellow acoustic arrangements provided by the guitarists, reminiscent of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, occasionally supported by a kena flute, have created the space Tia Blake needed to reinvent these traditional songs. Folksongs and Ballads is a timeless record, deep and unique, a longtime companion for repeated listening, in the vein of works by Sibylle Baier, Bridget St. John and Vashti Bunyan.

Outernational Sounds very proudly Presents The Mallory-Hall Band "Song of Soweto" & "The Last Special". Limited, fully licensed digital and vinyl reissues of two crucial South African sessions led by Charles Mallory and Al Hall, Jnr., featuring Kirk Lightsey, Marshall Royal, Rudolph Johnson, Billy Brooks and more! Essential companion pieces to Kirk Lightsey’s legendary ‘Habiba’. Featuring tracks: Song Of Soweto: Side A – ‘Song of Soweto’, ‘Hamba Samba’; Side B – ‘Cape Town Blues’, ‘Moroka Rock’, ‘The African Night’ The Last Special: Side A - ‘The Last Special’, ‘Princess of Joh’Burg’; Side B - ‘Amafu (Clouds)’, ‘Blue Mabone’ Never released outside South Africa, and out of print since 1974, Outernational Sounds presents two long-lost Johannesburg sessions from the Mallory-Hall Band – an all-star review of West Coast jazz stars who toured apartheid South Africa in the mid-1970s. Sanifu Al Hall, Jnr. is a musician’s musician. During a storied career stretching across six decades, Hall has recorded with the greats of the music including Freddie Hubbard, Doug Carn, and Johnny Hammond, and leads his own Cosmos Dwellerz Arkestra. But until recent years, the only records on which he had appeared as leader were a brace of rich, funky LPs, Song Of Soweto and The Last Special, issued only in South Africa under the moniker of The Mallory-Hall Band (named for Hall and his co-leader, guitarist Charles Mallory – musical director for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mallory was conductor for Dusty Springfield touring bands, and had worked with John Lee Hooker, Stevie Wonder, and many others). Neither LP had any wider release, and both have remained out of print since 1974. How did a young stalwart of the Los Angeles jazz scene end up in a recording studio in apartheid South Africa? Al Hall, Jnr. and Charles Mallory had arrived in South Africa as part of the touring band for the singer Lovelace Watkins. Sometimes billed as ‘the Black Sinatra’, the Detroit-born Watkins sang standards and ballroom classics on the Las Vegas circuit. He never made it big in the US, but in his 1970s heyday he was a huge star in southern Africa, and 1974 he hired a jazz big band to accompany him on a tour of South Africa – Hall and Mallory were part of the line-up, alongside Mastersounds bassist Monk Montgomery, pianist Kirk Lightsey, tenorist Rudolph Johnson, drummer Billy Brooks, and Marshall Royal, musical director of the Count Basie band. The tour was a huge success, and during downtime from performing, members of the group managed to independently record no fewer than three albums. Lightsey and Johnson’s stunning Habiba was the first (reissued as Outernational Sounds OTR.013), and it was followed by two crucial sessions led by Hall and Mallory – Song of Soweto and The Last Special, issued on the local IRC imprint. Visiting apartheid South Africa in 1974 was a controversial choice for any artist. Numerous artistic and cultural bodies around the world had already announced that their members would boycott the country in solidarity with the struggle against apartheid, and working in South Africa was severely frowned on by anti-apartheid activists everywhere. For a Black band, touring the country to play to mostly white audiences could have been seen by many both inside and outside South Africa as a questionable decision. ‘It was a batch of mixed reactions when I choose to visit South Africa whilst apartheid policies were in place,’ Hall recalls. ‘To me the choice was a simple one – “I wanna see for myself!” I also wanted to be a part of breaking down racial barriers, having been down some of the same roads in my own country.’ The albums were recorded by a twelve-piece band at Johannesburg’s Video Sounds Studios in December 1974, and feature the legendary pianist Kirk Lightsey, Black Jazz recording artist Rudolph Johnson, and the rest of the touring band. Both records are superbly arranged slabs of peak 1970s funky big band soul jazz, with tasteful Latin inflections and more than a nod to South Africa’s upful township jazz sound. They are the sonic traces left by a seasoned African American band who were touring South Africa in the depths of the apartheid era, and who immediately moved beyond the segregated hotels and ballrooms to build links with local South African players and audiences. Never previously available outside South Africa, Outernational Sounds’ new editions of Song of Soweto and The Last Special (alongside our edition of Kirk Lightsey’s Habiba) represents the first time these albums have been in print for nearly fifty years. Fully licensed from Gallo Records and pressed at Pallas in Germany from Gallo’s original masters, they feature new sleeve notes from Francis Gooding (The Wire) based on interviews with Al Hall, Jnr., and a reminiscence from pianist Kirk Lightsey.

Outernational Sounds very proudly Presents The Mallory-Hall Band "Song of Soweto" & "The Last Special". Limited, fully licensed digital and vinyl reissues of two crucial South African sessions led by Charles Mallory and Al Hall, Jnr., featuring Kirk Lightsey, Marshall Royal, Rudolph Johnson, Billy Brooks and more! Essential companion pieces to Kirk Lightsey’s legendary ‘Habiba’. Featuring tracks: Song Of Soweto: Side A – ‘Song of Soweto’, ‘Hamba Samba’; Side B – ‘Cape Town Blues’, ‘Moroka Rock’, ‘The African Night’ The Last Special: Side A - ‘The Last Special’, ‘Princess of Joh’Burg’; Side B - ‘Amafu (Clouds)’, ‘Blue Mabone’ Never released outside South Africa, and out of print since 1974, Outernational Sounds presents two long-lost Johannesburg sessions from the Mallory-Hall Band – an all-star review of West Coast jazz stars who toured apartheid South Africa in the mid-1970s. Sanifu Al Hall, Jnr. is a musician’s musician. During a storied career stretching across six decades, Hall has recorded with the greats of the music including Freddie Hubbard, Doug Carn, and Johnny Hammond, and leads his own Cosmos Dwellerz Arkestra. But until recent years, the only records on which he had appeared as leader were a brace of rich, funky LPs, Song Of Soweto and The Last Special, issued only in South Africa under the moniker of The Mallory-Hall Band (named for Hall and his co-leader, guitarist Charles Mallory – musical director for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mallory was conductor for Dusty Springfield touring bands, and had worked with John Lee Hooker, Stevie Wonder, and many others). Neither LP had any wider release, and both have remained out of print since 1974. How did a young stalwart of the Los Angeles jazz scene end up in a recording studio in apartheid South Africa? Al Hall, Jnr. and Charles Mallory had arrived in South Africa as part of the touring band for the singer Lovelace Watkins. Sometimes billed as ‘the Black Sinatra’, the Detroit-born Watkins sang standards and ballroom classics on the Las Vegas circuit. He never made it big in the US, but in his 1970s heyday he was a huge star in southern Africa, and 1974 he hired a jazz big band to accompany him on a tour of South Africa – Hall and Mallory were part of the line-up, alongside Mastersounds bassist Monk Montgomery, pianist Kirk Lightsey, tenorist Rudolph Johnson, drummer Billy Brooks, and Marshall Royal, musical director of the Count Basie band. The tour was a huge success, and during downtime from performing, members of the group managed to independently record no fewer than three albums. Lightsey and Johnson’s stunning Habiba was the first (reissued as Outernational Sounds OTR.013), and it was followed by two crucial sessions led by Hall and Mallory – Song of Soweto and The Last Special, issued on the local IRC imprint. Visiting apartheid South Africa in 1974 was a controversial choice for any artist. Numerous artistic and cultural bodies around the world had already announced that their members would boycott the country in solidarity with the struggle against apartheid, and working in South Africa was severely frowned on by anti-apartheid activists everywhere. For a Black band, touring the country to play to mostly white audiences could have been seen by many both inside and outside South Africa as a questionable decision. ‘It was a batch of mixed reactions when I choose to visit South Africa whilst apartheid policies were in place,’ Hall recalls. ‘To me the choice was a simple one – “I wanna see for myself!” I also wanted to be a part of breaking down racial barriers, having been down some of the same roads in my own country.’ The albums were recorded by a twelve-piece band at Johannesburg’s Video Sounds Studios in December 1974, and feature the legendary pianist Kirk Lightsey, Black Jazz recording artist Rudolph Johnson, and the rest of the touring band. Both records are superbly arranged slabs of peak 1970s funky big band soul jazz, with tasteful Latin inflections and more than a nod to South Africa’s upful township jazz sound. They are the sonic traces left by a seasoned African American band who were touring South Africa in the depths of the apartheid era, and who immediately moved beyond the segregated hotels and ballrooms to build links with local South African players and audiences. Never previously available outside South Africa, Outernational Sounds’ new editions of Song of Soweto and The Last Special (alongside our edition of Kirk Lightsey’s Habiba) represents the first time these albums have been in print for nearly fifty years. Fully licensed from Gallo Records and pressed at Pallas in Germany from Gallo’s original masters, they feature new sleeve notes from Francis Gooding (The Wire) based on interviews with Al Hall, Jnr., and a reminiscence from pianist Kirk Lightsey.

Recorded over the course of a 4,000-mile cross-country roadtrip, Canadian Taylor Ashton’s new album is a sonic odyssey through the heart of America, one that works its way geographically from coast to coast as it meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection. The performances are warm and inviting, anchored by Ashton’s deft guitar and banjo work and rich, easygoing melodicism, and the recordings—helmed by producer Jacob Blumberg and captured with a broad range of collaborators including Courtney Hartman, Big Thief’s Buck Meek, Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price, Vulfpeck’s Theo Katzman, and Late Show bandleader Louis Cato—are alternately sparse and lush. From a blanket in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to a spiritual vortex in Sedona, AZ, the settings are inextricable from the songs, and the result is a moving collection that evokes both the gentle virtuosity of Nick Drake and the buoyant wit of Paul Simon.

Tara Jane O'Neil describes her latest album "Self Titled" as a "singer songwriter" endeavor.

At the invitation and by the design of Mark Greenberg (The Coctails), half of this record was recorded mostly live at Wilco’s Loft Studio in Chicago with a band that included James Elkington, Gerald Dowd, Nick Macri, and Greenberg himself. Another half was made in TJO’s home studio in California with Devin Hoff, Wilder Zoby, Walt McClements and string supervisor Jim James. This album also features the voices of Chris Cohen, Carolyn Pennypacker-Riggs and Joan Shelley. Tara Jane ONeil plays guitar, bass, keyboards and percussion.

As a solo artist she has released eight full-length albums internationally. O’Neil was a founding member of Rodan, the Sonora Pine , amongst other ensembles. She has collaborated on recordings and stages with Papa M, Michael Hurley, Little Wings, Marisa Anderson, Catherine Irwin, Mirah, Mount Eerie, and many many others. She has also performed at clubs, galleries, and DIY spaces around the world and venues such as the Centre de Pompdou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and All Tomorrow’s Parties. She starred in the cult classic film Half-Cocked. Her visual art work has been shown in cities including London, Tokyo and Portland and has been published in three monographs.

A collection of songs for his birth-state, Michigan, “The Great Lake State.”

Composed as a geographical tone poem, Michigan follows a metaphysical expedition through the idiosyncrasies of middle America. Drawing from personal anecdote, regional history, and state heritage, Stevens mixes social and political grievances with songs about snowmobiles, Henry Ford, the Detroit race riots, and love.

The songs on Michigan resonate with a range of sources-Vince Guaraldi, Terry Riley, and Nick Drake as accompanied by Stereolab and The Sea & Cake-in executing Stevens’ peculiar palette that is simultaneously rock and blue-grass, jazz and pop, a style The Village Voice appraises as “Arthur Lee meets the Book of Psalms.”

In Michigan, Stevens combines intimate, soft-spoken songwriting with the dense compositional complexity displayed on his previous release Enjoy Your Rabbit, which XLR8R called “…a transgressive, majestic album conjuring an academic jam session of Stereolab and Luke Vibert conducted by Steve Reich.”

Guest artists include Elin, Megan, and Daniel Smith (of The Danielson Famile), and John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud). Album art features original hand-paintings by Martha Stewart crafts editor Laura Normandin.

Limited to 15000 copies.

Vinyl version of Remastered Original Album + LP of Studio masters, B-sides and demos (many for the first time on vinyl) from the 2016 Bella Donna Deluxe Edition.

7" is missing. Vinyl is close to NM. With insert.

Vinyl is close to NM.

Steve Von Till, best known as Californian heavyweights Neurosis' singer and guitarist, is due to release a new solo album, A Life Unto Itself on his main band's Neurot Recordings Von Till enlisted Randall Dunn, production supremo and Master Musicians of Bukkake founder, to helm the desk, as well as bringing in Eyvind Kang on viola and percussionist Pat Schowe. 'A Life Unto Itself' also showcases J. Kardong on pedal steel, texturising Von Till's baritone gravel and sun-bleached skeleton of...

- Steve Gunn's first album with a band, featuring John Truscinski and Justin Tripp- His most affecting, accessible, and articulate work of pure songcraft to date, with a new emphasis on vocals- Available on virgin vinyl, in a deluxe, limited edition, as well as on CD and digital formats- Vinyl edition features matte, tip-on jacket, full-color inner sleeve, and digital download coupon- CD housed in heavy matte gatefold wallet- Package features artwork by Anthony Campuzano, Constance Mensh, and Justin TrippIn the city we're all angling for Quittin' Time, laboring along and among the hours, searching and scheming for the sweet sound of those two easy words: Time Off. It's something you take-or sometimes steal, like a thief or a baserunner-but seems you can never get enough of it. It's regulated, rationed, and billed by volume, like water or electricity or ice cream. Sometimes you have to beg the boss for more, or even for a trifling taste. So let's make time! Let's roll the dice and get these old bones out on the road again. Steve Gunn's new album imagines the fugitive moments afforded us during time off, out, and away as occasions for dilatory investigations into our immediate environments and interiors. Time Off (PoB-08) showcases the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter's oblique character sketches and story-songs, some of which, like "Lurker" and "Street Keeper," portray specific denizens of his Brooklyn neighborhood. "Old Strange" celebrates Jack Rose, a dear and departed friend and muse. Those contemplative studies frame Gunn's most affecting, accessible and articulate work of pure songcraft to date. His definitive statement as a songwriter, Time Off represents the culmination of nearly fifteen years of stylistic experimentation as a solo artist, a member of GHQ and the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, and more recently, as a guitarist in fellow Philadelphia-bred troubadour Kurt Vile's touring band the Violators. Gunn's first eponymous album with a full band, Time Off harnesses a core trio format to...

Clear vinyl

Steve Gunn has always had one foot in indie rock and the other in an expansive improvisational scene. His songwriter albums alternate with freewheeling jams, most notably in his Gunn-Truscinski Duo, but are not confined to that. So when Gunn decided to revisit Other You, it made sense that he brought in some guests from the far side of the commercial/experimental spectrum to reimagine his songs. Nakama presents five tracks from that last album, reshaped by artists that Gunn admires. The process loosens the songs up considerably.

Vinyl is close to NM.

Steve Gunn and The Black Twig Pickers are key figures in the current resurgence of American traditional and folk music. Gunn's songwriting and inventive guitar playing are driven by his restless mind, having released 9 solo and collaborative albums and appeared as a guest on nearly as many since his debut in 2007. The Black Twig Pickers play a fervent form of traditional music from their Appalachian homeland. The group performs often forgotten traditional songs, especially from their Virginia stomping-ground, creating a living history of old time music. They also have an ongoing residency at the legendary Floyd Country Store.

Cover with sticker. Vinyl with scuffs and hairlines

CD comes in a soft case, instead of the original crystal case. All booklets included.

close to NM

Steve Earle has been creating intimate and personal music for well over four decades now. His songwriting has wound itself along a path from Texas to Tennessee and his education came in the form of learning from the best. 2009's Grammy-nominated record, Townes was a tribute to his dear friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt. Ten years later Earle released, GUY. An album concentrated on paying homage to the late Guy Clark and the indelible friendship that they had formed in stories told through song. 2022 welcomes the release of Jerry Jeff. A 10-song collection of songs written by the gypsy songman, Jerry Jeff Walker. Featuring hits like, "Mr Bojangles" and "Gettin' By", Earle & The Dukes honor the late Texan by amplifying the concept and sound of each song with a full-band recording.

Steve Earle has been creating intimate and personal music for well over four decades now. His songwriting has wound itself along a path from Texas to Tennessee and his education came in the form of learning from the best. 2009's Grammy-nominated record, Townes was a tribute to his dear friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt. Ten years later Earle released, GUY. An album concentrated on paying homage to the late Guy Clark and the indelible friendship that they had formed in stories told through song. 2022 welcomes the release of Jerry Jeff. A 10-song collection of songs written by the gypsy songman, Jerry Jeff Walker. Featuring hits like, "Mr Bojangles" and "Gettin' By", Earle & The Dukes honor the late Texan by amplifying the concept and sound of each song with a full-band recording.

CD comes in a soft case, instead of the original crystal case. All booklets included.

CD comes in a soft case, instead of the original crystal case. All booklets included.

With insert. Few paper scuffs.

Siren was the debut album by Kevin Coyne with Siren, the band he founded with former Bonzo Dog Band bassist Dave Clague and pianist/guitarist Nick Cudworth. The album was originally issued on John Peel’s Dandelion label in 1969. An artist who would later inspire John Lydon, Sting, Ben Watt and Will Oldham and would collaborate with Robert Wyatt, Andy Summers, Dagmar Krause, Brendan Croker, Gary Lucas and The Mekons’ Jon Langford, Kevin Coyne deserves a royal place between the likes of Syd Barrett, Peter Hammill and Daevid Allen. Standing on the verge of british blues, folk and rawk’n’roll Siren could have been easily labeled as the british answer to Canned Heat, but there’s even more. ‘And I Wonder’ is clearly an anticipation of what would happen next, with the solo career of Coyne, more focused on acid folk songwriting. “Most of the album is good time rock-on-out-music a la the Flamin’ Groovies… one of those (albums) you keep coming back to when the night gets cold and the wine is almost out. I play it a lot, and that’s the nicest thing I can say about an album.” Ed Ward – Rolling Stone “Siren just came as a breath of fresh air really, in the same way that like a generation later The Ramones did. When you just thought ‘Thank God for that!’ You hadn’t realised how bored you’d become…” John Peel.

Temple, Bassey, MacLaine and now, Hurt; in a world of Shirleys, the name Sophia Ruby Katz has chosen for her music is perhaps prophetic as it captures her stunningly emotive vocal approach. And whilst Shirley Hurt might be the perfect nom de plume for the creative Toronto-based artist, it’s her self-titled debut album which positions her as protagonist of her own universe.

Traversing sonic landscapes, Shirley Hurt’s vocals ebb and flow like lyrical Ley lines tracking the contours of her own well-travelled map. By the age of 18, Hurt had travelled extensively, having lived in upwards of 20 different apartments and houses, as a result never really feeling “at home” anywhere. At this age was when Hurt found herself in New York, dipping her toes into various scenes and musical realms. The first and only place she ever felt at home, and a partial home-base for her, she travelled between Toronto and New York until the age of 26.When the project she was working on in New York reached a dead-end she returned West, moving in with musicians Harrison Forman (Hieronymus Harry, Zones) and Patrick Lefler (Roy, Possum). Being surrounded by their improvising at all hours, a new approach emerged. “Harrison is a virtuosic guitar player, and I hadn't picked up a guitar in any serious way since I was 16,” she says, “by osmosis I started playing again for fun.” Without agenda, the process grew organically from there.

Hurt and Forman decided to travel across the US and Canada in a trailer for half a year, with the entire album written in the final months of their trip. Hurt had been writing loose ideas here and there but felt blocked creatively. When the pair reached Berkley, they wound up house-sitting for a tuned-in friend who recommended she pray, in a very direct way, to remove the block. “I took her advice and to my surprise it worked. The album was conceptualized and finished within a couple of months.” Shapeshifting in tone and phrasing, Hurt’s music alchemizes the furthest corners of experimental indie folk, pop, and country into a singular sound with elegant unpredictability.

Whilst Shirley Hurt’s lyrical and structural ideas may have emerged on the road, the album was self-produced and recorded at Joseph Shabason (The War on Drugs)’s Aytche studio in Toronto’s West End. It was engineered by Nathan Vanderwielen and Chris Shannon (Bart), and Hurt enlisted collaborators Jason Bhattacharya, Nick Dourado, Patrick Lefler, and Harrison Forman to hone her vision. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the songs until we returned to Toronto,” she recalls. “Joseph and I had been talking about working together after sending across some demos and Jason happened to recommend his studio at the exact same time, so everything came together naturally at that point.”

Whilst her most recent adventures may have seen Shirley Hurt bound for Texas as an official Sxsw artist (hand-picked by Gorilla Vs Bear to perform at their own showcase), she currently resides in her native Canada, more specifically rural Ontario, close to friends and family, and is already working on her second album. The ties to lineage are interwoven in the fabric of the music. Hurt’s mother, artist Leala Hewak, instilled a lust for life and innate value of creativity in her from a young age as she explored the role of gallery owner, vintage jewellery show host, mid-century modern furniture expert, real estate agent, painter. Hurt’s father, a civil litigation lawyer and new-wave obsessed music lover with an extensive vinyl collection, introduced Hurt to a wide-range of artists at a young age such as Nina Hagen, Laurie Anderson, Tom Tom Club, and endless others.

In her video for ‘Problem Child’ Hurt’s grandmother walks her through a generationally revered pie-making process. One would be tempted to hear this, and other songs, as autobiographical. Yet, Hurt’s lyrics are rarely pulled from her relationships or personal history––at least not consciously. Rather, they arise from somewhere less tangible or defined. “Lyrics tend to come to me when I am doing non-musical things - washing dishes, brushing my dogs, walking to the grocery store. I have a lot of voice memos on my phone and half-filled notebooks and when I hear something, I have to stop what I'm doing to get the idea down. Usually it’s bits and pieces. It's rare a full song comes to me in one go, but it's great when they do, and those are often my favourites.”

Carving out a space of her own in an all-encompassing universe, Shirley Hurt is the introduction to a long artistic story, and if the journey so far is anything to go by, it will be stippled with evermore unpredictable chapters.

“Blues in Mono” is a timeless tribute to traditional, acoustic country blues recorded with a microphone from the 1940s, with Seasick Steve performing the songs solo, direct to an old tape machine. This was then cut direct to lacquers with no computer involved at all during the process. The old skool way of making a record. This is an album that fans have been crying out for, for years. “Blues in Mono” finds Seasick Steve giving some of his finest performances to deliver a fresh, stripped down blues album that offers the perfect antidote for the troubled times in which we live.

“It’s just me and an acoustic guitar, playing old country blues. I always wanted to do it but never felt worthy, but then I realised that I better hurry up and do it ‘cos I ain’t never gonna feel worthy!” says Steve. “I tried to make it so that if you was listening you’d think I was sitting with you in your house.”

Still shrink wrapped but opened.
Includes original inner sleeve.
Record is close to VG+.

close to NM. With insert

Celebrated Zambian guitarist and bandleader Paul Ngozi’s concept album about the stuggles of those living in Africa’s 1970s townships Includes Oversized 8 Page Booklet That Details Paul Ngozi and The Ngozi Family’s Arc, Including Rare Photographs, Discography And Annotation The third entry in an era-defining reissue series on Now-Again centered around this Zamrock legend and his band - previous entries include Day Of Judgement and 45,000 Volts "Zambia’s Zamrock movement that exploded in the 1970s...provided young musicians access to European and American music, and created a unique sound. At its root, Zamrock melded fuzz-toned psychedelia, chugging garage rock and roiling funk with a broad mix of African cadences and beats...enlivening a scene that included bands like Musi-O-Tunya, Amanaz and the Ngozi Family” - Zamrock was a bona-fide rock scene: on the African continent, only Nigeria can claim one so comprehensive, and Nigeria’s was largely catalyzed and funded by subsidiaries of the European major labels. Zamrock was as independent as the newly-named country, formerly known as Northern Rhodesia. Zamrock is starting in its completeness, especially for a scene that emerged, unfurled and disappeared so quickly. From Musi-O-Tunyaís fusion of Fela’s Afro-beat, Hendrix’s rock, South African jazz and traditional Zambian melodies and rhythms to Salty Dog’s acid folk/rock, Zambia’s rock scene contained all of rock’s subgenres. Zamrock was much more than an imitation of American and European rock music: it quickly became a uniquely Zambian movement, befitting of its name. Witch, Paul Ngozi and Amanaz sound nothing like other rock music from the African continent - or elsewhere.

close to NM

For the the eleventh volume of FRKWYS, an unrestricted series pairing contemporary artists with their influential predecessors, gifted guitar squire Steve Gunn meets roving, radiating legend Mike Cooper in Lisbon, Portugal.

A few copies arrived with split sleeve that we offer at a lower price.

Megan Siebe is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and arranger from Omaha, Nebraska. She’s cut her teeth as a member of bands such as Simon Joyner & the Ghosts, The David Nance Group, Cursive, Sean Pratt & the Sweats, The Jim Schroeder Sextet, and many others, touring nearly non-stop for the last decade. She’s also written string arrangements for albums by Refrigerator, John Davis, the Renderers, Dennis Callaci, L. Eugene Methe, Justin Townes Earle, and Anna McClellan. But all the while she was writing her own intimate, finely-crafted songs in secret, only breaking them out around the occasional Nebraska campfire amongst friends. A break from touring in other bands these last fifteen months has allowed Siebe more time to focus on a powerful cycle of songs she’s had brewing for some time. Grapefruit and Shrimper are proud to join forces to release Megan’s humble yet astonishing debut. Swaying Steady is a gorgeous collection of literate and evocative singer-songwriter, country-tinged, melancholy pop songs about relationships in crisis, bad seeds, family, and emotional endurance. For fans of Lucinda Williams, Harry Nilsson, Elyse Weinberg, Nick Drake, and Sibylle Baier.

Megan Siebe is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and arranger from Omaha, Nebraska. She’s cut her teeth as a member of bands such as Simon Joyner & the Ghosts, The David Nance Group, Cursive, Sean Pratt & the Sweats, The Jim Schroeder Sextet, and many others, touring nearly non-stop for the last decade. She’s also written string arrangements for albums by Refrigerator, John Davis, the Renderers, Dennis Callaci, L. Eugene Methe, Justin Townes Earle, and Anna McClellan. But all the while she was writing her own intimate, finely-crafted songs in secret, only breaking them out around the occasional Nebraska campfire amongst friends. A break from touring in other bands these last fifteen months has allowed Siebe more time to focus on a powerful cycle of songs she’s had brewing for some time. Grapefruit and Shrimper are proud to join forces to release Megan’s humble yet astonishing debut. Swaying Steady is a gorgeous collection of literate and evocative singer-songwriter, country-tinged, melancholy pop songs about relationships in crisis, bad seeds, family, and emotional endurance. For fans of Lucinda Williams, Harry Nilsson, Elyse Weinberg, Nick Drake, and Sibylle Baier.

Mega Bog is the fluid musical moniker of songwriter Erin Elizabeth Birgy, who has spent the last ten years channeling, capturing, and releasing her unique bouquet of fragrant, sci-fi pop experiments with a handful of bicoastal collaborators. She is joined on her fifth and finest album (and first for PoB) by members of Big Thief, Hand Habits, and iji, who help her spin a manic web of emotions into beautiful, abstract future poems and thrilling genre perversions.

Mega Bog Is The Fluid Musical Moniker Of Songwriter Erin Elizabeth Birgy, Who Has Spent The Last Ten Years Channeling, Capturing, And Releasing Her Unique Bouquet Of Fragrant, Sci-Fi Pop Experiments With A Handful Of Bicoastal Collaborators. She Is Joined On Her Fifth And Finest Album (And First For Pob) By Members Of Big Thief, Hand Habits, And Iji, Who Help Her Spin A Manic Web Of Emotions Into Beautiful, Abstract Future Poems And Thrilling Genre Perversions.

My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. She had a voice like Billie Holiday's and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed"- Bob Dylan This essential folk/blues classic, originally released in 1969, was the debut album by Karen Dalton. Dalton was discovered by singer/songwriter Fred Neil, who introduced her to producer Nick Venet (the man who signed The Beach Boys and took The Beatles to America). She cut most of the tracks with one take, and all in one night. A perfectionist, Dalton was hard to convince to record, and producers Venet and Neil were only successful by tricking her into thinking the tape wasn't rolling. "Some find Karen Dalton's voice difficult to listen to", wrote Al/Music critic Richie Unterberger. "But Dalton's vocals aren't that hard to take, and they are expressive; like Buffy Sainte-Marie, it just does take some getting used to because of their unconventional timbre." On this album, Dalton covers a wide range of styles, from lim Hardin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Leadbelly to the traditional folk song "Ribbon Bow" and the Eddie Floyd/Booker T. Jones penned soul tune "I Love You More Than Words Can Say." She also sings a couple of Neil tunes. After years of drug abuse, Dalton died in 1993, aged 55. Although she didn't enjoy commercial success during her lifetime, her work has gained significant recognition since her death, and artists like Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart, and Joanna Newsom have noted her as an influence.

Karen Dalton’s 1971 album, In My Own Time, stands as a true masterpiece by one of music’s most mysterious, enigmatic, and enduringly influential artists. Celebrating the album’s 50th anniversary, Light in the Attic is honored to present a newly remastered (2021) edition of the album on LP, CD, cassette, and 8-Track.

All audio has been newly remastered by Dave Cooley, while lacquers were cut by Phil Rodriguez at Elysian Masters.

The Oklahoma-raised Karen Dalton (1937-1993) brought a range of influences to her work. As Lenny Kaye writes in the liner notes, one can hear “the jazz of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, the immersion of Nina Simone, the Appalachian keen of Jean Ritchie, [and] the R&B and country that had to seep in as she made her way to New York."

Armed with a long-necked banjo and a 12-stringed guitar, Dalton set herself apart from her peers with her distinctive, world-weary vocals. In the early ‘60s, she became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene, interpreting traditional material, blues standards, and the songs of her contemporaries, including Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, and Richard Tucker, whom she later married. Bob Dylan, meanwhile, was instantly taken with her artistry. “My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton,” he recalled in Chronicles: Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004). “Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.”

Those who knew Dalton understood that she was not interested in bowing to the whims of the record industry. On stage, she rarely interacted with audience members. In the studio, she was equally as uncomfortable with the recording process. Her 1969 debut, It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best, reissued by Light in the Attic in 2009, was captured on the sly when Dalton assumed that she was rehearsing songs. When Woodstock co-promoter Michael Lang approached Dalton about recording a follow-up for his new imprint, Just Sunshine, she was dubious, to say the least. The album would have to be made on her own terms, in her own time. That turned out to be a six-month period at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY.

Producing the album was bassist Harvey Brooks, who played alongside Dalton on It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best. Brooks, who prided himself on being “simple, solid and supportive,” understood Dalton’s process, but was also willing to offer gentle encouragement, and challenge the artist to push her creative bounds. “I tried to present her with a flexible situation,” he told Kaye. “I left the decisions to her, to determine the tempo, feel. She was very quiet, and I brought all of it to her; if she needed more, I’d present options. Everyone was sensitive to her. She was the leader.”

Dalton, who rarely performed her own compositions, selected a range of material to interpret—from traditionals like “Katie Cruel” and “Same Old Man” to Paul Butterfield’s “In My Own Dream” and Richard Tucker’s “Are You Leaving For The Country.” She also expanded upon her typical repertoire, peppering in such R&B hits as “When a Man Loves a Woman” and “How Sweet It Is.” In a departure from her previous LP, Dalton’s new recording offered fuller, more pop-forward arrangements, featuring a slew of talented studio musicians.

While ‘70s audiences may not have been ready for Dalton’s music, a new generation was about to discover her work. In the decades following her death, a slew of artists would name Karen Dalton as an influence, including Lucinda Williams, Joanna Newsom, Nick Cave, Angel Olsen, Devendra Banhart, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett, and Adele. In the recent acclaimed film documentary Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, Cave muses on Dalton’s unique appeal: “There’s a sort of demand made upon the listener,” he explains. “Whether you like it or not, you have to enter her world. And it’s a despairing world.” Peter Walker, who also appears in the film, elaborates on this idea: “If she can feel a certain way in her music and play it in such a way that you feel that way, then that’s really the most magical thing [one] can do.” He adds, “She had a deep and profound and loving soul…you can hear it in her music.”

Karen Dalton’s 1971 album, In My Own Time, stands as a true masterpiece by one of music’s most mysterious, enigmatic, and enduringly influential artists. Celebrating the album’s 50th anniversary, Light in the Attic is honored to present a newly remastered (2021) edition of the album on LP, CD, cassette, and 8-Track.

Both the CD and cassette editions feature 9 bonus tracks, including 3 alternate takes from the In My Own Time album sessions, along with 6 previously unreleased tracks captured during Karen’s 1971 European tour, including live at The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival and Germany’s Beat Club.

All audio has been newly remastered by Dave Cooley, while lacquers were cut by Phil Rodriguez at Elysian Masters.

The Oklahoma-raised Karen Dalton (1937-1993) brought a range of influences to her work. As Lenny Kaye writes in the liner notes, one can hear “the jazz of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, the immersion of Nina Simone, the Appalachian keen of Jean Ritchie, [and] the R&B and country that had to seep in as she made her way to New York."

Armed with a long-necked banjo and a 12-stringed guitar, Dalton set herself apart from her peers with her distinctive, world-weary vocals. In the early ‘60s, she became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene, interpreting traditional material, blues standards, and the songs of her contemporaries, including Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, and Richard Tucker, whom she later married. Bob Dylan, meanwhile, was instantly taken with her artistry. “My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton,” he recalled in Chronicles: Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004). “Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.”

Those who knew Dalton understood that she was not interested in bowing to the whims of the record industry. On stage, she rarely interacted with audience members. In the studio, she was equally as uncomfortable with the recording process. Her 1969 debut, It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best, reissued by Light in the Attic in 2009, was captured on the sly when Dalton assumed that she was rehearsing songs. When Woodstock co-promoter Michael Lang approached Dalton about recording a follow-up for his new imprint, Just Sunshine, she was dubious, to say the least. The album would have to be made on her own terms, in her own time. That turned out to be a six-month period at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY.

Producing the album was bassist Harvey Brooks, who played alongside Dalton on It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best. Brooks, who prided himself on being “simple, solid and supportive,” understood Dalton’s process, but was also willing to offer gentle encouragement, and challenge the artist to push her creative bounds. “I tried to present her with a flexible situation,” he told Kaye. “I left the decisions to her, to determine the tempo, feel. She was very quiet, and I brought all of it to her; if she needed more, I’d present options. Everyone was sensitive to her. She was the leader.”

Dalton, who rarely performed her own compositions, selected a range of material to interpret—from traditionals like “Katie Cruel” and “Same Old Man” to Paul Butterfield’s “In My Own Dream” and Richard Tucker’s “Are You Leaving For The Country.” She also expanded upon her typical repertoire, peppering in such R&B hits as “When a Man Loves a Woman” and “How Sweet It Is.” In a departure from her previous LP, Dalton’s new recording offered fuller, more pop-forward arrangements, featuring a slew of talented studio musicians.

While ‘70s audiences may not have been ready for Dalton’s music, a new generation was about to discover her work. In the decades following her death, a slew of artists would name Karen Dalton as an influence, including Lucinda Williams, Joanna Newsom, Nick Cave, Angel Olsen, Devendra Banhart, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett, and Adele. In the recent acclaimed film documentary Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, Cave muses on Dalton’s unique appeal: “There’s a sort of demand made upon the listener,” he explains. “Whether you like it or not, you have to enter her world. And it’s a despairing world.” Peter Walker, who also appears in the film, elaborates on this idea: “If she can feel a certain way in her music and play it in such a way that you feel that way, then that’s really the most magical thing [one] can do.” He adds, “She had a deep and profound and loving soul…you can hear it in her music.”

1–10: Originally released as Just Sunshine – PAS 6008, 1971 11–13: Alternate Takes from album sessions, 1970/71 14–15: Recorded live at Beat Club, Germany, April 21, 1971 16–19: Recorded live at The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, May 1, 1972

Singer/Songwriter Juliet Lawson"s album, "Boo", was released on the Sovereign label in the UK in 1972. The album was the confident debut of a young British artist and featured twelve of Lawson"s own compositions.In the same wave of early 1970s English singer-songwriters such as Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan, Christine McVie and despite being described at the time as "Britain"s answer to Joni Mitchell" "Boo" was to prove her only major label release with limited commercial success.Over the next 50 years the album"s reputation has slowly grown and is today an expensive and collectible item. "Boo" is presented here in its entirety.The first pressing of the vinyl edition of the album also come with a bonus 7-inch single featuring two early demo tracks.

Mega rare UK private album (99 copies originally pressed in 1969) by singer/songwriter Jeremy Harmer, featuring David Costa of psych-folk band Trees on guitar. Melancholic, introspective psych-folk with chamber/ baroque feel. Guitar, flute, viola, bass, drums… Jeremy Harmer started singing and playing at school and university, where his circle of friends included aspiring folk musicians like Nick Drake and pre-Trees David Costa. Jeremy has a long history as a singer/songwriter and performer, along with his work in the field of English language teaching. “Idiosyncratics and Swallows’ Wings” was recorded one night in 1968 at the studios of Anglia Television, Norwich, while Jeremy was at the University of East Anglia. Along with Jeremy singing and playing guitar, the album features a mini-chamber ensemble of flute, viola, bass and drums with orchestral arrangements written by John Trevitt from the School of Fine Arts. Jeremy’s friend David Costa (prior to forming the psych-folk band Trees) played guitar on several tracks and co-wrote “Tuesday P.M.” Only 99 copies were pressed at the time and all were sold to people at the University, making it impossible to find now.

Jackson C. Frank’s eponymous album is the embodiment of folk legend. Issued in late 1965 on the UK Columbia label, it was for many years more famous for its producer (Paul Simon) and the musicians who would go on to cover its songs (Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny) than for the hauntingly beautiful music contained inside.

Frank’s backstory certainly adds to the legacy: born in Buffalo, New York, he used the settlement from a childhood accident to sail to London where he quickly became a fixture of the bustling folk scene. Performing a mix of blues standards and originals, he met fellow ex-pat Paul Simon who would put up the money to record Frank’s only LP.

For such a sparsely recorded work, Jackson C. Frank covers a lot of ground. From the rugged, world-weary opener “Blues Run The Game” to the stunning melancholy of “Milk And Honey,” Frank’s nimble acoustic guitar and passionate howls are all that is needed to power such authentic songwriting. Captured in a single-day session, these ten tracks are stark, gritty and seemingly out-of-place with time. There may be no ‘60s folk record that is simultaneously as rare and influential as Jackson C. Frank’s self-titled debut.

Australian Artist Indigo Sparke Brings Her Deeply Personal Lived Experiences To Her Music, Highlighting The Spaces Between The Polarity Of Softness And Grit. Pulling From Her Experiences Of Addiction, Of Healing, Of Queerness, Of Heartbreak, Of Joy, Of Connection, Of The Softness And Of The Grit Alchemizing It All Into Tenderness Through Her Music, She Conjures Up A Myriad Of Feelings That Is Undeniably Potent.It Was In 2019 That Indigo Lived And Travelled Across America, In Places Like Nyc, Minneapolis, Topanga, Taos, In Many Hotel Rooms And Amidst The Vast Stretching Landscapes On The Never Ending Highways, Channelling Her Creative Energy Into The Completion Of Her Debut Album, Echo. Echo Was Recorded Between La, Italy And New York, Co-Produced By Sparke, Adrianne Lenker (Of Big Thief), And Andrew Sarlo (Producer Of Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Bon Iver, Hand Habits, Etc). The Record Was Completed At Figure 8 Studio In New York City, Studio Of Musician Shahzad Ismaily. Phil Weinrobe (Producer/Engineer For Leonard Cohen, Damien Rice, Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Etc) Engineered And Mixed The Album."Indigo's Writing And Voice Are Ethereal And Angelic And Guide Me Through Internal Canyons And Plains. I'm Deeply Grateful To Have Been Part Of This And To Have Gotten To Play And Sing Along Side Indigo, And To Have Been Able To Eternalize A Very Special Space And Time With Her, Which I Will Always Cherish." -Adrianne Lenker"With These Songs And Her Filament Voice, Indigo Brings Us In To A Private Place And Lights A Fire There."-Feist

Australian Artist Indigo Sparke Brings Her Deeply Personal Lived Experiences To Her Music, Highlighting The Spaces Between The Polarity Of Softness And Grit. Pulling From Her Experiences Of Addiction, Of Healing, Of Queerness, Of Heartbreak, Of Joy, Of Connection, Of The Softness And Of The Grit Alchemizing It All Into Tenderness Through Her Music, She Conjures Up A Myriad Of Feelings That Is Undeniably Potent.It Was In 2019 That Indigo Lived And Travelled Across America, In Places Like Nyc, Minneapolis, Topanga, Taos, In Many Hotel Rooms And Amidst The Vast Stretching Landscapes On The Never Ending Highways, Channelling Her Creative Energy Into The Completion Of Her Debut Album, Echo. Echo Was Recorded Between La, Italy And New York, Co-Produced By Sparke, Adrianne Lenker (Of Big Thief), And Andrew Sarlo (Producer Of Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Bon Iver, Hand Habits, Etc). The Record Was Completed At Figure 8 Studio In New York City, Studio Of Musician Shahzad Ismaily. Phil Weinrobe (Producer/Engineer For Leonard Cohen, Damien Rice, Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Etc) Engineered And Mixed The Album."Indigo's Writing And Voice Are Ethereal And Angelic And Guide Me Through Internal Canyons And Plains. I'm Deeply Grateful To Have Been Part Of This And To Have Gotten To Play And Sing Along Side Indigo, And To Have Been Able To Eternalize A Very Special Space And Time With Her, Which I Will Always Cherish." -Adrianne Lenker"With These Songs And Her Filament Voice, Indigo Brings Us In To A Private Place And Lights A Fire There."-Feist

Indie exclusive Peak Edition on Orange & Black Swirl Vinyl, in a gatefold cover + poster.

It's spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylor - leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger - is feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new. "The tunes on Jump for Joy were composed in free moments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly," explains Taylor. "And perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot about the role that music has played in my life and how exactly I ended up in the rarefied position of leading a band and crew all over the globe through dingy graffiti-scrawled green rooms, venerated music halls, dust-blown roadside motels. Sometimes playing in front of 5,000; sometimes 200. Sleeping sitting up. Laughing until my stomach hurts. Not being able to fall asleep at 3 a.m. in some anonymous bed because my mind is spinning with anxiety or depression or adrenaline, or because my ears are still ringing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul to pay Peter back. Over and over again. It's an outlaw life but one, I'm coming to realize, that makes me happy." The songs that make up Jump for Joy - the sharpest and most autobiographical that Taylor has written under the Hiss name - read as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up against_ and, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge with real life. "Creating this character became the way that I could explore these vulnerable, tender moments that were so decisive in my life, even if I didn't know it at the time," explains Taylor. Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre. Taylor is accompanied throughout the album by his crack live band: guitarist Chris Boerner, bassist Alex Bingham, keyboardist Sam Fribush, and drummer Nick Falk, a collection of musicians that have helped make Hiss Golden Messenger's live performances legendary affairs.

It's spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylor_leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger_is feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal,he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well overa decade, this is something new. "The tunes onJump for Joy were composed in freemoments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly," explains Taylor. "And perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot abo...

Delayed by Covid, delayed by manufacturing errors, delayed by existential dread... Hangtown and the Altered State of Reverb are proud to present: Tales From The Gun. Hangtown is a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western surf rock band hailing from San Francisco. Founded in 2016 from a solo album by multi-instrumentalist Robb Grimes (also of SF's thrash metal quartet Asada Messiah). The music envisions a dust blown, post-apocalyptic world, and the sad and twisted stories from the inhabitants therein. Old Man Grimes is joined by long-term collaborators, Nick Poulos, MAT Fogel, Resse Douglas and Sandeep Bhutta, who have crafted together a wild genre-bending live show after years of gigging the West Coast. Tales From The Gun is their first full length album as collaborators, undoubtedly one of the strangest album offerings to come out of the bay area this year. A dark blend of cinematic western music, garage surf punk, and doomy western murder ballads, all from the desolate wasteland known as Hangtown.

Anything Can’t Happen is the long-awaited debut album from Dorothea Paas, one of Canada’s most beloved singer-songwriters. For over a decade, Paas has played her unique, prismatic style of folk songcraft for audiences across North America, and lent her talents as a guitarist and vocalist to artists like Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls and Badge Epoque Ensemble. The songs on this album have been through a near-infinite number of forms – Paas has played them solo and with a full band, electric and acoustic, at house shows and in sold-out venues. they manage to fit inside each context, like water taking the shape of its container. All of this makes Anything Can’t Happen feel far more mature and complex than a debut album. It’s a statement of purpose, a next step in a decade-long process of artistic growth and evolution, and a bridge between the DIY style of Paas’s previous cassette releases and a more refined studio sensibility. Recorded in studios in Hamilton and Toronto, and mixed by Max Turnbull of Badge Epoque and U.S. Girls and Steve Chahley, these songs bring a diverse range of musical influences into conversation: inflected with the layered reverberations of Grouper, shot through with the piercing harmonies of the Roches, electrified with the searing energy of Sonic Youth. You can hear Neil Young in the grittiness of the title track’s guitar; Joni Mitchell’s Hejira in the album’s lyrics, Fairport Convention in Paas’s voice. The influence of Stevie Wonder - one of Paas’s greatest musical role models - is present too, in the album’s conceptual foundations.

Drums, guitar, and vocals are the backbone and energy behind the new album LIGHTNING KID, the debut record of New Jersey based power-duo Dharmasoul. With Jonah Tolchin on guitar, Kevin Clifford on drums, and the two singing both lead and backup vocals, this duo brings their songwriting and production chops to their new band Dharmasoul. Although Dharmasoul is difficult to narrow down into one genre, they can best be described through their noted influences of contemporary artists such as Medeski Martin Wood & Scofield, Vulfpeck, DAngelo, Soulive, Snarky Puppy, and Lettuce as well as throwback influences including The Meters, Staple Singers, Otis Redding, The Allman Brothers Band, and Stevie Wonder.

The last album of Dead Cat In a Bag on vinyl! 180g + downloadcode.

"Do you know it? Ennio Morricone, Nick Cave, Mark Lanegan, Tom Waits and Zach Condon walk into the bar, and there are all the seats occupied by the Dead Cat In A Bag musicians. Really." - this is how Jarek Szubrycht started the review of the last album of the Italian group Dead Cat In Bag in Gazeta Wyborcza. And he was right. Really. Yes! Dead Cat In A Bag is back! They are back with a new album "We've Been Through".

After exploring several so called Neo-Folk regions, flirting with Folk Noir, mostly with Traditional Folk in a modern perspective, for example Americana to Tex-Mex and Balkan Music to Alternative Country, on this third record the ensemble drifts to a cinematic landscape, focusing on the theme of overcoming.

We've Been Through puts together World Music elements incorporating an almost soundtrack experience for a journey into both Day and Night, Hope and Disillusionment and telling stories of broken romances and shipwrecks.

Utilizing banjo and theatrical vocal delivery, together with with classic and odd instruments, the band remap the original charts but still set sail the desired destinations. And if, about the previous records, critics were prone to recall the prowess of Waits, Cave, Lanegan, Cash and Tindersticks, this time it will be harder to name the grandfathers. Now there is a Morricone (or was it Badalamenti?) guiding spirit and a dreamlike universe full of memories, from the dry electric blues of a stream of consciousness duet in Duet For Nothing to the unexpected crooning vocals provided by Liam McKahey (CousetauX) in Lost Friends (a banjo droven dirge dealing with electronics and a bassoon, with steal percussions and a music saw for a frame), from the rendition of the traditional Wayfaring Stranger, balancing between electric guitars and Bluegrass, to the intimate cover of Leonard Cohen's Hunter's Lullaby, from the rock-(swamp)blues of The Cat Is Dead (enriched by Italian bass hero Gianni Maroccolo, from Litfiba and C.S.I.) to the soft meloncholy of the string quartet in Between Day And Night, from the dark cabaret of Fiddler, The Ship Is Sinking to the soft porch song, between Willard Grant Conspiracy and Kris Kristofferson, of the final title track. You can hear a shrawn and a blues harp, whispers and choirs, love and dudgeon as the record goes. This is the sound of an orchestra playing on a sinking ship: what else could a fiddler do? And what can we do, in the end?

'Elephantasia' is a glorious folk opus from 1972, long lost and attaining a legendary reputation for its candour and creativity, from the late Bangor-born singer/songwriter Dave Evans. Finally, the LP sees the light of day again via Earth Recordings, it is a true gem from the vaults of British folk history. For fans of Nick Drake, Bill Fay and Davy Graham - with a touch of Michael Chapman, Bert Jansch and Fahey for good measure.Dave Evans' story is like a Pinter play; he sailed the seas in the merchant navy, was taught guitar in a brief interlude by the "mythical" Morocco John, wound up sharing a room with Steve Tilston in 1963 when they attended Loughborough Art College and ran the local folk club, while learning to make stringed instruments, the art of wine making and ceramics. Over the next year, Dave got a domestic 2-track reel-to-reel tape recorder and experimented with its two speeds to produce the tracks 'Elephantasia' and 'Lady Portia'. He pulled in members of local prog band Squidd, including latter day Hawkwind member Steve Swindells on keyboards, John Merritt on bass and Rodney Matthews on drums, who also designed the 'Elephantasia' album cover, and went on to become a renowned fantasy artist.'Elephantasia' the album was originally released in 1972, fully exposing Dave's finger picking style, lilting vocal and his dalliance with the tape manipulation. It sold around 2000 copies and over the years became a talked about rarity, deemed too progressive for folk, too folk for the new prog heads. In best plot-thickening style, Dave tried two more releases and then disappeared. The scant sleeve notes recounted the songs' creation, featuring tales of experimentation in sound inspired by elephants, old memories recounted with all of the unpleasant bits edited out, storylines for escapists, the residents of St Agnes Park, broken beauty queens and a fat feline. It's an eclectic but beautifully fluent narrative from a finger picking maestro with a warm and engaging vocal style that wowed Peel a...

* 'Gebauer sings, his shredded, husky voice like someone dragging the needle on a Nick Cave record.' - Consequence OF Sound

“Caroline No’s third album was built around a set of songs I was writing in the summer of 2019. I built the songs around real events, but looped these narratives into stories from song histories. The result is like an intersection of Brill Building characters such as Carole King and Neil Sedaka with the bedroom fanaticism of historical music projects like Virgin Insanity. After a year of playing the songs live in various formations, we aimed to record in the Australian summer. We knew Jim [White] (Dirty Three, Crime & The City Solution, Venom P. Stinger, etc) was going to be in Melbourne, and soon after he arrived in Australia, we met at Mick [Turner]’s (Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, etc) studio. Nick [Imfeld] and Mick engineered, with Ian [Wadley] (Small World Experience, Mad Nanna, etc) on bass, Jim on drums, Mick, Dee [Hannah] and me [Caroline Kennedy] on guitars, and Dee and me singing. The sense of intuitive knowledge and performance was exhilarating as we played. We spent two days in the studio, and when we listened back later, it seemed a compelling representation of what had happened, captured live. “The band on this album are artists I grew up with. We were friends first, and engaging with the material, there was no formal structure to follow. Our interpretive approach meant the songs grew from simple structural frames and narrative poetics into full sonic landscapes, engaging across pop, folk, psychedelia and improvisation. Caroline No became—for this iteration—a shifting sonic space tied to intimacy, musical conversation and relationship, expressed in an open improvisatory way. The sound of the record is the result of trust, responsiveness and mutual knowledge. “The name Caroline No was an imaginary character through much of the work, arising from the Beach Boys’ melancholic paen to encountering a past lover who has cut her hair off. My idea was for Caroline No to become the locus for an ongoing composition project where I would write back into songs’ history the perspective of patriarchal song’s subjects. “This is a recuperative project of easeful making; attempting reclamations of lost narratives, exploring love, loss and the psychedelic of the everyday.” —Caroline Kennedy

Accidentally blinded at adolescence, the Portland-based Bob Desper released just one record-- in 1974, and limited to a 500-copy pressing on a local Christian imprint-- before fading into the woodwork, leaving only this tiny morsel of music behind for anyone to find and follow back to its source. New Sounds is a classic lost record, though whether it counts as a lost classic is pretty relative, considering that even folk heavy hitters Nick Drake or Bert Jansch were once tagged as totally obscure by all but the most ardent followers of the form. New Sounds isn't the sort of record that would appeal to casual toe-dippers, anyway. Rather, it's the kind of recording, like Gary Higgins' similarly recently unearthed Red Hash, pretty much designed to be lost and rediscovered decades later.

Everything Returns reunites the original Black Ox Orkestar lineup following a 15-year hiatus. Arising from the fertile Montréal post-punk agit-prop scene of the early 2000s, the band comprises Scott Gilmore, Jessica Moss and Thierry Amar of Thee Silver Mt. Zion (Amar also continues to compose and play bass for Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Gabriel Levine of Sackville. Black Ox made two acclaimed albums of roiling acoustic avant-folk in the mid-2000s, exploring Eastern European and North African folkways through the lens of a gritty, resonant indie rock sensibility, juxtaposing interpretations of instrumentals from various Jewish, Romani and Arabic traditions with originals led by Gilmore's politically-charged Yiddish vocals. These early albums have since become lodestars for many among a new generation of Yiddish, Klezmer and radical Jewish diasporic music practitioners and fans. First revealing its resurrection in February 2022 with a surprise flexi 7" single issued by left journal Jewish Currents as a gift to its thousands of subscribers, Black Ox has indeed fully and fruitfully reunited. Exquisitely recorded by Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio), Everything Returns picks up right where the band left off: an incisively atmospheric, melancholic yet resolute album of uniquely modern Jewish folk music, with piano, violin, upright bass, clarinet and cymbalom making up the core instrumentation, and the vocal tunes sung primarily in Yiddish, alongside album centerpiece "Viderkol" and closer "Lamed-Vovnik" where English also features. This is not fusion music, but diaspora music: a cross-cultural call and response of musical lexicons, emerging from the history of Jewish persecution and displacement, the musicology of 19th century repertoire from Jewish shtetls , the improvisational traditions of nusakh in Jewish music and taqsim in Arabic music, and a wider polyglot dialogue of Jewish, Slavic, Arabic, and Central Asian musical traditions. Lyrically and stylistically, Everything Returns connects key current issues_from refugees forced to leave their homes, to the return of fascism and exclusionary nationalism_with the legacy of modernist Yiddish poetry and song. The new Black Ox Orkestar album is a sublime, poetic, politically-informed statement of re-energized diasporic musical intent, where Gilmore's voice and the band's simmering arrangements conjure an ardent, doleful balladry that echoes the sound and sensibility of artists like Tindersticks, The National, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. Everything Returns is a haunting, richly textured, darkly sparkling song cycle at once from a vanished world and very much of our time and place. Thanks for listening.

"Bill Fay's music was a revelation to me when I first discovered it: the commanding power of his words; the modest, universal language of his sorrow. And listening to his music still makes me feel as if an old friend had been lingering in the shadows, emerging at just the right time. It was a real honor to record one of my favorites of his, "Dust Filled Room". - Steve Gunn, Brooklyn, NY Dead Oceans has announced the re-issue of Bill Fay's Still Some Light, a double compilation album made up of 70s album demos and 2009 home recordings. Released in two parts, pressed on vinyl and out digitally for the first time, `Still Some Light Part 1' is released 14th Jan, 2022. Alongside, Dead Oceans has announced plans of a special series of four 7" singles, consisting of different musicians' interpretations of Bill Fay classics. The first two (one a cover of `Dust Filled Room' by Steve Gunn and the second, Kevin Morby's version of `I Hear You Calling') will also be released 14th Jan, 2022.

This is a live album that was taken from the tour for Ytilaer. Songs tend to mutate after they"ve been recorded. These songs were mutating faster than usual. Like whatever happened to Bruce Banner in the lab - I knew these songs were about to get superpowers. As far as I was concerned, this change needed to be documented. The best thing about documenting something is that it gives the creator permission to move on should they wish to move on. I usually prefer to move on. These songs were recorded in Chicago, America"s heart. And at one of the best clubs in the country - I try to only work with venues that are not entangled with LiveNation/Ticketmaster. Thalia Hall, baby. Stay free. The date was mid-point in the tour, so I knew we"d be as hot as we were going to get. Not too green, not too brown. There was the thought, "let"s take this op to make it something special." So we took advantage of Chicago"s easily accessible players - we got Nick Mazzarella to add alto sax to one song, and from the opening band, Pascal Kerong"A to sing on a song, and Nathaniel Ballinger on piano on one song - and I couldn"t pass up the opportunity to invite Joshua Abrams and Lisa Alvarado to play on "Natural Information." The hardest part of making the record was cutting songs out - it could have been a triple album. But I don"t know, maybe the show should have been this short?" - Bill Callahan

Released on Whale Watch Records, which previously released albums by Mariee Sioux and Bingo Club and recorded in the Autumn of 2020 at Wonka Sound Studio in Lowell, Massachusetts, Assorted Orchids’ self-titled debut album consists entirely of steel and nylon-stringed acoustic guitar inspired by the ornate and intricate yet rhythmic and pulsating fingerpicking patterns of Mississippi John Hurt, Donovan, and Nick Drake. Additional instrumentation is kept to a bare minimum and vocals are up front in the mix, fragile but forceful, delicate but precise. With a total running time just shy of 30 minutes, the album was designed and sequenced like a short story: a pure distillation of a single mood. As Pete Seeger would say, it’s “sit-down music”.

Whale Watch Records (Mariee Sioux, Bingo Club) is proud to present these first ten songs of Assorted Orchids. It is music best paired with driving alone at night or sitting in a circle with friends, drinking, smoking, and talking. Don’t forget to dim the lights.