Releases from May–June 2015

Great albums from around the world

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Releases for 29 June 2015

Release of the week for 29 June is the magisterial Still from Richard Thompson. Other new releases run from Neil Young through Sea Of Bees and on to Joy Williams by way of Trembling Bells, Tom McRae, Samantha Fish and Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe.

- Richard Thompson Still
Still was recorded in a two-story rehearsal loft in Chicago over the course of just nine days with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy at the helm, backed by several longtime players from both Richard Thompson’s and Tweedy’s bands.
The key to Still’s emotional resonance is a set of gripping new Thompson compositions rich with his signature mix of trenchant insight, gallows humour, and keen empathy for characters at the brink of being overcome by their emotions, their pasts, or themselves.
Taken as a whole, Still is a powerful dispatch from an acknowledged master who remains unafraid to put himself into demanding new environments – its title reflecting that resilience and seemingly endless resourcefulness.

- Trembling Bells The Sovereign Self
The Sovereign Self is a remarkable work from one of Britain’s most distinctive and exciting groups. ‘It’s darker than our other records,’ says Alex Neilson, the five-piece’s drummer and principal songwriter. ‘Suffering played quite a big part in its conception. I came out of a relationship and was consoling myself creatively and emotionally by reading a lot of Greek tragedy. The language is incredible. I immersed myself in that and then cherry-picked lines from it, distorting and personalising them.’
It is a driving, dramatic and at times hallucinatory work, filled with a great sense of tension and release; a witches’ brew, a psychedelic stew mixing up the range of the band’s musical interests – everything from ramshackled ballads to ancient May Day chants, swaggering acid rock to swirling prog epics.

- Tom McRae Did I Sleep & Miss The Border
Recorded in Wales, Los Angeles and Somerset, Did I Sleep & Miss The Border is Mercury- and Brit-nominated Tom McRae’s 7th studio album, the follow-up to 2013’s critically acclaimed From The Lowlands. Featuring his international band, this new album of soulful alternative folk/Americana has been garnering rave reviews.

- Sea Of Bees Build A Boat To The Sun
Sea Of Bees is the musical project of Julie Ann Bee, or Jules as everyone calls her. She sings, writes the songs, and plays lots of musical instruments. She is the kind of singer-songwriter you come across only a few times in a lifetime: special, unusual, leaping out at you like an alien, her character fully-formed, her uniqueness intact.
Following the acclaim of her debut album, Songs For The Ravens, and follow-up Orangefarben, Jules is leaving the darkness for brighter horizons, gathering the good things up, leaving the bad behind and moving forward. The music has moved forward sonically too, with a full band sound after Jules bought a drum kit and spent as much time playing it as she played guitar, much to her neighbours’ dismay. Working with long-time producer John Baccigaluppi she again visits a variety of styles across the album: folk, Americana, pop and rock.

- Samantha Fish Wildheart
This young blues chanteuse has little problem vocalising her sadness, anger, and pain – and doing so in a bewitchingly seraphic timbre. Ruf Records recording artist Samantha Fish will raise eyebrows with her third studio release, Wild Heart, which has been produced by Luther Dickinson.

- Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe I Declare Nothing
I Declare Nothing is the spine-tingling collaboration between Tess Parks and Anton Newcombe (Brian Jonestown Massacre), being released on Anton’s A Recordings label. A native of Toronto, Tess Parks moved to London, England at the age of seventeen. The duo, who co-wrote and performed together on the album, are touring Europe this year.

- Neil Young The Monsanto Years
Ah, a Proper Neil Young album! The Monsanto Years is a long howl of anger by Neil, mainly against the big global corporations that dominate western life, although not record companies! This is a return to form for Neil. His new backing band contains a brace of Willie Nelson children and is entertainingly ramshackle in the best Neil Young tradition.
The second disc contains a DVD-Audio mix of the album.

- Joy Williams Venus
From the ashes of The Civil Wars comes Venus: a very different album, not the gothic folk noir that made Joy Williams’ name, but still laceratingly honest songwriting from a proper talent.

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Releases for 22 June 2015

22 June is a great week for fans of American music, with new releases from Kacey Musgraves, Leon Bridges, Wolf Alice, Royal Southern Brotherhood, Meg Baird, Rickie Lee Jones and a 10th anniversary edition of Black Mountain’s debut. There is also a new album from British pop superstar Mika. Album of the week is Wolf Alice’s My Love is Cool, which manages to justify the hype.

- Kacey Musgraves Pageant Material
Kacey Musgraves, the 26-year-old Grammy and CMA award-winning singer-songwriter from Texas, brings you Pageant Material, the follow-up to her hugely successful and critically acclaimed album, Same Trailer, Different Park.

- Mika No Place in Heaven
Multi-platinum pop-star Mika has announced the release of his much anticipated new album, No Place In Heaven. Mika has enlisted long-time collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Gregg Wells (Katy Perry, Pharrell, Adele, Rufus Wainwright) to produce the album. The pair have created a mature new record that exhibits Mika’s incredible song-writing talent and breath-taking vocals, evoking memories of classic 70s pop along the way.

- Leon Bridges Coming Home
The very best of nu-soul from a soon-to-be superstar!

- Wolf Alice My Love is Cool
Wolf Alice’s debut album, My Love Is Cool, comes with lofty expectations. Fittingly, then, it’s a record that reaches for the stratosphere. Equal parts gigantic guitars and wistful, wilting beauty, My Love Is Cool is a timeless collection of songs that outweighs any preconceived notions of what Wolf Alice are, or can be.

- Royal Southern Brotherhood Don’t Look Back
For Royal Southern Brotherhood, Don’t Look Back isn’t just an album title, but the attitude that drove the award-winning US band’s third release. Recorded at the iconic Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with an all-guns-blazing new guitar lineup and production team, this is the sound of a band rolling with the punches and turning the page.

- Meg Baird Don’t Weigh Down the Light
Meg Baird’s last decade would be remarkable by any artist’s standards. She co-founded and recorded three albums with Espers –one of the most distinctively mysterious acts of the century’s first decade. She recorded two solo albums: Dear Companion and Seasons On Earth. She also collaborated with Will Oldham, Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten and Steve Gunn and toured with Bert Jansch. Then, after more than a decade as a fixture in Philadelphia’s boiling-over musical scene, Meg moved west to San Francisco. There she joined forces with members of Comets On Fire and Assemble Head to form the moody and thunderous Heron Oblivion. Amid this flurry of activity she also managed to record this album.

- Rickie Lee Jones The Other Side of Desire
This is Rickie Lee Jones’s fifteenth album. The Other Side of Desire was written, recorded and rooted in the city of New Orleans, where Jones lives on the opposite side of the street made famous by Tennessee Williams. Produced by John Porter (of Roxy Music) and Mark Howard, these are the first new songs Jones has released in over a decade. ‘This work has been inspired by many years of sitting with all the events of my life until I had something to paint with,’ says Rickie. ‘I came to New Orleans to write and to live a different way than what I have known on the west coast. … Here is another record then, made of my imagination, and whatever else that has no words, using the clay of this place and the shapes of my eyes to form some kind of picture of my life, or my heart, that I alone can understand, and hopefully that others can enjoy.’

- Black Mountain Black Mountain – 10th Anniversary Edition
It’s only a cliché because it’s true, but the greatest records are timeless. Black Mountain’s self-titled debut album is just such a record. It is a new classic rock, with reference points arcane and clear, its sound fresh, unfamiliar and irresistible. The work of a small collective of musicians operating from Vancouver, Canada, far from any industry buzz but firmly in the eye of their own storm of creativity, Black Mountain’s debut album was, of course, a beginning.

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Releases for 15 June 2015

Release of the week for 15 June is a close thing between Sarah Cracknell’s Red Kite and the Keston Cobblers Club’s WIldfire, and Sarah Cracknell just gets it. The week also brings new albums from James Taylor, Giorgio Moroder (his first since 1985!), The Selecter, Hilary Duff, Kathryn Williams and Hudson Mohawke.

- James Taylor Before This World
Legendary singer/songwriter James Taylor releases Before This World, the five-time Grammy-Award winner’s first album of new songs since 2002’s platinum-selling October Road. Produced by Grammy award-winner Dave O’Donnell, Before This World features ten songs, nine of which are brand-new James Taylor compositions.
On Before This World, Taylor continues to explore many of the themes that have absorbed him throughout his career.

- Giorgio Moroder Dejà vu
Giorgio Moroder returns with his first studio album since 1985’s Innovisions. The new album features collaborations with Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Sia, Charli XCX, Mikky Ekko, Foxes and Matthew Koma, among others.

- Sarah Cracknell Red Kite
Red Kite is the much-anticipated new solo album by Saint Etienne’s lead singer, Sarah Cracknell. Musically, Red Kite has a sophisticated, pastoral feel, drawing on classic 60s pop with less of a dance music influence than Saint Etienne. Sarah has co-written all the songs bar one cover version, ‘The Mutineer’.

- The Selecter Sub Culture
Legendary 2 Tone artists The Selecter release their new studio album, Subculture. Subculture is the calling card of a classic band who are completely tuned into the issues and challenges of the modern world. Since re-forming a half-decade ago. The Selecter have become increasingly aware that their championing of 2 Tone, ska, reggae and soul is firmly rooted outside of today’s mainstream genres.

- Hilary Duff Breathe In. Breathe Out.
The fifth album from pop vocalist Hilary Duff, Breathe In. Breathe Out. is the long-awaited follow-up to her album Dignity, which was released in 2007. Breathe In. Breathe Out. takes its name from a song that she recorded with Matthew Koma, which according to Duff, stuck with her throughout the recording process of the album. She further explained: ‘Over the past few years of my life it’s just been something that really helped me – just taking a deep breath in and letting a deep breath out. It can be a good thing, it can be a struggle, it can be a power thing – it’s just a good reminder for everyone to remember to do that. It’s a relief.’

- Kathryn Williams Hypoxia
Kathryn Williams’ new album, Hypoxia, uses sonic textures first explored on the Adrian Utley-produced project, The Pond, in 2011. There are surprises to be found here too, like the dramatic glam-rock guitars that suddenly erupt in lead single ‘Mirrors’ and in Kathryn’s deliciously idiosyncratic lyrics and delivery – her gentle voice loaded with an underlying edge that was always there but which has never seemed more apposite.
Hypoxia has its origins in 2013, when Kathryn received a call from New Writing North asking if she would accept an open commission to write something about Sylvia Plath for the Durham Book Festival’s celebration of her life and work, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Bell Jar.

- Hudson Mohawke Lantern
After Hudson Mohawke had been knighted Producer to the Stars, he did something very rare for pop producers – he went and had a few hits of his own. Now he’s back with Lantern, his first solo album in over five years, and it’s everything you’ve wanted and very little of what you’ve expected. Lantern is a fusion album of soaring orchestration and widescreen club dynamics.

- Keston Cobblers Club Wildfire
One of the UK’s best kept secrets, the brilliant pop-folk 5-piece Keston Cobblers Club, release their anticipated new album, Wildfire.
Triggered by teenage obsessions with British power pop and Glaswegian indie dreamers, the stunning 12-track collection is a sonic journey which builds on the band’s bedrock of urgent anthems, thumped drums, sweet strums and tuba, as seen on 2012’s debut album, One, For Words. The band have developed their sound by fusing their folk roots with 90s synth hooks, huge orchestral waves and choral arrangements which they describe as ‘a blanket of voices’.

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Releases for 8 June 2015

Album of the week is Ten Songs from Live at Carnegie Hall by Ryan Adams, and there are new albums from Muse, Of Monsters & Men and Tremonti, plus debuts from collaboration projects FFS (Franz Ferdinand and Sparks) and Simpson/Cutting/Kerr (Martin Simpson, Andy Cutting and Nancy Kerr), Leftfield’s first release for 16 years, and a remastered release of The Rolling Stones’ classic Sticky Fingers.

- Muse Drones
Drones is the 7th studio album by Tiverton’s finest. Matt Bellamy has described the album as ‘a modern metaphor for what it is to lose empathy … through modern technology, and obviously through drone warfare in particular, it’s possible to actually do quite horrific things by remote control, at a great distance, without actually feeling any of the consequences, or even feeling responsible in some way’.

- Tremonti Cauterize
Alter Bridge’s Mark Tremonti releases his second solo album, following the worldwide success of his 2012 debut All I Was. From the first riffs of album opener ‘Radical Change’ to the final notes of epic finale ‘Providence’, his unmistakable hard rock and heavy metal influences shine throughout the album, particularly on songs such as ‘Flying Monkeys’, ‘Arm Yourself’ and ‘Sympathy’.

- FFS FFS
The seed of FFS (a collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks) was sown around the time of Franz’s debut album when word got back to the Maels that the band were big Sparks fans. ‘We thought “Take Me Out” was very cool, and wouldn’t it be nice to say hello when they came to Los Angeles?’ recalls Russell Mael. ‘We met and decided then it would be great to do something together. We put forward a couple demos. But they got swept up by everything, and it didn’t happen at that time.’
Fast-forward to 2013 when both Sparks and Franz Ferdinand appeared at Coachella. They said hello afterwards, and everyone agreed that 10 years was a long enough gestation period for this idea.

- Leftfield Alternative Light Source
This is, somewhat unbelievably, Leftfield’s first album since 1999. The dance landscape has changed immeasurably since Leftfield last ruled the genre along with fellow titans such as Underworld and the Chemical Brothers. But on Alternative Light Source they sound as innovative and vital as ever.

- Of Monsters & Men Beneath The Skin
Second studio album from Icelandic folk-pop quintet Of Monsters & Men. The follow-up to My Head Is An Animal features the singles ‘Crystals’ and ‘Empire’.

- Ryan Adams Ten Songs from Live At Carnegie Hall
Ryan Adams’ Ten Songs from Live at Carnegie Hall comprises live selections from his two-night stint at the celebrated New York City venue. The career-spanning set includes fan favourite ‘New York, New York’ plus tracks like ‘Gimme Something Good’ from Ryan’s most recent Grammy-nominated eponymous album.

- Simpson/Cutting/Kerr Murmurs
Murmurs is the first album from this collaboration between multi-award-winning musician, singer and songwriter Martin Simpson, master of the diatonic accordion and most other squeezeboxes Andy Cutting, and recently anointed BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year Nancy Kerr. It’s not very often that three virtuoso musicians come together to form a vital, exciting new band.
The album is a compelling mix of traditional and original material, accompanied on the deluxe edition by a superb DVD with a ‘making of’ documentary and extra tracks.
Martin Simpson is a multi-award-winning musician, singer and songwriter who has worked with Bonnie Raitt, Richard Hawley, Jackson Browne, June Tabor, Richard Thompson and many more, as well as being a world-renowned performer in his own right. He was introduced recently on Woman’s Hour as ‘the best guitarist in the world’. He has often said that playing with other musicians makes him a better player and of this trio he has said: ‘It is so incredibly exciting. Andy and Nancy have been brilliant. Sheer joy!’
Andy Cutting is an extraordinary musician. A master of the diatonic accordion and most other squeezeboxes, he is a superbly sensitive accompanist, a writer of beautiful and thrilling tunes, a highly in-demand band member and a sublime solo performer. His list of recording credits and sessions reads like a Who’s Who of acoustic music both in the UK and abroad, and he has played live with The Who, Roger Daltrey and Sting, among others.
Nancy Kerr has just been anointed BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year. She has been a major part of the acoustic music scene since she was a teenager and has always been a distinctive and impressive talent, turning heads everywhere she’s played or sung. She is currently part of an award-winning duo with her husband, James Fagan, is one quarter of the Melrose Quartet and a key member of The Full English band. She is a multi-instrumentalist of rare and astonishing talent as well a beautiful and joyful singer.

- The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers
Regarded as one of The Rolling Stones’ all-time great albums, Sticky Fingers captured the band’s trademark combination of swagger and tenderness in a superb collection. The classic album features timeless songs such as ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Wild Horses’, ‘Bitch’, ‘Sister Morphine’ and ‘Dead Flowers’, and showcases the inventive song-writing of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and formidable guitar licks from Mick Taylor.
All deluxe and super-deluxe formats will feature a generous selection of previously unavailable material. These include the alternative version of the chart-topping single ‘Brown Sugar’ featuring Eric Clapton; unreleased interpretations of ‘Bitch’, ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ and ‘Dead Flowers’; an acoustic take on the anthemic ‘Wild Horses’; and five tracks recorded live at The Roundhouse in 1971, including ‘Honky Tonk Women’ and ‘Midnight Rambler’.
This release contains the classic album fully remastered, plus a bonus CD featuring previously unreleased alternate takes and live performances with a 24-page booklet.

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Releases for 1 June 2015

Florence + The Machine, Simply Red and Jamie xx all have fine releases out next week, as do Melody Gardot, Slaves, Sun Kil Moon and Helloween; however, the album of the week just has to be What Kind of Love from Danny & The Champions of the World.

- Florence + The Machine How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is the brand new album from Brit and Grammy award-winning multi-platinum-selling artist Florence + The Machine. Their third album, written and recorded over the past 12 months, is live-sounding, rich in tunes, unhinged in all the right places and powerful in all the best ways.
The deluxe CD edition includes five bonus tracks.

- Simply Red Big Love
Simply Red release their first new studio album in eight years with Big Love. When the band announced a massive world tour to celebrate their 30th anniversary last autumn, main man Mick Hucknall started thinking about recording again. And once he started, he couldn’t stop. Big Love is the first Simply Red album since 1995’s Life to feature only original compositions. All twelve tracks are written by Mick Hucknall and produced by Andy Wright.

- Jamie xx In Colour
Jamie xx’s debut solo album, In Colour, features ‘Girl’, ‘Sleep Sound’, ‘Loud Places’ (with the xx’s Romy), ‘Gosh’, and ‘I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)’ (featuring Young Thug and Popcaan).
The LP is an indies-only deluxe coloured vinyl version. Don’t miss it!

- Danny & The Champions of the World What Kind of Love
What Kind of Love is Danny & The Champs’ fifth studio album. As the title suggests, the album finds Danny Wilson and his bandmates exploring love in all its facets. Every song on the album, Danny explains, is a love song of some fashion: these are love songs about friends, about ex-friends, about wives. All different kinds of love.
Don’t forget that Danny Wilson will be performing at Hundred Records at 6pm on 6 June!

- Melody Gardot Currency of Man
The highly-anticipated Currency of Man is an intensely creative milestone, transcending musical distinctions of jazz, blues and R&B, to offer a stirring social and musical statement. On this new album, Melody Gardot again joins forces with Grammy Award-winning producer Larry Klein.
Currency of Man marks a substantial leap forward indeed, as we see Gardot take her gift for songwriting in a completely different direction from her last record, the critically acclaimed release The Absence.

- Slaves Are You Satisfied?
Fresh from a triumphantly noisy appearance at the first Common People festival, Slaves give us their new album! Recorded in London, Are You Satisfied? is a colourful, funny and often riotous riposte to the dreary mood of Austerity Britain. Slaves’ raucous urgency is captured in rousing anthems such as ‘Cheer Up London’.

- Sun Kil Moon Universal Themes
The follow-up to last year’s mighty Benji, Universal Themes finds Mark Kozelek in fine scabrous form. Recorded with collaborator Steve Shelley in San Francisco and Hoboken, this is a fine addition to what is fast becoming a canon of exceptional work by a fine musician.
You can order the vinyl LP now, and we’ll let you know the release date and price when it is announced.

- Helloween My God-Given Right
Helloween’s 15th studio album is set to further cement their title as the founding fathers of German melodic speed metal. The band’s first self-titled EP was released in 1985, making their new album My God-Given Right the celebratory marker for their impressive 30-year career.

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Releases for 25 May 2015

This week sees new albums from The Vaccines, Ash, Pokey Lafarge, Leprous and Sweet Billy Pilgrim, along with the long-awaited re-release of Ryan Adams’ debut album, a collection of the four albums Culture made for Front Line Records – including the previously unreleased masterpiece Black Rose – and a release of Porcupine Tree’s live DVD Anesthetize, with accompanying audio CDs.

- The Vaccines English Graffiti
The Vaccines’s first full-length release since 2012’s Come of Age is an album which the indie rock darlings claim will be genre-defining!

- Ash Kablammo!
Kablammo! sets out to capture the live essence of Ash. Its closest sonic predecessor is, they say, 2004’s Meltdown, with the songwriting of the Free All Angels singles: “We’ve stripped away the electronic overtones of the A–Z series and made a streamlined blazing guitar record. … On every song you can hear what makes this band tick, our beating (atomic) heart. It’s a visceral expression of what has driven us since 1992. Passion, melody and Ash.” The title itself – Kablammo! – sums up the excitement Ash felt “to be in a room together making new music. You can hear that on every song.” And this renewed enthusiasm for playing together is writ large over the album’s 12 tracks, the ‘in-your-face’ quality which has made Ash one of the UK’s best-loved bands.
The vinyl LP will be released at a later date. You can of course reserve a copy now, and we’ll tell you when he have more details on its release.

- Porcupine Tree Anesthetize
Originally released in 2010 as a DVD/ Blu-Ray, Anesthetize captures Porcupine Tree at the peak of their powers at the 013 Tilburg, Holland in October 2008. Directed by long-time collaborator Lasse Hoile, the 130-minute concert film and first official retail release of the accompanying audio CDs includes a complete performance of Fear Of A Blank Planet alongside fan favourites such as ‘Halo’ and ‘Sever’. Porcupine Tree released their last album, The Incident, in 2009, marking another step forward in the band’s incredible journey from a solo studio project created by Steven Wilson in the late eighties to a multi-Grammy nominated act and one of the world’s most revered live bands, selling out arenas across the globe and wowing fans with their incredible performances. Steven Wilson is currently enjoying global chart success with his fourth solo album, Hand. Cannot. Erase. Anesthetize is packaged in a media book featuring 2 CDs and a DVD in a floating wallet with a 24-page colour booklet featuring stunning pictures from the shows.

- Ryan Adams Heartbreaker
Heartbreaker is the debut solo studio album by Ryan Adams, originally released on 5 September 2000 on Bloodshot Records and long unavailable in any format. This is arguably Ryan’s masterpiece and, 14 years on, the songs still form the mainstay of his live set. The album was recorded over fourteen days at Woodland Studios in Nashville, Tennessee and has since established itself as one of alt-country’s most iconic records.

- Pokey Lafarge Something In The Water
Pokey LaFarge is a musician, songwriter, bandleader, entertainer, innovator and preservationist, whose well-rounded arsenal of talents has placed him at the forefront of American music. Over the last decade, Pokey has won the hearts of music lovers across the globe with his creative mix of early jazz, string ragtime, country blues and western swing, all the while writing songs that ring true.

- Culture On The Front Line
Shortly after being formed by Joseph Hill Kenneth Paley and Albert Walker in the mid-seventies, Culture joined the roster of Kingston-based producer Joe Gibbs, for whom they recorded a stream of Roots classics, including the 1977 breakthrough hit, Two Sevens Clash. The following year, the group signed with Richard Branson’s recently launched Virgin Front Line imprint, and provided the label with four sublime albums, produced by Sonia Pottinger, between 1978 and 1979: Harder Than The Rest, Cumbolo, International Herb and Black Rose. Widely acclaimed upon their release, the first three of these albums soon became regarded as roots classics; however, Black Rose was never released. Now, more than 35 years later, this long-lost masterpiece finally sees its long-overdue release on this 2-CD collection, which contains all four Front Line albums – Culture’s complete recorded works for the esteemed label.

- Leprous Congregation
The stunning new album by Norway’s most promising prog-metallers, containing 65 minutes of bewildering and unique compositions, is available in a limited edition mediabook CD.

- Sweet Billy Pilgrim Motorcade Amnesiacs
Motorcade Amnesiacs follows on from the critically acclaimed albums Crown and Treaty, which was awarded a coveted five stars by Mojo and featured as album of the week in the Sunday Times, and its Mercury Prize-nominated predecessor Twice Born Men, released on David Sylvian’s Samadhi Sound label. Not ones to respect musical boundaries, Sweet Billy Pilgrim have thrown every ounce of their belief and passion into the genre-spanning excellence of Motorcade Amnesiacs, an album of adventurously inspired melodies, intertwining riffs and eclectic rhythms, heavenly harmonies and thought-provoking lyrics.

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Releases for 18 May 2015

This week sees another fine batch of new releases, including alt-metal superstars Faith No More’s first for 18 years, a new solo effort from Brandon Flowers, the debut of Eliza Carthy & Tim Eriksen, a Whitesnake tribute to Deep Purple, a new album from Hot Chip, a film score from Nick Cave & Warren Ellis and a vinyl reissue of Ultravox’s Quartet. However, my Album of the Week is Saturns Pattern from Paul Weller.

- Paul Weller Saturns Pattern
Nearly 40 years into his recording career, Paul Weller continues to challenge and excite both himself and the listener, by constantly evolving as a song-writer and musician, always moving forwards and pursuing fresh creative avenues. His new album, Saturns Pattern, does not disappoint. As Paul says himself: ‘This is defiantly 21st-century music.’
There is also a CD+DVD package available at £12.99, and a deluxe LP+CD+DVD box set at £38.99.

- Faith No More Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus is Faith No More’s first new album in 18 years. It was produced by Bill Gould and recorded in the band’s studio in Oakland, California. Faith No More have influenced bands of all genres, including System Of A Down, Incubus, Muse and more.
The vinyl edition is an indies-only special edition on gold vinyl.

- Brandon Flowers The Desired Effect
Brandon Flowers’ new release, The Desired Effect, comes almost five years since the release of his critically acclaimed, UK chart-topping solo debut, Flamingo. Flowers’ solo return follows a time of continued huge success with his band The Killers, whose fourth consecutive number 1 album, Battle Born, was released in 2012.

- Whitesnake The Purple Album
The Purple Album draws on the songs from the three Deep Purple Mark 3 and 4 studio albums featuring Coverdale: Burn, Stormbringer and Come Taste The Band. The songs on The Purple Album are presented as a respectful tribute to his former colleagues and pay homage to the band which started him over 40 years ago on an amazing musical journey that continues today.

- Hot Chip Why Make Sense?
Recorded in Oxfordshire and London and produced by Hot Chip with Mark Ralph, Why Make Sense? is the follow-up to 2012’s critically acclaimed In Our Heads.

- Eliza Carthy & Tim Eriksen Bottle
Bottle is the first album by dream duo Eliza Carthy & Tim Eriksen. These highly regarded artists from either side of the Atlantic have come together and mixed hardcore ‘Americana’ with hardcore ‘Angliana’, and the results are inventive and thrilling. Made up of traditional material from both sides of the pond – and influences altogether other – Bottle features fiddle, electric guitar, banjo and bass drum and is brimming with passion and energy.

- Nick Cave And Warren Ellis Loin Des Hommes
The latest ravishing score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is for director David Olehoffen’s Loin Des Hommes (Far From Men). With its mesmeric drones, pointillist piano jabs, weeping strings and nerve-jangling electronics, this is one of the duo’s most emotive and experimental soundtracks to date, sounding both achingly intimate and cosmically vast. Most are built around the duo’s intertwined piano and violin melodies, with sporadic use of guitar, flute, mandolin, celeste, percussion and other elements. Vocals are rare and sparing. But even without lyrics, they are always lyrical.

- Ultravox Quartet
This the second of our Ultravox vinyl re-issues, 1982’s Quartet. Pressed on 180g vinyl using the 2009 remasters. The album comes in limited edition white vinyl, and initial copies include a bonus 7" white vinyl single featuring ‘Serenade’ (7" edit) and ‘The Voice’ (live fan club flexidisc version).

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Releases for 11 May 2015

Release of the week was a bit of a difficult one, very tempted by the Mighty Fall’s Sub Lingual Tablet, but in the end I’ve gone with Thea Gilmore’s retrospective with a difference, Ghosts & Graffiti. This week also brings a retrospective from Eric Clapton, a rare glimpse into the rehearsal process for a Leonard Cohen concert, and new albums from EmmyLou Harris & Rodney Crowell, Róisín Murphy, The Tallest Man On Earth and Cathal Smyth.

- Thea Gilmore Ghosts & Graffiti
A retrospective with a difference, a 20-track double album in which Thea Gilmore looks both forward and back. It includes all her best-known songs on one record for the first time, 4 new songs, and 6 newly recorded versions of songs from her back catalogue. It features a duet with Joan Baez and another with Billy Bragg, plus a full collaboration with The Waterboys, produced and co-sung by Mike Scott. John Cooper Clarke appears, reading one of Thea’s poems. Iconic fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman contributes the sleeve notes. Joan As Policewoman collaborates on one of Thea’s defining songs. There are also special collaborations with John Bramwell (I Am Kloot) and with King Creosote.

- Eric Clapton Forever Man
This 33-track anthology of live and studio recordings spanning the past 30 years includes all of Eric Clapton’s best-known songs and features collaborations with B.B. King, Steve Winwood and J.J. Cale.

- Leonard Cohen Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour
Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour gives listeners an extremely special glimpse into Leonard Cohen’s intimate rehearsal process, widely known to be in-depth ‘concerts before the concert’, available to fans for the first time with this new record. The album consists of Cohen rarities recorded on his recent Old Ideas tour and features two new original Cohen songs, ‘Never Gave Nobody Trouble’ and ‘Got a Little Secret’, plus two covers never recorded by Cohen: George Jones’ ‘Choices’ and ‘La Manic’ originally by Georges Dor.

- EmmyLou Harris & Rodney Crowell The Traveling Kind
The follow-up to 2013’s lauded Old Yellow Moon, this new album features 11 more songs from the pre-eminent songwriters working in Nashville today.

- The Fall Sub Lingual Tablet
Recorded in Manchester over the past year. Mark E. Smith continues to pursue his singular vision to the delight of the devotees and the bemusement of all others. Initially associated with the punk movement of the late 1970s, The Fall’s music has gone through several stylistic changes over the years, characterised by an abrasive guitar-driven sound and frequent use of repetition, and is always underpinned by Smith’s distinctive vocals and often cryptic lyrics. Smith also takes over production duties on this new album.
The LP version will be available on 28 May.

- Róisín Murphy Hairless Toys
Róisín Murphy’s first album in 8 years, Hairless Toys is a career-defining tour de force. Tipping its hat to the dark disco of European house music, Casablanca Records and Grace Jones, while seamlessly taking in the freedom and organic spirit of jazz, country and gospel.
The rich, expansive production is full of inventive loops and unlikely hooks, weaving a grand magical spell.

- The Tallest Man on Earth Dark Bird is Home
Dark Bird Is Home doesn’t feel like it came from one time or one place. The songs were captured in various countries, studios and barns, carrying a weather-worn quality, some dirt and grit. This is Kristian Matsson at his most personal and direct, deeper and darker than ever at times, but it’s also an album with strokes of whimsy and the scent of new beginnings.

- Cathal Smyth A Comfortable Man
Perhaps better known to many as Chas Smash of the much loved national pop institution Madness, Cathal Smyth’s A Comfortable Man is an honest, moving and deeply human record about discovery and ultimately recovery. The gestation of the album goes back to 2005 when Cathal found himself in the Cottonwood rehabilitation facility in Tuscon after the break-up of a 28-year relationship.

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Releases for 4 May 2015

Release of the week for 4 May just has to be Heartbreak Pass, the new album by Howe Gelb’s collective Giant Sand. This is his first release since his solo effort, The Coincidentalist. There are also brand new releases by Mumford & Sons, Django Django, My Morning Jacket, Palma Violets, Lucy Spraggan, Lau and Nordic Giants.

- Giant Sand Heartbreak Pass
Howe Gelb’s mighty collective return with Heartbreak Pass. Where do you start with a musician who has spent the best part of 30 years not just defying but patently ignoring musical conventions? He sings songs of loss, redemption and heartbreak with a gruff weariness while weaving a musical style that invokes rock, country, blues, garage, lo-fi and flamenco. Join Howe on his journey, you won’t be disappointed!

- Django Django Born Under Saturn
Born Under Saturn is the work of a band fired up by confidence and experience and propelled way beyond their DIY roots. It has all of the imagination of their self-titled debut album, but splashed across a larger canvas. There are dark dramas such as ‘Found You’, which draws on the myth of Faust’s pact with the devil, and ‘Shot Down’, a bloody tale of crime and betrayal. Over time, Django Django have evolved a uniquely open-minded sound in which every influence is welcome but nothing sounds cluttered or forced. Born Under Saturn expands on the slippery, indefinable brilliance of their debut, finding magic in the unexplored spaces between different kinds of music, and never doing the same thing twice.

- My Morning Jacket The Waterfall
Recorded in Stinson Beach, California, The Waterfall is the follow up to the Grammy-nominated Circuital, which was ranked among the best albums of 2011.

- Mumford & Sons Wilder Mind
Wilder Mind is the third studio album from Mumford & Sons, and is the successor to their 2012 album, Babel. It features twelve new tracks, written collaboratively by the band in London, Brooklyn, and Texas. A number of the new songs were written and demoed at Aaron Dresner’s (The National) garage studios in Brooklyn. The band also returned to Eastcote Studios in London, where they recorded Sigh No More, for further writing and demo sessions. The album’s early sessions in New York and London witnessed a change in the band’s approach not just to writing and recording, but to texture and dynamics, too. There is a minimalist yet panoramic feel to the new album, the band describe it as ‘a development, not a departure’.

- Lucy Spraggan We Are
This is a mature offering, which showcases Lucy Spraggan’s adept songwriting and strong vocal. Her new album was recorded in London and features 12 tracks that are a collection of sincere ballads and inspiring folk-tinged pop songs told in Lucy’s direct storytelling style about everyday life. Lucy says: ‘I’m very much looking forward to releasing We Are under my own steam. The album is basically a diary of the ups and downs of the last few years. In some ways writing this record has been a bit of documentation for me and some of the songs are pretty revealing, but I’m looking forward to sharing them.’

- Palma Violets Danger In The Club
Palma Violets’ second album is full of an understanding that great music almost always requires great melodies.
In common with their first album they drape these tunes in layers of Phil Spector-style echo and allow guitarist Sam Fryer or bassist Chilli Jesson, perhaps the Strummer–Jones of this generation, to add surprisingly tender vocal croons.

- Lau The Bell That Never Rang
The Bell That Never Rang is the hugely anticipated new album from the UK’s most musically revered and celebrated folk trio, Lau. Lau comprises Kris Drever (vocals, guitar), Martin Green (accordion, wurlitzer, keys, electronics) and Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle), and together they continue effortlessly to bridge the seemingly diametrically opposed worlds of acoustic folk tradition and electronica. At the heart of the new album lies the epic seventeen-minute title track, a collaboration with The Elysian Quartet. Singer-guitarist Kris Drever’s heartfelt lyrics come wrapped in brittle electric guitar, deep soundscapes and haunting string melodies.

- Nordic Giants Séance of Dark Delusions
New Kscope signings Nordic Giants release their debut album, A Séance Of Dark Delusions. The elusive duo bring their beautifully apocalyptic soundscapes alive in a rich project exploring the depths of sonic and visual art. Largely instrumental, A Séance Of Dark Delusions reflects the inspired musical experimentation and atmosphere of Sigur Rós, 65daysofstatic, Björk and Pink Floyd. Nordic Giants bring a heavy orchestral brutality through progressive guitar, drum and brass, which are paired with beautiful and haunting electronics as they warp loops and samples through pattered keys.

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Other releases for 2015

Find releases from 2016.